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Ten: Goodbye

After moving to an open ward, Ginny began physical training immediately. She was determined to go home, so no matter how weak she felt, she pushed to keep herself standing, putting one foot in front of the other until she could walk without the aid of a Healer or random objects in her path.

That night, she laid in bed, exhausted to her bones, every muscle aching. And suddenly she remembered.

She and some of her teammates had stopped by the Leaky Cauldron for a meal after practice. She’d noticed Malfoy enter the pub looking stiffly out of place—not because his robes were pristine and shining in the dingy pub, but because he held himself rigidly, as if he knew he didn’t belong. It was strange behavior, and what made it more curious was the woman he’d met at the bar and the tense way they’d conversed. The woman looked increasingly desperate as they continued their discussion, while Malfoy’s expression became more dour. Suddenly, the woman stomped out of the pub, back out into Diagon Alley, and Malfoy finished his drink alone.

Ginny stayed behind while the rest of her teammates departed for home. She watched him over the edge of her mug until he stood up to leave, and then she joined him at the exit.

“Fighting with your girlfriend?” she asked cheekily.

Malfoy wrinkled his pointy little nose. Ginny had thought it a cute gesture from someone with such an air of arrogance and stuffiness. “Hardly. Bad business, that’s all.”

“Oh? And what kind of business are you in?” she asked, feigning surprise but not curiosity. Draco Malfoy was a mystery, the wizarding equivalent of the Loch Ness monster. Sights of him were always being reported but unconfirmed. That she’d spotted him in a pub of all places deserved a reward, but she had no camera to capture her proof.

Now his eyes narrowed, but she smiled back at him blithely. “Are you interested in business with me?”

“It depends on the business,” Ginny said. She might have winked, but she hoped she wasn’t remembering that part correctly.

Malfoy’s face flushed, and she deeply regretted her lack of camera to forever preserve his pink cheeks on film. She’d had an absurd urge to put her hands on his face to feel if the blush had warmed his cheeks. He always looked so pale, cold, and imposing in his expensive robes, with his sneers and smirks adorning his face like masks. She hadn't known until that moment that he was even capable of blushing.

“What do you really want?” he asked suspiciously.

Ginny hesitated because she wasn’t sure. Her relationship with Harry had failed utterly, and when she’d seen Malfoy enter the pub, like a rare species of dragon wandering into a village, she’d wanted to snatch him. Not to cut off his tail or harvest his scales to sell to the highest bidder. She would never do that to anyone, not even to mysterious, snarly dragons. She just wanted to learn more about him, and in the meantime maybe his flame could keep her warm at night.

By now they’d made it back onto the street, the cool March air feeling fresh after time spent in the Cauldron’s dark, warm interior. She’d opened her mouth to try to explain, but the woman Malfoy had met with earlier jumped into their path, hatred boiling in her eyes, her fists clenched and trembling.

“I can’t forgive you for what you did to me and my family,” she said to a shocked Draco Malfoy as she ignored Ginny's presence entirely. She seemed consumed with an anger that could only be directed at him. “The Ministry did us wrong. Did all of us wrong, but I’m going to make it right.”

As the woman drew her wand, Malfoy drew his and pushed Ginny towards the apothecary, yelling for her to get inside. She never made it. Malfoy had been hit with a spell and blasted backwards on top of Ginny, his body covering hers even as the apothecary exploded and stone rained down on them.

The next thing she knew, she’d awakened in the Janus Thickey Ward.

The memory left Ginny gasping, but moments later the gasps turned into body-wracking dry sobs. She pressed her hands over her mouth and clenched her eyes shut, trying to regain control of her breathing, trying not to make a noise that would alert her roommate, even though he was deaf in one ear thanks to a well-aimed Engorgement Charm.

This was too much. Would Draco Malfoy always be on her mind? It made sense that she'd dreamed about him, if he was the last person she'd seen before she'd lost consciousness. Even before she'd entered St. Mungo's, he had interested her in a way that had made her imagination run wild. And the thing about it was, that dream had been so vivid. How could she not believe it had been real? She knew about his conflicting feelings concerning his father, his hopes for his charitable work to rebuild his family's reputation, his paranoia preventing him from going out in public, and his care and consideration for his mother. He was a real person to her, and it destroyed her that he might never wake up—and that if he ever did, she would be no one to him. Except the bothersome woman who had cornered him after a drink to drill him about his work just before a woman went mad and tried to kill him.

If he ever woke up, she wouldn't be surprised if he swore off women for the rest of his life. Oh, but it had only been in her fantasy that he'd been inexperienced with them. Maybe women had fought over him all the time—before. She didn't know because everything she thought she knew about him was wrong.

As her rampant thoughts settled, so did her breathing. Now, along with physically drained, she was emotionally exhausted, too. When she fell asleep, she slept like the dead.

