From the Ruins

Title: From the Ruins

Author: Sarah
Rating: PG
Summary: “Open your eyes, Draco…” She whispered cupping his blackened face in her hands, “open them so you can see me.”

Author's Note: Slight war cliché. Romance is not really my genre. This was written in a couple of hours. A plot bunny bit me...

Dedication: To Vanessa (to whom I vent all nonsensical rambles to)

From the Ruins

“I’ve been told to do what’s right when everything is wrong…” she told him softly, healing his bruises with a simple tap of her wand.

“Is that why you’re helping me?” his voice was croaky and strained.

“Perhaps…”

“What are you telling yourself to do?”

She held up the bloodied bandages then continued to tend his wounds, “Exactly what I’m doing now…”

“Why?”

Ginny Weasley looked the death eater in the eye ever so slowly; the curiosity in his eyes amazed her. It was as if he had no idea, then she remembered the look he had during the battle, maybe he hadn’t.

“I saw you, at the start of the battle…” She said slowly while cleaning the blood from his leg, “you were sort of frozen.”

Draco looked at her with furrowed brows, “What do you mean?”

“You don’t… remember?”

He didn’t even have to respond for her to know the answer, he hadn’t remembered a thing. She looked down at his bloodied wounds and wondered if he could even feel the pain.

“You…” he started with his voice slightly breaking, “you weren’t ready…”

Ginny’s eyebrows rose ever so slightly, it was true. None of the Aurors were completely ready for the band of death eaters attack. If she hadn’t seen an idle Draco Malfoy atop the hill, surely they would not have suspected a thing.

She recalled calling alert to all at the camp yet had no idea how long he had been looking down on her in the medical tent for. She remembered the confused death eaters shouting at him for direction. He had been their leader for the attack, so why hadn’t he led them?

No one could have described the shock and relief that she had felt when he had finally broken out of his reverie, when the death eaters took it upon themselves to start the attacking he had started to take out his own. It was a messed up flurry of blood and gore. It was hard to believe but she had been trained to work in all sorts of panic; leaving the enemy to bleed and to bring in the allies to make sure they were to be healed.

She had found him long after the battle had been won, underneath rubble and stone all bloodied and broken. She hadn’t known who had attacked him; it could have been either side.

He watched her tend to his wounds and after a few minutes he spoke up again, “Aren’t you going to ask me questions?” he asked her almost in a whisper.

She stopped for a second and looked at him in the eye, “I want to but…”

“What?”

“I think I’m afraid of what you might say…”

“Why Ginny?”

She shivered as he said her name, “I don’t know…”

“Can I tell you why?”

“…Yes.”

He took a breath, “I saw you, Ginny. I saw you there in that tent.”

Ginny was shocked for a moment. She blinked a few times before even trying to register his words. After all these years, she thought, could he have possibly done it all for her?

“I used to wonder what the heck was wrong with me. Why you could have done this to me, how you possibly could have made me feel the way I had started to feel after I left.” He said quietly while looking her directly in the eye. “I realised I couldn’t control it, and believe you me I had tried so bloody hard. I used to wonder why it was always like you were the only thing that was real to me, when everything was out of control or just a mess.”

Her breathing had almost ceased completely, “And now?”

“Now I don’t wonder anymore, Ginevra. I just know…”

“You’re the one who left, Draco.”

“I know…”

“You hurt me beyond anything in this world, you know.”

“I know…”

“That’s why they call it falling in love.” She said to him bitterly, not looking him in the eye. “Because you have to fall and there isn’t any other way…”

Draco looked at her with harder breathing, a single tear had leaked from her bright brown eyes. The tear left a clean trail down her cheek and he heard her give a small sigh. He watched her mend his broken bones and bloody gashes, he just watched her every move not even noticing the searing pains.

“I can take care of you…” she said recalling something from her memory.

He closed his eyes as she murmured those words, “I know I couldn’t keep that promise.”

Her eyes narrowed, “I trusted you…”

“I know…”

“You never trusted me completely…”

“I know…”

“I can take you to a better place...” she whispered into his ear, “remember all those promises you pledged?”

“I remember…”

“Open your eyes, Draco…” She whispered cupping his blackened face in her hands, “open them so you can see me.”

He shook his head, “I don’t have to, Ginevra… I’ve been seeing your face for years.”

Her eyes widened as his gaze fell on her because those grey eyes of his were almost spilling with tears. Tears she knew were for her. “I may have broken so many of my promises but I have kept at least one… I still love you Ginny.”

Their lips brushed together for a moment but they hoped it would mean forever, Ginny took his hands into her own and squeezed them as their lips retreated, “I can take care of you, Draco. I can take you to a better place. I promise you…”

He looked at her sadly then tried to look away, only to find he couldn’t. She was promising him what he never kept, she was actually willing. He could hardly fathom the lengths of her heart; all he had known was that she had had his from the start. Maybe that was all that mattered, maybe that was all that should have mattered…

“What makes you think it will be different?” he finally said.

“Have heart, I know it will be…” she whispered passionately.

“How?” he asked, his voice so strained.

She stood up and took his hand into her smaller one then led him from the wreck where she had found him. They continued to walk along the battlefield of the dead and ashes toward the dying sun in silence. Until they were far away from the ruins of the battle, he knew that whatever she said would come true.

He had finally been granted heart, as she had been the one to lead him away from the ruins of the battle and this time he was going to be willing to let her…

-The End-