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The sky was falling.
Ginny Weasley stood at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, her head tilted upwards, scarf swaying gently in the cold winter wind. Her warm amber eyes were lifted up towards the endless expanse overhead. Once the brilliant clear blue of a dazzling autumn day, the sky was now patterned over with feathered clouds, turning the color to a faded gray. Tiny snowflakes drifted lazily down from the heavens, swirling in the wind as they circled closer and closer, until they finally fell upon the frozen earth. In the dim late afternoon light, the pure white snowflakes were the exact faded shade as the clouds- little pieces of sky descending upon Hogwarts.
She could barely manage to tear her eyes away. It was the first snow of the year, arriving just in time for the beginning of the holidays on the last day of November. There was just something about this time of year- when the world shifted from the vivid crimsons and golds of autumn to the soft, unassuming grays of winter- that made Ginny want to close her eyes and lie down on the barren ground while colorless snow flakes fluttered down around her, covering her until she was swallowed up by the pure neutrality the season.
Maybe it was the fact that Ginny Weasley had been engulfed by effervescence colors ever since the day she was born. Everything from her family (their flamboyant hair and dynamic personalities) to her House (an intense chromatic array of personas that matched its distinctive red and gold) to her own self (a character as fiery and bold as the curls that cascaded down her back) screamed of blustering intrepidity and glaring heroics- things that caught attention and drew the human eye. Not that audacity or charisma was necessarily a bad thing- she was a Gryffindor and a Weasley, after all- but overtime Ginny had come to appreciate the understated brilliance of a quiet smile, a soft spoken word, a dull overcast sky. While everyone around her was caught up in the vibrant swirl of the hurricane, Ginny Weasley sat serenely in the eye of the storm, scarlet locks swaying gently in the transitory wind.
Ginny wrapped her cloak tighter around her body as a biting flurry of cold air and snow whistled past. Glancing at her watch, she took one last look at the snowflakes falling from the sky and began trudging back up to the castle.
She figured that this attraction to colorlessness was the reason why she felt herself being drawn towards Draco Malfoy. The pale skin, near-white blonde hair, piercing gray eyes- even his cool, hard personality- was everything that her own vivid world was not. There was nothing more to it- it wasn’t like she was attracted to the way he jeered at her in the hallways or constantly insulted her friends and family. No matter, after June he would be gone forever, and this whole delusion would fade away to something that was merely a tool to irk Ron and a weapon to use during a game of What You Would Never Guess About Me.
Her gaze wandered upwards again, eyes following the whirl of snowflakes across the ground.
It was hard for her to pinpoint the exact point in time when she began to find herself staring dreamily in his direction. It must have during her third year- she dimly discerned that it had to be sometime after she stopped trailing after Harry like some forlorn puppy, after she had carved out her own distinct place among the Hogwarts population and became something other than That Weasley Girl. At first Ginny chalked it up as hormones and went about muttering darkly about how her own body had betrayed her. But the years passed and her crush dragged on, until Ginny began worrying that it had become an obsession. She could barely manage to keep her eyes off of him, whether it was in the corridors or during Quidditch practice or even when he strutted across the castle grounds as she watched high above through the smudged glass panes of the library windows.
She was careful not to make it obvious- it was practically suicidal to give the Slytherins that kind of ammunition against her- but his face was still the first her eyes sought out when she entered the Great Hall, and she found herself almost baiting him into arguments just to gain his attention. She had scolded and sternly told herself off every time she did something like that, but to no avail. It was like some kind of twisted reflex- her eyes and mouth and heart simply would not obey her mind.
Ginny sighed and ran a frustrated hand through her mop of scarlet curls. The way she felt about her supposedly sworn enemy was something that she had come to accept. He would be gone after graduation, she would find someone else and these dratted Feelings would subside. Out of sight, out of mind. Yet, still, it was demeaning, that’s what it was, to feel this way about him. Ginny was pretty sure that the Greek gods had never actually existed, but if she died and discovered that they were actually up there on Mount Olympus, she vowed that she would climb up there and give Aphrodite a swift kick in her perky little arse for making her feel this way about Draco Malfoy. Of all the people in the world, she had to go and fall for that git. Seriously.
