The next week found Ginny in turmoil with guilt and confusion. Freshly checked out of the Hospital Wing with a clean bill of health and a strict regimen of healing potions, she went about her classes in an exhausted blur, repeatedly torn from her self-consuming thoughts by glaring professors and worried friends.
Distracted, heart hammering at memories of the past few days, nervously searching the corridors for any sign of pale, blond hair she knew would never surface in the midst of so many people, she couldn’t deny it: She was in love. In fairy tales, being in love was usually the euphoric high before a dramatic climax in which one of the lovers would prove their commitment. For Ginny, at that moment, being in love felt more like stabbing her best friend in the back with an ice-cold knife, enjoyment underlying waves of remorse in her betrayal.
She was in love with two very different wizards. One was right in front of her, amending his past reputation as a cold and selfish Slytherin, indifferent to any concern not involving his own. With her help, his mind was opening to a vast expanse of possibilities that he never would have considered under the tight thumb of his father. He was surprisingly kind and gentle with her, and Ginny found herself blushing at the thought of what they could discover about themselves together. What’s more is she felt an enriching responsibility for his love for her, a feeling no one would have thought possible of the young Malfoy, and she was anxious to nurture it in order to help him learn more about the deeper recesses of his heart, neglected for so long and hopelessly abused.
The other was more of a dreamy idea kept alive in her memory, her knight in shining armour, selflessly riding off into the sunset to slay the dragon that threatened the good village people. She didn’t even know if he would survive, that he would succeed in his conquest to save the world and return to her to finish what they had started. She felt she sometimes only imagined their love to be the ridiculous, consuming, can't-live-without-each-other kind that deserved her patience and heartbreak, and her heart almost stopped at the idea that she would never find out. If only she could feel him, talk to him, kiss him to prove to herself that he had been real; she needed to know that she wasn’t turning her heart over in anguish for nothing, that there was a reason she was resisting what could be something wonderful.
The part of her that loved Draco argued relentlessly that she had no obligation to Harry: He left her, plain and simple. She could have put up more of a fight. She could have stuck by his side, screaming and crying until he gave up his protest, but she wasn’t one to plead. So she let him go, hoping that he was ready, that he had a plan, that there was no possible outcome involving failure as long as the trio stuck together. But then her feelings began to die away as she fell for the fair haired, stormy eyed refugee of Hogwarts; her love for the Boy-Who-Lived was slowly replaced with resentment towards the ever-increasing obligation to search for it. What kept her lying awake at night as of late was the troublesome realisation that if those feelings could fade, maybe they had never been real?
The part of her that still loved Harry, the part bleeding internally in an attempt to keep from disappearing completely, knew that if she gave her entire heart to Draco, and Harry returned to her victorious, it would be too late for him, and she may always live her life wondering, ‘What if?’ Not even giving him a chance to prove that their love was worth the wait before she wrote him off was what made her feel so awful; it wasn’t his fault he was The Chosen One, that he was targeted because of a prophesy, that he alone had the power to defeat He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and had to leave her behind for her own protection. With the whole of the Wizarding world cowering behind him, his only help on his quest were just two students, barely of age, a brain and a brawn. No one expected them to last, not with Harry’s face plastered across every Daily Prophet, the caption ‘Undesirable No. 1, One Thousand Galleon Reward’ pasted neatly underneath. None of it was fair to him, and neither was her falling in love with a man he hated while he was out risking his life.
Despite the deep shame of even considering breaking the heart of their only hope, she knew she couldn’t put her own heart on hold because of an obligation to the first man to love her. She just couldn’t.
Having one idea in her head as to where she could find the answer to the question in her heart, she skived off her last class of the day in complaint of a severe headache. Instead of taking herself to Madam Pomfrey as she was supposed to, she wandered listlessly toward that abandoned floor of the castle, anxious for the answer she wanted, but dreading it all the same.
He hadn’t talked to her in a week, and even in his disappointment and humiliation of putting himself out there and getting rejected, he missed her. It wasn’t just that she was his only friend in the world, but he had really meant his words to her. He was experiencing what it was like to put another’s well being above his own, and he just wanted to talk to her, to be near her, to see if she was happy.
On top of the anxiousness he felt after his confession, he couldn’t shake the notion that her lack of the response he wanted had something to do with that Potter git. Having become increasingly aware that she avoided talking about him as she and Draco grew closer, as if he were a dirty secret she didn’t want to trudge up, he found his usual feelings of bitterness and disdain towards the Scar Face to increase tenfold whenever his name slipped, and she would tense as guilt flashed across her eyes. Then the subject would abruptly change, and he would dismiss the whole thing as she turned her attention back to him, making him lost with contentment, and they’d once again be untouched by such bothersome subjects.
Having been conditioned to loathe any weakness such as love, he had to learn to cope with and smother these inclinations of disgust towards himself for being so pathetically vulnerable. The suppressed urges to ram his own face into his mirror at his repugnance in what he was becoming were released in his sleep, never allowing him rest. He suffered countless nightmares in which his father would torture Ginny in front of him, make her scream, make her beg for death as his son watched helplessly. He’d wake up in a cold sweat, his heart aching and cold tracks of tears running down the sides of his face.
