Cold Hands, Warm Heart (PG-13) - Draco/Ginny
Title: Cold Hands, Warm Heart
Author: atalanta84
Summary: While visiting the Wizarding cemetery, Ginny runs into the last person she would expect to find there.
Rating: PG-13ish
Warning: A little angst, a little fluff, mild language, and a kiss, but no hanky panky (sorry! XD). EWE, obviously.
Word Count: ~ 5000
A/N: Happy (belated) birthday, amethyst18!!! Sorry it took me so long to get your gift posted, but RL was kicking my butt! I've never written this pairing before, but I know you like it, so I thought I'd give it a go, even if half my f-list is going to burn me at the stake for writing it! Heeeee! But I will risk anything to honor my dear beta's birthday! ;D
Cold Hands, Warm Heart
Ginny makes her way towards the familiar headstone, passing dozens of graves and crypts along the way. She pauses, as always, to glance at the tomb with the marble angel, whose cold, unseeing eyes seem to stare at her every time she passes beneath its gaze.
The grave she is visiting is one of the simpler ones, but it is covered with numerous offerings to indicate that its occupant is as much loved in death as he was in life. There are the usual flowers and wreaths, but there are stranger things as well - Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans, Skiving Snack Boxes, and various other tricks, treats, and oddities. She, like her parents, still comes to visit the grave every day, though she prefers to come alone. She thinks it is more for the sense of peace and solitude than anything else.
She comes bearing flowers of her own - a bouquet of red roses she has enchanted to withstand the winter wind. She bends down to lay them on the grave with the other gifts, pausing to wipe the cold snow off of her brother’s name.
“Happy New Year, Fred,” she whispers. “We miss you.”
There is no response but the soft rustle of the wind through the branches of the trees overhead. She stands upright, twirling one last rose between her fingers when suddenly, she hears the crunching of footsteps on the path behind her. She turns to see a tall, lean figure making his way to a nearby grave. Even as he trudges through the snow, huddled in a thick cloak against the bitter wind, his movements are strong and purposeful. She studies him, trying to make out his face behind the hood of his cloak, but it remains obscured from view. In his determination to reach his destination without slipping on the icy path, he does not appear to have noticed her presence.
Ginny watches in silence as he stands in front of a grave a few rows away from Fred’s. For a long time, the man doesn’t move, and she begins to think that maybe he has frozen in place, like one of the cemetery’s stone statues. Only the fluttering of his cloak in the wind betrays otherwise.
After an interminable amount of time, the man turns to leave, and at that moment, the wind catches his hood and throws it back from his face. Ginny gasps in surprise as she recognizes the pale, pointed features and the flash of blond hair, whipping in the gale.
Draco Malfoy stares back at her, his eyes widening in recognition. Then his face drops into a sneer before he tosses his hood back over his head and walks out of the cemetery more briskly than when he arrived.
Still stunned by the unexpected encounter, Ginny watches him leave. When she hears the cemetery gate clang shut behind him, she slowly walks over to where Malfoy had been standing. She wonders whose grave he had been visiting. As she had done with Fred’s headstone, she bends down to wipe away the snow, revealing the inscription engraved on the stone beneath: Vincent Crabbe, Jr.: March 10, 1980 - May 2, 1998.
Unlike Fred’s grave, Crabbe’s is barren, with nothing but the snow as decoration.
Ginny wonders what thoughts had been running through Malfoy’s mind as he stood before the grave of one of his best friends. She knows bits and pieces of what had happened in the Room of Requirement, between her friends and Malfoy’s, but Harry and the others have never been eager to speak about it. Still, she can’t help thinking that no one deserves to die such a tragic death, even if it was of his own making, and even if he was an awful person in life.
She doesn’t exactly know what motivates her to do so, but she takes the last of Fred’s flowers, the one she is still clutching in her hand, and she lays it down on top of Crabbe’s grave. She studies it for a moment, admiring the way the red petals create a splash of color against the grey and white of the snow-covered stone. Then, she turns and makes her way out of the cemetery to Disapparate home.
It is a solid week before Ginny works up the nerve to approach Malfoy during one of his visits to the cemetary.
For seven days, she has watched him arrive shortly after she does. Each time, he stands motionless in front of Crabbe’s grave for five minutes, and then leaves. And each time after he leaves, Ginny drops a fresh rose on Crabbe’s grave, replacing the one from the day before. She knows Malfoy must have noticed the flowers, and she imagines he knows who put them there, but since their first encounter, he has done nothing to acknowledge her presence.
After seven days of silence and mutual avoidance, Ginny decides she’s had enough. Jutting her chin in determination, she stomps across the snow, trying not to look like an idiot as she slips and slides on the path between Fred and Crabbe’s graves.
Malfoy makes no attempt to speak to her as she approaches, and when she comes to stand beside him, he doesn’t even raise his head. At first, this angers her, but when she sees the dark circles under his eyes, and the worry lines across his forehead, she bites her tongue against the caustic remark she was going to make. They stand in silence then, allowing the peace and quiet of the winter afternoon to surround them both.
Finally, Ginny bends down to pick up the rose she had laid on Crabbe’s grave the day before, and replaces it with a new one. When she stands upright once more, Malfoy is finally looking at her. She stares back boldly, unafraid of the hatred she knows she will find in his eyes. What she sees instead surprises her. There is no hatred; only bitterness, curiosity, and some other emotion that eludes her.
After a few tense moments, he turns and walks back up the path to the front gate, leaving her alone in the cemetery once more.
It takes another week of meeting in the cemetery before they speak to each other for the first time.
By now, they have fallen into a strange sort of routine. Each time Malfoy comes to visit Crabbe, she places a fresh rose on the grave, and each time, Malfoy leaves again without saying a word. Today, however, when she goes to place the rose, Malfoy holds out his hand to take it from her instead. After a moment’s hesitation, she reaches out to give it to him. When he takes the flower from her, his hand brushes up against hers, and before she can react, he jerks his hand away.
“Your hands are cold,” he mutters, as he leans down to place the rose on Crabbe’s grave. “Don’t suppose your family can afford gloves?”