Oomph.
Eyes on the overcast sky and not where she was going, Ginny had inadvertently walked straight into something. She lost her balanced and toppled none to gently into the snow,
“You insipid Weasley. Can’t you even manage to walk somewhere without knocking into me with your large arse?”
Or someone.
She lay with her back in the cool wet snow, red hair tumbled across the snow like blood from some sort of Celtic winter sacrifice. A shadow fell across her face. Malfoy stood over her, grumbling and brushing snow off of his black winter cloak. The ends of his green and silver scarf fluttered in the wind.
Ginny looked up at the usual sneer on his face. “Go away Malfoy.” She threw her arm across her face, feeling the icy chill as snow began to seep into her boots and down her shirt. She halfheartedly noted that she was wearing a very short school skirt, and that she would probably get frostbite on her legs. She didn’t move. And it was very possible that she was flashing Malfoy at this very moment. She still didn’t move.
He raised an eyebrow. “Very well.” As he turned to leave, his eyes glanced downward. A smirk flitted across his features. “Nice knickers.”
Attraction or no, Ginny could feel the familiar rush of anger towards Malfoy. Her cheeks flushed as she finally sat up, glaring at his retreating back. “Oy, you prat! Get back here!”
Against his better judgment, Draco Malfoy turned his head at the sound of her voice and was rewarded with a resounding smack of cold, wet snow in his face. Spitting snow out of his mouth, he glowered at the girl, who was currently sitting waist deep in snow and cackling madly. He attempted to wipe the snow off of his face. “A Malfoy is not that easily provoked,” he spat out, sopping hair hanging stringyly in front of his eyes. Overhead, the sun had begun to set, taking with it whatever dim light had managed to break through the thick clouds.
Ginny raised an eyebrow in an extremely, well, Malfoy, fashion. “Very well,” she echoed grinning wickedly as she surreptitiously scooped up more snow in her right hand.
“Weasley, what are you- don’t even think about-”
Draco let out a shout (not a scream, Malfoys do not scream) as various sized balls of snow began to be hurled at his person. Dammit, no wonder Slytherin always loses whenever she plays Chaser against us, he thought as he attempted to block some of the barrage with his hand-stitched leather bag, her aim was impeccable.
“What? Are – you – too – scared – to – fight – back?” Ginny punctuated each of her words with a snowball. “Or are Malfoys simply incapable of throwing snow?”
Malfoy gave up and dropped his bag to the ground. “Fine,” he fumed, growling angrily, “you asked for-”
For the second time in less than five minutes, Draco Malfoy was cut off mid sentence as a large clump of snow hurtled through the air and hit him right behind his left ear, sending ice into his cranium and tendrils of snow down the back of his shirt. A shout of laughter escaped from Ginny’s lips when she saw the shocked look on the other boy’s face.
Bloody hell.
That was it- Malfoy ripped off his scarf and barreled straight for the Weaselette, who was still chucking snowballs at him, but to no avail. He dove for her legs, wrapping his arms around them so she couldn’t take a step. That, along with the force of his impact, caused little Ginny Weasley to lose her balance (also for the second time in less than five minutes) and she collapsed into the snow, just slightly on top of him.
At first the two of them flailed around in the snow for a bit, each intent on causing as much bodily harm to the other as possible. Ginny kicked her legs around randomly, attempting to connect her boots with some soft, preferable easily pained, part of Malfoy’s anatomy, while Draco twisted about, trying to stick a handful of snow down the back of her shirt. His brow was furrowed with concentration as he flung ice into her eyes, and she fought him with every ounce of strength she had and every trick she learned from her six brothers.
Eventually though, the intensity faded and Ginny began laughing slightly at the sight of Draco so unlike his usual self- hair tousled, face flushed, usually immaculately clean hands smeared with dirt and snow- and Draco allowed himself a rare smile at the sound of her shrieking and frantically digging out icy snow from underneath her clothes. Their fight grew more playful, light hearted almost- or at least as light hearted as a fight between a Weasley and a Malfoy could be, anyway. He grinned wickedly as he grabbed a handful of snow and rubbed it all over her hair. She wrinkled her nose at him and retaliated by twisting his arm behind his back, attempting to force his head into the ground.