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Ten days passed before Ginny regained enough of her strength to stay active for more than an hour. When she stretched her limits, she could remain standing or moving for nearly two, but she crashed soon afterward and became too weak to carry herself back to bed. Even so, her Healers were letting her go home as long as she promised not to strain herself and to rest often. Her mother and George would pick her up the next morning—and this time, she really was going home.

In the time since she'd regained consciousness, she'd seen more friendly faces and cried more tears than she had in months. All of her brothers—even Charlie, who had arrived all the way from Romania—had visited her as often as they could. Fleur had brought the children, and Ginny had been surprised by how big baby Louis had grown. Luna had picked flowers from her front garden just for Ginny, and one day, the whole Puddlemere United Quidditch team had tromped into the hospital room to see their fallen comrade.

Harry showed up the day before her release with a devastated, apologetic expression and her favorite box of Honeydukes chocolates.

Ginny was starting to feel like a leaky faucet because as soon as Harry stepped into her room, her eyes filled with tears. He flew to her bedside, pulling her into his arms as his own tears fell. All she could do was clench the material of his robe sleeves; she was afraid if she let go, she'd disappear.

"Ginny, I'm so sorry!" Harry cried, a desperate keening in his voice.

Despite herself, Ginny coughed out a laugh. "What have you got to be sorry for?"

He pulled away from their embrace, but he never let go of her hands, and instead of moving to the chair at the bedside, he stayed perched on the edge of her mattress.

"For our fight. I was stupid and cruel to you. All this time, I kept thinking that I should have been there for you. I should have done something to help." He wiped the tears off his face, looking like a miserable, repentant puppy dog.

Ginny was shocked but not forgiving.

"Wait," she said, staring at him with scrutinizing eyes. "Are you saying you've spent the past four and a half months feeling guilty and thinking if we hadn't fought, or if we'd made up, none of this would have happened?"

Harry just looked perplexed, but he was still familiar enough with the alarmed expression on her face to be wary of it.

"Do you know what happened to me at Hogwarts during the war?" she asked.

Now a faintly annoyed expression crossed his face because this was a conversation they'd had several times. It always ended with Ginny's resignation and silence, but not today. "Of course I do. What do you want me to say?"

She patted his hand, and there was something patronizing in the gesture, even if he couldn't tell, though Ginny hoped he could.

"While you were camping in the middle of nowhere, I was fighting a war, and I was losing. Neville, Luna, and I sacrificed so much to do what you weren't there to do. I believed in you in a way few others did those months. I believed you would save us all, and I wanted to do whatever I could to make it easier for you to win. Then you had the nerve to barge into that castle and give me orders after months of not knowing what you were doing or if you were even alive. You ignored my suffering and my contributions to the war as if they were nothing. I've never forgiven you for it. You think that if you had been in Diagon Alley four months ago, I wouldn't have been hurt? No. The only way you could have saved me from this injury was by being at Hogwarts when I needed you.”

She sucked in a trembling breath, trying to keep it from sounding too much like a sob, and Harry's grip tightened on her hand, the corners of his lips turning downward into a more severe frown.

“I know that what you, Hermione, and Ron were doing was important, and it was and it still is selfish of me to wish that you could have been at Hogwarts with me—helping me, protecting me from what I went through. I know it's unreasonable to blame you for the way I suffered when I was the one who made the decision to fight. I know all that. But you could have made it easier for me to believe in you again when you returned. You could have taken me seriously. You suffered, too, but I needed you after the war, and you made me feel like your prize for surviving. Where was my prize for surviving? I wasn't perfect. I'm still not. All I wanted was for you to love me as the broken person I was. I'm sorry, Harry. There is nothing you can do now to salvage the relationship we had. You had your chance, and you blew it."

Her voice had been calm and even, except for that hitch in her breathing in the middle of her speech. Her heart pounded and her stomach rebelled against the lunch she'd forced down earlier in the day. Her eyes were dry, and they drilled into Harry's, refusing to back down, refusing to stay silent. She'd learned well from dream-Malfoy's theoretical Occlumency lessons. She'd learned well from him.

"I know you don't understand," she said in a softer voice. "I've tried so many times to make you see. I've loved you for so many years, but I love myself too much to live this false life we've built. There's nothing you could have done, and the sooner you realize that, the happier you'll be. I meant what I said five months ago. I can't be the Ginny Weasley you want me to be."

There was silence as her speech was absorbed and comprehended.

"Is that it, then?" Harry asked, and she could hear the lump in his throat around which he tried to speak. He blinked rapidly, trying to stem his tears.

"That's it."

He pulled his hand from hers and stood up. She watched him leave in silence, and when the door closed behind him, she had never felt more relieved in her life.

