Chapter 4 : Grief
Ginny opened her eyes languorously and allowed her head to loll on her neck. A small smile crossed her face briefly and she let herself bask in the simple pleasure of being warm and feeling safe.
She let her head roll to her left and the smile left her face as she took in Draco Malfoy's sleeping face.
He looked so Draco, lying there, sleeping. He didn't lose himself in sleep like so many people did - he didn't look angelic or vulnerable or anything soft. He was simply himself - faintly threatening, his beauty a weapon . . .
Lucifer . . .
The only soft thing about him was the sensual curve of his lips, and remembering the things he had done to her the night before, Ginny almost blushed at the knowing tilt of those red lips.
He'd been shocked that she was a virgin - and she felt a surge of anger as she remembered his reaction. Looking back, she supposed it showed a sort of fairness on his part - he hadn't allowed her to lose herself; he'd made her face all the things she was trying to run from by having sex with him. He hadn't let it become a one-night thing, he hadn't let her make him into a receptacle for her passions - he'd hadn't let her reduce him to nothing . . .
"Saving yourself for Potter?"
She'd gasped, her body arching beneath him. "I hate you."
He'd smiled down at her and it hadn't been a nice smile, it had been a smile of hunger, and sensual promises. He'd withdrawn from her slightly and plunged deeper. "I know." He'd started moving then, igniting sharp shocks of pleasure throughout her body. Deeper. Faster. "Shall we see how much?"
Draco opened his eyes suddenly and saw her looking at him. "Weasley." He said.
It was so typical of Draco to be alert even when he woke in the morning, so typical of him not to have the normal huskiness of sleep in his voice like other wizards. Ginny smiled down at him, her head propped up with her elbow. "Malfoy." She rejoined.
An unwilling smile curved the red lips. "It doesn't say much for my prowess that you're up before me."
"I wouldn't say that." Ginny said slyly, looking pointedly at how the sheet covering his nudity was tenting. "I'd say you're very much - up."
The smile grew. "Insatiable, are we?"
Ginny licked her lips. "Complaining?"
Draco trailed a finger down her neck, smiling when she shuddered convulsively. The finger gently pulled down the sheet covering her breasts. He looked at her and his eyes darkened with an emotion Ginny couldn't identify. Lust, warmth, heat . . .
"Complain?" Draco repeated, even as his large, bony hands stroked her and made her shiver. "No . . ."
Harry stared at the ceiling of the room in the Burrow that Ron had pretended to share with him.
Ron.
Always, it came back to Ron.
And now he was gone.
The anchor that had always pulled him back to the Burrow, no matter where he was, was suddenly gone, and he was lost.
Ron.
Harry wanted, desperately, to cry, to grieve for his friend, for the friend who'd tried to be a brother to him, who'd staunchly supported him except for that time in Fourth Year, who'd given him a family to replace the one he didn't have, who'd given him friendship and companionship and unconditional acceptance -
But he couldn't, not yet.
He was too tired.
The hate he'd harboured towards Voldemort had gone with Ron's death. Leaked out, fell away, like poison from a septic wound when it was released.
All that was left was a bone-deep weariness, longing so strong it bordered on painful, a deep, deep longing just for it to be over. For Voldemort to win or for Voldemort to lose - it didn't matter to Harry anymore. He just wanted it to be over.
And he couldn't help thinking that if Voldemort won, then this weariness would be gone, because he'd be dead . . .
And he couldn't help thinking that death would almost be welcome . . .
No. He couldn't think this way. Voldemort had to lose, to die, to pay for all the lives he had taken, so ruthlessly. Taking lives and giving pain and grief and sorrow in return. He would burn in hell.
All the pain.
Ron -
Red hair, brown eyes. A young boy who pretended not to be looking at his scar that first time in the train. Whose ears turned red and who pretended he wasn't poor.
A young boy who had been so good at chess that he'd beaten McGonagall's giant chess set that first year of fighting Voldemort.
Red hair, brown eyes. Brown eyes that sparkled with excitement when taking his father's car up into the air, brown eyes that grew darker with annoyance at Gilderoy Lockhart and impatience with gits, brown eyes that tried desperately to hide his fear and anxiety when he'd thought his little sister was dead.
Brown eyes that had grown bright with relief and joy when he'd found out his sister was alive.
Red hair, brown eyes. A boy just before adolescence, a boy who'd pretended to hold no affection for a useless pet rat and yet had been upset when the pet had been thought dead. A boy just before adolescence with a passion for Quidditch and a hatred of cats.
A boy just before adolescence who had broken his leg and gritted his teeth, a boy who had renounced murder and murderers and his pet rat . . .