Somewhere in the middle of the insane tumble, Draco hazily realized that he was flirting with the little Weasley. Who would’ve thought? A faint worry flickered across his mind as he wondered what his fellow Slytherins would say if they saw this. Almost as quickly though, he realized that he didn’t care, and shoved a handful of snow into Ginny’s face.
After some time, two of them lay side by side on the ground, wiping snow out of their eyes and gasping for breath.
“Truce?” Ginny panted, trying to ignore the warm fuzzy feeling that was rising inside her.
Draco paused. “Fine.” He dimly wondered why it felt like butterflies in his stomach.
They were quiet for a while, each lost within their own thoughts. There was an affable silence between the two of them, as there can only be after two people spend the last half hour writhing about in the cold together and receiving a face full of snow from the other. Darkness had fallen by now, and the snow glittered from the thousand lights pouring out of the castle windows. The snow drifted gently down over the two of them.
Ginny rubbed at her freezing nose, which was running slightly due to the cold. She risked a glance over to her frozen companion. He was staring up at the sky, gray eyes reflecting the clouds, barely visible now that night had nearly fallen. His chest rose and fell in rhythm, breath escaping from slightly parted lips in a puff of mist. Feeling her graze, he caught her eye, and Ginny looked away, embarrassed.
He rolled over onto his stomach, and propped up his head on his hands, elbows digging into the snow. Again, he wondered what in the world he was doing. Draco had not played in the snow ever since, well, never. Once, when he was very young, he had lain into the snow because he wanted to make an angel like the other children did in the books Mother read him before bed, but his father had looked down at him and given him the slightest shake of his head. That was enough to make Draco, young as he was, scramble to his feet and dust the snow off his clothes.
Ginny opened her eyes to see Draco Malfoy staring down at her, chin resting in the palms of his hands. His face was unnaturally- but not uncomfortably- close.
“What?”
He tiled his face to one side, silently considering her. She drunk in the sight of him like this- distinctly ruffled, laid back, without the usual snarl across his features- who know how long this would last? How different this Draco was from the other Malfoy. Although he wasn’t smiling, he still looked… content. Not tense. Not the enemy.
“I saw you, you know,” he said, startling her from her thoughts. His voice was low, soft, his tone serious. Ginny bit the inside of her cheek.
“Saw me what?”
He looked at her. “Staring at me, all these years,” he said slowly, considering his words, “Your brothers never noticed- they all think you’re still pining after Potter- but I saw you looking at me all those times in the Great Hall and out on the Quidditch Field.” A bit of her drenched hair lay across his hand, and he marveled quietly at the contrast of the glossy crimson against his own pale fingers.
Try as she might, Ginny could not stop a blush from creeping across her face. She bet her ears were about the same color as her hair right now. Thank Merlin it was dark.
“I was probably staring at you because I was trying to think up some way to cause you great physical pain.” She attempted a disdainful snort. “Besides, with a face that hideous, it’s hard not to look and-”
“Ginny.”
She stopped mid-sentence and looked up at the black sky. Not a single star was visible through the clouds. Ginny attempted to organize her thoughts and maybe salvage what dignity she had left.
“It’s not like I meant to start liking you or whatever,” she started, her voice a whisper. “It just sort of…happened.” Ginny paused. She couldn’t think of a single other thing to say, to defend herself and prove that she was wasn’t a psychotic stalker. Her eyes scoured the heavens, looking for at least one star to wink down at her and give her courage. She considered telling him her theory of the gods and Aphrodite, but he would end up thinking her more mental that he already did.
Ginny sat up, her back to him, pulling her knees in close. She remained silent, letting a curtain of damp, limp locks slide across her face as she waited for him to laugh at her, to scorn, to smirk, to dismiss her.
