A Girl's Best Friend, Part VII - Lapis lazuli
"Lapis Lazuli: chases away melancholy. Puts an end to evil spells. Protects from pathological despair."
Reema Al Mejhoui. "Gems, metals and their usage in the Badakhshan province."
Afghanistan, XXth century.
When, several days later, Draco knocked on Ginny's door, she had been crying for several hours and had absolutely forgotten about their dinner arrangements. He showed up at her door with an impressive bouquet of lilies, having remembered she liked those from the day he had spied on her in the lingerie shop. He knocked. He waited. Draco Malfoy was not used to waiting, much less when he was picking up a witch for a date; they usually had the door wide open by the time his hand touched the door's wood for the second time. So when Ginny did not immediately answer the door, he frowned, and knocked a second time. After a few, exceedingly patient minutes, he knocked a third time. He thought he heard some rustling inside, which prompted him to knock an additional time.
After a few minutes, the door opened ever so slightly to reveal a gaunt, red-eyed Ginny.
"Oh," she croaked. "I forgot. I'm sorry. I'll apologize properly tomorrow."
And with that, she made to shut the door in his face. Draco was not one to tolerate impoliteness, but the look he caught in Ginny's eyes was one of such despair that he stuck his foot in the door's way. She groaned and tried pushing it shut, with mechanical little pushes that showed she had barely registered the presence of a foot in the door's path.
"Gin, it's not going to close. My foot's in the way."
"Take it out," she said softly, her voice still hoarse from the tears.
"No."
"Yes."
"Ginevra…"
"Take it out."
He had to give it to her, she could be incredibly childish when she wanted. Unfortunately, he had years of dealing with Astoria and even Pansy, so that he knew how to deal with petulant reluctance without falling prey to the Bat Bogey Hex. Gently, he started pushing the door toward her until he heard a feeble squeak and all resistance abated. He walked into her flat and softly closed the door behind him, then turned to see her standing in the dark, her face barely illuminated by the moonlight seeping through the curtains.
"Ginny, what's wrong?" he asked flat out.
"Why are you here?" she asked almost venomously, though her voice lacked the energy he liked to hear in it.
"We had dinner plans. It appears you forgot," he said coldly
She groaned. "I said I was sorry. Can you leave me alone now?" she asked rhetorically, letting herself fall on the sofa.
"No."
"Please," she murmured.
Draco crossed the room and sat next to her, close enough that he could hear her every breath, but without touching her. As his eyes accommodated to his surroundings, he saw that the floor and coffee table were littered with tissues, looking very much like fallen birds of white paper. The moon, shining through the curtains, cast a silvery sheen on his surroundings, revealing the high ceilings and wide windows of the living room in which they found themselves. The furniture seemed modern, made mostly of glass and clear wood or metal.
"Why don't you calm down and tell me what's going on," he suggested gently.
She gurgled something in response that sounded suspiciously like, "I can't calm down and I don't want to tell you." This was accompanied by a miserable sniff, so Draco handed the woman at his side a tissue and waited. These moments allowed him to become aware of Ginny's relative state of undress, as she appeared to only be wearing a bathrobe of a dark material. He tried to think no more of it than was necessary, but when she pulled her legs up and hugged them the task became significantly more difficult. He once again had to observe that she had very nice legs.
"Today's Fred's birthday," Ginny said at last.
He could tell she was staring at some empty place far ahead of her.
"Well, why aren't you at his birthday?" he asked kindly, rummaging through is memories to figure out who the guy was.
"Because he's dead," she replied despondently as two big tears rolled down her cheeks.
"I'm sorry."
And he realized he truly was. Not because he remembered the guy, although he assumed this was the brother who had been killed by his aunt during the last battle against Voldemort, but because nothing, in his mind, should make a grown woman like Ginny Weasley cry like a child and bury herself in darkness as she had for what he now understood to be the past several years. There was something absolutely sick about how miserable she now looked, the skin around her eyes red and dry from the saltiness of her tears, her full lips trembling to the rhythm of unbidden sobs. He wanted nothing more than to enfold her in her arms, but knew full well that until she turned to him for comfort, the gesture would not be welcome.
"It's been twelve years," she went on sadly, "and George still can't bring himself to celebrate their birthday."
