Pairings: Draco/Ginny (minor: Harry/Ginny, Ron/Hermione)

Disclaimers: All characters of Harry Potter belong rightfully to J.K. Rowling and not to me.

Rating: PG-13

Summary: A woman's heart is a precipice of lost loves, chanting to her on the day of her marriage. Draco/Ginny, Harry/Ginny

Feedback: isabelle@komodo-skin.com

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A woman's heart is a precipice of lost loves, chanting to her on the day of her marriage. It felt like a deafening sound, a chanting demon that had inhabited her heart and was twisting her fibrous chords.

She felt her lungs contract and sweat begin to trickle over her fine brow.

"It's natural, dear," her mother told her as she stoically stood before the mirror. "Every bride goes through it. Ask me... or Hermione."

She could vaguely see Hermione, encouraging her with her blossoming pregnant smile. Yes... but Hermione had never doubted her love for her brother.

Ginny now wondered if she was marrying a childish dream, marrying the house with the Ken-doll. She could bear all plastic smiles, she could learn to dissipate false feelings from what really mattered in life. She could learn to do all that.

But her heart was still opened. Unfinished kisses, unsaid words, untouched parts... too many...

"Let me be, Weasley. No one can save me... not even you and your pallid skin."

She gasped.

"I need... I need s-some air."

Her mother nodded wildly, Ginny feared her loose bun might become undone. "Of course, come girls." Like a sheepdog she cleared the room leaving Ginny to breathe the air contaminated by false thoughts and empty dreams.

Her hands were shaking in their gloves and she was dressed in a purity she didn't adhere to.

No. She wanted this. She'd wanted this since the day she first saw him. She'd loved Harry all of her life, with all of her soul and all of her being. Almost losing him one too many times, having him at last was a completion of her essence. She had Mecca'd.

"I hear the Gryffindor Princess is getting married. To it's king. How touching... how very... Arthurian."

Tears shot to her eyes. This was a nightmare. A pure nightmare. Trust it to her to conjure up lost images and forgotten words of a past time... remembering those short hours that made her doubt her entire life.

Damn him.

She knew she had hurt him. Hurt him more than any of Harry and Ron's plans or Hermione's loose knuckles. Or his father... yes. The irony that kills us. He was defeated by her, he was defeated by love.

He was too evil to have such an emotion. Respect he could have but never love. It wasn't in his nature.

"You stupid cow! What have you done to me? You've driven me mad... I can't think and I question everything I do! Tell me! Un-jinx me!"

She looked up once more to the mirror. Damn her. Damn her and her memories. She should've washed them off her soggy brain. He was receiving his vengeance for his pain... he was destroying her in turn. She might as well died those ten hours she spent with him.

Ten hours. How easily those go by when you're busy with life. Busy enjoying life's warm smiles and her embracing arms. But how cold and long those hours seem when her back is turned.

"You stay in your side and I stay in my side and we wait for SuperPotter to rescue the damsel in distress."

"I guess I still need a bit of rescuing... Draco."

There she'd said it. She'd spoken his name. True, it was a whisper but a whisper to a silent room can sound like thunder. And life goes by.

A knock on the door.

"Ginny, dear... it's time."

Her heart sped up. No.

She wasn't ready... she wasn't done. She felt like she was dying. Dying without saying her goodbyes. Walking down any aisle to a waiting Harry would be the beginning of a new life. She would no longer think of Draco Malfoy and how she felt in his arms. It was would the lid to a coffin that should've buried long ago.

Especially when he became a Death Eater. When their eyes met in the final battle.

He was there, next to her his father and she was there... next to Harry. He'd hated her then, he'd truly hated her then. My... how hate can spring such love.

"You can be so much more, Draco. You can be grand, do such good."

"I want no part in any reformation! I have no interested in become Saint Potter II. So go spread your gospel to someone else, my ears are deaf to your yapping."

She had tried, had she not? True, he mostly didn't listen out of bitterness... but she had tried. She had tried to say her goodbyes... but they were ill received.

"You've come to say goodbye. I know, love. I heard. Go on... I have no intent on stopping you. Once in love with Potter, always in love with Potter, no? You must be in Witch's Weekly most hated list... go on... GO! GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME."

That was the last time she had seen him. Alone and drunk by a Muggle bar, all dirty and tattered. It had broken her heart all over again. At first he hadn't let her speak... until she was leaving, her heart shattering, her tears running.

