1. Finding Eternity

A/N - This fic is inspired by "My Boo" by Usher and Alicia Keys. Enjoy! - Kumy

It had been an eternity since she last saw him. An eternity since she heard his laugh, saw his face, felt his arms around her. But she couldn’t forget, she could only pretend.

It had been an eternity since he had last seen her. An eternity since he looked into her eyes, felt her heartbeat against him, saw her smile. But he couldn’t forget, he could only pretend.

She hadn’t felt alive for an eternity. He hadn’t felt alive for an eternity.

Hogwarts had always seen the mask he put on, just the jerk everyone expected him to be. But she had thought she knew him…guess he could never stop pretending. She remembered the day that his mask had been replaced with a new one...the one that she thought had been the real Draco Malfoy…the Draco she had fallen in love with…the one who never gave her heart back. She still sometimes thought whether he had purposely set her up…but her heart never gave up hope, and he always had part of her. She was his, no matter what she wanted…for an eternity.

She had been running from Charms after she got the letter that Molly Weasley was dead, looking for Ron, but she had run straight into him. He had seemed different then. The ice had melted a bit. She had collapsed in front of him and to her surprise, he had gathered her into his arms and taken her straight to Ron. That was when Draco Malfoy had first pulled her in, made himself present in the back of her mind. Ron had glared at Malfoy until she stuffed her letter into his hands and ran upstairs. She didn’t know what Ron had said or done, but Draco had pretended that she didn’t exist. Until they had been paired in a Potions partnership, which became friendship and then something even more…it seemed an eternity ago.

She remembered the day he left her. The day that he broke her heart. The day when she knew she loved him. Ironically, it was only after he left she realized that she loved him. She looked back to that day an eternity ago.

She slipped into the Room of Requirement. His back was turned to her and he was shaking. She walked up behind him and wrapped her arms around him, tucking his shoulder under her chin. “I got your message. What’s wrong, Draco?” He pushed her away from him harshly.

“We can’t make this work, Nevra. I should have never let myself hope. Good-bye.” His voice was steady, reasonable, but there was a tension in his stance, in the undercurrent of his voice, like a spring about to break.

As he strode past her, she grabbed his arm and turned him to face her. Tear-streaks made traces down his cheeks and more were forming in his stormy eyes. She whispered desperately, “But I love you, Draco.” His mask cracked for a second and pain was visible. Then he yanked his arm from her grasp, his face cold again, and walked out the door. He would leave Hogwarts the next day. She had collapsed against the wall as her world turned bleak. A bleakness that lasted an eternity.

She was married to Harry now. When he had been put under a spell by Voldemort and it looked like Harry wouldn’t be standing at the Last Battle, she had saved him. She was the top Healer in the Ministry now. After the Victory, he had been a shattered man, and she had helped him rebuild himself. He had fallen in love with her, and they had become involved, and then of course, married. The wedding had been beautiful, but for a moment when she looked up the aisle, she could have sworn she saw Draco’s face…until it was replaced by Harry’s.

All of her friends and family had been disappointed when they heard news of the engagement…not because they didn’t like Harry. After all, he was part of the family. But people thought that they didn’t belong with each other. Ginny looked back to the day they announced their engagement. Later, she and Mandy Creevy had talked. She remembered their conversation even today.

“Ginny, are you sure?” Mandy asked concernedly, her eyes peering at Ginny’s pale face.

“Sure about what, Mandy?” Ginny’s puzzlement was obvious.
“About…well, marrying Harry. It’s just…so unexpected.”

Ginny laughed. “We’ve been dating for 2 years. Do you expect a marriage like yours and Colin’s?” Mandy blushed. It had taken Colin seven years to propose.

“No, it’s just…it’s like you don’t belong together. Harry is totally in love, but Gin, you’re holding something back. Not just something, but nearly everything. You love him, maybe, but you aren’t in love. You are settling for him. And neither you nor Harry deserve that.”

She shivered at how close Mandy got to how she felt. And brushed away the lingering thought that she was right. She forced a laugh. “Since when are you a psychologist, Mandy? I am sure. I love him.”

But you aren’t in love with him, a treacherous voice said. She pushed it away…like all the other thoughts she had pushed away for this eternity.

She sighed at the memories and the past that she could never change no matter how many times she went back in her head. A patient called for her and she turned to attend him.

