Chapter 11
The Ring
Ginny ended up sitting by herself for the train ride home from Hogwarts.
Ginny and Pansy Parkinson had drifted apart after the birthday party disaster, and the older girl didn’t offer for Ginny to ride with her upper-classmen Slytherin friends. Ron, Hermione and Harry were too caught up in the excitement of being on their own to make good company. Hermione was repeating- to anyone who would listen- her plans to conduct research at the archival spells depository in Bulgaria. Her brother, Ron, was starting a broom-making internship with a craftsman there (Ginny suspected that this was more to keep an eye out for Viktor Krum than any real interest in craftsmanship, but this was an opinion she kept to herself.) The famous Harry Potter was reveling in the fact that he need never return to his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon’s home in Little Whinging again. He would pass the first four weeks of summer with the Weasleys at their home. Then he was joining the Plymouth Paladins Quidditch team to train as their new starting Seeker.
Most of Ginny’s other usual companions were similarly pre-occupied. Cindy Rainpuddle and Anne Greenbugg, were discussing their plans for summer jobs. Lavender Brown was gossiping about Professor Snape, and the train was barely out of Hogsmeade station before Colin Creevy and Neville Longbottom were engaged in a noisy game of Exploding Snap. They invited Ginny to join them, but she demurred. Claiming plans to read a book, she excused herself from the other Gryffindors and went in search of an empty compartment.
She found one almost at the very rear of the train. Spreading her book out onto her lap, she tried to read: “Pride and Polyjuice” by Jayne Awestone. It began:
‘It is a fact universally acknowledged that a single wizard of good fortune…’ and then, unbidden, her mind drifted to Draco again.
It had been months since they had spoken to one another, ages since their communication had been more than the morning owl, followed its almost-ritual return. Yet still, after so much time, his face came easily to Ginny’s mind, blotting her sight like an after-image caused by staring at the sun. She wondered how he held so much power. Was it the man, or the dream that he had promised- a dream of being something…more than she had or had been before?
“I had to see you again.”
Ginny blinked and shook her head, convinced that she had conjured the voice from her reminisce, but when she looked up he was there.
Draco Malfoy stood in the door to the compartment. His easy posture and luxurious robes were as impeccable and untouchable as they had ever been, but his pale, pointed face looked vastly different.
He seemed…hollow was the word that finally came to Ginny’s mind: as if, were she to squeeze through the inky pupils of his storm-grey eyes, she would find nothing but an echoing void of black, cold space. His face was taut and whiter than she recalled, so that Ginny wondered if he felt it too: the icy fingers of painful memories- almost like the Dementors which had haunted the self-same doorway only four years before.
“What are you doing here?” She didn’t mean to sound defensive, but it was her natural response. Life with six older brothers had taught her to never let a weakness show. She wanted nothing more than to bolt through the door and try to outrun the memory of hurt, but she knew that Draco barred her path. She was trapped. The only possible escape was with her tongue. “I want you to go away.”
“I know.”
“Then why did you come?”
“I wanted to see you again.”
“To say you’re sorry?” She made herself remember her dress- the beautiful, ruined silk- and to recall her shame: “Why don’t you buy yourself your own damn girlfriend?” , she repeated his words into her mind, hoping that they still held the power to make her hate. Draco was hard to despise when he was standing so close.
“I tried to say I was sorry,” he replied evenly, blank eyes still staring. He was holding out a sheet of parchment: another owl. “I sent a letter.”
“Letters.” She corrected.
“You sent them back.”
“I don’t care if you’re sorry.” Ginny clutched the book before her like a shield, wishing for “Hogwarts, a History” or some other more substantial tome. “It’s how you ought to feel.”
Draco merely dipped his head. They started at each other for a moment. He lifted his foot, and moved to go.
“You don’t feel enough things that you should!” She blurted, wishing she didn’t feel a need to stop him- to simply be near him for a moment longer.
“You’re wrong,” Draco stopped, turned again and met her eyes. “I feel too many things that I should not.”
