Fly for so long you can no longer feel your arse.
“And that was a superb pass by Weasley at midcourt! Quaffle’s in the possession of Weasley now – she’s speeding down the field with Weasley and Weasley hot in pursuit – oh! And a narrow miss by the Bludger, batted with spectacular accuracy by Weasley down at the citrus end of the field –”
“Hey, Jordan! How about you try some first names there?”
Lee Jordan paused his commentary, contemplating the suggestion amid the maple leaves in his perch near the top of an oak tree. “That would make a lot more sense, wouldn’t it?”
“Sure would,” Harry called as he swooped downwards at full speed just for the hell of it, his toes skimming across the grass.
“It’s easier just to call them ‘Weasley’ though. Thee’s so many of them, I’m not sure I ever learned all their names.” Lee grinned cockily.
It was another Sunday and the Burrow was bursting with its usual gaggle of redheaded Weasleys, along with a plethora of family friends. At first, the guests had tried to help Molly Weasley prepare for dinner – stirring this sauce, dicing those vegetables, setting up the picnic tables and so forth. However, after a mock duel between Harry and Ron escalated to the point where the chicken coop was set aflame, all the Weasley children and their friends were promptly kicked out of the house, shooed away with the promise that they could return when dinner was ready. So like salmon migrating upstream, returning to the place of their birth, the old schoolmates found themselves wandering up the well-trodden path to the sheltered clearing just past the orchard, where teams were quickly formed, brooms mounted, and a heated game of Quidditch put into play.
“Foul!”
“You are such a prick, Malfoy, I didn’t lay a hand on you!”
“You’re damned right, Johnson – you didn’t lay a hand on me. It’s your bloody elbows that are the problem.”
“I was not cobbing!”
“Liar.”
“I am not, you arrogant –”
“Um, Angelina? Aren’t you supposed to be the referee?”
Angelina Johnson stopped in the middle of her tirade, hovering in midair and blinking confusedly. “Oh, I suppose you’re right.” She turned towards Draco, scowling. “Stop baiting me, you annoying idiot.”
He smirked. “Old habits die hard.”
Angelina blew a frustrated sigh out of her nose. “All right,” she called to the assembled mass of players, “let’s get back to it. George, give me the Quaffle and I’ll put it back into play.”
“No,” George said, a mischievous spark in his eye.
“Right, so everyone fly up and – wait, what?” Angelina turned her broomstick towards him. “What do you mean no?”
“I mean you’re gonna have to make me give it to you,” he teased, extending a long arm and holding the Quaffle high above her head. “Come on, Johnson, let’s see what you got.”
Angelina huffed exasperatedly, but Ginny could see the corners of her mouth turn inwards as she suppressed a smile. “George,” Angelina tried to snap, “stop it.” She leaned in close and stretched, trying in vain to grab the red ball. Her fingertips brushed against George’s wrist.
“Well, well,” he said, eyebrows waggling playfully, “a little vertically challenged, aren’t we?” He leaned back as Angelina leaned forward, laughing. “Shorty.”
Ginny flew over to next to Draco as they watched the flirting couple struggle over the rubber ball. “Why doesn’t she just inch her broom higher, so that she can reach the Quaffle?” she murmured quietly.
“Well, either she’s so much thicker than I give her credit for,” replied Draco, “or she’s enjoying herself too much to think of something that logical.”
Angelina had just managed to retrieve the Quaffle and was preparing to start up the game again when Bill strode into the orchard. “Dinner's ready!” he hollered, cupping his hands around his mouth so that the small crowd flying above him could hear his voice. “Mum said that they started eating a half hour ago so we better get back before it’s all gone. Which really means we need to get to the rest of the food before Dad does.”
The fear that they might miss out on food sent most of the Quidditch players spiraling towards the ground and down the path, their brooms slung jauntily over their shoulders.
“Oy, Draco! Ginny! You guys coming?” bellowed Ron, shading his eyes against the setting sun’s glare, looking up at the pair still circling each other high in the sky. They were little more than dark silhouettes now, shadows against a background of shimmering amber and glowing coral.
