Harry had left early that morning for Quidditch practice, and Ginny'd been grateful for the opportunity to feign sleep when he kissed her goodbye. Pretending to sleep was as close as she could come, though, as she'd spent the entire night listening to Harry snore softly and thinking of Draco.
She sighed and pushed the quilt back. She'd only sent the letter yesterday. Had she really thought he'd come so soon? Did she really think he'd come at all?
She was really going mad.
And now there was nothing to distract her, since Harry Potter's fiancée had stupidly agreed to give up her job. She didn't need to work so hard, Harry had urged, and from what he'd heard, planning a wedding took lots of time. Ginny had agreed before she quite understood what she was doing, and then it had been too late.
She'd kept herself busy enough the last few weeks, but today the peaceful quiet of the flat was oppressive. Either she could pace in circles and organize her sock drawer for the second time in two days, or she could invent an excuse to go out.
Her mind raced through the possibilities and a real smile appeared on her face when she decided on a diversion. Lunch with Hermione would get her out of the flat, and it would let them continue the conversation Harry had interrupted. The thought of spilling the secret she had guarded so closely for so long made her uneasy, but it was time.
Telling the story could only help. It might help Ginny prepare for Draco's reappearance in her life, or it might help her begin to let go because he wouldn't be coming back. There was no way to know, Ginny mused as she pulled on a blue jumper, but either way, it was somewhere to start. She'd just have to ignore the full body blush and racing heartbeat that remembering him caused and focus on the facts.
Hermione would understand the facts.
An hour later, Ginny was finding it easy to concentrate on simple facts as Hermione munched on a crumpet and waited for her to speak. The difficulty was choosing facts that were relevant. It might not matter to Hermione that Draco's skin was softer and smoother than any man's had a right to be, and Ginny seriously doubted her lunch companion was interested in knowing that he insisted on holding her after they made love.
Facts. Stick to the facts.
She decided to start with something simple and as she started to speak, her eyes fixed on the smear of jam on Hermione's cheek. She tried desperately not to laugh - she had to be serious about this - and in her haste to say something, quickly blurted out the name that was never far from her mind.
"Draco Malfoy."
The crumpet dropped from Hermione's hand, and she blinked at Ginny several times, completely baffled. "What? What about him?"
Ginny took a long, shuddering breath. Not the way she'd meant to start this revelation, but then nothing in recent memory had started - or ended - as she'd planned. Why should this be different? She closed her eyes against a sudden vision of him smiling at her and soldiered on.
"We were in love," she said simply. There. All the details were still missing, when and why and how Ginny Weasley could have loved Draco Malfoy, but she had managed to impart the most important facts.
Once upon a time, Ginny Weasley and Draco Malfoy loved each other.
If Hermione was making any sort of attempt to hide her shock, it was failing. Her mouth was hanging open, and her elbow had landed in her teacup when she'd started at Ginny's words.
"Close your mouth, Hermione," Ginny instructed gently, offering her napkin. Hermione glanced down at her sleeve, now dripping with tea, and flushed.
"Maybe we should have the waiter take the plates away before I tell you the rest," Ginny suggested with a faint trace of humor in her tone.
"Ginny," Hermione began, her thoughts whirling madly. "Are you … I mean, did you …" She stuttered out some more inanities and finally croaked out, "Really?"
Ginny didn't answer, but Hermione saw the truth of her admission in the sad smile that crossed her face.
She could barely believe it, let alone make sense of it.
"When?"
The date Ginny named was more than three years ago. Now Hermione's brain was able to start processing information, make connections, begin attempting to solve this unexpected mystery.
She started piecing snippets of memory together, trying to recall what she'd known of Ginny's actions three years ago. Hardly anything, she realized - Ginny had put in long hours helping Fred and George at their shop, and for several months, that was the only place Hermione could remember seeing her. Not at the Burrow, not for an occasional lunch, and not by way of an accidental encounter.
She hadn't thought anything of it at the time, but these oddities seemed perfectly reasonable now that she knew Ginny had been hiding a secret. A lover. A relationship with Draco Malfoy. Her lips pursed at that last thought, but she carefully wiped her expression blank when she saw Ginny had noticed.
"He's different than you think," Ginny murmured, meeting her gaze. "At least he was with me. He's a good man, Hermione. He took care of me. We were happy."
It hurt to say that, to use the past tense to describe something that had meant so much. It still meant just as much, but as they were dealing in facts, Ginny was trying to come to grips with the fact that a history with Draco might be all she had.
