♥ "More Than Just A Game" for dgficexchange ♥
Title: More Than Just A Game
Author: nbaeker
Rating: PG
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Canon up until the epilogue
Author's Notes: Thanks to seegrim for the beta and the kickstart.
Summary: It's only a game of Quidditch, and both Ginny and Draco know this. But for the two of them there is a lot more at stake.
More Than Just A Game
"Alright then, folks, everyone on the ground!" Ginny heard Angelina Johnson yell. A relieved sigh sounded close to Ginny's ear, and she turned to see Hermione looking as if she was about to throw up. The poor woman never had gotten the hang of flying.
"Tell me why I'm here again?" the other woman begged her friend, as they settled on the ground. Ginny slung an arm around Hermione's shoulders and opened her mouth to answer, but was rudely interrupted.
"Because the Ministry decided to assign teams for their annual fundraiser, and insisted that all three 'heroes of the realm' be on broomsticks for this match," a masculine voice drawled from behind them, and Ginny turned to glare at Draco Malfoy.
"And why are you here then, Malfoy?" she snapped, her arm not leaving the brunette's shoulders in an attempt to show solidarity with Hermione. She found Malfoy amicable enough, now, but Hermione was still one of her dearest friends.
"To give Mungo's a shot in hell at winning," he said, smiling beatifically.
She had worked with him for years and part of her still hated it when he was right, and Merlin was he right in this case. It had been all Ron and Harry's fault, she knew. Every year since the Dark Lord had been slain, there had been a large fundraiser hosted by the Ministry of Magic and St. Mungo's. The money raised was split between the two, used for helping those who'd lost everything in the war. It paid for rebuilding homes and for medical expenses that people couldn't afford. But most importantly to all attendees, it was a perfect excuse to come together and get hopelessly drunk off their arses, blurring the lines that had been drawn during the war.
Every year it was simply a ball and silent auction, but Harry and Ron had decided they'd had enough. Their suggestion of a Quidditch match between Ministry workers and Mungo's staff was met with grand enthusiasm on the part of the Minister of Magic, Ginny's own father.
Traitors, the lot of them, she thought, turning away from the snarky blond.
She had known what she'd wanted to do with her life from the day she was rescued from the Chamber of Secrets. All that year she had unwittingly hurt her peers, and once she'd been freed from Tom's hold she knew she had to make up for it.
Ten years later she was a Healer and employed at St. Mungo's. Hermione had been there for a year or two before her, Hospital Governor was her official title now, though the Healers had a running joke that the HG behind her name stood for Harry's Girl. It was how everyone in the entire Wizarding World knew her, after all. When Harry had vanquished Voldemort, he'd turned to Hermione and snogged her senseless right in front of everyone. The two of them had gotten married soon after, and despite the fact that it had been Ginny's dream to walk down the aisle and say "I do," to Harry Potter, she couldn't bring herself to begrudge either of them their happiness.
It didn't even matter much anymore that despite her own work in the hospital, despite her own strengths, she was still known only as "The Ex." But oh, what she wouldn't give to be able to prove, once and for all, that she was her own person. That Harry was no longer the axis on which she spun.
"Ginny, are you even paying attention?" Angelina snapped, bringing her sharply from her reverie as Draco snorted in amusement behind her.
"Sorry, Angelina, it won't happen again."
With a nod that spoke volumes, the ex-Chaser and current Head Healer launched into her plans for the game. Ginny paid close attention this time, her only stray thought being that maybe, just maybe, this Quidditch match could change things.
~*~*~*~
He had to hand it to Johnson, Draco mused as he soared above the pitch. Her idea of pairing herself and Ginny with Hermione as the team's Chasers was a pretty brilliant plan. He had literally bit his tongue when she'd leveled her gaze on the bushy-haired woman and told her: "How about you concentrate on staying on your broom and let Ginny and I handle the rest, yeah?"
It had proved to be something that even Hermione could manage, which was a relief to the entire team. And Weasley and Johnson were a dynamic pair, something that almost surprised him, until he recalled watching both women play at Hogwarts.
He almost hated to remember Hogwarts. The child he'd been had not been indicative of the man he had become, and he most certainly had regrets. One of the biggest was Crabbe's death.
His jaw clenched as he thought on it. There had been so much fear, even among the Old Families in his last few years at Hogwarts - perhaps especially so. His father had cowered those last few months; his mother had been broken. But the thing that drove the reality of it all home to him was Vincent dying and because of him.
Certainly people had died because of him prior to that, Dumbledore being the most noted, but there had been no true connection between those people and himself.
Death terrified Draco. He could admit it now, though he rarely did. It was this fear of death that had him working tirelessly with his patients, not giving up until every avenue available had been exhausted. His tenacity had won him respect among the other healers and a promotion to the top of the ranks.
