Thanks a bunch to everyone who has reviewed. I've said it before, I love reviews! Anyways, I forget to mention last chapter about the "Endless". The Endless belong to Neil Gaiman. There are not really gods, so it's difficult to explain. The one that randomly pops up in this story is Dream aka Lord Morpheus. In reality he doesn't actually interfere with the lives of mortals unless he is to gain something, but I've tweaked him for my own personal use. And really, he doesn't have anything to do with the story, I just wanted to include him!
CHAPTER 3 Summer
When the train pulled into the station, Ginny had a clear view of the platform. She easily spotted her family - mum, dad, Fred, and Bill - by their red hair, surrounded by Tonks, Lupin, Moody, and . . . Narcissa Malfoy? Why in the world was her mum talking to Draco's mum?
"Come on Gin." Harry was nearly out the door.
Ginny glanced back over her shoulder, but the surge of Hogwarts students on the platform blocked her view.
When she reached her family, she was engulfed in hugs, but she could see Draco and his mum out of the corner of her eye only a few feet away. She tried to catch his eye, but he didn't even glance at the large group of Weasley's to his left.
"Ready to apparate Gin?" Fred asked as he busily shrunk everyone's packages.
"Yup," she nodded.
"It was lovely to see you again Molly," she heard Narcissa tell her mum. "We'll have to get together for tea now that all this war business is over."
Despite her soft tone and the rumors of Draco assisting the Order, even Ron had a look of vague skepticism on his face as his mum hugged Narcissa.
"What was that all about?" Ron demanded as they popped back into the Burrow.
"What?" Mrs. Weasley looked at him innocently.
"You and Malfoy's mum!"
"Oh. Well, she's really quite lovely. We were in school together you know. And now that her husband's gone . . . well, she's more like the person I used to know."
Ginny eyed her mum, unable to imagine two more different women. Her mum was on the shorter side and warm and open and friendly. She would have taken Harry in on a permanent basis if Dumbledore and Sirius hadn't refused her, and she had always been the same way with the gaggle of friends belonging to her brothers. Her mum could be astonishingly fierce when she wanted to be as well. Plus, her mum had the same unruly shock of red hair that made the Weasley's stand out in a crowd. Draco's mum was tall and thin and elegant with her blond hair always swept up to perfection, and every time Ginny had seen her, with the exception of today, she seemed cold and distant. Ginny was willing to bet her entire savings account the woman had never worn and apron or healed a bloodied knee or elbow with mummy kisses before in her life.
After a heavy dinner and promises from Harry to come back for meals each night, Harry and Hermione apparated back to their houses. Ginny faked tiredness and made her way up the stairs to her cozy childhood room. She shut off the lights, stripped out of her traveling clothes, and hesitated only for a moment before pulling on the silk boxers she hadn't bothered to return to Draco. Reaching into the pocket of her travel robe, she pulled out the galaxy glass from Draco and lit it up. Sleep didn't come easily, but thoughts of Draco did.
***
The summer passed with a monotony Ginny found comforting after the chaos of the previous summers. She was the only child living at home now, and she thought she would enjoy it more, but she found herself staying with Fred and George, because they always made her laugh, and they never left her alone with Harry. Ron officially moved in with Harry and was working with her dad at the ministry. Hermione had practically moved in with the two of them and was heading up an activist group for the humane treatment of all magical creatures, even though, much to her dismay, Harry and Ron had procured a new house elf.
"We're nice to her," Ron informed Hermione dismissively, when she began to sputter with disbelief.
Ginny resumed her job from the previous summers as the only employee in her brother's wildly successful joke shop. She worked Tuesday through Saturday, from 9 in the morning until 6 or so in the evening. The shop was insanely busy over the summer, but she liked it that way. The hustle and bustle of stocking and inventory and selling kept her head clear. Since she worked, she didn't have to listen to her mum constantly hint that she expected Ginny and Harry to be pretty much married by the time she graduated next year, and she didn't have to spend every free second with Harry, as Harry wasn't doing much for the summer since his Auror training didn't begin until the fall.
Harry did drop by the shop occasionally, and she saw him nearly every evening at dinner since none of the males in her family could figure out the cooking thing, even though they had house elves.
