♥ "Past Imperfect" for dgficexchange ♥
Title: Past Imperfect
Rating: PG13
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: If you’ve read the books, you’re good.
Author's Notes: This isn’t at all the fic I set out to write, but, oddly enough, I like it better that way. Thanks a million to my lovely betas. I couldn’t have done this without you. ♥
Summary: It should have worked out. Sometimes I don’t understand why it didn’t. I mean, I know why. All the fights and the cold silences and those terribly awkward moments where you feel like you’re lying in bed next to a complete stranger. But, when you scrape all that away and look at what we had, what we started with, it should have worked.
Past Imperfect
You have to know the past to understand the present.
Ginny stared into the fire, trying to find a way to respond to Draco’s question. After a long moment, she sighed and shook her head. There was no good way to word what she was about to say, and, to be perfectly honest, she didn’t care. Either he understood or he didn’t. And, if he didn’t, it was better to know now instead of when it was too late to back out without hurt feelings.
“It should have worked out. Sometimes I don’t understand why it didn’t. I mean, I know why. All the fights and the cold silences and those terribly awkward moments where you feel like you’re lying in bed next to a complete stranger. But, when you scrape all that away and look at what we had, what we started with, it should have worked.”
She sighed again and licked her lips. “Harry was so completely familiar, so enmeshed in my family, that dating him seemed right. Natural. He saved my life, you know, back in my first year. But even before that, he was Harry Potter. The Boy Who Lived. And he was my favorite brother’s best friend. All Ron wrote home about his first year was how wonderful Harry was. Well, that and how wicked smart Hermione was. By the time I finally met him I had this image in my head no one could live up to. And yet, somehow, he did.”
“Saint Potter,” Draco muttered under his breath.
“Yes, that exactly.” Ginny nodded as she pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “And all that was before he saved my life, so you can just imagine how strong a school girl crush I developed.”
“To be honest, I’m surprised it took you two as long as it did to finally pair off.”
“Well, if it had been up to me it wouldn’t have. I would have snapped him right up. But he wasn’t interested.” Ginny lifted a shoulder. “Not that I blame him. I was Ron’s little sister who couldn’t say a peep if he was in the room. Hardly the stuff that daydreams are made of.”
Draco gave her a thin smile. “Seeing as how I ended up with one of my mate’s little sister, I can’t exactly say that I agree.”
Ginny arched her brow. “Ah, but did you fancy her when you were in Hogwarts?”
“Not in the slightest,” Draco admitted with a chuckle.
“Harry didn’t see me as my own person for years. Naturally, by the time he did I had honestly given up hope. Moved on completely. It came as a total shock when he started making cow eyes at me and chasing me down to ask me my opinion on all matter of things. It was like a dream come true, like a fairytale. Somehow I finally had my happy ending.” She grimaced. “Of course, then came the war.” Her face clouded over. “Merlin, those were tough times. Half the time I was filled with this burning desire to right all the wrongs, to vanquish all the foes, no matter what it cost. And the other half I spent crying myself to sleep, completely certain that Harry would die and the world would end. I was so relieved when it was finally over.” Ginny clasped her hands together tightly to hide their shaking. “I felt terrible about it for years after, that sense of relief. My brother was dead. And Remus and Tonks and scads of others, but all I could feel was this giddy euphoria because I was alive. I had made it out unscathed. And so had Harry. Brilliant, wonderful, self-sacrificing Harry.” She gave him a watery smile.
“That’s how we all felt.” Draco covered her hands with his. “There is no shame in it, Ginny. None at all. Those were god awful times and we all went a little mad when the end finally came.”
Ginny swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “It was in that moment, right after the last battle, that I knew how my future was going to play out. I was going to marry Harry. We were going to raise a big, happy family and be simply blissful together. People were going to wish they were us.” She shook her head. “And, for a while, that’s just what we did. We had the enormous wedding, the blissful honeymoon and were pregnant before that first year was out. Then there was James, and my word, there was never a couple more besotted with their baby than Harry and I were. Soon after that we had Albus and Lily and life couldn’t have been more perfect.” Her voice was wistful. “We were living in a house of cards and didn’t even know it.”
