Still hiding behind the hidden door, Draco pressed his ear to the wood. By the look of his watch and the diminished sound of footsteps, Draco knew that classes had started again. He ventured out of hiding, only to start at the surprise of finding that nosy red-head just outside the door. Her eyebrows were contracted in confusion as she studied an ancient piece of parchment.
If he had been merely avoiding the students of the school, then he had been treating her like the plague for the past few months, a feat that had proven most difficult. The girl seemed to be everywhere when he didn’t want to be found. The embarrassment of having to see her again after he had broken down so completely was unbearable enough; he didn’t think he could handle another conversation. So intoxicating and dangerous was the effect she had on him, he didn’t understand it, and he couldn’t control it.
“Oh!” Ginny exclaimed as she noticed him, dropping the parchment in her haste to shove it in her pocket. The more she grabbed for it, the closer it floated towards him until he snatched it off the floor. A quick inspection of the hundreds of labelled dots moving about lines representing the halls of the castle told him all he needed to know. He looked up to meet her wide eyes, her hands balled into fists reaching halfway towards him in anticipation of his reaction.
“Wormtail… Prongs… What the hell, how did you get something like this? Is this how you keep finding me?” His outrage was eclipsed by his intrigue of such an object.
“Draco, please, I’ve just wanted to see how you are.” Her earnestness to help him, despite his lack of benevolence towards her their entire lives, was a bit sickening.
“Thanks, now I can find you whenever I need you,” he smirked as he folded up the map. He saluted her with it, and started walking towards his dorm.
“Hey, wait! That’s not mine, I need it back!” She caught up with him, keeping his brisk pace as she attempted to seize the parchment from his grip. Amused by this childish game, he held the map just out of her hands until she tried to grab it, and then pulled it out of reach, holding her back with his free hand. After a few tries, she gave up with a huff and submitted to walking alongside him. Draco wiped the smile off his face in case she was to look over just then.
“Why were you hiding?” Though her eyes were looking in the direction their feet were taking them, he still felt the influence she had over him. He felt compelled to answer her, as if he knew that she would understand; it was as if he wanted to tell her.
“I don’t want to have to talk to the tossers around here.” No harm in answering that one honestly.
“Then why be here? Why not go home?” The question was innocent enough, but both knew that it was heavily weighted.
“My home is... compromised,” Draco attempted to simplify it, hoping she wouldn’t probe further.
“And your father, what happened to him?” She continued to look, not at him, but down the corridor, following his lead as he made turns and climbed stairs.
“He’s also dead. Anyone I could have stayed with will kill me on sight. I really don’t have anywhere to go.” He stepped ahead of her as he ascended a spiral staircase up a tower that Ginny had never seen before. The top of the stairs stopped at a large, wooden door. Here, Draco halted suddenly, nearly causing a collision. He turned to face her, already beginning to mouth the words that would send her away. She recognised the defensive barricade building and cut him off before he could finish a word.
“I’m coming in, and you can’t make me leave.” Pushing past him, she lifted the latch that opened the door and stepped inside. The room was quite bare, void of any house colours or pictures. She was greeted with the soft scent of a musk that instantly made her feel warm and safe.
“Make yourself at home,” Draco muttered resentfully. He had avoided her so earnestly after their last meeting because he knew that she wanted to hear his story. He also knew that he would tell her if she asked, no Veritaserum needed.
As she flopped into his overstuffed armchair in front of the fire, he admired the effect of the firelight reflecting off her hair. The yellow light gleamed off of each tress, bringing out the blonde and brown strands along with the glowing red. She glanced at him, raising her eyebrows expectantly. Realizing he was still standing in the open doorway staring like an idiot, he cursed himself internally, and then hastily shut the door. Given that his usual place was occupied, he took a seat on the bed.
During this time last year, if he had found a Gryffindor occupying his seat, he would have sent them running for their mum with curses. Now, it just didn’t seem as important to pull rank. Though his blood was still pure and his power great, his place in society had been severely downgraded to outlaw, and even this blood traitor had more rights in the world than he did. And, despite the awkwardness of this unforgivable friendship forming, her company was soothing, making him glad that she had invited herself in.
“So that raid on your house where they actually caught some Death Eaters was thanks to you, wasn’t it? That’s why you can’t stay with anyone you know, because they are all Death Eaters.” Ginny’s eyes followed the jumps of the crackling embers as she reasoned this out.
“What makes you think any of that is true?”
“Please Draco, I’m not thick.” She twisted to face him, her side to the fire, tucking her legs underneath her. “I know who your dad was, and your aunt for that matter. I was at the Ministry when they tried to kill us. You’ve been surrounded by these people your entire life. You did some horrible things last year, but I know now that there was more to it, like you didn’t have a choice.”
