CHAPTER 4
When in doubt or anger, run in circles, scream and shout.
Dr Laurence J. Peter
November, 2003
Being engaged isn't all it's cracked up to be. Draco wines and dines me, but we both have to strain ourselves to seem happy to the outside world. Neither of us is keen on everyone knowing that the marriage is a total sham. I don't know his reasoning, but for my part, I just don't want anyone's pity.
We are discussing the upcoming nuptials. It is evening and it's warm before the fireplace. The room we are in is surprisingly cosy; somehow it always surprises me whenever Draco brings me to a room in his family home that isn't cold and draughty.
“You speak as if we have a choice,” he says with a look of resignation on his face. Or rather it somehow comes through his demeanour; Draco doesn't have an expressive face.
“You speak as if we don't,” I say just to be contrary. “At least you could leave the county. You are rich and powerful, I'm sure you could disappear any time if you wanted to.”
“And leave all this power behind? No thank you.” He smirks faintly and, on him, it is the equivalent of a grin.
Since we are already engaged, there's little either of us can do about it (unless we are ready for some gaol time or exile), but I fantasise all the same.
June 27th, 2001
“I'm not asking, Ms Weasley,” Mrs Cornflower utters quietly. “You did a wonderful job while working with Mr. Malfoy no more than two months ago. I don't see any reason why I should assign someone else to do it now.”
Translation: Malfoy has frightened me half to death; I can't risk his displeasure by assigning anyone new to work with him.
“But I'm finishing my training in two weeks and the project is going to drag on much longer than that,” I try to reason. “It just doesn't make sense for me to take it.”
“If you start the project well, who will manage the finish-up hardly matters.”
Translation: if you mess this up we'll just blame you and give you piss-poor credentials when your training ends.
Despite being put off, I understand her point of view. It needs a special skill to work with politicians and it seems that I have it. I do take care to always be pleasant around Malfoy. Sometimes I even think I'm overdoing it, but nobody's complaining and it's not like it's such a chore most of the time. Malfoy is actually pleasant to work with. He's challenging, but he always gives his best too, so it's not like I'm pulling the sled alone.
In the end, it's not so bad, even if the stories about his ruthless climbing up the career ladder are chilling. (He'd been appointed the head of his department just a couple of weeks ago, I think.) Thankfully though, I rarely see him pushing his weight around. In fact, he's quite decent to me; it's probably because I really try not to aggravate him.
The project is coming along quite well; we go to lunches and sometimes coffee, however the schedule allows, and as this time everything goes smoothly, in two weeks the project is over. Then I finish my training and the feedback I get from my superiors is stellar indeed. I'm thrilled. But what's even better is that very soon I'm hired by the DB Charity Trusts. It seems that working with the fearsome politician has paid off - they are the best in the field.
February 25th, 2005
“Your husband speaks so well,” Mrs Something-or-other gushes. “He always does.”
I smile politely and excuse myself. We are at the annual Convention on Wizarding Rights. It's ridiculous to speak of anyone's rights these days, but we do, and we smile while doing it.
“I support my husband’s views completely,” I say to a politician from Canada. “We hope that the forces trying to destabilise Wizarding Britain will be crushed soon,” I add when he asks about the underground propaganda movement.
I'm the perfect wife to a brilliant politician this evening because I don't want my family on the Red List, and I'm thinking about the new tax law coming out next month. Most of my friends are on the Red List and the only reason the Weasleys aren't, is that one of them happens to be a Malfoy now. Still, my family is not trusted and I have a feeling that despite the marriage, there is only so much we can get away with.
My father's actions are closely monitored at work, and Ron has problems finding and keeping employment through no fault of his own. (Unless you count marrying a Muggleborn a fault.) None of us wants to pay higher taxes (Hermione told me about the new tax law in detail), leave the country, or be arrested. Besides, my father always says that there is only so much you can do from afar. We have to be here to fight on, even if the fight at the moment is rather ineffective.
“Yes, sir. We all do what we can,” I say to the representative of UOWNI (United Orphanages of Wales and Northern Ireland). “I'll try to talk to my husband about it,” I promise his wife after her long-winded speech about the Union's current difficulties.
