In the City of Love - Side B
Pairing: Draco/Ginny
Summary: Every 45 rpm record has a Side B song. This fic is a companion piece to black_alnair’s lovely Side A fic, In the City of Love. Sometimes we see what we expect to see rather than what is there.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Author’s Notes: Gratitude and thanks to black_alnair for allowing me to tag along on the coattails of her fic, In the City of Love. That fic and our usual haggling were the inspiration for this drabble.
In the City of Love - Side B
Potter had caught him off guard. Rarely did his past collide with his present, much less come to shake his hand, but time and distance had dulled many things.
Five years prior, Draco stepped onto French soil seeking refuge from the infamous notoriety he had garnered during the War. He found not only refuge but also an anonymity that allowed him to move with a freedom he could scarce believe.
But that freedom had come at a cost. He looked over Potter’s shoulder at the pregnant woman munching on a pastry across the street and hoped his face didn’t slip as he strained to attend to the conversation while keeping upright.
Ginny.
The sight of her shattered his finely balanced defenses, the ones that served to keep the hounds of his past at bay. His head spun. His gut wrenched. Something squishy fell out of his chest and hit the ground with a splat. She was dazzling in the late afternoon sun as it splintered her crimson hair into scintillating shades of strawberry gold that shimmered in the breeze. Had he once held those silken tresses in his hands?
Draco frowned as he looked at her face. Was her contented glow due to the pregnancy or the fact that she had moved on with her life, away from the pain and anguish of their tumultuous past? That fast burning candle was neither healthy nor sustainable, at least that was the myth he fabricated for himself when he left her behind.
He refused to call what he had felt for her love. The unnamed attachment ran too dark and deep and desperate for what he understood love to be. Perhaps the ache in his chest was a freakish by product of too much time spent looking into the eyes of death. Yes, he decided feeling rattled and exponentially alive was related to the death he faced rather than the woman he had held in his arms.
Death. A part of him died when he landed in France. He chalked it up to moving on and growing up. Did he look back? Of course, he did. He put a permanent crick in his neck looking back, hoping to see her on the horizon. She knew where he had gone. He bloody well told her. And despite their harsh parting words, he waited, ready to sweep her up in his arms and in his heart and beg her to stay and be his. But her unflinching silence had broken his wounded heart, the one that wasn’t in love with her because what he felt for her wasn’t love. Denial, not communication, was his forte.
In time, the anger and the passion and the excruciating wanting faded along with his unspoken dreams. He had emerged a different wizard, the one who stood chatting with Potter on a crisp October afternoon in the grand city of love - grand for his gestating ex-lover and her husband.
A familiar insanity tried to take hold of him and propel him across the street. It wanted him to haul her stubborn arse up, shake her awake and ask her if this is what she wanted, if Potter and his wretched spawn were what she wanted. How could she bloody well want that?
Draco’s rattled mind and shaken heart went silent with the stinging realization that his foolish dreams had never died. Instead, they fell dormant, waiting for another spring, another chance, but the ache in his chest and her protruding belly told him what season it was. It was autumn, well past the season to humiliate himself a second time. And he had no illusion that anything but a harsh winter would follow in its footsteps.
Draco shoved his hands into his pockets, turned and made his way down the pavement. This time he didn’t look back.
- Fin -
Summary: Every 45 rpm record has a Side B song. This fic is a companion piece to black_alnair’s lovely Side A fic, In the City of Love. Sometimes we see what we expect to see rather than what is there.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Author’s Notes: Gratitude and thanks to black_alnair for allowing me to tag along on the coattails of her fic, In the City of Love. That fic and our usual haggling were the inspiration for this drabble.
In the City of Love - Side B
Potter had caught him off guard. Rarely did his past collide with his present, much less come to shake his hand, but time and distance had dulled many things.
Five years prior, Draco stepped onto French soil seeking refuge from the infamous notoriety he had garnered during the War. He found not only refuge but also an anonymity that allowed him to move with a freedom he could scarce believe.
But that freedom had come at a cost. He looked over Potter’s shoulder at the pregnant woman munching on a pastry across the street and hoped his face didn’t slip as he strained to attend to the conversation while keeping upright.
Ginny.
The sight of her shattered his finely balanced defenses, the ones that served to keep the hounds of his past at bay. His head spun. His gut wrenched. Something squishy fell out of his chest and hit the ground with a splat. She was dazzling in the late afternoon sun as it splintered her crimson hair into scintillating shades of strawberry gold that shimmered in the breeze. Had he once held those silken tresses in his hands?
Draco frowned as he looked at her face. Was her contented glow due to the pregnancy or the fact that she had moved on with her life, away from the pain and anguish of their tumultuous past? That fast burning candle was neither healthy nor sustainable, at least that was the myth he fabricated for himself when he left her behind.
He refused to call what he had felt for her love. The unnamed attachment ran too dark and deep and desperate for what he understood love to be. Perhaps the ache in his chest was a freakish by product of too much time spent looking into the eyes of death. Yes, he decided feeling rattled and exponentially alive was related to the death he faced rather than the woman he had held in his arms.
Death. A part of him died when he landed in France. He chalked it up to moving on and growing up. Did he look back? Of course, he did. He put a permanent crick in his neck looking back, hoping to see her on the horizon. She knew where he had gone. He bloody well told her. And despite their harsh parting words, he waited, ready to sweep her up in his arms and in his heart and beg her to stay and be his. But her unflinching silence had broken his wounded heart, the one that wasn’t in love with her because what he felt for her wasn’t love. Denial, not communication, was his forte.
In time, the anger and the passion and the excruciating wanting faded along with his unspoken dreams. He had emerged a different wizard, the one who stood chatting with Potter on a crisp October afternoon in the grand city of love - grand for his gestating ex-lover and her husband.
A familiar insanity tried to take hold of him and propel him across the street. It wanted him to haul her stubborn arse up, shake her awake and ask her if this is what she wanted, if Potter and his wretched spawn were what she wanted. How could she bloody well want that?
Draco’s rattled mind and shaken heart went silent with the stinging realization that his foolish dreams had never died. Instead, they fell dormant, waiting for another spring, another chance, but the ache in his chest and her protruding belly told him what season it was. It was autumn, well past the season to humiliate himself a second time. And he had no illusion that anything but a harsh winter would follow in its footsteps.
Draco shoved his hands into his pockets, turned and made his way down the pavement. This time he didn’t look back.
- Fin -