Thursday morning was Ginny’s favorite time of the week; the St. Mungo’s nurses were not expected in until ten o’clock, as opposed to the usual seven, and so she had the privilege of sleeping late. She was glad to wake up in an empty bed; usually Seamus used Thursday mornings as their designated day for sex, but Ginny ached from the night before, and she was feeling disinclined to even so much as look her husband in the eye.
The mirror over the dresser had a good deal to say about Ginny’s black-and-blue body, as she slipped into the plainest bra and underwear set she could find, determined to put Seamus off if he should walk in on her. Then she walked, yawning, into the kitchen, where she poured herself a bowl of cereal, proceeding to slop milk over the table.
“Clean that up,” said Seamus brusquely, walking in with a stack of newspapers in his arms. Ginny glared at him; she was tempted to throw the dish towel at him, but instead swiped at the milk, knowing that the towel would smell like sour milk, afterwards, but not caring.
“We’re not in the papers,” said Seamus, finally, when Ginny didn’t even acknowledge his presence opposite her. He shoved the Daily Prophet and Wizarding Vanguard across the table at her, and she finally stopped spooning cereal into her mouth long enough to look up at her husband.
He grinned—a sheepish, relieved smile. Normally Ginny would smile back, swept away by his Irish-boy charm and handsome features, but not this morning. She glanced down at the papers; the Daily Prophet’s front page featured an article on the first-ever wizarding museum, and the Wizarding Vanguard was fussing about a dragon sighting in Uzbekistan. Only the Quibbler was still running anything on the string of pureblood burglaries; a tiny article rehashing the robberies and asking for tips of any kind sat in the bottom corner of page four.
“I guess you not managing to nick anything means he won’t come after us,” said Seamus, his voice already ringing with his incessant good cheer. “What luck, eh?”
Ginny shook her head, and Seamus’s bright mood immediately vanished.
“Fuck, Gin—what did you take?” Seamus moaned, his face sagging.
“A music box,” said Ginny. “I had it in my coat pocket—and then he stopped me, and I dropped the burlap sack, but I still had the music box in my pocket, and I—I just went running out with it.”
Seamus dropped his head to his hands, and groaned loudly.
“Perfect,” he muttered. “Absolutely bloody wonderful! Now we’ll have Malfoy breathing down our necks until the Department comes after us, and then we’ll land ourselves in Azkaban. Well done, Ginny, really!”
“It’s not my fault!” Ginny screeched, standing up abruptly, chair scraping the linoleum floor. “I might remind you that this entire scheme has been your idea since the beginning—I only went along with it because I’m married to a sodding layabout who can’t hold down a steady job, and has to resort to petty theft to pay the bills!”
Seamus was crimson-faced with anger. He, too, stood up, the chair toppling over behind him; he took two great steps towards Ginny, and bent over to roar in her face. Then he saw the glistening tears in her eyes.
“Oh, Gin,” he sighed, the words emerging as a guttural moan. He reached out for her, one hand grasping at her waist, the other growing closer to her breast; she was upset, of course, and misplacing her anger, and he mustn’t get angry with her over it…better to let this descend into sex—sex of the best kind, furious and angry and rough and ultimately cathartic. Ginny would hold him, after that—his beautiful wife, nestled in his shoulder—and then they’d sort this through, together…
But she shoved him away ungraciously, scowling through her tears of rage.
“I don’t want to fuck, Seamus! That’s not going to make this any better! Can’t you just leave me well enough alone, for once? Just once!”
And she brushed past him, yanking her coat off the chair where she’d tossed it the night before, and stormed out of the flat in a storm cloud of fury, slamming the door behind her.
+++
The walk to Diagon Alley did Ginny good, but when she arrived at the entrance to St. Mungo’s, she hesitated. She had no desire to go to work today—to run about, following orders and preparing the food trays and throwing away the dried-up flowers and then replacing them with fresh ones. She knew she’d have hell to pay if she didn’t show up, but the bitter, resentful feeling burning in Ginny’s chest sent her walking straight past the hospital to the joke shop her brothers ran, just around the corner.
Fred’s wife, Verity, was sitting at the counter, flipping through a magazine and listening to the wireless. When the bells jingled, and Ginny entered, she smiled sweetly and beckoned her over. As Ginny approached, trying to muster a friendly face, Verity shouted for the twins.
“Ginny!” Fred cried with gusto, as he emerged from the workroom, soot spotting his temples and chin. George looked equally messy, but he proceeded to clean himself up on his own—Verity had already licked her fingers and wiped the smudges off Fred’s face for him, her motherly side ever-present.
“What are you doing here, Ginny?” asked George quietly, noticing her disheveled appearance and the angry look she couldn’t manage to erase from her face. “Things get rough at home, again?”
“You could say that,” said Ginny with a sigh. She put on the falsest smile she could conjure, and chirped, “I need you two to cheer me up!”
Fred laughed, and offered to show her their latest merchandise, but ever-perceptive George just shook his head, and drew her into the workroom. The tables were covered with black dust, and a strange box on the tabletop squeaked as soon as Ginny sank onto the workbench.
“Ignore that,” said George seriously, when Ginny leaped up, alarmed. “It’s not important. What is important is the way you look today—miserable, and sallow, and defeated.”