“In a minute!” Ginny called back, urging her broom higher and delighting in the warm sunshine that bathed her skin. “Tell them to save some food for us!”
Ron shook his head resignedly and began trudging back towards the Burrow alone. “Those two are going to end up old, married, and parents of far too many pink haired babies to count,” he mumbled to himself, not unhappily, before disappearing into the rusting leaves of the forest.
Behind him, Draco flew up to meet Ginny, his hair mussed from the wind, and held up the Snitch. “First one to get this wins. Loser has to do everything the winner says for an entire day.” He raised an eyebrow in challenge.
Ginny raised one in return. “Someone needs to wipe that smirk off your miserable face.” She grinned. “You’re on.”
________________________________________
Four hours later, the last of the sun’s rays had faded from the sky, the stretched shadows had long been overtaken by night, and the two of them were still at it – this time with the Quaffle. Draco dove, plummeting towards the ground to block a particularly nasty shot from Ginny, and nearly tumbled headfirst into the grass.
“Too much for you to handle, Malfoy?” Ginny’s voice rang out in the darkness.
Draco sniffed depreciatingly, still looking disgustingly immaculate despite almost falling off his broom. “Asks the professional Quidditch player taking advantage of the rest of us normal people,” he muttered darkly.
“Draco Malfoy, you are anything but normal.” Ginny swept down behind Draco, snatching the red ball from his grasp. “However, was that you admitting that I’m better than you at something? Wait – was that you admitting that I’m better than you at Quidditch?”
“No,” Draco replied curtly, but not without a slight hesitation in his voice. “It was most certainly not.”
Ginny tossed the Quaffle high in the air, watching the way the shadows spun around its surface. “Are you sure?” she asked smugly, looping around him in lazy circles, “or do the non-professional Quidditch players here need a break?”
Draco gritted his teeth together. “Not in your life, Weasley.”
Silence reigned across the clearing again as the pair got back to playing, each trying to get the Quaffle past the other. Draco was intent, focused – especially after his slight slip of the tongue – but Ginny couldn’t help but feel unsettled. She didn’t know why but she needed to talk. It was too quiet.
“So, how’s Pansy?”
Draco pulled up short, panting slightly. “Who?” he asked, looking annoyed at the interruption.
“You know, Pansy Parkinson. Dark hair, huge mouth, supposedly your betrothed since forever.”
“She’s fine, I guess,” answered Draco slowly, changing his direction so that he was floating next to Ginny. “I haven’t spoken with her in forever. Which, by the way, might be a sign that she’s not my betrothed.”
Ginny sounded surprised. “Since when?”
“Since the time I didn’t get down on one knee to ask her for her hand and her heart, eternally bound to me in matrimony. Don’t you think I think I would’ve mentioned it to you sometime in the two years we’ve been friends if I were engaged? Or even close?”
“I don’t know, there are a lot of things that you don’t talk about.”
There was a pause. “Like what,” Draco said dryly.
Ginny shrugged. “Oh, this and that.”
“Your specificity astounds me.”
She picked up the Quaffle, throwing it agitatedly from one hand to the other. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say. Forget it, let’s just get back to the game.”
Draco eyed her oddly. “Whatever makes your pot hop, Weasley.”
Ginny made to start flying again but then stopped herself, the Quaffle perched precariously on the slight crook in her broomstick. “Well, then what about Heather?”
Draco sighed, turning back towards her. “And by ‘get back to the game’ you, of course, meant ‘continue this painful discussion’. Which Heather?”
“The one from the Auror force, that you were seeing from a while back. Whatever happened to her?”
“We went out for drinks a couple times last year.”
“And then?”
“Well, nothing, I suppose.” Draco shrugged. “I just didn’t want it to go anywhere.”
“Why?”
