Five – Momentum
“Why do you help me?” she asked him one night as she sat in one of the corridors, her back pressed against the jagged wall. The rough edges around the stone dug into her flesh, distracting her from the pain in her right thigh.
At first he said nothing in return, his only response a bowed head as he leaned over the ragged gash in her leg, pale hair hanging in front of his eyes as he dabbed essence of Murtlap on the wound. It stung, and Ginny hissed but said nothing. The pain was almost refreshing in the way that it was different from all the other kinds of pain to which she was subjected night after night.
A single torch guttered on the wall above where the two of them sat, crackling softly. The flame flickered to the left and then to the right in odd patterns. In its dance, the light wildly threw the shadows about, giving the dark corridor an aspect of unceasing movement, as if it were underwater.
"Draco?" she prodded, not realizing it was the first time she had called him by his given name. Somewhere over the past couple of months, when she thought about the boy that was Draco Malfoy, he had gone from "that bloody git" to just "Malfoy" and then, in the last couple weeks, to "Draco." Ginny froze when she realized what she had just said out loud, not sure what to expect of his reaction.
He paused briefly, raising his head to look her at her, eyebrow cocked. But when he bent over again – this time to apply some salve to her bleeding left hand – he spoke, and for the first time when he said something to her, his voice was devoid of both contempt and playful derision.
“I’m not really sure why I help you,” he said. “Most of the time I wish I don’t – and I wish that I hadn’t run into you that first night.” His voice was low, steady, but Ginny saw how his hand shook as it smoothed the icy salve over her scorching, scarred skin.
“It’s so easy to let everyone else suffer,” he continued, and by the tone of his voice Ginny wondered if he was talking more to himself than to her, “but you? I don’t know. I could just let it alone, but when I tell myself to stay away – and believe me, I tell myself to stay away every moment I think of you and your stupidity in practically asking for this plethora of bleeding cuts and purple bruises – I don’t. I– I can’t.”
Ginny stared at him, wide-eyed. She couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Draco didn’t look at her, instead focusing on the cut in her palm, his deft fingers cool against her burning skin. It was quiet, the only sound being the muted sputtering from the torch burning above their heads. Draco did his work quickly, skillfully. He had quite the practice by now.
He finished wrapping the bandage around her wrist and agilely got back on his feet. Ginny looked up at him. Draco hesitated a moment and then stuck out a hand to help her up. There was something unknown to her smoldering in his eyes. Ginny took his hand and he pulled her to her feet.
For a brief moment, neither of them said anything. They just stood there, eyes locked, their hands clasped in between them.
Ginny’s breath caught.
Draco shook his head once, as if to clear it, and dropped her hand, stepping back so his face was in the shadows.
He turned to leave but again he hesitated, pausing to look back at her standing there with all her bandages and bruises, her eye swollen, her face scarred.
“Look,” he said plainly, “I don’t know why I am helping someone on the other side at all, and I especially don’t know why it happened to be you. But it’s like – well, I’ve told you already. All I know is that I don’t have a choice in this.”
Ginny nodded once. She moved forward slightly, her intention to say something, but then she realized that there was really nothing she could say to a declaration like that. She lifted her hand and placed it on his shoulder, just for a moment, before spinning on her heel and making her way slowly down the corridor, alone.
________________________________________
It was through some sort of unspoken understanding between the two of them that they did not speak in daylight. Or at least he didn’t – Ginny, at times, caught herself slipping, opening her mouth to say something when she saw him in the Great Hall or out on the windblown grounds. Once, when he had brushed past her in the crowded corridor between classes, looking down his long nose at her, she had officered him a small smile. He had stiffened, his eyes turning dark, and that night he had not said a single word as he, again, levitated her back to her dorm, leaving her at the portrait hole after silently healing her broken leg.
No, it was only when the sun sank below the horizon, when the smoldering ceruleans and luminescent ambers in the sky faded to grey– when the shadows overtook the world and washed its blurred edges in darkness – only then would he acknowledge her existence. That was why she was so surprised when he sauntered up to her one windy afternoon and sat down next to her in the empty Quidditch stadium where she was staring at her sketchpad, chewing her thumb and agonizing over which plays to use against the Ravenclaws in their matchup next weekend.
“What do you want?” Ginny hadn’t meant for her voice to sound so sharp – she was just surprised. Draco, as usual, merely looked at her, unperturbed.
“Goodness, Weasley, such manners. What would your dear mother say? Can’t I say hello to an old acquaintance?” Ginny wondered whether he had been born with that obnoxious smirk stretched across his face.
“Sorry, Draco, it’s just that, well, we usually never associate ourselves with each other unless it’s at night and – wait, what do you mean ‘old acquaintance’?”