From this, Draco gathered that Fred had been one of the crazy twins who had opened the joke store somewhere in Diagon Alley. The remaining brother, George apparently, seemed to be doing fairly well for himself, though he was not about to point that out now. He did not know how those who claimed to love her could leave her like that, eaten away by nostalgia, walled up in the prison of memories she created for herself day after day since her brother's death.
"I think everyone else has moved on but George and me. Ron has Hermione; Bill and Fleur are happy as a clam; Harry's having a blast as the head of the Auror department, but I lost a piece of myself when my brother was killed and no matter where I look, no one can return it."
Fresh tears coated her eyelashes and trickled in thin rivulets across her cheekbones.
"He was my favourite brother, you know. Well, him and George, together- they made me laugh like crazy. I always got to decide who the target of their next joke would be, even though we usually agreed on Ron." Her harsh laugh broke into a sob. "They got into a big row the day they found out about Dean. George wanted to let me do as I pleased, but Fred thought he wasn't good enough for me." She sighed. "I miss his over-protectiveness so much."
Slowly, Ginny had inched closer to Draco's attentive but immobile form. Eventually she huddled against him, shaking softly, and he slid an arm around her.
"After I met Tom," she went on, and Draco did not have to ask who that person was, "I thought I could overcome anything. It took a while, but my family was there and I was able to piece myself back together. The twins helped more than I could say," she said with the hint of a smile shining through her voice, "treated me like a princess and everything. They did everything it took to extract a smile from me as tediously as if it were a bad tooth, until from one smile to the next I was laughing again like nothing had ever happened."
Her long, thin fingers wrapped themselves around a fold of Draco's robes as she started crying again.
"But you see- now he's gone," she sobbed, "and- and I can't laugh the way I used to. I- It kills me to see George, because he always looks like- like part of him is missing- and part of me is mi-missing too!"
Draco had seen that from the day he'd run into her again, in her jewellery store. He had noted the absence and the distant politeness of her behaviour, how she walked through life as though part of a different dimension. He had attributed her coldness and the darkness in her eyes to emotional troubles, though he had, of course, suspected they were Potter's fault. Draco, of all people, could never understand the gaping void left by a sibling's death.
"I wish I had been the one to die that day."
"Don't say that," he admonished her tenderly.
"No?" she asked, looking up to him, her eyes fierce. "Do you know what it's like to turn toward someone when you know he no longer is there? To think of calling that person to ask how they are when they're dead? Just because he's no longer alive doesn't mean he's not alive in my heart." Her voice broke. "And how can you tell your heart to stop reaching out to your brother, no matter where he is? He is - he was- my brother," she hiccupped.
When she started crying again, Draco knew that she was feeling better. Her sobs were lighter and gradually softened as the somnolence that follows any good cry settled over her. He caressed her head, running his fingers through the soft mass of her red, wavy hair. That seemed to further soothe her. She sighed sadly, curling against him.
"That's what happened to the other earring," she mumbled after a while. "Fred and George gave me the pair of obsidian earrings when I turned ten. It was my first piece of real jewellery, and I never found out how they managed to get it."
Draco could tell a fond smile was creeping into her voice. He thought of how most girls he had grown up with received gold and pearls from their earliest birthday.
"When he- when Fred died, one of the earrings disappeared. I thought I had lost it- even though it never left a box I kept at the Burrow. I hated myself. I missed him so much, and losing that earring felt like treason to his memory."
Soothingly, Draco began caressing her hair. She had obviously been too harsh on herself, but he understood why, so that he could not offer her the usual words of denial but only the gesture of appeasement.
"When I started working as a jeweller, I learned a thing or two about stones and metal wrought together into jewellery. I found out that my despair for the loss of Fred had made the earring disappear as surely as if I had cast a Vanishing charm upon it."
"Why do you still wear the other one, though? People must notice that it's on its own."
"Because everyone pretends to have forgotten what happened during the war," Ginny spat. "The dinners I attend because of my new status as London's best jeweller are filled with people whose role in the war was tactfully erased, people who stood by your aunt when she killed my brother. People like your parents."
She sensed Draco's fingers as they tensed around her neck then kept brushing her hair. She would never have admitted it, but she liked the sensation of his large, capable hands on her skin.
"My parents made amends," he murmured.
"Everyone did," she retorted. "Yet, as you can tell, my earring never came back. Neither did my brother."
There was no more bitterness in her voice, just a hollow sadness.
"So you wear the remaining earring as a reminder. The silent accusation of the people you now work for."
