One
Ginny spun the ring with her thumb as she anxiously waited. Her heart was racing and her head jerked up with every noise. It had been four years since she’d seen him, since she’d looked into those grey-blue eyes and lost herself in them. Her stomach was in knots thinking of the letter he’d sent her. He wrote about having a lot to tell her, things he wanted to tell her face to face, but understood if she didn’t want that. He told her how sorry he was for all he’d done. She could nearly hear his voice in her head as she read it over and over, counting how many times he actually said ‘please’.
She’d agreed to meet him, but not at his home or her own. Harry would never forgive her if she brought a known Death Eater into the house for tea. She told him to come to the Harpies’ field after practice. It was her safe place and somewhere she knew well – not to mention somewhere without judging eyes. She knew better than to let herself be seen with someone like him. She was a professional now, not to mention the wife of Harry Potter…she could only imagine the gossip that would arrive if they were seen by the wrong person.
She sat in the stands as she waited, her mind reeling with questions. Would he show? Was he really sorry? Was it all a ruse? Would he even waste his time with a wicked trick? Was he still a follower of the fallen dark wizard? Where had he been? Why hadn’t he written her sooner? Did he miss her? Did she really miss him?
But that she knew the answer to, she definitely missed him. While their time together had been short, it was the most intense and passionate romantic experience she’d ever had. She’d never been able to forget it even when it hurt to remember. It was nothing like her relationship with Harry though she loved them both. To love two different men at all was confusing but to go through it at 16 during an impending war felt impossible.
With Harry it had been so sweet and felt perfect, the boy she’d wanted to be with as long as she could remember was actually hers. They understood one another and had such a pull on one another she felt like everything was complete. Ginny knew that he was the one she wanted to spend her life with – and even when he broke it off she didn’t hold it against him. He was a hero trying to save the world and was leaving her to protect her. She knew without his even telling her because of how well she knew him and she knew he’d find his way back to her one day.
But Draco…Draco came out of nowhere at a time when the entire world was in chaos. It was forbidden and passionate. They had to hide what they’d become from everyone – a Death Eater with a Blood Traitor…it was enough to end them both. They would fight, screaming matches that ended with passionate kisses and groping hands. He held her differently than Harry ever had. Draco wasn’t gentle with her but at the same time she knew he wouldn’t hurt her. He had a love for her that she never knew the full extent of. She learned more about him that year than anyone else in his life would know. But he never really let her know how strong the hold she had on him was. She learned that while he would boast about the mark on his arm, it truly terrified him. He had obligations to his family and she wanted to save him from himself and his life. She wanted to take him away from all the pain and fear. She wanted to be his saving grace and walk away from the war with his hand in hers.
Harry had been a friend, lived in her home and been around since she was eleven years old, but Draco had been something else entirely. An enemy by association, a cruel and spoiled boy who knew how good looking he was and tried to hurt people on purpose. She never thought she’d see him differently until the day she actually did. He was all of those things, but he was more than what he allowed the world to see on the surface and the more she learned, the deeper she fell.
Talks of their lives usually turned to arguments, she didn’t understand why he didn’t stand up to his family and he didn’t understand how she could say that knowing who his father was. The man had taken actions that nearly killed her after all. The two would fight but they never stayed angry. If anything, the intense emotions they felt only deepened their passion for one another. Draco never told her he loved her, but she never asked. She didn’t need the words, only needed to be with him.
Harry was safe, a hero, and the best choice a girl could make. Draco was dangerous, he lied and shouted and she never knew what would happen to them in the end. Harry saved her life. Being with Draco could end it. But she still felt torn between loving them both and not wanting to let either go.
At the call of his parents, the call of Voldemort himself, Draco walked away from her – literally crossing sides during the war. Ginny didn’t cry. She didn’t even let herself react – she only stared with hard eyes as the man she’d fallen in love with approached the epitome of all evil. With that single action she forced herself to push all her feelings for him to the back of her mind, to stop loving him – he’d made his choice. She married Harry a week after her 17th birthday and never thought twice about the choices she made.
Not until she looked up to see a tall blonde man standing before her.
Ginny felt like her heart stopped when Draco appeared before her in the stands. As everything they had been to one another came flooding back, she had to silently remind herself to breathe. The screaming, the kissing, the hands all over one another - in a flash she relived the months she spent in secret with him. Draco swallowed hard, keeping his composure as he was raised to do – but beneath his robes his hands shook slightly.
He’d been following her life since he left her behind, unable to completely let go of her. He hadn’t been surprised to see her go into a Quidditch career or even to see her marry Potter – though it still hurt to read about it in the Prophet over breakfast. He’d torn the paper and tossed it in the bin – only to retrieve it later. The picture of her – folded to hide Potter – was framed on his desk from that day on. As he focused his attentions on getting back all that his family had lost – from money to pride – she smiled at him from the frame. With sunshine and flowers in her hair and eyes seeming to meet his – he was taken back to a time when she loved him and somehow made him better that what he was and he needed that to keep going.
She stood, her breath hitching in her chest. “Hi.” His voice was soft, completely unsure of what would happen next. She had every right to hate him, to strike him down…but what she did had been entirely unexpected. Ginny moved in close and wrapped her arms around his neck. She hugged him close to her sending a wave of relief through him that he hadn’t experienced in years. He held her tightly as he hugged her back, letting his eyes close as he took in a deep breath. She smelled the same.