He couldn’t stop remembering their love…and how he had destroyed it. He had read the papers full of her name. Marrying Potter, becoming the leading expert on the movement of the Dark Side, and finally landing a job as a Ministry Healer after having bringing back Potter from insanity after he destroyed Voldemort. She had become the amazing woman he had always told her she would become. Not that it made it any easier for him. Her memory followed him everywhere.

He had become one of the top anonymous spies (through Dumbledore) for the Light on the Dark Side. He had killed his father to protect Snape’s identity (he had faked his own death and took the place of Rodolphus Lestrange). Dumbledore had revealed his name after Voldemort’s defeat because Draco had saved Potter (because of Ginevra) from worse than insanity (not preventable) after Potter defeated Tom Riddle. He had immediately secluded himself in the Malfoy Manor, and had avoided the public afterwards. He blamed fame for taking his Nevra away from him…because he could not admit that it had been his own fault. Therefore, he avoided fame as the enemy. He had been alone…for an eternity.

He remembered their first kiss. She had been talking to him about her mother and he held her as she cried…

Her tears soaked through his shirt. As her sobs slowly faded away, she looked up at him. “Why are you doing this? Why are you risking your image to show me your real self? I am not worth it, Draco. And…” She looked so plaintive and innocent sitting in his lap looking up at him. And he couldn’t help himself. He cut her off as he gently kissed her. She gasped into his mouth and he pulled away.

“Wha-,” he said as fire blazed in her eyes. She held his face and pulled him close to her.

“Why didn’t I see what I wanted before?” she whispered into his ear before guiding his mouth down to hers again…

His vision blacked out and the memory disappeared as darkness overtook him.

She missed him so much. He was the only one to make her feel like she was walking in a dream. The only one to make her in love…and this horrible longing for memories long past was unbearable. Suddenly, an owl tapped on her window with a simple message, “You are needed at Headquarters. Love, Harry.” She Apparated immediately and found a shocking sight before her.

The man she had dreamed of, the one that left her broken, and had hidden from her all these years, was lying crumpled on the floor. Harry said disgustedly, “I don’t know what’s wrong with him. It seems pointless.” He stared in shock as his wife rushed by him and levitated his school rival onto a bed.
“Go away, Harry, I am working. You need to get back to work too.” Ginny said distractedly. He shook his head sadly, the gesture unnoticed by the frantic redhead in front of him. She even gave work more feeling than she did him. He knew that she was holding back in the marriage, but hell, he would take her as he could get her…any way he could get her. That’s how much in love with her he was. He shut his eyes and Apparated away.

Ginny turned to the nurse and said, “The only way to get him out of this is to use his true love. It’s some sort of Dark Magic…kind of like the spell put on Harry by Voldemort…a sort of variation.” As she said this, she turned to the bed. “Felis Semperus.” A hazy picture of herself appeared above Draco. The nurse stared at her. She blushed and said hastily, “Don’t you have work to do? As you can see, I do.” The nurse nodded and rushed out of the room.

Ginny began the spell work as thoughts rushed through her head. He didn’t forget me. He loves me. Merlin, he loves me.

He woke to the sound of someone else turning the page of a book. As his vision cleared, he called out. “Is there a nurse around here anywhere?”

A redhead came into view above him. “Not quite, but I hope a Healer will do.” Her voice held a hint of laughter in it…her scent was familiar yet distant, as if from a memory an eternity ago.

She helped him sit up and he finally got a good view of her face. When he did, all his carefully constructed barriers collapsed without a second thought and his eyes widened.

“Nevra? Sweet Circe, is that you?”

She smiled at him. “It’s me.” To her shock, he drew her into a hard kiss, searching within her for something that they had never lost. Without thinking, she kissed back just as hard, showing him the pain and loneliness of the past eternity. After he pulled away and coherent thought returned, she gasped. Here she was, sitting next to a man who broke her heart, and she welcomed him back without a second thought. Her temper suddenly sparked. “How the hell can you do this to me? Just waltz back into my life and make me feel these emotions? Why? Why did you leave?”

The fire in her eyes warmed him, but he winced at the pain and desperation in her voice…and at the question. He took in a deep breath and began his long-overdue explanation.

