The next morning provided an abundance of blinding sunlight, the golden rays streaming in through the windows of the hospital wing, overpowering Ginny’s sluggish vision as she opened her eyes. Blinking away the fuzzy sleep, she looked around her, the scene from the day before filtering gradually into her mind. Draco still sat to her left, looking slightly more comfortable in an alert sitting position, reading a book on magical healing, no doubt from Madam Pomfrey’s own library. She smiled as she admired the sunlight reflecting off his gleaming, blond hair, having never thought of Draco Malfoy as studious.
“How’s the book?” she asked lightly, her voice a little hoarse.
He looked up at once from his reading, worry deeply imbedded in his stormy eyes. She broadened her smile to reassure him, and he gave her a small smile in return, the worry slowly replaced by something resembling warm gratitude.
“Not bad, a little boring. How’s your head?” he answered, closing his book and placing it on the floor next to him.
Ginny reached around to lightly touch the bandages covering the nearly healed wound in her head. Sitting upright, she was surprised at the lack of pain in response to her movement. She turned her head slowly from side to side, testing her range of motion.
Draco reached towards her with his left hand hesitantly, as if she may hurt herself, but seeing that she was just fine, he put his hand back down. She thought vaguely how strange it was that he was missing one of his sleeves, and her eyes widened as they landed on a large, grotesque scar covering his left forearm, hideously exposed without its cloth sheath. Noticing her line of sight, Draco quickly covered his arm with his hand.
“Is that what I–” she started.
“It’s nothing. Just an accident when I was small,” he cut her off, getting up to leave and looking thoroughly embarrassed.
Before he could get far, she half rose from her bed to grab his wrist and pulled him back down into his seat. Given that he was much stronger than her, and she had just spent the night repairing a head injury, he could have easily twisted out of her weak grip, but he allowed her to drag him back. Seated directly in front of him and slightly higher, she rested his arm on her knee so she could examine it. Her head was beginning to throb dully, but not nearly as distinct as the night before, and she was able to ignore it.
What met her eyes created a combination of disgust, pity, and more importantly, doubt in the Draco she had recently discovered. His forearm was horribly disfigured in crude, everlasting burn scars of a snake intertwined with a skull: the Dark Mark. Having never personally seen the Mark on skin, she assumed that this meant that Draco had in fact been inducted into Voldemort’s ranks as a true Death Eater. She felt a flood of emotions all at once; on top of feeling dizzy and slightly sick, she felt cheated, and a little angry.
Afraid to touch it, knowing how Voldemort was summoned, she unconsciously tightened her grip on his wrist in her anger as she inspected his arm, her heart beating rapidly.
Why do I feel so betrayed? Shouldn’t I have expected as much?
And then she remembered a crucial detail. Having heard during her stay at Grimmuald Place that the Dark Mark was always black once Voldemort had regained power, she knew that this ghastly mutilation was something else, something horrific. Shuddering inwardly at the thought of the pain he must have undergone, she looked into his face to confirm her suspicions. His eyes were averted shamefully, as if he wanted nothing more than to drop it. She could tell that this was something he had been forced into, and felt slightly guilty for her quick judgment.
“Did they do this to you?” she asked as kindly as she could, slackening her grip on his wrist and placing her other hand flat on top of the scar. The mark felt bumpy and smooth at the same time beneath her fingertips, and she felt him start slightly at her light touch.
His eyes gave away his surprise at her willingness to touch the disfigurement, but he still refused to meet hers. Instead, he scrutinised a far-off point past her head, slightly shaking his head from side to side. She took this to mean that he didn’t want to talk about it, but she pressed on.
“Why weren’t you given a real Mark?” she tried again, secretly glad that he had gone through the unimaginable anguish of this scar rather than being tainted with a direct link to one of the darkest wizards in history.
Shifting his gaze to another point on the wall, he remained silent for a few minutes. She watched a vicious internal battle take place in his tortured eyes, and she could see the part of him that wanted to tell her everything struggling to surface, so she waited patiently. Then he started speaking as if out of a memory, so low that she strained to hear him, a distant look on his face placing him somewhere faraway.
