CHAPTER SIX - Moments Together
"You're not supposed to be here."
A whisper, hidden somewhere in the shadows.
"Neither are you." An answer, a response, nothing short of the truth, though laden with suggestion. The whisper traveled as the whisperer passed, the conspirator, hidden by a heavy, hooded cloak and the objects between them. "I have my reasons, what are yours?"
Ginny bowed her head under her own hood, her fingers tracing the spines of books, small beads of sweat gathering at her temples as she saw him move on the other side of the shelves, over the tops of scores of books. A shift of cloth, the flash of one silver eye.
Draco moved behind her, closing his eyes and inhaling the smell of her, memorizing her. It had been nearly four full days since they'd been alone, since they'd been together in her home. He needed her, craved her more than he craved his safety. And Merlin help him, he sometimes craved her more than he craved her safety. He did not want to risk her, but he did not want to refuse her, either.
He could not stop breathing.
Draco twitched back one side of her hood, moving to hide her face with his, rubbing his lips over the curve of her ear and feeling the heat, the power, bake off her in waves even through the hooded robes.
He'd left the Ministry slowly, casting one look at her, knowing she would see his need.
Knowing she would know his intent.
She'd made her excuses well, he trusted. His Ginevra could be as sly as a Slytherin when she needed to be, and he'd felt her just a few steps behind him all the way to Diagon Alley.
He'd given no indication of his destination, but she had known immediately where he was going. If she'd wanted to, Ginny could have arrived there before him, but she held herself back, enjoying the game of cat and mouse.
Draco appreciated irony, she thought, appreciated sarcasm, so it was no wonder he'd led her here, to Flourish and Blotts. It was here, she thought, not at the fictional Holforth, not in the office of a slightly surreal Alfred Dunmore, that things had started, both for ill and for good. It was this bookstore that had led to her brief and unintentional affair with evil. It was this bookstore that had nearly killed her.
And it was this bookstore where they had first exchanged words and glances.
She'd followed behind, though, instead of running ahead, enjoying the time she had to watch him, with only the oldest and youngest milling about the shops. Students and professors alike were at Hogwarts, and everyone else was at their jobs, fulfilling their vocations.
For good or for evil, life went on, jobs went on, people kept up their appearances and pretenses and went about their days, giving them this opportunity.
Giving them the opportunity to hide in plain sight.
"What would you have done if I hadn't followed?" Ginny asked, letting her fingers curl on the edge of the shelf as he pursed his lips, blew cool air to stir the hair laying against her neck. His answer didn't matter, it was only his voice that mattered, hearing him speak to her and not some Ministry underling.
"I would have taken you away," Draco said, feeling keenly the wish for just that, to take her away.
He was a Malfoy. He had never done anything he'd been ashamed of, and he wasn't ashamed of her. He didn't want to hide her, didn't want to have to hide her.
But his father had brought her to harm once before with the same sort of casualness he would have cast away a broken quill.
Draco would not bring her to harm again.
Unable to let him do as he pleased, unable to exert her own will, Ginny turned her head and slid her lips to his, from corner to center before parting her lips to share a sigh, to breathe in his as she breathed in hers before stroking the underside of his upper lip with her tongue. Their hoods met, forming a barrier they didn't need.
They'd had so little time together, distractions fell away instantly.
Draco raised his hands, sliding them beneath her hood, his palms touching the silk of her hair, his knuckles grazing the wool of her hood. She turned to him, one hand remaining on the shelf, and tilted her head back, the hood falling back.
Ginny rose to her toes, feeling those long, marvelous fingers running through her hair, gently massaging her scalp, and she waited for that familiar feeling, the stab of heat, the damp urgency, the tremble that ran from the top of her spine all the way through her body.
But the reaction didn't come, the sharp want didn't happen. What she felt instead was an ache, deep and sweet.
It was want, only a different kind of want.
It was wanting something she knew she couldn't have.
He tasted her tears before he knew she was crying, but when he pulled away, he saw she was smiling.
