In that very last instant, everything dissolved and turned to blackness, and Draco could feel Ginny and himself rising up through the air. There was a moment that stretched on for an eternity where they seemed to be floating, but then they were flat on their feet in the blinding brightness of his study.
Draco stumbled away from Ginny and into his chair. He covered his face with his shaking hands, overwhelmed by the pounding of his heart and the roaring in his ears.
The weight of his mistake was falling on him completely, crushing his head and his heart and his very soul. How she must see him now. She had seen him torture his mother and murder his father in cold blood. She had seen him draw his wand on Potter first. She had seen him sob over his broken family and fallen mother. She had seen him at his lowest. Oh, she must hate him. Not only had he driven out her sons and pushed her away, but now she saw him for the coward and fool and cold-hearted murderer that he was. It was over.
God, it was all over. His head was spinning. His lungs were screaming; he couldn’t breathe.
“Draco?”
Her voice sounded very far away. He could feel tears streaming down his face in rivulets. They tasted salty and bitter as he licked his cracked lips. He sank lower into himself, and the world was fading. He could barely hear her anymore.
“Draco, listen to me!”
“No,” he whispered. “Don’t. Stay away. You don’t…”
But she wasn’t listening. She was hovering right over him, whispering soothing words that he couldn’t hear. She was right up against him, so close that he could feel her warmth. She needed to get away from him. He couldn’t take watching her face crumple in horror and realization over what he had done…or who he was.
Everything was spinning, faster and faster until he couldn’t see anything but a giant blur. Ginny’s face swam across the blur for a moment, and then he couldn’t remember anything at all.
He cracked one eye open, but shut it quickly, groaning softly at the consuming brightness beyond his eyelids. His head thudded dully, and after a moment of merciful nothingness, the mass of what had happened fell back into his mind. Panic started to swell in his chest again as he rolled onto his elbow, his eyes still shut tightly. He heard gentle movement in response to his groan, and there was suddenly a weight beside him in the bed.
“Drink this,” Ginny commanded, pushing a glass to his lips. He obeyed without thinking, sucking in the liquid greedily. He coughed and sputtered as it burned his throat on the way down, and Ginny smiled at him grimly.
“What-?”
But she had raised her wand, jabbing it at him, and his voice was cut off instantly.
“I’m going to talk for now, all right, Draco? And you’re just going to listen.”
Her brown eyes flashed dangerously, and Draco’s heart sank. She was leaving. She would leave and take Lily with her, and he would never see either of them again. How could he have been so stupid as to think that showing her his past would actually make things better?
He tore his eyes from her intense gaze, burying his face in the pillows, but Ginny took his face in between her hands and forced him to look back at her.
“I want you to listen to me,” she said in firm but dulcet tones. “I love you. I will always love you. I don’t care that you killed your father; the sick bastard deserved it. I love you. Lily loves you. Scorpius loves you. We are not going anywhere.”
His eyes widened at that, not daring to believe the words that had just slipped from her mouth. He didn’t think he could bear it if he had imagined them, or if he was dreaming, or if she hadn’t really meant to say them.
He couldn’t believe her. He couldn’t comprehend that those words might be true – that love so unconditional could truly exist, much less exist in his life.
He shook his head back and forth mutely, pushing her hands away from his face, his eyes clouding over. She forced him back down, pressing her cool hands to his cheeks again.
“Did you hear me?” she asked calmly. “I love you. I’m staying right here. I’m not going anywhere. We are working through all of this together. Together. The both of us.”
She said each word with carefully crafted deliberation, massaging his temples with her thumbs. He couldn’t hope to dream that she spoke the truth. He wanted to, he really did, but she felt so far away. Even though she was right there beside him, he felt as if there was infinite space between them.
But she leaned down then and kissed him, laying her body flat against his, her fingers playing at the nape of his neck. He lay still for a moment, not trusting his senses. For a moment of eternity, he felt as if he were floating in nothingness and couldn’t feel anything. But her kisses seared into him, awakening in him everything that was once dead, and he had never felt so alive.
He awoke again, he didn’t know how many hours later, with Ginny curled up against him, her arm draped across his chest. He heaved a sigh of heavy contentment and shifted so that Ginny nuzzled closer against him.
Her red hair was fanned out across the both of them, and Draco stared at it for several minutes, watching as the evening sunlight pouring through the window reflected across the strands of red and gold.
She was so beautiful, so perfect. Like a fire spreading good and light all through him. She had seen everything now, and she was still there, curled up beside him. He hadn’t done anything to deserve her, and yet she was still there.
He loved everything about her, but what struck him was the fact that she loved all of him. She had seen all of his flaws, and it felt as if she had crawled beneath his very skin and seen the jumbled mess inside, only to decide that she still wanted to be in his life.
He ran his hand up the curve of her neck, tangling his fingers in her hair. He felt as if his chest were bursting with something, a total and complete awe that she could feel love him as deeply and unconditionally as he loved her.
Ginny shifted, rolling so that she was lying on her side, her camisole tightening around her waist a little as she did. Draco furrowed his brow, staring at Ginny’s abdomen. She moved again, and he could have sworn that he saw the slightest swell in her stomach.
He slid a hand down to her stomach, thinking about the day he had found her nauseous in the bathroom. He felt as if there had been something unsaid at the hospital too, but his blind rage at her son and fear for Scorpius’s health had led him to dismiss it.
Could she be…? Was it even possible? Is Ginny pregnant?
He couldn’t imagine that she was, but everything seemed to add up to that. Draco frowned, considering how he had missed out on both Lily and Scorpius’s childhoods, never seeing their firsts and only collecting fragments of their early lives. What a change it would be to be there for everything. To see a child – his own child – take its first steps and say its first words, and to be there to watch it grow from infancy. He recalled Ginny describing how lively Lily had been as a small child, and he sighed, breathing deeply, and thought how much he wanted that.
But what if he weren’t any good at it? Sure, he could be Lily and Scorpius’s Dad once they were old enough to do things on their own, but what if he were shit at the child raising thing? What if his father reared from within him, leaving him cold and indifferent toward his child?
That could never happen. You love Lily and Scorpius. You could never be that way to something that was a part of you and Ginny.
Draco groaned softly. Maybe he was getting ahead of himself. He didn’t even know if Ginny was pregnant. He rubbed his thumb back and forth over her stomach, seeing if he could feel something beneath the slightest of bulges.
Ginny stirred slightly, her eyelashes fluttering daintily as she opened her eyes. They widened for a second as they focused on Draco, her melted chocolate eyes burning into his. He felt in that instant, as she stared at him, that he knew, and then she looked down to her stomach, where his hand lay. Her eyebrows knitted together, the tiniest of frowns at her lips, as a bubble of hope threatened to consume his heart.
“I am,” she whispered.
Author notes: Reviews are, as always, appreciated.