Hey, I haven’t heard from you in a while. I hope things are okay.

A week later: Are you all right?

Five days after that: D, you’re starting to worry me. Please let me know that you are okay.

Two days later: Is this about my letter saying we should meet? I’m sorry. I wasn’t in a good place, and I wasn’t thinking. I’ll take it back. I don’t want to jeopardize what we have.

Draco paces when he receives her letters, but no amount of pacing gives him clarity. He doesn’t know what to say to her anymore. Ginny will never accept him, so why should they continue their letters as if they have any sort of future together?

He misses her more than he can say. The rage he felt after the ice skating debacle has long since been extinguished, and now he’s just empty due to her absence. As her letters become less concerned and more desperate, he paces more—longer, harder, faster. He never meant to hurt her. In fact, he thought stopping his communication with her would be the kinder course of action. At least she’ll have good memories of the letters they shared. If he told her the truth about his identity, her disgust would taint all past interactions with her pen pal. What he’s doing is a kindness for both of them. Draco avoids rejection and Ginny avoids the dissolution of a dream.

He sees her again at a Ministry Christmas party that Draco only attends because Blaise doesn’t know how to let a thing go. Draco finally got tired of hearing Blaise harp on about hobbies and socializing and free alcohol, so he gave in for the sake of his own sanity.

The Atrium might seem like a strange, transient venue for a party, which is exactly what Draco thinks when he, Blaise, and Pansy are spit out of the Floo, but there is no other location that could hold as many people as the eighth floor of the Ministry of Magic. The room is warmed by the soft glow of fairy lights wrapped around columns and strung along the edges of tables, draped from the center of the ceiling to the edges of the room like a tent. They twinkle, imitating starlight against the peacock-blue ceiling, which reflects in the dark, polished wood floors. Christmas trees stand in the corners, their ornaments glinting silver and gold. The effect is enchanting, transporting the guests from the reception hall of the Ministry of Magic to an unearthly arena.

Banquet tables line two sides of the vast room, laden with a medley of holiday foods ranging from chicken to goose, roasted vegetables to roasted potatoes, gravy to sauces, and more pudding than Draco can fathom, from simple butter biscuits to elaborately decorated pastries. The Ministry puts Hogwarts’ Christmas supper to shame and reminds Draco of Malfoy Christmases of yore, before Potter had freed the Malfoys’ house-elf.

Intimate round tables draped in white litter the Atrium floor, leaving just enough room in the center for dancing where the Fountain of Magical Brethren—and its successor, the Magic is Might statue—used to stand. A live band plays from a platform in the corner near the lifts. Every once in a while, the lift doors open to emit bemused passengers who must skirt around the platform and the loud music to reach their destination.

Blaise’s eyes are as large as serving platters as he takes in the offerings on the banquets.

“I’ll find a table,” Pansy says.

Draco and Blaise get in line to serve themselves. Draco fills his plate conservatively, a small sample of different dishes spaced out around the plate so that nothing touches. In contrast, Blaise’s plate is piled high, servings of food stacked one on top of the other, precariously capped with a serving of boozy Christmas pudding. They seek out Pansy in the crowd of seated guests, and Draco’s stomach—nearly his plate, too—plummets when they find her sitting at a table with Granger, Lovegood… and Ginny.

Draco hesitates next to the table and shoots a narrow-eyed glare at Blaise, who can’t be bothered to notice Draco’s displeasure. He’s already sitting next to Lovegood, pleased as punch by the company they’ve found themselves in.

“Draco, sit down. You’re hovering,” Pansy says with a roll of her eyes.

There’s only one available spot, and it’s between Blaise, oblivious to Draco’s plight (or pretending to be), and Ginny, only too aware of the empty chair’s portent. But her expression doesn’t crumple into one of distaste as he sets his plate down and takes a seat next to her. Instead, she turns her body, props her head up with her hand, and feigns interest in Granger’s conversation with Pansy.

Draco knows she’s not paying attention to anyone else because her eyes are unmoving, as if she’s lost in thought. Maybe she is simply listening intently, but Draco knows better.

In her letters, she has written about her difficulties in social situations, how sometimes she suddenly dissociates, forgetting where she is and what she’s doing as she gets lost in her memories. Her friends don’t notice until they direct a question or comment to her and she doesn’t respond, but she laughs and waves them off with an apology for her silliness when she eventually gets drawn back.

It wasn’t until he’d read her description of the phenomenon in her letters that Draco recognized the experience happening in his own life. He just never noticed because he passed his time alone in his study, no one around to call attention to his inattention.