“Don’t be a prat, Malfoy. Of course I have gloves.”
What she neglects to tell him is that they are actually nobbly, woolen mittens her mother knitted for her last Christmas, and they are so hideous, they couldn’t possibly be worn in public.
“You know, I really hoped you’d outgrown your stupid habit of mocking my family, but I guess some things really don’t change, do they?” she snaps, before turning to leave.
He catches her by the arm suddenly, and she whirls around, prepared to slap him. But she is not prepared for the surprising look of penitence on his face. Immediately, he drops her arm, running his hand through his white-blond hair in frustration. There is something almost comical about the way his hair stands on end when he does that, but Ginny finds herself lacking any desire to laugh about it.
“Look, Weasley, I…” He hesitates, glances up at the pewter-colored sky for inspiration, and then lowers his gaze to speak to her once more. “I’m sorry, okay?”
Ginny stares at him unblinkingly for several seconds, because it can’t be possible that Draco Malfoy just gave her an apology, when she thinks she would sooner catch him making shadow puppets with her ugly woolen mittens.
“Yeah, I actually apologized to you,” he grumbles, as if he can read her mind. “Just don’t go and make a big deal out of it.”
Then he stomps away, leaving her standing there in utter shock and bewilderment.
It is another two weeks before Malfoy says something genuinely nice to her. This occurs much sooner than her previous prediction of sometime between one million years from now, and the day the earth is finally devoured by a black hole.
She first notices something is different when he comes straight to meet her at Fred’s grave, rather than waiting for her to join him. She has just placed her usual bouquet of roses, reserving the extra for Crabbe’s grave. Malfoy stands beside her, shoves his hands in the pockets of his thick cloak, and stares in curiosity at the assorted offerings on Fred’s grave.
“What’s with the mince pie?” he asks.
“Oh, Mum must have left that,” she answers. He raises his eyebrows, and she shrugs in response. “It was Fred’s favorite.”
“Ah.”
Malfoy’s gaze falls to her latest batch of roses next.
“The spell you put on the flowers,” he says, “it’s… pretty good. Modified Stasis Charm?”
“Yeah,” she replies, trying to hide her surprise at his compliment. “Took me a while to get it to work, but I figured it out eventually.”
“Oh, well…” He pauses to kick at a nearby snowdrift. “Maybe you could show it to me sometime. Might be a good idea for me to bring something for Crabbe’s grave once in a while, rather than you always having to do it.”
“I don’t mind,” she says. And there it is again - that strange emotion that flickers across his slate-grey eyes and disappears as quickly as if the winter wind carried it away. He stares back down at Fred’s grave, as if looking for a distraction from the awkwardness of the situation. Suddenly, he gasps, as he notices something he hasn’t seen before - a magazine with a buxom witch strutting around on the cover.
“Is that porn?” he asks in astonishment.
“Yeah, it is,” Ginny says with an unladylike snort. “It was probably Lee Jordan that left it, although it could’ve been one of the other boys, I suppose. They…well, they like to keep their gifts as fun as possible. I think they figure it’s the best way to honor Fred - give him the sorts of things he liked when he was alive, you know?”
She struggles to explain the concept to Malfoy. Since he had hardly known Fred, she doesn’t see how he could possibly understand. Malfoy, however, simply shakes his head in disbelief, still staring at the racy, snow-dampened magazine that rests on the tomb.
“Are you even allowed to bring porn into cemeteries?"
“I’ve never heard of any rules against it.”
“Huh.” Malfoy scratches his chin thoughtfully. “Should’ve told me that sooner. As much as I admire your Stasis Charm, I don’t think Crabbe was a very big fan of roses.”
It is another two weeks later when Ginny begins to realize that maybe she doesn’t hate Draco Malfoy after all.
Today, she is later than usual for her visit to the cemetery, having just begun training for the Holyhead Harpies. As she dashes up the slushy path, she quietly bemoans the fact that she is still sweaty and disheveled from practice, and hasn’t had any time to fix her make-up.
She almost stops dead in her tracks at that last thought. It isn’t like her to give too much thought to her appearance, and she has never cared so much about the state of her make-up before, not even when she was dating Harry. As the only girl in a family of six boys, she has always been a bit of a tomboy, finding girlish things like make-up and manicures a little foolish and not worth wasting too much time on. She can’t quite put her finger on it, but something about being around Malfoy makes her feel utterly and completely feminine, in a way she has never felt before. Before she can puzzle over that thought any further, Malfoy interrupts her thoughts.
“How was practice?”
“Good,” she says distractedly. His eyes wander over her face and her windblown hair. He doesn’t appear the slightest bit disgusted by her appearance, but she still feels awkward and nervous.
“So, what did your parents say when they found out about that little photo shoot you did a few weeks ago?” he asks with a smirk. Ginny rolls her eyes, but a sly grin plays at the corners of her lips.
“How did I know you were going to bring that up?”
“Weasley, everyone in Wizarding Britain’s talking about how your photo is in the annual edition of ‘Quidditch Girls Gone Wild’. How could I not bring it up? Seriously though, what did your family think?”
“Mum certainly wasn’t pleased. She went on and on about common decency and how my actions were an ‘embarrassment to my family’. Dad just about had a heart attack, and don’t even get me started on what my brothers said…Still, it was a swimsuit edition, so it’s not as if I was completely starkers or anything. All the important bits were covered up. I don’t know why everyone’s making such a big fuss about it.”
“Why did you do it?” Malfoy asks, and his face carries an expression of genuine curiosity. Ginny shrugs.
“I don’t know. An act of rebellion, I suppose.”
“I bet it got Potter’s knickers in a twist,” he mutters. Ginny glances at him in surprise. The topic of Harry has never come up between them before, and she wonders about Malfoy’s sudden mention of him.
“I don’t care what Harry has to say about it,” she says coolly.
“Oh come on, Weasley, I was a Slytherin, remember? You can’t tell me you weren’t at least partially motivated by the idea of making him jealous? Reminding him what he’s missing?”
Ginny raises her eyebrows at him.