Yet it was all in vain when it came to the public, because no matter the time and effort he put in, no matter the awards he won, the strides he made, Draco Malfoy was still seen only as the son of the Death Eater. The boy who had opposed Harry Potter at every turn throughout Hogwarts. The boy who had killed Albus Dumbledore. The boy who would forever be trying to prove himself to the world.
But this game would be the end of all that.
He knew that it was silly to put so much relevance on a silly Quidditch match, especially one that was simply a fundraiser for his workplace. Yet if there was one thing Draco had wanted more than anything, it was to beat Harry Potter at Quidditch. Draco knew that if he could do it just once, he wouldn't care to try and prove to everyone else that he was reformed.
He just needed to taste that sweet victory over Harry Potter once.
He looked up to see brown eyes watching him, and was taken aback to see a similar determination in Ginny Weasley's eyes.
*~*~*
The first time they'd shared a patient's case, they'd lasted all of three minutes in the room together before she slapped him. Granted, he had asked if the reason she'd needed his help was due to the fact that Potter was married now, so he'd somewhat deserved it.
The next day he'd brought her coffee, bribing the kid in the Muggle coffeeshop to make it just how she liked it. She'd given him one of her mother's scones, and they'd read over the case file. It turned out that their methods of thinking complemented each other's, and they were able to heal the patient within the week.
It became a ritual, though they never spoke more than what was relevant to the patient at hand until the uniforms were changed at Mungo's. Lucius Malfoy, in an attempt to prove both his loyalty to the world and his support of his son, had provided the funds needed for a very serious renovation in St. Mungo's. Unfortunately, he'd had some stipulations, and they included new robes for the entire staff. So it was that every member of St. Mungo's staff ended up wearing dark green robes that complemented the dark grey of the walls. Draco had quipped that his father had succumbed to Narcissa's idea that just because the job was a dreary one didn't mean that the patients had to face dreary-looking people.
"White washes out Draco's skin, Lucius. We must get them to put those healers in dark green robes; that is his best colour," Draco had said in a falsetto impression of his mother, and Ginny had nearly snorted her coffee out her nose.
"She's right, you know. You do look better in green than you do in white," Ginny pointed out after her coughing fit subsided.
"So do you," Draco said, and his tone made her cheeks tinge red, uncertain whether she was to take it as a compliment or not.
"At least they didn't choose a different green. That would have clashed horridly with your hair," he added, and they were back on familiar territory. Both of them were relieved, or so they told themselves.
~*~*~*~
"We DID IT!" Angelina and Hermione were cheering, and Ginny watched Harry shaking Draco's hand with a wry smile. It had turned out that Harry and Ron had not had a much better pool of talent to select from than Mungo's, and in the end, Angelina and Ginny knew Ron's tricks well enough to put the Quaffle past him several times.
But the true competition had been Draco and Harry. No one was foolish enough to think otherwise. Both of them had natural talent, and both had trained extensively in noticing small details for their current occupations. Ginny had found herself holding her breath a couple times, heart pounding wildly as Harry and Draco dove and spiralled after the elusive gold ball.
Ginny had missed their final dive, however. Ron was sneering at her as she drew up to him, a spiteful taunt on his lips in an attempt to throw her off. All her life she had tried to move beyond the mistake her eleven year old self had made, and in that moment she knew she had let her family keep her from moving on. Suddenly angry at herself for remaining held back for so long, she threw the Quaffle at her brother's head with all the force she could muster, and somehow it went in.
And the cheers were deafening. She turned, smiling widely, and realized that the Snitch had been caught; the crowd wasn't cheering for her. Instead the chant took on a roaring quality as people cheered, "Har-ry, Har-ry, Har-ry."
So Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, gave the crowd a wave as he touched down on his broom, and then did what no one expected. He applauded Draco Malfoy, the Man-Who-Caught-The-Snitch.
Sure enough, Draco had caught the snitch, and a deathly silence reigned until Angelina and Hermione started their cheer.
The crowd was still silent, stunned at the outcome, but Ginny heard one voice. "Dra-co! Dra-co!" It was a moment before she realized it was her, and the man she was cheering was looking at her as though she was absolutely barmy.
Until Hermione joined in. And Angelina, who was followed by the entire Mungo's team. Even Harry joined in, and Draco would deny for the rest of his life that a lump had formed in his throat then.
And while the cheers and chanting continued, Draco stepped up to the instigator and leaned down to speak into her ear.
"Decent flying, Weasley," he said.
"You weren't too bad yourself, Malfoy," she responded, eyes bright with the resolve she felt. She had proved to herself that she was more than Tom's eleven year old pawn, just as Draco had proved he was second to no one.
"You wanna get coffee sometime?" Draco asked, deciding that he might as well ride his new-found sense of freedom.
"Love to," Ginny agreed, feeling for the first time as though nothing could hold her back.