She nodded. They sat in silence, thinking of what had been said between a witch and a wizard who, several years back, had found themselves at opposite ends of each other's wand. The darkness that now enfolded them, the chaos of the living room in which they sat, held nothing of the tragic events that had separated them. An unsuspected intimacy, perhaps engendered by those very tragedies, now crept between them like a slither of hope.
"I may not be the best person to tell you this," Draco began, "but you will never be happy if you don't learn to forgive."
For years, he had survived off the hope that people around him could live by that notion. Astoria had shown him that many witches and wizards did.
"But can I live with myself if I do?" she whispered pleadingly.
Draco placed two fingers between her chin and lifted her face towards his. Looking into her eyes with all the faith he could muster, he said, "Yes," in a clear, strong voice. He expected her to break away from his grip, or to snap back an, "Easy for you to say". He was startled by the profound vulnerability that shone in her eyes. He was shocked when, in one easy and quick movement, she wrapped her fingers around his neck and kissed him.
She kissed him without softness or hesitation, pressing her lips against his until his body responded to what his mind still wouldn't believe. Suddenly Draco seemed to awaken, his arms closed around Ginny, and he embraced her so vehemently that she arched backwards on the sofa's pillows. She welcomed him against her. They sank into the couch.
Draco, who had been actively ignoring Ginny's satiny bathrobe, found himself blessing the skies for the ease with which it parted under his fingers. One fluid pull and the belt came undone, the bathrobe's folds opening to reveal the redhead's splendid breasts. Draco paused for a second, reliving his voyeuristic moments in the lingerie shop, fascinated by the opulence and perfect smoothness of her skin. He pressed a kiss along her jaw, his nose grazing her throat as he descended to the clavicle and the hollow of her sternum. He did not notice the delicate trails of freckles that constellated her skin with light patterns as he was too busy absorbing the overwhelming feel of her limbs wrapped around his.
When she saw how hungrily he stared at her, Ginny no longer hated her mature body, as she had grown to over the past few years. She discovered her nerve endings were not blunt, as she had thought, when Draco's hand cupped her breast and his thumb brushed her nipple. She discovered her muscles were not old, as she had thought, when he kissed her throat and she pulled him harder against her, locking her ankles behind his back. She wanted him so strongly that need pulsed through her belly. She divested him of his clothes as quickly as she could, relishing the feel of his skin against her as much as he did.
Draco felt like fire. The hunger that burned through him seemed insatiable and the urgency of Ginny's movements did nothing to appease it. He let his hands wander toward her hips, feeling the roundness of her bum, the responsiveness of her limbs to his touch. Within a few seconds they were naked. Ginny's bathrobe lay in a pool of shiny green folds on the floor.
Ginny was alive. The awakening of her flesh was like thunder, coursing through her limbs and lighting sparks at the tip of her fingers. It made her aware, suddenly, of Draco, and of the way his usually measured and controlled movements now centered without question around her. She felt his hip bones digging into her belly. She felt his lips engendering trails of electricity on her breasts. She felt his erratic breath against the skin of her throat. She felt everything.
The preciseness and confidence of his touch had her blood humming with lust within minutes. She curled around him, wrapped around him, pulled her to him until they forgot everything- who they were, what they did, what this meant- any lucidity in their thoughts washed away by inexorable pleasure. When he entered her she felt so full she was shocked, having missed without knowing it the sensation of absolute completion afforded by the act. He sensed her surprise and held her tight, too inebriated by the sensation to let her get away. But she had no intention of doing so. She rocked against him with increased intensity, their joint motion made strong and fluid by the sheen of sweat that covered their skin. He drove into her relentlessly, pushed by instinct and gratification and a feeling of boundless freedom he could not explain.
When he came he felt like a teenage boy praying for the feeling to last forever. The pure, blissful current of pleasure that shot through him then and there could never live long enough. Ginny grabbed his hair and arched under him, welcoming the final, erratic thrusts and his moan, lost in the undulating coils of her hair. He collapsed on top of her. They lay together, waiting for their skin to cool, their muscles to relax, their satiated body to rest. Eventually Draco rolled over and pulled Ginny with him, nestling against her back. He fell asleep with an arm across her waist and his nose buried in her neck, having bitten at last into the forbidden fruit.
***
Ginny awoke to the morning sun. She was in her bed, her limbs tangled in the sheets, the pillow next to hers smooth and pristine. She closed her eyes, remembered the night's events and her companion, and fought really hard to bury the disappointment that welled up inside her. She should have known better than to sleep with Draco Malfoy, she told herself, and much better than to expect him to still be around when she woke up. She sat up, stretched her arms, and smiled. She did not regret anything.