“Circe’s tit, Malfoy, we called it off eons ago! Don’t you read the papers? It was all over the front page for weeks, courtesy of that overgrown cockroach, Rita Skeeter.” She pauses, staring at him out of the corner of her eye. “Why do you care, anyway?”
He snorts derisively, but says nothing in response to her question. Ginny clears her throat, and focuses very hard on not meeting his gaze as she speaks.
“Harry and I…well, we just didn’t work out. We drifted apart during the year he was out hunting Horcruxes. We weren’t the same people anymore, after the war ended.”
“None of us is the same person we used to be,” Malfoy says quietly. Finally, Ginny brings herself to meet his eyes, and they carry an emotion she is slowly beginning to understand, and it frightens her at the same time that it creates a pleasant swooping sensation in her stomach. She clears her throat again, feeling rather irritated that Malfoy is able to elicit such a powerful reaction from her with only a glance.
“Did you look at it?” she asks. “My picture in the ‘Quidditch Girls Gone Wild’ photo shoot, I mean?”
“No!” Draco exclaims, looking uncharacteristically flustered. “Why on earth would I want to do that?”
But Ginny thinks his cheeks are pinker than usual when he says it, and although she lets the subject drop, she can’t help feeling a bit triumphant.
It only takes Ginny another week and a half to realize that not only does she not hate Draco Malfoy, she may actually be starting to like him. This fact is, of course, terrifying and difficult to believe. She doesn’t think it makes any sense. How could she even begin to be attracted to the boy who mocked her family for years, bullied her brother and his friends, and almost managed to get them killed, even if it was unintentional?
She first realizes something fundamental has changed between her and Malfoy when they begin to talk about something more meaningful than Quidditch, or the weather. They are standing in front of Crabbe’s grave, as usual, when the question bubbles out of her lips before she can stop it.
“What was he like?”
Malfoy turns to her, blinking in confusion.
“What do you mean?”
“What was Crabbe like? I mean…he was one of your best friends, wasn’t he?”
For several minutes, there is no sound but the wind, howling like a lost soul in the winter night. Ginny begins to think he’s not going to answer her, but just as she is about to leave, he finally speaks.
“I don’t really know,” he says, and when she turns to face him once more, he is staring off into the distance, watching the fresh snow drifts move in elegant swirling patterns across the graves. “I…I didn’t know him as well as I should have. We didn’t talk much, at least not about anything important. I just used him - to cover for me, to bully people for me…He never questioned me once, not until that night in the Room of Requirement. He wanted to kill Potter instead of trying to capture him alive.”
Draco’s voice is as bitter and cold as the February wind. Ginny shivers, gathering her cloak more tightly around her shoulders.
“I wasn’t there,” she whispers. “They left me behind.”
She had been left behind during the battle, told to wait in safety while the rest of her friends and family fought against the Death Eaters. Just as she had been left behind when Harry took Hermione and Ron with him to find the Horcruxes. She is the youngest of seven children, and she knows she should be used to being left behind by now…but she isn’t. And she doesn’t think she ever will be.
“Crabbe shouldn’t have been there,” Malfoy growls, and Ginny is surprised to realize he is angry. “He never would’ve been in that stupid Room of Requirement if it weren’t for me. He wouldn’t have…”
Malfoy’s voice breaks, and he doesn’t seem able to continue. He stands with his head hanging, and his blond fringe falling forward into his eyes. Ginny tries to swallow, but is unable to get past the lump that has suddenly developed in her throat. Then, before she quite realizes what she is doing, she reaches out to brush his hair out of his eyes. His hair is soft to the touch as it glides between her fingers, and when her hand grazes the side of his face, it is as smooth and cool as that of the marble angel she passes on her way into the cemetery every day. However, the instant her hand reaches his cheek, Malfoy flinches away. Embarrassed, and more than a bit disappointed by his reaction, she quickly withdraws her hand. But before she can retreat fully, he catches her wrist.
“Merlin, woman, your hands are like ice,” he grumbles, but there is a sort of softness in his facial expression that she has never seen before as he reaches out to grasp her other wrist as well. He cups both of her hands in his larger ones, and then, to her complete astonishment, he dips his head and warms them with his breath.
Ginny can’t help gasping as the heat of his breath caresses her fingertips like fire. She thinks she can feel that heat in other parts of her body as well, and it just doesn’t make any sense. Then, he looks up at her, his face breaking into a small, tentative smile that makes him look almost handsome. Actually, it makes him look downright irresistible, and at that moment, she doesn’t give a damn if the whole thing makes no sense at all.
It is exactly eight weeks, one day, and a few odd hours since the first time they met in the cemetery, when they finally kiss.
It is early March by now, and though the days are slightly longer and the air has lost some of its bite, there is still a thin layer of snow on the ground as Ginny enters the cemetery, shoves her hands in her pockets, and tromps down the path in the direction of Crabbe’s grave. There is a measure of determination in her steps as she approaches Malfoy, but if he notices it, he makes no comment.
“You’re late,” he says conversationally. “Quidditch practice run over today?”
“Yeah, the season officially starts next week, so the coach is pushing us pretty hard.”
“Oh,” Malfoy says. “So…I guess you won’t have time to come here every day anymore, will you?”
“Probably not,” Ginny says, while carefully gauging his response. But his expression remains as calm and impassive as usual, and it irks her. She had hoped he would be a least a little disappointed that she wouldn’t be visiting the cemetery - and him - as often as usual.
“Won’t you miss visiting your brother?” Malfoy asks, as he tilts his head in the direction of Fred’s grave. Ginny gazes out over the sea of gravestones for a moment before speaking.
“Malfoy, I love my brother, and I’ll always miss him, but it’s been a long time since he was the reason I visit this cemetery as often as I do.” She hesitates, working up the courage to look him in the eyes and ask him the one question she’s dying to have answered. “What’s the real reason you keep coming here?”
Malfoy opens his mouth to answer, and Ginny thinks if her heart beats any faster, it’s going to leap right out of her chest. Then, he notices that her hands are thrust deep within her pockets, and his eyes narrow with suspicion.
“What are you hiding in your pockets?”
