579Monday was the hardest day. It was strange, not worrying over whatever task Draco had set out for her. She had only been "following his orders" for just under a month, and yet it seemed unthinkable to no longer do so. It was amazing how quickly a person could adapt to a new life. Would she adapt to life without him just as fast?
Classes were easy, given that they were the only time it seemed that Ginny didn't have to see Draco. At lunch, it seemed Draco was always staring at her, though she did her best to avoid his gaze. In the halls, it was as though she had some sort of Draco Homing Beacon and would inevitably drift toward where he was walking. They'd nearly collided half a dozen times.
The most painful moment was when Draco had actually approached her, trying to explain that his and Ezra's mothers had placed an announcement in the morning's Daily Prophet, celebrating his and Ezra's forthcoming marriage. He didn't want Ginny to hear it from someone else, he said, and she hadn't been able to do anything but nod and turn away from him.
That night, she'd cried herself to sleep and Tuesday wasn't shaping up to be any better. It was lunchtime and she was sitting out by the lake, leaning up against the same tree she and Draco had read under so many times; the tree they'd made love under. Just the thought was enough to prompt a fresh wave of tears, and she really was getting sick of crying so much.
"May I?"
Snapping her head up, Ginny frowned to see a robed figure standing before her. Something about the voice, though . . .
"Cassandra?" Ginny asked, sniffing.
"Yes," Cassandra confirmed, taking a seat beside Ginny. They were silent for a time, until Cassandra spoke softly. "It's been a cold winter, hasn't it?"
"Not as cold as some," Ginny disagreed quietly, thinking of how she hadn't been able to feel the chill in the air at all as she and Draco slept beneath the stars.
"And it seems to have gone on quite long," she continued.
"Not nearly long enough," Ginny said with a humorless laugh.
Cassandra sighed. "I've come to deliver a message."
"What message?" Ginny mumbled.
"You have passed your test."
"Yay," Ginny said hollowly.
"I'm sorry," Cassandra said softly. "So very sorry that it had to be this way."
Ginny's eyebrows knit together. "Why are you sorry? What are you on about?"
Cassandra took a deep breath, her face shadowed, both by the hood she wore and the thick black fall of her hair. Cassandra's hands sat placidly atop her thighs, and, Ginny noticed, appeared sturdy and lightly callused as though accustomed to physical stress.
"There are portents and prophecies at work here," Cassandra began slowly. "The Aurors that are among the Order's members have seen as far into the future as they are able, and we have heard their counsel. An unlikely figure was placed squarely at the center of the little melodrama the world will soon find itself in, a figure whose loyalties in the coming days is undecided."
"Draco," Ginny guessed softly.
"Yes," Cassandra confirmed, and there was a smile in her voice. "At the center, was Draco. But you, Ginny, were hovering around him."
"Me?" Ginny did not mention her own dreams and visions. There was so little she genuinely understood about them, and so much yet to learn.
"We know what you will be someday, with or without us," Cassandra continued. "Your road will simply be faster, and filled with fewer obstacles with our help."
"My road," Ginny said slowly.
"We are also aware of all that Malfoy could be someday; we know who he might have been had he never known you, and we know who he has the chance to be, now that he has. All that is left for us to do now, is hope. I am very, very sorry that your heart has been caught in the middle."
"What about his heart?" Ginny asked hoarsely, fury bubbling up beneath the layers of pain around her heart. "Don't you have any platitudes for what this has done to him? He's the one who has to marry someone he doesn't love!"
"His heart has always been the issue," Cassandra said gently. "His heart is the reason Draco Malfoy was made your task. It required special care, care that our Aurors assured us only you could give."
"I don't understand," Ginny said miserably.
"You will," Cassandra said gently.
"I'm so sick of people telling me that," Ginny snapped. "I'm sick of being told it will be all right someday, with no guarantee of when, or even how. I'm sick of knowing that I'm going to love him until I die, and I'll never be able to have him again. I hate that me loving him has to be treated like it's some dirty little secret no one must ever know about, because if they did, his father would go into a mad rage and have me killed!" She laughed, a bit hysterically. "Can you believe that? My not-quite-boyfriend's father would actually have me killed."
"Not all secrets are dirty," Cassandra said kindly.
Ginny gave her a confused look, and Cassandra pulled back the hood of her robe, letting her long black hair fall away from her face. Ginny gasped.