I move on and talk to a bunch of people, some of whom I know I would have been able to help even a week ago. But the thing is, Draco and I are not talking outside of a public setting. Before, I think I actually had some sway with him, but now that the Orphanages really need help, I can't even make myself try. I'm such a selfish person.
“And then he talks about these strange insects, and I just stand there with my mouth open!” Ms Straitbore tells me later about her pleasure at listening to the great Draco Malfoy's speech.
Despite still being angry and disappointed with him, I can commiserate with Ms Straitbore. If you knew Draco from school, you'd never have thought it, but he's actually very good at giving speeches.
When he speaks, his face is impassive, his tone is almost flat, he doesn't gesticulate, but whatever the topic, Draco knows how to capture his audience. He knows when to crack a joke, or tell an interesting little fact you realise you've always wondered about, or pose a question you've never thought of before, and your attention is arrested. Even if you don't agree with his point, you nod anyway, because suddenly you understand.
Today, speaking about human rights, he manages to sound sensible and truthful. There is no praise or criticism to the current order in his speech, but everything he says is still somehow spot-on. Sometimes, I wonder how much good a man like that could do if he only wanted.
Up until recently, I was frustrated that he seemed to prefer simply going with the flow. What really makes me ache, though, is that he didn't just go with the flow, did he? He went much farther than that by killing a person to keep a tyrant, a despot, in the leadership position!
“Are you ready to go?” he asks me with a polite smile a while later.
Charismatic, magnetic, just so there, are the phrases people use when talking about him. It's inconceivable. He's not a handsome man. His features are still too pointed and he's too thin overall, but he's grown into his looks now, and just like his father, despite the imperfections there's this... presence that makes him kind of larger than life. At least that's how I've heard people describe him. I still say he's a slimy bastard, but he's smart and even suave and charming when he wants to be.
He is never like that with me. I guess I'm not important enough to be charmed. Nonetheless, I smile right back as I take his proffered hand. We are the perfect couple.
*
“I gather you are not leaving then?” he asks when we step out of the Floo in the foyer.
It's late, I'm dead tired, and my feet are killing me. I've promised some people to speak to The Great Ministry Official about the financial support to their organisations and the guilt at not being able to is eating at me.
“What?” I play dumb, as I concentrate on unbuttoning my coat. (A couple from the Minister's Office took us out for a drink after the conference, and we took a walk together before returning home.)
“I ask-, stated that you, apparently, are not leaving.”
“Leaving where?”
Draco doesn't answer right away and I just know that I've managed to piss him off. “Me,” he says, taking my coat and handing it to a House Elf. “I had an impression you were thinking about it.”
I sigh, turn toward the lounge and he follows. When I sit on the couch, he offers me wine, but I shake my head. Then he just sits and observes me.
In the end I can't help but ask, “What would happen to my family if I did?”
Draco doesn't answer right away, but I don't think it's because he doesn't know the answer. “Is that the only reason you're still here? The thought that I could harm your family?”
I shrug. “Is my being here the only reason my family is off the Red List?”
His lips become a thin line.
“You know there is no good answer to that. If I say no, you'll call me a liar, if I say yes, you'll presume it a threat.”
“Isn't it?”
Draco's face relaxes into a perfect picture of aloofness. “You have your answer then.”
My hands curl into fists and I hide them between my knees. It doesn't fool Draco for a minute, but that's not the point. I'm so angry I want to club him to death, but instead, I try to give him one last chance of redeeming himself in my eyes.
“Will you promise me that you'll keep them off the list even after I leave you?” I ask, looking at the tops of my knees.
The silence drags on. When I raise my eyes on him, Draco's lips curve into a light sneer, but his words sound quite ordinary.
“I will promise you nothing until you make up your bloody mind.”
With these words, he stands and leaves the room. And I sit there like a fool. It's just a game to him, isn't it? He's always playing games, saying one thing, hinting at the other and meaning Merlin knows what! I cannot interpret this weird, hostile Quaffle-is-yours attitude and I hate it. Him.