Ginny blinks in surprise at the sudden change of topic, and then she can feel her cheeks burn beneath his scrutinizing gaze.
“If I show you, you promise you won’t laugh?”
“Yeah, okay,” Malfoy agrees, now staring at her quizzically. With a resigned sigh, Ginny pulls her hands out of her pockets, revealing two very ugly, very nobbly, bright red woolen mittens. For a few seconds, he just stares at them, his lips twitching in amusement. “You know, Weasley,” he says finally, “I think it’d be better if you just let your fingers freeze and fall off. Those have to be the most hideous things I’ve ever seen.”
He laughingly snatches one of the mittens off of her hand, but she dodges out of reach before he can seize the other.
"Malfoy, you complete arse, you promised not to laugh!" she squeals, ducking under his arm as he makes another grab for her. But she is laughing, too, and soon, they are both bounding around in the snow like a pair of idiots, and she is having too much fun to worry about the fact that this is hardly appropriate behavior for a cemetery. No one is around to witness it, anyway.
In the midst of swatting Malfoy over the head with her remaining mitten, he finally manages to catch her in his grasp, and before she realizes how it happened, both her woolly mittens are in the snow at their feet, and she is pressed up against him with her hands trapped between his chest and hers. She can feel his heart pounding like a gong, and she's sure hers is doing the same thing, only faster. And she suspects it's due to more than just the physical exertion of their impromptu wrestling match. They stand toe-to-toe in silence for what seems like an eternity as Ginny's long hair blows around them in a curtain of red, shielding them from prying eyes.
Suddenly, Malfoy lifts his hands to her face, sliding them down her cheeks and letting them linger against the sensitive skin of her neck. For some reason, she had thought his hands would be impeccably soft and manicured, but she is surprised to feel small callouses on his fingers, most likely from where he grips his broom while flying. And unlike hers, his hands are impossibly warm to the touch. It is not the first thing to surprise her about Draco Malfoy; nor, she suspects, will it be the last.
"You asked why I still come here every day," he says finally. "At first, it was out of guilt for Crabbe's death. I wanted to...well, I wanted to settle things between him and me, so to speak. Apologize for what I'd done, so I could finally move on. Then, after I first saw you here, I came out of curiosity. I wanted to know why you were here, and why you kept leaving flowers on Crabbe's grave, even after all the times he bullied you and your friends when he was alive. And after a while, I sort of started to look forward to seeing you here."
"Sort of?" Ginny repeats, and he rolls his eyes.
"Okay, more than just 'sort of'. A lot, actually. And the past few weeks, I've been coming here because I'm trying to work up the nerve to do something - something crazy and stupid, and maybe even a little dangerous."
"Like what?" she asks, although she thinks she already knows the answer.
"This," he murmurs, and then he is tilting her chin up, and his lips are brushing lightly against hers, and now she thinks her heart has stopped beating altogether.
Malfoy's lips tug at hers once, twice, three times, and then he draws back to assess her reaction. He looks tense, and possibly a little afraid that she might try hitting him over the head with her mittens again. But hitting him over the head is the last thing on Ginny's mind at the moment.
"Again," she demands, in a hoarse whisper. "Kiss me again."
His anxious expression melts into a satisfied smirk, but he doesn't immediately follow her command.
"I don't know if that's a good idea, Weasley," he teases. "Aren't there rules against kissing in graveyards?"
Ginny glares at him, wondering if she'll have to hit him again, after all. She glances at the nearby signpost with the cemetery rules.
"The rules say 'no cats, dogs, owls, or pygmy puffs allowed; no broom flying, no illicit potions, no Apparition or Disapparition, and no attempts to reanimate the dead'. I don't see any rules against kissing."
"Oh, I don't know," Malfoy drawls. "It might be one of those 'unspoken rules', and I don't think - "
But he doesn't get to finish his sentence, because, with an impatient huff, Ginny laces her small fingers through his hair and tugs his head down so she can kiss him once more. He chuckles against her lips, and she can feel the vibrations of his laughter all the way down to her toes, before she gently flicks her tongue against his, and his laughter transforms into a moan. She has always been petite, and he is a good deal taller than her, so she has to stand on her tip-toes to kiss him, but then he is wrapping his arms around her torso and pulling her closer, so that her feet are barely touching the ground, and his body heat is pouring into her, even through all the thick layers of clothes between them. Soon, all she can taste, smell, and feel is Draco Malfoy, until it seems as if he is consuming all of her senses, and there is nothing in the world but him, and the two of them, together in this moment.
Finally, they pull apart, taking in deep gulps of the late winter air. Ginny clings to Malfoy in a half-daze, and she is surprised all the snow hasn't melted into a puddle at their feet.
"So," he says, a bit breathlessly.
"So," she echoes.
They stare at each other for a few awkward moments, then, as if on cue, they burst into laughter.
"That was...well. That was some kiss," says Malfoy, once he's regained his breath. "What's next?"
"What's next is that you ask me out on a date, you silly prat. A proper date. I'm not about to make a habit of snogging you in cemeteries, you know."
"True," he says with a grin, glancing around at their dreary surroundings. "I think I can afford something with a little more...ambiance." He pauses to arch one perfect, golden eyebrow in her direction. "But what will your family think of you dating a Malfoy?"
Ginny shrugs, tucks her arm around his, and starts to lead him out of the cemetery.
"Don't care, really. I'm old enough to date whomever I please, and there's not much they can do about it. I think they'll get over it, eventually."
"Your family has always hated mine," he argues, as they pass through the heavy iron gates and out into the road beyond.
"Yes," Ginny agrees, nodding. "But people can change, you see."
His gaze meets hers, and she realizes that just like his hands, his eyes have the potential to be astonishingly warm.
"Yes," he says, "I see."
And suddenly, the whole thing makes sense to her after all. Because it took Harry six years to notice her, but it only took Malfoy eight weeks, one day, and a few hours to see her for who she was, and to realize that he wanted her just as much as she wanted him.
"Shall we?" Malfoy asks, holding his hand out to her. She smiles and nods, placing her hand in his larger one, and together, they turn on the spot and Disapparate, leaving the cold cemetery behind them in their search for someplace warmer.
