At First Sight

Golden beams of sunlight slanted through the window onto Ginny's face, leading her with a warm, gentle grasp from the land of dreams. Smiling lazily, Ginny sat up and opened sleep bleared eyes to the familiar view of her dormitory. Only, she did not see her dormitory. She rubbed her eyes and looked again, but the crimson drapes of the other girls' four-posters still had not appeared. Instead, she was in the midst of a sea of white beds. And the walls were not a friendly gold, but the same severe white as the beds. Why on earth was she in the hospital wing, and how had she gotten there?

The blinding pain in her ankle when she tried to get out of bed answered the first part of her question. Lifting up the covers, she saw that her left ankle was roughly the size of a grape fruit and coloured a grotesque mix of purple and green. What had happened to her last night? The last thing she remembered was hurrying to the Quidditch pitch to meet Colin. It had been dark as a pile of black cats, as her mother would say, and she had not been able to see where she was going, since she had not wanted to light her wand and alert the teachers to her midnight wanderings. Frowning in concentration to shut out the distraction of her throbbing ankle, she tried to remember what had happened after that.

The door to Madam Pomfrey's office opened, and the nurse stumbled out, yawning, in her dressing robe and nightcap, effectively derailing Ginny's train of thought. She stopped mid-yawn at the sight of Ginny, lying in the bed.

"You weren't here last night, were you?" Madam Pomfrey asked her suspiciously, as if expecting Ginny to be a hallucination brought on by one too many late nights taking care of students. Ginny assured the poor women that she was not imagining things.

A few potions and a roll of bandages later, Ginny's ankle was practically back to normal. The pain was gone and the swelling had reduced significantly. It was still an awful colour, but Madam Pomfrey assured her that within a couple of days it would be perfectly fine.

"That was a nasty sprain you had," she commented, as she shooed Ginny out of the hospital wing. "However did you get it?"

Ginny shrugged, wishing she could remember, but the pain potions were doing nothing to help speed up her sleepy brain. Madam Pomfrey, undoubtedly used to getting shifty excuses for injuries, let her go without further questioning.

Thanking her, Ginny hurried to Gryffindor tower to change before going to breakfast (as she was still wearing her clothes from the day before) with only the tiniest of limps to show for her mysterious injury.

"Oy, Ginny!" Colin called, gesturing her over as she entered the Great Hall a short time later.

"Sorry I didn't make it last night, Colin. I was on my way, but..."

"It was bloody brilliant!" Colin crowed, cutting off her excuse. "You should have seen it! I disarmed him right off, no problem. Then, of course, he came at me with his fists, but then Dean stepped in, all flying fists and kicking feet. And Dennis jumped in and started gnawing on the guy's leg. It was beautiful! He ran back to school shrieking like a banshee! Don't know what happened to his second, guess that's a Slytherin for you, always got your back."

"Way to go!" Ginny laughed, giving her friend a congratulatory high five. A teeny part of her felt guilty about unwittingly getting the Slytherin boy into this, but she crushed it down by telling it that it wasn't her fault that he had accepted the duel.

Smiling smugly, Colin took a self-congratulatory swig of his coffee, then he choked. Coughing and spluttering he grabbed at his throat while his face turned a dark shade of purple. Horrified, Ginny just stared at him in shock before coming to her senses and yelling for help. McGonagall appeared by Colin's side out of nowhere, and whisked him immediately off to the hospital wing.

Shaken, Ginny stared blankly across the great hall, through the hole in the students across from her that Colin had left. Students all around the hall were looking worriedly towards the door that Colin had disappeared out of with McGonagall. But directly across the room from Ginny sat another student, who seemed completely unmoved with pity. The brown haired Slytherin from her Transfiguration class, the one who Colin had duelled, was looking instead at the seat that Colin had vacated, a small smirk on his face. When he saw Ginny watching him, his smirk widened, and he gave her a mocking wave.

Ginny's mouth opened in outrage. With sudden clarity, she knew that he had done something to Colin's coffee to cause him to choke. Of all the vile, evil, Slytherin things to do! He could have killed Colin, and just because Colin beat him in a duel! This was war. Glaring daggers at the boy, she stood up and strode purposefully out of the room to see Colin. That Slytherin git would pay.