It’s agony to sit next to her and know that she is avoiding him as much as she can, that she’s suffering at this very moment and he can’t comfort her. She’s physically turned away, mentally lost in another world, emotionally distant from him. The urge to apologize for ignoring her letters ignites like an ember in his gut, threatening to burst into a flame that can’t be tamed. He thinks about what he would say as he picks at his food.

I’m sorry for not responding sooner. I’ve been going through a rough patch and didn’t know what to say. —It’s not really the truth, but it’s a white enough lie to earn him some sympathy and her forgiveness possibly.

I’m sorry for not responding sooner. I recently realized that I’ve built you up to be something you’re not, and I wasn’t sure how to deal with the reality. —Well, that technically is the truth, but it doesn’t sound very complimentary. Such a letter would probably enrage her at best, hurt her at worst.

I’m sorry for not responding sooner. I’m a little in love with you, and the thought that you could never want me back has made me realize that we might need some distance from one another. —His heart pounds as he considers a scenario wherein he sends her such a letter, the truth laid bare, ugly and free. She wouldn’t understand. Even if she reciprocates his feelings, she would want to know why he’s already come to this conclusion without discussing it with her first. He follows the scene to its inevitable conclusion:

We can’t meet. Ever. The fact is, I know exactly who you are, and I know you would hate me if you knew who I was. I want to continue as your friend, but each letter is an agony to write and to read, knowing that I can’t comfort you with my arms, knowing that the sound of my voice would only hurt you further. I can’t bear to lose what we have, either, but I also don’t want to taint the memory of it. I hope you can understand.

She wouldn’t understand and she would never accept such an explanation. He knows her well enough now to recognize that she would fight him, demanding answers and urging him to meet her to settle everything once and for all.

She would bristle at his audacity to suggest that he knows her well enough to make a decision for her, and Draco would, once again, stop responding to her letters, or he would cave and agree to meet her.

He imagines waiting for her at an approved location—the Three Broomsticks, maybe—his breath catching in his lungs as she walks through the door, her eyes scanning the establishment for a sign of the man with whom she’s been exchanging letters. She thinks she’s spotted him on the other side of the pub and smiles, walking up to a table that isn’t Draco’s. He gets out of his chair to intercept her, but he doesn’t get there fast enough.

The man she greets stares up at her in confusion, and Draco gently touches her arm to get her attention. She turns her head, her embarrassed smile wilting as she realizes Draco is the man she has come to meet, Draco is her anonymous pen pal, her confidante and friend, and the man who has admitted to being in love with her.

He can’t maintain the fantasy any longer, her shock and betrayed expression painful even though it’s imagined.

Something cold, wet, and hard bounces off Draco’s forehead, forcing him out of his thoughts and returning him to the Ministry Christmas party and present company. Pansy flicks water off her fingers, and as Draco wipes his face with his sleeve, he realizes she has just chucked a piece of ice at him.

“What?” Draco says, and even though there are no sibilant consonants in the word, it manages to come out as a hiss. Everyone at the table is staring at him.

Pansy’s expression is serious, but not disinterested. Blaise, too, looks bleak as he takes in more than just Draco’s facial features, his gaze roaming to the floor and back up to Draco’s eyes.

“You’ve gone absolutely pale,” Pansy says. “I think some dancing will put some color back in your cheeks.”

He swallows the harsh refusal sitting on the tip of his tongue when Pansy jerks her head, a gesture that suggests she will not let him dismiss her. Before he stands, he glances quickly around the table to gauge everyone else’s reactions. Blaise’s severity is clearly concern. Lovegood watches with wide eyes that might suggest surprise if Draco didn’t know her well enough to recognize her resting weird face. Granger observes the proceedings, a frown in her brow the only sign of her puzzlement. And Ginny is looking at him as if she’s seeing him for the first time. Like Blaise, her eyes trail him, head to toe, her eyebrows meeting in a V above the bridge of her nose as she tries to decipher him.

He doesn’t know how long he had been lost in his thoughts, doesn’t know what was said to him, but clearly his mind had wandered long enough for everyone at the table to notice.

Draco stands and goes around the table to Pansy, taking her hand and drawing her to the dance floor.

“Blaise told you, didn’t he,” he says, tone flat, when they have twirled far enough away from their dinner table. Tension clenches his jaws tight. He holds himself just as tightly, his frame too stiff for the dance.

“Every word. We’ve been laughing about those letters behind your back for months. I should have known it was a Gryffindor spilling her heart out onto a page like a fool.”

His muscles tense further. This is why he needed Ginny to be someone anonymous that he could be open to. His own friends find emotional vulnerability and suffering laughable. What would they think of him if they could read the contents of the letters Draco had sent back to Ginny?