Draco dipped his chin down and nodded slowly, as if she could see him. His expression was inexplicably unguarded as he regarded her sodden back, an unreadable look in his eyes. “We can’t ever choose who we fall in love with, can we?” he said softly.
Ginny squeaked. “What? I never said I was in love with you! I even don’t know you. Until today you were just that insufferable little prat who hurts my feelings at every chance he gets, and tomorrow you’ll be that insufferable little prat again, and I can’t help it if my stupid heart decides to go all gaga over you-”
Draco sat up and reached for her, placing a hand over her mouth. “I wasn’t talking about you,” he almost hissed, gray eyes swimming with unfathomable depths. He removed his hand.
Ginny blinked owlishly back at him. “Oh.”
“Besides,” he continued, breaking away from her and struggling to his feet, “tomorrow I won’t be that same insufferable little prat again.” He leaned over and held out a hand to her.
Ginny eyed the offered hand warily before taking it. “Oh?” she asked as she was lifted to her feet. “Are we learning to be a decent person?”
Draco begun brushing the snow off of his clothes and decided that it was a losing battle. He looked at her and allowed himself a small smirk. “Of course we are not. Tomorrow, I will be that insufferable little prat who also happens to have whopped your arse in a snowball fight.” He frowned. “And I am not little.”
“What? You whopped my arse? Are you serious? You were there right, because I definitely beat you.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I do!”
“What, you think? Really?”
She glared at him. Why was he so annoying? “Malfoy, if you want to do this again I am so ready to beat your sorry butt. Again.” Ginny was actually reaching over to get another handful of snow.
Draco laughed, reaching for her hand and knocking the snow back onto the ground. She stared at him, incredulous. Did Draco Malfoy, solid block of ice that he was, actually just laugh? Their eyes met.
He stopped laughing.
The two of them stood in the dark, gazes locked, her hand enfold within his. All around them lay lumps of glittering snow, heaped and shuffled from the frantic battle. Already more snow was falling, covering the imperfections, smoothing over the jagged lines. The light from the castle flickered as the people inside moved- traveling from one room to another, talking, laughing, living. The dark expanse overhead weighed down upon the earth, wrapping around the two figures standing in the snow, motionless, simply staring at each other.
Draco took his other hand and touched an icy finger to her cheek. Ginny was so numb and frozen, she could barely feel it, but still she smiled and covered it with her own cold hand. They stood like that for a long time.
Finally, Draco broke the gaze first. He felt strangely awkward, for one of the few times in his life. Whatever had happened between the two of them had felt extremely intimate, despite the fact that about only two inches of his skin had come in contact with hers. Desperately, he tried to do something that would seem normal. He cast his eyes around the dark, wondering where he had dropped his scarf and bag.
“Here.” Ginny plodded back from where she had picked up his things and held them out to him. He nodded.
“Thanks.”
Draco ran his hand through his hair, trying not to wince as he felt the matted strands and clumps of ice that had hardened in the cold. Bugger. That was going to take some work, to get his hair back to its usual perfection. He hoped Ginny didn’t notice that was mentally grooming himself.
“So um, I guess we should get back inside?”
She nodded mutely. Draco saw that she was shivering slightly in the bitter wind, and chastised himself for not noticing sooner. Wrapping his arm around her shoulders, they strolled slowly back to the doors of the castle. She leaned into him, taking comfort in warmth and boy-smell that radiated off of him.
Ginny glanced up at him, taking note of how his blonde hair and white skin fairly seemed to glow in the night. For the thousandth time in her life, she perceived the pure near-colorlessness of his being, and wondered what it would be like to take someone that devoid of all color and fold him into her own vibrant world. For the first time in her life, that feat did not seem at all that impossible.
Overhead, the grey clouds shifted, parting ever so slightly to reveal a sliver of deep blue night sky. Below, their footprints embedded in the snow uncovered a small flower lying amid the matted grass, its petals forlorn and battered but still of the most vivid red, a splash of crimson in the middle of a field of white.
Fin.