She rolled her eyes, but George pressed on.
“What’s the matter lately, Gin? You look overtired and unhappy every time I see you—which, in the past three months, has been rare enough. What’s Seamus up to, these days, that you’re in such a state?”
“Oh, being his usual self—selfish and lazy,” Ginny replied, not without bitterness. “I’m working endless shifts at St. Mungo’s to make ends meet—but Mum assures me things will work out, eventually. I just need to pop out a few kids, and then all will be well!” She finished in a nervous singsong, and George peered at her anxiously.
“Gin—” George began, and then he trailed off, obviously uncomfortable.
“What, George?” Ginny asked, sighing with exasperation. “What can you possibly have to say—do you agree with Mum, then?”
“No!” George shouted, frustrated. “Children is not the answer to this problem—do you even know what it would be like to have a baby in the house, with you like this? Luna’s exhausted with Mabel, and she works from home, and sleeps late each morning, and doesn’t run about on her feet like you do! And she has me, doing my best to help out—which Seamus clearly doesn’t.”
“Don’t insult my husband, George,” Ginny recited in a monotone. “That’s my job.”
“Ginny, you need to listen to me. Listen to me!” George’s eyes flashed, and he tugged her upright, forcing her to meet his gaze. “I like Seamus just as much as the next bloke—he’s handsome as hell, and a good laugh at parties, and can drink anyone under the table—but that doesn’t mean he’s the right man for you, Gin! You’ve been miserable since the month after your honeymoon, and dirt poor, besides. And these past few months, I’ve never seen you so worn out and troubled-looking. Something’s not right.”
He sighed, and then barreled on.
“I know what everybody says—what Mum says—about…divorce, and all that. It isn’t done. But sometimes it has to be done, for everybody’s good—I can’t imagine Seamus is happy, either, with you in this state. Sometimes things don’t work out, and you need to accept that, and try and fix things for the better, and a separation might be for the best, Ginny.”
“I’ve only been married two years, George.”
“Two years is enough to realize things aren’t working,” George insisted.
Ginny found herself frowning, and she shook her head stubbornly. “I can’t leave Seamus. I can’t. At least, not yet, anyhow.”
“Not yet?” George asked, arching an eyebrow.
“Yes. Not yet,” said Ginny firmly, and she stared fiercely at her feet, face screwed up as though she were caught between crying and shouting.
“What on earth are you waiting for?” George bellowed, and Fred and Verity’s light chatter, which had been filtering through the door, suddenly ceased.
“It’s none of your business, George!” Ginny snapped. “I’m twenty-two years old, and I can make my own decisions—my older brother doesn’t have anything to do with my marriage, falling apart or not! I’ll leave Seamus if and when I’m good and ready…I’m just biding my time, until…”
She met George’s eyes uncomfortably, and comprehension dawned. His jaw dropped ever so slightly, and his eyes widened.
“Oh, Ginny—Ginny, you bloody fool. You’re not.”
“So what if I am, George? I waited for him once before.”
“Ginny! Harry’s been married for almost a year now—he’s happy as a clam with Natalie! Just because he dated you at sixteen doesn’t mean he has any intention of divorcing his wife and marrying you!”
“Not now, he doesn’t,” said Ginny grimly.
“Not ever! Ginny, are you absolutely mad?”
“I saw the way he looked at me at my wedding, George!” Ginny declared. “He wanted me then—and he wants me now. I was a stupid girl, and I married Seamus to hurt him, out of spite—all because silly Cho got her claws into him at the end of the war, and convinced him to sleep with her—and I married Seamus out of spite! And now I’m paying the price, yes, George…but he’ll realize, one day, that he’s just married to an imitation of Ginny Weasley, and when he does, he’ll come looking for the real thing, and I’ll be there, waiting.”
Ginny lifted her chin with more confidence than she really had, trying to fight back the tears that had been waiting to spill since the fight at the breakfast table earlier that morning.
“You fool,” George said slowly, regarding his little sister sadly. “You fool, Ginny. You’re married to a man you never loved, and you’re still angling after the impossible romance of your girlhood. Maybe, yeah, at your wedding, Harry still wanted you, but he’s moved on, Gin—and you still haven’t. You’re holding on to an eleven-year-old crush, and that’s unhealthy, Ginny. You need to give up, and move on. Divorce Seamus, and just…let go of Harry…and live your own life.”
“Don’t tell me what to do with my love life, George,” said Ginny, with steel in her voice, and she turned on her heel abruptly, brushing past an astonished Fred and Verity and out into the streets of Diagon Alley for the second time that morning.
+++
The society pages of Witch Weekly had never quite understood that Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson were not a couple; they dined together weekly at some of the finest restaurants in London, and were a picturesque pair—he fair-skinned and blond, tall and lithe; she dark and intense, with the curvaceous body of starlets from decades past—so they must, assumed the papers, be madly in love.
The two old friends found the idea ludicrous; they had been the closest of companions since childhood, but nothing more. They discounted their brief adolescent romance without second thought; schoolmates who didn’t understand that the intimacy they shared was of another form altogether than romantic love had been responsible for it.