He thought for a minute before answering. “Well, she’s good at what she does – which is why she caught my eye – but, other than that, she was unremarkable. Completely unremarkable.” He peered at Ginny, searching her face in the starlight. “Why the sudden interest in my love life?”
“What, I can’t ask you about your love life?”
“Not in the middle of a Quidditch game, no. What is wrong with you?”
Ginny rubbed her neck uncomfortably. “I don’t know, I suppose I was just thinking and it’s like – I mean, you’re not getting any younger –”
“Thank you,” said Draco wryly.
“No problem,” she answered, not missing a beat. “And you still haven’t settled down and, I don’t know, I’m beginning to worry about you.”
There was a pause. “Worry,” he said.
Ginny nodded. “Yes, I mean, I know you have your whole sex god persona that the media cooked up or whatever, but honestly, Draco? It’s getting old. And I am sure that there is someone out there for you.”
“Out…there.”
“Yes, and you’ve got to stop screwing around and go find them. You’re getting old.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment. “I’m getting old?”
“Obviously. Stop repeating everything I say.”
“Gin, I’m twenty-five. Most all our friends my age are still single and you’re only a year younger than me. So if I’m old, then you must be somewhere on the crest of that hill and I don’t see your – oh, how did you put it – betrothed.”
She was surprised to hear the acidity in his voice. “No need to get defensive, Draco, I was just saying –”
“You know, I think it’s really ripe that you, of all people, are worried about my love life. I would’ve thought it should have been the other way around.”
Ginny bristled. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Draco huffed nonchalantly, but she could see his hand shaking slightly in the dim light. “How many dates have you been on since we’ve started talking? Four, maybe five at best?”
“And what’s wrong with that?”
“Five dates in two years, Gin? Seriously –”
“Am I supposed to whore myself out like you do?”
Draco took a breath to say something but stopped himself, the words catching in his throat. Shaking his head, he swallowed the words and changed directions. “Where is this coming from, Gin?” he asked softly.
“What, the whoring yourself out thing? Honestly, Draco, even you can’t deny –”
“No, not that,” he said, dismissing her with an impatient wave of his hand, “I mean the random questions about the women I’ve dated, asking me when I’m getting married – all while we’re playing Quidditch, no less.”
“So?” Ginny asked defensively, crossing her arms.
“I think we know that between the two of us, my love life is not the one that in dire need of scrutinizing.”
“There is nothing wrong with my love life!”
“Oh, come one, Gin – you’ve barely gone out with anyone since I’ve gotten to know you and none of them have been a second date. When are you going to actually start dating again?”
“I am actually dating!”
“No, you’re not,” Draco said quietly, shaking his head. “If you were then you wouldn’t be here, using your five dates as some sort of deflective shield and protesting that you’re over Harry all the time.”
“Don’t. Don’t take that condescending, judgmental, I-know-more-than-you tone –”
“I wasn’t! And stop trying to change the subject.”
“You so were! Listen, Draco, I have things under control, all right? I don’t need you or your bloody opinions telling me that I need to date more, or – or that I need to get over Harry –”
“So you’re telling me that you don’t need to get over that specked git?”
“I don’t need to get over him because I already am over him! And don’t call Harry a git!” Ginny clenched her broom stick tight in one hand, feeling the wood dig into her palm.
Draco paused, and she knew – she knew, even if she couldn’t make out his features in the dim light – that he had that nauseating, smug look on his face. “Is there some specific reason I can't call him a git, Ginny? Why are you defending him?”
“Why shouldn’t I defend him?”