Ginny Weasley stood at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, her head tilted upwards, scarf swaying gently in the cold winter wind. Her warm amber eyes were lifted up towards the endless expanse overhead. Once the brilliant clear blue of a dazzling autumn day, the sky was now patterned over with feathered clouds, turning the color to a faded gray. Tiny snowflakes drifted lazily down from the heavens, swirling in the wind as they circled closer and closer, until they finally fell upon the frozen earth. In the dim late afternoon light, the pure white snowflakes were the exact faded shade as the clouds- little pieces of sky descending upon Hogwarts.
She could barely manage to tear her eyes away. It was the first snow of the year, arriving just in time for the beginning of the holidays on the last day of November. There was just something about this time of year- when the world shifted from the vivid crimsons and golds of autumn to the soft, unassuming grays of winter- that made Ginny want to close her eyes and lie down on the barren ground while colorless snow flakes fluttered down around her, covering her until she was swallowed up by the pure neutrality the season.
Maybe it was the fact that Ginny Weasley had been engulfed by effervescence colors ever since the day she was born. Everything from her family (their flamboyant hair and dynamic personalities) to her House (an intense chromatic array of personas that matched its distinctive red and gold) to her own self (a character as fiery and bold as the curls that cascaded down her back) screamed of blustering intrepidity and glaring heroics- things that caught attention and drew the human eye. Not that audacity or charisma was necessarily a bad thing- she was a Gryffindor and a Weasley, after all- but overtime Ginny had come to appreciate the understated brilliance of a quiet smile, a soft spoken word, a dull overcast sky. While everyone around her was caught up in the vibrant swirl of the hurricane, Ginny Weasley sat serenely in the eye of the storm, scarlet locks swaying gently in the transitory wind.
Ginny wrapped her cloak tighter around her body as a biting flurry of cold air and snow whistled past. Glancing at her watch, she took one last look at the snowflakes falling from the sky and began trudging back up to the castle.
She figured that this attraction to colorlessness was the reason why she felt herself being drawn towards Draco Malfoy. The pale skin, near-white blonde hair, piercing gray eyes- even his cool, hard personality- was everything that her own vivid world was not. There was nothing more to it- it wasn’t like she was attracted to the way he jeered at her in the hallways or constantly insulted her friends and family. No matter, after June he would be gone forever, and this whole delusion would fade away to something that was merely a tool to irk Ron and a weapon to use during a game of What You Would Never Guess About Me.
Her gaze wandered upwards again, eyes following the whirl of snowflakes across the ground.
It was hard for her to pinpoint the exact point in time when she began to find herself staring dreamily in his direction. It must have during her third year- she dimly discerned that it had to be sometime after she stopped trailing after Harry like some forlorn puppy, after she had carved out her own distinct place among the Hogwarts population and became something other than That Weasley Girl. At first Ginny chalked it up as hormones and went about muttering darkly about how her own body had betrayed her. But the years passed and her crush dragged on, until Ginny began worrying that it had become an obsession. She could barely manage to keep her eyes off of him, whether it was in the corridors or during Quidditch practice or even when he strutted across the castle grounds as she watched high above through the smudged glass panes of the library windows.
She was careful not to make it obvious- it was practically suicidal to give the Slytherins that kind of ammunition against her- but his face was still the first her eyes sought out when she entered the Great Hall, and she found herself almost baiting him into arguments just to gain his attention. She had scolded and sternly told herself off every time she did something like that, but to no avail. It was like some kind of twisted reflex- her eyes and mouth and heart simply would not obey her mind.
Ginny sighed and ran a frustrated hand through her mop of scarlet curls. The way she felt about her supposedly sworn enemy was something that she had come to accept. He would be gone after graduation, she would find someone else and these dratted Feelings would subside. Out of sight, out of mind. Yet, still, it was demeaning, that’s what it was, to feel this way about him. Ginny was pretty sure that the Greek gods had never actually existed, but if she died and discovered that they were actually up there on Mount Olympus, she vowed that she would climb up there and give Aphrodite a swift kick in her perky little arse for making her feel this way about Draco Malfoy. Of all the people in the world, she had to go and fall for that git. Seriously.
Oomph.
