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

CHAPTER TEN SNIPPET:

“You look like you’re in the middle of a crisis,” Draco replied.

A blush warmed Ginny’s face. “Actually, I am. I was just thinking I might need some therapy. Unresolved issues, repressed memories, etcetera, etcetera.”

“Oh.” He didn’t seem to know how to respond to that. “Do you mind if I join you?”

“In therapy?”

Draco’s lips twitched. “No. Here at the bar.”

“You’re asking after you've already sat down?”

He stood with a frown. “I can go.”

“No!” Ginny reached out and grabbed Draco’s hand, yanking him back down to his barstool. “I mean, it’s fine. You can stay. Would you like the rest of my mai tai?”

As soon as the door to his bedroom closed behind Ginny Weasley, Draco found that his legs could not support him, so he collapsed into a chair. One of the chairs in the priceless Louis XIV suite, he knew. Perhaps when he could get up again, if that time ever came, he would chop it up with an axe and throw the wood into the fire. Perhaps not. Either way, it was over, he vowed, over for good, this thing that should never have started between himself and Ginny Weasley, that certainly should never have continued. 

Finally, Draco rose to his feet. The light had changed outside the window, he saw, the sun high overhead. On the way to the bath, he stepped on the luxurious jade green robe Ginny had worn. I really will have that burned, he thought.

As he dressed, one idea ran through his head again and again, relentlessly. We were fools to think we could change anything, Ginny and I. Potter always wins out.

He was combing his hair when he heard his mother’s screams.

The next few minutes were forever etched on his mind, but it was always difficult to put the events together in a coherent way. His aunt Bellatrix was facing off against Narcissa at the top of the stairs at the other end of the corridor, holding out her wand.

“If you won’t listen to me, Cissy, then I’ll go through you,” she said to her sister. "I don't want to do it this way. But I will."