Draco shifted back in his chair and linked his hands together over his stomach. “What made the cards come tumbling down?”
“Nothing. Everything. To put it bluntly, life and all its inherent messiness.” Ginny picked at the seam on the arm of her chair. “Harry and I had nothing in common, outside of Quidditch and my brother. We got on well enough in the beginning, but we were never close in that way that some couples are. We didn’t enjoy the same books. We didn’t like the same music. Merlin, we didn’t even support the same Quidditch teams. In short, we never had much to say to each other that wasn’t about our children or the weather.” She paused to take a sip of tea.
“He’s a good man, a terrific father and a hard worker, but he was never a suitable match for me. And, truth be told, I wasn’t for him either. But that wasn’t enough for us to split up. Not when we had the children to think of. So I lived my life with my circle of friends and he lived his with his. We made it work because that’s the sort of people that we are.” Her lips thinned and she gave a dishearten laugh. “It wasn’t a happy life, but it wasn’t a terrible one either. Odds are we would have stayed together to the bitter end if we’d managed to maintain that status quo. But everything changed once the kids were off at Hogwarts.”
“Was it the being alone together that did it? Not having them around to run interference, as it were?”
Ginny frowned. “No, not exactly. We got on better, actually. Because we didn’t have to pretend. While they were at school I would hardly see Harry. He was there in the morning when I woke up, we would have a silent breakfast as we read the paper, and then I wouldn’t see him again until practically time for bed. He’d do his washing up, I’d do mine and we’d fall asleep having barely said more than ten words to each other all day. Then they’d come back and we’d have to struggle through what should have been normal conversations. We’d argue over everything. One or the other of us would try to take the lot off by ourselves and then fly into a furry when they asked for both of us to come along.”
Draco scratched his cheek. “Sounds like the whole lot of you were miserable.”
“That’s putting it mildly.” Ginny pulled a face. “I’ve never told anyone this, and I don’t know why I’m tell you now, but James was the one who suggested that we get a divorce. And it wasn’t in the heat of an argument either. No, he asked us both to go on a walk with him in the woods behind our house and then he calmly outlined his reasons for why Harry and I should end it. He said he’d been thinking about it for over a year. You could have knocked me over with a feather. My son, my sixteen-year-old son, was trying to convince me to leave my husband. And he was right.”
“That’s got to be hard to swallow.” Draco winced in sympathy.
Ginny leaned her chin on her hand and gave sardonic laugh. “That’s not the worst of it. We hadn’t yet gotten past the shock of having our lives parsed out for us by James, when Lily, my baby girl, rushed up and demanded to know if he had told us yet. Apparently the three of them had it all settled it among themselves. Right down to who would keep the house and who got the dog.”
“I’m guessing he got the dog.”
She nodded. “We signed the papers a week later. Didn’t involve lawyers at all, just split everything up between us as politely as you please and headed our separate ways. In the five years since, we’ve been nothing but happy. And, would you believe it, we are actually friends. For the first time in our lives, Harry and I are friends.”
Draco flicked his wand and a log added itself to the fire. “I heard you were the matron of honor at his second wedding.” He arched a brow. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see the picture in The Daily Prophet.”
“Yes, well.” Ginny lifted a shoulder. “Luna always was my very dear friend. We were close from our first train ride to Hogwarts and that closeness continued throughout our lives since then. It only made sense that we stood up for each other.” She shot him a grin, “Though I do have to admit that it was a little odd that we both ended up marrying the same man.”
“So you have no resentment over it at all? Not even an ounce of disquiet?”
Ginny turned to the side table and lifted up the pot of tea to refill her cup. “Not at all. Luna and Harry are perfect for each other. They understand each other in a way that is almost uncanny. My only qualm is what they would name any child they happened to have. I was always the voice of reason where that was concerned with Harry, and now that he’s with Luna,” she let her voice trail off.
“What did she name those boys of hers again? Something odd, wasn’t it?” Draco narrowed his eyes in thought.