“Because he’s a gigantic arsehole!” Draco suddenly burst out, his voice ragged with emotion. “The prick dumps you with no warning, breaking every single promise he’s ever made to you. He doesn’t try to patch things up, doesn’t try to be friends or make anything less awkward between the two of you despite the fact that he’s practically your parents’ eleventh – er, eighth? – whatever, son –”
“Seventh,” Ginny tried to cut in “And that’s not –”
“You say the two of you were friends long before you started dating, but he doesn’t even seem to care about you,” Draco went on, not even hearing her. “He gets engaged to Cho despite the fact that you are clearly not over him – everyone can see that –”
“Now, wait a minute, I am over him and you –”
“He failed so badly in everything that had to do with you and yet you’re still defending him! From me, of all people. He treated you like crap, Gin! He’s still treating you like crap and all you can do is stand there and tell me not to call him a git –”
“Shut up!” Ginny finally shouted as the frustration and anger and fear – fear that came with the realization that everything Draco was saying was true – came bubbling to the surface all at once. She opened her mouth to say something, to rebuke and deny all that he had said, but nothing came out.
Draco hovered in front of her, his pale skin nearly glowing in the starlight. He had fallen silent when she shrieked at him, but his gaze was steady, disconcerting in its surety. He knew that she knew, somewhere inside, that what he said was true.
“You have no right,” she said coldly, “to say that to me. How can you even say that I still have some sort of feelings for Harry? You think you have me all figured out but we’ve barely known each other for two years –”
“And it’s been two years since he broke up with you, Ginny.”
“That doesn’t mean anything! That’s not even half the time me and Harry spent together.”
“So what? He’s moved on – Gin, he and Cho are getting married next month and you’re still here pining over him?”
“I am not pining over him,” she answered, feeling the heat rise in her face, “Merlin, of all people Draco, you should know that – after everything I’ve said about how I knew it couldn’t work out between the two of us anyway, because it was all too perfect. How can you call yourself my friend after all that we’ve been through, after everything I’ve ever said to you about Harry, and still think that I’m not over him –”
“Because you’re not! You’re just too bloody scared to admit it.”
“What? No – have you been listening to anything –”
“You are scared. You’re always talking about Harry this and Harry that and how you two were too perfect and how you’re moving on because it was never meant to be, but you aren’t. You aren’t moving on. You’re too much of a coward to let go of what you had, of whatever previous misconstrued perceptions you had of your future together. You’re scared to let that part of your life – your entire life since first year – go, and that’s why you can’t get over him.”
The two of them sat, suspended in midair, glaring at each other. Ginny took a deep, shuddering breath.
“Are you really so arrogant that you're assuming that you can just tell me how I’m feeling? How would you even know? Don’t be an idiot, Malfoy. And if you really think that, then you barely even knew me at all.” She drew back away from him, ignoring the slight twinge of doubt inside her that wondered if perhaps Draco in fact knew her feelings better than she did.
She heard him scoff. “Really – me, an idiot? Do I look like Potter?” he snapped, that presumptuous scorn in his voice.
“Now, what the hell is that supposed to mean?” Ginny asked exasperatedly, suddenly exhausted from their argument. She was tired of defending herself and her feelings for Harry, tired of fearing that everything Draco was saying was actually true. And when he turned away, not answering her, Ginny gave up. “Whatever,” she said, turning to fly away from him, “I don’t care anymore. I should’ve known better than to think that you could –”
Draco lunged forward suddenly and grabbed her wrist, his fingernails digging into her skin. “Potter is more of an idiot than I ever gave him credit for,” he said fiercely, “because he didn’t want you. He never realized how incredibly lucky he was to have you love him – how you still love him, even after he’s hurt you so many times.”
Ginny shook her head, “I don’t–” she began, but then she looked up at Draco, saw the way his eyes were smoldering in the dim starlight, and her words hitched in her throat.
“You asked how I can say that you’re not over Harry?” Draco’s voice was low, shaking. “I can say that, Ginny, because I can see that you’re so hung up over that boy – someone who was never close to being worthy of you – that you’re blinded to everything else. Everyone else. If you were over him, then maybe you would be able to see someone that’s been right in front of your eyes, waiting for you for two years.”
Ginny felt her breath catch and she opened her mouth to say something, anything, but before she could, he was gone – jumping off his broom and stalking away, swallowed up by the night’s shadows. She stared at the spot where he had disappeared, struggling to comprehend just exactly what it was that Draco was trying to tell her.