September 15th, 2001
It's Sunday and I'm running late to the Burrow. I still need a birthday gift for Hermione, so I pop into Flourish and Blotts and run straight into Draco Malfoy. He's recently been made Home Secretary, so I'm very polite. I smile and call him 'Mr Malfoy', and it's only partly because Dad's under investigation again. (I think he said something to someone about Minister Higgs.) Frankly, with all that's been going on in politics lately, Malfoy intimidates me.
So when the Home Secretary invites me for a cup of coffee, all I can think of to say is, “Are you out of your mind?”
There's a deafening pause and his flat “excuse me” sounds like thunder.
As the realisation that I've probably just offended one of the most powerful men in the country sinks in, I blurt out an almost frightened “sorry” and flee.
On my way home, I imagine my father in Azkaban and my family being deported. Only when two weeks have flown by and nothing's happened do I relax. A week more and I stop worrying.
March 12th, 2005
We are still not talking. Life goes on; I haven't gone anywhere. I have no idea what Draco would do if I did and I just can't do that to my family. All the fight has left me. I don't even try to snoop around any more and I cry myself to sleep more often than not.
Draco does his best to ignore me, the coward. When we meet, we pretend that everything's fine. His indifference is ripping me up inside.
April 1st, 2005
I pick up on the tension right away and so does Draco. Since it's George's birthday, at first I suspect that he's already played some nasty practical joke on the guests, but soon I realise that the attention is somehow focused on us.
“I think George has something planned for you,” I whisper to Draco. “Be extra careful.”
The tension between us has gone down a bit during the last couple of weeks. We haven't really started to talk, but neither are we just extra polite neighbours any more. It' like we've just decided to forget we had any animosity towards each other and, although I'm not sure I can forgive him yet, I'm not willing to disturb this tentative peace either.
“I don't think he'd dare,” Draco whispers back, but despite his apparent self-assurance, he's glued to my side. It's weird, since we hardly speak to each other, the touching is disconcerting.
As soon as Harry arrives, I realise that I was wrong about George and that Draco must have known about it all along. The thing is, Harry's brought a date.
“Why didn't you tell me?” I hiss in Draco's ear.
He ignores me, but his arm tightens around my waist. When the introductions reach us, I smile at Harry and the girl.
“Hi! I'm Samantha,” the fair-haired girl says and holds out her hand in greeting. “Call me Sam.” Either she hasn't been told what happened the last time Harry brought a date, or she has yet to realise who I am.
“I'm Ginny. This is my husband Draco.”
Harry seems uncomfortable and Draco is tense. When we move on to say hello to some of George's friends, Draco's arm is still around me.
“She's got to be a Muggle,” I murmur conversationally.
“Why do you think so?”
“She's not afraid of you.”
There is no outward reaction, but I sense that what I said disturbs him. Take that, you arrogant prick!
For the rest of the evening, I observe the new couple. Harry seems to be head over heels for her. I surprise myself by hoping it's mutual, because there is no ill will towards either of them, and I like the calm acceptance I feel.
After dinner, I've had enough of Draco playing the watchdog over me and drag him into my old room.
“What's your problem?” I hiss furiously.
“Problem?” Draco says neutrally as he looks around the tiny room. I'm not sure if its evasive tactics or he's really curious. “Is this your room?”
“No. All my brothers have pink rooms. Don't change the subject! Your paws have been all over me the whole evening! You can cut that out now! Enough is enough!”
His eyes stop on me finally. They're serious and carefully neutral and it makes me even more furious. Before he has a chance to answer, I go on.
“Did you have to glue yourself to me? What do you think I'm gonna do? Slap Sam? Kiss Harry?”
Draco tilts his head. “Do you want to?” he asks, and with a sinking feeling I realise that someone told him what happened the last time Harry brought a date.
“That was years ago!” I flail my hands and something falls from the shelf. I ignore it.
“You saying you don't want to kiss him? Or maybe slap?”
“Yes! I do! I really, really do want to slap someone!” I yell and then I slap him.
For that, I blame alcohol and possibly George, who's probably put something into my drink. For what I do next though, there is no excuse. I grab Draco's head and kiss him. For a moment he freezes, but then he's kissing me back just as hungrily, angrily and desperately. A part of my brain makes a satisfying conclusion that Draco has not, in fact, taken a lover. Then he pushes me away, none too gently.