His eyebrows shot up into his hair. “Have we not known each other since the dawn of time, Weasley? I mean, yes, it’ a given that you made my boogies shoot out of my nose and try to eat my face at every chance you got during most of that period in time, but now –”
“No, you giant, oblivious prat. I mean, what are you doing calling me an acquaintance? Don’t you think by now you should be calling me a f-friend?” Ginny stumbled over the last word, realizing that she had just yelled at Draco Malfoy because he had not considered her a good enough friend. Draco Malfoy.
Oh, bloody hell.
At first he only looked at her, his face passive as he studied hers. She felt her skin flush under his intense gaze. A light wind swept across where they were sitting, ruffling the pages of her sketchpad.
“Well,” Draco said slowly, as if he were choosing his words extremely carefully, “I didn’t think that true friends would only talk to each other under the cover of darkness. And only when the two of them are alone. And aren’t friends not supposed to want to kill each other?”
Ginny shrugged, keeping her eyes trained on her feet. “I think friends help each other out when one of them is hurt,” she said softly, “and friends make you laugh, even sometimes when you don’t feel like it. And some of your friends might be immensely obnoxious gits,” she paused here, looking at him meaningfully, “but they are always there for you, which is more than I can say for other so-called friends.”
“Ah,” he said, grey eyes glinting in the afternoon sun, “and I suppose you’re referring to the elusive Mr. Potter?”
Ginny shrugged. “I wasn’t referring to anyone in particular,” she tried to say indifferently. She was lying through her teeth of course, and she knew Draco knew it.
“You know, I never really liked Harry Potter,” he said, bringing a smile to Ginny’s face. She turned to him.
“Really? You never liked Harry? That’s such a shocking surprise – I can’t believe you would reveal such a well-kept secret to me, your mere acquaintance.” Her voice was dry.
He chuckled. “I am a superior being of wonderment, Weasley, filled with mysteries and revelations.” Ginny rolled her eyes.
“No, but listen,” he continued, his eyes turning dark grey – meaning it was something serious, Ginny had come to learn by this point in their relationship. “I never really liked Potter, but I think somewhere deep down I had some sort of – oh, I don’t know – grudging respect, I suppose, for the arse. He always stood up for his friends and fought for what he believed in , even if what he believed in was a total load of dung.”
Ginny figured that it probably wasn’t a good idea to point out in the middle of Draco Malfoy’s admission that he actually respected Harry that she happened to agree with many of those “load of dung” ideas.
“But now,” he went on, a hard edge creeping into his words, “now when everyone – the school, our world, and – and you –” He paused, not looking at her. “Now is the time when you need him most, to do his stupid hero thing and, well, save the world, I suppose – and now is when he chooses to run out on everyone. He’s completely disappeared, leaving the rest of us to fend for ourselves. Not really something a hero – or someone you call your friend – should do now, is it?” His chest heaved, the air rushing out of his lungs.
Ginny opened her mouth to say something – to explain that Harry hadn’t run out on them, that he and Hermione and Ron were out there right now, doing some secret task that Dumbledore had sent them to do, something that would save their world. But then with a jolt she realized, not for the first time, that Draco was on the other side and that he didn’t know this. Furthermore, if she told him, it would put the three of them in even graver danger. So she said nothing at all, instead running a hand through her mess of copper curls and staring off into the distance.
A loud clattering noise sounded from the far entrance and someone laughed, a sharp bark ringing across the empty stadium. The two of them looked up, broken out of their silent reveries by the sound of approaching chatter. Draco stood up, readying himself to leave, and Ginny’s heart sank, just a little, when she realized that things would always be this way between them. And he might not see this as a friendship – and maybe he was right, because how can you be friends with someone when you can’t even admit to the world that you talk with them? – but she most certainly did. Ginny was startled to discover that this thing she deemed a friendship between the two of them had quickly turned out to be one of the things she treasured the most, even in the short time she had gotten to know Draco Malfoy.
He buttoned his cloak slowly, not saying anything, eyes trained on the edge of the field where students usually entered. But before he left, he turned towards her, placing a hand on the bench next to her and leaning over her right ear.
“We may only be acquaintances,” he whispered quickly, the air from his lips making her skin tingle pleasantly, “but nevertheless, can you keep one of my secrets?”
She nodded.
“Well,” he continued, his voice growing even softer so that Ginny had to strain to hear his words, “don’t tell Ginevra Weasley, because it would only go to her head, but I secretly consider her one of my best friends.”
She looked at him quickly, her caramel eyes widening in surprise. He looked back at her, that smirk on his face again and then, with a whirl of his black cloak, he was gone.
Ginny blinked.