Red hair, brown eyes.
Red hair that flashed in the light as he stomped away from his best friend, red hair that grew blinding in the sunlight when he came back to his best friend.
Red hair, brown eyes, Ron Weasley . . .
Brown eyes that had widened in shock when the Dementors came near . . .
Brown eyes that no longer held any emotion . . .
He wanted, so badly, just to cry, to let the huge ball of emotion blocking his throat and tightening his stomach go away. But he couldn't.
He wanted to scream, not any words, just a scream of pure noise, anger, fear, regret.
Ron!
A knock came on his door and Hermione came in, her face white and pinched. "Harry." She whispered.
Harry didn't do anything, he didn't sit up or speak, he simply held out his arms for the one person he had left in the world.
And Hermione walked into his arms and held him close.
As they lay there, together, he could hear her heart beat, slowly, and each thud was like a drumbeat of sorrow, because they both knew that it was supposed to be Ron who held Hermione in his arms and heard her heart beat, Ron who should be lying there, Ron who should be alive!
It had always been Ron who had been the centre of their group. It was Ron who had pulled them together as a group, Ron who made them laugh.
Who will make me laugh now?
It was easy to remember Ron, to remember his easy, large grin, his gift for chess and his undiluted pride in that fact. To remember the long, loose-limbed walk, the sudden, happy laugh, the sweet look in his eyes when he had looked at Hermione. To remember the complaints about his height, the easy affectionate way he could reach out to the children he taught, and the way his ears turned red when he was embarrassed.
Ron.
It wasn't him who should have died, Harry thought bitterly. It should have been someone else, someone who didn't have as much to give the world, who didn't have as many friends, or family to grieve for him . . .
Someone who wasn't Ron Weasley.
And he knew Hermione was thinking the same thing.
So they lay there together, one unable to grieve, and the other grieving too much, as the night grew darker and the moon shone benevolently through the window, mocking their loss.
"What happened, Weasley?" Draco asked, propped up against the headboard of his bed, one arm around her shoulders.
Ginny reluctantly pulled herself back to reality and glanced at him. "What do you mean?" She gave a half-smile. "I'd bet that you know way more about what just happened than I do."
A faint smile twisted Draco's lips, but it faded away quickly. "You know what I mean."
Ginny sat up, displacing his arm from around her shoulders. "Yes." She agreed, quietly. She slid off the bed and stood up. "Which is why I'm going to leave now."
Draco watched her start to dress, putting on her bra. "Is that how it's going to be?"
Ginny fastened her bra and gave him a cool look. "Yes." She looked around and frowned. "Where did you put my underwear?"
Draco smirked. "I think you left it in the office."
Ginny scowled. "Great. What's Hopper going to think?"
"I don't want to know." Draco mumbled. He studied the young woman who stood near the bed, trying without success to arrange her hair. A memory came to him, of the hunched, dazed woman he'd seen in the Ministry of Magic, who'd cried on his shoulder and made him remember his own isolation.
He stood, suddenly, and tossed his boxers at her. "Wear those. I'm taking you to breakfast."
"Yeh, and I'm going to suddenly be able to afford to buy out Harrods." Ginny pulled on the boxers and frowned as they promptly fell off. "Do you have a safety pin?"
Draco pulled on another pair of silk boxers before turning and frowning at her. "You're too thin, Weasley."
"Maybe you're just too fat." Ginny retorted, somewhat lamely, having ample memories of a nude body that proved her words wrong. "I would have thought you'd like your women skinny. You know. Tall, skinny, blonde."
"It turns out I'm preferring them short, skinny and redheaded." Draco mumbled to himself.
"What?"
"Nothing. Get dressed."
"Well I would if you'd just give me a safety pin."
"Here." Draco's warm hands were suddenly on her waist, fastening the boxers securely.
Ginny looked down at the gold fastener. "Is that a tie-clip?"
"Armani." Draco replied, pulling on his robes.
"Figures you wouldn't have a normal safety pin."
Draco looked over his shoulder and smirked at her. "Malfoys are never normal. We are above and beyond the norm in everything." He quirked an eyebrow at her suggestively. "You should know that from last night."
"All right, well, when I get a comparative value to last night I'll let you know." Ginny said, her voice muffled as she struggled to get into her robes.
When her head finally popped out of the black swaths of cotton she saw Draco glaring at her. She smiled sweetly. "Afraid you won't measure up?"
Draco turned away. "Get dressed." He snapped.
Ginny frowned as he walked out of the room, and then smiled. No, she was being stupid. Draco Malfoy, jealous?
"What are you going to have?" Ginny asked, looking at the menu.
