Draco had never given much thought to Ginny Weasley. Sure, he’d been distracted a few times by her flaming red hair, but he had never considered her noteworthy. She had been Potter’s puppy dog, following him around and licking the mud off his shoes, and just watching her had made him sick. It had made him even angrier that Potter didn’t realize her adoration. Some days he couldn’t decide who to be more disgusted with; Potter for ignoring her or Weaselette for following him around even after he ignored her. So after a few years, he ceased to notice her existence. It got old.

But then, near the end of his fifth year, he couldn’t fail to notice that others were noticing. The skinny, freckled girl that huddled against bookshelves grew into something older and dangerous. She dated Corner and Thomas and caught the attention of even the Slytherins. He’d seen Blaise Zabini eyeing her one morning at breakfast, and it was then that he knew that it wouldn’t be long before Potter finally noticed.

He didn’t give her a thought all summer; he was too busy considering what was expected of him. He was too busy writing letters to Azkaban so that his father would stay sane. Ginny Weasley didn’t cross his mind until he saw her that day in Diagon Alley. She was wearing tight fitting Muggle jeans and an orange Chudley Cannons T-shirt that clashed horribly with her hair. He braced himself to brush past her with his usual indifference, expecting her to duck her head. But as he glanced up, his eyes met hers. They were that warm, melted chocolate brown, the same that they had been during her sorting. They bore into him, refusing to look away, until he turned his own eyes down. He loosened the collar of his shirt, hating the summer and its unbearable heat. But oddly, it was a fairly mild summer day.

The school year started, and with it his mission. As the year bore on, he felt himself fading a bit. His eyes grew dull and his skin pale, and he noticed that his features were even sharper than usual. He lived for nothing, and he lived for everything.

And then suddenly, something at Hogwarts caught his interest. Potter was dating the Weaselette. He’d noticed those looks of longing that he shot her, the jealousy that burned green in his eyes when she held hands with her Mudblood boyfriend. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to him, and yet, it hit him like a blow to the stomach. It was something that Potter had lost at, but then suddenly beaten him.

He didn’t want the Weaselette. She was a bad dresser and too jubilant for the troubled times of war, and she came from a family of disgraced wizards. But he had noticed her. He had taken notice of her from her very first day at Hogwarts, and Potter had brushed her off like the nothing that he saw her for. Like the nothing that she’d been. And now, after ignoring her for five years, she just took him. What had he done to deserve her? She deserved someone who had seen her for what she’d been from the beginning. Not him, but certainly not Potter. Someone else. Someone better.

But he couldn’t fail to see how happy Potter made her. Her creamy skin flushed joyfully when he greeted her, and her laugh bubbled louder than ever before. Draco caught himself noticing her more and more, and somehow coming to the conclusion that if Potter hurt her, he would have to pay. Sometimes he caught himself with those thoughts, and tried to banish them from his head. His moods turned sour as he tried to forget about the life of Gryffindor heroes and princesses.

He paid attention to Pansy again, a girl who he had discarded long ago. He pushed her farther than she would have wanted to go, but he knew that she would do anything to please him. Her cropped black hair fell flat while she slept, and in his dreams it was red. Ginny Weasley had become dangerous to him. He didn’t want her, he knew that. He couldn’t understand why she invaded his mind so.

He tried not to give it thought as he spent his summer days locked up in Snape’s pathetic excuse for a house. But when Snape told him that it was his mother’s wish that he went back to Hogwarts, Draco knew that he’d have to face her again. And he suddenly understood what it was he wanted from her. He wanted to take her from Potter. He wanted Potter to feel the pain of finally losing something to Draco Malfoy. The pain of losing the most important thing.

That’s where their story began.