Draco tip-toed across the infirmary towards Ginny’s bed noiselessly, taking his usual seat facing her as she lay fast asleep on her side. Taking a moment to watch her as she slept before surprising her with his presence, he became hypnotised by her breathing pattern, her shoulders rising and falling with each breath, so long and deep that he found himself breathing in and out along with her.
The pillow was her prisoner between her two clutching hands, squished into a shape that pleased the contours of her head. Each lovely shadow created by the spread of moonlight spilling across her bed seemed to be situated perfectly along her face to accentuate her soft features. Her usually vibrant, red hair, now a dim shade of shadowy, bluish-red in the darkness of the late hour, sprawled in an organised disarray across her pillow and around her shoulders, free of the confines of the bandages.
Running his eyes along her figure, shielded protectively by the immaculate, white blanket, he admired her womanly outline, her small waist giving way to the steep, rolling hill of her hip, then gradually decreasing in altitude along her long legs, stacked one in front the other and lightly bent at the knees, finally ending at her small feet, hidden from view.
As his eyes explored, her breathing began to change, steadily quickening to a normal, wakeful rate as her eyes opened.
“Hey,” she whispered with a smile, pulling her blanket around her front self-consciously as she sat up and swung her legs around the side of the bed. He smiled back, a hint of a smirk lingering behind his cool, grey eyes at her bashfulness.
“Let’s go for a walk,” he suggested as simply as if it were the middle of the day.
Ginny giggled softly, believing him to be joking, but when he pulled out the map to check if the coast was clear, she started to panic; she had nothing to wear but these thin, hospital robes.
“Draco, I–” she started desperately, gesturing to her garments.
“Ah… well, that just won’t do.” His lips on one side of his mouth curving upward smugly, he touched the tip of his wand to the drab fabric as he muttered a few spells.
The grey, cotton robes transfigured into the smoothest of satin in a brilliant light blue, lengthening to the floor and contouring to Ginny’s figure. The sleeves shortened until only straps held the gown against her skin. Lastly, the neckline began plunging into a deep V, and Ginny had to hiss “Stop!” before she felt indecent. She stood, marvelling at the cool satin caressing her skin as she gave a small twirl, and at the advanced magic it took to turn such dreary robes into something so beautiful.
“Not to sound ungrateful, but this is not exactly what I had in mind to go sneaking around the castle at night.” She raised her eyebrows as she gave him a look, but her words were lost on him.
Draco sat in a stunned daze as he ran his eyes down her body, and then up again. The soft blue of the gown set her hair aglow so that it radiated even in the dire light, illuminating her entire face.
Keeping his eyes locked with hers, he rose to stand before her. Her breath caught in her chest as she awaited what came next, her cheeks growing warm and butterflies swarming frantically in her stomach. She felt sensually exposed in the gown beneath his intense stare, and she took pleasure in knowing that it was the mere sight of her in it that rendered him speechless.
In one, quick movement, he moved forward to cup her face gently with one hand, and wind his other around her waist to press her against him. Her arms came up to rest around his neck, her fingers running into his silky, white-blond hair, and the pair closed their eyes as their lips met in a fervent kiss. Each pair of lips countered the other’s hungrily in an attempt to triumph over the owner’s mouth, their tongues waging a battle of their own.
Draco’s hands both started up her lower back, slowly running his fingers lightly up the silky satin, enjoying the sensation of the cool fabric. Leaving her lips, his own ran themselves in a torrent of slow kisses down her neck. One hand came up to the back of her head, lost in her long mane as his lips found their way to her ear. Looping the track of her outer ear with his tongue, his hot breath tickling her sensitive skin, her fingers in his hair lightly grabbed and pulled, and a light moan escaped her mouth, sounding as loud as a shout in the dead quiet of the night.
They both froze, practically comical in their awkward stance as they strained to hear any sounds in response to their offense to the absolute silence of the castle.
