She Gathers Rain

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She Gathers Rain

It was probably easy for her to escape. I mean, after all, she was the sister of Fred and George Weasley, the two finest scam artists and escapists on this side of the Atlantic. That includes all of Slytherin. I don’t like them, far from it actually. But there is that grudging respect that you have to give them. They would have made perfect Slytherins…had they not been so damnably noble…or Weasley. I don’t suspect their sister was much like them, but I do suspect that a few years in a (small albeit) house with the two you would pick up onto their bad habits.

I think that’s why I didn’t catch her the first time. Nor did I catch her the second, nor even the third. I still don’t know the reason I caught her the fourth time. Luck perhaps? Intuition? Skill? Who could tell? I don’t think I’d like to brag about being a mini-Filch. That sort of reputation can send a child’s reputation straight to hell. I certainly didn’t come up with the idea for Prefects to patrol the halls at night; I’m not sure who did. I don’t particularly like it either. It cuts in on precious preening time.

You may ask how I even know it was her in the first place. It’s fair to say that even at a measurable distance her hair is clearly and distinctively scarlet-red. That’s all I saw her at, a distance. Three times I got close enough to her to see that she was who I thought she was and three times I failed to catch and give her detention…or at least deduct points. You know what they say about three times, don’t you? ‘One time is accident, two is coincidence, three is conspiracy, remember that, Draco.’ Oh, wait, that was my crack-pot father.

The thing is I somehow forgot his warning until after the third time. For all I know, this pattern of hers could have been happening for years and no one was good (or in the right spot at the right time) enough to catch her. I remember hitting myself over the head with a book when I figured it out. It was so simple I couldn’t believe that Filch hadn’t discovered her midnight rendezvous before I did. I mean, after all, he’s been controlling the halls for longer than I’ve been alive.

I think the reason she finally slipped up was because she got cocky and I heard her one night. You should never get cocky, that’s one thing I’ve learned the hard way. If you want something (and you want to keep it) you have to fight like every day is your last day. She (as many good people are) was misled into a false sense of security, and I caught her for it. It wasn’t just that she was sloppy, because she was neat enough not to get caught by Filch. It was partially because of my own fascination.

Now I’m not saying I’m obsessed or anything. That is positively ridiculous. I was intrigued more than anything else. There is no doubting or denying that she is pretty. Well, maybe pretty isn’t the right word. She isn’t beautiful in the conventional sense at all. In fact, she really isn’t beautiful in an unconventional sense either. She’s more exotic and (I hate to say it) Amazonian than that.

You see, she has her father’s height and angular features. She always was a skinny child, even as a girl. The scabby knees and dirt on your nose type, a tomboy. I remember her hair, long as it was, was always in a plait down her back. I think that as she grew up she wanted to seem more mature, so she cut it mostly off. Now it looks more spiky and uneven, though the style suits her well. Her father’s angled-off features and high cheekbones gave her a slightly exotic look, especially if you combined that with her eyes. You couldn’t say that her eyes were normal, not at all. They were an amber-tawny color and surrounded by long, long, dark, dark eyelashes. Her eyebrows were uncharacteristically long and dark, vaguely resembling the lengthened strokes of a paintbrush. Of course her body was angular and thin. She had long, long legs, the longest I’ve ever seen, which was odd considering her torso was slightly small because of it. She didn’t have what you could call large breasts, but they were shapely, tennis ball breasts. She was very athletic; I remember she made her house team in her fourth year with the loss of Harry Potter and her brothers.

So overall she was pretty striking. I don’t recall her having any steady boyfriend at any time; I know I would probably made fun of her for it. Hey, I never claimed to be particularly nice after all. I seem to remember her going out on and off with Dean Thomas, that tall, artistic, black Gryffindor. They looked pretty good together. Gods knew that she couldn’t go out with anyone a few inches shorter, it would have been disastrous. I still can’t for the life of me figure out how she could have found him attractive. But then, who am I to judge? (I’d appreciate if you kept that to yourself; I do have a reputation to maintain here.)