They sat opposite one another in a cozy corner of Diagon Alley’s most expensive restaurant, Magoo’s. Pansy had ordered only a salad with some exotic dressing, while Draco had requested his usual three-course meal, dessert included.
He was only picking at it, though, as he continued, “So, she’s married to that Irish Finnegan, still pining after Saint Potter, and burglarizing our houses throughout. It’s like a trashy romance novel, isn’t it? Absolutely mad, but entirely intriguing. She spoke like a Slytherin, Pans, about Potter and all of them, about revenge and the like—I am telling you, it was remarkable.”
Pansy shrugged.
“I suppose,” she allowed. “I’m less interested in her motives than in retrieving my stolen property.”
“Well, I’m not,” said Draco, and Pansy looked at him with curious eyes. “It’s far more interesting delving into the mind of the criminal mastermind behind the act than disciplining it. Anyone intelligent enough not to get caught shouldn’t be punished.”
“You caught her,” Pansy reminded him.
“That’s different,” said Draco, cocking an eyebrow with arrogance—Pansy laughed out loud. “I’m not a Malfoy for nothing, after all,” he said with a sneer.
“No, you’re not,” Pansy agreed, and the table settled into silence for a moment, before she suddenly spoke up again, and asked, “Well—what are you going to do about her?”
“What do you mean?” Draco asked, taking a sip of wine and tilting his head. The childish gesture made Pansy smile, but she pressed on.
“About the Weasley girl. Are you turning her in?”
Draco shrugged. “Why should I? They’ll find her eventually.”
“Because I want my things back! I want my grandmother’s ruby hand mirror back!” Pansy cried fretfully, scowling at her friend. “Honestly, Draco, you would bore me to tears with your ruminations on the stupid Weasley girl, and then not even go to the Ministry about her!”
“My apologies for having bored you, Pans,” Draco said, his tone sarcastic. “I am merely intrigued by the redheaded thief who appeared in my parlor last week…as anyone would be, I imagine.”
“Intrigued isn’t the word,” said Pansy with sudden force. “What it is…is that you’re attracted to her.”
Draco looked up with a bewildered expression on his face.
“What?”
“You’re attracted to her! If she’s anything like she was in school, she’s still sexy with that insipid schoolgirl charm, and you’re attracted to her! That’s why you won’t report her to the authorities—and why you’re so dreadfully interested in her mix-ups with Finnegan and Potter.” Pansy wrinkled her nose, repulsed. “I’ll never understand what men see in those skinny types, with those silly upturned noses.”
“I’m not attracted to her! I’m intrigued by her!” Draco retorted. “Wouldn’t you have been, if you’d caught her? She had an interesting story to tell!”
“I’ll never understand why you’ve always been so fascinated by Potter and his gang,” Pansy sighed. “Who the fuck cares, Malfoy, honestly?”
Draco shrugged.
“They’re not as inferior as we’d like to believe, Pans,” he suggested. “Sometimes their antics prove to be…stimulating. Interesting.”
“I don’t think mental stimulation is entirely what you mean,” said Pansy with a knowing smirk, and she slipped her foot out of her shoe and across the space beneath the table, brushing her heel and then her toes against Draco’s crotch.
“And you wonder why the rumor mill insists we’re engaged,” Draco grumbled, reaching down to shove Pansy’s foot away as she giggled. “It’s not anything like that, Pansy—I am promising you. It was late, I was tired, and a girl I hadn’t seen in nearly ten years appeared in my parlor, with the intention of robbing me. Can you blame me for asking her a few questions—and then finding her tale of revenge somewhat of interest?”
“Perhaps not,” said Pansy, and when Draco sighed in annoyance, she continued, “I’ll tell you what will convince me, Malfoy…”
“What’s that?”
Pansy jammed her elbows into the tabletop, and leaned forward conspiratorially.
“Get your music box back,” she whispered, a grin twitching at the corners of her lips. “Prove to me she’s just a thorn in your side, nothing more, and bring back what she’s stolen from you…then I’ll believe that you’re not secretly lusting for the Weasley brat.”
“Fine,” said Draco, holding out a hand to seal the deal. “I’ll retrieve my music box.”
“Lovely,” said Pansy, and she stood, slipping her pocketbook over her shoulder, and tossing her thick brown hair with the practiced air of one aware of the constant presence of the paparazzi. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have my beauty rest to attend to—it’s nearly midnight, you git! You’ve kept me talking for three hours!”
“My sincerest regrets, Pansy, darling,” Draco drawled, smiling at her. “I’ll see you next week.”
“With the music box,” Pansy stipulated, arching an eyebrow and pointing an admonitory finger at him. “And my hand mirror, if you can manage it!” she added, before waltzing out of the restaurant to a swirl of flashbulbs and eager photographers.
+++
She was surprisingly easy to find.
The building her flat was in was drab and small; the stairs that wound up to the fifth floor echoed; the paint on the walls was chipping slowly away. She was flat number nine. There wasn’t a doorbell.
He knocked only once, and she answered the door wearing a raggedy t-shirt from a concert that had taken place before she was born, and a pair of denim jeans, torn at the knees and frayed at the hems.
