Why do we scream at each other
This is what it sounds like
When doves cry
"Would you all be terribly angry if I excused myself?" Ginny asked, trying to keep the weariness out of her voice. It would be so much easier if she could just tell them and have done with it, listen to them call her the names she called herself daily, to hear them tell her what a mistake she'd made, how stupid she'd been.
But she didn't want to hear that, and she wasn't going to tell them.
"Gone for two months and already itching to leave again," Molly said, shaking her head. She shot an accusing glare at Charlie, pointing her fork for added emphasis. "It's your fault."
Fred and George snickered, glad for once to have the blame somewhere else-no matter what it was for.
"My fault?" Charlie repeated.
"Oh, you with your traveling bug, all over the world." But Molly was smiling a little bit, proud despite her complaint.
"I'll remind you," Charlie said, "That Da's the one who loves Muggles so much. His fault on that count."
Ginny watched them with a small smile, knowing her request had already been forgotten in the melee. It was both strange and comforting to think that she'd changed so much, her world so severely altered, and yet she could come home to this-to the same people, the same family, the same arguments. The same love.
And what would it have been like not to have that? It wasn't the first time she'd wondered it, thinking of a lot boy with a loveless family, a lost boy with a cold father and a confused mother.
What would it be like to have it all taken away?
"I'm going to go," she said loudly, more insistent this time. When the table full of Weasleys stopped talking, she shrugged sheepishly. "Sorry. I told Colin I'd look him up, you know, just as soon as I Apparated home."
The argument picked back up after the goodbyes, and Ginny had been gone for several minutes before Ron's brain made all the connections.
"Say," he said suspiciously, throwing a glance over his shoulder at the door.
"Isn't Creevey off in the tropics, photographing for Loony Lovegood's father?"
"Wouldn't know, mate, Loony's your girly and all," Fred said, snorting into his glass of butterbeer.
"She's not my-oh, bugger it," Ron said, his face growing red. "I'll not rise to that one again, eh? Last time I did, you somehow got me so turned around that I said she was and Hermione didn't speak to me for days."
Bill watched out the door with growing interest, wondering himself where she'd gone.
~~~
He walked down the middle of the street, a sneer twisting his lips as the people parted for him, scurried to one side or the other, looking at him with wide eyes and gaping mouths.
He saw none of them, only her in his mind's eye, her walking away from him, that banner of red hair floating behind her in the wind as she ran.
And why shouldn't she? he wondered, placing one foot in front of the other in long, measured strides that ate up the length of the street. Why shouldn't she have run away from a Malfoy? A Weasley's worst enemy, a loathsome, black magicking family of fiends and liars and monsters.
"You came to me once, you can't undo that." He spoke aloud, turning his head from side to side, looking for her in every shop, in every corner.
A glimpse of red caught his eye and his steps faltered, quickened into something like a run.
The whole damned lot of them, the whole ruddy bunch of redheaded fools. He walked into the group of them, not seeing Ron's eyes pop wide in his face, not seeing the twins' identical expressions of disbelief. His eyes flitted over each of them without really seeing, seeking the one that wasn't there.
Seeking the crown jewel.
"Where is she?" he asked, raising wild eyes to Arthur's wary ones. When all he got in return was a goggle-eyed stare, he grabbed the older man by the lapels and dragged him to his toes. "Where is Ginny? Where is she?"
Rage warred with desperation in his mind, and he shook his head, ducking it slightly as he loosened his grip, panting. "Tell me…"
"I don't know what business a long-lost Death Eater would have with my sister, but you'd best forget it, mate," Charlie said threateningly, stepping toe-to-toe with Draco and shouldering his father out of the way.
And in the back of the crowd, Bill watched silently.
In reality, Bill thought the only person she wanted to see was standing right in front of him. So he stared the silver-eyed boy down until his stare was returned, and turned his head to look down the street in the direction she'd gone.
Draco met eyes with Ginny's older brother and, seeing all he needed to see, turned and bolted down the street, leaving a gaggle of Weasleys staring bewilderedly after him.
Charlie was the first on his toes, ready to give chase to the long-absent Malfoy heir. But he got no farther than a step and a half when he was brought up short by someone grasping a handful of his robe. "Cut it out, Fred, George, the bloody git can't-" his mouth kept moving soundlessly when he saw which brother, exactly, had held him at bay.