Feeling slightly insulted at her insinuation that he couldn’t have done those things without direction; he opened his mouth to retaliate.
“Save it,” she cut him off, as if knowing he was about to start a pointlessly biased dispute. “You’ve been nothing but a bully since I’ve known you, but last year you seemed different, as if someone was out to get you. Then, it seemed as if you had done the unforgivable. But here you are, back where it all started, being tortured by your own demons.”
“You wouldn’t know anything about it,” he grumbled angrily, looking down at his clasped hands in his lap, irritated at her dead-on perceptiveness.
“Then tell me about it. I know that you think you’re so much better than everyone else, but I don’t think that you’re a killer, and I don’t think that you’d go as far as You-Know-Who just to show off your lineage.”
“It’s not about showing off lineage!” Jumping to his feet, he gestured fervently with his hands to show his indignation, the level of his voice rising. “It’s about the most powerful being in charge, it’s about loyalty to magical blood, and it’s about respecting where we come from!”
Ginny rolled her eyes as she turned back to the glowing fire. She actually rolled her eyes at him, the nerve! He stood there for a moment, clenching and unclenching his fists as his blood boiled in fury at her insolence.
Sensing his glare, she stood from her seat and faced him with her arms folded loosely in front of her chest, her hair alight with radiance from the firelight. “You don’t actually expect me to take that high-and-mighty rubbish seriously. Muggle-born, Pureblood, why does it make such a difference to you? As long as you can still live in your mansion and drink your tea out of your expensive teacups, marry your rich and snotty Pureblood wife, why do you have to interfere with others’ lives? Do you really have nothing better to do?”
Finding her glowing splendour distracting, he looked down at the nauseatingly maroon carpet. It all sounded ridiculously pointless when you spat it out like that. He felt his confusion intensifying in an extremely unsettling way.
“Where do you think we’d be if Purebloods only married Purebloods forever and ever?” He glanced up at the softness of her voice into her remarkable russet eyes, feeling her stimulating influence overtake him slowly. “Eventually we’d be forced to marry our cousins. Don’t you see, Draco? That’s why Magic chooses Muggles, because otherwise, it would die. Hell, we’re probably even distantly related somehow.”
The thought of being related to her was unexpectedly revolting, and he pushed the thought from his mind. Shaking his head as if clearing out some of the confusion, he found his voice again.
“Don’t you ever feel like they’re stealing our glory, our birthright? Like they come from a world that shouldn’t have anything to do with ours? But there they are, more of them every year, buying our wands and filling our classes, completely clueless about where their power came from, power that never should have been theirs.” The more he spoke, the more confident his voice became and he remembered his disdain for those Mudblood first years, so utterly ignorant to even the simplest of Wizarding concepts.
Ginny’s hands found her hips in annoyance at his continued narrow-mindedness. “Who are you to decide something like that? Who are you to tell Magic who it should choose? Those Muggle-borns have no more choice to receive their power than you do.”
Draco opened his mouth, and then shut it with a huff, contracting his eyebrows in frustration at his loss for words. He no longer had his father to further encourage his prejudice; he only had his uncertainty on the subject, which was failing him miserably.
“You see!” she exclaimed, jumping on his lack of argument. “It doesn’t make any sense to persecute Muggle-borns! They didn’t steal their Magic, and without them, Magic would die out anyways.”
Making one last attempt at his dignity, Draco tried again, “Even so, you have to admit that Muggles are a far less advanced breed of humans. Why should we have to hide from them when we are the more powerful, when we could control them? They should be in hiding from us.”
Ginny pursed her lips, shaking her head. “Why does it have to be about control? Why do you have to hate a person because they weren’t lucky enough to receive a power that you so willingly abuse in order to hurt that same person? If there were a way for us to co-exist without fear of the other, wouldn’t it have been found already? This way of life, with us protecting Muggles from what they can’t understand, has worked out the best for both sides, and people like your master–”
“He is not my master,” Draco cut her off violently. A strange wind blew through the fire upon the word ‘not’. If he hadn’t been so heated at being affiliated with that snake-faced monster, he would have been slightly ashamed at his brief loss of control of his magic.
Giving him a hard look, her eyes darkening with passion, she spoke in a low, even voice, “Well, you sure still seem to answer to him with all this nonsense about control. Do you know what the Death Eater’s new calling card is? I read in the Prophet that after they’ve killed a Muggle-born and their family and ransacked their home, along with put the Dark Mark over the house, they leave ‘Magic is Might’ painted on the walls in that poor family’s own blood. Is that what you believe in? Do you have that much hatred in your heart?”
