Frozen Fire Chapter Three
Indeed, Ginny was slowly coming out of her shell. She was quickly escaping the cage that she had made for herself. Her walls were crumbling down and she didn't even notice.
"Don't you EVER," she strode over to him and dealt a swift blow to his chest with a burst of force from her wands tip. "Even speak of Harry again!" Draco crumpled to his knees, holding his middle with both of his arms smoothly crisscrossed. Yes, yes. Strike me, hit me, knock me to the ground. That's it, just a bit more.
Draco's head slowly came up, his hair veiling his face. "He'll never have you back. Why defend him?" he sneered as he looked peculiarly at her through sheets of fine hair.
"I don't have to explain myself to you!" Ginny shouted, her cheeks flushing a dark red with embarrassment.
Draco, though surprised, masked his emotion. "You feel emotions, then?"
"Of course I feel," she snapped hurriedly, the flush fading fast. "I am just like any other person who cares and is sad and is happy and…"
"Loves?" he offered, stumbling up from his knees, a flash flitting across his eyes.
The darkness of the room spoke volumes at that moment. It was like a surreal abyss, encircling two people who would never wish to be in company together. One was shocked and the other curious. Neither had ever been so affected by speech.
"Of…" Ginny tried to speak, but found that she could not.
"Why love him? He is nothing special. He threw you aside when he could have won you over to his side with Dumbledore. You could have been his prize, and he knew, but he did not want you. He doesn't care for you. You are nothing to him, and should be nothing. You are not worthy of even Potter…"
Ginny's eyes widened as she raised her wand slowly but surely. With every inch that her wand rose, she began to slowly realize what she was doing… what she was letting him do to her. She could suddenly see the manipulation that was echoing off the walls. She could see his tricks as if a hidden curtain in the corner of her mind had suddenly been drawn back. If anything, she wouldn't let him win. She would never let him or his Lord win.
Draco seemed to notice the fire escaping her, for he began to whisper certain manipulations under his breath to raise the fire in her once more. Ginny merely sat down in her chair again. No, he would not win today.
Realizing defeat, Draco cocked his eyebrow. "So fast to fade, are we?"
She looked at the far corner of the room. "Only if it is to fade from your wishes."
"You disgust me."
Draco spat in her face, the gob of saliva landing neatly on her cheek.
"You are pathetic and do not deserve to live. You're the same as you were three years ago. You're still that sniveling little girl in the park who will never do anything, who will never become anything, who will always be just another one of the crowd, just barely living off of everyone's pity, begging them to-"
A loud slap echoed through the dark and deserted flat.
"I don't beg."
Her eyes dangerously darted up to his, but within a moment she had wilted onto the floor, unconscious.
"At least we're making progress," Draco said to himself as he straightened up and pulled his shoulders back.
With his now calm demeanor, there also came the realization of the hurts that he had endured. His shoulder cracked uneasily and shot pains down his arm if he moved it in a certain direction and his breathing was shallow and weak. For a few moments, he had found joy in riling her up. It was a joy that he had not felt in a very long time.
He knew it would not be so easy next time.
Draco stood beside Ginny, taking in her small frame. Her light skin contrasted with the dark wooden floor and her hair seemed to be the color of blood in the lack of light. He saw no movement. A frantic thought shot through his brain.
Is she dead?
Draco fell to the floor desperately, knowing the repercussions he would receive from his master if she had died.
His hands grasped her shoulders and pulled her up so that she was sitting. He called her name -nothing. He shook her violently -nothing. He pushed open her eyelids -nothing.
Draco dropped her from shock upon seeing her eyes. They were all white. Any color had rolled to the back of her head. He couldn't even see light lines where her veins should have been. And then, they started to roll, but no color could be seen anywhere. It had disappeared.
Fearful for himself, Draco scooted backwards, away from her. She moaned and swayed around, her eyes still open and blank. Before Draco could pull out his wand to disapparate, she had stopped and became lifeless upon the floor once more.
For a moment, all he could hear was his own heart, thumping thumping thumping in his chest. It seemed as if everything in the world had stopped. There was no movement outside; there was no sound at all. Just his own heartbeat and the blood rushing in his veins.
His hand stretched out to her arm, her closest body part, hesitantly. Then, something happened that had never happened to him before. He felt compelled to draw closer to her, to look into her vacant ghostly eyes.
And he did so, staring deep into their depth. But he did not see the reflection of his own face, nor any veins or anything that one should see when one looks in the blank eyes of their enemy. No, instead he saw a memory. A memory so clear and haunting that it captivated him and would not let him go.
At first it was just a mystifying smoke, but the smoke soon formed figures and a place Draco had never seen. At least, he had thought he had never seen it. He scuttled closer to her and peered over her with the wonder of a child.
He felt suddenly as if he was being swirled inside of her head even though he could still feel the floor firmly under his hands. She had unknowingly taken his mind and let it in. Her eyes were more than a window; they were a door. A door which he gladly entered.
Draco now saw himself inside a cozy home, sitting in front of a fireplace with a warm fire crackling in its grate rather than the cold and dirty flat he was actually in. The couch he was sitting on was oddly comfortable even though he knew it was nothing he would have ever purchased. It spelled poor.
His eyes gently rose from the fireplace to the mantle and saw a string of young redheaded wizards and a witch… Ginny. He looked abruptly to his side and saw the girl from the picture sitting right beside him. She had the bottom of her dirty robe twisted up in her hand in anticipation.
She was wet. She looked as if she had just come in from the rain. She looked as if she was only sixteen or seventeen. Draco did not know which, nor did he care. Her actions concerned him more than anything.
There was silence for quite some time where Draco and Ginny both sat, listening to the tinkling of the rain on her rooftop. Getting restless, Draco stood and walked about the room, examining trinkets that she or her mother had undoubtedly set about the room as decoration. Draco scoffed at a small glass unicorn resting on the corner of a table.
A clock chimed midnight somewhere in the house and her eyes snapped up. He stopped and his eyes followed hers to the window. She stood quickly, looked around, and sprinted to the door, her feet not making a sound on the floor like a cat. Her sneakers, however, squished lightly with every step she took, they were soaked through and through.
She opened the back door soundlessly and slipped through, closing it firmly behind her. Draco did not follow her, he merely walked through the door. It was only a memory after all and he was just playing the part of the impartial viewer.
Even though it was raining outside, the drops seemed to evade Draco. He looked about for the young redhead, and only caught a glimpse of her disappearing into the trees. Without hesitation, he sprinted after her. He was not about to lose her in her memory when nothing of note had happened. That and the Weasley backyard was nothing to look at.
She delved deep into the woods of her backyard, Draco just behind her the entire time. She finally stopped by a stream. Understanding that this was where they were to wait, Draco settled himself on a rather smooth rock and waited with the young Ginny for whomever was to come.
A burst of light, it was impossible to tell what color for it blinded them both, was seen in the distance directly behind them. Ginny moved to go back towards her house, but a small pop prevented her from doing anything.
Draco could not describe the surprise he felt, for he was looking at a younger version of himself. He pushed his own mind to relive a time like this, but none came. Perhaps it was too focused on the thought that he, Draco Malfoy was whom Ginny Weasley was waiting for. He felt as if he was going to be sick to his stomach.
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