Draco looked down at her, trailing a finger along the arch of her neck as the golden autumn moon spilled through the open window, bathing the bed in its soft glow. Her fiery curls fell across the pristine white sheets, and Draco gently tangled his hand in them.

He had thought he hadn’t heard her properly. The words had rung loudly in his ears as he stared at her with wide eyes. Draco hadn’t dared to believe he had those words, as soft and fleeting as a breeze. He hadn’t even been able to force his brain to ask her to repeat them. How dangerous it could be to believe or take faith in such words. He had made that mistake before.

But she had smiled at him, with slow and sweet understanding, and reached up to run her fingers through his hair. She had whispered again, “I love you.”

And he hadn’t been able to stop himself. He had leaned down and kissed her without hesitation or reservation. He had kissed her like he hadn’t kissed a girl in ten years.

A sigh heavy with reckless contentment and satisfaction slipped from his mouth. He pressed his lips against her shoulder blades, his eyes fluttering closed. Nestled up against his fiery witch, the awakened dragon drifted into a peaceful slumber.

He didn’t know the winding streets of Prague as well as he had those of Paris. Even if he did, Draco didn’t think he would have been able to find anything while Ginny’s fingers were intertwined with his. It was better that way, though, because they were discovering the city together.

He thought his heart might burst with happiness as she giggled and tugged him along the street. The autumn air swirled about them, light and crisp and smelling of the Vltava River. Ginny’s long flowing hair caught and held the early morning sunlight, and it was all Draco could do to keep from staring at it.

“It’s beautiful here,” she said earnestly, throwing her head back and looking at the sky. To him, she appeared the same as ten years ago. Her hair was a little longer and there were the faintest beginnings of lines around her eyes, but she looked exactly like the witch who had twirled through the streets of Paris with him.

“It’s been good for me.” He paused. “Although I don’t think I’ve appreciated it as much as I could have.”

Ginny smiled curiously, squeezing his hand a little tighter. “Why not?”

“I could never find anything quite as beautiful anymore, after I spent a month with you,” he mumbled, embarrassed but determined. “Something’s missing when you’re not there.”

She blushed a delicate pink, looking pleased. He wanted to wrap his arm around her waist, but he couldn’t make himself do it. Draco wanted to be the man he had been in Paris, but he couldn’t seem to find him. That man had been lost so long ago. He had thought that Ginny had stolen his heart, and that being back with her would bring back his adventurous, Paris spirit. But Draco felt oddly hesitant to find that long-lost part of himself.

Ginny seemed to sense his uncertainties and stood on tiptoe to kiss him. “I love you.”

That swelling feeling rose in his chest again, and Draco couldn’t keep his face from breaking into a grin. “I love you too.”

He grabbed her hand again and led her along the river, approaching the bridge, the only place he had ever become attached to while living in Prague. An eerie sound floated over the water, coming softly at first but ringing in their ears as they drew closer to the bridge.

“What is that?” Ginny craned her neck, eyebrows raised as the beautiful music continued to play.

Draco smiled mischievously, something his younger self might have done, and winked at her. “You’ll see.”

He pulled her through the people ambling across the bridge toward the middle, where a crowd had gathered around something along the water’s edge. They weaved in between the groups of tourists and locals, toward the front of the throng. Ginny’s eyes widened as she took in the scene.

A man younger than either of them stood bent over a large table. His brow was intensely furrowed and nearly hidden beneath a shaggy mop of unruly brown hair. Before him was a table creaking under the weight of a hundred crystal goblets, each filled with a different amount of water and glinting in the rising sun. His fingers moved without ceasing across the rims of the glasses, swooping down upon each one. His dark eyes flashed behind thick, blue-rimmed glasses as his fingers moved in a blur. There wasn’t a second when music was not resounding from the goblets, and his hands were spread over the rims of at least five glasses at once. He played with such passion, as though he was alone, that it felt almost indecent to be watching him.

Ginny’s eyes followed his movements as though hypnotized, her head swaying along with the otherworldly melody. The ruffled collar of her dress fluttered in the breeze and the skirt was gracefully blown in between her knees. Draco smiled, overcome with contentment as the music rang in his ears, and wrapped both arms around her waist, resting his chin on top of Ginny’s head. She leaned into him and put her hand over his across her waist.

The music, while eerie and mysterious, was undeniably magnificent, and Draco thought that only certain people might be able to recognize the beauty in it. Beauty, he realized, was not always clear-cut and shallow. It could be imprecise and far deeper than one might imagine.

When the young man had finished his song, Ginny tilted her head back to look at Draco. “It’s incredible.”

He nodded, and grasped her hand, leading her back through the crowd. They strolled to the other side of the bridge, past other musicians and artists, into the cobbled center near the clock tower.

Draco caught sight of a stooped old man in a striped flat hat, holding the reins of a carriage-tethered horse. Laughing, Draco lifted Ginny up onto the carriage and paid the man with Muggle bills before climbing up beside her. He felt as though the impulses his younger self might have experienced every day were slowly creeping back up to the surface of his mind. Bit by bit, he was learning how to live again. It was like a thick coat of dust was being lifted from his soul. No one but Ginny could have provoked such a change.

They clopped along the twisting streets, hidden under the shade of wide-reaching branches adorned with auburn leaves. Ginny slouched low in her seat and snuggled into the crook of his arm, breathing deeply and smiling at every corner’s turn.

When they finished the tour, Ginny hopped off and danced along the street, twirling with uncontained delight. Draco’s breath caught in his chest as her red hair fanned out and her dress flew up.

It was late afternoon when they found themselves ambling back toward The Dragon. They stopped and bought ice cream and held hands as they made their way through now-familiar streets.