“You're drunk, Gin. Or simply mental.”
“Possibly both,” I interject quietly.
Draco sighs, exasperatedly. To my amazement though, for once, his eyes are unguarded and he looks uncertain. It's so rare a sight that I stare.
“What is this all about now?” he demands in a quiet, but firm voice.
The look in his eyes confuses me, so I react in a true Weasley way – I get angry.
“Like you don't know!” I yell, not knowing what to say. My hands flail again and something else crashes from the same shelf. I turn to pick it up. “Oh, it's my Ballerina music box! I haven't seen it in years!” I exclaim. “And I don't like you grabbing me like that!” I wave the Ballerina towards him. “Your paws all over my body. Can't you control yourself at all? It's my parents' house and it's full of my relatives! Including a hundred brothers!” I know I'm talking nonsense, but I'm still blaming George for that.
“So you kissed me because you don't like me touching you, is that it?”
His voice is too calm to be anything but fake and it's triumph I see in his eyes, not hope. Because it cannot be.
“Yes! Nooo!" I almost yell again. "Stop confusing me! How the hell does this blasted thing work?” I mutter, messing with the Ballerina. She's supposed to dance to the music and stuff. She's meckenic; Dad brought her from work when I was twelve. “My parents are here, Draco! For Merlin's sake!” I wriggle the thing. “What I'm trying to say, is...” I make a short pause to breathe and turn the handle. “Is that you don't make love to me, don't touch me, don't even talk to me for weeks! And now that Harry's around, you what?” The Ballerina isn't working so I glower at her. “It's not working.” I give him the Ballerina.
“You are not making any sense,” he says quietly, taking the doll.
“Yes, I am! You just don't have any people skills. Git.”
“Me? I don't have people skills?” Although I'm not looking at his face, we are standing close enough that I can feel the frustration in his body, but his voice is still quiet. “I have excellent people skills, Ginevra. Would I be where I am right now, if I didn't? It's with you that I turn into an insensitive arse. You tie me up in knots like a schoolboy with his first crush!”
The admission goes so much beyond anything I'd expect Draco Malfoy to say, that I finally have courage to look at him. He's holding the Ballerina but he isn't paying her any attention. And no wonder - it is a Muggle thing after all; a Malfoy wouldn't know what to do with it even if it sang him the instructions. And it's broken anyway, so it's not singing.
“What the hell are you saying now, Malfoy?” I ask incredulously. “That you have a crush on me?”
He sighs, as if to say that I'm a bit dim (and yes, I do feel foolish for even voicing an inane idea like Draco fancying me). Draco puts the music box back on the shelf as if the toy doesn't even matter. Vaguely, I realise that it probably doesn’t.
“Just tell me, why did you kiss me just now?” His eyes are intent on my face, but for some reason I'm thinking of his lips instead. “Was it because I haven't touched you in a month, or because Harry might be doing the same thing downstairs?”
That makes me angry again. “What does Harry have to do with anything? I didn't slap or kiss him, did I?”
“No.” Draco exhales. “Come here.” He reaches for me and I melt into the circle of his arms.
Despite Draco being who and what he is, despite everything that has happened, despite me telling myself otherwise, I have missed him. After a while, he starts talking.
“I haven't touched you because you've made it abundantly clear that you didn't want me to,” he says. “You have avoided me and pushed me away, figuratively and literally. You are never at home and when you are, you lock yourself into your rooms. The last time we talked, you spoke about leaving me. I had no idea how to bridge that gap. No idea that my advances would be in any way welcome.”
We are quiet for some moments and then I mumble into the crook of his neck, “I didn't know either.”
For half the evening, I've been imagining what would happen, if instead of Harry and Sam, it were Astoria and her husband here. Would Draco feel the same way I feel about Harry now? Or would he be hurt, betrayed and jealous, like everybody clearly thought I would feel?
“I think I'm drunk,” I mumble.
“Yes, I gather you are. Let me take you home?” he asks and I nod.
There is one thing that comforts me; Draco has missed me, too. I put my hands around his torso and we stay that way for a while.
When in doubt or anger, run in circles, scream and shout.
