CHAPTER TWENTY - Not Enough
What could she say? Her fingers stilled over the silver and green paper the box had been lined with, her eyes glancing up to him. Of course, it was obvious she'd been crying, she simply hadn't expected him to comment on it. And had she been crying over Harry?
Because of him, certainly, but not over him.
She had rejected one man because he didn't love her enough, or in the way she thought she should be loved. So how could she persist with, even find joy with, a man who did not- and could never- love her?
The answer to that was simple, no matter how much she suddenly wished otherwise.
She couldn't persist.
"Not entirely," she finally answered, finding it a true enough response. She smoothed her hands over the tissue paper, wanting to prolong the unwrapping. The longer it took to open, the longer he would stay.
The longer she could wait before telling him he had to leave.
Draco considered her answer, felt his head grow warm, his back teeth grinding together slightly. He wanted to find Potter, wrap his hands around the scrawny bastard's neck, and squeeze.
Of course, it wasn't because she'd been crying. And it certainly wasn't because she'd cried the night before, or because Potter was too much of a stupid fucking wanker to see what he'd passed up. Of course it wasn't any of those things. It was just because Potter was Potter, and Potter always needed a good throttling. It was simply duty by this point. The rest, Draco assured himself, was purely incidental.
He shifted his weight, suddenly angry and uncomfortable with it. He wanted her to open her stupid box so he could fix the door and leave. Well, and so he could see the look on her face. But mostly, what he wanted more was to know what had set her off. She'd been fine when she had left the manor-better than fine, even. She shouldn't even have been thinking about bloody stupid Scarhead, she should have been thinking about him.
"That's one hell of a change of mood, then," he snapped, irritated by his pervasive train of thought. "You were absolutely made up when you left this morning. You were all made up when you left this morning, what made you start sniveling between then and now? It isn't as though you've had to see the four-eyed nob, for Merlin's sake." He saw her hands tighten on the edge of the box and felt everything within him tighten similarly.
When she didn't say anything, he repeated himself, speaking deliberately. "I said, it isn't as though you've had to see him."
"How rude of me," Ginny said finally, her voice a touch higher than usual. "I should get on with unwrapping this, eh?" She didn't know why she was being evasive, why it even mattered. It wasn't as though it mattered, as though he had any reason at all to care that Harry had been there. If he did mind, it was simply another incarnation of a feud too tiresome to be contemplated, the feud that had fueled Draco into this interaction in the first place. She supposed it was just, in some weird, twisted way, that the enmity that had motivated Draco to show interest would be the same one to drive him away.
He took the box away from her, set it on an already crowded end table, and stayed standing, towering over her. He pushed a hand through his hair, at a true loss for words.
Her answer-or lack thereof-could only mean one thing. And what were the implications of that exactly?
Had he come to her house? Had he forced his way in, hurt her in any way? He wanted to fuss, but only for a moment. He knew how capable she could be, if she wanted to. She knew how to freeze a man out, and though Potter was an idiot, he was far too noble to hurt his ex. Draco certainly hoped that was the case. He would truly hate, after all this time and reputation building, to have to kill the freakish, green-eyed bastard and ruin his reputation all over again.
But… then had she gone to see Harry?
The thought of her leaving his bed and going straight to Potter made black crowd around the edges of his vision, and his hands clenched reflexively into fists. That she'd go to her ex still smelling of the night before made him sick, it made him feel sick and angry and somehow… helpless.
"When did you see him?" he asked stiffly. "I won't be played the fool here, Weasley, I won't be your toy while try to win him back, or while he tries to win you back, or while the two of you make calf's eyes at one another and take your sweet bloody time getting back together because you're meant to be or some other such cack."
Ginny merely gaped up at him for a moment, astounded at his reaction. "As though it's any of your business," she finally managed. "I should have thought, after my idiotic confession, you would understand I was not attempting to get back with Harry." She narrowed her eyes and tried valiantly to ignore the fact that his accusation hurt and hurt very much. "You've nothing to be jealous of," she stated.
He was intelligent enough-or paranoid enough, he wasn't even certain himself which it was-to discern there were two ways of interpreting that. Either Harry posed no threat to him… or this thing with Ginny Weasley wasn't anything he had a right to envy. "That is very true," he rejoined, his mouth stiff.
Surprisingly, she gave him a wistful smile. "I'm so glad you see things my way." Her voice was quiet, and he felt his internal balance, his mind and his stomach and his everything, pitch sideways at her tone.
No, no, no, he thought. She was not about to do what he thought…
"I think you should go." She wasn't going to cry, damn it, not again. She'd spent most of the morning crying over Harry and, yes, over this idiot. And what the hell for? A few good shags-well, one good and the other nearly downright evil-and some barely civilized conversation? It wasn't worth crying over.
She could do this. She could tell him to leave. That's what she did, wasn't it? She sent them packing. It should be easy.
"What? No." Draco shook his head emphatically. "You're not using this as an excuse to toss me out. I have to fix the door-"
"If I wanted my door repaired, I'd have done it myself." She liked the scar in the wood for some stupid, liked the light, raw wood against the dark stain on the outside. It made her feel desirable, powerful.
But right now, she couldn't have felt any more powerless.
"Do you think I am happy like this?" Ginny asked, standing and burying her hands in her hair. "A good shag and some phony proclamation of trust?" It unnerved her now, with a few hours' distance, how happy those things really had made her.