“My father had deeply offended the Dark Lord before I was to be bound to the Death Eaters,” he began, his voice impassive. He still wouldn’t look at her, but at least he was talking. She daren’t interrupt him; she hadn’t been able to get him to talk about his dealings with the Death Eaters until now.
“After that, he had a different plan for me than to join his army. He decided to use me to punish my father. I really wasn’t supposed to survive my attempt to kill Dumbledore, and when I came back alive, the Dark Lord tried to take care of me himself. That was when my mother died, to protect me, and by some act of Merlin, I escaped back to Hogwarts.
“They had branded me when I was appointed the task, to make me think I was a part of them, promising me a real Mark when I succeeded. It was also to remind me of my mission, and that they had my mother captive; if I failed, it meant her life. Like an idiot, I believed I was important enough to be given such a job, so I was proud at first.”
He took in a deep breath and closed his eyes as he exhaled slowly. The fingers of his left hand curled inward as if subtly beckoning, and Ginny took her hand from on top of his forearm and rested it in his. The pain in his face exposed the effort of repressing these memories, and she understood that he had never planned on sharing them with anyone.
A reassuring squeeze brought him back to reality, and he opened his eyes to look down at her hand, laying so innocently and perfectly in his, as if it had always belonged there. He closed his long fingers around it, the small amount of heat that they shared creating a pleasant tingle in his skin. He couldn’t imagine telling anyone but her his pitifully depressing story. No one else would understand; no one else would have bothered to ask.
“But you got away from them, and now you can help us stop them,” she encouraged earnestly.
“Help how, by hiding?” He rolled his eyes a little as he finally met hers, smiling slightly in an attempt to ease the gloomy mood.
The seriousness in her eyes caught him a little off-guard, and his smile faltered. She seemed to genuinely care for him, for what he’d been through, and for his well being. His heart started beating a little faster, and he suddenly felt nervous, his breaths getting shallower.
Through all his arrogance and sarcasm, he had never let himself get too close to anyone, something his father had taught him in his many life lessons.
“Women tend to… complicate things with their feelings and their expectations. It’s best not to lead them to expect anything from you, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a little fun with them,” Lucius would advise his son with a smug smile. Draco would laugh sardonically, never knowing any better.
Any girl that had ever made advances towards him, flirted with him, kissed him, had always been for his amusement, and never led to anything substantial. Letting Ginny into his life had proven to be more gratifying than any complicated spell he had ever mastered, than any feeling of power he had gained over the younger students he used to torment, and he suddenly became anxious of this correlation being one-sided, that her stance ended at worry and friendship.
Breaking eye contact, he looked back down at their hands to take her free one in his so that each of his hands held hers separately, and he rested them on her knees. The tingling in his fingers strengthened as he ran his thumbs over her soft, pale skin. His heart continued to pound harder as the sensation spread throughout his arms and chest. He took a steadying breath to ease his nerves and find what little remained of his renowned, Malfoy confidence.
“Ginny…” Her name left his lips, barely above a whisper, but he heard it as if listening to someone else. He felt outside himself, watching the situation from far away, bracing against the worst. The only tether to his physical body was the feel of her fingers, the smoothness of her skin, and her small hands, so fragile in his.
The pounding of her heart thudded so loudly, she could tap her foot to its rhythm. She was acutely aware of every movement his fingers made as his thumbs grazed her skin, and the butterflies in her chest had been fluttering madly ever since he had taken a hold of her hands.
What small piece of her heart that still belonged unconditionally to her first love was struggling vainly against the rushing waves of desire for Draco to admit what they both knew was happening between them. At that moment, she sat contemplating what the ex-Slytherin’s lips would feel like against hers, and remembering the sensation of his hands running up her back to bury themselves in her hair, she almost squirmed in her seat in anticipation for him to finish his thought.
“Say it,” she whispered, and his eyes flew up to capture hers. The cool, grey orbs searched her gaze for what he wanted to know, as if he didn’t want to say it out loud. When he still didn’t say anything, she prompted him again.
“Don’t you ever just say what you feel?” she asked, her soft voice tinged with a hint of disappointment at his lack of nerve, coming to expect more from the proud Draco Malfoy.
