Disclaimer: I own nothing except the plot, everything else is JKR's.
A Little Late, But Right on Time
Chapter 2
Smile
Draco was dragged away from his daydreams by the noise of two guards unlocking his cell door. They bent down to pull him to his feet, but Draco beat them to it, stood up, and brushed himself off. Appearance is important no matter the occasion, or so Narcissa had said. Draco allowed the two guards to escort him from the dank cell and down the corridor to the room where he would breathe his final breath. The guards roughly pushed him onto a wooden slatted bench and left the room, carefully locking it with their wands on the way out.
A feeble amount of gray light trickled into the room through a skylight, and Draco could smell the stinging scent of the salty sea. He looked around the small concrete room, and for the first time in 4 years, Draco Malfoy put his head in his hands and let the tears come.
Ginevra Weasley rushed around Harry and Hermione's apartment, trying to find Harry's invisibility cloak. How was she supposed to find the bloody thing if she couldn't even see it? She could ask Harry, but since she doubted he would let her use one of his most prized possessions to go and rescue a death eater, she hadn't exactly told him she was borrowing the cloak. `Ginevra Weasley! Shame on you for not being able to find a cloak! You're a witch not a baboon!' she thought to herself as she looked underneath the couch. "Accio invisibility cloak!" Ginny saw a faint shimmer of light come flying towards her, and raised her hand to catch it and tuck it into her purse. Hardly believing what she was about to do, Ginny focused on her destination with determination and deliberation and turned on the spot.
The sensation of being squeezed overcame her for a few seconds, but soon the salty smell of ocean air filled her nostrils. The gray sky offered poor light, but one could not miss the concrete building perched on top of the rocky island. Flinging the invisibility cloak over her head, Ginny carefully climbed up the hill, taking care to not make any unnecessary movements. After reaching the metal door, she checked to make sure no one was around before carefully opening it. There was no need for locks at Azkaban; only those with pure heart and good intentions could open the doors to hell. Walking down the cold hallway, Ginny could hear the moans and groans of prisoners reliving their worst nightmares over and over again. She paused a moment, dry heaved, and then continued on her way, the acidic taste of stomach acid burning the back of her throat. She paused at a tinted glass window and peered into a small dark room. A man was sitting on a small wooden bench with his hands in his filthy blond hair and his shoulders shaking with every breath he took. Ginny breathed in sharply as she recognized the man she had loved before he disappeared to prison.
Draco heard a sharp intake of breath to his left, and whirled around only to be confronted by a one-way window that evidently wasn't soundproof. He knew someone had been watching him and he disliked him for it. Draco turned away from the window and roughly wiped his tears away, streaking his dirty face. Only one person had ever seen him cry, and she held him in her arms rocking him back and forth with the tenderness of a mother and the intimacy of a lover. He had just learned that he was to leave for war in a week, and it scared the hell out of him. Death, he could handle, but being away from the person he loved and possibly never seeing her again, that he could not. A world of possibility had been laid before him, but all the money in the world couldn't have bought his soul back from Voldemort. He still loved her, he knew that much. He remembered the silkiness of her red hair and the softness of her creamy skin. He remembered kissing every freckle on her face and licking off a spare bit of ice cream off the corner of her mouth. But memories were only memories, and reality in Azkaban was not based on dreams, but on nightmares.
A cold waft of air crept underneath the door accompanied by a layer of frost on the metal rectangle. The time had arrived, the end was near; "it" was coming. "It" was a dementor. A black cloaked soul sucker who drained the life out of people like drinking the juice out of a juice box; all that was left in the end was a lifeless husk.
Ginny heard footsteps coming towards her and quickly shrank back against the wall. A man with a wand was leading a dementor towards the small room with the Imperius curse. The creature of death had only one thing on its mind: eliminate Draco Malfoy. The man opened the door to the room and stood back to allow the dementor to enter. Without being noticed, Ginny slid into the dimly lit space, almost getting clipped in the ankle by the guard's shoe. Ginny walked towards Draco, almost in a dreamlike state. She was so close that she could touch him, but she didn't dare for fear of the reaction he would have. Realization dawned on her. She was about to watch the love of her life die, and there wasn't anything she could do about it. If she attacked the guard, he would set the dementor on her, and then she'd be dead, Draco would be dead, end of story; she was as helpless as an infant. She was shocked. What had she come here for? She couldn't save him anymore than he could save himself? She must have had some purpose, what was it? Ginny let herself drift back 4 years, and fell into a memory she had blocked out after the war.
She was sitting on the edge of her bed, her feet dangling over the edge. Tears were silently falling from her eyes and she watched helplessly as her lover walked away from he. He wiggled his fingers at her in a half wave, and mouthed those three immortal words that that bring a woman to her knees. "I love you." And with that, Draco Malfoy apparated out of her life.
"I love you too…Draco." She had said to the empty spot where he had stood only seconds before.
Snapping back to reality, Ginny saw the dementor start to lean over Draco face and realized what she had to do. As quietly as she could, she ran to his side to whisper something in his ear. "I will always love you, Draco Malfoy."
Draco knew that she was there. He could feel it in the cold air, a certain warmth from an invisible woman. She must have taken Pothead's invisibility cloak. The rotting smell of dead meat loomed closer as the dementor started leaning towards Draco. Suddenly he felt a warm body next to his and a sweet voice whispered, "I will always love you, Draco Malfoy." Draco was shocked. She loved him? He was about to die? He felt a warm hand grasp his own cold one for reassurance, and he gave it a squeeze. "I love you too, Ginny Weasley." The dementor swooped down on the young man, and "kissed" his icy lips, sucking the very life out of them. Ginny felt his body sag a little, and knew that he was gone for good this time. She looked down at his dirt-streaked face and the smile playing upon his lips, and the bittersweetness of the moment overtook her. She had been right on time.
Author's Note: Yay! I finally finished this story after almost a half year! I'm not totally happy with this, but it's good enough for me. Read and review!
XOXO
SlaptheWhiteFerret
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