(Harry Potter, Draco/Ginny) Human Constructs
Title: Human Constructs
Author: crazylittleme @ vnilla
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Draco/Ginny
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling and assorted others own everything. Not mine!
Author's Notes: For lielabell in dgficexchange, who requested Draco pinned to a wall. Why? Because he is always pinning Ginny and turnabout is fun. *winks* Yes HBP, any rating, any tone. Hope you like. :)
--
There is an old myth of the two lovers who could communicate only through a gap in the wall, whispering gentle phrases to one another even as their parents forbade a wedding, a future, a lifetime together. And so Pyramus and Thisbe (for those were their names) arranged a secret meeting, a tryst by moonlight. Let us not speak of the specifics of the tragedy that ensued; the story ends with two corpses, victims of ill luck and a love so great that neither could live without the other. A love like a tree, roots sunk deep into the earth.
This story isn't like that one, really.
But there are walls.
* * * * *
There had always been that initial barrier of blood and name and bone, the polar opposition of families and ideals and even their coloring, white against scarlet, the flush and chill of roses. And all their differences echoed down the corridors of Hogwarts, sounded in the high places of the dining hall, whispered in the strange breezes that stirred the dungeons on dark nights. All these spaces and then things to separate them with, things to divide and conquer and ultimately erase, the destruction of something that had never achieved existence in the first place.
Or so it would have been, were it not for the boy, the boy who had lost so much already and so gathered tattered remnants to himself, creating a whole from fractured factions and split pieces. All the hopes of the world rested on Harry Potter's shoulders after the loss of Albus Dumbledore; after the loss of Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter had grown up a bit, had used his new influence to call for everyone to band together. (Hermione's doing, Ginny knew, Hermione who knew how to use people like that.) The Boy Who Lived the bright beacon of hope who vanished on a quest for the final Horcruxes, leaving behind lost souls like Ginny Weasley, the girl who had loved him for a time. But everyone loved Harry and he loved everyone, loved them enough to sacrifice everything for them. So many absolutes and she the sole specific lost and drowning. Lost.
And then there was another lost soul, and both of them so confused and meandering that eventually they found their way around all the walls separating them, poked their fingers through the crumbling concrete and came in contact with one another. Ginevra Weasley and Draco Malfoy. He insisted on using her full first name because Weasley meant too many different people and she called him Malfoy because it was what he would always be.
"I can pass information to your cause," he'd said that night, gray eyes so unhealthily bright in a too-pale face. He'd clung to the scant shadows the tiny room offered him, the narrow space all they could cover with concealment spells. She'd noticed the way he said your cause and not our cause although she supposed that was too reminiscent of our Cause the grand and glorious Crusade. (Hermione again. Hermione who thought and Ron who felt and Harry who just loved, loved always.)
"I guess," she said, and pulled her robes tighter about herself and tucked strands of hair behind her ears and above all let Malfoy think she was nervous, think his idiocy could in any way affect her. No, he had earned every bruise and cut and burn and mark. (O the Mark on his arm, would she find it there if she tore off that sleeve?) And then she'd pressed her wand to his throat, because after all she'd learned well over the years, learned how to be strong even if it meant being cruel. "How did you find me?"
Malfoy had quirked an odd sort of smile-grimace after that, and the look of recognition startled her almost into dropping the wand. No. I am not like anyone you know. "It wasn't through your family," he said at last, smiling so sharp, all teeth. "No, they're safe."
All the little puzzle pieces snapped together, clicks nearly audible. "Parkinson."
"She knows me." He leaned forward, too close, smelling like ten thousand brushes with death. Hissed, "She isn't a traitor, she knows me. Knows you. Knows that this will be mutually beneficial."
"Picked up a dictionary from the Death Eaters?" Ginny spat in response, but lowered her wand nevertheless. It was true that there was something different about him, something fraying at the edges. How many convictions can a man lose before he is no longer himself? (But Malfoy wasn't a man. He would always be the sneering little boything. How could he have antagonized them for so long?)
