Chapter 6 - At Peace
A/N: Despite the lackluster response I got last time, I thought it was unfair of me to abandon the matter. Actually, I kind of forgot I was posting...but anyway, I hope you like this chapter better or...just have something to say about it. Many thanks to moogle for her dedication.
Large round eyes blinked at Draco. "Does young Master want anything else?"
While most of the former Malfoy elves had grudgingly accepted their reassignment to various Order members and Grimmauld Place, Fossett had made it quite clear he would serve no one but Draco. Dumbledore had only smiled and given the old creature permission to attend Draco at Hogwarts, which the elf had pledged he would do to the utmost.
The said boy looked at the white-capped bottle in his hand and the glass of water in the other. He shook his head but Fossett nonetheless stoked the fire and set a plate of cookies on the floor before leaving him to his own devices. Draco's lips curved in a ghostly resemblance of his old smirk but instead of indulging his sweet tooth, he opened the bottle and shook out two round-shaped pills. Tipping his head back, he placed the pills on his tongue and took a drink of water.
"I've been wondering when you would show up again."
Draco almost choked but managed to swallow the capsules. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before he focused them on a pajama-clad Ginny Weasley.
"It's late," she commented as she drew near him.
"Yeah, well, what are you doing here?" he replied, knowing that at another time, he would have had a far wittier reply, made fun of her hair and freckles, and been able to care about his performance. But now, now he merely leaned his head against the hearth and let the bottle slide through his fingers.
It rolled towards Ginny's slippered feet and she picked it up. "What is this?" Turning the bottle over in her hands, she came across the label, 'Aspirin.' The name sounded familiar but it was not till she took the seat next to Draco that she realized it was a term from her Muggle Studies class. She looked at Draco with wide eyes but he seemed particularly interested in the wall opposite them.
"You've been avoiding me," she stated, not knowing what else to say.
"And have you been stalking me?"
So what if she had haunted the kitchens every night since she saw him here nine days ago, she thought, mutinously. "I've wanted to talk to you," she said instead, skirting his question.
But Draco hardly noticed. The pounding in his head had barely receded, even with the use of various Muggle medications. After the Healer at St. Mungo's had shaken his head and said there was no more he could do and Snape had thrown a bottle of his latest potion against the kitchen wall, Tonks had ditched her spiky pink hair in favor of long honey locks and taken Draco to several London doctors for examination. The aspirin had helped some, but the relief was temporary and Draco had almost begged his cousin to find another cure.
"Oh, just because it's Muggle medicine," Tonks had sighed.
"No, it's because I would be dependent on pills for every hour of my life," Draco had replied, hanging his head. "I can't live like that. I won't."
"Why are you a vegetarian anyway?"
"Wh-what?" he replied, Ginny's question breaking through his haze.
"Why don't you eat meat?"
Draco, having little will or reason, to resist her line of questioning or come up with sarcastic replies, answered her with a truthful despair that hardly touched him but endeared her even more to his pain. "Well, Ginny, how could I?" He weakly held up a hand and wiggled his fingers. "Do you think I could kill and eat a creature I have healed?"
"No," she breathed. And after a moment, asked, "Can you heal anything?"
"I can't heal the dead, if that's what you mean. I can't heal my mother. I suppose I can only do the things any other mediwitch can do. I just don't need a wand."
"That's not true, Draco."
"You know that for a fact, do you, Ginny?" Draco's head drooped to the side, until it rested against Ginny's shoulder. His eyes closed on their own volition and for a moment, he thought he could find peace.
"I know that for a fact, Draco," she said. "Wandless magic comes to us from the most ancient forms of magic. Powerful magic."
"I know that. I used to be second in my class."
"Oh?" Ginny replied, surprise evident in her voice. With the exception of Hermione, she thought all the head of classes were from Ravenclaw.
Draco made a weak movement that Ginny took the liberty of interpreting as a nod. "After Granger."
"You called Hermione by her last name," Ginny gasped.
"Yes." Though Draco could hear her words clearly, he felt oddly disconnected from her voice. Like it was some far-off bell that tolled for him.
"Well you've always called her all sorts of nasty names before," she continued when he said no more.
"I'm too tired to be clever," he said as he half-slipped, half-crawled into her lap.
"I didn't know you were clever." Ginny blushed, finding Draco's actions detrimental to forming coherent sentences. "I mean…I didn't mean it like that. I just didn't know…well, you say some funny things sometimes. Though they are usually mean."
"Can't unkind things still be funny? Perhaps I merely have a dark humor. Some people may say that is symptomatic of my upbringing. But you know, my mum brought me up too. Well, as much as she could. My father didn't like her interfering."
"You love your mum, don't you?"
"If I know what love is," he said wearily.
