They say that the exact opposite of love is hate, and Draco had never doubted it. He hated mudbloods, he hated muggles, he hated Potter and he hated the Weasleys.
It had honestly never occurred to him that he'd have to know these people to hate them. They say that ignorance is bliss for a reason, and Draco was quickly discovering that hating something wasn't as easy as it had always seemed.
Like Ginny.
Ever since the beginning of the summer, Draco had been stuck in a house with the youngest Weasley. Because his parents and the Dark Lord were after his blood, Draco had swallowed his pride and accepted the offer of protection from, of all people, Potter himself, who claimed that he'd seen the murder of Albus Dumbledore, and knew that he had nothing to do with it.
And because there wasn't much else to do in the house, Draco had taken to actually trying to be friendly with the other residents of the Burrow, which was the only place protected enough to keep him safe. He'd held a conversation with one of the older Weasley's, Bill, had actually complimented Mrs. Weasley's cooking, and had pretended to be interested in Mr. Weasley's long and boring muggle rants. Sure it had taken a while to swallow his pride and maintain a decent conversation, but he'd done it, none the less.
But there was one thing he couldn't deny enjoying, and that was getting to know Ginny Weasley.
He'd never paid much attention to the youngest redhead before, and had always written her off as another muggle-lover with ugly orange hair and a Potter-obsession. He knew about her previous crush on Potter (the whole school knew about her previous crush on Potter,) and knew that she was a decent Quidditch player, (though he'd never admit that to her,) but other than that, he hadn't even known her first name before he'd been confined to the Weasley home.
But now that he spent so much time locked up in the house with her, Ginny Weasley was impossible to overlook. She seemed to make the dark and depressing house alive somehow.
"Malfoy!" Just as poor Draco turned to see what the annoying, (but attractive) witch wanted, he was hit dead-center in the face with a sopping wet rag. "Come on. Mum's got me cleaning again, and there's no way I'm cleaning out that storage shed on my own!"
Draco sighed and stood, a disgusted expression on his dripping face. Ginny clearly saw the look, because right away she started giggling. "Oh, don't give me that look. It's hot out, and you know you don't mind a little water."
Sure, he didn't mind a little. But Ginny Weasley, he had learned, didn't do anything by halves. Sure enough, as soon as he stepped outside a large bucket of freezing water appeared out of nowhere. Looking up, he saw the two grinning twins and shook his head. He couldn't complain, because aside from Ginny they'd been the most welcoming, but that didn't mean that he enjoyed being soaked while trying to clean the mess that was the Weasley's backyard shed.
The shed was full of old toys, broken brooms, and boxes upon boxes of unopened memories, and it was nothing like Draco had ever seen.
"What?" Ginny asked defensively as she saw him look around in awe. "I already said it's mess, but we've got to clean it out. Bill's wedding's coming up, and Mum wants everything spotless. We'll be doing things like this all day today." She turned to study him for a moment, amused. "I didn't think the twins would really dump it on you."
"You suggested something to them and didn't think they'd actually do it?" Draco asked dryly. Ginny's grin turned impish.
"Well, maybe I mentioned the idea in passing, but I thought that they'd have forgotten it by now. Do you want to run in and change?" Draco considered it for a moment, but didn't like the idea of dignifying the twins with such a reaction, so he just shook his head and continued to stare and the mess in front of them, trying to decide where to start.
This summer was the first time in his life that Draco had been expected to clean, and he still didn't really know what he was doing. He could do something if someone showed him exactly what to do, but never knew how to do things on his own. To him, the pile of boxes in front of them was a mess impossible to organize.
To Ginny, the seemingly-random assortment of boxes seemed to make sense.
"Oh, and here's my old broom, I finally had to get a new one when I crashed this one into a tree-"
Draco stared at the broom, bewildered. The broom was clearly made to only hover a few feet above ground, and he really didn't see how anyone could crash something so low into a tree. "But, it couldn't reach a tree. How could you crash into one if you couldn't fly up to one?"
He noticed the sheepish smile that she directed at him, and fought the urge to smile back. "Well, I was a very stubborn little kid. I didn't like that my brothers could fly up higher and I couldn't, so one day while we were out playing I climbed a tree and brought the broom with me, and the tried to jump off of it and hope that the broom would fly."