"You've finally lost your mind completely, haven't you?" he said softly, resisting the urge to look over his shoulder.
He wouldn't waste a moment, not for the sake of fear.
"It's come to the point where we're snogging in a bookstore like a couple of deranged schoolchildren," Ginny said, raising a hand to brush her tears away.
He beat her to it. "Leave it to you Gryffindors," he said, smirking, "To decide the good place, the adventurous place, for an assignation is a bookstore. If you snuck away here with someone, I'd not hear about it." He could almost see her, younger, eyes a bit brighter, giggling and ducking behind the stacks of books.
And because he was only human, he wondered if perhaps she still had her Hogwarts uniform.
"You picked the assignation location today," Ginny reminded him, raising her hands to wrap her fingers gently around his wrists, to feel the skin and muscle and bone shift as he rubbed his thumbs under her eyes.
Memorize every little thing, she told herself.
He scowled even before she spoke, and she thought he was sometimes still every inch the spoiled boy, the rich young prince. "You're going to say you ought to go, aren't you?"
"I ought to go, love," Ginny said, brushing her fingers over his forehead to soothe the wrinkles that had formed there with his scowl. "You're not attractive when you pout."
"I can't look perfect all the time," he said, marveling at the normality of it, seething with the knowledge that normality was a rarity.
He hoped that would cease soon.
She genuinely laughed, the sound of it absorbing quickly into the pages of the Wizarding History section, and she shook her head. "Race you to the office?"
And as easily as that, she saw him close himself off from her. His eyes went from smoke to ice, his shoulders squared even as she felt her own droop. "You're not going back to the office," she said, her voice detached. When he started to speak, she held up a hand. "It wasn't a question."
"I have something I should do while I'm out," Draco said tightly. "I just… don't want it to touch you."
Ginny tossed her head back, her eyes narrowed. She didn't appreciate being treated like she was fragile, like she was incapable, like she was breakable. A few tears did not a weakling make. "As long as you're touching me, what you do touches me."
She put her fingertips to his chest and gave him the slightest shove. "It holds true in reverse."
He couldn't help it, couldn't help himself. He grabbed her fingers, kissed them, and watched her turn on her heel and walk out with her head held high.
Draco slumped against the bookshelves and drew in a gusting breath. The littlest Weasley. She was such a spitfire, such a mouthy little heathen.
He figured that was how they were going to get through this.
~~~
"He talks to you more than he talks to me." Lucius prowled across the sitting room, sneering at the filigree and ridiculous pretty things his wife had felt the need to fill the space with.
He hadn't the slightest idea, Narcissa thought, that he sounded like an ill-tempered little boy. "You're upsetting my digestion," she said, feigning ennui. He was vastly entertaining like this, and as long as he was pouting over their son's stoicism, he wasn't out playing dress-up with his cronies.
Narcissa had grown tired of that intrigue quite some time ago. If she'd had to pinpoint it at an exact time, she would have said when she'd grown pregnant.
Because a child changed everything.
"Has he said anything?" Lucius asked, slamming his hands down on his wife's table and nearly toppling her teacup. The look she gave him, though weary, would have been enough to freeze the blood of a lesser man.
He didn't even notice.
"He said 'Good evening,'" she said acidly. "Should I analyze the tones? He's a young man, Lucius, in his first job. While you are undoubtedly busy with other things, that is quite enough for someone his age to follow. You should be proud he works when he doesn't have to instead of living off your money and your name."
It didn't have to be said, her implication was clear enough. Draco wasn't living off Lucius as Lucius had lived off his own father.
He stared at her for a long moment and Narcissa gazed back at him calmly, wondering if she'd ever again be able to rouse the ire, the fire that he'd once had so easily, that had excited her once.
But he turned and walked out, leaving her with a table set for tea and positively no appetite.
Proud, she'd told him. Proud of his son.
Narcissa didn't think her husband had any concept left of what pride truly meant.