"Cho?" she whispered.
Cho Chang grinned at her, her eyes as big and lovely as ever, her hair the finely spun silk Ginny had coveted for as long as she could remember. "We all have our little secrets," Cho confided quietly. "Secrets that no one in the world ever fully understand; secrets that are never really put to rest. Perhaps Mr. Malfoy will always be yours."
Wednesday went surprisingly well.
Professor McGonagall excused Ginny from class because a representative from the Daily Prophet wished to speak to her. Ginny spent the day having an impromptu interview for what would be her very first summer internship. She'd been a member of the Order for less than 24 hours, and already doors were opening wide for her.
Her first story assignment was enough to make her laugh, but only because she'd had enough of crying recently: she was to get quotes from the soon-to-be Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy and write one thousand words or less on what a lovely couple they made for a future article. If she did a good enough job, it would be published; if she turned in a crap story, it would be a damn long time before she was allowed to write another.
Draco passed his N.E.W.T.s with flying colors, even managing to get a ninety on his Herbology final. Ginny was positive it would have been a perfect score if they had spent more of their time in the past few days studying instead of . . . well.
Ezra had started walking along the halls with Draco. They seemed to be making an effort at being friends, for which Ginny was grateful. She hadn't spoken to Ezra since that last night in the common room, and while Ginny was sorry for the distance between them, she honestly wasn't sure that she could handle anything else. It caused her physical pain to think of Ezra and Draco marrying and it was hard enough, getting through each day, seeing them together, without having to put up a brave front for Ezra.
Sometimes, Draco would pass her in the halls, he with his friends, Ginny with Kyle and Lysandra, and they would look at each other at the same moment, in the same way, and she would realize: this was all they were to each other now, longing glances across a sea of people. And she would think, how maudlin and sad, then grow incredibly depressed to remember that this wasn't a story, it was her life, and her broken heart.
But her heart wasn't quite all broken any longer. It was damaged, certainly, but maybe not beyond all repair. Because Ginny had been thinking a lot lately. She'd done little else but think, and had come to the following conclusion: if her relationship with Draco had some sort of preordained quality to it . . . it couldn't just end. Fated things didn't just end. Fate itself wouldn't be that cruel. She wouldn't hope out loud, of course, wouldn't even hope in the pages of her diary, but in her heart, deep, deep down where she couldn't check in on it every day, she would believe that one day, everything would be all right.
A New Day for Love
August 8th, 1999: Malfoy Manor
A year ago today, the entire Wizarding world spent the day congratulating the Malfoy and Easton clans on what was reported to be a long-awaited joining of their families. Ezra Easton and Draco Malfoy have been betrothed since birth. Last year, they graduated from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and as of one day of this article being written, they were married at last.
This reporter has been working for the Daily Prophet for nearly a year now, and it has taken some time for this story to see the light of day. Draco Malfoy and Ezra Easton were my first assignment, and the article I turned in was ultimately rejected. I did, however, save it, because something from it remains relevant even now. It was a few days before end of term, and Malfoy and Easton were sitting alone in the halls, as they often did then, lost in their own world as I asked them about their goals.
"What are my goals for the future?" Malfoy said, his family's trademark smirk proudly displayed. "I suppose I'd like to learn to get out of answering stupid questions from junior reporters."
"We want to be happy," Easton interjected. "That's the only real goal we have - to be happy, and to do our best to see that the people around us are happy, as well."
One year later and Malfoy and Easton seem to be holding true to the same beliefs:
"You again," Malfoy commented upon spotting me at the reception. "Were you invited?"
"Married life is good," said the new Mrs. Malfoy, toasting her husband. "To our partnership and all the rewards it will reap."
As regular readers of the Daily Prophet are no doubt aware, the Malfoy and Easton families have been linked to You-Know-Who for years. With suspicion rising that supporters of You-Know-Who have begun gathering again, speculation has begun as to just what father-of-the-bride Edmond Easton's bid to head a new department at the Ministry of Magic may mean, not to mention his desire to appoint his daughter to the office in some capacity or another. Further complicating matters is the fact that this new department is a pet project of none other than famous wizard Harry Potter and his fiancé, Hermione Granger.
Potter and Granger were present at the festivities at Malfoy Manor. The two have been in talks with the new Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy for some time now about support for the planned Muggle Technology and Magical Cooperation bill that is going up for round table discussion at the Ministry in the next few months.
