AFTER(WORD)S

“What did you want to tell me?” Ginny asked as she put on her shoes.

He considered saying those three forbidden words.

Draco was leaning up against one of the wooden pillars in his posh uptown flat, hands in his pockets, and staring at the floor. This was not the first time in the last few weeks that he’d stood there broodingly, wrestling with his head over what to say in answer to that question. It seemed, in fact, that every time Ginny stopped by or stayed overnight, or even when he just saw her in passing, Draco found himself unable to say the three words that he wanted so desperately to say.

“Draco, what did you want to tell me?” she asked again, as if unsure he’d heard her or not.

“I wanted to say…you should give me a little more warning next time you feel like popping over. I could’ve had guests,” he said, with a soft shrug of his shoulders. That was not at all what he wanted to say, and almost immediately he inwardly cursed himself for being so cowardly.

Ginny just grinned at him. “You and I both know that the only guests aside from me that you ever have at this place are Theodore, Tracey, Zacharias, and Daphne - and I know for a fact that they all would rather spend time with each other than with you,” she said, sarcastically. She then chuckled a little at her own joke and headed off into the bedroom to collect the rest of her things, leaving Draco alone in the room and in his head.

The overwhelming question of it all was ‘when did it happen?’. Draco thought, as he stood there listening to the various sounds Ginny was making as she moved about the apartment straightening the bedroom and gathering her things. When had he fallen in love with her? When had their relationship - did what they had even constitute a relationship - changed? When had their affair become a love affair?

Draco ran a hand through his longish blond hair and absently scratched at the stubble on his chin. He didn’t like thinking about it. It was too hard, too strange, too…real. He had imagined his post-war life would be simple, he’d wanted it to be simple, but this had become almost too much. It was complicated; Ginny Weasley complicated his life.

“Why’d you have to walk into my life?” he said quietly. “Why’d you have to look so beautiful that night?” He sighed, shaking his head. He hated, more than anything, when he had those thoughts about her. It made him feel weak. But here he was now, remembering in the most vivid detail, the night that he had first met Ginny Weasley.

It had begun, fittingly, on a balcony at Malfoy Manor in the midst of a decadent party.

---- ----- ----- ------ ----- ----- ----

The air in the great ballroom was thick with smoke, sweat, and revelry, and it was getting to be too much for Draco. Ever since that summer three years ago that he’d spent in hiding, hearing about the deaths of his parents alone, endlessly waiting to be called to do something, and finally deciding that this side was not the side he wanted to be fighting on, Draco had learned to appreciate the beauty and intimacy of solitude. These days, he just liked to be alone. It was for that reason that he escaped Pansy’s clutches, passing her off easily into some other drunken war hero’s arms, picked up a glass of champagne, and slipped out onto the enclosed side balcony.

Despite its enclosure, the balcony was cold. Thick snowflakes fell, and the late night air was crisp and clear. The moon was almost full, and it illuminated the grounds, casting its pale light into the shadowy recesses of the place that Draco had come to hate in his two years as sole occupant. True, he enjoyed his solitude there, but the Manor was so large and so full of ugly, hateful memories.

When he walked out there, he at first just stood in the doorway, taking in the night air and the view of the moon, so he didn’t notice that he was not alone. But then she shifted ever so slightly, and Draco glanced over, his gaze then fixing intently upon her.

It was the first time that he had ever really looked at her. Certainly he had seen her around school and around Potter; he had seen her at Order meetings; he had seen her on the fields of battle, and he had definitely seen her tonight as she waltzed about with one or another of her friends and brothers, but he had never actually taken the time to look at Ginny Weasley.

She looked like one of those high-fashion models from Pansy’s magazines. Her body was all exquisite angles, softened ever so slightly by the feminine curves that her mother gave her. She had grown tall at some point (Draco had never paid attention enough to notice when), though he still towered at least a whole head over her. She was wearing a long white strapless gown, standing with her back to him, one arm wrapped around her waist and the other extended, holding a champagne glass casually with her fingertips.

He almost turned back and went inside; obviously this was her place, hers, and he did not need to be disturbing her tranquility. But Draco moved forward anyway, taking his place at her side and resting his forearms on the balcony’s rail. “It’s almost midnight,” he said. “Why aren’t you inside?”

Ginny sighed, not turning to him. “I needed a moment alone,” she replied, and then took a sip from her glass. “Why aren’t you inside?”