She strolled into the living room, pleasantly surprised by the cool breeze that came through her open window. The white curtains curled gently in the wind, barely obstructed by large jars of a lapis-lazuli colour; smaller, similarly coloured articles of decorations sat on glass shelves. Draco was sitting, calm and composed with the Daily Prophet in hand, on the sofa where they had made love the night before. Her green bathrobe lay perfectly folded on one of her armchairs, so she seized it and put it on before he could see her. He looked up as she finished wrapping the belt and smiled at her.
"I didn't know what you eat for breakfast so I asked for a bit of everything," he explained.
Only then did Ginny notice that her coffee table was laden with croissants, toast, fresh fruit, and other viennoiseries. She laughed.
"Thank you."
"Of course. I owed you dinner, so I figured I'd settle for breakfast," he explained with ease.
She was startled to see him acting so coolly, as though nothing had happened. She eventually figured that this was the most mature way to maintain a cordial relation and avoid any of the drama that usually accompanies this sort of situation. Part of her was grateful for the way he was acting; the other wanted more from him, but she chose to ignore it.
"Coffee or tea?"
"Tea, please," was his response.
He had folded the Daily Prophet and watched her every movement in the hopes of figuring out how she felt. He could tell she had been glad to find him here, but knew that something was on her mind; he could not determine whether that entailed him staying or leaving. The sight of her auburn hair, in stark contrast with her bathrobe, made him ache to run his hands through it and pull her to him. He did not dare fulfil that desire.
Ginny returned with coffee, sugar, and milk on a tray. She placed them on a table, then took a seat on the armchair next to Draco. He noted the distance she was placing between them and held back a sigh of annoyance.
"So," she said.
"So," he repeated, eyeing her amusedly.
"Thank you for breakfast," she said enthusiastically.
The speed with which she consumed a croissant convinced him that her gratitude was heartfelt.
"Thank you for-" he hesitated, then stopped.
She smiled almost sheepishly, then seemed to take control of herself and smiled brightly.
"I'm sorry that I snore so loudly that you had to sleep on the couch," she joked.
Draco stared at her as though she had just professed an enormous absurdity. Then his eyes narrowed and impatience ran across his features.
"Is that really what you think?"
"Trust me, Ron's made fun of me often enough that-"
"Don't try to evade the subject, Ginny," Draco snapped. "We both know you don't believe that, although this is a very polite way of explaining why I didn't sleep in your bed."
She shrugged, wary.
"Aren't you going to ask me why I didn't?" he asked.
"No. You're an adult," she said, smiling self-depreciatingly, "you do what you want."
Draco rolled his eyes, leaned to grab the armchair in which she was sitting, and pulled it so that they sat face to face. Looking straight into her eyes, he put a hand on her neck and let his thumb play with her full lips.
"I wanted to give you the choice. What we did yesterday, we-you weren't thinking straight."
She made to answer but he kept a finger on her mouth.
"Tucking you in bed and staying on the couch was, well, a good way for me to learn self-control… and the best way to let you decide whether you want this or not."
His voice was low, even gentle, but she could tell he made an effort to keep it as it was and not demand the answer to his unspoken question. Draco had grown up screaming, "I want!" not asking, "Do you?" and the price to pay for a childhood of treats was the simmering impatience that only barely prevented him from kissing the woman facing him.
In the years that followed, Ginny would tell herself that she had considered the situation with all its aspects and come to her conclusion after a mature, well-pondered and structured weighing of the pros and cons. She would promise her mother that Draco and she had taken the requisite time to get to know each other before they took any drastic measures that they might regret. She would assure her father that Draco had accosted her with noble intentions, the noblest of which undeniably was marriage. She would swear to her brothers that Draco had placed her under no spell whatsoever, though by then she would know full well that his charm and sex-appeal were more potent than any spell or potion.
As it was, however, she did not think of the years that lay ahead of them, envisioning them more as days and willing to pay the price for any happiness they may bring. She peered meaningfully into his grey eyes. She sensed how her heart beat when his thumb trailed across her cheek. She remembered the ecstasy and liberation that had followed his arrival.
She kissed him feverishly, he pulled her to him, and the intensity of what passed between them was the promise of a new beginning.
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