“Let’s get out of here,” he whispered in her ear, and she nodded eagerly. Grabbing her shoes beside her bed, they stole silently out of the Hospital Wing.
Breathing heavily, they walked side-by-side down the corridor as Draco perused the map for any patrollers. Seeing no one in sight for at least two levels, he stole a look at Ginny. She met his gaze, looking magnificent in the torch light of the hallway, and he could see the desire still in her eyes.
He stopped short, pushing her against the stone wall. The use of his hands unneeded to press their weight together, he used them to pin her hands above her head as he pressed his body against hers, claiming her mouth possessively.
She responded with compliance, allowing him to hold her wrists with one hand and run the other down the length of her body, sliding it along the smooth fabric, appreciative of each of her curves as his fingers outlined their shape.
As his hand roamed past her hip, one of her legs came up to wrap around his body, and he took hold of it just behind her knee to pull her closer to him while pressing his heat ever closer to hers. She let another small moan escape as he trailed kisses down her neck, to her collarbone, and his roaming hand left her leg to slide up, past her stomach, inching its way up her ribs.
“Draco, stop,” Ginny gasped, suddenly remembering where they were.
He immediately released her hands, and both of his came to rest against the wall on either side of her as he hung his head, his eyes closed. Breathing deeply, he attempted to regain control of himself. Pressing herself against the cool stone in an attempt to transfer some of her intense warmth into it, both of her hands flat at her sides against the wall, she leaned her head back and closed her eyes as well, revelling in sensations she had never felt this strongly before stirred within her.
“Let’s find somewhere to just talk,” she suggested breathlessly as she opened her eyes. His head rose and he kissed her lightly on the lips.
“I know just the place.” He grinned mischievously. Having rarely seen Draco’s face so lit before, Ginny couldn’t help but grin herself as he grabbed her hand to lead her away from the wall.
After checking the map religiously, ducking behind a coat of armour, or into an empty classroom on occasion, they found themselves staring at an expanse of blank wall on the seventh floor. Ginny thought absurdly that they were going to a D.A. meeting, but she knew that Draco had something else in mind.
She watched as he walked back and forth three times with his eyes tightly shut, silently mouthing what he wanted the room to give him. Finally after the last pass, a large door materialised.
Draco opened the door, and then gestured forward with a deep bow.
“After you, milady,” he said, putting on a pompous expression as he stood upright.
“Why thank you, kind sir,” she responded with a giggle, giving him a quick curtsy before walking through the darkened doorway.
Stepping over the threshold, she gasped in amazement at the sight that met her eyes. The room resembled a smaller Great Hall, completely disguised as an ice fortress; the clear, blue substance covered everything from the walls, to an immense, pure sheet of frozen floor, to large icicles hanging down in bunches from the ceiling. Though the scene was made to look ice-cold, she couldn’t feel the chill.
As Ginny took in the room in awe, Draco walked over to an ancient gramophone in the corner, setting the needle to play the record already lying in the turntable. After some auditory crackling, a classical melody filled the room, brought to life with strings and brass.
Back in front of her, he took a more formal bow, one hand folded behind him and the other pressed against his middle. Hiding a smile, she gave another curtsy without the mockery of the previous one. He held out his hand to her, and she slid hers into it, aware of his other hand sliding around her waist, and she placed her free arm around his neck. On count one they melted easily into the rhythm of the song as if they’d danced together for years, gliding as one across the expanse of frost.
“I’m amazed at your lack of two left feet, Weasley; you never struck me as the girly, dancing type,” Draco smirked as his hand guided her into a twirl, and then back into his arms.
“Do you have any idea how long my mum had to wait before she could teach a child of hers to dance? My brothers would have nothing of it,” Ginny laughed. “You’re not so bad yourself, for a prat.”
He smiled at her friendly insult. “That gown, as soon as I saw you in it, I thought of the Yule Ball. You would have given Delacour a run, that’s for bloody sure.”
They settled into a slow rock, back and forth, swaying to the music.