“You,” she said, abruptly. The smell of Firewhisky reached Draco’s nose at once. He took a closer look, and noticed the glaze over her eyes, and the way in which she held herself, as though she were straining to relax, but failing.
“You’re drunk,” he remarked, and she smiled lazily, taking obvious pleasure in her current state, and replied, “That I am.”
She stepped back, inviting him into her home without so much as a second thought. She turned and walked towards the kitchen table with a sort of swaying motion to her hips, humming loudly and laughing at how off-key she was.
“Seamus is out,” she said. Draco hadn’t asked, but perhaps he’d appeared hesitant about entering; he tried to school his features into an expression of indifference, not wanting to replay the scene from his own home, with the tables turned.
“He’s playing cards with his friends,” Ginny specified. She made a face, and tittered overly loudly. Draco winced.
The kitchen was filthy, but he took a seat in the least sticky-looking of the chairs, and relaxed for a moment. Ginny was refilling her glass with a serious air; some of the Firewhisky slopped over onto the table without her notice.
“I want my music box back,” he informed her, and she nodded as though she’d expected it.
“It’s in the bedroom,” she said. She took an enormous gulp of her drink, making a sour face as she swallowed. “This is disgusting,” she said, pointing at the bottle.
“Then why are you drinking it?” Draco asked, amused.
Ginny was not laughing, however, and she stared at him intently, eyes huge, declaring, “Because I needed to get drunk. Badly.”
Draco stopped chuckling abruptly. There was something a little disturbing about this pretty young woman and her wild desperation; even as Ginny reverted to her former good cheer, dancing and giggling as she made her way to the bedroom, Draco could not shake the ominous feeling that now loomed over him like a persistent rain cloud.
The bedroom was small, like everything else. The bed was unmade, and there were clothes all across the floor, like a second layer of carpeting. The curtains were drawn, exiling the sun that gleamed outside in the bright, cold winter’s day.
At the foot of the bed was a trunk, and Ginny knelt, rummaging through the piles and piles of unfolded clothing. Draco stood awkwardly behind her, trying to concentrate on the music box that Ginny was searching for, and not what Pansy had said to him a few days earlier—“You’re attracted to her.” It wasn’t true, but it was hard to remember that with Ginny’s jeans riding down, exposing the dimples in her back, and with her hair falling forward, revealing a lovely neck which looked all too kissable from Draco’s angle.
“Oh,” said Ginny, suddenly freezing. “It’s in the other trunk.”
She rose, turning swiftly and somewhat unsteadily, and Draco couldn’t help but cast his eyes over her body, as quickly as he could manage, not wanting to admit even to himself that he was admiring the way the faded old t-shirt clung to her breasts, or the way her jeans showed off her hourglass figure to its best advantage.
“You’re staring,” Ginny announced, and Draco tore his eyes away from her form so rapidly that he felt suddenly dizzy.
“I was not,” he protested, but Ginny smirked and stepped closer.
“You were too,” she said, and she laughed—not one of her drunken giggles, but a throatier laugh that sent sparks down Draco’s spine. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise in an instant feeling of attraction; acknowledgement of the sharp arousal that had struck him would not do…but it was difficult to keep hold of that idea. She was toying with the edge of her t-shirt, now, pulling it upwards to reveal a flat stomach and a small navel and—a lacy green string, which dangled towards her bellybutton teasingly.
“What’re you looking at?” Ginny asked, quizzically, her eyebrows knitting together. She peered downwards and saw the green string, and laughed, tugging her t-shirt higher and tucking it under her chin so she could retie the bow on the green lace bra she wore so casually beneath the shabby shirt.
He wasn’t even conscious of moving; in a few moments he stood pressed against her, hands reaching blindly for her breasts, and head tilting to plant a kiss along her neck. His eyes were closed, and behind the lids danced colorful shadows. He was too enraptured to even steel himself for her withdrawal, but when she wound her arms around his neck and stood on tiptoe to brush her lips against his, he jolted with the realization that she had met his advances with her own.
His conscious thoughts seemed to be coming slowly, as though they were fighting their way through a dense cloud. She began to kiss him all along his jaw, rubbing a hand against the day-old stubble on his cheek. He could taste the alcohol on her breath, as he turned his head to kiss her properly on the lips. He was met with fierce passion and a certain undeniable skill; her mouth was warm, and her fingers fisted in his hair in a pleasurable way. Draco was thrown momentarily off balance; who had taught the Weasley girl to kiss? Not Finnegan, surely?
If it wasn’t Finnegan, it was Potter, Draco concluded, knowing nothing else of Ginny’s relationship history. The thought of Harry Potter at a time like this, the bespectacled loon with the messy hair, sparked a fury in his body, a familiar fire that threatened to overwhelm him. Gasping for air, Draco wrenched himself free of Ginny’s embrace, and tried to compose himself.
“What?” she demanded, scowling; she looked as disheveled and shocked as he, but there was disappointment lingering in her eyes.
Draco gritted his teeth, and looked sharply towards the unmade bed, with the sheets smooth on one side, wrinkled on the other, the telltale mark of marital difficulties.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked, his voice gruffer than usual, the desperation clear.
“Do I look unsure?” Ginny snapped. He glanced at her, at the tension in her folded arms and squared jaw, the desire emanating from her body palpable and strong.