“The day after I pushed you away, I left Hogwarts. To go to my initiation as a Death Eater. Dumbledore knew…I fed him information until the day before the Victory. But I had to remain under cover along with Snape…Hell, I killed my own father to keep Snape’s cover. My emotions were revealing my inner thoughts that had to remain shielded…Voldemort has a way of finding things out besides Legilimency. I was a skilled Occlumens, but that would not have saved me. I didn’t really care about my own life…but if he found out he would have killed anyone close to me – he would have killed you. And whatever the cost to myself, I could not let you die. So I pushed you away, and hoped you would move on. And you did.” He laughed bitterly. He had never stopped hoping even then.

She found herself growing angrier with every second of his explanation. “And I was right about the danger...even after Voldemort's gone, there are people who can carry out his revenge. Rodolphus Lestrange put me under the Felis Semperus Finite Spell...if you hadn't been here, I would have been dead within a few hours. I could not let you die. And I don’t regret my decision. It saved you and that’s all that matters.” He finished.

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I couldn’t stop thinking about us. About memories we had. Our first kiss…that’s what I think of every time Harry touches me. You ruined my happiness…without you life was nothing. You made me live an eternity without you…and that…that was not life anyways. I would have been better off loving you and dead.” He stared at her with fierce eyes as she continued.

“Couldn’t you have let me decide? You made both our lives miserable and you had no right. Damn it, Draco, I loved you…hell, I still do. And you made me think you didn’t want me. How could we have done this? How could we have ruined something so bloody perfect it was out of a damn fairy tale? I was a freaking Cinderella, and my prince runs off without me.” She was hysterical and she didn’t care. Tears ran down her face and she laughed crazily.

She did miss him. Merlin, she loved him. But she was married. And he hurt so bad, he wanted her so bad it was like someone was twisting his heart out and placing it out in front of him. But though he could not forget, he could pretend for a while that this eternity did not exist. He pulled her onto the bed and held her as she sobbed for the future that they could never have now. Slowly sleep took them both to a land where dreams came true.

Harry finished with work and Apparated to the Ministry. He called over to a nurse, “My wife?” She smiled sympathetically.

“She’s attending to Mr. Malfoy. Room 173A. Married to her work, as well, that one.” He nodded smilingly as he strode over to the room and walked in to the sight that he had been dreading.

His wife, the love of his life, was in bed with Draco Malfoy. Both were peacefully sleeping, but the way he held her – and the way she curled into him - suggested that they were in love with each other. So this was the man who held her heart. This is whom she held back for. Tears ran down his face as he backed out of the room.

Ginny woke up and straightened her clothes, slipping out of Draco’s hold and out of bed. She walked outside to find Harry leaning against the wall, head in his hands, trembling with stifled tears. Oh, no…oh no, oh no, oh no.
He looked up at her with emerald eyes and said in a broken whisper, “Guess I know whom you were holding back for now…but I always hoped anyways for us.”

She shook her head. “I won’t go back with him. I belong with you now. I married you, didn’t I? And I do love you. I am sorry you had to see that, but we were mourning for a future that was always impossible for us anyway.”

He shook his head at her sadly.

“Then we will both be miserable. I will have an unhappy wife, you will be longing for someone else. That is no way to live. You aren’t in love with me, no matter how head over heels I am for you. And I want you happy, Ginny. Go to him, I won’t stop you.”

Her sense of duty battled with her heart. Harry standing there, noble as ever…or Draco, the flawed man with so many sides…that had always had her heart? And she knew what she would pick. Harry’s words pushed her over the edge.

“Ginny, I can’t stay in a marriage like this. I don’t deserve this and I need more than what you are giving me. You are his…you always were. Go to where you belong. We can take care of arrangements when Mal- I mean, Draco is well. He can take care of you…and you love him.”

Ginny looked at him questioningly. “Harry, what are you going to do?”

Harry smiled. “I was faithful to you as long as we were married. But I knew someday that you would go away. Remember Hermione?”

Ginny smiled. “Good luck with her.”

Harry smiled sadly. “I don’t love her yet, but there’s potential.” He looked at her softly. “Part of my heart will always belong to you, Ginny Weasley.”

Ginny looked down, ashamed. “Harry, I’m sorry. You never deserved what I gave you, you are worth more than what I spent on you…a whole lot more. I really am sorry.”

He smiled at her. “You were scared, and lonely, and confused. I was like that once too, and you helped me. It’s the least I can do for you, don’t you think?” Then he walked away and she turned and slipped back into Draco’s room.

This eternity of pain and loneliness and longing was over. Her eternity with Draco was about to begin…joyful, and loving, and happy. Maybe an eternity wasn’t so long after all.