Emotions she pretended not to have were welling up inside her heart. Ginny swallowed, hard- as if the action could tamp them down. Her eyes were damp.
She wanted him to go .
“Not enough, Draco.” She said quietly.
He bit his lip. The uncertain expression on his features was a look she thought never to see him wear. “You don’t know, do you?” He asked quietly.
“Know what?”
“That I…”
He took a breath, then another. Watching him, Ginny was reminded of a tree being hacked by an axe. One more stroke- one more breath- would bring him down.
“I…" There was a flash of panic in his mercury eyes, and he thrust the parchment forward. Before she could give it back, he had twisted off the sigil ring that he always wore, and was pressing it into her palm.
“I want you to have this.” He said urgently.
“I can’t.” Ginny felt a flutter of panic as the shock of his touch- cold and yet burning- almost unleashed her tears. “It’s your Slytherin ring…your family ring! It’s too…”
“Keep it.” He interrupted hoarsely, and closed her fingers around the ring, so that the twisting snakes and looping M bit into her flesh. “You deserve-”
Ginny didn’t wait to hear what he thought she deserved. She wasn’t certain it was safe to know. Finding the last reserve of her strength, she curled her fingers around the parchment, and then hurled the letter, and the ring, in Draco’s face.
He side-stepped the missile. The crumpled paper fluttered harmlessly to the ground, while the ring hit the window with a metallic clink. Draco and Ginny both watched its progress as it fell to the ground, then skittered across the floor, wobbling noisily until it stopped against the wall.
Draco didn't stoop to pick it up. He merely met Ginny's eyes a final time. "It's up to you what you throw away." He said quietly.
Then, he walked away.
Ginny sat like a statue until Draco’s figure had completely disappeared. Only then did she allow her features to fall into a weary frown.
She had done the right thing- hadn’t she? She would be a fool to give him a second- no, a third chance. Steadying her resolve, she straightened in her chair and opened Jayne Awestone again. “It is a truth universally acknowledged….It is a truth….truth….” Sighing, she snapped the book closed. She was getting a headache. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to simply rest, but that tactic failed as well. Every time she let her lids drift shut, she saw Draco’s own mist-grey eyes staring back, rimmed with desperation and unshed tears.
Exasperated, she tried looking out the window. The train was speeding through the countryside, and presented only the uninteresting sight of sheep farms, the motorway, and the occasional dingy Muggle town. She turned away from the window and looked at her hands. Finding nothing of interest which 16 years of self-observation had not already disclosed, she looked at her feet, then at the floor and, finally, at Draco’s ring.
She supposed she ought as well pick it up as not. Draco wouldn’t be back for it, and even if he was, he would never know if she’d taken it, or if it had simply been collected by the wizard cleaning the train. It seemed a shame to risk its being swept out with the rubbish. It was rather attractive- if you like that sort of thing, Ginny quickly qualified. Bending over, she swept it into her hand, and then held the ring up to the light.
It was heavy, opulent, and obviously expensive- precisely the sort of ring she would expect Draco to wear. The faint tarnish in its carved ridges gave it the air of an antique and, as she traced the swirling “M” in its centre, she wondered how long it had been in the family. Hopefully not too long, she thought as she slid it, tentatively, onto her middle finger. Knowing the Malfoys, it was probably hexed, or jinxed or cursed against being handled by common little muggle-loving trollops like herself. Any moment, she expected to sprout a second head, or find herself covered in pulsing boils. For a moment, her imagination hummed with such vivid images of the horrors in store that she was nearly disappointed when, as with any normal ring, nothing happened at all.
Ginny started to slide the ring back off, acknowledging that its presence on her finger would be a bad thing for anyone to see- much less Draco should he return for another talk, but she paused before she did, stopping to admire the way that the thick, pure metal looked against her freckled skin.
Glancing downwards, her eyes caught on the wadded paper of Draco’s letter.
Unlike the ring, it was not a valuable object that she couldn’t justify sending to waste…not valuable to anyone but her.