“No,” he said, and she smirked at him, a crooked smile the mirror image of his own, and reached for the hem of her t-shirt, tugging it over her head and tossing it onto the floor in one fluid movement.
The mirror over the dresser had a good deal to say about Ginny’s black-and-blue body, as she slipped into the plainest bra and underwear set she could find, determined to put Seamus off if he should walk in on her. Then she walked, yawning, into the kitchen, where she poured herself a bowl of cereal, proceeding to slop milk over the table.
“Clean that up,” said Seamus brusquely, walking in with a stack of newspapers in his arms. Ginny glared at him; she was tempted to throw the dish towel at him, but instead swiped at the milk, knowing that the towel would smell like sour milk, afterwards, but not caring.
“We’re not in the papers,” said Seamus, finally, when Ginny didn’t even acknowledge his presence opposite her. He shoved the Daily Prophet and Wizarding Vanguard across the table at her, and she finally stopped spooning cereal into her mouth long enough to look up at her husband.
He grinned—a sheepish, relieved smile. Normally Ginny would smile back, swept away by his Irish-boy charm and handsome features, but not this morning. She glanced down at the papers; the Daily Prophet’s front page featured an article on the first-ever wizarding museum, and the Wizarding Vanguard was fussing about a dragon sighting in Uzbekistan. Only the Quibbler was still running anything on the string of pureblood burglaries; a tiny article rehashing the robberies and asking for tips of any kind sat in the bottom corner of page four.
“I guess you not managing to nick anything means he won’t come after us,” said Seamus, his voice already ringing with his incessant good cheer. “What luck, eh?”
Ginny shook her head, and Seamus’s bright mood immediately vanished.
“Fuck, Gin—what did you take?” Seamus moaned, his face sagging.
“A music box,” said Ginny. “I had it in my coat pocket—and then he stopped me, and I dropped the burlap sack, but I still had the music box in my pocket, and I—I just went running out with it.”
Seamus dropped his head to his hands, and groaned loudly.
“Perfect,” he muttered. “Absolutely bloody wonderful! Now we’ll have Malfoy breathing down our necks until the Department comes after us, and then we’ll land ourselves in Azkaban. Well done, Ginny, really!”
“It’s not my fault!” Ginny screeched, standing up abruptly, chair scraping the linoleum floor. “I might remind you that this entire scheme has been your idea since the beginning—I only went along with it because I’m married to a sodding layabout who can’t hold down a steady job, and has to resort to petty theft to pay the bills!”
Seamus was crimson-faced with anger. He, too, stood up, the chair toppling over behind him; he took two great steps towards Ginny, and bent over to roar in her face. Then he saw the glistening tears in her eyes.
“Oh, Gin,” he sighed, the words emerging as a guttural moan. He reached out for her, one hand grasping at her waist, the other growing closer to her breast; she was upset, of course, and misplacing her anger, and he mustn’t get angry with her over it…better to let this descend into sex—sex of the best kind, furious and angry and rough and ultimately cathartic. Ginny would hold him, after that—his beautiful wife, nestled in his shoulder—and then they’d sort this through, together…
But she shoved him away ungraciously, scowling through her tears of rage.
“I don’t want to fuck, Seamus! That’s not going to make this any better! Can’t you just leave me well enough alone, for once? Just once!”
And she brushed past him, yanking her coat off the chair where she’d tossed it the night before, and stormed out of the flat in a storm cloud of fury, slamming the door behind her.
The walk to Diagon Alley did Ginny good, but when she arrived at the entrance to St. Mungo’s, she hesitated. She had no desire to go to work today—to run about, following orders and preparing the food trays and throwing away the dried-up flowers and then replacing them with fresh ones. She knew she’d have hell to pay if she didn’t show up, but the bitter, resentful feeling burning in Ginny’s chest sent her walking straight past the hospital to the joke shop her brothers ran, just around the corner.
Fred’s wife, Verity, was sitting at the counter, flipping through a magazine and listening to the wireless. When the bells jingled, and Ginny entered, she smiled sweetly and beckoned her over. As Ginny approached, trying to muster a friendly face, Verity shouted for the twins.
“Ginny!” Fred cried with gusto, as he emerged from the workroom, soot spotting his temples and chin. George looked equally messy, but he proceeded to clean himself up on his own—Verity had already licked her fingers and wiped the smudges off Fred’s face for him, her motherly side ever-present.
“What are you doing here, Ginny?” asked George quietly, noticing her disheveled appearance and the angry look she couldn’t manage to erase from her face. “Things get rough at home, again?”
“You could say that,” said Ginny with a sigh. She put on the falsest smile she could conjure, and chirped, “I need you two to cheer me up!”
Fred laughed, and offered to show her their latest merchandise, but ever-perceptive George just shook his head, and drew her into the workroom. The tables were covered with black dust, and a strange box on the tabletop squeaked as soon as Ginny sank onto the workbench.
“Ignore that,” said George seriously, when Ginny leaped up, alarmed. “It’s not important. What is important is the way you look today—miserable, and sallow, and defeated.”
She rolled her eyes, but George pressed on.