"Let him go," Bill said quietly, turning his family's attention to him and away from the retreating Draco.
"I'd like to know the meaning of all this, William Weasley," Molly said decisively, swatting her hands about until both brothers separated. "You think I haven't eyes in my head to know there's something wrong with your sister? Hmm? And you know what it is, only you didn't tell me. Stop me at any time if I'm incorrect." Her voice was reaching a headache-inducing pitch, and all six of the Weasley boys looked uncomfortable.
Arthur, as per usual, was in his own little world, worrying about his little girl and muttering to himself. "I can't see that Malfoy's boy would have been studying Muggles, too, but that seems to be the only explanation. Perhaps they ran into one another in America, had a bit of a row."
"He could kill her," Charlie said through clenched teeth when his mother stopped to take a breath. "He could bloody well kill her, look how his father was."
"Not all sons turn out like their fathers," Percy said, pointedly looking at the addle-brained Arthur.
His eyes fierce, Bill looked down the street and saw that Draco had disappeared into the crowds of witches and wizards. Mildly, he turned back to his family. "Now that he's gotten away, shall we take this argument home?"
Touch if you will my stomach
Feel how it trembles inside
You've got the butterflies all tied up
Don't make me chase you
Even doves have pride
She could have Apparated to get where she was going, could have done it without even thinking about it. But she needed the time to think, time to collect herself before she made this one last trip before she attempted to settle back into the life she'd left two months before.
All I need is to understand, she told herself, repeating it with the rhythm of her steps.
So intent was she on the rhythm of her steps, on her insistent mantra, that she never heard the gasps behind her, the pounding feet and the occasional exclamation from people gathered on the street.
He ran full out toward her, seeing that head of hair like a beacon in the crowd, like a siren. She'd always been that siren, calling his name until he was forced to call hers back.
He slowed himself just a bit before reaching her, checking his movement before stretching out an arm, whipping her around and into him, his arms clamped around her securely even as he struggled for breath.
He'd taken them in a circle and landed them both in an alley between buildings, his breath short from exertion and hers from fear.
He was like a bloody cat, she thought, like a great, bloody black cat, so little noise had he made coming up behind her.
Her heart rose in her throat so that she nearly choked on it, seeing him there just in front of her, his eyes blazing with fury, his nostrils flared. His hair was falling unheeded into his eyes, and she couldn't resist the urge to raise a hand to it, to clear those magnificent argent eyes. Her hand shook so badly that he caught it with his own, closing his fingers around it.
"You followed me," she said matter-of-factly, but it made her stomach twist.
She hadn't truly thought he would, hadn't dared to hope he would.
He said nothing to her, only squeezed her hand hard enough to make her wince, then brought his lips to hers, sealing his mouth over hers with a ferocity that made her gasp, taking in his breath as she did so. His body pressed urgently to hers, forcing her to feel the urgent need he'd felt ever since he'd seen her, and she moaned under his lips.
This was what she had run from, this instantaneous flash-fire that could do neither of them any good.
"Stop," she finally said, rearing her head back to separate herself from him, if only for a moment. "Stop, this isn't right."
He kept his eyes on hers, his head slightly lowered, his hair falling into shadowed, troubled eyes.
The boy watched her from afar, laughing with friends, surrounded by people she knew and people she loved, people who loved her back.
The boy sat with people who feared him and watched her casual contact with those around her, the contact of one secure in herself. The same eyes that had spit hatred at him more than once now glowed, and he felt a pull in his stomach.
The boy watched her at the train station, saying goodbye to a buoyant family as he stood with his own deflated mother and soul-defeating father.
He watched her, and he wanted.
"You were supposed to teach me how to be happy," he said, brushing his lips over her cheeks, her forehead, her eyelids. He ducked his head then, taking his eyes away from hers for the moment he made his confession. "You weren't supposed to make me need you for it." So saying, he pressed his tongue to the side of her neck, his eyes triumphant as he felt her arch against him.
He brought his lips to hers again, murmuring around kisses. "Don't make me beg, Virginia. Would you have me swallow my pride?"
She leaned her head back as he kissed her throat, letting the tears slide back and into her hairline as she threaded shaky hands through his silken hair.
"That's the thing, Draco," she said, letting the sob in her voice be heard. "When it came to you, I never had any pride."
When she Disapparated, he was left holding nothing but cold air and the pride she'd given him long ago.