But still, my fascination with her wasn’t really her looks, nor was it her family. (Though I could make fun of that right now, the argument is getting stale; I’m better than them and that’s about the end of it.) I don’t think I could have carried it over to her circle of friends. She kept to her year, was good friends with that Creevey boy and Dean Thomas. I don’t think I saw her fawn over Potter once after her third year. I think (and to be completely truthful) my fascination with her was her attitude. For all I could figure she should have been a Ravenclaw with her depression problems. She always looked so sad, so completely melancholic and miserable. I think she was good at faking happiness, because the more I watched her, the more I saw her do it.

You could always tell when she wasn’t paying attention, or when she was off in her own black and bleak world. Her amber eyes would grow a little darker and glaze over with a dull quality, telling you she was looking at something but never quite seeing it. And then she would prop her artistic chin on her long fingers and sigh. Her lips (not quite full, but not thin either) would almost look pouty, and had that been the only way you’d ever seen her, you could have mistaken her for a fairly stuck-up person. Then her long eyelashes would flicker and she’d look up, sigh, and go back to the subject at hand as though nothing had happened.

I suppose I could have dismissed this behavior as mere boredom, but if you saw the way she looked, how lost she appeared to be, you would get this intense feeling of sadness from her. It was odd, because even I got it, and no one can make me do that. The first time I saw her do it everything became very cold. Movement seemed to slow, even voices seemed more distant. And then she would sigh, turn her darkened eyes up, and the moment would be gone, the only residue a feeling of complete hopelessness. Needless to say, I didn’t like it. I don’t like people to affect me. Call it what you will: personal preference, defiance, independence, whatever.

I don’t think I ever caught the full power of her sadness until that fourth time. You see, her pattern was fairly simple. Whenever it rained at midnight she left her tower, walked down to the middle of the grassy Hogwarts fields, and wait for the rain to stop or the sun to rise. She would just stand there and look so heartbreakingly sad it was like twisting a serrated blade in your stomach just to watch it. I don’t think it mattered much if she was cold, or if the rain was soft or hard, or if it only lasted a few minutes. She was out there, starting out at the clouds, waiting for it to stop.

At first I thought it was some sort of pagan ritual. There are, after all, some families (mostly just ceremony-happy Ravenclaws like the Clearwaters and the Boots) that still keep their roots firmly planted in their heathen past. I’m not saying that the Malfoys don’t observe custom, but not to the extent as the Weasleys and the Blacks. But, as most wizards in Britain know, the Weasleys are perhaps the oldest clan of witches and wizards in Europe. My family can’t claim that because of our French and Spanish heritage. The Weasley red hair is not only their trademark, it is their creed. They are the oldest, no matter how deteriorated their (metaphorical) house was. They still practiced the pagan ways, Mabon, Yule, etc. Some people speculate that is how their blood runs so thick still, their dedication to the old gods. I think that’s speculation and that’s it.

But I soon came to realize her pilgrimage to the rainy slopes of Hogwarts was personal.

And the storm that’s raging a safe haven she has found.

She doesn’t care what the prophets say anymore,

For the love she had she has no more.

The youngest Weasley was suffering from some ailment not physical. I’m guessing guilt. After all, the Heir of Slytherin has a lot to feel guilty about. With what she could do, I don’t expect she’s a very happy person, or capable of such happiness. But also, I think she was suffering of a broken heart. I’m not sure who broke it, nor if it was a person who broke it at all. For all I knew, she broke her own damn heart. All I do know is that if I were that sad (or as sad as she appeared to be) I’d probably kill myself.

I think that’s why she’s a Gryffindor and I’m a Slytherin. I won’t both trying to deny it, Slytherins have a tendency to become rather slippery when it comes to judgment time. We’re much better at running from our problems than dealing with them head on. But Gryffindors are more the sling-your-lance-over-your-shoulder-and-charge-head-on-into-the-raging-battle type. I’m not sure hers was a ‘raging battle.’ She sure didn’t look like a ‘raging battle’ on the outside. But inside her mind, I’ve come to think, that a melee of mythic proportions blazes. What else could fuel the grief in her eyes? I have it on account that women sometimes like to mope in times of battle. (Maybe that’s a bit chauvinistic of me, but hell, I’m a Malfoy. If you don’t like it I could always curse it out of you…)

If you think about it (and I have), the whole event of the fourth time in the rain was asinine. Okay, not asinine, but a bit ridiculous on my part. I’m not sure what came over me. It was like one minute I was unhappy, soaking wet, cold, and in a piss-poor mood, and the next I was completely relaxed and slightly brooding. I’ll never be quite sure what happened to make me like that, so unlike myself. But I think it would be safe to say that it wasn’t the rain that put me in that mood. I really do think it was her. And that, my friends, if you have not already picked up, is not a thing that makes me comfortable.