And so they came to meet in the tiny room in a dirty hotel in Muggle London once a week, in heat and wet and summer and winter. All these swirling opposites, the flip side of a coin, the sun and the moon crossing paths in some hidden place. Ginevra, he said in greeting, and Hello his only answer until he began detailing the latest Death Eater plots. She suspected that the only reason he still lived was because Snape had vouched for him, suspected Snape had not betrayed them at all, but Malfoy answered her questions only with that smile-not-a-smile that belonged to him of late. Better than the old smirks and sneers.
"Do they suspect anything?"
"They have had enough victories to deter them."
And at those times Ginny hated Pansy for knowing them both, knowing that they were the same sort of people and he had it within him to spy and she had it within her to truly use the information, to determine who lived and who died, to move around all the little chess pieces. "How convenient that Harry isn't here to make all these decisions, how convenient that he keeps his hands clean," she said once, and then clapped a hand over her mouth immediately afterward, horrified.
But Malfoy had only nodded. "Dumbledore engineered things well. It was what always frightened me about him."
She wanted to protest this latest turn of conversation, but in order to tear down walls one must first shred all the bright posters tacked up over them. Every day she could feel the looks directed at her changing, the worried glances and the curiosity and the occasional revulsion when she said something particularly incendiary. That never used to happen, but then she used to be One Of Us, and now--
"I don't want to become you," she said at their next meeting.
Malfoy had the decency (the sense of self-preservation) not to pretend he had no idea what she spoke of. "Ginevra, it just so happens that we're exactly alike." The drawl of their old school days laced the air, like a fascinating curl of cigarette smoke. Poison. "If the Sorting Hat had had the sense to put you in Slytherin, it would be that much clearer. But no, you were wasted on Gryffindor, and the Weasleys. But you can still win the war." His eyes glittered and it seemed he was laughing, or perhaps it was merely a trick of the light.
She struck him, not across the face but in the gut, hard enough to push the air from his lungs. Ginny wanted to make him vomit from the force of her blow (Bill had done that to Charlie in one infamous battle) but didn't succeed the first time and couldn't bear to strike him again. Not when he looked so pathetic, slumped against the wall (the room was really too small to stretch out on the ground in) and gasping. She screamed, "I'm glad to be a Gryffindor and a Weasley! It's who I am!" and the words angered her all over again and she kicked him, one foot catching him neatly on the cheek.
Later, in her own room with the door locked, Ginny closed her eyes and hated herself, hated him, for after all it was the same thing in the end. She could see the little paths up ahead of her so clearly, the side of good so willing to believe her because she was a Weasley and a Gryffindor and the surface was what counted, the surface and the Slytherin streak running underneath. They would win the war because she would manipulate them all for the sake of the greater good. They thought she could do no wrong.
Eventually she stopped repelling people; they all admired her and talked about how much she had grown up and what an asset she was to Dumbledore's Army. Ginny wasn't surprised.
* * * * *
He'd had one of his little pointed insights into her psyche again and Ginny kissed him because there was no way he could have seen that one coming, because he didn't understand Gryffindors and Gryffindors were the one able to forgive the enemy and even come to feel something for them. Her hands were on his jaw, almost close enough to slip down and choke if necessary, and perhaps that wasn't romantic but it was passionate, this whatever she felt for Draco Malfoy, and whatever he felt for Ginevra Weasley was equally so. After the first stunned moment as she pressed him against the wall, he reciprocated, gliding the liar's tongue through her mouth as his words to her ears.
The moment had already stretched out too long, gone too far. Ginny leaned back, already taking in deep even breaths to prevent any unnecessary panting, unclamping her hands and staring uncomprehending at the red marks she'd left. "Draco," she murmured, low in her throat.
He went to his knees.
"You--" she began, cut herself off with the little O of astonishment her lips formed.
Malfoy was doubled over laughing, except it sounded more like gasping and then pushing out the air as fast as possible, hyperventilation of the hilarious sort. Rather than lash out at his behavior, Ginny straightened her clothes and fixed her hair, and the busy hands kept anyone from seeing how they shook. Perhaps he felt nothing for her at all. Perhaps he was really serving Voldemort all along, and this was some carefully contrived Slytherin trap, to get her to fall in love and start slipping up.