“The same,” Draco answered candidly.

His frankness seemed to surprise her. She was deceivingly nonchalant about it, yes, but Draco had learned to pick up on the subtlest details. (Severus Snape had proven a fascinating character study during their stint as roommates-in-hiding.) The almost-imperceptible quirk of her right eyebrow coupled with the slight shift of her footing let him know that she certainly hadn’t been expecting an honest answer out of him. Perhaps she hadn’t been expecting anything out of him at all, he thought. If he were her, he certainly wouldn’t have.

“Not exactly your scene?” she asked. “Then, why did you invite us?”

Draco didn’t quite know what to say to her. He hadn’t set off to have a full-scale New Year’s Eve party at the Manor, but after a Christmas dinner date with Tracey Davis that ended in three bottles of merlot and a confession that she’d ‘always loved Theodore, but he was too stubborn to notice,’ Draco had offered to have her and Theodore, as well as a select few others over for a small get-together. The select few others had somehow turned into the entire resistance army from three years before. But, Draco didn’t feel like getting into all of that. “Who wants to be alone on New Year’s Eve?” he replied.

Ginny let out a short laugh that cut right through Draco. It was musical, almost harmonious, and very beautiful. It fit her perfectly. “Who, indeed,” she rejoined. She finally turned to look at him then, and Draco’s breath caught in his chest. If he thought she was beautiful from behind, she looked positively stunning head-on. Her fiery red hair was pulled into an elegant knot at the nape of her neck, which was unadorned by any jewelry. She had lined her eyes lightly with black kohl, just enough to define them, and she’d applied a dusky rose color to her full lips. Stunning - that was the only adjective he could think of to describe her.

“What are you looking at?” she asked, after a moment of watching him watch her.

Draco blinked, unaware that he’d been staring at her for almost a minute. “Nothing,” he said quickly, a little too quickly, because she smirked at him. He didn’t like that. He wanted to have the upper hand. And suddenly, he was wondering why he was even still standing here. He could just go back inside, couldn’t he? But this was his balcony - she should be the one to leave. He then stared pointedly at her champagne glass. “Aren’t you a little young to be drinking that?” he chided.

Ginny just rolled her eyes and turned away to face out over the grounds again. “I’m only a year younger than you, Malfoy, and I’ve been old enough to drink for a year now.”

“Oh right,” he conceded, choosing not to pester her any further on the issue. After all, he reasoned with himself, he’d come out of the party for a little peace and quiet and fighting with the Weasley girl wasn’t exactly going to help.

Again, she seemed surprised by him, and that made him smile, which he hid from her by taking a sip of his champagne. A silence fell between them, then, but Draco found it to be very comfortable. It was the kind of silence that old friends shared; it was a silence he’d never expected to share with anyone, let alone one of the Weasleys.

Several comfortable minutes ticked away, and when Draco looked down at his watch, it told him that midnight was only eight minutes away. “I should get back inside…I’m sure Pansy is looking for me.” Without waiting for her to respond, he turned around and started to walk away.

“You know,” said Ginny, “I really don’t like it here.”

Draco paused mid-step and turned around, a softly quizzical expression on his face. “Why not?” he asked.

Ginny turned around, resting her bum against the railing and crossing her arms over her chest. “Are you offended?”

He wasn’t, but he wasn’t about to let her know that. “Yes. If you don’t like it so much then why did you come?”

“Everyone else was coming here, so it’s not like I had much of a choice,” she said nonchalantly, shrugging her shoulders.

Draco pursed his lips gently, but walked forward again and rested his forearms back on the railing. “I suppose.” He paused momentarily. “So, if Potter and the rest of your brood hadn’t been invited, you wouldn’t have come?”

“No,” said Ginny simply.

Draco inwardly thanked Daphne Greengrass’s inability to keep her mouth shut, and he thanked her even more when he noticed Ginny’s slight shift to her right so that their arms were gently touching.

“I’m thinking of selling the Manor,” said Draco, then, taking another sip of his champagne.

Ginny looked genuinely surprised and curious. “Why?”

A small half-smile appeared on his lips, one devoid of any trace of sarcasm. “I don’t like it here either.”

She smirked, looking adorably suspicious, and if Draco were the type to fall for cuteness, it would have been all over. “You’re just saying that,” she said, an eyebrow raised.