Any words of retaliation caught in his throat, and he felt slightly sick in his stomach. He knew that his life up until not long ago had been on a direct path to exactly those kinds of acts. After all he had been through, he was faintly surprised that he couldn’t imagine himself ever wanting to kill anyone, let alone leave them so humiliated in their own death; anyone– except one.
Ginny took a step towards him, her heart softening at his absolutely lost expression, his eyes seeming to search the fibres of the carpet for answers. At his silence, she took a more soothing tone, “I know you don’t, Draco. I know you have a good heart underneath all that hatred they’ve filled you with. Have you ever made a decision for yourself?”
Revealing a person who had no idea who he was, Draco’s grey eyes answered her as they searched hers for something, anything to help him. As his confidence in his learned bigotry broke down, she noticed that his eyes now resembled more of a dense morning fog before a downpour rather than the usual frigid ice. She knew that she was chipping away at the blackness built so solidly around his heart; she also knew that this was her opportunity to show him that a life of choice, trust, and love was so much more fulfilling than the life he had been raised to lead.
Quickly closing the gap between their bodies, she wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her head against his broad shoulder in one of the most primitive signs of friendship. She waited a moment to see if he would respond, breathing in that warming musk, and smiled with her eyes closed as she felt his arms snake around her middle to press against the small of her back, embracing her in return.
His moment of sudden panic at being completely lost in his own life was promptly out shadowed by the surprise of having her small body pressing against his, and her exhilarating fragrance filled his nostrils as his arms reached around her flattering waist, pressing her tighter against him.
He told himself that it was instinct that made him hold her, that made him run his hands up her back and into her silky red hair. It had to have been an animalistic impulse that attracted him to her exposed and inviting neck, allowing him to take in her aroma at the source and graze her soft skin with his lips. But he knew in his heart that there was a strange emotion forming deep within him, strengthening in feeling with each mystifying encounter, a feeling too good to fight against. He also knew it wasn’t his instinct that forced her hand into his own hair, running her fingers through the smooth blond strands, or that made her breathe in sharply and tighten her other hand against his neck as his hot breath warmed her skin.
A quiet knock on the door caused the pair to break apart, hastily jumping away from each other.
“Mr. Malfoy, sir, Groble has brought yous your dinner, sir!” a squeaky voice carried through the thick wood.
Ginny let out a soft laugh as she met Draco’s eyes, her cheeks reddening to match her hair, and even he let a slight smile escape, more at her embarrassment than anything. Opening the door to let in the small elf, laden with a heavy tray of food, he shot an apologetic look in her direction, knowing that she would find this interruption her cue to leave, and also knowing that he would be disappointed to see her go.
The elf toddled to the end table, slid the tray onto it, gave them an extremely low bow as he grazed the carpet with his long nose, and then toddled out of the door.
Sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck, he looked up to catch her eyeing the open door.
“Well, I have a wicked long Potions essay to get started on,” she said to her shoes, nervously wringing her hands behind her back.
“Yea, I guess,” Draco mumbled back, examining the stone wall.
“Draco.” He found her eyes, feeling that warmth in his heart that he found so unfamiliar, and yet so pleasant at the sound of his name rounded out with the use of her tongue and lips.
“I’m glad you’re here. I’ve felt so alone here, and for some reason, I feel a little less so when I’m with you.” He noticed that she never broke eye contact when she said something she really meant, which made it so much harder to retreat behind his usual defences of cynicism and arrogance. If only it were anyone but her.
Unsure how he should respond, he gave her a weak smile. She smiled back, more broadly and kindly than him, and then walked out of his door.
Closing the door behind her, he rested his head against it for a moment. You’re losing it, Malfoy. She’s nothing special after all. He closed his eyes, remembering the feel of her skin against his lips, and the smell of her hair, like lavender, and knowing that in the battle between his head and his heart, his head was losing miserably.
Ginny leaned against the stone wall just outside Draco’s door, disturbed at the fluttering in her chest. She had felt these feelings before, and the guilt was beginning to consume her.
Harry’s out there, risking his life to save us all. I’m sure he’d be just thrilled to see you with his archenemy. If he only knew the thoughts in your head, he’d be furious, a voice lectured her, sounding strangely like Mrs. Weasley.
“I know, I know,” she whispered to herself, pushing off the wall to begin her walk to Gryffindor tower.
Author notes: Thanks for reading everyone! Please R&R!!!!
Next chapter: A Fear Impartial to Purity of Blood
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