Here, let me recount the events for you.

He had seen her again! Well, not directly, but he’d seen a shadow. He was sure it was her. Who else could it be? It was raining, the shadow was slim and tall, and only Gryffindors came from that direction. But either way, if it was her he’d give her detention and if it was anyone else he’d give them detention. It was a lose-lose situation for whoever it was.

But as soon as Draco had turned the corner she was gone. Oh, yes, it was her. No one knew the school quite so well as she did so as to escape him. Draco slowed to a steady pace, remembering that he didn’t have to catch her in the castle. He did, after all, know exactly where she was going. It was the same all the time. She would head out to the distant fields and watch it rain.

As soon as he reached the secret exit he knew of he pulled his thick robes closer to his body, turning up the collar and stepped outside the quiet castle halls. It wasn’t warm outside; that was for sure. It was early spring, so it had no right to be. But still, there were things Draco fancied more than cold rain and wind at night without any real protective wear. Woolen robes, no matter how magical, weren’t the warmest of things to be wearing at that time.

Draco sighed, pulling out his wand and casting an Impervious Charm on his head and shoulders. It kept the worst of it away at least. And so he got to trudging over the sloping, rolling hills of the Hogwarts campus. Ahead and to the left was the dark and silent Forbidden Forest. He still harbored tiny fears of the place. Draco wasn’t stupid, he knew that Voldemort had been in that forest and he certainly knew enough to fear that. He shuddered and turned his attention to the next hill. No, she wasn’t over that one…

But as soon as he crested it he could see her. She stood still and tall, her slim figure shadowed against the dull light of the rising moon in the distance reflecting in the lake. She wasn’t too far from the squid’s home, a good twenty meters. She was absolutely motionless and quiet. There was no lightning, and thus no thunder. The storm appeared to be a harmless little shower.

It couldn’t have been the rain that made him stop. It was neither that cold nor that hard. And she wasn’t particularly powerful for a witch. Sure she was the Heir of Slytherin, but she couldn’t unlock her powers. She was standard fare when it came to her classes, she didn’t fail, but she didn’t shine like some of her older brothers. So she didn’t intimidate him, and it wasn’t the rain that stopped him dead. But rather, it was her face in profile that made him think twice about approaching her.

She looked miserable. She looked like she’d lost all hope. She looked as though nothing would ever shine again, as if the world could end at any moment and she’d still be there standing, waiting, for something. And when the dim light shone on her pearly skin, making her hair seem even more hauntingly blood-like, Draco conceded that she was very beautiful indeed, if not stunning.

It was only that haunted face that stopped him from approaching her, that look of pain and sadness on her face. And when Draco considered it, what exactly did she have to be happy about.

He started with her home. She was poor as dirt and lived in a shack half the size of Draco’s guest house. Her life wasn’t glamorous like Potter’s and it wasn’t beautiful like his, nor was it filled with extreme happiness. And she certainly lived in a shadow. Her oldest brother lived a life where all he saw was gold, money, jewels, and praise. A charm-breaker at Gringotts was always shown respect, and at all times, was given attention. Plus he’d been Head Boy when he attended school. Her second oldest brother worked a dangerous and attractive job as a dragon tamer. He’d even been captain of the Quidditch team when he went to Hogwarts. And then her snooty, classy brother, had been Head Boy in Draco’s second year, and then grown up to work underneath one of the most powerful men in the Ministry until his death. Her twin brothers were pranksters and entrepreneurs in the joke world, making money out of nowhere it seemed. And then her other brother was best friends with the great Harry Potter. There wasn’t any room for her to shine in her family; of course she’d be sad.

Her school life wasn’t particularly glamorous either. She’d almost killed several students (unintentionally albeit) in her first year. She was almost painfully shy and meek; she almost never spoke up for herself anymore. And she wasn’t very popular, not with the Gryffindors nor anyone else.

So what did she have to be happy about?

The answer was clear: nothing.