"Did it?" Draco asked, amused. He would've never thought of it, but it was something he could see the youngest Weasley doing. Ginny was stubborn enough to do something just to prove that it could be done, and one of her main pet-peeves seemed to be that she was treated carefully because she was the only girl surrounded by a house full of boys.
"No. I just feel out of that tree and crashed into a lower one. I was kind of lucky I crashed though, because if I'd fallen much farther I could've broken my neck."
Ginny always seemed to look at things that way. It didn't matter how bad things looked, or how bad things were; things could always get worse. It seemed like the exact opposite of how Draco thought, and it made him curious. He wondered if she really thought like that, or if that was just like she said while she thought something else.
"Oh, look! It's my first sweater!" Ginny had apparently decided to go through her box of old things first, and had now dug out a small, hand-knit purple sweater that clashed horrible with her hair and was several sizes too small.
Draco wrinkled his nose but didn't say anything, but Ginny caught his expression. "Well, I'm sorry my clothing isn't quite up to your standards, but at least my mother's willing to put in the time and effort to make my clothes no matter what." The comment stung, and Ginny probably knew it. Draco had never imagined that his mother would abandon him to protect her own life after she had risked Severus's to protect him. She had done just that, however, when told that she would be spared if she told the death eaters the whereabouts of her son.
He still wasn't sure whether she was still alive or not.
Again, Draco didn't say anything, but his expression once more must have given him away, because he jumped when he turned to find that Ginny was kneeling behind him where he was bent over one of the older Weasley brother's boxes.
"I'm sorry. You've had a rough time lately, and I shouldn't make it any worse. It's just…it's like you don't appreciate anything!"
"I do too!" Draco argued.
"Like what?" Ginny challenged, her brown eyes flashing.
"Like your parents taking me in like this when they're so busy, and Potter offering me protection, and you trying to be nice to me, and your mother feeding me! I really do appreciate all of that!"
Ginny snorted, clearly in disbelief. "Funny way of showing it."
"Look, I've spent years being taught to think of you and family a certain way, and now all of a sudden I have to change everything I've learned! Do you know how difficult it is to think of something one way for years, and then have to re-evaluate your opinion all at once?"
Ginny's expression softened slightly, and she turned back to her box. "Yeah, actually. I do." Draco raised an eyebrow and asked,
"Like what?"
"Like how I've considered all Slytherins the epitome of evil for years, and now suddenly I'm living with one. And like me thinking of you as a junior death eater, and then suddenly knowing that you're sleeping in the same house as me and my family and you could be a threat to us and I can't do anything to stop you because Harry's asked me not to!"
Draco stood up again in indignation, and felt a hot and prickly anger begin to grow in his stomach. "So you're only being nice to me because Potter told you to? Figures!"
Ginny's hair almost seemed to catch fire in the dying sunlight. "No. Harry told me to accept you. He didn't say I had to like you."
Draco took a moment to puzzle that out, but smiled when he did. It was just a slight upturning of the lips, and the quickest of smiles, but it really was a smile all the same. Then, realizing what he was doing, Draco quickly turned back to his corner to clean and tried to make his expression blank again.
"So you do like me then?" He asked, trying to conceal the hope in his voice.
He couldn't see her, but when she spoke he could hear the smile in Ginny's voice. "Yes, Draco. I like being around you. I don't understand you, but maybe that's why you're so much fun to talk to." Draco had given up cleaning and was now waiting, not facing Ginny, with baited breath, hanging on to every word she said. "You're Slytherin but you're not evil. You're quiet, but you're not shy, and you're cold but you're not angry."
He couldn't help but notice that Ginny couldn't look cold even if she were angry. Her brown eyes, soft features and fiery red hair only made her look warmer.
She was in Gryffindor, but she wasn't stupid. She liked muggles, but she liked him too, and she too, and she wore old and hand-made sweaters, but they couldn't look bad on her.
Yes, Ginny Weasley was a mystery to Draco too.
Because now that he knew her, he realized that Ginny Weasley was anything but invisible, and it was impossible not to notice her. And now that he'd noticed her, he couldn't help but think that maybe ignorance wasn't as wonderful as he had once thought.
After all, if he'd continued to be ignorant about the Weasleys, he'd never have met Ginny.
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