Perhaps it was all the Gryffindor in her talking, leaving out facts and wanting to blame something on the outside for everything inside.
Silence. The laughter (for lack of a better term) had died, and Malfoy looked up at her, eyes so cold and sharp. "I was wrong about you, Ginevra. You're not like me at all."
The O of her lips became a sideways C, the curve of a smile and triumph. So he had realized. So he knew. So everything was going to be all right after all.
"I would never stoop so low."
She bristled. "You would! You've done countless rotten things in your life, you slimy little git, you great bastard--"
He closed his eyes, smiled so sweet and so sick. "You admit you were manipulating me, then, Ginevra Weasley. What more do you want? I haven't money of my own, and Mother won't give you any. You already learn everything I know about the Death Eaters. You need power more than you need a warm body. So tell me, what are you trying to gain?" With ever word he advanced upon her, though he should not have been able to take so many steps in such a narrow room, and she had her back against the wall, his face twisted and terrifying before her.
No ready explanation bubbled to her lips, no hollow cry of injustice and personal slander. She had not been after money or power or a body but, with a sudden sense of the yawning abyss, Ginny knew she would have done anything, if it was to win the war. Would have. Done. Anything. An infinite expanse of ice stretched across her soul.
Malfoy did not wait long for an answer, and, receiving none, at last moved away from her, towards the door. On the threshold, he turned and said, "Send Parkinson to the next meeting. She'll relay everything to you.
"I'll see you after the war is won, Ginevra."
* * * * *
A rolled up bit of parchment tied with ribbon dropped into her hands; looking up, Ginny saw the sweep of an owl's wings vanishing back into the sky. Another letter from Harry, who still wrote to her from his self-imposed exile despite the risk of discovery. He, at the very least, understood a bit of what it was to be wider on the inside, deeper and blacker and not altogether sane. But something of the sweet boy still remained to him, even after the years. He had the Horcrux Quest to thank for that, and Albus Dumbledore the mastermind behind it all. She wondered if he'd let her keep the diary on purpose, wondered if he wanted its poison to seep into her mind so later on he'd have the perfect general and afterward the perfect politician.
The perfect Minister of Magic, so frighteningly capable.
How funny that she'd once thought Hermione the one so altered by the war, the puppetmaster-in-waiting. No, she had ever been a pawn, albeit an intelligent one. She and Ron and oh, they were dead and she couldn't think of them now. Didn't have time to waste. Their services had been said, their bodies laid to rest with so many others.
And she unfurled the paper. Stared at it a moment. Crumpled it into a ball and almost threw back her head and howled. She wanted to send a vicious reply to Harry asking why he hadn't come back like he was supposed to and taken all this mess away, why he had let her grow up, why she couldn't have stayed the damsel in distress rather than this hard-edged woman made of glass. There had to be something else. And she wanted to mail them all, living and dead, demanding what exactly that "something else" was, begging to know how she could get it.
"Cancel all my appointments for the afternoon," she informed her secretary, and ignored the stammered protests that ensued. Foreign dignitaries weren't that important, and neither were endless meetings about nothing at all in particular. She had rebuilt England's wizarding community with her bare hands, they could afford to give her a few hours off. Giving the command relaxed her, let her slip on the public mask once more until it was all anyone could see, including herself. She would go. She would go and run her errand and be done with it by this time tomorrow.
Wrapped in glamours like layers and layers of veils, an hour later Ginny slipped inside a building, strode directly into the center. There were a few other people there, some even weeping quietly, but the funeral of an ex-Death Eater turned to the side of good (whatever "good" meant) would scarcely be popular. Closed casket, as the last of Voldemort's stragglers had left the face unrecognizable. The body had been found in France, covered in blood red as wine, set off by such white, white snow.
No one saw her as she climbed on top of the coffin.
"I wonder," Ginny whispered, cheek pressed against the cool wood, "what you'd think of me now?
"You'd say, 'I always knew you had it in you, Ginevra.'
"You'd say, 'I told you I'd see you after the war.'
"You'd ask, 'I wonder which of us built that last wall, or did we do it together?'"
She borrowed his not-laugh, let it spill from her lips, a dead sound for the dead.
