Ginny snuck out of the Great Hall while everyone was preoccupied with mourning the dead and celebrating victory. Despite her better judgment, she couldn’t resist the urge to seek Draco out one last time. She walked through the hallways, paying particular attention to the dark alcoves and corners where she might not easily see him.

She found him in an empty corridor on the second floor, looking down at the destruction the war had wrought on Hogwarts. He was leaning against a window in the hallway, but his thoughts seemed to be elsewhere.

Draco looked up when he heard her. “You seem thrilled.”

“I am. Harry’s back. Everything’s fixed now.” She continued walking until she stood before him.

“Ah, yes, time for happily ever after, hmm?” His voice was laced with sarcasm.

“You’re just sulking because we’ve won,” Ginny commented.

Draco snorted. “You haven’t won. The Boy Wonder’s won. Don’t fool yourself Ginny, you’re nothing but a groupie.”

She looked at him with solemn eyes. “You’re wrong.”

“No, you’re insignificant.” She gazed up at him with a wounded expression. “To him, you’re insignificant. He doesn’t care if you’d like to live in a mansion with house elves or if you’d like to be best friends with Parkinson because he’s already decided those things are not what he wants for you, in his sunny version of the rest of your lives. In the end, it all comes down to what he wants.”

“Harry was a wonderful boyfriend.”

“Was he? Funny, I didn’t see him around this year. Oh, that’s right, he was prancing about the country without you.”

“To stop Voldemort!” Draco winced at the name. “To save everyone! Only you could be such a git you’d accuse him of being a bad boyfriend because he was out stopping evil.”

“If he loves you so much, why didn’t he take you with him?”

“It wasn’t safe. He wanted me to be protected.”

He lifted an eyebrow and asked the question she had pretended not to consider for the past year. “So then, does he love your brother and Granger less than you, or does he just think you’re not as competent as them?”

Her face turned red as she tried to think of a response. “It isn’t like that. You’re making it sound wrong.” He pushed off the wall and walked towards her now, getting close.

“No, Ginny, this isn’t a complicated thing where I’m twisting it around. Either he wanted you to stay because he loved you, which means he was alright with putting them in danger, or he wanted you to stay because he thought you would get in the way.”

“I’m younger than them, I have less experience.”

“One year. And the bulk of their experience came from gallivanting around without permission at Hogwarts, without you. Potter wasn’t really interested in having you around until halfway through the fifth year that you’d been sitting under his nose, was he? So how much of a difference was one year of experience Ginny?”

She started pacing and shaking her head in frustration. “The mission was dangerous, but he couldn’t go alone either.”

“He needed them?”

“Yes!” She smiled with excitement, thinking she had made her point.

“But not you?”

“No….” Her smile dimmed. “No.” She paced away again. “I love him and he loves me.”

“You’ve been obsessed with The Boy Who Lived since before you had a conversation with him and he’s wanted you since you grew breasts and attracted the attention of other blokes. Not much love on either side of that equation.”

She stopped pacing and turned to look at him. “You need to stop.”

“Why did you leave Dean Thomas?”

“What? That doesn’t matter.”

“You didn’t want to be controlled.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“You told me your last fight with Thomas started because he put his hand on your back as the two of you were walking.”

Ginny rolled her eyes. “It was annoying.”

“It was controlling, and you don’t like to be controlled.”

She leveled a glance at him. “No. I don’t.”

Now he was frustrated. He pushed away from the wall, gesturing with his hands as he asked, “Then why are you going to let Potter control you? Why are you going to go off and live his happily ever after instead of your own?”

“You don’t know what my happily ever after is.”

“The hell I don’t. I know you. I’ve seen a side of you he wouldn’t even think of looking at. You like the feel of diamonds and pearls against your skin. You like expensive robes and nice things. It isn’t wrong.

“You told me you always dreamed of leaving the Burrow and making a life where you could have more. You want a big house. You want to buy your family the best simply because it is the best. Potter won’t give you any of that. He’s too righteous and good to be materialistic. You’ll spend your whole life trying to be his idea of what’s right.”

Her voice was a shaky whisper. “Why do you care?”

Now he was solemn. “This is goodbye, Ginny.”

“So you have to make it absolutely horrid?”

He sighed. “Ginny…”

“And why do you keep calling me that?” She interrupted. “I thought I was Weasley, or Gin, if you were feeling very magnanimous. You hate ‘Ginny’.”

“I do,” he agreed with rage. “Ginny is a star struck little girl who wants Harry Potter because he’s Harry Potter and she doesn’t know a thing about him. Ginny is Potter’s dream girl because she’ll marry him and have his children and never complain that she wanted more in life than to be Harry Potter’s wife or the person who made all of his dreams come true.

“She’s not a Weasley, because at least they have backbone and personality, even if the majority of it is extremely lacking. When Potter decides on something she doesn’t want, Ginny smiles and nods. I do hate Ginny, you’re right, oh how I hate Ginny.”

He grabbed her chin and gently lifted it, bringing her lips to his. He kissed her slowly, with memories and passion swirling between them. Minutes later, he lifted his lips and whispered, “Today you’re Ginny, because today she’s the one who’s going to walk away from here and go back to Potter.”

And she did.


Years later, when Ginny Potter was pregnant with her second child, she hoped for a little girl as she already had a boy. When she held her son after giving birth to him, she decided it was good that she’d had another boy and thought she’d like to name him Fred to honor her brother. When Harry announced he wanted to name the boy Albus Severus, Ginny smiled and nodded.

Author notes: Thanks for reading! Please leave me a review and let me know what you think. I love to hear from you. :)

The End.
livvyharris is the author of 6 other stories.
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