“And that was a superb pass by Weasley at midcourt! Quaffle’s in the possession of Weasley now – she’s speeding down the field with Weasley and Weasley hot in pursuit – oh! And a narrow miss by the Bludger, batted with spectacular accuracy by Weasley down at the citrus end of the field –”
“Hey, Jordan! How about you try some first names there?”
Lee Jordan paused his commentary, contemplating the suggestion amid the maple leaves in his perch near the top of an oak tree. “That would make a lot more sense, wouldn’t it?”
“Sure would,” Harry called as he swooped downwards at full speed just for the hell of it, his toes skimming across the grass.
“It’s easier just to call them ‘Weasley’ though. Thee’s so many of them, I’m not sure I ever learned all their names.” Lee grinned cockily.
It was another Sunday and the Burrow was bursting with its usual gaggle of redheaded Weasleys, along with a plethora of family friends. At first, the guests had tried to help Molly Weasley prepare for dinner – stirring this sauce, dicing those vegetables, setting up the picnic tables and so forth. However, after a mock duel between Harry and Ron escalated to the point where the chicken coop was set aflame, all the Weasley children and their friends were promptly kicked out of the house, shooed away with the promise that they could return when dinner was ready. So like salmon migrating upstream, returning to the place of their birth, the old schoolmates found themselves wandering up the well-trodden path to the sheltered clearing just past the orchard, where teams were quickly formed, brooms mounted, and a heated game of Quidditch put into play.
“Foul!”
“You are such a prick, Malfoy, I didn’t lay a hand on you!”
“You’re damned right, Johnson – you didn’t lay a hand on me. It’s your bloody elbows that are the problem.”
“I was not cobbing!”
“Liar.”
“I am not, you arrogant –”
“Um, Angelina? Aren’t you supposed to be the referee?”
Angelina Johnson stopped in the middle of her tirade, hovering in midair and blinking confusedly. “Oh, I suppose you’re right.” She turned towards Draco, scowling. “Stop baiting me, you annoying idiot.”
He smirked. “Old habits die hard.”
Angelina blew a frustrated sigh out of her nose. “All right,” she called to the assembled mass of players, “let’s get back to it. George, give me the Quaffle and I’ll put it back into play.”
“No,” George said, a mischievous spark in his eye.
“Right, so everyone fly up and – wait, what?” Angelina turned her broomstick towards him. “What do you mean no?”
“I mean you’re gonna have to make me give it to you,” he teased, extending a long arm and holding the Quaffle high above her head. “Come on, Johnson, let’s see what you got.”
Angelina huffed exasperatedly, but Ginny could see the corners of her mouth turn inwards as she suppressed a smile. “George,” Angelina tried to snap, “stop it.” She leaned in close and stretched, trying in vain to grab the red ball. Her fingertips brushed against George’s wrist.
“Well, well,” he said, eyebrows waggling playfully, “a little vertically challenged, aren’t we?” He leaned back as Angelina leaned forward, laughing. “Shorty.”
Ginny flew over to next to Draco as they watched the flirting couple struggle over the rubber ball. “Why doesn’t she just inch her broom higher, so that she can reach the Quaffle?” she murmured quietly.
“Well, either she’s so much thicker than I give her credit for,” replied Draco, “or she’s enjoying herself too much to think of something that logical.”
Angelina had just managed to retrieve the Quaffle and was preparing to start up the game again when Bill strode into the orchard. “Dinner's ready!” he hollered, cupping his hands around his mouth so that the small crowd flying above him could hear his voice. “Mum said that they started eating a half hour ago so we better get back before it’s all gone. Which really means we need to get to the rest of the food before Dad does.”
The fear that they might miss out on food sent most of the Quidditch players spiraling towards the ground and down the path, their brooms slung jauntily over their shoulders.
“Oy, Draco! Ginny! You guys coming?” bellowed Ron, shading his eyes against the setting sun’s glare, looking up at the pair still circling each other high in the sky. They were little more than dark silhouettes now, shadows against a background of shimmering amber and glowing coral.