“Lorcan and Lysander, which, actually, isn’t all that bad. She was considering Xeno and Philius as a tribute to her father, but Rolf talked her out of it. Good old Rolf.” Ginny gave him a weak smile. “He was such a lovely, batty, old chap. It was a terrible shame, the way his heart gave out on him. Thank Merlin Harry was around to comfort her through the loss.”
“Has anyone told you that you’re weird?” Draco gave her a bemused look. “The way you talk, no one would think that Harry was ever anything more to you than a brother.”
“I take it things didn’t end amicably with you and your ex.” Ginny’s words held mild reproof.
“What? Astoria? She’d been shagging some count for months behind my back before I found out. Married him the day after our divorce was finalized. So, no, not what you would call amicable.”
Instantly contrite, Ginny set down her cup and leaned across the space between them to rest her hand his knee. “I’m sorry I brought it up at all, let alone taking the piss.”
He covered her hand with his and squeezed it gently. “No,” he let out a breath, “it’s something we ought to talk about if we are seriously considering this. You need to know my history the same way I needed to know yours.” Draco closed his eyes for a moment, his face etched with disappointment. “I loved her. As God is my witness, I loved her. She was my everything, my all. I thought the moon was hung in the sky just for her pleasure.” He gave a bitter laugh. “I gave her everything she ever wanted. If she so much as even looked at something, I bought it for her. I let her redo the whole Manor. I had her portrait painted eight times so that I would have a different one to hang in each of our residences. I would have cut out my heart and handed it to her on a platter if she’d hinted at that being what she wanted.”
“You can’t buy love,” Ginny said quietly.
“You think I don’t know that? With my parents being who they are?” Draco shoved his hands through his hair and let out a frustrated sigh. “I just thought,” a shake of the head and a long pause. “I loved her so much, Ginny. So much. I know that money doesn’t buy love and that things aren’t the same as affection, but what was money to me? I’ve got more money than Gringotts. And she just adored presents. Her whole face would light up whenever I handed her some trifle or another.” He shook his head again. “You might as well know right now that I’m not as expressive as I should be. I tend to keep my emotions under tight control. It’s hard for me to say how much someone means to me or to tell people how I feel. But gifts, those are easy. I see something a person I care for would like and I buy it; and when they hold it, when it sits there in their room gathering dust, it is a tangible sign of my affection. I can figuratively point to it and say to myself ‘At such and such a time and for such and such a reason, I loved you enough to buy this.’ For right or wrong, that’s how I am.”
Ginny let out a breath, “That’s understandable. Not the best mode of communication, mind, but I can see the logic of it.”
Draco nodded. “Although, I have to admit that I have an easier time discussing these sorts of things with you than I ever did with her. Even at the beginning of our relationship there was a disconnect between us. We stood side by side looking out at the world and saw completely different versions of reality.”
He lapsed into silence and Ginny floundered for something to say. After a long pause, she settled on the simple, if banal, question: “How did you meet?”
Draco smiled, but the smile didn’t make it all the way to his eyes. “At one of those parties they have.” He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair. “You know the sort. Lots of blokes in black and women in robes that cost more than people in sub-Saharan Africa make in a year.” Ginny laughed and he gave her a half grin in return. “She was wearing this pale rose confection that looked rather like an elaborately frosted cupcake. Her hair was piled up on top of her head and held in place with pearl studded rosebuds and fairy lights. Merlin, the way her skin seemed to glow.” He stared off into space, adding softly, “I’d never seen anyone more innocent looking.” Draco cleared his throat, a hard look coming over his features. “And that, of course, was the problem.”
“Oh?”
“She’s younger than us, Astoria is.” Draco leaned forward, his clasped hands resting on his knees. “Not by much, just a year or two, but young enough not to have been there at the center of things the way we were. Plus, she’s a Greengrass. That lot avoid even the hint of impropriety. So, of course, she and Daphne were yanked out of Hogwarts as soon as things started taking a turn for the worse. Sent right over to Beauxbatons, they were, and not brought back again till well after everything had died down over here.”
Ginny wrinkled her brow. “I’m not seeing how that is a problem.”