She had no reason to smile like other children. She had no reason to laugh and play and make merry. She had no reason to go off and do brave things anymore, not when she knew what could happen, not when she knew what she truly was. She had no reason to live really, if you wanted to think about it that way. So why did she?

That was one of the things Draco was dying to find out.

But the rain stopped and Draco practically fled from her as she turned her sad face to the castle, seemingly not even seeing him.

Actually, looking back on it, the whole thing was more embarrassing than asinine or ridiculous. I actually ran from her…me…a Malfoy. I ran from a Weasley. And why? Because she looked sad. How lame is that?! The more I think about it the more it make me angry. Mostly at myself. But I don’t like being angry at myself so I’m going to shove it all on her.

…Okay, now I’m so angry I can’t think right. She made me angry…at myself. For what? For being scared of her. That can’t possibly be right! I can’t be scared of sadness! That’s so stupid it make me angry. …Please wait while I redirect all my anger at her again…

Thoroughly pissed off now. NO ONE controls my emotions like that! I and I alone control my emotions, not some skinny little Gryffindor bitch and certainly no Weasley! GODS! Why can’t I stop thinking about her!? It’s not right! It’s not fair! It’s definitely not right.

That’s all I do now, think about her while I’m on duty. I practically beg for midnight rain! And why? Oh, I know why! Because I want to show her I’m not afraid! (I probably want to show myself I’m not afraid.) Because I want to best her for once. Her whole bloody family shows mine up every chance they get. Even her friends show me up. Now I want a victory! I will figure out why she is they way she is. I will find her secret.

The next time it rains.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So she gathers rain,

She gathers rain to rinse away all her guilt and pain.

So she gathers rain,

She gathers rain to wash and cleanse and make her whole again.

I really did feel foolish, waiting for her. I knew she was coming, and I knew she was coming here. What I didn’t know was why she was coming. But I would know that too soon enough. I admit to not fully making a plan about how I would go about this mission of mine, but I knew it would be done.

Something deep pulled me out to the field that night, something strong. Maybe I was just sensing a storm. I’ve heard that some witches and wizards are what they call weather-mages. Some can control the weather, badly albeit, and some can predict the weather. I don’t know if I’m a weather-mage, I mean, I think I would know by now if I was, but I think something abnormal was happening. Perhaps sometimes witches and wizards just need to be in the elements again, feel the primal magic of the world. It sounds rather silly, but then, old magic is a silly thing. Okay, so it’s not, my idea is just silly. Old magic is a serious, powerful, and ancient thing and to be respected. …Thank you, Lucius, for drilling that into my head…you bastard…

That same deep feeling pulling me into the storm must have addled my brain, because as soon as I saw her, flaming red hair and all, I just wanted to leave again. I thought at first that there was some kind of charm, but she wasn’t really that good at charms. Besides, she had no reason to put up a charm; she didn’t know anyone was coming.

I watched, half in fear and half in anger, as she just walked calmly through the storm. I can’t really say it was a storm, because it was rather warm out. I think it was May…

It was a warm rain; that was the first thing he noticed when he stepped outside that night. There wasn’t any wind either, or at least not much, because the rain was pouring straight down, as opposed to the last time when it was at a diagonal angle. And there was even some moonlight shining though the thinly formed clouds. Draco could tell the rain wouldn’t last long, not long at all, but he was determined to figure her out.

He crested the next hill, standing in watch as she looked desperately at the night. She seemed so lost and hopeless, and Draco felt himself grow guilty watching her in her time of sadness. But if he was going to talk to her he was going to have to do it now. In a few days he would be graduating and he would probably never see her again, unless he ran into her in another storm.

She looked less hopeless from the angle he positioned himself at. She looked almost peaceful, like perhaps a burden had been lifted from her thin shoulders. He moved around her so as to see her face more clearly and saw that she did indeed look a little less sad now. Well, he figured, you can’t be upset when school is ending. It’ll be summer soon and we’ll all be free, even if for some of us it is only temporary.

And that was when it hit him. It was like a cool breeze of air on his face, cooling the warm rain against him and lifting his spirits. And with that metaphorical breeze came a sense of bravery that rarely manifested itself in Slytherins in such a spontaneous way. When Draco looked inside himself, he found what he was looking for, the will and courage to approach the Weasley girl.