~ Fin ~
Author: atalanta84
Summary: While visiting the Wizarding cemetery, Ginny runs into the last person she would expect to find there.
Rating: PG-13ish
Warning: A little angst, a little fluff, mild language, and a kiss, but no hanky panky (sorry! XD). EWE, obviously.
Word Count: ~ 5000
A/N: Happy (belated) birthday, amethyst18!!! Sorry it took me so long to get your gift posted, but RL was kicking my butt! I've never written this pairing before, but I know you like it, so I thought I'd give it a go, even if half my f-list is going to burn me at the stake for writing it! Heeeee! But I will risk anything to honor my dear beta's birthday! ;D
Cold Hands, Warm Heart
Ginny makes her way towards the familiar headstone, passing dozens of graves and crypts along the way. She pauses, as always, to glance at the tomb with the marble angel, whose cold, unseeing eyes seem to stare at her every time she passes beneath its gaze.
The grave she is visiting is one of the simpler ones, but it is covered with numerous offerings to indicate that its occupant is as much loved in death as he was in life. There are the usual flowers and wreaths, but there are stranger things as well - Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans, Skiving Snack Boxes, and various other tricks, treats, and oddities. She, like her parents, still comes to visit the grave every day, though she prefers to come alone. She thinks it is more for the sense of peace and solitude than anything else.
She comes bearing flowers of her own - a bouquet of red roses she has enchanted to withstand the winter wind. She bends down to lay them on the grave with the other gifts, pausing to wipe the cold snow off of her brother’s name.
“Happy New Year, Fred,” she whispers. “We miss you.”
There is no response but the soft rustle of the wind through the branches of the trees overhead. She stands upright, twirling one last rose between her fingers when suddenly, she hears the crunching of footsteps on the path behind her. She turns to see a tall, lean figure making his way to a nearby grave. Even as he trudges through the snow, huddled in a thick cloak against the bitter wind, his movements are strong and purposeful. She studies him, trying to make out his face behind the hood of his cloak, but it remains obscured from view. In his determination to reach his destination without slipping on the icy path, he does not appear to have noticed her presence.
Ginny watches in silence as he stands in front of a grave a few rows away from Fred’s. For a long time, the man doesn’t move, and she begins to think that maybe he has frozen in place, like one of the cemetery’s stone statues. Only the fluttering of his cloak in the wind betrays otherwise.
After an interminable amount of time, the man turns to leave, and at that moment, the wind catches his hood and throws it back from his face. Ginny gasps in surprise as she recognizes the pale, pointed features and the flash of blond hair, whipping in the gale.
Draco Malfoy stares back at her, his eyes widening in recognition. Then his face drops into a sneer before he tosses his hood back over his head and walks out of the cemetery more briskly than when he arrived.
Still stunned by the unexpected encounter, Ginny watches him leave. When she hears the cemetery gate clang shut behind him, she slowly walks over to where Malfoy had been standing. She wonders whose grave he had been visiting. As she had done with Fred’s headstone, she bends down to wipe away the snow, revealing the inscription engraved on the stone beneath: Vincent Crabbe, Jr.: March 10, 1980 - May 2, 1998.
Unlike Fred’s grave, Crabbe’s is barren, with nothing but the snow as decoration.
Ginny wonders what thoughts had been running through Malfoy’s mind as he stood before the grave of one of his best friends. She knows bits and pieces of what had happened in the Room of Requirement, between her friends and Malfoy’s, but Harry and the others have never been eager to speak about it. Still, she can’t help thinking that no one deserves to die such a tragic death, even if it was of his own making, and even if he was an awful person in life.
She doesn’t exactly know what motivates her to do so, but she takes the last of Fred’s flowers, the one she is still clutching in her hand, and she lays it down on top of Crabbe’s grave. She studies it for a moment, admiring the way the red petals create a splash of color against the grey and white of the snow-covered stone. Then, she turns and makes her way out of the cemetery to Disapparate home.
It is a solid week before Ginny works up the nerve to approach Malfoy during one of his visits to the cemetary.
For seven days, she has watched him arrive shortly after she does. Each time, he stands motionless in front of Crabbe’s grave for five minutes, and then leaves. And each time after he leaves, Ginny drops a fresh rose on Crabbe’s grave, replacing the one from the day before. She knows Malfoy must have noticed the flowers, and she imagines he knows who put them there, but since their first encounter, he has done nothing to acknowledge her presence.
After seven days of silence and mutual avoidance, Ginny decides she’s had enough. Jutting her chin in determination, she stomps across the snow, trying not to look like an idiot as she slips and slides on the path between Fred and Crabbe’s graves.
Malfoy makes no attempt to speak to her as she approaches, and when she comes to stand beside him, he doesn’t even raise his head. At first, this angers her, but when she sees the dark circles under his eyes, and the worry lines across his forehead, she bites her tongue against the caustic remark she was going to make. They stand in silence then, allowing the peace and quiet of the winter afternoon to surround them both.
Finally, Ginny bends down to pick up the rose she had laid on Crabbe’s grave the day before, and replaces it with a new one. When she stands upright once more, Malfoy is finally looking at her. She stares back boldly, unafraid of the hatred she knows she will find in his eyes. What she sees instead surprises her. There is no hatred; only bitterness, curiosity, and some other emotion that eludes her.
After a few tense moments, he turns and walks back up the path to the front gate, leaving her alone in the cemetery once more.
It takes another week of meeting in the cemetery before they speak to each other for the first time.
By now, they have fallen into a strange sort of routine. Each time Malfoy comes to visit Crabbe, she places a fresh rose on the grave, and each time, Malfoy leaves again without saying a word. Today, however, when she goes to place the rose, Malfoy holds out his hand to take it from her instead. After a moment’s hesitation, she reaches out to give it to him. When he takes the flower from her, his hand brushes up against hers, and before she can react, he jerks his hand away.
“Your hands are cold,” he mutters, as he leans down to place the rose on Crabbe’s grave. “Don’t suppose your family can afford gloves?”
“Don’t be a prat, Malfoy. Of course I have gloves.”