“Oh, that wasn’t. Not in and of itself. But it led to both of us having distorted views of each other. I saw her as this pristine thing, untouched by all the horror and chaos of the war. And she saw me as a bloody hero.” He let out a disgusted snort. “I didn’t know it, and Merlin knows I never would have married her if I had, but Astoria was a Death Eater sympathizer. Thought they were a noble and glorious lot, she did. We all did, back before the Dark Lord rose again. Then we had what he was really like shoved in our faces, had to live with the grim cruelty of his rule, and it knocked any ideas of him being some sort of benevolent liberator right out of our fool heads.”
“We were all foolish back then. Even those of us whose parents raised us to oppose him. It was all words, you know. Nothing meaningful. Nothing more than a boggart in a closet.” Ginny stared down at the floor, unable to meet his eyes.
It was Draco’s turn to reach out and offer her the comfort of his hand. “But you grew out of it, same as the rest of us did. Astoria, on the other hand, spent those dreadful years safely cocooned in the perfumed air of Beauxbatons, giggling with her friends and dreaming about marrying a handsome Death Eater when she grew up.” His voice was harsh with derision.
“And that handsome Death Eater was you?”
“Yes,” was Draco’s curt reply.
Ginny took a sip of her tea and let the silence grow. When the emptiness became deafening, she said, “How long did it take before things fell apart?”
“Surprisingly enough, not until Scorpius was born. Until then it was fairly easy to ignore our differences. I would turn a blind eye on her anti-Muggle leanings while she pretended that I was an unreformed Death Eater who was hiding my true feelings to avoid persecution. But once Scorpius was born, all our fantasies went up in smoke. She wanted to teach him the same sort of bigoted thinking that we’d had instilled in us and I wasn’t about to have that. My son was not going to be hampered by outmoded ideals, even if it meant losing what little of his mother’s heart I managed to possess.”
“But,” Ginny frowned. “I’m sure I remember that you split up with your wife a little ways after Harry and I accepted the inevitable.”
“Right you are.” Draco shifted in his seat, stretching his legs out in front of him. “Call me old fashioned, but I didn’t believe in divorce. Still don’t, fair warning. If it were up to me, Astoria and I would still be married. I was quite happy, you know, living my life the way I was. She was off on the continent, spending my money and having a grand time, and I was left to my own devices. But then Astoria met her count and decided that being married to him was a sight better than being married to me and the rest, as they say, is history,” Draco finished blithely.
“I’m sorry she hurt you.”
Draco stood and moved over to Ginny’s chair. She tilted her head back to gaze up at him and he cupped her face between his hands. “I’m not.”
“You aren’t?”
He shook his head. “Not in the slightest. Not when it means that I have this chance with you.” Draco lowered his head and brushed her lips gently with his. “I love you, Ginny Weasley, for all you’ve had the bad taste to marry Potter.” She slapped at his shoulder and he grinned. “I love you, and, sometimes, I think you love me too.”
Ginny gave him a brilliant smile. “I do. Merlin help me when my brother finds out, but I do.”
* “You have to know the past to understand the present” is a quote from Dr. Carl Sagan
Original Prompt:
Briefly describe what you'd like to receive in your fic: A realistic romance. Too often, stories begin with Draco and Pansy or Harry and Ginny having broken up without ever exploring why or just tacking on a silly reason. I'd like to read a story which addresses the question of why a relationship would work (or not work) between Draco and Ginny, given their pasts with other people.
The tone/mood of the fic: romantic, dramatic, bleak or eerie is fine if you're going the it-doesn't-work-out-route, angst is welcome
An element/line of dialogue/object you would specifically like in your fic: "I loved her, and sometimes, she loved me too." (can also be "him")
Preferred rating of the the fic you want: any
Canon or AU? canon, but EWE is fine
Deal Breakers (anything you don't want?): OOC (even if it's supposed to be humorous), suddenly-good-guy!Draco, character-bashing, inexplicably and abruptly falling in love, sappy or fluffy romance; other than these, anything goes: happy ending, sad ending, romance working out or not working out, whatever you want to write!