She'd decided to give in with grace, and allow Draco to buy her breakfast. Her decision had been helped by the long, hard kiss he'd given her on her way out his door.
Ginny tried not to frown at the remembrance. The kiss had disturbed her, and so had the way he'd taken her hand as they walked towards the restaurant. It had been so - natural. She hadn't even realized he'd taken it until the waitress had glanced at their hands. Her expression had been disappointed.
It was like Draco was refusing to let himself be dismissed the way she had wanted to dismiss him. She'd have thought he'd be relieved - he seemed like the kind of man who preferred one-night stands. She knew he was the kind of man who preferred one-night stands. A few discreet inquiries of Pansy Parkinson had yielded much information on the handsome white haired young man who sat across from her, studying her as if he knew every thought that passed through her mind.
He was always studying her - he had been since that night she'd cried in his arms. Always looking at her with those cool gray eyes that gave nothing away and made her want to lower her eyes.
She met the look squarely and repeated, "What are you going to have?"
His eyes lowered to the menu. Ginny was glad for the reprieve. He could see too much, this man, when she didn't want him to see anything at all.
"Waffles." He said decisively, handing his menu to the waitress who hovered dutifully at his elbow. Or perhaps not dutifully, Ginny thought suddenly. She surveyed Draco discreetly. She'd always thought he was beautiful, almost too beautiful to be real. Despite his beauty, he exuded a raw, potent sexuality, enhanced by the elegant, tailored suits he wore, which should have suppressed his virility but instead pointed it out all the more.
"With fresh strawberries." Draco added, as if in afterthought. He slanted a glance at her. "And you?"
Ginny quickly looked back down at the menu. "Scrambled eggs and sausages."
He repeated her order to the waitress, as if she hadn't heard it, waited for her to leave, and then turned back to Ginny. "Are you ready to talk?"
Ginny narrowed her eyes at him. "I didn't agree to talk."
"No, but you will." Draco replied smoothly. "What happened?"
"You didn't seem to care last night." Ginny said hotly. "I don't owe you anything, Malfoy. I certainly don't owe you an explanation for my behaviour."
"So I'm to pretend last night was a mistake on your part."
"Certainly not." Ginny said, folding her napkin neatly. "I never make mistakes." She narrowed her eyes at him again. "If anyone has any explaining to do, it's you, Malfoy."
"I'm not in the habit of turning down pretty, needy redheads when they throw themselves at me."
"I'm not needy." Ginny said shortly. She sighed, looked down at her cutlery and then looked up, flashing him a half-hearted smile. "Aren't we acting silly?"
Draco said nothing.
"Look," Ginny said suddenly, giving him a winsome smile. "Can't we just say that last night was a fun experience and just go on being frien - whatever we are?"
He was studying her again.
"We might," Draco said finally, "If you hadn't been a virgin."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"A woman's first time is always important." Draco said simply. He smiled briefly. "If I've learned anything, I've learnt that. A woman's first time is not just a 'fun experience'. That plus the fact that it hasn't even been two weeks since your brother died, and I'm inclined to believe that something important happened last night."
Ginny took a deep breath. "You're wrong."
"Am I?"
She burst out, "Why does everything have to mean something?"
"Not everything."
"Then why do you care?"
His eyes flashed. "Maybe I just don't like being used."
"I'd say you do your fair share of using." Ginny retorted.
"Then maybe I just don't like being a substitute for someone." Draco said coldly. "Like Potter."
Ginny slapped him.
His pale cheek burned red, and she could see her finger marks. Her skin dried and went hot, then cold.
"At last, the truth." Draco murmured.
"It's not the truth!" Ginny shoved her chair back. "Do you want to know the truth, Malfoy? The truth, then! I hate Harry Potter! I hate him! And at the moment I hate you too!" Her cheeks flared red, and she sat, paralysed in her chair, great sweeps of emotion drowning her, making her drag in huge gulps of air.
Then it was too much and she sobbed.
She was vaguely aware of the waitress gaping at her with huge, interested eyes, of Draco standing up and paying, of Draco gently guiding her from the restaurant.
Then he helped her sit down, putting his arm around her, his warm, solid body cushioning hers.
Ron, Harry, Hermione, Draco, Mum, Dad . . .
The world was whirling with faces and things and nothing would ever stay still again.
Ron Ron Ron . . .
"He was my brother!" Ginny sobbed, clinging to Draco as if she were a child.
She was clinging to him as if she was a child, as if she needed someone so desperately and was afraid he would go away and leave her. "He was my brother!"
"Sshh." Draco soothed.