“What’s the matter lately, Gin? You look overtired and unhappy every time I see you—which, in the past three months, has been rare enough. What’s Seamus up to, these days, that you’re in such a state?”
“Oh, being his usual self—selfish and lazy,” Ginny replied, not without bitterness. “I’m working endless shifts at St. Mungo’s to make ends meet—but Mum assures me things will work out, eventually. I just need to pop out a few kids, and then all will be well!” She finished in a nervous singsong, and George peered at her anxiously.
“Gin—” George began, and then he trailed off, obviously uncomfortable.
“What, George?” Ginny asked, sighing with exasperation. “What can you possibly have to say—do you agree with Mum, then?”
“No!” George shouted, frustrated. “Children is not the answer to this problem—do you even know what it would be like to have a baby in the house, with you like this? Luna’s exhausted with Mabel, and she works from home, and sleeps late each morning, and doesn’t run about on her feet like you do! And she has me, doing my best to help out—which Seamus clearly doesn’t.”
“Don’t insult my husband, George,” Ginny recited in a monotone. “That’s my job.”
“Ginny, you need to listen to me. Listen to me!” George’s eyes flashed, and he tugged her upright, forcing her to meet his gaze. “I like Seamus just as much as the next bloke—he’s handsome as hell, and a good laugh at parties, and can drink anyone under the table—but that doesn’t mean he’s the right man for you, Gin! You’ve been miserable since the month after your honeymoon, and dirt poor, besides. And these past few months, I’ve never seen you so worn out and troubled-looking. Something’s not right.”
He sighed, and then barreled on.
“I know what everybody says—what Mum says—about…divorce, and all that. It isn’t done. But sometimes it has to be done, for everybody’s good—I can’t imagine Seamus is happy, either, with you in this state. Sometimes things don’t work out, and you need to accept that, and try and fix things for the better, and a separation might be for the best, Ginny.”
“I’ve only been married two years, George.”
“Two years is enough to realize things aren’t working,” George insisted.
Ginny found herself frowning, and she shook her head stubbornly. “I can’t leave Seamus. I can’t. At least, not yet, anyhow.”
“Not yet?” George asked, arching an eyebrow.
“Yes. Not yet,” said Ginny firmly, and she stared fiercely at her feet, face screwed up as though she were caught between crying and shouting.
“What on earth are you waiting for?” George bellowed, and Fred and Verity’s light chatter, which had been filtering through the door, suddenly ceased.
“It’s none of your business, George!” Ginny snapped. “I’m twenty-two years old, and I can make my own decisions—my older brother doesn’t have anything to do with my marriage, falling apart or not! I’ll leave Seamus if and when I’m good and ready…I’m just biding my time, until…”
She met George’s eyes uncomfortably, and comprehension dawned. His jaw dropped ever so slightly, and his eyes widened.
“Oh, Ginny—Ginny, you bloody fool. You’re not.”
“So what if I am, George? I waited for him once before.”
“Ginny! Harry’s been married for almost a year now—he’s happy as a clam with Natalie! Just because he dated you at sixteen doesn’t mean he has any intention of divorcing his wife and marrying you!”
“Not now, he doesn’t,” said Ginny grimly.
“Not ever! Ginny, are you absolutely mad?”
“I saw the way he looked at me at my wedding, George!” Ginny declared. “He wanted me then—and he wants me now. I was a stupid girl, and I married Seamus to hurt him, out of spite—all because silly Cho got her claws into him at the end of the war, and convinced him to sleep with her—and I married Seamus out of spite! And now I’m paying the price, yes, George…but he’ll realize, one day, that he’s just married to an imitation of Ginny Weasley, and when he does, he’ll come looking for the real thing, and I’ll be there, waiting.”
Ginny lifted her chin with more confidence than she really had, trying to fight back the tears that had been waiting to spill since the fight at the breakfast table earlier that morning.
“You fool,” George said slowly, regarding his little sister sadly. “You fool, Ginny. You’re married to a man you never loved, and you’re still angling after the impossible romance of your girlhood. Maybe, yeah, at your wedding, Harry still wanted you, but he’s moved on, Gin—and you still haven’t. You’re holding on to an eleven-year-old crush, and that’s unhealthy, Ginny. You need to give up, and move on. Divorce Seamus, and just…let go of Harry…and live your own life.”
“Don’t tell me what to do with my love life, George,” said Ginny, with steel in her voice, and she turned on her heel abruptly, brushing past an astonished Fred and Verity and out into the streets of Diagon Alley for the second time that morning.
The society pages of Witch Weekly had never quite understood that Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson were not a couple; they dined together weekly at some of the finest restaurants in London, and were a picturesque pair—he fair-skinned and blond, tall and lithe; she dark and intense, with the curvaceous body of starlets from decades past—so they must, assumed the papers, be madly in love.
The two old friends found the idea ludicrous; they had been the closest of companions since childhood, but nothing more. They discounted their brief adolescent romance without second thought; schoolmates who didn’t understand that the intimacy they shared was of another form altogether than romantic love had been responsible for it.
They sat opposite one another in a cozy corner of Diagon Alley’s most expensive restaurant, Magoo’s. Pansy had ordered only a salad with some exotic dressing, while Draco had requested his usual three-course meal, dessert included.