“Why do you help me?” she asked him one night as she sat in one of the corridors, her back pressed against the jagged wall. The rough edges around the stone dug into her flesh, distracting her from the pain in her right thigh.
At first he said nothing in return, his only response a bowed head as he leaned over the ragged gash in her leg, pale hair hanging in front of his eyes as he dabbed essence of Murtlap on the wound. It stung, and Ginny hissed but said nothing. The pain was almost refreshing in the way that it was different from all the other kinds of pain to which she was subjected night after night.
A single torch guttered on the wall above where the two of them sat, crackling softly. The flame flickered to the left and then to the right in odd patterns. In its dance, the light wildly threw the shadows about, giving the dark corridor an aspect of unceasing movement, as if it were underwater.
"Draco?" she prodded, not realizing it was the first time she had called him by his given name. Somewhere over the past couple of months, when she thought about the boy that was Draco Malfoy, he had gone from "that bloody git" to just "Malfoy" and then, in the last couple weeks, to "Draco." Ginny froze when she realized what she had just said out loud, not sure what to expect of his reaction.
He paused briefly, raising his head to look her at her, eyebrow cocked. But when he bent over again – this time to apply some salve to her bleeding left hand – he spoke, and for the first time when he said something to her, his voice was devoid of both contempt and playful derision.
“I’m not really sure why I help you,” he said. “Most of the time I wish I don’t – and I wish that I hadn’t run into you that first night.” His voice was low, steady, but Ginny saw how his hand shook as it smoothed the icy salve over her scorching, scarred skin.
“It’s so easy to let everyone else suffer,” he continued, and by the tone of his voice Ginny wondered if he was talking more to himself than to her, “but you? I don’t know. I could just let it alone, but when I tell myself to stay away – and believe me, I tell myself to stay away every moment I think of you and your stupidity in practically asking for this plethora of bleeding cuts and purple bruises – I don’t. I– I can’t.”
Ginny stared at him, wide-eyed. She couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Draco didn’t look at her, instead focusing on the cut in her palm, his deft fingers cool against her burning skin. It was quiet, the only sound being the muted sputtering from the torch burning above their heads. Draco did his work quickly, skillfully. He had quite the practice by now.
He finished wrapping the bandage around her wrist and agilely got back on his feet. Ginny looked up at him. Draco hesitated a moment and then stuck out a hand to help her up. There was something unknown to her smoldering in his eyes. Ginny took his hand and he pulled her to her feet.
For a brief moment, neither of them said anything. They just stood there, eyes locked, their hands clasped in between them.
Ginny’s breath caught.
Draco shook his head once, as if to clear it, and dropped her hand, stepping back so his face was in the shadows.
He turned to leave but again he hesitated, pausing to look back at her standing there with all her bandages and bruises, her eye swollen, her face scarred.
“Look,” he said plainly, “I don’t know why I am helping someone on the other side at all, and I especially don’t know why it happened to be you. But it’s like – well, I’ve told you already. All I know is that I don’t have a choice in this.”
Ginny nodded once. She moved forward slightly, her intention to say something, but then she realized that there was really nothing she could say to a declaration like that. She lifted her hand and placed it on his shoulder, just for a moment, before spinning on her heel and making her way slowly down the corridor, alone.
________________________________________
It was through some sort of unspoken understanding between the two of them that they did not speak in daylight. Or at least he didn’t – Ginny, at times, caught herself slipping, opening her mouth to say something when she saw him in the Great Hall or out on the windblown grounds. Once, when he had brushed past her in the crowded corridor between classes, looking down his long nose at her, she had officered him a small smile. He had stiffened, his eyes turning dark, and that night he had not said a single word as he, again, levitated her back to her dorm, leaving her at the portrait hole after silently healing her broken leg.
No, it was only when the sun sank below the horizon, when the smoldering ceruleans and luminescent ambers in the sky faded to grey– when the shadows overtook the world and washed its blurred edges in darkness – only then would he acknowledge her existence. That was why she was so surprised when he sauntered up to her one windy afternoon and sat down next to her in the empty Quidditch stadium where she was staring at her sketchpad, chewing her thumb and agonizing over which plays to use against the Ravenclaws in their matchup next weekend.
“What do you want?” Ginny hadn’t meant for her voice to sound so sharp – she was just surprised. Draco, as usual, merely looked at her, unperturbed.
“Goodness, Weasley, such manners. What would your dear mother say? Can’t I say hello to an old acquaintance?” Ginny wondered whether he had been born with that obnoxious smirk stretched across his face.
“Sorry, Draco, it’s just that, well, we usually never associate ourselves with each other unless it’s at night and – wait, what do you mean ‘old acquaintance’?”