“In a minute!” Ginny called back, urging her broom higher and delighting in the warm sunshine that bathed her skin. “Tell them to save some food for us!”
Ron shook his head resignedly and began trudging back towards the Burrow alone. “Those two are going to end up old, married, and parents of far too many pink haired babies to count,” he mumbled to himself, not unhappily, before disappearing into the rusting leaves of the forest.
Behind him, Draco flew up to meet Ginny, his hair mussed from the wind, and held up the Snitch. “First one to get this wins. Loser has to do everything the winner says for an entire day.” He raised an eyebrow in challenge.
Ginny raised one in return. “Someone needs to wipe that smirk off your miserable face.” She grinned. “You’re on.”
________________________________________
Four hours later, the last of the sun’s rays had faded from the sky, the stretched shadows had long been overtaken by night, and the two of them were still at it – this time with the Quaffle. Draco dove, plummeting towards the ground to block a particularly nasty shot from Ginny, and nearly tumbled headfirst into the grass.
“Too much for you to handle, Malfoy?” Ginny’s voice rang out in the darkness.
Draco sniffed depreciatingly, still looking disgustingly immaculate despite almost falling off his broom. “Asks the professional Quidditch player taking advantage of the rest of us normal people,” he muttered darkly.
“Draco Malfoy, you are anything but normal.” Ginny swept down behind Draco, snatching the red ball from his grasp. “However, was that you admitting that I’m better than you at something? Wait – was that you admitting that I’m better than you at Quidditch?”
“No,” Draco replied curtly, but not without a slight hesitation in his voice. “It was most certainly not.”
Ginny tossed the Quaffle high in the air, watching the way the shadows spun around its surface. “Are you sure?” she asked smugly, looping around him in lazy circles, “or do the non-professional Quidditch players here need a break?”
Draco gritted his teeth together. “Not in your life, Weasley.”
Silence reigned across the clearing again as the pair got back to playing, each trying to get the Quaffle past the other. Draco was intent, focused – especially after his slight slip of the tongue – but Ginny couldn’t help but feel unsettled. She didn’t know why but she needed to talk. It was too quiet.
“So, how’s Pansy?”
Draco pulled up short, panting slightly. “Who?” he asked, looking annoyed at the interruption.
“You know, Pansy Parkinson. Dark hair, huge mouth, supposedly your betrothed since forever.”
“She’s fine, I guess,” answered Draco slowly, changing his direction so that he was floating next to Ginny. “I haven’t spoken with her in forever. Which, by the way, might be a sign that she’s not my betrothed.”
Ginny sounded surprised. “Since when?”
“Since the time I didn’t get down on one knee to ask her for her hand and her heart, eternally bound to me in matrimony. Don’t you think I think I would’ve mentioned it to you sometime in the two years we’ve been friends if I were engaged? Or even close?”
“I don’t know, there are a lot of things that you don’t talk about.”
There was a pause. “Like what,” Draco said dryly.
Ginny shrugged. “Oh, this and that.”
“Your specificity astounds me.”
She picked up the Quaffle, throwing it agitatedly from one hand to the other. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say. Forget it, let’s just get back to the game.”
Draco eyed her oddly. “Whatever makes your pot hop, Weasley.”
Ginny made to start flying again but then stopped herself, the Quaffle perched precariously on the slight crook in her broomstick. “Well, then what about Heather?”
Draco sighed, turning back towards her. “And by ‘get back to the game’ you, of course, meant ‘continue this painful discussion’. Which Heather?”
“The one from the Auror force, that you were seeing from a while back. Whatever happened to her?”
“We went out for drinks a couple times last year.”
“And then?”
“Well, nothing, I suppose.” Draco shrugged. “I just didn’t want it to go anywhere.”
“Why?”
