Reviews: 3 | Table of Contents | - Text Size +
FOUR YEARS LATER
“You’re sort of WHAT?”
“You heard me,” she stated clearly and more loudly in case one of his fan-girl mobs had finally caused permanent damage to his eardrums with their shrill screams. “Friends.”
“Friends?” he asked incredulously, green eyes widening and mouth hanging slightly agape.
“Close your mouth. You look like a fish.” Ginny sighed before continuing, “Yes, friends, Harry. He’s not so bad, really, and you’d be surprised how many times we’ve run into each other wandering Diagon Alley aimlessly.”
“But...” he began, and she could see his mind working furiously to try and understand.
“No. There’s nothing to do anymore, nothing to fight, nothing to believe in with all your heart and then die for. The world is still trying to digest all that death. There’s not enough energy to hold on to those same prejudices like we once did,” she sat down in one of their plain wooden chairs in their bland, off-white kitchen.
“Look, I’m sorry,” he whispered tentatively. “Just, be careful?” He hesitantly moved around the table and toward her chair. “I don’t trust him,” he murmured as he rested a hand on her shoulder.
“You used to trust so easily. You trusted the entire magical world when you first discovered it...”
“That was a long time ago,” he admitted while rubbing small circles on her skin with his thumb. “People change.”
“Yes, they do,” she agreed.
SEVEN YEARS LATER
She could feel the skin cells on her fingers drying out and flaking off into the brisk November wind that relentlessly attacked them, yet she continued to anxiously drum her fingers on the icy glass tabletop anyway. Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour seemed so desolate and abandoned at this time of the year. No students blatantly flirting with each other, no small children with sticky faces, not a single wizard or witch polluting the business’ storefront. Apparently the demand for frozen dairy products negatively correlated with the proximity to winter’s onset.
Strands of her crimson hair, looking less brilliant and luminous under the overcast sky, flailed about her face, having escaped from the side braid she had hastily plaited in lieu of showering. She knew she looked like a mess, but there simply wasn’t enough time to sleep anymore. Harry had, once again, left their house (his house?)—she never knew if it was with Ron, a press release, or some blind adoring fan of his that won a contest out of Witch Weekly—and she was stuck running his errands. It wasn’t that she didn’t like picking out jumpers or shopping for groceries, because she would do anything for him. Besides, he was so good and kind-hearted that it would take a real, well, bitch not to make his life a little easier. Today, for instance, she was more than happy to take his ever-growing Christmas shopping list and start buying gifts. There were so many people who sent him cookies and fruitcakes every year that the return presents had to be bought early and continuously throughout the season (heaven forbid he pass up the opportunity to show off his wealth and generosity, contrasting the appearance of his ever-humble abode). It was no big deal. Really.
The list continued to stare back at her—who the hell was Astoria Greengrass?—and she bit her naked lip to a rosy pink while contemplating what to buy for so many people she barely knew without making Harry seem thoughtless.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen an apple look as sinfully red and tart as your lips look today, Miss Weasley,” a husky voice whispered in her ear as a finger slid effortlessly along her jaw line toward said lips.
“Stick to bananas,” she threw at him off-handedly as she rolled her head away and back into her own private sphere.
“I think you’re fabulous too,” he quipped and stroked her face before elegantly sprawling in the chair across from her. “How’ve you been?” The wind whipped through his hair, tousling it, as always, just so.
“Since you told the press that that red-headed harpy you were caught fondling in public was me?” She lifted her eyes momentarily from her list and raised an eyebrow. “Swell, actually. Really fantastic. I don’t know how that scandal helped your reputation, but my ratings went through the roof.”
“Eh, the press ought to find new business anyway. You would think that the old ones would be either dead or tired of living through their children, the little brats would be too busy trying to stir up some excitement, and anyone our age who isn’t being followed would give up trying to get in with us cool kids.” It was true. He was tired of appearing in the tabloids with his old classmates week after week because some people were still hung up on the past. It was long ago. Time to move on.
“Us cool kids?” She sat up, rested her chin in one palm, and tilted her head to the side, mocking him. “Uh huh. I can’t really speak for you and that infamous stronghold your family calls home, but the people I know are considered heroes.”
“Maybe, but it’s been how many years since the final battle? You ‘heroes’ are all out of shape—not that you don’t look good...” he trailed off as his eyes roamed appreciatively over her bulky coat-clad form.
She rolled her eyes visibly and exhaled loudly enough to be heard over the rustling leaves. “And you’re just as suave and fit as ever, Malfoy. It’s too bad that you’re not into blokes: not only would the pornography market for women just shout for joy, but you can’t marry them. They can’t take half of your fortune during each divorce. What number are you looking for now? Four?”
“Actually, I’m only looking into my third. Second, really, because number one only lasted a day and a half. Basically until the blissful alcohol and sex haze we shared wore off. She was a tiger in bed,” he laughed loudly at her disgusted look. “Although I’d bet you’d be better. No, I take that back. You’re definitely better. You’d have to be a sex goddess in order to get enough of Potter’s weak sperm necessary for him to actually reproduce...” He smirked, waiting for her to bite.
She shrugged noncommittally before looking back down at her list.
“How is little James doing?” He didn’t actually care about the kid, not when she popped it out and not now—he looked too much like his dad, even at such a young age—but he hated when people pretended to ignore him. “Marriage plans going along swimmingly?” he ventured smugly, sure that she would have to react, at least a little. Their child, while regarded as nothing less than the pinnacle of perfect breeding, was still the scandal of the decade. Everyone knew about her aversion to his proposals.