"Goodbye, Malfoy."
Author: crazylittleme @ vnilla
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Draco/Ginny
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling and assorted others own everything. Not mine!
Author's Notes: For lielabell in dgficexchange, who requested Draco pinned to a wall. Why? Because he is always pinning Ginny and turnabout is fun. *winks* Yes HBP, any rating, any tone. Hope you like. :)
--
There is an old myth of the two lovers who could communicate only through a gap in the wall, whispering gentle phrases to one another even as their parents forbade a wedding, a future, a lifetime together. And so Pyramus and Thisbe (for those were their names) arranged a secret meeting, a tryst by moonlight. Let us not speak of the specifics of the tragedy that ensued; the story ends with two corpses, victims of ill luck and a love so great that neither could live without the other. A love like a tree, roots sunk deep into the earth.
This story isn't like that one, really.
But there are walls.
* * * * *
There had always been that initial barrier of blood and name and bone, the polar opposition of families and ideals and even their coloring, white against scarlet, the flush and chill of roses. And all their differences echoed down the corridors of Hogwarts, sounded in the high places of the dining hall, whispered in the strange breezes that stirred the dungeons on dark nights. All these spaces and then things to separate them with, things to divide and conquer and ultimately erase, the destruction of something that had never achieved existence in the first place.
Or so it would have been, were it not for the boy, the boy who had lost so much already and so gathered tattered remnants to himself, creating a whole from fractured factions and split pieces. All the hopes of the world rested on Harry Potter's shoulders after the loss of Albus Dumbledore; after the loss of Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter had grown up a bit, had used his new influence to call for everyone to band together. (Hermione's doing, Ginny knew, Hermione who knew how to use people like that.) The Boy Who Lived the bright beacon of hope who vanished on a quest for the final Horcruxes, leaving behind lost souls like Ginny Weasley, the girl who had loved him for a time. But everyone loved Harry and he loved everyone, loved them enough to sacrifice everything for them. So many absolutes and she the sole specific lost and drowning. Lost.
And then there was another lost soul, and both of them so confused and meandering that eventually they found their way around all the walls separating them, poked their fingers through the crumbling concrete and came in contact with one another. Ginevra Weasley and Draco Malfoy. He insisted on using her full first name because Weasley meant too many different people and she called him Malfoy because it was what he would always be.
"I can pass information to your cause," he'd said that night, gray eyes so unhealthily bright in a too-pale face. He'd clung to the scant shadows the tiny room offered him, the narrow space all they could cover with concealment spells. She'd noticed the way he said your cause and not our cause although she supposed that was too reminiscent of our Cause the grand and glorious Crusade. (Hermione again. Hermione who thought and Ron who felt and Harry who just loved, loved always.)
"I guess," she said, and pulled her robes tighter about herself and tucked strands of hair behind her ears and above all let Malfoy think she was nervous, think his idiocy could in any way affect her. No, he had earned every bruise and cut and burn and mark. (O the Mark on his arm, would she find it there if she tore off that sleeve?) And then she'd pressed her wand to his throat, because after all she'd learned well over the years, learned how to be strong even if it meant being cruel. "How did you find me?"
Malfoy had quirked an odd sort of smile-grimace after that, and the look of recognition startled her almost into dropping the wand. No. I am not like anyone you know. "It wasn't through your family," he said at last, smiling so sharp, all teeth. "No, they're safe."
All the little puzzle pieces snapped together, clicks nearly audible. "Parkinson."
"She knows me." He leaned forward, too close, smelling like ten thousand brushes with death. Hissed, "She isn't a traitor, she knows me. Knows you. Knows that this will be mutually beneficial."
"Picked up a dictionary from the Death Eaters?" Ginny spat in response, but lowered her wand nevertheless. It was true that there was something different about him, something fraying at the edges. How many convictions can a man lose before he is no longer himself? (But Malfoy wasn't a man. He would always be the sneering little boything. How could he have antagonized them for so long?)