Ginny pulled back from the hug and looked into his eyes for a second before her hand flew across his face. With a loud smack Draco’s eyes went wide. The sting in his cheek was nothing compared to the look in her eyes. “You sorry sack of…” And a blow to the chest this time. “You just walked away!” She swore at him as she hit him with small but strong fists. “Not a bloody word! I didn’t know if you were dead!” She never reached for her wand – this was too personal, too strong to use anything but her own hands to hurt him.
“I’m sorry!” He told her as he grabbed her wrists to stop the blows. “Ginny stop, please! Just listen to me!” Tears were in her eyes when she finally stopped trying to fight him. She was breathing hard and looking into his eyes with more pain that he’d ever seen on her face. “Gin…” He spoke softly, reaching out for her and touching her cheek as he tucked back her hair. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He told her again with sincerity he wasn’t known for.
They shared in small talk first… how was the family, how was work, and so on. When finally Ginny broke past the unease of it all and asked him flatly. “Why did you do it?” He met her eyes then, there was a number of things he’d done. “Why did you go to him?”
Draco took in a deep breath. Of course that’s what she’d be asking…but it was all the same wasn’t it? The reason for many things he did. “I was a Death Eater, Ginny.” He said it flatly, it was a fact, nothing would change that. Her eyes shot down to his covered arm without meaning to. Just above where her hand held his, was the mark. He tried to brace himself for when she’d pull her hand away as if she’d been burned herself, but she didn’t.
“I know that, but…he didn’t see you, why did you have to leave the crowd and go to him? You could have stayed with me.” She sounded 16 again as she spoke, the question that had been plaguing her for so long.
“He’d have killed us.” He swallowed hard. “Mum was the only one with any courage.” He admitted. “She did what she had to, for us, even against him. If he’d known…” Draco shook his head some, shaking off the memories. And Ginny just nodded. She knew what he meant, Harry had told them all the story. She’d lied to Voldemort, she’d told them Harry was dead. Had he known otherwise…he’d have killed her, killed Harry for good right there and the end of the war would have gone the other way. Narcissa Malfoy had been the catalyst for Voldemort’s defeat.
“I was a coward, Ginny.” He admitted with a slight shrug, given in to his status in life. “I always was. I hid behind my name and my father for most of my life. And it worked…until it didn’t. I couldn’t even show what I felt for you because I was too cowardly to admit it to myself never the less anyone else. I wanted to be brave, I wanted to be strong somehow…and I thought for sure I was on the winning side. After all who could really take down the Dark Lord?” He scoffed a little at himself. “There’s a lot of reasons I did what I did…but mostly, because I was a scared kid and didn’t know any other options.”
“Why didn’t you ever contact me before?” She asked such simple questions, but to him it felt so difficult to really answer.
“Same reason, I suppose. I’m was a coward. Gin, you…” He sighed a little, looking down where she continued to hold his hand. “You meant so much to me. You were this light in the darkness for me. And we fought and we hid all we were…but I needed you. And I needed you to be okay – and I couldn’t do that for you. Imagine it, I come calling at your door after the war…what would your family do? What would they say? And Potter? You loved him too, I know you did. It was where you were supposed to be.”
But as she looked down at her ringed finger, almost hidden beneath his hand, she wasn’t sure anymore if it was the way it was supposed to be. She had a perfect life. Didn’t she? But was she supposed to? Was it supposed to be her and Harry forever? She’d had a good life, she played Quidditch, and she was married to the savior of the wizarding world. She had it all, didn’t she? So why did she want more? Why did she want to stay there with Draco as long as possible?
As they sat, Draco told her the truth about almost everything. How his home had been raided…he and his father both taken away – though Draco’s time in Azkaban was far shorter. He’d not killed anyone, but was still sentenced to a year. It was only his time there that he kept from her. She didn’t even ask as he trailed off and moved past it to speak of his father. “He won’t ever get out. He got 50 years, he won’t make it that long.” Draco spoke with a stony voice, needing to distance himself emotionally from it all. He’d done so much to protect his father and mother and now his father was doomed to die a terrible death anyway. It had been for nothing. “But things are different now.” He continued. “I’m different now.”
“You are?” She asked, not entirely sure she wanted him to be different than the boy she knew at school.
Draco reached over, gently tucking back her bright hair as it blew in the wind. His fingers brushed over her cheek. “Maybe not as different as I’d like.” He admitted softly as he looked into her eyes. He wanted to kiss her then, he wanted to pull her against him and tangle his fingers in her hair. Perhaps he still wasn’t the good guy in this life. But as she looked at him – thinking all of the same things – it wasn’t him who closed the gap between them. It was Ginny.
A tingle moved through her as he touched her cheek, the way his eyes seemed to look into her soul as they met hers. She remembered that look, the look he had when he wanted her – the look that made her feel beautiful and special – a look that took her back to 16 and she couldn’t seem to stop herself as she leaned in. Her hand held his jaw as she kissed him, but as soon as she felt her lips parting she pulled back sharply. “Fuck, I’m sorry!” She exclaimed, pulling away from him completely. “I…” He sat staring at her as she got to her feet. “I’m sorry.” She muttered – her heart racing and eyes darting around for anyone to have seen her. What had she just done?