*****

Over the years Draco had perfected his ability to look at Ginny without seeming to. His peripheral vision was exquisite. Over meals he would chat idly with his housemates about Quidditch, sneer at the other houses, plot wicked schemes, but she never left his sight. This day was no exception.

He could not seem to shake the feeling of holding her in his arms. This brief contact, far from abating his desire, had fuelled it to new levels. All he could think of was that glorious feeling, and he wanted it again so badly that it hurt. He had loved her from the shadows for so long, he could not stand it anymore. It was time he stepped out into the light. If he continued to live like this he was sure that he would go insane.

Her freckled heart shaped face, framed by the burning red hair, had almost constantly lingered somewhere in the back of his thoughts. Now, the thought of her literally possessed his mind and a few times he caught himself staring openly at her across the hall. He watched as she celebrated something with the mousy little twit who seemed to be her friend. He saw the boy choke on his coffee, but noticed more the look of horror and concern on her face, and wondered what it would be like for her to look at him with so much care.

Then she glared straight at the Slytherin table and for one wild moment he thought that she was glaring with such venom at him, that she knew what he was thinking...but she was not looking at him after all. She was looking at the boy in the seat next to him, a sixth year with a mess of stringy brown hair. Draco had never bothered to learn his name, now, however, he looked at the boy with interest. What had he done to attract Ginny's malice? The boy smirked wickedly at Ginny, and Draco was filled with a desire to wring his scrawny neck.

When Ginny stormed out of the hall, Draco had to restrain himself from rushing after her, gathering her into his arms, and covering her in passionate kisses. Instead, he calmly finished his porridge before getting up and leisurely making his way out of the hall. He paused for only a moment to think where she would have gone. Surely she would have gone to the hospital wing to check on her friend. He walked there quickly, stopping outside the door and peering in. Sure enough, there she was, sitting by her friend's bed, talking animatedly and gesticulating wildly. He smiled at the sight of her. How could she do this to him? How could she make him happy with just the sight of her face? Why did she have such a hold over his heart?

"How do you do what you do to me?" he sang under his breath, and then stopped, disgusted with himself. He had a feeling it was a Muggle song--had he really fallen this low? Hiding in the corridor, spying on a Weasley and singing Muggle love songs?

He had to have her. Love this strong could just not go unrequited; it needed to be shared in two hearts to be contained. In one person alone it was too much for the delicate shell of the human body to hold. It might be impossible, but he had to try. If he couldn't have her, he wasn't sure if he could survive.

It would be a fight, but one he was willing to make. He looked back in at her. She was pacing now at the foot of the bed, her brow furrowed in concentration, completely oblivious of the boy standing just outside the door, watching her every move. Not for long, he promised himself silently. A grin spread across his face--Not for long.

*****

"I know he's a Slytherin, but I still can't believe he would try to kill you!" Ginny said, for at least the twentieth time, pacing up and down at the foot of Colin's bed. "He's so...so..." she groped for a word to describe him, but could not think of one vile enough, "evil," she finished finally, for lack of a better word, putting as much venom into the adjective as possible.

"Yeah, Gin, I know!" Colin chimed in enthusiastically. He was taking his near death experience in stride; he actually seemed to be rather overly excited about it, in Ginny's opinion. Sometimes Colin was just too weird. "The fink poisoned my coffee!" he continued. "We've got to get revenge!"

"I know, but how?..." Ginny stopped suddenly, as a thought struck her. "How did he get a chance to poison your coffee anyway?" she asked, curiously. "Surely he couldn't make one of the house elves do it, Hermione's going to have to seriously rethink her whole be-nice-to-house-elves policy if they're willing to be assassins." To her surprise, Colin looked a bit sheepish.

"Well...I did kind of force him to get my coffee, because I threatened to publicly humiliate him in front of the whole school by telling about the duel if he didn't."

Ginny slammed her palm against her forehead. "Does your stupidity really know no bounds?" she asked her friend in despair.

"Hey!"

