Ginny felt the tug of apparition in a distant corner of her mind, not even noticing that she was the one doing the wand-waving. Her entire focus was narrowed down to the feel of Draco's lips against hers, bruising in their ferocity but matched by Ginny's own desperation.
Another distant corner of her mind was telling herself that it felt just as good as it had the first time they had kissed, when in one of their usual taunting sessions Draco had suddenly dragged her into an empty classroom and kissed her. Of course, this time she gave herself into the kiss instantly, there was no half-felt mumbled negatives or weak pushes that had somehow made her draw him closer. No, this time she gave in as quickly as she had all those other times. She let herself feel the heat that instantly travelled up her body at his touch, she let his arms wrap around her and she let her hands travel up and down his back in urgent caresses.
His lips travelled down her neck as she felt herself dropped onto something soft, her bed she realised abstractedly. Gasping as his lips trailed kisses over her skin Ginny ran her fingers through his hair, so much finer than Harry's. The thought made Ginny's eyes shoot open, everything that had been lurking at the back of her mind darting forward.
"Harry." she gasped, barely loud enough for herself to hear it let alone Draco, who was beginning to kiss down her body causing Ginny to moan in pleasure before she noticed his blonde head, so unlike Harry's dark hair. The thought was like a bucket of ice on her senses and she pushed Draco off her. Scrambling back against the headboard, clutching her shirt together, Ginny tried not to notice how gorgeous he looked, hair all tousled with kiss swollen lips and an expression that showed just how much he wanted her. "Harry." she gasped out, her eyes not leaving his. "Harry. I'm engaged to Harry."
The expression on Draco's face was inscrutable as he fell back on his heels. They stared at each for one, unblinking moment and then Draco laughed, a harsh, cruel sound, as he dragged his hand through his hair. "Well, of course you are." His voice was like his laugh, harsh and unforgiving.
"Draco." she tried. But he didn't even seem to hear her.
"Harry fucking perfect Potter." Ginny would have laughed if the situation wasn't so tense. "Bet you jumped right into bed with him the minute I left, hey Ginny?" She cringed, thinking how close to the mark he was. But then anger, familiar anger, that had been directed at him for so long but had had nowhere to go, began to grow inside of her.
"That's right, Draco," she spat, "you left. Five fucking years ago. What? Did you expect me just to sit and wait for you to suddenly realise what you had left behind?"
"I never forgot what I left behind." Draco said, his voice as angry as Ginny's.
"Then maybe you should have come back and got me before I fell in love with someone else."
"I couldn't come back!" Draco yelled, climbing off the bed. "You know that!"
Ginny snorted. "We could have hid somewhere in Britain, Draco, you didn't need to go haring off all around the world." She sounded close to tears now. Draco suddenly thought of Blaise and his comfortable Muggle existence. They could have lived like that. But then he remembered the reason they hadn't.
"I seem to recall asking you to come with me Ginny." His voice was softer now, filled with regret. Her eyes shot up to his and she laughed softly, without a trace of humour.
"And I couldn't leave my family." He moved towards her, catching her chin.
"That would have been no different had we been in Cornwall or Greece." Draco paused and smiled a crooked grin. "Expect in one you would have been missing your family on a beautiful beach in the blistering sun."
She smiled, though it was tremulous and tears still glistened in her eyes. He sat heavily beside her and she was close to dropping her head on his shoulder in a way that felt so natural till she glanced around her room and saw Harry's, her fiancée's, shoes thrown against the wardrobe door. She sighed and dropped her head in her hands, unconsciously revealing the glittering ring to Draco's perceptive eye.
"So you're marrying Potter." She looked up, startled that he would bring up that conversation. She glanced down and noticed the ring. Ginny held up her hand in front of her, appraising the ring, spinning it around with her other hand. Draco caught her other wrist and she tried to ignore the sudden shock that went through her with his simple touch.
He held her right hand loosely in his, and lifted her fingers up, displaying the Malfoy ring still resting there. "You're still wearing my ring." His voice was inscrutable and she stared at his profile, the hard angles of his face revealing nothing.
"I suppose you want it back." She whispered, annoyed at herself for how breathy his touch was making her sound. With agonising slowness he moved the ring off her finger, each brush of his skin against hers making her gasp. Much as she had done in the Burrow, he held the ring up to the light to admire it and then reached for Ginny's other hand, slowly slipping it on to her wedding finger.