As he watched her face fall slightly, he felt a sudden need to just blurt it out, not wanting to lose this moment, or face moments after. Taking a deep breath and exhaling audibly, he ploughed ahead, willing himself not to think.
“Ever since I’ve come back, you’ve been the only thing keeping me from going mad. Everything I’ve ever known, about my past, about myself, is lost, but when I’m with you I feel like I’ve found home. I know I don’t belong here, but if I left, I know you would find someone else, and for some reason I know I wouldn’t be able to stand the thought of you with any other man. You make me want to tell you everything, which still has me at sixes and sevens since I never tell anyone anything. I don’t know what it is, but you make me feel so un-bloody-hinged just being near you –” *
That was enough for her. Her hands left his as she grabbed his collar on either side and pulled his face towards hers. Even with the abruptness of the initiation, their lips met soft and sweet, and he moved his around hers gently as his hands came up to capture her face. A fire of yearning lit in her chest, and burned fervently as his hot breath ran over her lips between kisses.
One of his hands left her face to run through her hair, resting at the back of her head, pulling her closer as he deepened the kiss. Her lips parted submissively to his restlessly awaiting tongue, and he entered her mouth, dancing with her in a slow, gentle waltz, savouring her taste.
Breaking off, he pulled back to take a moment to breathe, smirking faintly after opening his eyes to watch her face. She still seemed utterly engrossed in the kiss as her lips were flushed and still slightly puckered, her eyes remaining closed.
Exhaling with a sigh, her eyelids fluttered open to find him staring intently at her. A deep, crimson blush spread slowly across her cheeks as she realised her head was held up only by his hands, and she quickly straightened up, smoothing down her hair in an attempt to look composed. She giggled softly in her embarrassment, and he gave her a small smile.
“That’s pretty much what I wanted to say,” he said playfully, his confidence returning as he took her hands again. Holding each of them up vertically, palm to palm with his, he slipped his fingers in between each of hers, curling them lightly until his fingertips touched the backs of her hands.
“Well you’ll have to tell me that again later,” she flirted, twisting her wrists to give the back of each of his hands a soft kiss.
Enjoying the sensation of her breath on his skin, he leaned in to claim her mouth again.
“Ah, I see that you’re up,” a stiff voice sounded from the end of Ginny’s bed.
Ginny jumped outright at the interruption, ripping her hands back and sitting up straight with her eyes wide. Draco casually leaned back into his chair, shooting an irritated look at Madam Pomfrey.
“We were just talking–” Ginny started defensively.
“Never mind what you were doing. Mr. Malfoy, now that you see that Miss Weasley is in fact fine, as I told you, the Headmistress is expecting you in her office.” The nurse nodded curtly at Draco, slammed a tray of an array of potions on Ginny’s bedside table, and then bustled over to another bed where an unconscious third year student lay, his skin an odd shade of blue.
Draco shot a sly smile at Ginny, and then stood up, stretching his arms towards the ceiling in an attempt to work out the kinks of sleeping in a hospital chair all night.
“It’s alright; I was headed that way anyways to talk to her.”
“Talk to her about what?” Ginny asked. Before she had even finished the question, the events from the day before flashed across her mind as she remembered, and her face paled, her arms unconsciously hugging tightly across her chest, and she finished her thought with a silent, “Oh.”
“Something has to be done about them, and I’ll make sure that it is,” he stated purposefully. He leaned down to kiss her on the cheek, whispering in her ear, “I’ll come find you later.”
Blushing furiously back to a lovely glow as tingles shot down her spine, the unpleasant memories were chased to the recesses of her thoughts at his touch. She smiled shyly as she nodded, and then watched him saunter out of the Hospital Wing with a slight spring in his step.
Author notes: Yay! Hopefully the anticipation of the first kiss wasn't too much to bear! ;-)
Thank you to all of my readers, I love you guys and your encouraging words! If you have any criticizing words, I'd love to hear that too!
Next chapter: An Unlikely Hero
*This excerpt was inspired by a scene between the characters Anna Foster and Ben Calder in the movie Chasing Liberty.
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