"Ginny... wait..." his voice was nearly a whisper. "Did you ever... did you ever think that maybe... maybe if things between you and I were different... if I wasn't Draco Malfoy and you weren't Ginny Weasley... do you think you could ever... have... maybe... supposing--"

"Love you?" she had asked, her back was still to him. She didn't want him to see her shame. Her insecurities and the amount of times she had asked herself that same question.

"Yes." it was a hiss. As if he despised the notion itself. As if it would kill him to merely consider NOT being a Malfoy. To consider that perhaps they had a tenth of a chance.

"Draco... if I wasn't me and you weren't you... and I was not getting married to a man I love then 'yes'. Yes, I would place my heart on the scale." she had laughed rather emptily. "If you didn't bear a mark... I would... I would..."

"You would what?" he was standing now, rather soberly and staring down at her, his eyes so full of hope. Wonderful hopeful eyes that saw right through her. "Tell me, Ginny..." his voice cracked. "I would cut my own arm off if it meant..."

And she would've drowned in him that night. She would've lost herself in his empty promises and the smell of bourbon on his lips. She could've died that night but she would have loved him. She would've allowed herself to love him that night and to for once in her life forget Harry. She would've.

But she didn't. Because as she raised her hand to his pale cheek she saw a glint of her ring. She belonged to someone. That someone wasn't Draco Malfoy.

"I wish you happiness, Draco. That someday, somewhere you'll be able to love once more. That someone would love you without limitations. No matter how far I run with you my heart will still have a jailer. A jailer I voluntarily took on. I am bound to Harry... and not just because of the blood ritual we made the night Voldermort died... he lives in me. Love never dies. As long as I live there will be a piece of my heart that will belong to him... just like a piece of my heart will always belong to you."

That sparked a life in his lips. "Take care of that little piece, eh? Wouldn't want it getting soiled by that wanker."

She had nodded and walked away from him that night.

"Ginny!"

Her hear snapped and she starred wildly at the pounding door.

"Ginny, really!"

Her mother was loosing her patience and Ginny was loosing her mind.

SNAP!

She jumped at the shock of having something thrown at her window. Picking up her large skirts she went to the window to look down into the night.

She was loosing her mind without doubt. There he stood. Dressed from head to toe in black as he always wore.

Draco.

She opened her window quickly and without thinking and leaned out.

"Come down," he hissed.

She was affronted. "No! I'm getting married in a few minutes!"

At that he glared at her. "I know that! Come down, I need to tell you something."

Her heart was beating and her mother continued to pound at her door... was she mad? She was going to him. She was going to 'hear him out'. See him plea his case.

"Draco..."

"Trust me... I wont let you do anything you shouldn't do."

In his view point, marrying Harry was something she shouldn't do but there was something in the way he was pleading. He never pleaded.

With a nod and a flick of her wand she apparated next to him.

He gasped when he took a good look at her.

"Ginny... you look..."

She felt herself blushing entirely.

"Bloody beautiful."

"Thank you but I'm sure you didn't call me down here to admire me." she felt uncomfortable. She was afraid. Afraid he would ask her to come with him and this time she would give in.

"I might've."

"But you didn't"

He looked just like she had imagined him. Tall and gallant, elegant and handsome.

"Come this way," he reached out and grabbed her hand, pulling her to some bushes.

"Draco, what are--"

"I need to tell you something," he snapped at her. "Stop complaining."

She bit her lip. She would've ate him out in other circumstances. So she let him lead her down a path until they were in a small clearing completely surrounded by bushes.

"Nice," she quipped.

He tore his hand from her and she felt the loss deep inside of her. Like he was letting her go. He started pacing, running his hands through his shoulder-length hair. He looked so much like his father now. Genetics were inescapable. He could betray him, renounce his name but Lucius would haunt Draco for the rest of his life.

It was then that she noticed his face... full of scars.

"What's happened to you?" She walked closer and he let her, let her touch with her gloved hand the scars he had earned.

"The Ministry is not too kind to former Death Eaters." he drawled. There was hate in his eyes. Real hate. Not petty childish tantrums but real hate. He had become a man.

She gasped at his words. "No--"

"There are things that happen that not even your dear father would know of, Ginny." he sighed and pulled himself from her hand. "It was my decision. My decision to join my father." The word 'father' sounded like a curse.

"I know," she simply stated. Her voice sounded rather hollow.

"Look, I didn't come to talk of this..."

"What did you come to talk about?"

"I..." he growled and cursed. "I had it all planned in my head, you know?"

"I am not running away from my marriage." There. She'd said it. He would have to accept it.

He stopped his avoidance and looked at her.

"I didn't come to ask you to run away." His voice was shaking ever so slightly. "I didn't come to stop your wedding or wreck havoc... or bring doubts to your mind."