"Don't you think you know?" Ginny said, her voice hitching slightly, her heart thumping rapidly as she anticipated his answer.
"Tell me what you think it is," he murmured.
She wanted to tell him that she thought she saw it in his eyes. But instead of seeing the intense steel of his irises, she only saw his eyelids drifting close once again and for a fleeting moment, she felt him drifting away from her too. She placed her warm hand on his clammy skin and shivered. "I think I grew up surrounded by it," she began. And she described the Burrow of her memory. The warm kitchen, her fussing mother, a house full of boys. But then they all started leaving. Her cool brother Bill and her favorite, Charlie. And though she didn't miss Percy's high-handedness very much, he would step-in whenever the twins and Ron got too rowdy. He taught her useful magic while the others taught her mere parlor tricks. And of course, the twins made her laugh.
"And Weasley?"
"Ron's there when I need him. But sometimes, he's just so dense," Ginny replied. She laughed slightly as she continued, "But I'm just so stubborn. I never let him know when I need help. But I'm not really telling you what love is, am I?"
"You are. It's on your face. It's in your eyes. Even in the inflection of your voice."
"And what do you gather from that?"
"I don't know. That perhaps love is not something you can exactly put into words. That it is a feeling of warmth, security. You lost that when they left, didn't you?"
Ginny chewed on her lip thoughtfully. Dark images of a leather-bound diary, dark corridors and red eyes flashed through her mind. "No, I didn't lose it," she said slowly. "But I thought I did. I had thought my first year here would be different. I had been left at home for an entire year and I thought coming to Hogwarts meant I was going to be with most of my brothers again and everything would be like old times. Better than old times. But it didn't turn out that way, and I guess I got myself lost."
"You didn't get lost. You were lead astray."
The harshness in Draco's voice almost caused Ginny to jump. She turned a startled look down at the boy in her lap and found him looking intently at her. His eyes were liquid silver in the dark and she thought she could drown. But then he blinked slowly, his eyelashes surprisingly dark and thick, especially against his pale skin, and Ginny again shivered at the odd sensation of somehow feeling alone.
"Did you just read my mind?" she whispered.
"Yes."
A silence enveloped them. "You did know, didn't you?" she finally said.
"About Tom Riddle and the diary? I didn't find out until this summer when I was going through my father's things. There were hints. But I didn't know completely."
"What sort of…" Something clicked in Ginny's head. Until this summer. "Why did you kiss me in the pantry?"
"Why do you think I did?"
"Don't answer a question with a question!" Ginny practically screamed. She knew she was on the verge of tears but she didn't know if it was from anger or disappointment. "Why did you do it? Were you sorry for me? Were you sorry for what your father did to me?"
Draco closed his eyes slowly. He took a deep breathe and exhaled it noisily. "I am sorry about what my father did. I'm more sorry than you can perhaps ever know."
Ginny sniffled and tried to hide her face behind her hands. But Draco reached up and wrapped his long fingers around her wrists, pulling them away to see the tears falling silently from her eyes. "But that didn't mean I pitied you." Draco licked his lips. He was never particularly comfortable with crying and his mother always did her best to hide it from him. And of course, this wasn't his mother. "It was because of what you said. And because of what you saw when you looked at me. Like I was an actual person. Not Malfoy. But Draco. And I don't know, Gin. Maybe it's in my head, maybe I wanted to see something that wasn't there. What do you see in me anyway?"
"Don't you know?"
"I can read your mind but I can't read your heart."
Wiping her eyes with the back of her hands, she tried to look at the blond clearly. But she could never look at him clearly, could she? Not after he kissed her. Not after he had made her feel so much within herself and so much for him. She couldn't exactly call it love. The love she had always known was safe and familiar. It was the love she felt for and with her family, for her closet friends, for Hermione and for Harry (now). What she felt for Draco was different. It was not the strong but serene river that stretched back and connected her to all her brothers, her parents and those who were as good as family. It was an intense roaring in her ears. A swelling of her heart, a catch in her throat, the feeling of bubbling over. It was like an explosion of stars. And yet, she had never really known him. She had only felt him underneath her skin as this tingling but fiery sensation. "I don't know. I don't just see a boy who fought against his own side to get to the right one. I…I…you're going to think this is stupid," she murmured, blushing.
"I promise you I won't," he said solemnly, his grey eyes boring into hers.
Ginny grasped his hand tightly with her own. "When I look at you, all I can see is you. When I touch you, all I feel is you. It's like I'm somehow connected to you. You make me feel alive in a way that's different from just breathing. I feel like…I'm living."
As Draco slowly absorbed her words, he realized that the pounding in his head had receded. "That's funny. Because when I'm with you, I feel at peace." And he propped himself up on his elbows to kiss her on the lips.