If only their hearts could stick to the plan....

CHAPTER ELEVEN SNIPPET:

When Ginny finally came downstairs, her eyes were bright and red-rimmed with happy tears. Her teammates and friends swarmed her again, congratulating her on becoming an auntie once more. She thanked everyone profusely, but her attention was clearly divided. Her eyes kept drifting toward Draco as if to make sure he stayed put until she could reach him.

And when she was finally free from the well-wishers and standing in front of him once more, it took all of Draco’s control not to pull her toward him and kiss her. That look on her face, the relief and elation—he never wanted to see it leave. He realized then that there was little Draco wouldn’t do to spare her from misery, like the kind she’d experienced over the summer when she’d been bashed in the press.

The realization frightened him enough to flee, but he couldn’t. She was here. As much as he wished to escape his feelings, he also couldn’t deny himself the opportunity to be around her.

“With Ginny Weasley, you are lost,” Voldemort said. “You are nothing. You are weak, Draco. Isn’t that so?”

All of Draco’s fears and weaknesses came rushing back to him. The inner voice whispering that ?his father had not loved him because he was unlovable, and now that his mother was dead, no-one could ever love him again. That no woman would ever choose him for himself alone but only for his family’s money, that no-one would ever want him as their friend without his family’s influence. If his advantages of breeding and background were stripped away from him, he would be nothing. So how could he have exposed this nothing, this worthless man he really was, to Ginny Weasley? No wonder she had left him. No wonder she had chosen Harry Potter instead.

But he still had this pride, and there was only one way to salvage it. He could reclaim his power over the woman who had seen his weakness.

“Take her, Draco,” Voldemort whispered in his ear. “Use her for your pleasure, and for our purposes. Strip her of the power she provides. Balance the scales between you. Because otherwise, you will be nothing at all.”