What she neglects to tell him is that they are actually nobbly, woolen mittens her mother knitted for her last Christmas, and they are so hideous, they couldn’t possibly be worn in public.
“You know, I really hoped you’d outgrown your stupid habit of mocking my family, but I guess some things really don’t change, do they?” she snaps, before turning to leave.
He catches her by the arm suddenly, and she whirls around, prepared to slap him. But she is not prepared for the surprising look of penitence on his face. Immediately, he drops her arm, running his hand through his white-blond hair in frustration. There is something almost comical about the way his hair stands on end when he does that, but Ginny finds herself lacking any desire to laugh about it.
“Look, Weasley, I…” He hesitates, glances up at the pewter-colored sky for inspiration, and then lowers his gaze to speak to her once more. “I’m sorry, okay?”
Ginny stares at him unblinkingly for several seconds, because it can’t be possible that Draco Malfoy just gave her an apology, when she thinks she would sooner catch him making shadow puppets with her ugly woolen mittens.
“Yeah, I actually apologized to you,” he grumbles, as if he can read her mind. “Just don’t go and make a big deal out of it.”
Then he stomps away, leaving her standing there in utter shock and bewilderment.
It is another two weeks before Malfoy says something genuinely nice to her. This occurs much sooner than her previous prediction of sometime between one million years from now, and the day the earth is finally devoured by a black hole.
She first notices something is different when he comes straight to meet her at Fred’s grave, rather than waiting for her to join him. She has just placed her usual bouquet of roses, reserving the extra for Crabbe’s grave. Malfoy stands beside her, shoves his hands in the pockets of his thick cloak, and stares in curiosity at the assorted offerings on Fred’s grave.
“What’s with the mince pie?” he asks.
“Oh, Mum must have left that,” she answers. He raises his eyebrows, and she shrugs in response. “It was Fred’s favorite.”
“Ah.”
Malfoy’s gaze falls to her latest batch of roses next.
“The spell you put on the flowers,” he says, “it’s… pretty good. Modified Stasis Charm?”
“Yeah,” she replies, trying to hide her surprise at his compliment. “Took me a while to get it to work, but I figured it out eventually.”
“Oh, well…” He pauses to kick at a nearby snowdrift. “Maybe you could show it to me sometime. Might be a good idea for me to bring something for Crabbe’s grave once in a while, rather than you always having to do it.”
“I don’t mind,” she says. And there it is again - that strange emotion that flickers across his slate-grey eyes and disappears as quickly as if the winter wind carried it away. He stares back down at Fred’s grave, as if looking for a distraction from the awkwardness of the situation. Suddenly, he gasps, as he notices something he hasn’t seen before - a magazine with a buxom witch strutting around on the cover.
“Is that porn?” he asks in astonishment.
“Yeah, it is,” Ginny says with an unladylike snort. “It was probably Lee Jordan that left it, although it could’ve been one of the other boys, I suppose. They…well, they like to keep their gifts as fun as possible. I think they figure it’s the best way to honor Fred - give him the sorts of things he liked when he was alive, you know?”
She struggles to explain the concept to Malfoy. Since he had hardly known Fred, she doesn’t see how he could possibly understand. Malfoy, however, simply shakes his head in disbelief, still staring at the racy, snow-dampened magazine that rests on the tomb.
“Are you even allowed to bring porn into cemeteries?"
“I’ve never heard of any rules against it.”
“Huh.” Malfoy scratches his chin thoughtfully. “Should’ve told me that sooner. As much as I admire your Stasis Charm, I don’t think Crabbe was a very big fan of roses.”
It is another two weeks later when Ginny begins to realize that maybe she doesn’t hate Draco Malfoy after all.
Today, she is later than usual for her visit to the cemetery, having just begun training for the Holyhead Harpies. As she dashes up the slushy path, she quietly bemoans the fact that she is still sweaty and disheveled from practice, and hasn’t had any time to fix her make-up.
She almost stops dead in her tracks at that last thought. It isn’t like her to give too much thought to her appearance, and she has never cared so much about the state of her make-up before, not even when she was dating Harry. As the only girl in a family of six boys, she has always been a bit of a tomboy, finding girlish things like make-up and manicures a little foolish and not worth wasting too much time on. She can’t quite put her finger on it, but something about being around Malfoy makes her feel utterly and completely feminine, in a way she has never felt before. Before she can puzzle over that thought any further, Malfoy interrupts her thoughts.
“How was practice?”
“Good,” she says distractedly. His eyes wander over her face and her windblown hair. He doesn’t appear the slightest bit disgusted by her appearance, but she still feels awkward and nervous.
“So, what did your parents say when they found out about that little photo shoot you did a few weeks ago?” he asks with a smirk. Ginny rolls her eyes, but a sly grin plays at the corners of her lips.
“How did I know you were going to bring that up?”
“Weasley, everyone in Wizarding Britain’s talking about how your photo is in the annual edition of ‘Quidditch Girls Gone Wild’. How could I not bring it up? Seriously though, what did your family think?”
“Mum certainly wasn’t pleased. She went on and on about common decency and how my actions were an ‘embarrassment to my family’. Dad just about had a heart attack, and don’t even get me started on what my brothers said…Still, it was a swimsuit edition, so it’s not as if I was completely starkers or anything. All the important bits were covered up. I don’t know why everyone’s making such a big fuss about it.”
“Why did you do it?” Malfoy asks, and his face carries an expression of genuine curiosity. Ginny shrugs.
“I don’t know. An act of rebellion, I suppose.”
“I bet it got Potter’s knickers in a twist,” he mutters. Ginny glances at him in surprise. The topic of Harry has never come up between them before, and she wonders about Malfoy’s sudden mention of him.
“I don’t care what Harry has to say about it,” she says coolly.
“Oh come on, Weasley, I was a Slytherin, remember? You can’t tell me you weren’t at least partially motivated by the idea of making him jealous? Reminding him what he’s missing?”
Ginny raises her eyebrows at him.