He was only picking at it, though, as he continued, “So, she’s married to that Irish Finnegan, still pining after Saint Potter, and burglarizing our houses throughout. It’s like a trashy romance novel, isn’t it? Absolutely mad, but entirely intriguing. She spoke like a Slytherin, Pans, about Potter and all of them, about revenge and the like—I am telling you, it was remarkable.”
Pansy shrugged.
“I suppose,” she allowed. “I’m less interested in her motives than in retrieving my stolen property.”
“Well, I’m not,” said Draco, and Pansy looked at him with curious eyes. “It’s far more interesting delving into the mind of the criminal mastermind behind the act than disciplining it. Anyone intelligent enough not to get caught shouldn’t be punished.”
“You caught her,” Pansy reminded him.
“That’s different,” said Draco, cocking an eyebrow with arrogance—Pansy laughed out loud. “I’m not a Malfoy for nothing, after all,” he said with a sneer.
“No, you’re not,” Pansy agreed, and the table settled into silence for a moment, before she suddenly spoke up again, and asked, “Well—what are you going to do about her?”
“What do you mean?” Draco asked, taking a sip of wine and tilting his head. The childish gesture made Pansy smile, but she pressed on.
“About the Weasley girl. Are you turning her in?”
Draco shrugged. “Why should I? They’ll find her eventually.”
“Because I want my things back! I want my grandmother’s ruby hand mirror back!” Pansy cried fretfully, scowling at her friend. “Honestly, Draco, you would bore me to tears with your ruminations on the stupid Weasley girl, and then not even go to the Ministry about her!”
“My apologies for having bored you, Pans,” Draco said, his tone sarcastic. “I am merely intrigued by the redheaded thief who appeared in my parlor last week…as anyone would be, I imagine.”
“Intrigued isn’t the word,” said Pansy with sudden force. “What it is…is that you’re attracted to her.”
Draco looked up with a bewildered expression on his face.
“What?”
“You’re attracted to her! If she’s anything like she was in school, she’s still sexy with that insipid schoolgirl charm, and you’re attracted to her! That’s why you won’t report her to the authorities—and why you’re so dreadfully interested in her mix-ups with Finnegan and Potter.” Pansy wrinkled her nose, repulsed. “I’ll never understand what men see in those skinny types, with those silly upturned noses.”
“I’m not attracted to her! I’m intrigued by her!” Draco retorted. “Wouldn’t you have been, if you’d caught her? She had an interesting story to tell!”
“I’ll never understand why you’ve always been so fascinated by Potter and his gang,” Pansy sighed. “Who the fuck cares, Malfoy, honestly?”
Draco shrugged.
“They’re not as inferior as we’d like to believe, Pans,” he suggested. “Sometimes their antics prove to be…stimulating. Interesting.”
“I don’t think mental stimulation is entirely what you mean,” said Pansy with a knowing smirk, and she slipped her foot out of her shoe and across the space beneath the table, brushing her heel and then her toes against Draco’s crotch.
“And you wonder why the rumor mill insists we’re engaged,” Draco grumbled, reaching down to shove Pansy’s foot away as she giggled. “It’s not anything like that, Pansy—I am promising you. It was late, I was tired, and a girl I hadn’t seen in nearly ten years appeared in my parlor, with the intention of robbing me. Can you blame me for asking her a few questions—and then finding her tale of revenge somewhat of interest?”
“Perhaps not,” said Pansy, and when Draco sighed in annoyance, she continued, “I’ll tell you what will convince me, Malfoy…”
“What’s that?”
Pansy jammed her elbows into the tabletop, and leaned forward conspiratorially.
“Get your music box back,” she whispered, a grin twitching at the corners of her lips. “Prove to me she’s just a thorn in your side, nothing more, and bring back what she’s stolen from you…then I’ll believe that you’re not secretly lusting for the Weasley brat.”
“Fine,” said Draco, holding out a hand to seal the deal. “I’ll retrieve my music box.”
“Lovely,” said Pansy, and she stood, slipping her pocketbook over her shoulder, and tossing her thick brown hair with the practiced air of one aware of the constant presence of the paparazzi. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have my beauty rest to attend to—it’s nearly midnight, you git! You’ve kept me talking for three hours!”
“My sincerest regrets, Pansy, darling,” Draco drawled, smiling at her. “I’ll see you next week.”
“With the music box,” Pansy stipulated, arching an eyebrow and pointing an admonitory finger at him. “And my hand mirror, if you can manage it!” she added, before waltzing out of the restaurant to a swirl of flashbulbs and eager photographers.
She was surprisingly easy to find.
The building her flat was in was drab and small; the stairs that wound up to the fifth floor echoed; the paint on the walls was chipping slowly away. She was flat number nine. There wasn’t a doorbell.
He knocked only once, and she answered the door wearing a raggedy t-shirt from a concert that had taken place before she was born, and a pair of denim jeans, torn at the knees and frayed at the hems.
“You,” she said, abruptly. The smell of Firewhisky reached Draco’s nose at once. He took a closer look, and noticed the glaze over her eyes, and the way in which she held herself, as though she were straining to relax, but failing.
“You’re drunk,” he remarked, and she smiled lazily, taking obvious pleasure in her current state, and replied, “That I am.”