And when Draco pulled her to him to kiss her soundly, the cheers only grew louder.
Author: nbaeker
Rating: PG
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Canon up until the epilogue
Author's Notes: Thanks to seegrim for the beta and the kickstart.
Summary: It's only a game of Quidditch, and both Ginny and Draco know this. But for the two of them there is a lot more at stake.
More Than Just A Game
"Alright then, folks, everyone on the ground!" Ginny heard Angelina Johnson yell. A relieved sigh sounded close to Ginny's ear, and she turned to see Hermione looking as if she was about to throw up. The poor woman never had gotten the hang of flying.
"Tell me why I'm here again?" the other woman begged her friend, as they settled on the ground. Ginny slung an arm around Hermione's shoulders and opened her mouth to answer, but was rudely interrupted.
"Because the Ministry decided to assign teams for their annual fundraiser, and insisted that all three 'heroes of the realm' be on broomsticks for this match," a masculine voice drawled from behind them, and Ginny turned to glare at Draco Malfoy.
"And why are you here then, Malfoy?" she snapped, her arm not leaving the brunette's shoulders in an attempt to show solidarity with Hermione. She found Malfoy amicable enough, now, but Hermione was still one of her dearest friends.
"To give Mungo's a shot in hell at winning," he said, smiling beatifically.
She had worked with him for years and part of her still hated it when he was right, and Merlin was he right in this case. It had been all Ron and Harry's fault, she knew. Every year since the Dark Lord had been slain, there had been a large fundraiser hosted by the Ministry of Magic and St. Mungo's. The money raised was split between the two, used for helping those who'd lost everything in the war. It paid for rebuilding homes and for medical expenses that people couldn't afford. But most importantly to all attendees, it was a perfect excuse to come together and get hopelessly drunk off their arses, blurring the lines that had been drawn during the war.
Every year it was simply a ball and silent auction, but Harry and Ron had decided they'd had enough. Their suggestion of a Quidditch match between Ministry workers and Mungo's staff was met with grand enthusiasm on the part of the Minister of Magic, Ginny's own father.
Traitors, the lot of them, she thought, turning away from the snarky blond.
She had known what she'd wanted to do with her life from the day she was rescued from the Chamber of Secrets. All that year she had unwittingly hurt her peers, and once she'd been freed from Tom's hold she knew she had to make up for it.
Ten years later she was a Healer and employed at St. Mungo's. Hermione had been there for a year or two before her, Hospital Governor was her official title now, though the Healers had a running joke that the HG behind her name stood for Harry's Girl. It was how everyone in the entire Wizarding World knew her, after all. When Harry had vanquished Voldemort, he'd turned to Hermione and snogged her senseless right in front of everyone. The two of them had gotten married soon after, and despite the fact that it had been Ginny's dream to walk down the aisle and say "I do," to Harry Potter, she couldn't bring herself to begrudge either of them their happiness.
It didn't even matter much anymore that despite her own work in the hospital, despite her own strengths, she was still known only as "The Ex." But oh, what she wouldn't give to be able to prove, once and for all, that she was her own person. That Harry was no longer the axis on which she spun.
"Ginny, are you even paying attention?" Angelina snapped, bringing her sharply from her reverie as Draco snorted in amusement behind her.
"Sorry, Angelina, it won't happen again."
With a nod that spoke volumes, the ex-Chaser and current Head Healer launched into her plans for the game. Ginny paid close attention this time, her only stray thought being that maybe, just maybe, this Quidditch match could change things.
~*~*~*~
He had to hand it to Johnson, Draco mused as he soared above the pitch. Her idea of pairing herself and Ginny with Hermione as the team's Chasers was a pretty brilliant plan. He had literally bit his tongue when she'd leveled her gaze on the bushy-haired woman and told her: "How about you concentrate on staying on your broom and let Ginny and I handle the rest, yeah?"
It had proved to be something that even Hermione could manage, which was a relief to the entire team. And Weasley and Johnson were a dynamic pair, something that almost surprised him, until he recalled watching both women play at Hogwarts.
He almost hated to remember Hogwarts. The child he'd been had not been indicative of the man he had become, and he most certainly had regrets. One of the biggest was Crabbe's death.
His jaw clenched as he thought on it. There had been so much fear, even among the Old Families in his last few years at Hogwarts - perhaps especially so. His father had cowered those last few months; his mother had been broken. But the thing that drove the reality of it all home to him was Vincent dying and because of him.
Certainly people had died because of him prior to that, Dumbledore being the most noted, but there had been no true connection between those people and himself.
Death terrified Draco. He could admit it now, though he rarely did. It was this fear of death that had him working tirelessly with his patients, not giving up until every avenue available had been exhausted. His tenacity had won him respect among the other healers and a promotion to the top of the ranks.