Rating: PG13
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: If you’ve read the books, you’re good.
Author's Notes: This isn’t at all the fic I set out to write, but, oddly enough, I like it better that way. Thanks a million to my lovely betas. I couldn’t have done this without you. ♥
Summary: It should have worked out. Sometimes I don’t understand why it didn’t. I mean, I know why. All the fights and the cold silences and those terribly awkward moments where you feel like you’re lying in bed next to a complete stranger. But, when you scrape all that away and look at what we had, what we started with, it should have worked.
Past Imperfect
You have to know the past to understand the present.
Ginny stared into the fire, trying to find a way to respond to Draco’s question. After a long moment, she sighed and shook her head. There was no good way to word what she was about to say, and, to be perfectly honest, she didn’t care. Either he understood or he didn’t. And, if he didn’t, it was better to know now instead of when it was too late to back out without hurt feelings.
“It should have worked out. Sometimes I don’t understand why it didn’t. I mean, I know why. All the fights and the cold silences and those terribly awkward moments where you feel like you’re lying in bed next to a complete stranger. But, when you scrape all that away and look at what we had, what we started with, it should have worked.”
She sighed again and licked her lips. “Harry was so completely familiar, so enmeshed in my family, that dating him seemed right. Natural. He saved my life, you know, back in my first year. But even before that, he was Harry Potter. The Boy Who Lived. And he was my favorite brother’s best friend. All Ron wrote home about his first year was how wonderful Harry was. Well, that and how wicked smart Hermione was. By the time I finally met him I had this image in my head no one could live up to. And yet, somehow, he did.”
“Saint Potter,” Draco muttered under his breath.
“Yes, that exactly.” Ginny nodded as she pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “And all that was before he saved my life, so you can just imagine how strong a school girl crush I developed.”
“To be honest, I’m surprised it took you two as long as it did to finally pair off.”
“Well, if it had been up to me it wouldn’t have. I would have snapped him right up. But he wasn’t interested.” Ginny lifted a shoulder. “Not that I blame him. I was Ron’s little sister who couldn’t say a peep if he was in the room. Hardly the stuff that daydreams are made of.”
Draco gave her a thin smile. “Seeing as how I ended up with one of my mate’s little sister, I can’t exactly say that I agree.”
Ginny arched her brow. “Ah, but did you fancy her when you were in Hogwarts?”
“Not in the slightest,” Draco admitted with a chuckle.
“Harry didn’t see me as my own person for years. Naturally, by the time he did I had honestly given up hope. Moved on completely. It came as a total shock when he started making cow eyes at me and chasing me down to ask me my opinion on all matter of things. It was like a dream come true, like a fairytale. Somehow I finally had my happy ending.” She grimaced. “Of course, then came the war.” Her face clouded over. “Merlin, those were tough times. Half the time I was filled with this burning desire to right all the wrongs, to vanquish all the foes, no matter what it cost. And the other half I spent crying myself to sleep, completely certain that Harry would die and the world would end. I was so relieved when it was finally over.” Ginny clasped her hands together tightly to hide their shaking. “I felt terrible about it for years after, that sense of relief. My brother was dead. And Remus and Tonks and scads of others, but all I could feel was this giddy euphoria because I was alive. I had made it out unscathed. And so had Harry. Brilliant, wonderful, self-sacrificing Harry.” She gave him a watery smile.
“That’s how we all felt.” Draco covered her hands with his. “There is no shame in it, Ginny. None at all. Those were god awful times and we all went a little mad when the end finally came.”
Ginny swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “It was in that moment, right after the last battle, that I knew how my future was going to play out. I was going to marry Harry. We were going to raise a big, happy family and be simply blissful together. People were going to wish they were us.” She shook her head. “And, for a while, that’s just what we did. We had the enormous wedding, the blissful honeymoon and were pregnant before that first year was out. Then there was James, and my word, there was never a couple more besotted with their baby than Harry and I were. Soon after that we had Albus and Lily and life couldn’t have been more perfect.” Her voice was wistful. “We were living in a house of cards and didn’t even know it.”