Eyes on the overcast sky and not where she was going, Ginny had inadvertently walked straight into something. She lost her balanced and toppled none to gently into the snow,
“You insipid Weasley. Can’t you even manage to walk somewhere without knocking into me with your large arse?”
Or someone.
She lay with her back in the cool wet snow, red hair tumbled across the snow like blood from some sort of Celtic winter sacrifice. A shadow fell across her face. Malfoy stood over her, grumbling and brushing snow off of his black winter cloak. The ends of his green and silver scarf fluttered in the wind.
Ginny looked up at the usual sneer on his face. “Go away Malfoy.” She threw her arm across her face, feeling the icy chill as snow began to seep into her boots and down her shirt. She halfheartedly noted that she was wearing a very short school skirt, and that she would probably get frostbite on her legs. She didn’t move. And it was very possible that she was flashing Malfoy at this very moment. She still didn’t move.
He raised an eyebrow. “Very well.” As he turned to leave, his eyes glanced downward. A smirk flitted across his features. “Nice knickers.”
Attraction or no, Ginny could feel the familiar rush of anger towards Malfoy. Her cheeks flushed as she finally sat up, glaring at his retreating back. “Oy, you prat! Get back here!”
Against his better judgment, Draco Malfoy turned his head at the sound of her voice and was rewarded with a resounding smack of cold, wet snow in his face. Spitting snow out of his mouth, he glowered at the girl, who was currently sitting waist deep in snow and cackling madly. He attempted to wipe the snow off of his face. “A Malfoy is not that easily provoked,” he spat out, sopping hair hanging stringyly in front of his eyes. Overhead, the sun had begun to set, taking with it whatever dim light had managed to break through the thick clouds.
Ginny raised an eyebrow in an extremely, well, Malfoy, fashion. “Very well,” she echoed grinning wickedly as she surreptitiously scooped up more snow in her right hand.
“Weasley, what are you- don’t even think about-”
Draco let out a shout (not a scream, Malfoys do not scream) as various sized balls of snow began to be hurled at his person. Dammit, no wonder Slytherin always loses whenever she plays Chaser against us, he thought as he attempted to block some of the barrage with his hand-stitched leather bag, her aim was impeccable.
“What? Are – you – too – scared – to – fight – back?” Ginny punctuated each of her words with a snowball. “Or are Malfoys simply incapable of throwing snow?”
Malfoy gave up and dropped his bag to the ground. “Fine,” he fumed, growling angrily, “you asked for-”
For the second time in less than five minutes, Draco Malfoy was cut off mid sentence as a large clump of snow hurtled through the air and hit him right behind his left ear, sending ice into his cranium and tendrils of snow down the back of his shirt. A shout of laughter escaped from Ginny’s lips when she saw the shocked look on the other boy’s face.
Bloody hell.
That was it- Malfoy ripped off his scarf and barreled straight for the Weaselette, who was still chucking snowballs at him, but to no avail. He dove for her legs, wrapping his arms around them so she couldn’t take a step. That, along with the force of his impact, caused little Ginny Weasley to lose her balance (also for the second time in less than five minutes) and she collapsed into the snow, just slightly on top of him.
At first the two of them flailed around in the snow for a bit, each intent on causing as much bodily harm to the other as possible. Ginny kicked her legs around randomly, attempting to connect her boots with some soft, preferable easily pained, part of Malfoy’s anatomy, while Draco twisted about, trying to stick a handful of snow down the back of her shirt. His brow was furrowed with concentration as he flung ice into her eyes, and she fought him with every ounce of strength she had and every trick she learned from her six brothers.
Eventually though, the intensity faded and Ginny began laughing slightly at the sight of Draco so unlike his usual self- hair tousled, face flushed, usually immaculately clean hands smeared with dirt and snow- and Draco allowed himself a rare smile at the sound of her shrieking and frantically digging out icy snow from underneath her clothes. Their fight grew more playful, light hearted almost- or at least as light hearted as a fight between a Weasley and a Malfoy could be, anyway. He grinned wickedly as he grabbed a handful of snow and rubbed it all over her hair. She wrinkled her nose at him and retaliated by twisting his arm behind his back, attempting to force his head into the ground.