She stepped back, inviting him into her home without so much as a second thought. She turned and walked towards the kitchen table with a sort of swaying motion to her hips, humming loudly and laughing at how off-key she was.
“Seamus is out,” she said. Draco hadn’t asked, but perhaps he’d appeared hesitant about entering; he tried to school his features into an expression of indifference, not wanting to replay the scene from his own home, with the tables turned.
“He’s playing cards with his friends,” Ginny specified. She made a face, and tittered overly loudly. Draco winced.
The kitchen was filthy, but he took a seat in the least sticky-looking of the chairs, and relaxed for a moment. Ginny was refilling her glass with a serious air; some of the Firewhisky slopped over onto the table without her notice.
“I want my music box back,” he informed her, and she nodded as though she’d expected it.
“It’s in the bedroom,” she said. She took an enormous gulp of her drink, making a sour face as she swallowed. “This is disgusting,” she said, pointing at the bottle.
“Then why are you drinking it?” Draco asked, amused.
Ginny was not laughing, however, and she stared at him intently, eyes huge, declaring, “Because I needed to get drunk. Badly.”
Draco stopped chuckling abruptly. There was something a little disturbing about this pretty young woman and her wild desperation; even as Ginny reverted to her former good cheer, dancing and giggling as she made her way to the bedroom, Draco could not shake the ominous feeling that now loomed over him like a persistent rain cloud.
The bedroom was small, like everything else. The bed was unmade, and there were clothes all across the floor, like a second layer of carpeting. The curtains were drawn, exiling the sun that gleamed outside in the bright, cold winter’s day.
At the foot of the bed was a trunk, and Ginny knelt, rummaging through the piles and piles of unfolded clothing. Draco stood awkwardly behind her, trying to concentrate on the music box that Ginny was searching for, and not what Pansy had said to him a few days earlier—“You’re attracted to her.” It wasn’t true, but it was hard to remember that with Ginny’s jeans riding down, exposing the dimples in her back, and with her hair falling forward, revealing a lovely neck which looked all too kissable from Draco’s angle.
“Oh,” said Ginny, suddenly freezing. “It’s in the other trunk.”
She rose, turning swiftly and somewhat unsteadily, and Draco couldn’t help but cast his eyes over her body, as quickly as he could manage, not wanting to admit even to himself that he was admiring the way the faded old t-shirt clung to her breasts, or the way her jeans showed off her hourglass figure to its best advantage.
“You’re staring,” Ginny announced, and Draco tore his eyes away from her form so rapidly that he felt suddenly dizzy.
“I was not,” he protested, but Ginny smirked and stepped closer.
“You were too,” she said, and she laughed—not one of her drunken giggles, but a throatier laugh that sent sparks down Draco’s spine. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise in an instant feeling of attraction; acknowledgement of the sharp arousal that had struck him would not do…but it was difficult to keep hold of that idea. She was toying with the edge of her t-shirt, now, pulling it upwards to reveal a flat stomach and a small navel and—a lacy green string, which dangled towards her bellybutton teasingly.
“What’re you looking at?” Ginny asked, quizzically, her eyebrows knitting together. She peered downwards and saw the green string, and laughed, tugging her t-shirt higher and tucking it under her chin so she could retie the bow on the green lace bra she wore so casually beneath the shabby shirt.
He wasn’t even conscious of moving; in a few moments he stood pressed against her, hands reaching blindly for her breasts, and head tilting to plant a kiss along her neck. His eyes were closed, and behind the lids danced colorful shadows. He was too enraptured to even steel himself for her withdrawal, but when she wound her arms around his neck and stood on tiptoe to brush her lips against his, he jolted with the realization that she had met his advances with her own.
His conscious thoughts seemed to be coming slowly, as though they were fighting their way through a dense cloud. She began to kiss him all along his jaw, rubbing a hand against the day-old stubble on his cheek. He could taste the alcohol on her breath, as he turned his head to kiss her properly on the lips. He was met with fierce passion and a certain undeniable skill; her mouth was warm, and her fingers fisted in his hair in a pleasurable way. Draco was thrown momentarily off balance; who had taught the Weasley girl to kiss? Not Finnegan, surely?
If it wasn’t Finnegan, it was Potter, Draco concluded, knowing nothing else of Ginny’s relationship history. The thought of Harry Potter at a time like this, the bespectacled loon with the messy hair, sparked a fury in his body, a familiar fire that threatened to overwhelm him. Gasping for air, Draco wrenched himself free of Ginny’s embrace, and tried to compose himself.
“What?” she demanded, scowling; she looked as disheveled and shocked as he, but there was disappointment lingering in her eyes.
Draco gritted his teeth, and looked sharply towards the unmade bed, with the sheets smooth on one side, wrinkled on the other, the telltale mark of marital difficulties.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked, his voice gruffer than usual, the desperation clear.
“Do I look unsure?” Ginny snapped. He glanced at her, at the tension in her folded arms and squared jaw, the desire emanating from her body palpable and strong.
“No,” he said, and she smirked at him, a crooked smile the mirror image of his own, and reached for the hem of her t-shirt, tugging it over her head and tossing it onto the floor in one fluid movement.
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