Draco shifted back in his chair and linked his hands together over his stomach. “What made the cards come tumbling down?”
“Nothing. Everything. To put it bluntly, life and all its inherent messiness.” Ginny picked at the seam on the arm of her chair. “Harry and I had nothing in common, outside of Quidditch and my brother. We got on well enough in the beginning, but we were never close in that way that some couples are. We didn’t enjoy the same books. We didn’t like the same music. Merlin, we didn’t even support the same Quidditch teams. In short, we never had much to say to each other that wasn’t about our children or the weather.” She paused to take a sip of tea.
“He’s a good man, a terrific father and a hard worker, but he was never a suitable match for me. And, truth be told, I wasn’t for him either. But that wasn’t enough for us to split up. Not when we had the children to think of. So I lived my life with my circle of friends and he lived his with his. We made it work because that’s the sort of people that we are.” Her lips thinned and she gave a dishearten laugh. “It wasn’t a happy life, but it wasn’t a terrible one either. Odds are we would have stayed together to the bitter end if we’d managed to maintain that status quo. But everything changed once the kids were off at Hogwarts.”
“Was it the being alone together that did it? Not having them around to run interference, as it were?”
Ginny frowned. “No, not exactly. We got on better, actually. Because we didn’t have to pretend. While they were at school I would hardly see Harry. He was there in the morning when I woke up, we would have a silent breakfast as we read the paper, and then I wouldn’t see him again until practically time for bed. He’d do his washing up, I’d do mine and we’d fall asleep having barely said more than ten words to each other all day. Then they’d come back and we’d have to struggle through what should have been normal conversations. We’d argue over everything. One or the other of us would try to take the lot off by ourselves and then fly into a furry when they asked for both of us to come along.”
Draco scratched his cheek. “Sounds like the whole lot of you were miserable.”
“That’s putting it mildly.” Ginny pulled a face. “I’ve never told anyone this, and I don’t know why I’m tell you now, but James was the one who suggested that we get a divorce. And it wasn’t in the heat of an argument either. No, he asked us both to go on a walk with him in the woods behind our house and then he calmly outlined his reasons for why Harry and I should end it. He said he’d been thinking about it for over a year. You could have knocked me over with a feather. My son, my sixteen-year-old son, was trying to convince me to leave my husband. And he was right.”
“That’s got to be hard to swallow.” Draco winced in sympathy.
Ginny leaned her chin on her hand and gave sardonic laugh. “That’s not the worst of it. We hadn’t yet gotten past the shock of having our lives parsed out for us by James, when Lily, my baby girl, rushed up and demanded to know if he had told us yet. Apparently the three of them had it all settled it among themselves. Right down to who would keep the house and who got the dog.”
“I’m guessing he got the dog.”
She nodded. “We signed the papers a week later. Didn’t involve lawyers at all, just split everything up between us as politely as you please and headed our separate ways. In the five years since, we’ve been nothing but happy. And, would you believe it, we are actually friends. For the first time in our lives, Harry and I are friends.”
Draco flicked his wand and a log added itself to the fire. “I heard you were the matron of honor at his second wedding.” He arched a brow. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see the picture in The Daily Prophet.”
“Yes, well.” Ginny lifted a shoulder. “Luna always was my very dear friend. We were close from our first train ride to Hogwarts and that closeness continued throughout our lives since then. It only made sense that we stood up for each other.” She shot him a grin, “Though I do have to admit that it was a little odd that we both ended up marrying the same man.”
“So you have no resentment over it at all? Not even an ounce of disquiet?”
Ginny turned to the side table and lifted up the pot of tea to refill her cup. “Not at all. Luna and Harry are perfect for each other. They understand each other in a way that is almost uncanny. My only qualm is what they would name any child they happened to have. I was always the voice of reason where that was concerned with Harry, and now that he’s with Luna,” she let her voice trail off.
“What did she name those boys of hers again? Something odd, wasn’t it?” Draco narrowed his eyes in thought.