Several weeks into vacation, Ginny was sitting on the swing in her mum's garden, watching the sun drop behind the trees with Harry. He was chatting on and on about the Quidditch match he had gone to with Ron, but she wasn't listening. She was going to have to do something, as it wasn't very fair to Harry to be his girlfriend, and spend all her time thinking about Draco Malfoy. She had tried to stop thinking about him; after all, she had no real reason to do so. So he had given her a gift, what of it? But she couldn't. And it wasn't that she didn't care about Harry, because she did. In fact, she loved him, but it was in the same way she loved her brothers. Besides, she was more than a bit disappointed that Draco hadn't owled yet like he said he would, and that her mum and his mum hadn't arranged tea. Of course, she couldn't act interested because she refused to raise suspicions.
"Hello? Gin?" Harry was saying.
"Huh?"
Harry was staring at her. "Are you okay? I was wondering if you wanted to go see Wood play next weekend."
"Wood?"
"Oliver."
"Oh right. I'm fine," she shook her head. "Sorry."
"What's going on?"
"What do you mean?"
"You know. You've been . . . different for the past few weeks."
Here's your chance, she thought. Here's your chance to tell him how you feel. "Harry, you know I love you," she blurted out.
His eyes shot open in surprise. "Um."
"I mean, I love you like I love Ron."
"Oh right." He looked immensely relieved. "Me, me too! I mean, I love your family, they're like my
family."
Ginny nodded and took a deep breath. "Do you sometimes feel like you're dating your sister?"
Harry was silent for so long that Ginny began to fumble for excuses.
"I think you're right," he finally interrupted her. "But I do care about you."
"I know that. But am I really what you want?"
"What do you mean?"
I mean that one hug from Draco Malfoy lit me up like a fire cracker, but not even the first time me and you got tipsy on wine and had a snog fest on the couch did that to me. "I mean, you're about to start Auror training. I'm going back to Hogwarts. Things are going to be different, and I don't want to hold you back." To her ears, the last words fell to the ground and lay there, pitiful and pathetic.
Harry smiled. "Look, I know what you mean. The only reason I went on about that whole shagging thing is because of Seamus. I didn't really want to. Not because of you," he added hurriedly, "but like you said, it'd be like shagging my sister."
Ginny laughed. "We won't act like prats around each other now, will we?"
"Of course not. I can't jeopardize my chances of eating your mum's cooking!"
***
Ginny was on hands and knees, unpacking more boxes of her brother's skiving snackboxes, when the door charm rang. She sighed inwardly as it was nearly her lunch break and called, "I'll be right there!"
She stood and dusted off her Muggle style denim trousers and Chuddley Canon's t-shirt she had nicked from Ron, and as she stood, she came face to face with Draco Malfoy.
"You work here?" he drawled, raising his eyebrows.
"Um, yeah," she nodded, thinking that in the past month, he looked taller. "The pay's good."
"Really?"
"Uh huh." She dusted off her shirt again. "So what are you doing here?"
"Came to see George, actually." His smile made her stomach flip.
"George?"
"We're working on . . . a business deal."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yup. As soon as Malfoy Holdings get out of the Ministry's lock up, your brother's business is going to go international."
Ginny was impressed. Since when did Fred and George associate with Draco? "George isn't here," she told him. "He's at lunch, but he should be back in about 20 minutes."
Draco nodded and glanced around. "Do you get a lunch?"
"When George gets back."
"Can I take you then? There's that new French café around the corner."
A smile crept across her face. "That would be great."
When George returned from his lunch, he and Draco arranged to meet later that afternoon, and then Ginny headed out with Draco.
The café was neatly situated in a corner of Diagon Alley with roof top tables charmed to repel all the weather.
"So tell me about his business deal," Ginny asked after they had ordered.
Draco immediately launched into a long explanation of how since his father had died, the Ministry had taken temporary control of the family business to weed out and illegal activities. Apparently, Draco's law wizard was part of the same firm as her brother's law wizard, and Draco had heard a rumor that the Weasley brothers were looking to go international. Since Malfoy Holdings had connections - as in building and employees - world wide, he approached George and so far the deal was looking quite profitable for all parties involved.