"But still, just because you're an idiot, that doesn't give him an excuse to kill you, we still need to teach him a lesson. Besides, if that were grounds enough for murder, I would have killed you long ago." She laughed at Collin's indignant spluttering. "Seriously, though," she said, sitting down at the end of his bead and looking at him expectantly, "what are we going to do? I'm sure you have an idea."

"Now that you mention it..." Colin said, grinning gleefully, "I have a few." And he launched into a detailed battle plan that would undoubtedly get them expelled and sent straight to Azkaban if they were caught. Ginny loved it. There was only one small problem, and she pointed it out to Colin.

"You know, I think we might have a little trouble getting all of the dragons in Europe to come up here for a little Slytherin barbeque," she told him gently.

"Yeah, I know. But a man can dream, can't he? Never fear, though, I've got a few more ideas up my sleeve."

Ginny leaned forward eagerly. One thing was for sure, life with Colin was never dull.

*****

No sooner had Draco entered the Slytherin common room, than he was accosted by a simpering Pansy Parkinson. Pansy was an attractive girl--if you happened to like small, squashed faced dogs. She wasn't really Draco's type, although to be fair, his type was rather specific--a girl had to be named Ginny Weasley for him to find her attractive. Usually he would play along with Pansy, if only to give himself a little relief from his constant emotional agony, but today he had more important things to think about.

"You're looking nice today, Draco," she said, latching onto his arm and smiling coquettishly up at him. "Did you notice my new robes?" Then, before he could reply, she leaned closer and whispered huskily in his ear, "Is there a mirror in your pocket? Because I can see myself in your robes."

"Oh, really original, Pans. Sod off," he said, with annoyance, trying to shake her off.

Pansy did not easily accept defeat; she continued to cling to his arm, whispering more suggestive things in his ear. Luckily he had picked up Crabbe and Goyle on his way to the common room. For all of their stupidity, they were remarkably good at finding him. It was like they had some sort of freaky sixth Draco sense. Now, however, he was uncommonly thankful for his two human ticks. With a quick gesture he had them prying Pansy off and hustling her out of the common room.

With a sigh of relief, Draco flopped, Pansy and brute free, onto one of the common room's elegant, wing-backed armchairs. Although Pansy had been the first girl to become enamoured with him, she was hardly the only one. This past year, girls had literally started throwing themselves at him. His good looks and money seemed to be enough to cause even girls from other houses to overlook his cruelty and lust openly after him. Of course Ginny wasn't one of them. That would have just been too perfect. Because then he might have been happy, and what had he ever done to deserve anything but misery?

Occasionally Draco would date one of the other girls, mainly just to spite the members of their own houses, who were enraged that a Slytherin would dare to sully their pure housemates. But also because he hoped that, just maybe, one of them would satisfy the ache inside him. After all, what did Ginny have that these other girls didn't? It never worked though. He could never seem to work up more than an aesthetic appreciation of their beauty, and kissing them inevitably left him feeling empty.

Staring into the crackling flames, he pondered the cruelty of fate. To be born into a life of privilege, where everything he wanted should have fallen easily into the palm of his hand, he had to want, with all of his soul, the one thing he could not have. He wandered if he were being made to pay for the sins of his fathers.

What was it that tied him so inexorably to the youngest Weasley? Was it some sort of childish rebellion--being in love with the daughter of his father's enemy--gone awry, now hurting him more than his parents? But that couldn't be, because he had loved her even before he had known who she was. Or maybe it was that long, wonderful, fiery red hair. Maybe he was attracted to that colour, like some animal. But all of the Weasley's shared the same shade of hair, and he felt nothing but contempt and hatred for the rest of her family.

No, the thing that attracted him to her must be that spark of life inside of her, that was so bright it shone in her eyes. The spirit that seemed to crackle in the air around her, so strong that it could be spotted even by an eleven year old boy, from a quick glimpse from a train window. The light that was surely strong enough to drive out the darkness in his soul.

And with this realization came the absolute certainty that only if he could attain that light would he be able to truly live.

Now what he needed was a plan. Fortunately, planning was something of a Slytherin specialty. He had to figure out some way to force them into contact. His eyes roamed the room for inspiration, and alighted on the spindly figure of the boy Ginny had been glaring at over breakfast. That glare had held a promise to meet again, and he would make sure he was there when that meeting took place.