Yet it was all in vain when it came to the public, because no matter the time and effort he put in, no matter the awards he won, the strides he made, Draco Malfoy was still seen only as the son of the Death Eater. The boy who had opposed Harry Potter at every turn throughout Hogwarts. The boy who had killed Albus Dumbledore. The boy who would forever be trying to prove himself to the world.
But this game would be the end of all that.
He knew that it was silly to put so much relevance on a silly Quidditch match, especially one that was simply a fundraiser for his workplace. Yet if there was one thing Draco had wanted more than anything, it was to beat Harry Potter at Quidditch. Draco knew that if he could do it just once, he wouldn't care to try and prove to everyone else that he was reformed.
He just needed to taste that sweet victory over Harry Potter once.
He looked up to see brown eyes watching him, and was taken aback to see a similar determination in Ginny Weasley's eyes.
*~*~*
The first time they'd shared a patient's case, they'd lasted all of three minutes in the room together before she slapped him. Granted, he had asked if the reason she'd needed his help was due to the fact that Potter was married now, so he'd somewhat deserved it.
The next day he'd brought her coffee, bribing the kid in the Muggle coffeeshop to make it just how she liked it. She'd given him one of her mother's scones, and they'd read over the case file. It turned out that their methods of thinking complemented each other's, and they were able to heal the patient within the week.
It became a ritual, though they never spoke more than what was relevant to the patient at hand until the uniforms were changed at Mungo's. Lucius Malfoy, in an attempt to prove both his loyalty to the world and his support of his son, had provided the funds needed for a very serious renovation in St. Mungo's. Unfortunately, he'd had some stipulations, and they included new robes for the entire staff. So it was that every member of St. Mungo's staff ended up wearing dark green robes that complemented the dark grey of the walls. Draco had quipped that his father had succumbed to Narcissa's idea that just because the job was a dreary one didn't mean that the patients had to face dreary-looking people.
"White washes out Draco's skin, Lucius. We must get them to put those healers in dark green robes; that is his best colour," Draco had said in a falsetto impression of his mother, and Ginny had nearly snorted her coffee out her nose.
"She's right, you know. You do look better in green than you do in white," Ginny pointed out after her coughing fit subsided.
"So do you," Draco said, and his tone made her cheeks tinge red, uncertain whether she was to take it as a compliment or not.
"At least they didn't choose a different green. That would have clashed horridly with your hair," he added, and they were back on familiar territory. Both of them were relieved, or so they told themselves.
~*~*~*~
"We DID IT!" Angelina and Hermione were cheering, and Ginny watched Harry shaking Draco's hand with a wry smile. It had turned out that Harry and Ron had not had a much better pool of talent to select from than Mungo's, and in the end, Angelina and Ginny knew Ron's tricks well enough to put the Quaffle past him several times.
But the true competition had been Draco and Harry. No one was foolish enough to think otherwise. Both of them had natural talent, and both had trained extensively in noticing small details for their current occupations. Ginny had found herself holding her breath a couple times, heart pounding wildly as Harry and Draco dove and spiralled after the elusive gold ball.
Ginny had missed their final dive, however. Ron was sneering at her as she drew up to him, a spiteful taunt on his lips in an attempt to throw her off. All her life she had tried to move beyond the mistake her eleven year old self had made, and in that moment she knew she had let her family keep her from moving on. Suddenly angry at herself for remaining held back for so long, she threw the Quaffle at her brother's head with all the force she could muster, and somehow it went in.
And the cheers were deafening. She turned, smiling widely, and realized that the Snitch had been caught; the crowd wasn't cheering for her. Instead the chant took on a roaring quality as people cheered, "Har-ry, Har-ry, Har-ry."
So Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, gave the crowd a wave as he touched down on his broom, and then did what no one expected. He applauded Draco Malfoy, the Man-Who-Caught-The-Snitch.
Sure enough, Draco had caught the snitch, and a deathly silence reigned until Angelina and Hermione started their cheer.
The crowd was still silent, stunned at the outcome, but Ginny heard one voice. "Dra-co! Dra-co!" It was a moment before she realized it was her, and the man she was cheering was looking at her as though she was absolutely barmy.
Until Hermione joined in. And Angelina, who was followed by the entire Mungo's team. Even Harry joined in, and Draco would deny for the rest of his life that a lump had formed in his throat then.
And while the cheers and chanting continued, Draco stepped up to the instigator and leaned down to speak into her ear.
"Decent flying, Weasley," he said.
"You weren't too bad yourself, Malfoy," she responded, eyes bright with the resolve she felt. She had proved to herself that she was more than Tom's eleven year old pawn, just as Draco had proved he was second to no one.
"You wanna get coffee sometime?" Draco asked, deciding that he might as well ride his new-found sense of freedom.
"Love to," Ginny agreed, feeling for the first time as though nothing could hold her back.
And when Draco pulled her to him to kiss her soundly, the cheers only grew louder.