Parents of the bride and groom declined to comment on their children's nuptials, but Lucius Malfoy and Edmond Easton were overheard to have said that they are "pleased" that the strong foundation of their family's union will finally be allowed to grow together.
The new Mrs. Malfoy summed things up best:
"Most people don't find the person they're going to love for the rest of their life when they're five. It's just not been my experience. Draco and I absolutely loathed one another at first. But our relationship has grown and changed along with us and we've finally come to a place where we feel strong and confident in who we are together to forge ahead. It's a new day and absolutely anything is possible. Hell, I've even given up smoking." - Reporting by Ginny Weasley, photographs by Kyle McGraw
There it is. My first published article. The past year has been thrilling and painful, fun and utterly wretched. I've seen Ezra and Draco a handful of times, and never longer than on the day of their wedding. Draco pulled me aside beforehand, teased me about being all grown up. He seemed irrationally jealous that Kyle was there as my photographer and date, and I reassured him that we were just friends, even though I'm not sure the guy who's marrying someone else really has a right to be jealous, especially considering he totally ignored me for the rest of the night.
I haven't seen them since, and I don't imagine I will. Not for awhile, at least. It's so hard to pretend when everyone's watching. Cho told me that we all have our secrets, but I'm not sure I'm cut out for keeping things quiet. I'm also not cut out for letting real emotion pass away, and my obsession with Draco Malfoy is about as real as it gets. My crush on Harry from a million years ago passed so thoroughly away that I can barely remember what it was like to fancy him.
But do you know what I've found doesn't pass? Love. It fades; it changes, flows and ebbs. It knocks you on your arse, rips out your heart, makes you bleed, and compels you to come back for more, but it doesn't pass. Not with time, not with distraction, and certainly not because someone has hurt you more than you can bear. Love, real love, digs in and hangs on long after you wish to be finished with it. And it hurts, God, how it hurts.
But the flip of it is, locked inside my heart lays the memory of something special and precious. I remember what it felt like to be loved. Not fancied, or the object of someone's passing obsession, but loved with someone's whole heart. Maybe it's not a happy ending, but that's the point: It's not an ending at all. Some things are just too great, too much to ever end. And I'm left with a sense of hope, and I really can't ask for more than that, not in times like these.
So someday when I'm old and frumpy (God willing, we'll all make it to old), a dozen grandchildren running around, I'll have my memories of Hogwarts. I'll have Harry Potter with his scar and his easy grin, kissing the backs of Hermione's fingers every single time they part ways in the halls (a ritual, she confided in me once, he performs to ensure she'll come back to him). I'll have Ron, Fred, and George plotting to pull one over on Percy because our older brother is so insufferable that they just can't help themselves. I'll have Charlie's dragon stories and Bill's comforting hugs, Hermione's good advice and Professor McGonagall's understanding.
I'll have Snape, glaring at Ron and Harry in exactly the same way, yet willingly put his life on the line for both of them. I'll have Hagrid's gentle sweetness and Professor Dumbledore's unending patience and sage wisdom. I'll have that little tingle I got the first time I saw Harry and the sharp, fleeting pain when I realized he would never be mine. I'll have Ezra smoking her cigarettes, bemoaning her cruel fate, gossiping about boys and Kyle trying to find that perfect mauve charcoal for the sunset. I'll have Fred and George pulling on my hair and Ron ready and willing to fight for my honor.
And in the darkest, quietest place in my heart, I'll have Draco Malfoy.
I'll have his smirk, or better yet, his smile that no one else got to see. I'll have the long, pale scar over his ribs and the way he touched me the first time I didn't have to let him. The things I remember best (though not always the best of him) will have permanent residence in my soul and in the years to come, I'm sure I'll even remember his defensive cruelty with some fondness. It was a part of him, after all, just as his closed-off heart and battered pride and arrogant demeanor were a part of him, and I do miss him so very, very much.
I'll wonder where he is, and if he's allowed himself to be happy. I'll hope he remembers our secret winter together as clearly as I do, that he treasures it as I do. For a moment, I'll long for him so much that my chest literally aches with it. And then I'll take a breath until the ache passes, as old aches always do, and tuck him back into my heart where he belongs, where he'll fade and change, grow and ebb, but never, never pass away.
And maybe, one day, I'll learn to hope out loud.
Hi. Epilogue coming as soon as I can possibly manage, promise …