Somewhere in the middle of the insane tumble, Draco hazily realized that he was flirting with the little Weasley. Who would’ve thought? A faint worry flickered across his mind as he wondered what his fellow Slytherins would say if they saw this. Almost as quickly though, he realized that he didn’t care, and shoved a handful of snow into Ginny’s face.
After some time, two of them lay side by side on the ground, wiping snow out of their eyes and gasping for breath.
“Truce?” Ginny panted, trying to ignore the warm fuzzy feeling that was rising inside her.
Draco paused. “Fine.” He dimly wondered why it felt like butterflies in his stomach.
They were quiet for a while, each lost within their own thoughts. There was an affable silence between the two of them, as there can only be after two people spend the last half hour writhing about in the cold together and receiving a face full of snow from the other. Darkness had fallen by now, and the snow glittered from the thousand lights pouring out of the castle windows. The snow drifted gently down over the two of them.
Ginny rubbed at her freezing nose, which was running slightly due to the cold. She risked a glance over to her frozen companion. He was staring up at the sky, gray eyes reflecting the clouds, barely visible now that night had nearly fallen. His chest rose and fell in rhythm, breath escaping from slightly parted lips in a puff of mist. Feeling her graze, he caught her eye, and Ginny looked away, embarrassed.
He rolled over onto his stomach, and propped up his head on his hands, elbows digging into the snow. Again, he wondered what in the world he was doing. Draco had not played in the snow ever since, well, never. Once, when he was very young, he had lain into the snow because he wanted to make an angel like the other children did in the books Mother read him before bed, but his father had looked down at him and given him the slightest shake of his head. That was enough to make Draco, young as he was, scramble to his feet and dust the snow off his clothes.
Ginny opened her eyes to see Draco Malfoy staring down at her, chin resting in the palms of his hands. His face was unnaturally- but not uncomfortably- close.
“What?”
He tiled his face to one side, silently considering her. She drunk in the sight of him like this- distinctly ruffled, laid back, without the usual snarl across his features- who know how long this would last? How different this Draco was from the other Malfoy. Although he wasn’t smiling, he still looked… content. Not tense. Not the enemy.
“I saw you, you know,” he said, startling her from her thoughts. His voice was low, soft, his tone serious. Ginny bit the inside of her cheek.
“Saw me what?”
He looked at her. “Staring at me, all these years,” he said slowly, considering his words, “Your brothers never noticed- they all think you’re still pining after Potter- but I saw you looking at me all those times in the Great Hall and out on the Quidditch Field.” A bit of her drenched hair lay across his hand, and he marveled quietly at the contrast of the glossy crimson against his own pale fingers.
Try as she might, Ginny could not stop a blush from creeping across her face. She bet her ears were about the same color as her hair right now. Thank Merlin it was dark.
“I was probably staring at you because I was trying to think up some way to cause you great physical pain.” She attempted a disdainful snort. “Besides, with a face that hideous, it’s hard not to look and-”
“Ginny.”
She stopped mid-sentence and looked up at the black sky. Not a single star was visible through the clouds. Ginny attempted to organize her thoughts and maybe salvage what dignity she had left.
“It’s not like I meant to start liking you or whatever,” she started, her voice a whisper. “It just sort of…happened.” Ginny paused. She couldn’t think of a single other thing to say, to defend herself and prove that she was wasn’t a psychotic stalker. Her eyes scoured the heavens, looking for at least one star to wink down at her and give her courage. She considered telling him her theory of the gods and Aphrodite, but he would end up thinking her more mental that he already did.
Ginny sat up, her back to him, pulling her knees in close. She remained silent, letting a curtain of damp, limp locks slide across her face as she waited for him to laugh at her, to scorn, to smirk, to dismiss her.
Draco dipped his chin down and nodded slowly, as if she could see him. His expression was inexplicably unguarded as he regarded her sodden back, an unreadable look in his eyes. “We can’t ever choose who we fall in love with, can we?” he said softly.