Shaking her head amusedly at his compliment, she looked up into his eyes. Set against the milieu of frigid ice, she could see the faintest hue of cobalt blue brought out in his usually pristine shade of stormy grey. She could easily become utterly lost in those icy orbs, reading into the layers of meaning laid out for her when his guard was entirely cast aside.
“Why do you keep looking at me as if I’ll sprout a second head?” he murmured softy, pressing a kiss to her temple and resting the side of his chin against her head.
“Well, you… you’ve surprised me so much lately. Here I am, dancing with Draco Malfoy, a sure Death Eater and a traitor. But, at the same time, here you are, none of those things at all, dancing with me.”
“What surprises you so much? That I’m not a Death Eater or that I’m dancing with you?”
She thought for a moment. “Both. I mean, honestly, who wouldn’t have thought you were a Death Eater? I know now that you were forced into everything, but hardly anyone else knows that, and you were an enormous git for the longest time, probably still would be if you weren’t hiding all the time– ”
“I’m not hiding!” He pulled back to display his mild outrage as the tempo picked up. “I’m simply biding my time the only place I can and trying to keep a low profile.”
She smirked, and he cringed; he knew she was right.
“If I’m such a git, why are you dancing with me?” His sarcastic change of subject lacked subtlety, but she obliged nonetheless.
With a small shake of her head and an amused smile, she looked into his eyes as she replied, “Don’t you remember me spouting some rubbish about you having a good heart?”
Without a suitable response to such a mention, he returned her gaze with a blank face, his mouth relaxed to allow his lips to part slightly. As unreadable as he was trying to be, she noticed the warm flicker in his eyes, warming her own heart to know that he didn’t find the accusation insulting. She closed her eyes as she rested against his body and swayed to his lead.
“Well,” he sent her away from him with a movement of his arm until they were at arm’s length, and then tugged her back to spin back into him. “for a Weasley, you’ve turned out to be much more pleasant than your Weasel brother.”
“Don’t–” she started menacingly at his stab at Ron, her free hand meeting his flat one before he spun her away from him again.
“Easy,” he soothed. Pulling her back into his embrace, they again commenced to lightly leaning to and fro to the music. “I don’t get so worked up about childish rivalries anymore.”
She pulled back to look into his eyes again, her eyebrows crinkled in annoyance of past memories. “I would hope so. I remember the things you used to say, making fun of our family, our clothes, our house–”
Looking away from her reproachful eyes, he sighed.
“I thought it was obvious by now why I gave your brother such a hard time.”
Ginny had stopped swaying. Not sure of what he was getting at, her guard began building for one of their usual disputes. “Because we saw a human being when we looked at a Muggle born?”
His eyes snapped back to hers, surprised at the anger welling behind those rings of chocolate brown, and realizing that he was sending the conversation completely in the wrong direction.
“No, because, well…” he dropped her hands and took a step back. Making a frustrated sound at the back of his throat, he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly and took a deep breath. “I was jealous of your family. I just… never realised that was the reason I despised the lot of them so much. I figured I just hated them because I was supposed to.”
He let the breath out uncomfortably, realising how wretchedly dismal he sounded, but how much better it felt to say it out loud. Speaking those words made them even truer than they were in his head, but speaking them to her meant someone would understand.
She stared at him incredulously. “You were jealous of us? What with your vault teeming with Galleons and your Malfoy name? You could have had anything you wanted!” Her voice rose in disbelief.
Well shit, I guess she doesn’t understand.
Throwing caution to the wind, he pushed on, hoping that prattling on like a blithering idiot would be enough to convince her that he wasn’t trying to pick a fight about Muggles for once.
“I’ve just never had brothers or sisters to stand up for me, or push me around. My mother was always kind to me, but seemed to believe that expensive gifts were the only way she could show me that she cared. And my father, his idea of father-son bonding was duelling until I was knocked unconscious, and then lecture me on how much of a disgrace I am.”