Unable to take his isolation in his studies or his own thoughts any longer, he pulled out the map to seek her out, regardless of whether she wanted to see him or not. His eyes flew to the place where all this torment began, as if it were one of those times when they were supposed to meet, and she was already waiting for him. Her name residing in that classroom could only mean one thing: She was thinking of him. He left his tower abruptly without any concern for the time of day, or who he may meet in his negligence to his usual plan to roam the halls when they were most deserted. Lucky for him, classes were in session, but that detail was the furthest thing from his mind.
Directly in front of the large, enchanted mirror, the straight-backed chair cast aside, Ginny stood with tears running silently down her face. A happier version of herself was reflected back to her, but the arms wrapped around her this time weren’t the ones she expected. She almost felt disappointed to see the unruly dark hair and the emerald green eyes. If the desires of her heart, so plainly obvious now that she felt such distress, were to see a different face, why was she seeing Harry’s? She soon got her answer.
As if watching a moving photograph, her reflected form and Harry turned to face each other and embraced. As he pulled back, he took one of her hands into his own and gave her a sad smile as he slowly stepped away, letting go when she was finally out of reach, and once he had exited the picture, Ginny half expected to see the real Harry step out.
Confused, Ginny stared into the eyes of her reflection, standing alone with a wistful expression on her face. What could this mean? Then she saw a new figure approach from behind, and her heart leapt at the sight of his shining hair, his arrogant saunter, and his intense, grey eyes coming into focus. Unbeknownst to her, a slow smile spread across her face until she was practically grinning, her reflection mimicking the same change in facial expression.
Mirror Draco stopped right behind her, and she could practically feel his breath on her neck as his hands reached out to her waist to embrace her from behind. Suddenly she felt real hands snake around her middle, and she looked down in surprise as she recognised them. She then looked up see his chin resting on her reflection’s shoulder, returning her smile, and she felt that very chin land on her own shoulder.
Whirling around in his arms, she planted a kiss on his surprised lips, and then hugged him tightly around his neck.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered with her eyes shut tight.
He wrapped his arms around her middle and squeezed, burying his face in her hair in his relief to have her back in his arms. Remembering what they were standing in front of, Draco looked up, but was surprised to see just him and Ginny, arms around each other, exactly as they were as if it were an ordinary reflection.
“Hey, what’s wrong with the mirror?”
“It’s been you all along, not him. I want to be with you,” she breathed into his ear as she began kissing his neck.
“Potter?” Draco growled indignantly, pulling her hands away from his neck. He took a small step back to look into her eyes, not bothering to hide his resentment at having to compete with The-Boy-Who-Bloody-Lived as usual. So she had been thinking of him all this time. Having a cause to blame for his torture other than the object of his affection, he let his anger flow towards this unseen enemy.
Her lips curved upward at his outrage, shaping her infuriatingly knowing smile. He scowled at that smile.
“Don’t get your knickers in a twist because I had feelings for him.”
“Had?” He wasn’t thick, he knew what she was getting at, but wanted to hear it with a longing that he hadn’t even realised he had until a week ago.
“Draco, I love you.”
She said the words as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, as if when asked where pumpkin juice came from, and the answer was so blatantly, painfully clear, that the words were said as if they needn’t be said at all.
His face remained stoic, but his eyes always gave him away. She prided herself in being able to read the many shades of icy fog, the concealed messages and buried secrets that he never meant to tell would always reveal themselves to her. She could see the happiness that he was fighting, the internal struggle with the ghost of his father that would never let him be, and the love that he felt for her as plain as if he spoke of the feelings out loud.
Stepping forward, she ran her hands up his chest, then his neck, and tangled her fingers into his hair. Her chin tilted upward and her hands brought his face towards her. He wrapped his arms around her upper body to pull her close to him. She closed her eyes and when their lips met, she kissed him like the end of the world was tomorrow and she would never have the chance to taste those lips again. Feelings of relief, happiness, and love flared inside her chest so intensely she was sure her heart would burst. They were no longer at Hogwarts, there was no Voldemort, there was no feud between Malfoy and Weasley bred to stand the test of time, there were only their bodies, pressed so close in an attempt to become one, and their arms, and lips, meeting so softly, so tenderly. She never wanted it to end, or it may never have happened.
As the passion intensified, their hands began to wander, and their feet shifted until Ginny was the one facing the mirror. Taking her lower lip between her teeth as his lips and tongue found a spot on her neck below her ear that made her arch her back into him, she chanced a quick glance out of one eye. Reflected back to her was just what was happening: she and Draco, entangled in a mess of arms and hair and lips, just as they were. She couldn’t have felt happier than that moment, when she realised she was exactly where she was supposed to be.
Author notes: So much internal conflict! What do you think? Sorry for the lack of action, but transition chapters are necessary. Plenty of action is coming, I promise!
Next chapter: The Beginning of the End
Leave a Review