She turned the paper over in her hands, sliding her thumb beneath the seal, but the sudden appearance of Harry Potter and her brother in her doorway made her freeze.
“Oi! Gin!” Ron said, swishing his wand in a flowery manner to remove the trunk stashed on the rack over Ginny’s head. “Going to stay ‘til next term?”
Blinking with surprise, she realized that the train had stopped. She shoved Draco’s letter, along with his ring into the pocket of her robes, and hastily followed her brother and his friends out onto the platform at King’s Cross Station.
Her elder twin brothers, George and Fred, were waiting beside the train. Both were wearing bright green suits, and mischievous grins which suggested that they had mischief or excitement (or, knowing the twins, both) planned before the return to the Burrow that night. In spite of the turmoil that she still felt about her recent meeting with Draco, Ginny felt her cheeks tugging into the familiar curve of a smile.
“C’mon Gin.” Harry called, following the other Weasley’s through the barrier. “It’s time to go.”
She cast a finally, longing look around the station then nodded her head.
It was time to move on indeed.
One Year Later
“Well, that’s that then.” Molly Weasley was standing in her only daughter’s room, staring damp-eyed as her youngest child began unpacking her trunk from school. “Seven children sent through Hogwarts…all grown up and ready to fly away.”
As the only Weasley still at home, Ginny had heard this particular lament (which had been repeated and adapted with the graduation of each child), and she was far too weary from the Leaving Feast and the long train ride home to endure it another time.
“I don’t start classes in London until October, mum.” Ginny reminded, gently,” and I’ll be Apparating home every night.”
“No, not at first.” Mrs. Weasley wrung her plump hands, “But I’m sure that you’ll catch the eye of some young fellow and then…,” Molly paused as dual instincts: one the desire to coddle her own children as long as possible, and the other to hold a grandchild at last- warred. It must have ended in a draw, because she merely sighed. “Well, I’ll leave you to get settled now. I’ve got to see to supper. Your father will be home soon. He’s been working late all week-trying to get a warrant to search the Malfoy’s again. He’s never been satisfied since Lucius got off on the Imperius again, convinced…” Her voice grew fainter as she walked away down the hall.
When the voice was finally completely gone, Ginny turned her attention toward unpacking. She flicked her wand and muttered an incantation. Immediately, invisible hands opened the lid of her trunk, and began tucking books and clothing away where they belonged. In only a few minutes, the task was complete. She shrunk her luggage to the size of a shoe-box and shoved it under the bed. It refused to go all the way in- caught on something in the way. Annoyed, Ginny dropped to all fours and rooted under the bed with her hands until she found the wad of cloth that was preventing the suitcase’s movement. She pulled it out, then sat on the edge of the bed to examine what she had found.
It was a set of old school robes. She assumed she hadn’t missed them the past year, since they were among the most worn, and obviously several inches too short. She supposed that she ought to simply throw them away. She didn’t have any use for them anymore. She smiled a bittersweet smile. Part of her was excited to be moving to the next chapter of her life, but starting over was always hard. A line from a Muggle song, overheard in the Gryffindor dorms, echoed through her mind: “ Every new beginning is some other beginning’s end…”.
Feeling nostalgic, she leapt from the bed and strode in front of the mirror. Her eyes felt misty as she ran her fingers over the Gryffindor crest above her breast. At one point in life, house rivalries had seemed like everything. Now she was moving on. There was no “Gryffindor”, or “Hufflepuff” or “Slytherin” badge to label friends from foe.
Suddenly overwhelmed by it all, Ginny slumped her shoulders, and let the robe cascade into the floor. She was surprised when, in addition to the quiet “slussssh” of fabric against wood, there was a higher, metallic sound.
Her brown eyes scanned the floor. Then she saw it in a dusty corner: Draco’s ring.
Ginny’s stomach gave a sudden lurch as she registered what she was seeing. These must have been the robes that she had worn on the train the year before. She had searched for them once that summer. Perhaps the family ghoul (an oppressively Peeves-like specter only recently acquired because the old ghoul had refused to keep ironing and had been exorcised by her father) found it amusing to stash the garment away where she couldn’t find it. She had never forgotten Draco- or his words on the train- but she had given up hope that the ring would ever be found.