He thought for a minute before answering. “Well, she’s good at what she does – which is why she caught my eye – but, other than that, she was unremarkable. Completely unremarkable.” He peered at Ginny, searching her face in the starlight. “Why the sudden interest in my love life?”
“What, I can’t ask you about your love life?”
“Not in the middle of a Quidditch game, no. What is wrong with you?”
Ginny rubbed her neck uncomfortably. “I don’t know, I suppose I was just thinking and it’s like – I mean, you’re not getting any younger –”
“Thank you,” said Draco wryly.
“No problem,” she answered, not missing a beat. “And you still haven’t settled down and, I don’t know, I’m beginning to worry about you.”
There was a pause. “Worry,” he said.
Ginny nodded. “Yes, I mean, I know you have your whole sex god persona that the media cooked up or whatever, but honestly, Draco? It’s getting old. And I am sure that there is someone out there for you.”
“Out…there.”
“Yes, and you’ve got to stop screwing around and go find them. You’re getting old.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment. “I’m getting old?”
“Obviously. Stop repeating everything I say.”
“Gin, I’m twenty-five. Most all our friends my age are still single and you’re only a year younger than me. So if I’m old, then you must be somewhere on the crest of that hill and I don’t see your – oh, how did you put it – betrothed.”
She was surprised to hear the acidity in his voice. “No need to get defensive, Draco, I was just saying –”
“You know, I think it’s really ripe that you, of all people, are worried about my love life. I would’ve thought it should have been the other way around.”
Ginny bristled. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Draco huffed nonchalantly, but she could see his hand shaking slightly in the dim light. “How many dates have you been on since we’ve started talking? Four, maybe five at best?”
“And what’s wrong with that?”
“Five dates in two years, Gin? Seriously –”
“Am I supposed to whore myself out like you do?”
Draco took a breath to say something but stopped himself, the words catching in his throat. Shaking his head, he swallowed the words and changed directions. “Where is this coming from, Gin?” he asked softly.
“What, the whoring yourself out thing? Honestly, Draco, even you can’t deny –”
“No, not that,” he said, dismissing her with an impatient wave of his hand, “I mean the random questions about the women I’ve dated, asking me when I’m getting married – all while we’re playing Quidditch, no less.”
“So?” Ginny asked defensively, crossing her arms.
“I think we know that between the two of us, my love life is not the one that in dire need of scrutinizing.”
“There is nothing wrong with my love life!”
“Oh, come one, Gin – you’ve barely gone out with anyone since I’ve gotten to know you and none of them have been a second date. When are you going to actually start dating again?”
“I am actually dating!”
“No, you’re not,” Draco said quietly, shaking his head. “If you were then you wouldn’t be here, using your five dates as some sort of deflective shield and protesting that you’re over Harry all the time.”
“Don’t. Don’t take that condescending, judgmental, I-know-more-than-you tone –”
“I wasn’t! And stop trying to change the subject.”
“You so were! Listen, Draco, I have things under control, all right? I don’t need you or your bloody opinions telling me that I need to date more, or – or that I need to get over Harry –”
“So you’re telling me that you don’t need to get over that specked git?”
“I don’t need to get over him because I already am over him! And don’t call Harry a git!” Ginny clenched her broom stick tight in one hand, feeling the wood dig into her palm.
Draco paused, and she knew – she knew, even if she couldn’t make out his features in the dim light – that he had that nauseating, smug look on his face. “Is there some specific reason I can't call him a git, Ginny? Why are you defending him?”
“Why shouldn’t I defend him?”