"It wasn't phony!" he yelled, his face flushing. Happy. Had he even given it a thought? Did he even know what it was? He'd never thought about making her happy. He'd only thought about making her his.
"Oh, really?" She took a deep breath, scared to find she was trembling. This had gone too far, this dangerous game, too far and too fast. She thought she could play it as well as anyone else, fast and loose of body and completely absent of emotion, but she was shaking and afraid and sad all over again. "Try telling me that when you didn't just accuse me of fucking you and then rushing off to Harry."
The word suddenly seemed harsh to him now, and he jerked his head back as though she'd slapped him, nostrils flared. "You were fine before you saw him," he said finally, looking down at her and thinking about how they both looked-unkempt, rumpled, well-used from the previous evening.
They'd done that to one another, and now they may as well have been a continent apart, for all the common ground they had.
"This is ridiculous," Ginny finally said, shaking her head. "We're adults. We had sex. That's it."
"That's it." His voice was completely without inflection, and her wishful thinking made her take the words as agreement.
"Thank you for coming to fix my door, and bringing me-" She swallowed and looked back at the box she had yet to open.
"Lingerie," he said, and he couldn't keep himself from his next words. "I hope the next man enjoys them."
His own words made him want to pick up the box and shred its contents into threads. No man should ever see her in those. No man, that was, but himself.
Draco stepped close to her, his head bent so she had to crane her neck to look at him. His breath was coming in rapid, hard bursts, feathering over her lips, and for the tiniest moment, she let her eyes flutter half-closed.
"This was a mistake," he whispered, little more than a hiss, and then he was gone, slamming her ruined door and leaving her with other ruins to take care of.
She wondered if he was referring to their time together, or the decision to part.
~~~
Ah, Mondays.
Pansy had never been particularly fond of them even on the most uneventful of Mondays, but this one seemed particularly unattractive. For starters, she could tell something had gone wrong the moment she'd walked in the doors of Malfoy, Ltd. Anyone who said you couldn't gauge a wizard's or witch's mood by the energy in the air was simply full of shite, in her humble opinion. An angry wizard put off dark, angry energy. A depressed wizard put off thick, stifling energy.
Both were present here.
And on top of that, it was fucking cold.
So she started whistling a cheerful tune, a little ditty of nonsense notes, the minute she stepped onto the administrative floor.
"Cease your infernal noise, Parkinson." He called out to her before she had even rounded the corner to head for his outer offices, so she stopped whistling.
And started singing.
"Cease!" he yelled, and when she did round the corner, the tiniest hitch carried into her step. Octavia was gone, the front desk left entirely empty, and Draco's inner office doors were thrown open. The windows loomed large and blank behind him as he sat tall at his desk, imposing, frightening.
"Well, well," she said, raising an eyebrow. "Now we all know how Snape went sour. I'm certain it started out just like this."
Draco turned away from her wordlessly and plucked a small bottle off his bookcase. He uncapped it expressionlessly and dipped his quill in it, signing the parchment in front of him with a flourish.
"Signing with your own blood?" Pansy crossed her arms over her chest and let the insouciance fall away. It wasn't like him to enter into such serious agreements, which were called for only by a smattering of magical entities. "My, my, we are in a serious mood today. Unless you've just signed over your soul, I'll need to review that document. Goblins are notorious for their loopholes."
"I had one of your underlings review it, as you couldn't be bothered to make it into the office on time. If their evaluation was insufficient, you will still bear the brunt of the responsibility." Before she could protest, he tied the parchment to the leg of one of his ten office owls and sent it away, finally sitting back to look at her.
He knew she would never be able to tell, from looking at him, that he'd been here for hours, that he'd shown up the day before after showering and had simply stayed, utilizing the changes of clothes he kept in the wardrobe in the corner of his office.
He'd let himself fall behind, and now it was time to catch up. He'd given himself enough time for foolishness. He liked to think it had rounded him out a bit, that he was simply experiencing one more thing to add to his list.
Now he had work to do.
"Did you fire Tavia?" It wasn't what she wanted to ask, but she knew she would have to work her way up to that. The playful note from her voice was gone, and she was suddenly glad she'd worn the black suit today. It might have been sin-tight, but it was conservative-for her.
She needed the power of it today.
"No, she is in the loo, probably crying." He pulled another document in front of him and forced the memory of Ginny sitting on his bathroom floor out of his mind.
"Did you brass Ginny Weasley off?" That was certainly closer to what she wanted to ask, and she felt her throat tighten a bit as a moment of something raw and unbelievable flashed over his face.
"No. It was simply a moment, Pansy. She fancied she was slumming it, and I know I was. Though I wouldn't expect you to know it, it's perfectly possible to have too much of a good thing, and perfectly probably to have too much of a completely mediocre thing."
"Ahhh. Give me a moment to translate that from blokese into woman-speak. So you didn't brass her off, you hurt her?" Or she hurt you, Pansy thought, wanting to lay a hand to his cheek but knowing he'd hex her before letting her touch him.
How did they expect him to know how to treat women? He'd never been shown how to do it correctly.
"You can't hurt the heartless," Draco said, looking up at his barrister. "You had best get to work. I'm in no mood for company."
Pansy started to speak, frowned, and for once, thought better of it. She wanted to go over to the Ministry and pay a visit to the red vixen herself, but couldn't bring herself to do it. She'd meddled more than was constructive already.
If things were going to work-and though she had her hopes, she had her doubts-one of them would have to make a move.
It broke her heart to suspect-to know-each was just as stubborn as the other.