Draco put on his best sneer, his most self-righteous expression, as he walked in a determined fashion towards the solitary Gryffindor, feeling more confident than he had in a long while. He felt superior to her in some way, as if half of his battle had already been won.

“I could take points for this, you know,” he said smoothly, waiting anxiously for her reaction.

And he watched as she sighed, a great heavy sigh, and turned to him slowly. Her face didn’t register her surprise, but a flicker of something in her eyes gave it away, making her look a little wild for a moment. But she raised her head to him proudly, cocking her head to the side, and looked at him with her tawny eyes.

“What,” he asked, praying his voice didn’t falter under her intense stare, “not afraid are you?”

She looked at him blankly for a moment then frowned. “No. Are you?”

I just want to know how she saw right through me! It’s not like I had it written all over my face! I know for a fact that I control my emotions VERY well and NEVER let anything I don’t want seen slip. But somehow she saw through the whole charade! I don’t know how, and maybe I don’t want to, but I do know that I was very close to getting very upset that that moment. I thank the Slytherin house for my common room trained coolness.

“No,” he replied stonily, masking his dismay with anger. “Why are you out here? This is against the rules you know. Just because you’re a Gryffindor doesn’t mean that the rules don’t apply to you. I just bet you learned that from Potter.”

She dislodged her eyes from his for a moment, her eyes growing distant and cloudy vaguely resembling the night sky, even the dull reflection of the moon pierced her eyes. And then she said to him, her voice dead and even, “Wait.” Her eyes met his gray ones, looking into them hard and focusing completely on him. “Please.”

The ‘please’ must have been what made him stop. And it did make him stop. It seemed as though just that one word had shut down all of his intentions and all his capacity to speak or move dissipated. It wasn’t even as if he’d never heard the word please before. It’s just, he’d never heard her say it, or anyone say it, quite like that before. And everything he thought he was going to do or say to her disappeared and Draco waited.

It took him a moment to understand what she was waiting for, but as soon as the rain began to die down, he understood. She was waiting for the rain to cease. Her eyes closed and she tilted her face to the sky, catching the last drops of rain on her lips and eyelids. Draco thought for a moment that he was going to kiss her, for she looked as though she wished to be kissed. But the only thing that stopped him (and he was close) was her eyes. They opened slowly to reveal their amber depths, and he had to stop to think what they meant, for they were clouded in some emotion he had never seen in someone’s eyes.

“This has nothing to do with Harry Potter anymore, Draco Malfoy,” she said slowly, her voice warm and smooth. She licked the last of the rain off of her lips and Draco felt a rock drop into his stomach. Gods, but she was beautiful wet. “He isn’t why I’m out here and he isn’t why you’re out here.”

“Why are you out here?” he demanded hardly. Draco didn’t want his voice to betray his reasons, because she seemed apt to discovering them.

“Why are you out here?” she countered softly. Then, without letting him answer, she cocked her head and looked up at him though her thick eyelashes. “Why are you burning?”

Her imagination has started stretching wide.

And her new conviction no longer will she hide.

She’s not branded when prophets speak words of fire.

Draco nearly choked on his own breath. Burning? What the Hell?! “What? What are you talking about?” he practically spat out.

She looked at him curiously for a moment. Tawny eyes searched his quickly, as if looking for something important. Her tongue flicked across her lips again, her eyes still on his, piercing, searching, fighting. “I once asked myself a question, Malfoy, a very simple question and a very common question. But for some reason I could never answer it. And it burned inside of me because every time I thought about it I felt an extreme sense of pain and filth. All over me, on my skin, in my hair, under my nails, in my mouth, and even in my mind. And every time I feared and hated myself a little more. Why me?” She turned to the sky, almost as if willing it to rain again. “Why me?”

And then she sighed, looking sadly towards him. “Such a simple question, so full of childish ideal. I expect I do look childish now…and selfish. But I answered your question. Are you still going to take away points? Because if not I’ll just go back to my rooms…not much use staying here anymore.”

The expression on Draco’s face must have been priceless, for she looked at him for a long time after that, her face curious, but not exactly pressing for information or even explanation of his odd activities. But then she changed, her eyes narrowing a little and her mouth forming a small frown.

“You’re not like the rest of them, are you?” she asked steadily.