It was enough of a struggle for Hermione to think of Ginny having loved Draco Malfoy. But then her logical mind made another connection, and she gasped in sudden realization. Ginny was still watching her, and she sighed, seeing the knowledge flash in Hermione's wide brown eyes.
"Yes," she whispered, hating the guiltiness that was threatening to overwhelm her. "Yes, that's why I was upset yesterday."
There was compassion in the look Hermione gave Ginny, but it quickly slipped into an odd mix of fear and wariness. Hermione was sure she did not want to know the answers to any of the questions that statement produced, but there was one she could not keep from asking.
"But, Ginny," she said carefully, striving to keep her tone even, "what about Harry?"
Tears sprang into Ginny's eyes instantly, but she answered immediately.
"I can't marry him."
Any sympathy Hermione might have felt vanished, and her eyes hardened. "You can't. Because of Draco Malfoy." Her neutrality was gone, too, as she practically hissed the Slytherin's name and glared at Ginny.
"No," Ginny murmured. "Not because of Draco. Because of me. Because it wouldn't be fair."
"You still love him." It might have been a question. It was certainly an accusation, but Ginny met it head on.
"Draco? I do." Ginny shrugged her shoulders. "I tried to forget him. I thought I'd managed it, even, but …" She looked up and saw the unfriendly stare Hermione was leveling at her.
"I was wrong. About lots of things. I thought I could marry Harry. I thought I could be happy without Draco. And I even thought you might be able to understand, that I could finally talk about this.
"There's a reason I learned to keep secrets, Hermione," she finished, fighting hard to not let Harry's best friend see how much this was hurting her. "No one ever understands the truth, even if they think they want to know it. Lies are lies, but they're easier."
She pushed her chair back from the table and stood. Trembling fingers plucked some Galleons out of her purse, and she turned to leave before remembering one last thing.
"Just so we're clear," she said softly, waiting for Hermione to look up and confirm that she was listening. "Quite obviously it was a mistake to trust you with this. Don't compound it by going to Harry. I know where your loyalties lie, but Harry needs to hear this from me. And he will - soon," she added, when Hermione's mouth opened to disagree.
"Do that much for me," Ginny continued haltingly, but the words stuck in her throat at the baleful glare Hermione responded with. She would not cry. She'd made herself vulnerable enough for one day. "Do it for Harry, then," she said wearily. "Think of Harry, like you always have, and you'll know I should be the one to tell him."
A short, sharp nod was the only indication that Hermione had even heard her. It would do. Ginny squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and Apparated home. Tears were already spilling down her cheeks as she appeared in the living room, and she sank onto the couch, groping for a pillow to bury her face in.
She cried for a long time. She wept for the pain she'd be causing Harry and at the thought that hurting him didn't necessarily mean having Draco, and she sobbed for the loss of Hermione as a confidante, because it meant she truly had no one. She had to bear this by herself.
When she regained a little bit of her composure, she sat up, hugging the soggy pillow to her chest. Then her tear-bright eyes focused on a strange object sitting on the coffee table, one that hadn't been there when she'd left. A medium-sized box with a card on top. It was addressed to her.
She let go of the pillow and leaned forward curiously. Her name was written in calligraphy, in plain black ink - no clues there. Ginny refused to let herself speculate on who might have left it, even though her heart had begun to thump faster. She didn't realize she'd been holding her breath until she slid the card out of its envelope and read the short message and huffed in disbelief. Surely there was more to the card. She turned it over, then back again. No, she hadn't missed anything. There were just four cryptic words that gave no clue as to the box's contents.
You'll be needing these.
Her brow furrowed even as she lifted the lid off the box and impatiently brushed aside several layers of tissue paper. Her gasp shattered the silence in the room and she could barely comprehend what she was seeing.
Finally, Ginny reached out tentatively and touched them, then curled her fingers around the straps to pull a pair of shoes out of the box. Her favorite shoes, a pair of strappy, high-heeled sandals in rich brown leather.
The last time she'd seen them, they'd been sitting beside Draco's sofa. Had he really kept them all this time? That he'd kept them at all, considering how they'd parted, was something. But all this time? Maybe she wasn't the only one who had held on to memories. Maybe she wasn't the only one who had hoped.
She'd thought the shoes were lost to her forever. Of course, she'd thought the same about Draco.
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