“Circe’s tit, Malfoy, we called it off eons ago! Don’t you read the papers? It was all over the front page for weeks, courtesy of that overgrown cockroach, Rita Skeeter.” She pauses, staring at him out of the corner of her eye. “Why do you care, anyway?”
He snorts derisively, but says nothing in response to her question. Ginny clears her throat, and focuses very hard on not meeting his gaze as she speaks.
“Harry and I…well, we just didn’t work out. We drifted apart during the year he was out hunting Horcruxes. We weren’t the same people anymore, after the war ended.”
“None of us is the same person we used to be,” Malfoy says quietly. Finally, Ginny brings herself to meet his eyes, and they carry an emotion she is slowly beginning to understand, and it frightens her at the same time that it creates a pleasant swooping sensation in her stomach. She clears her throat again, feeling rather irritated that Malfoy is able to elicit such a powerful reaction from her with only a glance.
“Did you look at it?” she asks. “My picture in the ‘Quidditch Girls Gone Wild’ photo shoot, I mean?”
“No!” Draco exclaims, looking uncharacteristically flustered. “Why on earth would I want to do that?”
But Ginny thinks his cheeks are pinker than usual when he says it, and although she lets the subject drop, she can’t help feeling a bit triumphant.
It only takes Ginny another week and a half to realize that not only does she not hate Draco Malfoy, she may actually be starting to like him. This fact is, of course, terrifying and difficult to believe. She doesn’t think it makes any sense. How could she even begin to be attracted to the boy who mocked her family for years, bullied her brother and his friends, and almost managed to get them killed, even if it was unintentional?
She first realizes something fundamental has changed between her and Malfoy when they begin to talk about something more meaningful than Quidditch, or the weather. They are standing in front of Crabbe’s grave, as usual, when the question bubbles out of her lips before she can stop it.
“What was he like?”
Malfoy turns to her, blinking in confusion.
“What do you mean?”
“What was Crabbe like? I mean…he was one of your best friends, wasn’t he?”
For several minutes, there is no sound but the wind, howling like a lost soul in the winter night. Ginny begins to think he’s not going to answer her, but just as she is about to leave, he finally speaks.
“I don’t really know,” he says, and when she turns to face him once more, he is staring off into the distance, watching the fresh snow drifts move in elegant swirling patterns across the graves. “I…I didn’t know him as well as I should have. We didn’t talk much, at least not about anything important. I just used him - to cover for me, to bully people for me…He never questioned me once, not until that night in the Room of Requirement. He wanted to kill Potter instead of trying to capture him alive.”
Draco’s voice is as bitter and cold as the February wind. Ginny shivers, gathering her cloak more tightly around her shoulders.
“I wasn’t there,” she whispers. “They left me behind.”
She had been left behind during the battle, told to wait in safety while the rest of her friends and family fought against the Death Eaters. Just as she had been left behind when Harry took Hermione and Ron with him to find the Horcruxes. She is the youngest of seven children, and she knows she should be used to being left behind by now…but she isn’t. And she doesn’t think she ever will be.
“Crabbe shouldn’t have been there,” Malfoy growls, and Ginny is surprised to realize he is angry. “He never would’ve been in that stupid Room of Requirement if it weren’t for me. He wouldn’t have…”
Malfoy’s voice breaks, and he doesn’t seem able to continue. He stands with his head hanging, and his blond fringe falling forward into his eyes. Ginny tries to swallow, but is unable to get past the lump that has suddenly developed in her throat. Then, before she quite realizes what she is doing, she reaches out to brush his hair out of his eyes. His hair is soft to the touch as it glides between her fingers, and when her hand grazes the side of his face, it is as smooth and cool as that of the marble angel she passes on her way into the cemetery every day. However, the instant her hand reaches his cheek, Malfoy flinches away. Embarrassed, and more than a bit disappointed by his reaction, she quickly withdraws her hand. But before she can retreat fully, he catches her wrist.
“Merlin, woman, your hands are like ice,” he grumbles, but there is a sort of softness in his facial expression that she has never seen before as he reaches out to grasp her other wrist as well. He cups both of her hands in his larger ones, and then, to her complete astonishment, he dips his head and warms them with his breath.
Ginny can’t help gasping as the heat of his breath caresses her fingertips like fire. She thinks she can feel that heat in other parts of her body as well, and it just doesn’t make any sense. Then, he looks up at her, his face breaking into a small, tentative smile that makes him look almost handsome. Actually, it makes him look downright irresistible, and at that moment, she doesn’t give a damn if the whole thing makes no sense at all.
It is exactly eight weeks, one day, and a few odd hours since the first time they met in the cemetery, when they finally kiss.
It is early March by now, and though the days are slightly longer and the air has lost some of its bite, there is still a thin layer of snow on the ground as Ginny enters the cemetery, shoves her hands in her pockets, and tromps down the path in the direction of Crabbe’s grave. There is a measure of determination in her steps as she approaches Malfoy, but if he notices it, he makes no comment.
“You’re late,” he says conversationally. “Quidditch practice run over today?”
“Yeah, the season officially starts next week, so the coach is pushing us pretty hard.”
“Oh,” Malfoy says. “So…I guess you won’t have time to come here every day anymore, will you?”
“Probably not,” Ginny says, while carefully gauging his response. But his expression remains as calm and impassive as usual, and it irks her. She had hoped he would be a least a little disappointed that she wouldn’t be visiting the cemetery - and him - as often as usual.
“Won’t you miss visiting your brother?” Malfoy asks, as he tilts his head in the direction of Fred’s grave. Ginny gazes out over the sea of gravestones for a moment before speaking.
“Malfoy, I love my brother, and I’ll always miss him, but it’s been a long time since he was the reason I visit this cemetery as often as I do.” She hesitates, working up the courage to look him in the eyes and ask him the one question she’s dying to have answered. “What’s the real reason you keep coming here?”
Malfoy opens his mouth to answer, and Ginny thinks if her heart beats any faster, it’s going to leap right out of her chest. Then, he notices that her hands are thrust deep within her pockets, and his eyes narrow with suspicion.
“What are you hiding in your pockets?”
Ginny blinks in surprise at the sudden change of topic, and then she can feel her cheeks burn beneath his scrutinizing gaze.