“Lorcan and Lysander, which, actually, isn’t all that bad. She was considering Xeno and Philius as a tribute to her father, but Rolf talked her out of it. Good old Rolf.” Ginny gave him a weak smile. “He was such a lovely, batty, old chap. It was a terrible shame, the way his heart gave out on him. Thank Merlin Harry was around to comfort her through the loss.”
“Has anyone told you that you’re weird?” Draco gave her a bemused look. “The way you talk, no one would think that Harry was ever anything more to you than a brother.”
“I take it things didn’t end amicably with you and your ex.” Ginny’s words held mild reproof.
“What? Astoria? She’d been shagging some count for months behind my back before I found out. Married him the day after our divorce was finalized. So, no, not what you would call amicable.”
Instantly contrite, Ginny set down her cup and leaned across the space between them to rest her hand his knee. “I’m sorry I brought it up at all, let alone taking the piss.”
He covered her hand with his and squeezed it gently. “No,” he let out a breath, “it’s something we ought to talk about if we are seriously considering this. You need to know my history the same way I needed to know yours.” Draco closed his eyes for a moment, his face etched with disappointment. “I loved her. As God is my witness, I loved her. She was my everything, my all. I thought the moon was hung in the sky just for her pleasure.” He gave a bitter laugh. “I gave her everything she ever wanted. If she so much as even looked at something, I bought it for her. I let her redo the whole Manor. I had her portrait painted eight times so that I would have a different one to hang in each of our residences. I would have cut out my heart and handed it to her on a platter if she’d hinted at that being what she wanted.”
“You can’t buy love,” Ginny said quietly.
“You think I don’t know that? With my parents being who they are?” Draco shoved his hands through his hair and let out a frustrated sigh. “I just thought,” a shake of the head and a long pause. “I loved her so much, Ginny. So much. I know that money doesn’t buy love and that things aren’t the same as affection, but what was money to me? I’ve got more money than Gringotts. And she just adored presents. Her whole face would light up whenever I handed her some trifle or another.” He shook his head again. “You might as well know right now that I’m not as expressive as I should be. I tend to keep my emotions under tight control. It’s hard for me to say how much someone means to me or to tell people how I feel. But gifts, those are easy. I see something a person I care for would like and I buy it; and when they hold it, when it sits there in their room gathering dust, it is a tangible sign of my affection. I can figuratively point to it and say to myself ‘At such and such a time and for such and such a reason, I loved you enough to buy this.’ For right or wrong, that’s how I am.”
Ginny let out a breath, “That’s understandable. Not the best mode of communication, mind, but I can see the logic of it.”
Draco nodded. “Although, I have to admit that I have an easier time discussing these sorts of things with you than I ever did with her. Even at the beginning of our relationship there was a disconnect between us. We stood side by side looking out at the world and saw completely different versions of reality.”
He lapsed into silence and Ginny floundered for something to say. After a long pause, she settled on the simple, if banal, question: “How did you meet?”
Draco smiled, but the smile didn’t make it all the way to his eyes. “At one of those parties they have.” He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair. “You know the sort. Lots of blokes in black and women in robes that cost more than people in sub-Saharan Africa make in a year.” Ginny laughed and he gave her a half grin in return. “She was wearing this pale rose confection that looked rather like an elaborately frosted cupcake. Her hair was piled up on top of her head and held in place with pearl studded rosebuds and fairy lights. Merlin, the way her skin seemed to glow.” He stared off into space, adding softly, “I’d never seen anyone more innocent looking.” Draco cleared his throat, a hard look coming over his features. “And that, of course, was the problem.”
“Oh?”
“She’s younger than us, Astoria is.” Draco leaned forward, his clasped hands resting on his knees. “Not by much, just a year or two, but young enough not to have been there at the center of things the way we were. Plus, she’s a Greengrass. That lot avoid even the hint of impropriety. So, of course, she and Daphne were yanked out of Hogwarts as soon as things started taking a turn for the worse. Sent right over to Beauxbatons, they were, and not brought back again till well after everything had died down over here.”
Ginny wrinkled her brow. “I’m not seeing how that is a problem.”