Dr Laurence J. Peter
November, 2003
Being engaged isn't all it's cracked up to be. Draco wines and dines me, but we both have to strain ourselves to seem happy to the outside world. Neither of us is keen on everyone knowing that the marriage is a total sham. I don't know his reasoning, but for my part, I just don't want anyone's pity.
We are discussing the upcoming nuptials. It is evening and it's warm before the fireplace. The room we are in is surprisingly cosy; somehow it always surprises me whenever Draco brings me to a room in his family home that isn't cold and draughty.
“You speak as if we have a choice,” he says with a look of resignation on his face. Or rather it somehow comes through his demeanour; Draco doesn't have an expressive face.
“You speak as if we don't,” I say just to be contrary. “At least you could leave the county. You are rich and powerful, I'm sure you could disappear any time if you wanted to.”
“And leave all this power behind? No thank you.” He smirks faintly and, on him, it is the equivalent of a grin.
Since we are already engaged, there's little either of us can do about it (unless we are ready for some gaol time or exile), but I fantasise all the same.
June 27th, 2001
“I'm not asking, Ms Weasley,” Mrs Cornflower utters quietly. “You did a wonderful job while working with Mr. Malfoy no more than two months ago. I don't see any reason why I should assign someone else to do it now.”
Translation: Malfoy has frightened me half to death; I can't risk his displeasure by assigning anyone new to work with him.
“But I'm finishing my training in two weeks and the project is going to drag on much longer than that,” I try to reason. “It just doesn't make sense for me to take it.”
“If you start the project well, who will manage the finish-up hardly matters.”
Translation: if you mess this up we'll just blame you and give you piss-poor credentials when your training ends.
Despite being put off, I understand her point of view. It needs a special skill to work with politicians and it seems that I have it. I do take care to always be pleasant around Malfoy. Sometimes I even think I'm overdoing it, but nobody's complaining and it's not like it's such a chore most of the time. Malfoy is actually pleasant to work with. He's challenging, but he always gives his best too, so it's not like I'm pulling the sled alone.
In the end, it's not so bad, even if the stories about his ruthless climbing up the career ladder are chilling. (He'd been appointed the head of his department just a couple of weeks ago, I think.) Thankfully though, I rarely see him pushing his weight around. In fact, he's quite decent to me; it's probably because I really try not to aggravate him.
The project is coming along quite well; we go to lunches and sometimes coffee, however the schedule allows, and as this time everything goes smoothly, in two weeks the project is over. Then I finish my training and the feedback I get from my superiors is stellar indeed. I'm thrilled. But what's even better is that very soon I'm hired by the DB Charity Trusts. It seems that working with the fearsome politician has paid off - they are the best in the field.
February 25th, 2005
“Your husband speaks so well,” Mrs Something-or-other gushes. “He always does.”
I smile politely and excuse myself. We are at the annual Convention on Wizarding Rights. It's ridiculous to speak of anyone's rights these days, but we do, and we smile while doing it.
“I support my husband’s views completely,” I say to a politician from Canada. “We hope that the forces trying to destabilise Wizarding Britain will be crushed soon,” I add when he asks about the underground propaganda movement.
I'm the perfect wife to a brilliant politician this evening because I don't want my family on the Red List, and I'm thinking about the new tax law coming out next month. Most of my friends are on the Red List and the only reason the Weasleys aren't, is that one of them happens to be a Malfoy now. Still, my family is not trusted and I have a feeling that despite the marriage, there is only so much we can get away with.
My father's actions are closely monitored at work, and Ron has problems finding and keeping employment through no fault of his own. (Unless you count marrying a Muggleborn a fault.) None of us wants to pay higher taxes (Hermione told me about the new tax law in detail), leave the country, or be arrested. Besides, my father always says that there is only so much you can do from afar. We have to be here to fight on, even if the fight at the moment is rather ineffective.
“Yes, sir. We all do what we can,” I say to the representative of UOWNI (United Orphanages of Wales and Northern Ireland). “I'll try to talk to my husband about it,” I promise his wife after her long-winded speech about the Union's current difficulties.
I move on and talk to a bunch of people, some of whom I know I would have been able to help even a week ago. But the thing is, Draco and I are not talking outside of a public setting. Before, I think I actually had some sway with him, but now that the Orphanages really need help, I can't even make myself try. I'm such a selfish person.