“I thought, perhaps, that you were toying with her. You know, supporting her for a laugh, so she would share all her embarrassing secrets with you for your own satisfaction. But after Blaise told me she was the one writing to you, that afternoon on the pond began to make sense. You care about her, don’t you?”

He doesn’t answer. He can’t. His jaws have locked together, and his whole body has frozen as hard as the ice sculpture decorating the center of the dessert table. In fact, having his affection for Ginny thrown in his face so baldly makes him tremble, as if he’s made up of hairline fractures and one gentle nudge would shatter him.

She sighs, accepting his silence and rigidity as an admission. “Blaise and I haven’t been very good friends to you,” she says. “We don’t know how to be. I’m glad you found someone you can talk to, even if it is her.”

Draco doesn’t ask what is wrong with Ginny. Pansy is petty, so she needs no true reason to dislike her. He relaxes slightly and mutters, “Thank you.”

“From what Blaise has told me about her letters, you two clearly have a lot in common when it comes to the war.”

“Not enough,” he says, thinking about the gulf between them, everything that separates Ginny from him. Their allegiances, their families, the Dark Mark on his arm. His animosity over the years. Her righteousness.

The music swells in the last strains of the song, and then it ends. Pansy and Draco bow to each other, Pansy lifting the hem of her dress robes in a sarcastic curtsy.

Ginny is there when he turns to leave the dance floor, her face crumpled in indecision.

He waits for her to make her choice, silent. But she’d already made her choice as soon as she stepped onto the dance floor, as soon as she reached Draco’s side.

“Will you dance with me?” she asks, uncertainty in her tone as well as hope—hope that he will decline, perhaps? He can’t fathom her hoping he will accept.

He takes her into his arms, his limbs more flexible than they’d been before, but still a bit stiff. He doesn’t hold her close, leaving a good foot of space between them as he sweeps her around the room, and she seems to like that just fine. It’s impossible to miss her discomfort, the tension in her own body, her lack of eye contact, the slight grimace around her mouth. He pretends he doesn’t see it.

When she finally speaks, she doesn’t look at him, instead watching another couple twirl next to them. “I’m sorry about what I said at the pond.”

It’s not what he expected her to say. “Are you really?”

“Yes. I feel badly for the way I behaved.”

Something about that answer irks him. “Well, thank you, but your apology is unnecessary. I know where things stand between us, and I know an apology doesn’t erase the underlying dislike.”

She glances up at him, her brow furrowed. “I can apologize to someone I don’t like! Are you angry because I don’t like you?”

“Of course not. You should just say what you mean. All this nobility sounds insincere, and since I know the truth, I don’t appreciate your disingenuous apologies.”

He’s captured her complete attention now, her body canting towards him, her grip tightening around his, her eyes blazing. “I take it back, then! I’m not sorry at all! You’re a git, and I don’t know why I ever tried talking to you.”

“I don’t, either. I guess you only want me to speak to you when you initiate the conversation, is that it? So not only are you insincere, you’re a hypocrite, too.”

For some reason, Draco and Ginny haven’t stopped dancing, the energy of their argument fueling their dance until the force of it pushes Ginny against Draco, their bodies warm and close, their faces nearly nose to nose. Their sharp tones have earned pointed stares from the other dancers even though their volume has remained low enough to keep the words between them.

Draco hates himself for falling for this woman. Even though he’s known since April that Ginny would never accept him if she knew her pen pal was the infamous and hated Draco Malfoy, he had let himself hope for a different outcome. That hope was small, but she was the one who had inspired it within him, and now he wants her to hurt as badly as she hurt him.

She doesn’t know that she hurt him, but that is beside the point.

“You were always so kind in your letters, so understanding. How silly of me to think you would extend that kindness to me in person.”

Her eyes narrow. “What letters?”

“The letters you’ve been sending to me for a year, Weasley. Over 140 letters about your brother dying, Creevey dying, your family forgetting about you, your friends forgetting about you. The letters you sent comforting me when I told you about my mother’s emotional withdrawal after my father went to prison. You assumed he’d died during the war, and I never corrected—”

Draco’s head jolts sideways with the violence of her slap. His hand comes up to his stinging cheek in awe, his eyes wide with the shock of it.

Her eyes, on the other hand, fill with tears. “You’re a bastard.”

“I know.”

She darts into the crowd of stalled dancers, titters following her and surrounding Draco in the wake of her departure. He doesn’t know where she’s gone, but he’s had enough socializing for a season and heads for one of the Floos on each side of the Atrium.

Blaise will bitch about him leaving later, and Draco doesn’t care. His heart aches, his blood surges. Everything is wrong but this is how it should be. This is what he deserves.