“Do you remember the day when you took me to that garden?” Ginny asked, catching trickling drops of raspberry ice cream with her tongue.

Draco nodded. “I remember.”

“What do you remember best?” she asked, swinging their hands back and forth as she would have in Paris.

“I remember everything,” he told her.

“But nothing in particular stands out?”

He stared at her thoughtfully. “I remember every day perfectly.” He paused, watching her lip slip down into a playful pout, and smiled. “But I loved that day we got caught in the rain on our way back from the theater.”

Ginny laughed. “The day when I pushed you into the fountain?”

Draco nodded sheepishly. “You falling in too made it worth it.”

“You were the most adorable soaked man,” she teased, licking her lips as she finished her cone.

He shrugged. Ten years ago, he might have made a comment about how she had looked in her soaked through dress. It was certainly vivid in his mind. But they weren’t so young and carefree anymore. It left him feeling strangely unsure of where he belonged.

Ginny squeezed his hand, trying to bridge the heavy silence as she had before, and Draco smiled. But uncertainty welled up in him. The sun was starting to set, and it made him feel panicky for some reason.

It was going to be much harder for her to leave now than it would have been ten years ago. After all, she had a life and three children waiting for her. She had left then, when it could have been much simpler, and it terrified him that she would leave again.

But one of her children was his. His daughter. He wanted her almost as much as he wanted Ginny, even though he had never set eyes on her.

But all Ginny had given him was her love. She hadn’t said she was staying with him, or that she was bringing their daughter. The sun was setting on their day, and while it had once illuminated their love in the bright hours, as it set Draco was left feeling as if he held nothing. He had empty promises and memories. The same as before.

He looked up to see Ginny staring at him, and his melancholy must have shown on his face. She stopped them and looked up at his face.

“What is it?” she asked.

Her face was happy and flushed, and Draco almost couldn’t bear to ruin it. He took in every inch of her, from her knee-high gray boots to her ruffled navy dress to her windblown tendrils of red hair. He wanted her. He wanted all of her. He had been hesitant and unsure all day, since those whispered words in the early hours of the morning, afraid to jump in for fear of being too invested. But he realized, as he stared at her, that he was invested. He was all in, with both feet, and he could very well drown. But he had to try his hardest to tread water.

“What are you going to do, Gin?”

As he had predicted, her face fell. Her eyes softened, and her expression seemed to crumple at his words. She took his hand again and pulled him along the street beside her.

“I’ve been thinking about it all day,” she said quietly, in the tone that she used when she was trying very hard not to cry. It made Draco’s chest hurt to think that she might cry. “I really don’t know.”

His heart clenched. “You don’t.” He meant to say it as a question, but it came out flat and lifeless.

She shook her head. “I have a life in England. My whole family, and my boys, and my friends…”

Draco’s heart hurt with every throb, pains so sharp that it took every ounce of control he possessed to keep from gasping.

“But I love you,” she told him, sincerity real and ringing in her words.

He inhaled hard through his nose and faced her. If he couldn’t tell her now, he would never get it out.

“I love you. I don’t think I could make it if you left again. I’ve done it before, I could probably do it again. But looking at it from this angle, I want to say it doesn’t seem possible.”

He had to stop because the sight of tears trickling down her cheeks always hit him like a blow to the stomach. Say it.

“I want you to go back to England. Get things in order. Do whatever you have to do. I want you to come back, but if you aren’t back in two weeks…” he paused, not sure if he could truly get it out. “…I’ll know you’re not coming back.”

In the end, she agreed. He hugged her tight and let her go, watching her as she walked all the way down the street and around the corner to her hotel. A swinging lock of fiery hair was the last he saw of her, and he prayed to God it wouldn’t be the last time.

The two weeks had been something akin to a living hell. What had he been thinking, giving her two weeks? He could be waiting two weeks for nothing, hoping and praying only to wake up on the fourteenth day and know he was going to experience this agony for the rest of his life.

The Dragon’s business had suffered from his tumultuous mood. All the bartenders, except for Shane, had made a point of staying out of his way as he raged through the club each night. He had kept to his room mostly, mainly because he didn’t want to risk seeing a customer like Kovar. Who knew what he would say to someone he loathed so much while in one of his moods?

It was the fourteenth day. He had sent Shane home early, saying that he would clean up himself. The rag that he was using to wipe down the counters was already dirty. It was accomplishing nothing but keeping his hands busy.

She wasn’t coming. Two weeks had come and gone, and now he was left with a bar that reminded him of her just as much as the dead city of Paris had. What would he do now? Move again?

He had been afraid to let tears fall, because that would mean resignation. That would mean that she really wasn’t coming back. That she was gone for good.

But he let them fall now, splashing against the bar with unreal volume. He couldn’t even bring himself to take out the Firewhisky.

Draco would go back to sleep. In ten years, he would be fine again. That wasn’t so long from now. He had slept through the past ten years – nothing was stopping him from doing that again. He couldn’t possibly love her any more than he had in Paris.

Except he did. He loved her with his whole heart, but he also loved the girl he had never seen that was somehow a part of him. Maybe this gash to his heart would take fifty years to sleep off.

A loud ring sounded through his anguish, causing him to look up from the bar. He turned around slowly, not daring to hope. Hope would well up in his chest, and then he would turn to find Shane standing there, because he forgot something. So he turned slowly, with nothing but cool indifference.

She was standing in the doorway, as she had two weeks earlier, clutching a suitcase in either hand. He saw that she too was crying, tears running in rivulets down her porcelain cheeks.

She moved forward, and from behind her stepped a small redheaded girl, a suitcase of her own in one hand and a green dragon in the other.

Author notes: Please leave a review.