“And then he talks about these strange insects, and I just stand there with my mouth open!” Ms Straitbore tells me later about her pleasure at listening to the great Draco Malfoy's speech.
Despite still being angry and disappointed with him, I can commiserate with Ms Straitbore. If you knew Draco from school, you'd never have thought it, but he's actually very good at giving speeches.
When he speaks, his face is impassive, his tone is almost flat, he doesn't gesticulate, but whatever the topic, Draco knows how to capture his audience. He knows when to crack a joke, or tell an interesting little fact you realise you've always wondered about, or pose a question you've never thought of before, and your attention is arrested. Even if you don't agree with his point, you nod anyway, because suddenly you understand.
Today, speaking about human rights, he manages to sound sensible and truthful. There is no praise or criticism to the current order in his speech, but everything he says is still somehow spot-on. Sometimes, I wonder how much good a man like that could do if he only wanted.
Up until recently, I was frustrated that he seemed to prefer simply going with the flow. What really makes me ache, though, is that he didn't just go with the flow, did he? He went much farther than that by killing a person to keep a tyrant, a despot, in the leadership position!
“Are you ready to go?” he asks me with a polite smile a while later.
Charismatic, magnetic, just so there, are the phrases people use when talking about him. It's inconceivable. He's not a handsome man. His features are still too pointed and he's too thin overall, but he's grown into his looks now, and just like his father, despite the imperfections there's this... presence that makes him kind of larger than life. At least that's how I've heard people describe him. I still say he's a slimy bastard, but he's smart and even suave and charming when he wants to be.
He is never like that with me. I guess I'm not important enough to be charmed. Nonetheless, I smile right back as I take his proffered hand. We are the perfect couple.
*
“I gather you are not leaving then?” he asks when we step out of the Floo in the foyer.
It's late, I'm dead tired, and my feet are killing me. I've promised some people to speak to The Great Ministry Official about the financial support to their organisations and the guilt at not being able to is eating at me.
“What?” I play dumb, as I concentrate on unbuttoning my coat. (A couple from the Minister's Office took us out for a drink after the conference, and we took a walk together before returning home.)
“I ask-, stated that you, apparently, are not leaving.”
“Leaving where?”
Draco doesn't answer right away and I just know that I've managed to piss him off. “Me,” he says, taking my coat and handing it to a House Elf. “I had an impression you were thinking about it.”
I sigh, turn toward the lounge and he follows. When I sit on the couch, he offers me wine, but I shake my head. Then he just sits and observes me.
In the end I can't help but ask, “What would happen to my family if I did?”
Draco doesn't answer right away, but I don't think it's because he doesn't know the answer. “Is that the only reason you're still here? The thought that I could harm your family?”
I shrug. “Is my being here the only reason my family is off the Red List?”
His lips become a thin line.
“You know there is no good answer to that. If I say no, you'll call me a liar, if I say yes, you'll presume it a threat.”
“Isn't it?”
Draco's face relaxes into a perfect picture of aloofness. “You have your answer then.”
My hands curl into fists and I hide them between my knees. It doesn't fool Draco for a minute, but that's not the point. I'm so angry I want to club him to death, but instead, I try to give him one last chance of redeeming himself in my eyes.
“Will you promise me that you'll keep them off the list even after I leave you?” I ask, looking at the tops of my knees.
The silence drags on. When I raise my eyes on him, Draco's lips curve into a light sneer, but his words sound quite ordinary.
“I will promise you nothing until you make up your bloody mind.”
With these words, he stands and leaves the room. And I sit there like a fool. It's just a game to him, isn't it? He's always playing games, saying one thing, hinting at the other and meaning Merlin knows what! I cannot interpret this weird, hostile Quaffle-is-yours attitude and I hate it. Him.
September 15th, 2001
It's Sunday and I'm running late to the Burrow. I still need a birthday gift for Hermione, so I pop into Flourish and Blotts and run straight into Draco Malfoy. He's recently been made Home Secretary, so I'm very polite. I smile and call him 'Mr Malfoy', and it's only partly because Dad's under investigation again. (I think he said something to someone about Minister Higgs.) Frankly, with all that's been going on in politics lately, Malfoy intimidates me.