"Of course," Draco finished up as their food arrived, "the Ministry is full of bastards, so it's looking like another year before they're finished."
"And what are you going to do until then?" Ginny asked, nibbling at the pastry before her.
"Don't know," he told her, picking up his drink. "But it's not like I'm in a hurry to start working!"
***
After that, Draco came to take Ginny to lunch every single day that she worked, and she began to wonder why it had taken her so long to become friends with him. He continually made her laugh and when he hugged her, the currents that ran through her were undeniable. Who would have ever guessed that Draco Malfoy had a wicked sense of humor?
Fred and George harassed her about Draco continually, as they were the only family members who knew she wasn't seeing Harry anymore. Fred didn't particularly like it, reminding her incessantly about Draco's father and the rumors and speculation, and the way Draco had acted in school. Finally, Ginny asked calmly, "If he's so horrible, why are you planning a business deal with him?"
"It's not him," he defended his words. "It's his company."
"Exactly. You've got a lot more to lose if this doesn't work out than I do!"
George laughed. "She's got you there."
Fred frowned into the shelf he was stocking and muttered, "Fine then."
When Draco came for lunch that day, Fred straightened up, marched over to Draco and stuck out his hand.
Draco glanced at it warily and gingerly shook it.
"I just want to let you know," her brother announced, "that if you hurt my sister, I will kill you. I will send you to Charlie and he can feed you to his dragons. I will be ten thousand times more pissed if you hurt her than if you screw us."
Draco's expression remained cool, but he raised an eyebrow. "Well, since I'm plan on neither, I guess we can both rest easy."
Ginny was turning red with mortification, but George was rocking with silent laughter.
"I am so, so sorry!" she exclaimed when she had left the shop with Draco. "I swear, he's so overprotective."
Draco let out a laugh that sounded more like a snort. "They don't have anything to worry about."
The last weeks of Ginny's summer had sped by all too quickly. It was the last Saturday of the summer, her last day working, as the next morning she would be speeding back to Hogwarts, when the door swung open. She stood to her feet, expecting to see Draco.
"Hey Gin. I was wondering if I could take you to lunch," Harry said with a smile.
If he noticed the slight drop in her expression, he didn't say a word. "Um . . ." She couldn't tell him no without explaining why, and telling someone about Draco when there was nothing between them, and not even a guarantee that he would come in today - although he had every single other day she'd been working - just seemed ridiculous. "Sure."
"Great. When's your lunch?"
She thought quickly. Usually, Fred went, then George, and then she went last. "Now," she told him, forcing a smile. "We can go now. I'll just switch with Fred."
George eyed her with curiosity in his eyes and interest on the tip of his tongue as she asked Fred to switch with her. Fred, however, couldn't have been more pleased if someone had just come in and spent a thousand galleons.
"That would be fine," he said with a smile. "Have fun. Take extra time if you need it!"
She chose the Leaky Cauldron, knowing the chances of Draco coming in there were improbably low.
Harry chatted obliviously over their sandwiches, telling her about his training, which would start in a week, the Quidditch games he and Ron attended nearly every weekend, Hermione's progress with her activist group, and Ginny listened, but her heart wasn't in it. She felt quite mean, no paying attention to Harry who had been her friend since her first year of school, and instead thinking about Draco, who had been a big prat to her since her very first year of school.
When her lunch hour was up, he walked her back to the store. He hugged her outside, and wished her luck at school, and as she entered the shop, she heard him say, "Malfoy."
Ginny turned around and watched through the window.
"Potter."
She couldn't make out all the words, but she heard Harry telling him that he had just taken her to lunch. Draco nodded and glanced up at her with unreadable eyes, told Harry goodbye and disappeared into the crowd.
Each time the door opened, she hoped it was him, but it wasn't. When the shop closed for the evening, she felt like crying. Logically, there was no reason to cry. Draco had become some sort of friend over the summer, but nothing more. Whether she told him goodbye or not was really insignificant, but it still didn't change the fact that she had wanted to see him, had wanted to tell her goodbye. George squeezed her hand, while Fred looked as smug as he did pleased, and the three of them apparated to the Burrow for her last dinner at home.
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A/N For everyone who read my spoiler in my LJ, this is coming in chapter 8 or 9, I think!
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