Ginny suddenly remembered something else. If the ring was there, then his letter should be too!
Forgetting the months of stubborn pride which had prevented her from reading his note before, she rummaged frantically in the pockets, letting out a long, shuddering breath as she removed a ball of crumbled parchment. She settled it onto her lap, smoothing the battered fabric.
It read:
Dear Ginny:
I always write a new owl. I don’t know why. I guess I think that if I keep writing letters, one day I’ll write something that will go through. One day I’ll discover an apology so perfect that you can’t help but open it, and believe it, and forgive me. I only know that I haven’t found it yet. Every night, I sit down and think of new ways to grovel and humiliate myself, and every morning I get a returned letter tossed in my lap at breakfast.
You’d think it would be getting easier, but its not. I’d never written a letter to apologize before you. Perhaps it isn’t the thing that’s done, but I don’t think that you would speak to me in person, so this will have to do. After you left Pansy’s party, there were things that needed to be said. There are things that you need to know before you go off into the rest of your life and leave me behind. I’m not trusting an owl. I’m putting this letter into your hands myself, and if it comes back…well then, I guess I’ll know that it isn’t meant to be.
I’ve had a lot of time to think while I wrote these letters, a lot of time to decide what went wrong and wonder how I could have made it change, but after six months of thinking, I’ve decided I’m not sorry after all. At least, I’m not sorry for what you want me to be.
I wish you hadn’t heard me say that thing to Warrington. I wish you hadn’t heard it, but I’m not sorry for what I said. I said it because its how I felt. I said it because I thought it was true. I said it because I thought that it would get me what I wanted- what I needed: you.
The problem, as I see it now, is that I should have started saying what I felt a long time before Pansy’s party. I should have picked a better time to start voicing things that were true. I ought to have picked a better way to tell you what I wanted
We had something special. I don’t understand what went wrong. I don’t understand why what we do and what we say never matches up to what we feel. When we first started talking that night in the snake pit it seemed different. It seemed free: like it didn’t matter that I was a Slytherin and you were a Gryffindor, or that you were a Weasley and I was a Malfoy. We were just friends. Then, somehow, we started being something more. I didn’t like it at first. I didn’t understand it.
It felt stupid to smile for no reason. I would overhear stories in the hall, or see items in the shop, and the first thing that I could think of was showing you and telling you about it, and to see if I could make you smile. I’d do anything to see you smile, and it makes me feel sick and weak and stupid, but I still feel it.
I wish I’d never bought that damned skirt. I wish I’d never sent that ruddy owl. I wish I’d had the courage to tell you that you were beautiful in your too-short robes and tatty jumpers and your fly away hair and kept you in the broom closet by force. I wish you’d tell me that you still liked me without my velvet and cashmere and galleons in the bank. Wishing isn’t getting, is it Weasley? I guess we both know that better than most.
Of course, I did send the owl. I sent a lot of owls, because they made you laugh when I said I wanted to know how they felt…and when I stopped sending them, you quit showing up- and what am I supposed to think? How is it fair that you teach me how to feel and then take the only thing that I want to touch away?
So maybe, in spite of all my practice, this is still a substandard apology, but at least you know its sincere. I’d do anything to take it all back and start at the beginning again, or at least to earn a second chance. You can have any part of me, and I wish you’d choose my sense of humor or my kiss or even (wishful thinking) my heart, but if you want the money, that’s okay too…because I don’t want you, Ginny. I need you, and I hate it, but its true. I need every stupid freckle, every crinkle-eyed smile, and every kiss. I know its wrong. There’s no one who would tell is that it’s a good idea…but then, maybe being happy is more important than being right. I think that it is for me.
I know that I’m botching this. It stupid and sappy and I’ll kill myself if I read it over but I have one more thing to say.
I love you, Ginny Weasley.
Please love me back.
Yours,
Draco Black Malfoy
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