So when the Home Secretary invites me for a cup of coffee, all I can think of to say is, “Are you out of your mind?”
There's a deafening pause and his flat “excuse me” sounds like thunder.
As the realisation that I've probably just offended one of the most powerful men in the country sinks in, I blurt out an almost frightened “sorry” and flee.
On my way home, I imagine my father in Azkaban and my family being deported. Only when two weeks have flown by and nothing's happened do I relax. A week more and I stop worrying.
March 12th, 2005
We are still not talking. Life goes on; I haven't gone anywhere. I have no idea what Draco would do if I did and I just can't do that to my family. All the fight has left me. I don't even try to snoop around any more and I cry myself to sleep more often than not.
Draco does his best to ignore me, the coward. When we meet, we pretend that everything's fine. His indifference is ripping me up inside.
April 1st, 2005
I pick up on the tension right away and so does Draco. Since it's George's birthday, at first I suspect that he's already played some nasty practical joke on the guests, but soon I realise that the attention is somehow focused on us.
“I think George has something planned for you,” I whisper to Draco. “Be extra careful.”
The tension between us has gone down a bit during the last couple of weeks. We haven't really started to talk, but neither are we just extra polite neighbours any more. It' like we've just decided to forget we had any animosity towards each other and, although I'm not sure I can forgive him yet, I'm not willing to disturb this tentative peace either.
“I don't think he'd dare,” Draco whispers back, but despite his apparent self-assurance, he's glued to my side. It's weird, since we hardly speak to each other, the touching is disconcerting.
As soon as Harry arrives, I realise that I was wrong about George and that Draco must have known about it all along. The thing is, Harry's brought a date.
“Why didn't you tell me?” I hiss in Draco's ear.
He ignores me, but his arm tightens around my waist. When the introductions reach us, I smile at Harry and the girl.
“Hi! I'm Samantha,” the fair-haired girl says and holds out her hand in greeting. “Call me Sam.” Either she hasn't been told what happened the last time Harry brought a date, or she has yet to realise who I am.
“I'm Ginny. This is my husband Draco.”
Harry seems uncomfortable and Draco is tense. When we move on to say hello to some of George's friends, Draco's arm is still around me.
“She's got to be a Muggle,” I murmur conversationally.
“Why do you think so?”
“She's not afraid of you.”
There is no outward reaction, but I sense that what I said disturbs him. Take that, you arrogant prick!
For the rest of the evening, I observe the new couple. Harry seems to be head over heels for her. I surprise myself by hoping it's mutual, because there is no ill will towards either of them, and I like the calm acceptance I feel.
After dinner, I've had enough of Draco playing the watchdog over me and drag him into my old room.
“What's your problem?” I hiss furiously.
“Problem?” Draco says neutrally as he looks around the tiny room. I'm not sure if its evasive tactics or he's really curious. “Is this your room?”
“No. All my brothers have pink rooms. Don't change the subject! Your paws have been all over me the whole evening! You can cut that out now! Enough is enough!”
His eyes stop on me finally. They're serious and carefully neutral and it makes me even more furious. Before he has a chance to answer, I go on.
“Did you have to glue yourself to me? What do you think I'm gonna do? Slap Sam? Kiss Harry?”
Draco tilts his head. “Do you want to?” he asks, and with a sinking feeling I realise that someone told him what happened the last time Harry brought a date.
“That was years ago!” I flail my hands and something falls from the shelf. I ignore it.
“You saying you don't want to kiss him? Or maybe slap?”
“Yes! I do! I really, really do want to slap someone!” I yell and then I slap him.
For that, I blame alcohol and possibly George, who's probably put something into my drink. For what I do next though, there is no excuse. I grab Draco's head and kiss him. For a moment he freezes, but then he's kissing me back just as hungrily, angrily and desperately. A part of my brain makes a satisfying conclusion that Draco has not, in fact, taken a lover. Then he pushes me away, none too gently.
“You're drunk, Gin. Or simply mental.”
“Possibly both,” I interject quietly.
