A rainstorm is approaching, and heavy clouds hang over the city of Paris like a cloak. The Parisians are unperturbed by the presence of rain, for it is a wet time of year, but the tourists in the city have all opted for safer, dryer sights.

Ginny Weasley is one of few standing beneath the Eiffel Tower at seven o’clock in the evening on that Monday. She wears a beige trench coat and a stylish hat copied off a film star in an old movie she once watched with Hermione, and does not fit in at all with the others who are determined to see a bird’s eye view of Paris that day, come hell or high-water. They are mostly Muggles, clutching cameras and mobile telephones and chattering loudly about missing the lines for the lifts.

Ginny stands beneath the canopy of steel that stretches overhead and gazes up at the intricate metalworking. This was made by human, Muggle hands, she thinks with awe. No magic is holding this network of metal above my head. No laws beyond the simple laws of physics.

It amazes her.

Ginny never intended to see Paris, but then again, she hadn’t intended to see Rome, Barcelona or Amsterdam either. The cities of Europe astound her in a way that London never has. The foreign accents of the shopkeepers, most of them fluent in her native—and only—tongue, intrigue her. Traveling is a luxury Ginny could never afford until the war ended and her father was made minister. She has not been home in six months, and does not intend to return soon.

Rain begins to fall lightly around the Eiffel Tower, and she hears moans of dismay from the others crowded beneath the impressive structure. Ginny, however, does not mind. She has loved rain since her earliest days at Hogwarts, whether she was safe and warm by the fire in the Gryffindor common room, listening to the pounding of the rain on the top of the turret, or she was traipsing from the castle to Hagrid’s hut in a wild, wet storm.

She joins the queue to walk up the endless stairs to the top of the tower. She does not trust the lifts, no matter how much she might marvel at Muggle architecture, nor does she have the patience to wait to ride them.

She is out of breath by the first landing, and stops to rest. She folds her arms on the metal banister, looking out over the city. She can see the Seine, the water beginning to churn as the rain falls more heavily.

“Beautiful city, isn’t it?” somebody asks behind her, and Ginny turns, startled at being spoken to.

It is nobody she truly expected, and yet, she’d known it was he from the moment she heard his voice. Draco Malfoy has a voice like no one else’s—deeper than any of her brothers’, with a snobbish tinge to it, the lazy drawl of the aristocracy.

“Yes,” Ginny says, tilting her head to the side and looking at the man with deep brown eyes. He is wearing an outfit similar to hers, but he does not look foolish in his faux-Muggle attire. His blonde hair is swept across his forehead, and his eyes meet hers directly. A shiver travels down her spine like the line of lightning that suddenly flashes in the sky.

“What are you doing here?” Ginny asks, the corners of her lips twitching upwards.

“Seeing the sights,” says Draco. He moves from behind her and comes to stand alongside her, leaning his forearms on the banister and gazing out over Paris. The rain has really begun to fall now, and the people on the first story are slowing leaving. There are murmurs of “dangerous” and “watch your step, darling,” all around them. Ginny can only understand the English, but Draco smiles as a woman berates her young daughter in French with a mixture of affection and exasperation.

“You don’t mind the rain?” asks Ginny, and Draco lifts his eyes to look up at the gray, cloud-covered sky.

“Only if you do,” he says, and Ginny has to duck her head to hide the smile that has spread across her lips.

There is a few moments’ silence. They both stare out at the rush and flow of people below them, at the river and the boats and the buildings and the beauty of the rainstorm. A sea of umbrellas on the ground appears all at once, mostly dots of black but with some reds and blues and yellows as well.

“Have you ever seen Renoir’s painting The Umbrellas?” Draco asks suddenly.

“No,” says Ginny. “Should I have?”

“It’s in the National Gallery in London,” says Draco.

“So does that mean it’s a crime that I haven’t seen it?”

“More or less,” says Draco, turning and leaning on the banister so that his back is facing the city. Ginny does not turn, but she looks back over her shoulder in order to see the profile of his face.

An arrogant chin. With his eyes looking downwards, his long lashes sweep against a smooth cheek. His nose is perfectly upturned, almost too much of a girl’s nose in so strong a face. It softens him. Somewhat, Ginny adds to herself. Draco Malfoy is not soft.

“Well, when I go back home, I’ll be sure to look it up,” says Ginny in a joking tone of voice.