And so they came to meet in the tiny room in a dirty hotel in Muggle London once a week, in heat and wet and summer and winter. All these swirling opposites, the flip side of a coin, the sun and the moon crossing paths in some hidden place. Ginevra, he said in greeting, and Hello his only answer until he began detailing the latest Death Eater plots. She suspected that the only reason he still lived was because Snape had vouched for him, suspected Snape had not betrayed them at all, but Malfoy answered her questions only with that smile-not-a-smile that belonged to him of late. Better than the old smirks and sneers.
"Do they suspect anything?"
"They have had enough victories to deter them."
And at those times Ginny hated Pansy for knowing them both, knowing that they were the same sort of people and he had it within him to spy and she had it within her to truly use the information, to determine who lived and who died, to move around all the little chess pieces. "How convenient that Harry isn't here to make all these decisions, how convenient that he keeps his hands clean," she said once, and then clapped a hand over her mouth immediately afterward, horrified.
But Malfoy had only nodded. "Dumbledore engineered things well. It was what always frightened me about him."
She wanted to protest this latest turn of conversation, but in order to tear down walls one must first shred all the bright posters tacked up over them. Every day she could feel the looks directed at her changing, the worried glances and the curiosity and the occasional revulsion when she said something particularly incendiary. That never used to happen, but then she used to be One Of Us, and now--
"I don't want to become you," she said at their next meeting.
Malfoy had the decency (the sense of self-preservation) not to pretend he had no idea what she spoke of. "Ginevra, it just so happens that we're exactly alike." The drawl of their old school days laced the air, like a fascinating curl of cigarette smoke. Poison. "If the Sorting Hat had had the sense to put you in Slytherin, it would be that much clearer. But no, you were wasted on Gryffindor, and the Weasleys. But you can still win the war." His eyes glittered and it seemed he was laughing, or perhaps it was merely a trick of the light.
She struck him, not across the face but in the gut, hard enough to push the air from his lungs. Ginny wanted to make him vomit from the force of her blow (Bill had done that to Charlie in one infamous battle) but didn't succeed the first time and couldn't bear to strike him again. Not when he looked so pathetic, slumped against the wall (the room was really too small to stretch out on the ground in) and gasping. She screamed, "I'm glad to be a Gryffindor and a Weasley! It's who I am!" and the words angered her all over again and she kicked him, one foot catching him neatly on the cheek.
Later, in her own room with the door locked, Ginny closed her eyes and hated herself, hated him, for after all it was the same thing in the end. She could see the little paths up ahead of her so clearly, the side of good so willing to believe her because she was a Weasley and a Gryffindor and the surface was what counted, the surface and the Slytherin streak running underneath. They would win the war because she would manipulate them all for the sake of the greater good. They thought she could do no wrong.
Eventually she stopped repelling people; they all admired her and talked about how much she had grown up and what an asset she was to Dumbledore's Army. Ginny wasn't surprised.
* * * * *
He'd had one of his little pointed insights into her psyche again and Ginny kissed him because there was no way he could have seen that one coming, because he didn't understand Gryffindors and Gryffindors were the one able to forgive the enemy and even come to feel something for them. Her hands were on his jaw, almost close enough to slip down and choke if necessary, and perhaps that wasn't romantic but it was passionate, this whatever she felt for Draco Malfoy, and whatever he felt for Ginevra Weasley was equally so. After the first stunned moment as she pressed him against the wall, he reciprocated, gliding the liar's tongue through her mouth as his words to her ears.
The moment had already stretched out too long, gone too far. Ginny leaned back, already taking in deep even breaths to prevent any unnecessary panting, unclamping her hands and staring uncomprehending at the red marks she'd left. "Draco," she murmured, low in her throat.
He went to his knees.
"You--" she began, cut herself off with the little O of astonishment her lips formed.
Malfoy was doubled over laughing, except it sounded more like gasping and then pushing out the air as fast as possible, hyperventilation of the hilarious sort. Rather than lash out at his behavior, Ginny straightened her clothes and fixed her hair, and the busy hands kept anyone from seeing how they shook. Perhaps he felt nothing for her at all. Perhaps he was really serving Voldemort all along, and this was some carefully contrived Slytherin trap, to get her to fall in love and start slipping up.
Perhaps it was all the Gryffindor in her talking, leaving out facts and wanting to blame something on the outside for everything inside.