He shook his head. “No, I’m not. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, actually. I’ve got a flat uptown that suits me much more than this drafty, empty, old place.” Draco looked at her, wondering why he was being so honest with her, of all people. “The Manor’s just too much for one person.”

“That makes sense,” said Ginny, and what was that hesitation? Draco smiled, attempting to hide it again, but she caught him this time. “You have a nice smile when it isn’t a smirk,” she added, offering a smile of her own.

If there were any rational thoughts in Draco’s head, they had all but left him behind. He stepped forward, invading her personal space and feeling the soft satin of her dress against his legs. Ginny’s mouth opened into an O of surprise, but she quickly closed it again, a smoldering look appearing in her eyes that made Draco weak at the knees.

“Malfoy, I--” She was interrupted then, as the guests in the ballroom began the countdown to midnight. Ten, nine…

“You know what they say about midnights?” said Ginny quickly.

Seven, six, five…

“What?” he responded.

“However you spend your midnight, that’s how you’ll spend the rest of your year.”

Three, two…

Draco stepped closer, lifting a hand to Ginny’s cheek. “That’s rubbish.” His hand slid down to her chin and tilted her face up to his. “I don’t believe that at all.”

“HAPPY NEW YEAR!” came the loud cry from the ballroom, but neither Draco nor Ginny could hear them. Obliviously, they rang in the New Year together.

---- ----- ----- ------ ----- ----- ----

“So did you want to come to Daphne’s show with Tracey and I?” Ginny called from the bedroom. “I guess Theodore’s uninterested as usual, so she’s bringing Fred as her date, and I refuse to go to a fashion show as a third wheel to a couple that includes one of my brothers.”

“Nott won’t be happy about that,” Draco murmured.

Ginny came back into the room again, snickering a little as Draco hadn’t moved from the column. “What’d you say?”

“Nott won’t be happy about that,” he repeated. He then turned around to look at her, unable to keep a small smile from tugging at the corners of his lips, though he didn’t know whether it was because he knew that making Nott angry was exactly the point or because Ginny looked so absolutely beautiful standing there with her jacket draped over her arm and her hair like molten lava falling down around her shoulders.

Ginny smirked at him. “What are you looking at?” she asked coyly.

The woman I love, he thought, and the smile immediately fell away and was replaced with a pensive frown.

“Oi, what?” Ginny had noticed his sudden change of expression. She walked up to him, placing her hands on his bare shoulders. “What’s wrong, Draco?”

“Nothing,” he said quietly. “Just, you know, the relationship dramatics of Nott and Davis bore me.”

Ginny rolled her eyes. “Right.” She then turned away again, shimmying into her coat and spouting more details about the upcoming show, but Draco was lost in his own thoughts again.

He didn’t know when it had become that -- straightforward, out-and-out, unwavering love -- mainly because he was never completely sure if it was love. The overwhelming fact of it all was that he had never been in love before, so he could not be certain that what this was constituted love. He did suppose that love was probably different for everyone; that no two people loved in exactly the same way, or if they did, it was because the two of them were meant for one another. Certainly, he and Ginny were not meant for one another. Ginny was meant for Potter or Longbottom or some other well-meaning, heroic, sickeningly nice Gryffindor good guy. She was meant for better things than what he, himself, could offer her.

But why did she keep coming back, he wondered. There had to be a reason she continued to wind up in his arms, his flat, his bed time and time again. Night after glorious night, he would answer the door, and she would be there with her look of intense, insatiable want. She was like a fire goddess, burning with unspent passion, and just seeing her like that was enough to make him weak at the knees.

There was no one else like her in the whole world. And so it had to be love.

“Ginny, I --”

Ginny looked up at him with innocently expectant eyes.

“I will see you tomorrow?” He looked away then and missed the brief look of disappointment that flashed over Ginny’s face.

“All right,” she responded, her tone light. “Where did you want to meet for dinner?”

“Here is fine,” he replied. “Seven o’clock.”

“All right.” She stepped forward to give him a chaste kiss on the lips. “Until tomorrow.”

Draco followed her to the door and watched her Disapparate once she had passed the wards that separated his flat from the rest in the complex. His eyes remained on the spot she had vacated for several minutes after she was gone, until he finally forced himself to shut the door. He placed his palms flat and rested his forehead against the cold, unforgiving wood.

“I love you.”

He wondered if he would ever be able to say it while she was still there.

FIN