It clashed terribly with the gold engagement ring and yet it felt so right there, lying heavily on the finger that meant they were joined forever. Though, as Ginny thought about it, that's what the ring already said. She watched Draco gulp, as though he were holding back tears, though Ginny told herself that was stupid as she had never once seen him cry. He pulled it off that finger then, quickly with no tenderness.
As he stood he dropped into her hand, loosely clasping her fingers over it. His voice was rough as he spoke. "You shouldn't wear the ring if you don't mean it, Ginny." He turned and walked out of the bedroom and it was only as Ginny heard the slam of the front door that she realised that she had no idea which ring he meant.
*
Idiot. Bloody idiot. Idiot. Draco cursed himself as he stood outside Ginny's flat, shielding his eyes against the sun as he glanced up and down the street. He'd been stupid enough to lose Ginny once and now he'd gone and done it again. Though, if Draco thought hard enough about it, she'd been lost the moment he'd walked away the first time. However this wasn't what Draco was cursing himself for.
He'd gone and left his bloody wand on the steps of the monument and he had no bloody idea where he was.
"You don't know where you are, do you?"
Draco exhaled quickly. "No Ginny I don't know where I am. And if you could tear yourself away from wedding preparations for a moment I'd be much obliged if you'd show me the way back to the memorial."
He felt rather than saw her bristle at the mention of the wedding. "Put your hood up." She ordered briskly, moving past him to stride down the street. He hurried to catch up, refusing to notice the way that the sun highlighted the gold in her mass of red hair. They hurried along in an uncomfortable silence for a while, until even Draco, who had been raised to expect uncomfortable silences began to feel annoyed.
Glancing to his side he noticed the set of her face, one that seemed to be holding back tears and the way she held her arms close to her body as though for protection. "Gin…" he started, not sure what he was going to say.
"There are no wedding preparations." she suddenly said, her pace not faltering though Draco's certainly did at the pronouncement.
"What?" he said sounding far to off-kilter for his own liking. "You mean you're not marrying him?" Draco hoped that he'd put the right amount of derision into the word 'him'.
"Oh no, I'm marrying him." Draco felt the last tinge of fragile hope fade from his heart and he replaced his hopeful expression with his mask of cool acceptance. "But I only said yes a few of days ago."
Days. The word echoed mockingly in Draco's mind. Perhaps if he'd seen her earlier…No. He had seen her earlier and he'd done what was right.
"We're here." Ginny's cool voice made him pause, taking in the wall of names in front of him. His wand lay at the bottom of the steps and he bent to retrieve it, checking it for damages. He raised his head to thank her and then leave, though he knew it would hurt even more this time when she started speaking again. "You knocked me over in Diagon Alley, didn't you?"
Draco's defensive nature instantly reared it's head. "Hey, you ran into me!"
"Draco," Ginny continued, merely rolling her eyes at his childish outburst. "you want to know why I said yes to Harry?" His grey eyes narrowed imperceptibly and his lips fell into a thin frown.
"Surprisingly enough, Ginny, no."
"It was because I thought I saw you." Draco paused, thoughts spieling through his head, trying to make sense of her.
"I'm afraid to say I don't quite understand." He saw the slight smile that graced her features at his eloquent language, something she'd always teased him about.
"You were never going to come back for me." The smile remained on her face, though Draco could see the tears that were running down her cheeks. "If then, in that one moment when I was lying on the ground, hurt, you wouldn't come back for me I knew. I knew you would never come back for me." He saw her take a steadying breath and step away from him, her eyes closing to compose herself. Her voice was steadier as she began again. "And I had to move on, Draco. I couldn't keep praying that someday you'd remember me. That someday we'd be together."
Draco stared at her disconcertingly. "So you're marrying Potter." His voice was devoid of all emotion.
"Yes. I'm marrying Harry."
Draco sighed and raised his wand to leave. "You know Ginny, we were the only two people who thought that we could ever possibly work."
Ginny closed her eyes irritably. "That's because we were the only the two people who ever knew there was a 'we' that could possibly work."
Draco smiled then, not a smile of joy or even of cruelty, more one of regret. "Exactly." He waved his wand slowly, feeling the beginning of apparition. "So maybe we were dreaming."