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Later that night, long after she should have been asleep, she crawled out of bed and snuck into the corridor. On quiet feet, she approached the door leading into the fourth floor lobby. The overnight Healer looked up and smiled.

"Lost, honey?"

"Oh, uh, no. I just wanted to ask for a favor," Ginny said. She still felt wary around the Healers thanks to months of resentment, even if those months had been dreamed. There didn't seem to be any hope of the direct approach working, but she didn't know any other way to get what she wanted. She and Malfoy would have hatched an elaborate plan, but that had been an alternate reality, hadn't it? And dream or not, she still didn't have the motivation to scheme alone.

The Healer stood up. "Is everything all right?"

"Yes, everything's fine. I just... I'm being released in the morning, and I want to see Draco Malfoy before I go. No—I know, it isn't visiting hours and it's not allowed, but I think he saved my life, and I just want to see him for a few minutes."

"Oh, sweetie."

Ginny put her hands up. "I promise I won't take long, and I'll go straight back to bed. I'll be careful not to wake any of the other patients either."

She thanked Merlin, Circe, and Dumbledore that Unger hadn't been the overnight Healer that night because thirty seconds later, the Healer was unlocking the Janus Thickey Ward to let Ginny in.

"I have to stay at the desk, but I'll be back in five minutes to lock the door," she whispered.

"Thank you," Ginny whispered back.

Alone with the patients of the Janus Thickey Ward, Ginny somehow felt right at home. The ward looked different from her vantage point at the doorway, and the moonlight was obstructed by the curtains drawn around the Longbottoms' beds. Part of her wanted to climb back into the bed next to Malfoy, fall asleep, wake up, and continue their fantasy routine as they usually did, but it didn't feel quite the same, and she was glad for that. The differences reminded her that she couldn't dwell on her dream life. She had a life to live outside of St. Mungo's.

There was no chair next to Malfoy's bed, so she sat on the edge of the mattress. Malfoy's skin practically glowed in the dark, and his hair caught the smallest traces of light and reflected it back. He looked ill. His features were gaunt, and there were bruise-like smudges under his eyes.

Ginny hesitantly reached out, her fingertip meeting his forehead and then tracing down the bridge of his nose, which looked sharper thanks to the weight he'd lost. She remembered the cute way he'd slept in her dream, with his soft snores and snuffling breath. The contrast of reality was stark and depressing. His chest rose and fell so shallowly that he could have been dead rather than unconscious.

She spent the next few minutes memorizing him and tracing his features. She wouldn't be able to have him, but she could have the memory of him, even if her favorite memories of him were imaginary.

Leaning over his body, she hesitated, hovering just above his face, and then she made a split-second decision she hoped she wouldn't regret. If this was the only chance she would get, she had to take it. When her lips met his, they were gentle, soft, and uncertain. He felt like ice, but her kiss melted him. She almost expected him to respond and had to quell her disappointment when he didn't. He was lifeless.

Then she said softly in his ear, "Thank you for saving me."

She sat back, but the words weren't enough. She remembered how he'd accepted his fate in her dream, how his paranoia of the outside world made him feel safer locked up inside the hospital like a prisoner. She understood that fear now, because someone had blamed him for their suffering during the war, and they'd attacked him for it. Maybe the Malfoy she knew wasn't real, but perhaps his fears were.

She leaned closer again, her fingers sliding gently up and down his arm. Goosebumps rose in his flesh and the response, natural and involuntary as it was, gave her some hope.

“Draco,” she said, her voice soft and hesitant. It felt strange calling him by his first name when she didn't even know him. “You are... more than you think you are. Not a killer. Not a coward. Not evil. And you are more than what everyone else thinks of you, too.” She knew that all too well. He'd shown her how to stand on her own two feet, accept what had happened to her during the war and forgive—or at least forget—how her family and friends had let her down after the Battle of Hogwarts. The least she could do was support him, too. “You have to forgive yourself,” she continued, “for what you did during the war. And you have to forgive everyone else for not believing in you. I believe in you. So....”

She faltered again, unsure of her point. Why was she even doing this? He probably couldn't hear her, and even if he could, why did she think her words would affect him?

“So... pick yourself up and get better soon. Or else.”

She felt foolish trying to motivate his unconscious mind, and when the overnight Healer returned, Ginny was relieved to go back to her room.

He hadn't just saved her nearly five months ago by taking a hit from a spell and protecting her body from the debris of an explosion. In her dream, he'd kept her from losing her mind, reminding her that her strength came from within herself and no one else. And since he'd been her dream, maybe that meant she'd only needed to remind herself of her own strength.

When her mum and George arrived to pick her up the next morning, Ginny felt revived. Gone were the days of anguish and regret. No longer would she fight her present with the memories of her past. Maybe it was cliché, but she had a second chance to live, a new lease on life, and she was ready to face whatever came her way.

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