His eyebrows shot up into his hair. “Have we not known each other since the dawn of time, Weasley? I mean, yes, it’ a given that you made my boogies shoot out of my nose and try to eat my face at every chance you got during most of that period in time, but now –”
“No, you giant, oblivious prat. I mean, what are you doing calling me an acquaintance? Don’t you think by now you should be calling me a f-friend?” Ginny stumbled over the last word, realizing that she had just yelled at Draco Malfoy because he had not considered her a good enough friend. Draco Malfoy.
Oh, bloody hell.
At first he only looked at her, his face passive as he studied hers. She felt her skin flush under his intense gaze. A light wind swept across where they were sitting, ruffling the pages of her sketchpad.
“Well,” Draco said slowly, as if he were choosing his words extremely carefully, “I didn’t think that true friends would only talk to each other under the cover of darkness. And only when the two of them are alone. And aren’t friends not supposed to want to kill each other?”
Ginny shrugged, keeping her eyes trained on her feet. “I think friends help each other out when one of them is hurt,” she said softly, “and friends make you laugh, even sometimes when you don’t feel like it. And some of your friends might be immensely obnoxious gits,” she paused here, looking at him meaningfully, “but they are always there for you, which is more than I can say for other so-called friends.”
“Ah,” he said, grey eyes glinting in the afternoon sun, “and I suppose you’re referring to the elusive Mr. Potter?”
Ginny shrugged. “I wasn’t referring to anyone in particular,” she tried to say indifferently. She was lying through her teeth of course, and she knew Draco knew it.
“You know, I never really liked Harry Potter,” he said, bringing a smile to Ginny’s face. She turned to him.
“Really? You never liked Harry? That’s such a shocking surprise – I can’t believe you would reveal such a well-kept secret to me, your mere acquaintance.” Her voice was dry.
He chuckled. “I am a superior being of wonderment, Weasley, filled with mysteries and revelations.” Ginny rolled her eyes.
“No, but listen,” he continued, his eyes turning dark grey – meaning it was something serious, Ginny had come to learn by this point in their relationship. “I never really liked Potter, but I think somewhere deep down I had some sort of – oh, I don’t know – grudging respect, I suppose, for the arse. He always stood up for his friends and fought for what he believed in , even if what he believed in was a total load of dung.”
Ginny figured that it probably wasn’t a good idea to point out in the middle of Draco Malfoy’s admission that he actually respected Harry that she happened to agree with many of those “load of dung” ideas.
“But now,” he went on, a hard edge creeping into his words, “now when everyone – the school, our world, and – and you –” He paused, not looking at her. “Now is the time when you need him most, to do his stupid hero thing and, well, save the world, I suppose – and now is when he chooses to run out on everyone. He’s completely disappeared, leaving the rest of us to fend for ourselves. Not really something a hero – or someone you call your friend – should do now, is it?” His chest heaved, the air rushing out of his lungs.
Ginny opened her mouth to say something – to explain that Harry hadn’t run out on them, that he and Hermione and Ron were out there right now, doing some secret task that Dumbledore had sent them to do, something that would save their world. But then with a jolt she realized, not for the first time, that Draco was on the other side and that he didn’t know this. Furthermore, if she told him, it would put the three of them in even graver danger. So she said nothing at all, instead running a hand through her mess of copper curls and staring off into the distance.
A loud clattering noise sounded from the far entrance and someone laughed, a sharp bark ringing across the empty stadium. The two of them looked up, broken out of their silent reveries by the sound of approaching chatter. Draco stood up, readying himself to leave, and Ginny’s heart sank, just a little, when she realized that things would always be this way between them. And he might not see this as a friendship – and maybe he was right, because how can you be friends with someone when you can’t even admit to the world that you talk with them? – but she most certainly did. Ginny was startled to discover that this thing she deemed a friendship between the two of them had quickly turned out to be one of the things she treasured the most, even in the short time she had gotten to know Draco Malfoy.
He buttoned his cloak slowly, not saying anything, eyes trained on the edge of the field where students usually entered. But before he left, he turned towards her, placing a hand on the bench next to her and leaning over her right ear.
“We may only be acquaintances,” he whispered quickly, the air from his lips making her skin tingle pleasantly, “but nevertheless, can you keep one of my secrets?”
She nodded.
“Well,” he continued, his voice growing even softer so that Ginny had to strain to hear his words, “don’t tell Ginevra Weasley, because it would only go to her head, but I secretly consider her one of my best friends.”
She looked at him quickly, her caramel eyes widening in surprise. He looked back at her, that smirk on his face again and then, with a whirl of his black cloak, he was gone.
Ginny blinked.
To Be Continued.
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