"Good. Because I think you should understand that no matter what you say today I will still marry Harry."

"I want you to marry Potter." he chuckled. "You'd think I want you to stay with someone like me? I would soil your dress... I know I'm not the man Potter is. Can't ever be a knight in shinning armour... brave and steady..."

Her heart was breaking once more. How did he ever gain control over her heart?

"You need that... you deserve that, Ginny. I figured it all out, you see. That's why I came..." he took a shuddering breath and held her gaze. "I was going mad, you know... knowing that no matter what I did or what I'd done different you'd never walk down my aisle... that you'd never choose me."

She began to speak, this was too much. His pain was radiating in waves, his acceptance of the pain.

"Just hear me out, eh?"

She nodded.

"The words you told me last time we spoke... they kept haunting me. Haunted me that cell they put me in... I could hear your voice and I could see your face... and I knew. I knew your memories of me were surely killing you just as much as they were eating me inside. Then I got a piece of The Daily Prophet. You and Potter were in it... visiting a gala opening." His eyes were bright with tears. "God, Ginny... you looked so beautiful."

He was looking at her in something akin to wonder, it was such a powerful look that she had to control herself from looking away.

"That's when I knew. I knew something as lovely as you was meant to live happy. With no shadows in the night, with nothing but sun toasting your skin--"

"How poetic."

"I think I'm becoming a ponce."

She laughed at that and he returned her smile, stretching his scars finely over his features.

"I know you were having... doubts, Ginny. Up there, in your room... wondering if marriage to Potter was the way to happiness."

She felt a bit faint at his words. The truth was too powerful to be concealed.

"So I came... I came to tell you that it's alright to love many people in your life. A woman's heart is a precipice of lost loves, chanting to her on the day of her marriage."

Tears spilled from her eyes at that and she let out a little sob. "You come out of nowhere and speak the words that are in my heart... and then you expect me to go down that aisle and close the book of you and I?"

He took her upper arms and she swore she was lost right there and then. If he would've asked her to jump with him, she would never looked back.

"I'm not asking you to close anything... I'm asking you to let things rest. Those hours... the hours we spent together locked because of Longbottom's stupid spell I'm going to remember and treasure them for the rest of my life. They kept me alive those long days in my cell. They saved me, Ginny. They became my conscience..."

"Oh, tell me to go with you!" she cried and she clutched on to him, letting herself feel what she had not felt in nearly a decade. "Love like this can't be so wrong if it's so unforgettable."

He held her like she would disintegrate, she could feel his raggedy breath on her neck and that only made her more frantic.

"Please, please tell me to come with you, please--"

But he never did. He never told her to come with him. He let her go and held her at arms' length, leaning in to kiss her forehead.

"What are you--"

"Giving the bride away."

"So this is it?" she cried. "You come here, let lose all of these emotions I shouldn't even be having, on my wedding day none the less! All so you can say goodbye?"

"Let go of me, Ginny... let go of us. You have to." he pleaded with her.

She stared at him, those once-icy cool eyes now melted her right to her core. They made her want things she never thought she'd want before, they made her want to go places she's never dreamt of. How could she let that go? Let go of that first love, let go of those hands that first touched her intimately.

"Don't you love me?" she whispered, it was now her who was begging.

He smiled at her and two quick tears slithered themselves down his cheeks. "More than you'll ever know."

She nodded. "I know."

They were quiet, just staring at each other. The hardest thing in life is to let go of something once loved.

"Listen," he started very briskly. "If things between you and Potter not work out... look me up. Somewhere south, I think. Maybe near Egypt. Got some land there still... spend a few decades abroad. Might be nice."

"You need not doubt it." she smiled and her heart felt light, almost... free.

She had finally let go. She had finally grown-up. She knew her course in life and knew it didn't include Draco Malfoy in it... at least not now. Not right now.

For now she needed her happy ending.

"Take care of Potter. He thinks he's alright but I think he needs loads of work... childhood trauma and all."

Her laugher turned to a hint of sadness as he nodded and turned around.

"Draco!"

He stopped and looked at her once more.

"Thank you."

He smiled. "You're welcomed, Mrs. Potter." He disapparated before her.

She took a deep breath. "Goodbye, Draco."

"GENEVRA MARIA WEASLEY!"

"I'm coming, mother," she murmured as she walked towards the burrow.

It was time to get married.

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THE END

A/N: I'm quite known for enjoying a bittersweet ending. This was, however, just pure torture to write. I admit it's rather sad but angst is what I specialize in. ;)