Silence. The laughter (for lack of a better term) had died, and Malfoy looked up at her, eyes so cold and sharp. "I was wrong about you, Ginevra. You're not like me at all."
The O of her lips became a sideways C, the curve of a smile and triumph. So he had realized. So he knew. So everything was going to be all right after all.
"I would never stoop so low."
She bristled. "You would! You've done countless rotten things in your life, you slimy little git, you great bastard--"
He closed his eyes, smiled so sweet and so sick. "You admit you were manipulating me, then, Ginevra Weasley. What more do you want? I haven't money of my own, and Mother won't give you any. You already learn everything I know about the Death Eaters. You need power more than you need a warm body. So tell me, what are you trying to gain?" With ever word he advanced upon her, though he should not have been able to take so many steps in such a narrow room, and she had her back against the wall, his face twisted and terrifying before her.
No ready explanation bubbled to her lips, no hollow cry of injustice and personal slander. She had not been after money or power or a body but, with a sudden sense of the yawning abyss, Ginny knew she would have done anything, if it was to win the war. Would have. Done. Anything. An infinite expanse of ice stretched across her soul.
Malfoy did not wait long for an answer, and, receiving none, at last moved away from her, towards the door. On the threshold, he turned and said, "Send Parkinson to the next meeting. She'll relay everything to you.
"I'll see you after the war is won, Ginevra."
* * * * *
A rolled up bit of parchment tied with ribbon dropped into her hands; looking up, Ginny saw the sweep of an owl's wings vanishing back into the sky. Another letter from Harry, who still wrote to her from his self-imposed exile despite the risk of discovery. He, at the very least, understood a bit of what it was to be wider on the inside, deeper and blacker and not altogether sane. But something of the sweet boy still remained to him, even after the years. He had the Horcrux Quest to thank for that, and Albus Dumbledore the mastermind behind it all. She wondered if he'd let her keep the diary on purpose, wondered if he wanted its poison to seep into her mind so later on he'd have the perfect general and afterward the perfect politician.
The perfect Minister of Magic, so frighteningly capable.
How funny that she'd once thought Hermione the one so altered by the war, the puppetmaster-in-waiting. No, she had ever been a pawn, albeit an intelligent one. She and Ron and oh, they were dead and she couldn't think of them now. Didn't have time to waste. Their services had been said, their bodies laid to rest with so many others.
And she unfurled the paper. Stared at it a moment. Crumpled it into a ball and almost threw back her head and howled. She wanted to send a vicious reply to Harry asking why he hadn't come back like he was supposed to and taken all this mess away, why he had let her grow up, why she couldn't have stayed the damsel in distress rather than this hard-edged woman made of glass. There had to be something else. And she wanted to mail them all, living and dead, demanding what exactly that "something else" was, begging to know how she could get it.
"Cancel all my appointments for the afternoon," she informed her secretary, and ignored the stammered protests that ensued. Foreign dignitaries weren't that important, and neither were endless meetings about nothing at all in particular. She had rebuilt England's wizarding community with her bare hands, they could afford to give her a few hours off. Giving the command relaxed her, let her slip on the public mask once more until it was all anyone could see, including herself. She would go. She would go and run her errand and be done with it by this time tomorrow.
Wrapped in glamours like layers and layers of veils, an hour later Ginny slipped inside a building, strode directly into the center. There were a few other people there, some even weeping quietly, but the funeral of an ex-Death Eater turned to the side of good (whatever "good" meant) would scarcely be popular. Closed casket, as the last of Voldemort's stragglers had left the face unrecognizable. The body had been found in France, covered in blood red as wine, set off by such white, white snow.
No one saw her as she climbed on top of the coffin.
"I wonder," Ginny whispered, cheek pressed against the cool wood, "what you'd think of me now?
"You'd say, 'I always knew you had it in you, Ginevra.'
"You'd say, 'I told you I'd see you after the war.'
"You'd ask, 'I wonder which of us built that last wall, or did we do it together?'"
She borrowed his not-laugh, let it spill from her lips, a dead sound for the dead.
"Goodbye, Malfoy."