Ginny squeaked. “What? I never said I was in love with you! I even don’t know you. Until today you were just that insufferable little prat who hurts my feelings at every chance he gets, and tomorrow you’ll be that insufferable little prat again, and I can’t help it if my stupid heart decides to go all gaga over you-”
Draco sat up and reached for her, placing a hand over her mouth. “I wasn’t talking about you,” he almost hissed, gray eyes swimming with unfathomable depths. He removed his hand.
Ginny blinked owlishly back at him. “Oh.”
“Besides,” he continued, breaking away from her and struggling to his feet, “tomorrow I won’t be that same insufferable little prat again.” He leaned over and held out a hand to her.
Ginny eyed the offered hand warily before taking it. “Oh?” she asked as she was lifted to her feet. “Are we learning to be a decent person?”
Draco begun brushing the snow off of his clothes and decided that it was a losing battle. He looked at her and allowed himself a small smirk. “Of course we are not. Tomorrow, I will be that insufferable little prat who also happens to have whopped your arse in a snowball fight.” He frowned. “And I am not little.”
“What? You whopped my arse? Are you serious? You were there right, because I definitely beat you.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I do!”
“What, you think? Really?”
She glared at him. Why was he so annoying? “Malfoy, if you want to do this again I am so ready to beat your sorry butt. Again.” Ginny was actually reaching over to get another handful of snow.
Draco laughed, reaching for her hand and knocking the snow back onto the ground. She stared at him, incredulous. Did Draco Malfoy, solid block of ice that he was, actually just laugh? Their eyes met.
He stopped laughing.
The two of them stood in the dark, gazes locked, her hand enfold within his. All around them lay lumps of glittering snow, heaped and shuffled from the frantic battle. Already more snow was falling, covering the imperfections, smoothing over the jagged lines. The light from the castle flickered as the people inside moved- traveling from one room to another, talking, laughing, living. The dark expanse overhead weighed down upon the earth, wrapping around the two figures standing in the snow, motionless, simply staring at each other.
Draco took his other hand and touched an icy finger to her cheek. Ginny was so numb and frozen, she could barely feel it, but still she smiled and covered it with her own cold hand. They stood like that for a long time.
Finally, Draco broke the gaze first. He felt strangely awkward, for one of the few times in his life. Whatever had happened between the two of them had felt extremely intimate, despite the fact that about only two inches of his skin had come in contact with hers. Desperately, he tried to do something that would seem normal. He cast his eyes around the dark, wondering where he had dropped his scarf and bag.
“Here.” Ginny plodded back from where she had picked up his things and held them out to him. He nodded.
“Thanks.”
Draco ran his hand through his hair, trying not to wince as he felt the matted strands and clumps of ice that had hardened in the cold. Bugger. That was going to take some work, to get his hair back to its usual perfection. He hoped Ginny didn’t notice that was mentally grooming himself.
“So um, I guess we should get back inside?”
She nodded mutely. Draco saw that she was shivering slightly in the bitter wind, and chastised himself for not noticing sooner. Wrapping his arm around her shoulders, they strolled slowly back to the doors of the castle. She leaned into him, taking comfort in warmth and boy-smell that radiated off of him.
Ginny glanced up at him, taking note of how his blonde hair and white skin fairly seemed to glow in the night. For the thousandth time in her life, she perceived the pure near-colorlessness of his being, and wondered what it would be like to take someone that devoid of all color and fold him into her own vibrant world. For the first time in her life, that feat did not seem at all that impossible.
Overhead, the grey clouds shifted, parting ever so slightly to reveal a sliver of deep blue night sky. Below, their footprints embedded in the snow uncovered a small flower lying amid the matted grass, its petals forlorn and battered but still of the most vivid red, a splash of crimson in the middle of a field of white.
Fin.
Author notes: I tried to avoid the clichéd and overdone Draco-and-Ginny-wrestle-in-the-snow-for-a-bit-and-then-somehow-randomly-fall-in-love scenario. I did, I really did, but…I don’t know, it just seemed so perfect. And fluffy. I like fluffy. And so I bent to the will of the inevitable.
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The End.
fallingskyes is the author of 4 other stories.
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