“The rest of who?” Draco asked quietly, if not a bit angrily. She was just so calm, as if nothing affected her. It was as if she were somehow different and special. And she could have been, and she probably was. That didn’t stop Draco from aiming his misguided anger at her. How dare she act so normal when he knew her to be so sad and lonely? How dare she fake her own emotions in front of him? He’d seen her when she was miserable. He’d seen her when she cried silently in the rain. He’d seen her when she was ruined.

She took a deep breath, her eyes flickering towards the castle. “The Slytherins,” she said after a moment. “You’re not one of them; you’re a fake normal, like me.” She shook her head for a moment biting her bottom lip. “I’m not like the rest of the Gryffindors…I don’t fit in…not anywhere. But you do, or at least you pretend you do.” She looked at him with serious, hard eyes for a moment. “How?”

Draco snorted. “I’m not like you. I’m nothing like you, never think that. I’m a thousand times better than you will ever be. And even if I was different from the Slytherins, you wouldn’t be one to talk about fake feeling something. I see you when no one else does, alone and sad. You aren’t one to lecture me on faking something.”

“You don’t like it,” she countered with her eyes flashing dangerously for a moment, “being like me. You don’t like being different either. It hurts you, doesn’t it?” She cocked her head at him again. “It makes you feel alone…solitary even. And it makes you angry when you see me because you know I fake it too. But the difference is I’ve accepted it. The difference is I can deal with it. And all you do is burn.”

“Shut up!” Draco hissed in a low dangerous voice. He didn’t want to hear it, but she kept talking.

“I wondered why you watched me. At first I thought it was because you wanted to embarrass me or hurt me or something. I thought that perhaps you were planning something. But when you saw me last time it rained, I knew that you weren’t what you seemed. You ran from me, and I didn’t know why until I understood that you had to have been scared. And it made you angry that you were scared. And you didn’t understand.”

“Shut up,” Draco said again, a little lower, but a little less forcefully.

“I won’t because I’m right,” Ginny said vigorously. “And what’s worse is you know it. Everything I say is the truth, isn’t it?” When he didn’t answer she continued anyway. “You do a really good job you know. You’re better than I am at hiding what I feel. Riddle made it so I can’t hide anything. Not from him and not from anyone else. It made it easier to control me. It made it harder for me to control myself. It’s my weakness. But it isn’t yours, is it? No, you can protect yourself from others who don’t understand.

“But you don’t know what it all means; do you? You don’t know why you’re different and you don’t know why you get so angry. You want it to be me; it would be easier that way. But it can’t be me because this is the first time you’ve really ever talked to me. So it has to be you, and it scares you that the difference is inside. I’m right, aren’t I?”

And with that she stopped, watching him as he faltered with his words. She knew himself better than he did and that scared him too. She practically knew everything. “What are you?” he asked in a dead voice.

She took a deep, shuddering breath, as though she were surprised. “I ask myself that all the time.” With that she looked up at the sky. “You know, it’s rude to answer a question with a question.”

“You’re right.”

“About what?”

“Everything.”

She paused for a moment, looking at him steadily. “Are you going to be okay?”

He looked at her sharply and with more than a little anger on his face. “And why wouldn’t I be?”

She smiled a little. “Because you didn’t expect this. I’ve learned that people don’t react well to surprises. And you answered with a question again.”

He just snorted again, gazing out behind her. Draco decided to switch topics. Her soul searching ability far surpassed his own. “Why midnight?”

“Because it’s dark,” she replied calmly.

“Why the rain?”

“Because it’s clean,” she replied just as calmly.

Draco was silent for a long while. He was aware that she was watching him, but not wanting to bring his eyes to hers. She might reveal something more than he was ready to deal with. But the more he tried to look away the more he found himself looking at her. Maybe it wasn’t even out of his own freewill, he didn’t know. He didn’t know what made him look at her eyes like that, because all he wanted to do was look away. But it was because he looked in her eyes that he saw it.

It wasn’t the normal sadness; it wasn’t loneliness, but something very different. It was like nothing he’d ever seen. She opened her mouth, as if to say something then closed it again, licking her lips. She gnawed a bit at her bottom lip before she actually said something.

“Can I ask you why? I mean, why you looked at me in the first place. I’m not anything special really. I remain myself.”