Draco sighs, exasperatedly. To my amazement though, for once, his eyes are unguarded and he looks uncertain. It's so rare a sight that I stare.
“What is this all about now?” he demands in a quiet, but firm voice.
The look in his eyes confuses me, so I react in a true Weasley way – I get angry.
“Like you don't know!” I yell, not knowing what to say. My hands flail again and something else crashes from the same shelf. I turn to pick it up. “Oh, it's my Ballerina music box! I haven't seen it in years!” I exclaim. “And I don't like you grabbing me like that!” I wave the Ballerina towards him. “Your paws all over my body. Can't you control yourself at all? It's my parents' house and it's full of my relatives! Including a hundred brothers!” I know I'm talking nonsense, but I'm still blaming George for that.
“So you kissed me because you don't like me touching you, is that it?”
His voice is too calm to be anything but fake and it's triumph I see in his eyes, not hope. Because it cannot be.
“Yes! Nooo!" I almost yell again. "Stop confusing me! How the hell does this blasted thing work?” I mutter, messing with the Ballerina. She's supposed to dance to the music and stuff. She's meckenic; Dad brought her from work when I was twelve. “My parents are here, Draco! For Merlin's sake!” I wriggle the thing. “What I'm trying to say, is...” I make a short pause to breathe and turn the handle. “Is that you don't make love to me, don't touch me, don't even talk to me for weeks! And now that Harry's around, you what?” The Ballerina isn't working so I glower at her. “It's not working.” I give him the Ballerina.
“You are not making any sense,” he says quietly, taking the doll.
“Yes, I am! You just don't have any people skills. Git.”
“Me? I don't have people skills?” Although I'm not looking at his face, we are standing close enough that I can feel the frustration in his body, but his voice is still quiet. “I have excellent people skills, Ginevra. Would I be where I am right now, if I didn't? It's with you that I turn into an insensitive arse. You tie me up in knots like a schoolboy with his first crush!”
The admission goes so much beyond anything I'd expect Draco Malfoy to say, that I finally have courage to look at him. He's holding the Ballerina but he isn't paying her any attention. And no wonder - it is a Muggle thing after all; a Malfoy wouldn't know what to do with it even if it sang him the instructions. And it's broken anyway, so it's not singing.
“What the hell are you saying now, Malfoy?” I ask incredulously. “That you have a crush on me?”
He sighs, as if to say that I'm a bit dim (and yes, I do feel foolish for even voicing an inane idea like Draco fancying me). Draco puts the music box back on the shelf as if the toy doesn't even matter. Vaguely, I realise that it probably doesn’t.
“Just tell me, why did you kiss me just now?” His eyes are intent on my face, but for some reason I'm thinking of his lips instead. “Was it because I haven't touched you in a month, or because Harry might be doing the same thing downstairs?”
That makes me angry again. “What does Harry have to do with anything? I didn't slap or kiss him, did I?”
“No.” Draco exhales. “Come here.” He reaches for me and I melt into the circle of his arms.
Despite Draco being who and what he is, despite everything that has happened, despite me telling myself otherwise, I have missed him. After a while, he starts talking.
“I haven't touched you because you've made it abundantly clear that you didn't want me to,” he says. “You have avoided me and pushed me away, figuratively and literally. You are never at home and when you are, you lock yourself into your rooms. The last time we talked, you spoke about leaving me. I had no idea how to bridge that gap. No idea that my advances would be in any way welcome.”
We are quiet for some moments and then I mumble into the crook of his neck, “I didn't know either.”
For half the evening, I've been imagining what would happen, if instead of Harry and Sam, it were Astoria and her husband here. Would Draco feel the same way I feel about Harry now? Or would he be hurt, betrayed and jealous, like everybody clearly thought I would feel?
“I think I'm drunk,” I mumble.
“Yes, I gather you are. Let me take you home?” he asks and I nod.
There is one thing that comforts me; Draco has missed me, too. I put my hands around his torso and we stay that way for a while.
Author notes: Thank you for reading. ;) I'm sad to say that the next chapter might be some time, since my beta has a life too and I'm not really the one to push her to drop everything else, because I'm in the mood to post. But I hope it will be no more than a week. Feed me? *ultra-bright grin*
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