“Because he’s a gigantic arsehole!” Draco suddenly burst out, his voice ragged with emotion. “The prick dumps you with no warning, breaking every single promise he’s ever made to you. He doesn’t try to patch things up, doesn’t try to be friends or make anything less awkward between the two of you despite the fact that he’s practically your parents’ eleventh – er, eighth? – whatever, son –”
“Seventh,” Ginny tried to cut in “And that’s not –”
“You say the two of you were friends long before you started dating, but he doesn’t even seem to care about you,” Draco went on, not even hearing her. “He gets engaged to Cho despite the fact that you are clearly not over him – everyone can see that –”
“Now, wait a minute, I am over him and you –”
“He failed so badly in everything that had to do with you and yet you’re still defending him! From me, of all people. He treated you like crap, Gin! He’s still treating you like crap and all you can do is stand there and tell me not to call him a git –”
“Shut up!” Ginny finally shouted as the frustration and anger and fear – fear that came with the realization that everything Draco was saying was true – came bubbling to the surface all at once. She opened her mouth to say something, to rebuke and deny all that he had said, but nothing came out.
Draco hovered in front of her, his pale skin nearly glowing in the starlight. He had fallen silent when she shrieked at him, but his gaze was steady, disconcerting in its surety. He knew that she knew, somewhere inside, that what he said was true.
“You have no right,” she said coldly, “to say that to me. How can you even say that I still have some sort of feelings for Harry? You think you have me all figured out but we’ve barely known each other for two years –”
“And it’s been two years since he broke up with you, Ginny.”
“That doesn’t mean anything! That’s not even half the time me and Harry spent together.”
“So what? He’s moved on – Gin, he and Cho are getting married next month and you’re still here pining over him?”
“I am not pining over him,” she answered, feeling the heat rise in her face, “Merlin, of all people Draco, you should know that – after everything I’ve said about how I knew it couldn’t work out between the two of us anyway, because it was all too perfect. How can you call yourself my friend after all that we’ve been through, after everything I’ve ever said to you about Harry, and still think that I’m not over him –”
“Because you’re not! You’re just too bloody scared to admit it.”
“What? No – have you been listening to anything –”
“You are scared. You’re always talking about Harry this and Harry that and how you two were too perfect and how you’re moving on because it was never meant to be, but you aren’t. You aren’t moving on. You’re too much of a coward to let go of what you had, of whatever previous misconstrued perceptions you had of your future together. You’re scared to let that part of your life – your entire life since first year – go, and that’s why you can’t get over him.”
The two of them sat, suspended in midair, glaring at each other. Ginny took a deep, shuddering breath.
“Are you really so arrogant that you're assuming that you can just tell me how I’m feeling? How would you even know? Don’t be an idiot, Malfoy. And if you really think that, then you barely even knew me at all.” She drew back away from him, ignoring the slight twinge of doubt inside her that wondered if perhaps Draco in fact knew her feelings better than she did.
She heard him scoff. “Really – me, an idiot? Do I look like Potter?” he snapped, that presumptuous scorn in his voice.
“Now, what the hell is that supposed to mean?” Ginny asked exasperatedly, suddenly exhausted from their argument. She was tired of defending herself and her feelings for Harry, tired of fearing that everything Draco was saying was actually true. And when he turned away, not answering her, Ginny gave up. “Whatever,” she said, turning to fly away from him, “I don’t care anymore. I should’ve known better than to think that you could –”
Draco lunged forward suddenly and grabbed her wrist, his fingernails digging into her skin. “Potter is more of an idiot than I ever gave him credit for,” he said fiercely, “because he didn’t want you. He never realized how incredibly lucky he was to have you love him – how you still love him, even after he’s hurt you so many times.”
Ginny shook her head, “I don’t–” she began, but then she looked up at Draco, saw the way his eyes were smoldering in the dim starlight, and her words hitched in her throat.
“You asked how I can say that you’re not over Harry?” Draco’s voice was low, shaking. “I can say that, Ginny, because I can see that you’re so hung up over that boy – someone who was never close to being worthy of you – that you’re blinded to everything else. Everyone else. If you were over him, then maybe you would be able to see someone that’s been right in front of your eyes, waiting for you for two years.”
Ginny felt her breath catch and she opened her mouth to say something, anything, but before she could, he was gone – jumping off his broom and stalking away, swallowed up by the night’s shadows. She stared at the spot where he had disappeared, struggling to comprehend just exactly what it was that Draco was trying to tell her.
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