“Harry and I are working at our own pace,” she practically recited while scribbling something on her list. “My parents are watching the precious thing for a while. Screams all the time and looks like a little demon-troll all the while,” she sighed as she attempted to tuck some stray pieces of hair behind her ear.
“Pity,” he offered, not knowing what to say. She stood, and he followed, not wanting her to flee his company just yet.
“The real pity is that you’ve probably got one yourself out there somewhere, just waiting to be claimed. You probably won’t even be notified until the September first train arrives to pick him up and the poor tramp you had to pay to sleep with you needs your vault to finance his education,” she taunted. She smiled and nudged him gently with her shoulder when he shuddered at her prophecy.
They continued to walk in silence, with slow, meandering steps. The cobblestones were worn and dusty, the trees creaked and groaned, all aged from too many memories and not enough future. They fell into their old wandering habits naturally, unthinkingly, like breathing or waving a wand. His tailored shoes pounded the pavement while her feet shuffled along, and together they added to the natural cacophony of the elements, an orchestra that was slowly freezing over with every passing day.
“I realized that I don’t know what happened to the girl I was in Hogwarts,” she quietly admitted to her worn, brown boots.
“Potter, clearly. He’s a life-sucker, that one. I saw him trying to kiss you once; he was practically consuming your face.” He wrinkled his nose at the memory but stopped at her look. He shrugged and half-smiled. “I didn’t mean to offend; I was just trying to lighten the mood. Everything’s always so... For once I just wanted things not to be so jagged around the edges, you know?”
“You’ll need something harder to grind down the edges then; everything’s rough and strained since the war,” she muttered, and then swatted his arm when she noticed his heated look. “You’re such a pervert, Malfoy. I don’t know why I put up with you.”
“I know why.”
“It’s not because of your stunning personality if that’s what you think.”
“That’s not what I was going to say, although I’m glad you agree that my personality is stunning.”
“Arrogant prat.”
“You like me anyway.”
“Maybe.”
The smile fell from his face then, as he picked up their lost conversation. “But seriously, you’ve changed. I’ve changed. You know it, I know it. Everyone’s changed. But we’ve just so happened to change in just the precise ways where we can sort of match up. That’s why you put up with me.”
She looked at him like he had suddenly grown red hair and sprouted freckles.
“You don’t think so?” he asked, suddenly—surprisingly—unsure of himself.
“No, I just don’t think I’ve ever heard you say anything quite so intelligent.”
He threw his head back and laughed loudly, sending echoes rippling through the wind. Moments dragged on as a desolate silence settled in the spaces his too-loud laughter had created.
“It’s snowing,” she finally whispered, putting her head back as well to stare at the dull blue sky and the tiny white flakes pushed around on the air currents. “Do we get a wish?”
“Only if it’s accompanied by...” he breathed, leaning in close, and just barely gracing her lips with his, “a kiss.”
She closed her eyes, willing back the tears. The line had been crossed, things would change again.
“Don’t,” he murmured, running his thumb along her eyelashes. “I didn’t mean to...”
She pushed him into a tree trunk and gripped his neck with her other hand. Her lips found his again in a tentative, shaky and unsure movement, eyes drawn closed by tears and intensity of the moment. His hand slowly burrowed into her hair, not wanting to startle her away from him, and their kiss stretched into indefinite reaches of time. They warmed each other from the inside out, waiting for the cold to melt away between their shared tears and battling tongues. Finally, there was no more air left, no more heat, only one painful, chapped, dry kiss on an empty November afternoon.
ELEVEN YEARS LATER
“You won’t reconsider?” he asked skeptically, raising a dark eyebrow into his still-messy mop of dark hair.
“No,” she responded, fishing her missing heel from beneath their bed and hopping on one foot in order to get it on.
“I just think that, with the wedding, and that rumor he spread when James was born, and the new baby...” he trailed off
“...And?” She moved to their bathroom to put on the stunning earrings she received for her birthday several years ago. She always wore them when they met up; she loved watching the slight smile he thought went unnoticed grace his lips.
“...And I don’t think it’s a good idea that you’re going to dinner with him!”
She could hear the slight tinge of panic in his voice. “Well, I am,” she declared, popping her head back into their bedroom to give him a stern stare before returning to the bathroom. “I don’t know why you’re worried, we’re just...”
“Friends, I know,” he sighed. “Did I get you those earrings?”
Unseen, she squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again to stare at herself in the mirror. She looked for the girl her family saw, the wife Harry saw, the mother her children saw. She tried to find the Ginny that loved Harry James Potter with all her heart and soul, the same feisty redhead that wanted to fight for what was good, who knew where the black-and-white, right-and-wrong lines were. However, the woman staring back in the mirror, reflected numerous times over in the diamonds that hung from her ears, was not the woman the rest of the world saw. Ginny could see the fault lines, the uncertainties, the gray area that made up who she really was; she could see the woman who hadn’t given up on the rest of her life while simultaneously settling into the easiest path for her circumstances. She still loved Harry James Potter in a way that would never fully leave her, but things were...complicated. “Yes, yes you did,” she declared from the bathroom, voice strong and sure, “last Christmas.”
“Oh. I must have known how pretty they would look on you.”
She returned to his side, standing in their quaint blue bedroom with the hand-sewn quilt and the beloved Weasley furniture, and kissed his cheek briefly. “Yes. Thank you.”
NINETEEN YEARS LATER
[And the rest is history.]
The End.
kittyprincess7426 is the author of 4 other stories.
This story is a favorite of 2 members. Members who liked Epilogue also liked 54 other stories.
This story is a favorite of 2 members. Members who liked Epilogue also liked 54 other stories.
Leave a Review