She was clinging closer and closer, trying to be as close to him as possible, so he simply lifted her onto his lap and held her tight. Something in him thrilled at holding this woman so close, at smelling the leftover shampoo scent in her long red hair, at the soft smoothness of her fair skin, at the way she melted trustingly into his touch even while she cried.
And that something scared him, because it whispered to him how right they were together . . .
Last night had been - incredible. Strange. She had been everything he'd wanted in a lover - wild, fierce, gentle, tender, giving, taking - and he'd been shocked that she was a virgin.
Even in her inexperience she had pleased him.
Or pleased was too mild a word.
Driven out of my mind with bliss? Completed? Fulfilled? And when exactly did you lose all your testosterone, Malfoy?
Finally she calmed and rubbed her eyes fiercely on her robes. She looked up at him sheepishly. "Sorry." She mumbled, moving carefully off his lap. "Not supposed to cry."
"Why not?" He shrugged indifferently. "Everyone cries."
"Crying does nothing." Ginny said, as if repeating something oft heard. "Nothing."
"Probably not." Draco agreed. "Except scare passers-by."
Ginny smiled at him faintly. "Except that."
She seemed content to sit there with him, as the crisp English air whisked red into their cheeks and made them inch closer to each other unconsciously.
"Ready to tell me about it?"
"You make it sound like I was going to tell you about it all along."
"You were." He replied, with such sure certainty that she smiled. "You just didn't know about it."
"I still don't know why you give a damn, Malfoy." Ginny sighed and twisted her fingers. "I was mad. Angry. Upset. Harry and Hermione basically told me that my grief was less than theirs because Ron was their friend." Her lips twisted into a thin, bitter line. "They don't know. They didn't know Ron when he was a kid. They weren't there when he broke his leg when he was six and he made me promise not to tell anyone he cried. They weren't there all the times George and Fred and Charlie and Bill and Percy ganged up on us because we were the youngest. They don't know that Ron had asthma or that he hates mosquitoes or that he likes the weather channel. They don't know - "
"Was that what -"
"No, that wasn't it." Ginny interrupted, flashing him a bitter smile. "I loved Ron. He was my favourite brother. We were so close - right up until he went to Hogwarts. That summer he came home with stories about his two new best friends, Harry and Hermione. How Harry did this. And how Hermione did that." She lowered her head. "Suddenly it wasn't me and Ron anymore. It was Ron and Harry and Hermione. I liked them, I really did." She stared into space. "But I always resented the fact that they took my brother away from me."
"They didn't take your brother away from you."
"No?" Ginny didn't look at him. "Then tell me why when they told me that they had to grieve for Ron their friend and not Ron my brother, I knew they were right? Ron stopped being my friend a long time ago. They're right. They know more about my brother than I ever will - because I never nearly died with him, because I lost his friendship when he met them."
Draco was quiet.
He understood, more, perhaps, than she did. Ron had been hers - the Terrific Two had taken him away. Harry had been hers - Cho Chang had taken him away.
He'd felt the same way . . .
His mother had been his, and his father had taken her away . . .
They were so alike, he and her. Possessive, alone . . .
But with his arm around her, holding her tight, Draco Malfoy knew exactly what was happening.
He would never be alone, because she was his.
Harry came downstairs rubbing his eyes blearily. It was hard to think on about half an hour of sleep, but he tried valiantly. He was aware that Molly Weasley was at the stove, making breakfast, and he was also aware that the kitchen was empty. He glanced up at the clock and got a shock of surprise.
Ron's hand was whirling around the clock, around and around, not stopping.
Mrs. Weasley glanced at him. "What's wrong, Harry -" she looked at the clock. Her lips quivered and her eyes trembled with tears. "Oh." She drew out her wand. "Distenio."
The hand flew out from the clock and tucked itself neatly into a drawer.
Like Ron's life, Harry thought dully.
Mrs. Weasley turned away and discreetly rubbed away her tears, giving a big sniff before turning back to him. "Would you like some breakfast?"
Harry nodded. He looked back up at the clock. Mr. Weasley was at work. Bill and Charlie were getting drunk. At this time in the morning? Percy was at work. Fred and George were "Up To No Good". Ginny was halfway between "Up To No Good" and "With A Friend". Harry took that to mean up to no good with a friend.
Some guilt washed over him when he remembered Ginny's stricken face the day before. She hadn't deserved to be shut away like that - she'd been Ron's sister and had probably loved him as much as any of them. He should probably apologize to her -
When he wasn't feeling so tired.
Yes, for a while . . .
A/n: Hope you guys enjoyed that! That and the last one were my favorite chapters so far. This concludes the last chapter that Renebre wrote, from hereon out, I will be completing the story.
R&R!