“If I show you, you promise you won’t laugh?”
“Yeah, okay,” Malfoy agrees, now staring at her quizzically. With a resigned sigh, Ginny pulls her hands out of her pockets, revealing two very ugly, very nobbly, bright red woolen mittens. For a few seconds, he just stares at them, his lips twitching in amusement. “You know, Weasley,” he says finally, “I think it’d be better if you just let your fingers freeze and fall off. Those have to be the most hideous things I’ve ever seen.”
He laughingly snatches one of the mittens off of her hand, but she dodges out of reach before he can seize the other.
"Malfoy, you complete arse, you promised not to laugh!" she squeals, ducking under his arm as he makes another grab for her. But she is laughing, too, and soon, they are both bounding around in the snow like a pair of idiots, and she is having too much fun to worry about the fact that this is hardly appropriate behavior for a cemetery. No one is around to witness it, anyway.
In the midst of swatting Malfoy over the head with her remaining mitten, he finally manages to catch her in his grasp, and before she realizes how it happened, both her woolly mittens are in the snow at their feet, and she is pressed up against him with her hands trapped between his chest and hers. She can feel his heart pounding like a gong, and she's sure hers is doing the same thing, only faster. And she suspects it's due to more than just the physical exertion of their impromptu wrestling match. They stand toe-to-toe in silence for what seems like an eternity as Ginny's long hair blows around them in a curtain of red, shielding them from prying eyes.
Suddenly, Malfoy lifts his hands to her face, sliding them down her cheeks and letting them linger against the sensitive skin of her neck. For some reason, she had thought his hands would be impeccably soft and manicured, but she is surprised to feel small callouses on his fingers, most likely from where he grips his broom while flying. And unlike hers, his hands are impossibly warm to the touch. It is not the first thing to surprise her about Draco Malfoy; nor, she suspects, will it be the last.
"You asked why I still come here every day," he says finally. "At first, it was out of guilt for Crabbe's death. I wanted to...well, I wanted to settle things between him and me, so to speak. Apologize for what I'd done, so I could finally move on. Then, after I first saw you here, I came out of curiosity. I wanted to know why you were here, and why you kept leaving flowers on Crabbe's grave, even after all the times he bullied you and your friends when he was alive. And after a while, I sort of started to look forward to seeing you here."
"Sort of?" Ginny repeats, and he rolls his eyes.
"Okay, more than just 'sort of'. A lot, actually. And the past few weeks, I've been coming here because I'm trying to work up the nerve to do something - something crazy and stupid, and maybe even a little dangerous."
"Like what?" she asks, although she thinks she already knows the answer.
"This," he murmurs, and then he is tilting her chin up, and his lips are brushing lightly against hers, and now she thinks her heart has stopped beating altogether.
Malfoy's lips tug at hers once, twice, three times, and then he draws back to assess her reaction. He looks tense, and possibly a little afraid that she might try hitting him over the head with her mittens again. But hitting him over the head is the last thing on Ginny's mind at the moment.
"Again," she demands, in a hoarse whisper. "Kiss me again."
His anxious expression melts into a satisfied smirk, but he doesn't immediately follow her command.
"I don't know if that's a good idea, Weasley," he teases. "Aren't there rules against kissing in graveyards?"
Ginny glares at him, wondering if she'll have to hit him again, after all. She glances at the nearby signpost with the cemetery rules.
"The rules say 'no cats, dogs, owls, or pygmy puffs allowed; no broom flying, no illicit potions, no Apparition or Disapparition, and no attempts to reanimate the dead'. I don't see any rules against kissing."
"Oh, I don't know," Malfoy drawls. "It might be one of those 'unspoken rules', and I don't think - "
But he doesn't get to finish his sentence, because, with an impatient huff, Ginny laces her small fingers through his hair and tugs his head down so she can kiss him once more. He chuckles against her lips, and she can feel the vibrations of his laughter all the way down to her toes, before she gently flicks her tongue against his, and his laughter transforms into a moan. She has always been petite, and he is a good deal taller than her, so she has to stand on her tip-toes to kiss him, but then he is wrapping his arms around her torso and pulling her closer, so that her feet are barely touching the ground, and his body heat is pouring into her, even through all the thick layers of clothes between them. Soon, all she can taste, smell, and feel is Draco Malfoy, until it seems as if he is consuming all of her senses, and there is nothing in the world but him, and the two of them, together in this moment.
Finally, they pull apart, taking in deep gulps of the late winter air. Ginny clings to Malfoy in a half-daze, and she is surprised all the snow hasn't melted into a puddle at their feet.
"So," he says, a bit breathlessly.
"So," she echoes.
They stare at each other for a few awkward moments, then, as if on cue, they burst into laughter.
"That was...well. That was some kiss," says Malfoy, once he's regained his breath. "What's next?"
"What's next is that you ask me out on a date, you silly prat. A proper date. I'm not about to make a habit of snogging you in cemeteries, you know."
"True," he says with a grin, glancing around at their dreary surroundings. "I think I can afford something with a little more...ambiance." He pauses to arch one perfect, golden eyebrow in her direction. "But what will your family think of you dating a Malfoy?"
Ginny shrugs, tucks her arm around his, and starts to lead him out of the cemetery.
"Don't care, really. I'm old enough to date whomever I please, and there's not much they can do about it. I think they'll get over it, eventually."
"Your family has always hated mine," he argues, as they pass through the heavy iron gates and out into the road beyond.
"Yes," Ginny agrees, nodding. "But people can change, you see."
His gaze meets hers, and she realizes that just like his hands, his eyes have the potential to be astonishingly warm.
"Yes," he says, "I see."
And suddenly, the whole thing makes sense to her after all. Because it took Harry six years to notice her, but it only took Malfoy eight weeks, one day, and a few hours to see her for who she was, and to realize that he wanted her just as much as she wanted him.
"Shall we?" Malfoy asks, holding his hand out to her. She smiles and nods, placing her hand in his larger one, and together, they turn on the spot and Disapparate, leaving the cold cemetery behind them in their search for someplace warmer.
~ Fin ~