Draco turns to look at her, and her smile causes his lips to curve upwards as well. Her hair is tucked up under her hat, but he can see wisps escaping by her ears, and her eyebrows are slight arches of red. She has a dusting of freckles smattered across high cheekbones and a small, pursed mouth. The bottom lip is round and sticks out just slightly. A raindrop falls on it, and her tongue darts out to lick it clean.

She turns, finally, and settles with the small of her back against the banister as he did, her elbows resting on the railing behind her, her head tilted back against the grille. The hat is somewhat squashed, but she doesn’t mind.

“So, what made you decide to come to Paris?” she asks in a voice that trembles a bit more than it should.

Draco shrugs. Somehow, in the last few minutes, he has gotten close enough for Ginny to feel the rise and fall of his shoulders.

“The same thing that made me decide to go to Rome,” he says lightly, as though it were just any old statement. An average explanation.

“And why—why did you decide to go to Rome?” asks Ginny quietly.

“For the same reason I went to Barcelona,” says Draco, and he smiles and adds, “And that’s the reason I went to Amsterdam, as well, and Prague, if those are your next questions.” He says it before she can ask, because he knows she intends to. She has every time before—at the Spanish Steps, at the Sagrada Familia, at the Anne Frank house.

“Would you mind telling me the reason?” Ginny asks.

The rain is falling quite heavily now, and there’s a wind blowing it towards them, so that her beige trench coat is spotted and her hat is beginning to come off. Her hair’s falling out in curling cascades of red-gold, just as his blonde hair is blowing every which way, so fair it might almost be white. He has turned now, so that his hip brushes the banister and he can look down on her with perfectly carved features of ivory. Even the relentless wind cannot remove Draco’s dignity—though his hair is flying about and his coat flapping in the wind, he gives off an appearance of absolute stillness.

“Would I mind telling you the reason?” Draco repeats. This is a new question. Before, she simply laughed it all off. Before, she made excuses and said she had to go. Before, she would not meet his eyes. Now…now she is asking.

“Yes…would you?”

Ginny’s voice is a whisper.

His thumb has come up to brush along her jaw. He traces it along her bottom lip. She gazes up at him with unfathomably deep brown eyes.

They are sitting on the Spanish Steps surrounded by bright red flowers and crowds of people speaking Italian. He is twining a strand of her hair around his finger and their foreheads are almost touching. The sun beats down on them and he remarks on the golden highlights in her beautiful hair, and she touches the tips of his eyelashes, which she can barely see, they are so light. He is about to lean in to kiss her when their eyes meet and they remember who they are…

They are standing outside the Central Floo Hub in Prague, on the cobblestone street, and his eyes light on a slender redhead who looks lost. He is shocked when she turns and it is Ginny Weasley, all grown up with the wide eyes of a first time traveler. Something bubbles in his chest: a new, strange feeling. His eyes sweep over her, taking her in, and he realizes she is clutching his valise and he is holding hers, two similar bags from Twilfitt and Tatting’s. He approaches her with a smirk on his face—old habits are hard to break—and says, “Are you traveling Europe as well, Miss Weasley?”

“The reason,” says Draco, in his painfully patient voice, “is that I have been following you all around Europe, Ginny Weasley. The reason is that I have been falling in love with you from the moment I saw you in Prague, Ginny…and with every moment that passes since then, every moment that goes by without me kissing you, my heart aches a little more…my breath catches for a little longer every time I see you, and my pulse races.”

He smiles at her, hardly a romantic smile, just a Draco smile of tenderness and affection and sheer joy at the way his thumb is sitting in the corner of her mouth, as she stares at him with startled, parted lips, transfixed.

“I love you,” says Draco again. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

He kisses her on top of the Eiffel Tower, and suddenly the bells from the Sacre Coeur to Notre Dame are tolling, ringing, clanging like there is no tomorrow. His mouth is hot and hasty on hers, his hands are sliding from her cheeks to her throat to her shoulders, down her arms and to her waist where he clings as though he may never—can never—let go. She wraps her arms around his neck and brings a hand up to tangle in his hair and kisses him back as fiercely as he kisses her.

The bells chime on and the rain pours down and an older woman standing not far away nudges her husband and says: “Regards, Michel, deux amoureux! Ah, c’est beau, n’est-ce pas?”