And Draco didn’t know. He didn’t know why he looked her way whenever he entered the great hall. He didn’t know why he watched for that moment her eyes turned skywards. He didn’t know why he waited for her to exit class so he could follow her. He didn’t know why he was there, talking to her. He didn’t know why he did any of those things. But there was one thing he did know, she looked really pretty when she was uncertain. Her look of confidence was awe inspiring, but her look of confusion was a sight not for those of the faint of heart. It could have been the moonlight, it could have been the way the water played in her hair, and it could have been the way her eyelashes fluttered against the weight of the water. Draco knew it could be any of those things, but when it came down to it, Virginia Weasley was a beautiful girl, especially when she was curious.

“I don’t know,” he answered truthfully with a half shrug. “You were beautiful.”

The same love she gives she requires.

So she gathers rain,

She gathers rain to rinse away all her guilt and pain.

She gathers rain,

She gathers rain to wash and cleanse and make her whole again.

First her eyes became very wide, her heavy eyelashes flattening against her skin in surprise. And then her lips opened slightly, as if in a faint protest. Then, even in the pale light of the moon, he saw a pink shadow flicker over her cheeks, casting an auspicious mix of color on her fair skin. For some reason, Draco felt his body moving closer to hers, the heat of the humid air outside now not the only reason for the warmth around him. She didn’t seem to protest, but she didn’t seem to want participation either with the flicker of innocence in her eyes.

But when he brought his lips down to hers there was a definite sigh in the back of her throat. Draco felt a light puff of air on his cheek when she sighed, and he brought a his palm to her cheek, letting his fingers fall into her short, but wild, crimson hair. When he withdrew his lips he saw her eyes were closed, but they opened and Draco found her eyes soft and warm.

It must have been the look that drove him to it, for he found his lips crashing down on hers again, this time with more confidence and sureness. Kissing her wasn’t like kissing any other girl he’d ever kissed. And he’d kissed a fair many. Her fingers flickered over his biceps, never staying in one place long. And her lips were soft and gloriously warm, perfect for kissing. She tasted purely of rain, smelled like a fresh shower, and the whole time he was kissing her Draco felt as though he were kissing a passionate summer storm.

It was she who broke away first, her face flushed and her eyes uncertain again. She didn’t give him any time to talk, she just left, stranding him on the crest of the hill and watching where she had been.

He couldn’t explain himself and he didn’t want to.

I still can’t, explain myself that is.

She awakened something in me. She changed me, but I don’t think she changed me too much, merely changed the way I saw. I began to look and actually see for the first time in as long as I could remember. Sure I had known that my father was a Death Eater, but I’d never quite hated him for it. And I knew that most Slytherins weren’t to be trusted and probably couldn’t even pass for halfway decent human beings, but I never quite understood what it meant for me and for everyone else.

I guess I can’t really explain it. But I don’t really feel like explaining it either. She made me see and she made me think.

I don’t know what I would do now. I mean, what I would do if I saw her in the stormy rain again. Yeah, I might kiss her. Maybe I would make her think this time. Or maybe she would just give me another thing to think about. It’s been about five years since I’ve graduated and I still haven’t seen her. I heard she’s some sort of grand experiment in the Department of Mysteries. I guess they would like to have the Heir of Slytherin under their control. I doubt she’s happy, but then, I don’t know what would make her happy. I don’t think I ever will. I don’t think I’ll ever see her again anyway.

It’s nice though, to think about that kiss. And it’s nice to think that she might have found her answer. And if she didn’t…well I suppose that’s what life quests are for, hm? And we can only hope everything will work out in the end.

Author’s Notes: Aw, wasn’t that nice. I know it’s a fluffy little piece, but I couldn’t help it. The lyrics are from Collective Soul’s She Gathers Rain off their self titled album.

Review happy, folks!

PS – I rewrote this a bit, mainly because it was pointed out to me by a lovely reviewer (Thanks Coney!). Um…I’ve sort of been only using singular forms with the houses…all the time. I looked in the book and saw you really did need an ‘s’ at the end to make them plural. The other thing was that I had Bill and Charlie mixed up in age. That one was an honest to goodness mistake! Sorry! …I don’t know if anyone would stop reading because of it, but it would certainly irk people. It would irk me if I read it in someone else’s fic.