“Oh, that wasn’t. Not in and of itself. But it led to both of us having distorted views of each other. I saw her as this pristine thing, untouched by all the horror and chaos of the war. And she saw me as a bloody hero.” He let out a disgusted snort. “I didn’t know it, and Merlin knows I never would have married her if I had, but Astoria was a Death Eater sympathizer. Thought they were a noble and glorious lot, she did. We all did, back before the Dark Lord rose again. Then we had what he was really like shoved in our faces, had to live with the grim cruelty of his rule, and it knocked any ideas of him being some sort of benevolent liberator right out of our fool heads.”
“We were all foolish back then. Even those of us whose parents raised us to oppose him. It was all words, you know. Nothing meaningful. Nothing more than a boggart in a closet.” Ginny stared down at the floor, unable to meet his eyes.
It was Draco’s turn to reach out and offer her the comfort of his hand. “But you grew out of it, same as the rest of us did. Astoria, on the other hand, spent those dreadful years safely cocooned in the perfumed air of Beauxbatons, giggling with her friends and dreaming about marrying a handsome Death Eater when she grew up.” His voice was harsh with derision.
“And that handsome Death Eater was you?”
“Yes,” was Draco’s curt reply.
Ginny took a sip of her tea and let the silence grow. When the emptiness became deafening, she said, “How long did it take before things fell apart?”
“Surprisingly enough, not until Scorpius was born. Until then it was fairly easy to ignore our differences. I would turn a blind eye on her anti-Muggle leanings while she pretended that I was an unreformed Death Eater who was hiding my true feelings to avoid persecution. But once Scorpius was born, all our fantasies went up in smoke. She wanted to teach him the same sort of bigoted thinking that we’d had instilled in us and I wasn’t about to have that. My son was not going to be hampered by outmoded ideals, even if it meant losing what little of his mother’s heart I managed to possess.”
“But,” Ginny frowned. “I’m sure I remember that you split up with your wife a little ways after Harry and I accepted the inevitable.”
“Right you are.” Draco shifted in his seat, stretching his legs out in front of him. “Call me old fashioned, but I didn’t believe in divorce. Still don’t, fair warning. If it were up to me, Astoria and I would still be married. I was quite happy, you know, living my life the way I was. She was off on the continent, spending my money and having a grand time, and I was left to my own devices. But then Astoria met her count and decided that being married to him was a sight better than being married to me and the rest, as they say, is history,” Draco finished blithely.
“I’m sorry she hurt you.”
Draco stood and moved over to Ginny’s chair. She tilted her head back to gaze up at him and he cupped her face between his hands. “I’m not.”
“You aren’t?”
He shook his head. “Not in the slightest. Not when it means that I have this chance with you.” Draco lowered his head and brushed her lips gently with his. “I love you, Ginny Weasley, for all you’ve had the bad taste to marry Potter.” She slapped at his shoulder and he grinned. “I love you, and, sometimes, I think you love me too.”
Ginny gave him a brilliant smile. “I do. Merlin help me when my brother finds out, but I do.”
* “You have to know the past to understand the present” is a quote from Dr. Carl Sagan
Original Prompt:
Briefly describe what you'd like to receive in your fic: A realistic romance. Too often, stories begin with Draco and Pansy or Harry and Ginny having broken up without ever exploring why or just tacking on a silly reason. I'd like to read a story which addresses the question of why a relationship would work (or not work) between Draco and Ginny, given their pasts with other people.
The tone/mood of the fic: romantic, dramatic, bleak or eerie is fine if you're going the it-doesn't-work-out-route, angst is welcome
An element/line of dialogue/object you would specifically like in your fic: "I loved her, and sometimes, she loved me too." (can also be "him")
Preferred rating of the the fic you want: any
Canon or AU? canon, but EWE is fine
Deal Breakers (anything you don't want?): OOC (even if it's supposed to be humorous), suddenly-good-guy!Draco, character-bashing, inexplicably and abruptly falling in love, sappy or fluffy romance; other than these, anything goes: happy ending, sad ending, romance working out or not working out, whatever you want to write!