After he’d finished, he left a moment for his words to sink in. Her incredulous look had softened to a combination of guilt and sympathy, but when she didn’t respond, he continued.
“I’ve always wanted a family like yours, and no amount of gold could buy me anything close. Now that I have no one at all, I’ve realised how much time I’ve wasted thinking I was so superior to people like your family because of the way you lived. None of that mattered in the end. I may as well disappear for all the Wizarding world will notice,” he finished bitterly.
After a moment of silence, Ginny spoke. “Is your pity party over yet?” she asked with a smile.
Jerking out of his revelation, Draco narrowed his eyes at her tactless remark.
Grabbing the front of his robes and pulling his body towards her, she then took both sides of his face in her small hands, forcing him to look directly into her eyes. Though he was a bit riled, his hands couldn’t resist the warmth presented before them, and pulled her hips closer.
“I’d care if you disappeared, Draco Malfoy,” she whispered forcefully.
“Why?” he whispered back in a growl.
“Because, I–” she paused, realising what she had almost said. Thinking fast, she revised her words, “I care about you, and I care what happens to you.”
Closing his eyes, almost disappointedly, he pressed his lips softly against hers in a slow and affectionate kiss, and then rested his chin against her head as he wrapped his arms around her small form, slowly starting up the sway to the music again.
“No one’s ever said that to me before,” he said into her sweet smelling hair. He breathed in deeply, wanting to remember her every aroma, the feel of her hair and her skin beneath his hands and her body against his.
“I –” he began, and he could feel her tense against him, but he ploughed on before he could stop himself. “I think I love you, Ginny.”
As he said it, she knew the intense stir in her chest could only mean she felt it too. Before she could revel in her happiness of hearing Draco acknowledge his heart, Harry’s face forced itself into her mind, his emerald eyes accusing. She could hear the phrase clearly echo in her ears in the former Gryffindor’s voice, reverberating the time he had first uttered those three, magical words to her himself.
A silent, unseen tear slid down her cheek as she suddenly realised that she missed him with a deep and forgotten ache, forgotten with her promise to herself to wait for him. The guilt ebbed at her soul for the fact that she could bury him so deep in her heart that she hadn’t even thought of him in weeks, wondered where he was, what he was doing, if he was thinking of her. This realisation came most inconveniently, as she had been spending all of her spare moments lately falling in love with someone else.
Quickly swiping at her wet cheek, she put on an overly wide smile as she pulled away from Draco.
“I should get back before someone notices I’m missing,” she said lightly, trying to fill the thick absence of her repeating the confession back to him.
“Oh, right,” he replied, his eyes freezing over to a frosty shade of icy grey. She had taken notice long before that his eyes looked frigid when he was angry, or disappointed, and she felt another pang of guilt.
As they left the Room of Requirement, she looked down at her gown and realised that the brilliant blue was fading back to the drab grey, the fabric shortening from floor length and the sleeves lengthening. The material was changing back to itchy cotton, and she felt Draco’s happiness recede as her beautiful gown once again became her hospital robes. They walked back to the Hospital Wing in uncomfortable silence, and she noticed the sky lightening to reveal a fresh layer of snow on the grounds with the oncoming sunrise out one of the many castle windows.
Back outside the infirmary door, Draco wouldn’t look her in the eye, but merely offered a pitiable farewell before he turned away to walk back to his dorm.
“Draco,” she whispered desperately.
He stopped, but didn’t turn.
“I… I just can’t say it back yet,” she said as her eyes filled with tears. She wanted to say it, but she had to know something first, something only one object could show her.
“I’ll see you later, Ginny,” he muttered, and continued walking away.
The piece of her heart struggling to tear away and become a part of him throbbed horribly as she entered the Hospital Wing unnoticed, slid into her bed, and allowed tear after tear to slide across her face and into her pillows as she watched the sun rise through the great window next to her bed.
Author notes: Please review! I love to hear your opinions!
Next chapter: Who's the Fairest One of All?
Leave a Review