Thank You, Draco

The wind blew harshly, ripping my spirit, freezing my already frigid soul, and throwing my frosted hair into my icy eyes. The irony is surely killing someone, I thought bitterly, drawing my cloak around my arms. The already frozen shunning the cold? It's preposterous. It was a battered cloak, more worn cloth than cloak, really, but I had worn it day in and day out as I walked the cold and ruined halls of my once prominent family home. This worn, well-loved cloak had covered me on many a rainy day when I had walked to and from my small country office, and had kept me warm when my frigid fingers could no longer go on checking accounts and the ink had frozen. This was also the cloak that I had covered her with on the first and last days I had seen her.

Snow flakes began drifting slowly down to the earth and I shuddered convulsively. I clutched the fragile poppy under the cloak, and glanced down to the gravestone at my feet. Tenderly, I brushed off the quickly gathering flakes on the cold grey marble, letting my long fingers linger briefly on her name.

In loving memory of

Virginia Molly Weasley

1981-2000

Loving sister and daughter

Killed in the Last Battle

"Smile, my dearest, and be ever so happy for Him"

Virginia Molly Weasley. How homey, how simple the name sounded. What a simple name for such an eloquent, complex and difficult person. The wind blew harshly again, and as the soft black folds of the cloth hit my face, I fell back into a memory.

I had never really seen Virginia Weasley properly. To me she was just another Weasley, and, having been surrounded by four Weasleys for my entire school career, I was not anxious to make an acquaintance with another one. Virginia Weasley was simply a small, red-haired blur that moved too fast for me to focus on. She was just a little girl, too pesky to be bothered with.

But then, all too soon, I saw her.

She was no longer a small, red-haired blur but a tall, gangly, freckled, auburn haired woman whose brown eyes were lowered, fixed on the book in front of her. We were in the library, studying for our exams. I, of course, was studying for my N.E.W.T.S, as I hoped to get an "Outstanding" in something other than potions. The library was freezing because Madam Pince was too engrossed in her novel to tend to the fire. I shifted slightly, and was suddenly all too aware of a girl sitting across from me, shivering uncontrollably. Her wand was through the bun at the back of her head, and her fingers were splattered with ink.

A few moments passed before I realized it was indeed Virginia Weasley, and then, when I did, I was confused. This girl bore no resemblance to any of her brothers or either of her parents. The brown eyes, a Weasley trademark, were not so much brown as deep, violent amber. The flaming Weasley hair had been replaced by rich auburn, the chaotic strands struggling to escape their hold. I blinked in confusion several times before I cleared my throat. Virginia looked up.

"Would you mind?" I whispered almost silently. She gave me a puzzled look, as though seeing me for the first time as well. "You're shaking the table," I added impatiently, gesturing to my ink, which was steadily seeping into a library book. She grinned wickedly, and jerked her head in the direction of Madam Pince.

"It's got pictures, so there won't be a fire today." I turned to look at the cover of the book. A witch and a wizard in various states of undress were embracing passionately. I smirked slightly as Virginia began shivering again, upsetting my glass of water. "Sorry," she whispered, and became fixated on her book once more. Disgusted, I threw my cloak - a black velvet cloak that I had been given for my seventeenth birthday - at her, and left.

She returned the cloak to me that evening, standing awkwardly before me, her large, deep eyes full of that haunting sadness and pain that I had never seen before. The pain that I thought I would never experience in my life was in her eyes, just out of reach, and just beyond my grasp. Her feet were turned in, like a school girl's on her first day of school. I thought she would bolt away as soon as the cloak was handed over, but she met my gaze and said, in a level voice, "Thank you..."

"...Malfoy."

Presently, I whirled around, swiftly aware of the snow that had built up on my cloak and head. The gravestone was covered in snow again, but the snow had settled in the grooves of the letters so that Virginia's name was still able to be seen. A gravestone of snow for a woman of fire. There was a man in front of me now, a small wreath of white roses in his hand. I looked him over, eyes lingering enviously on the warm scarf and gloves he had.

"What do you want, Potter?" I queried softly, lowering my gaze to the gravestone again. His green eyes seemed frosted over by the cold, but a brilliant, jewel-bright fire blazed within. Those eyes were a view into Harry Potter's soul, and over the years I had learned to read them as well as I read my schoolbooks. It was those eyes that had drawn her to him, and those eyes were the eyes that I abhorred and detested with my entire soul. He set down the white roses on the grave.

White roses...

"Draco?" Virginia sat across from me, twirling a white rose between her fingers. "Draco, please listen." I remembered her pleading voice almost as well as I remembered my name. I remembered the way she had flinched when I touched her, the way her voice quavered when she spoke. I remembered the way her legs were crossed under my black cloak. My eyes were suddenly riveted on the rose that she was twirling. I had assumed that she had gotten it from a vase, or from the garden of the school.

"Where did you get that?" I asked sharply. She continued twirling the rose, and soon all I saw was the white of innocence. I saw the white petals blur, becoming a single dot of white, fixed forever in my memory. Then I saw the green of the stem, and it seemed to become bigger, larger. I shut my eyes, briefly, then looked away.

"Draco, we can't do this anymore." I could feel her eyes boring into mine, trying to extract my feelings, trying to see through the mask that I had so carefully built up over the years. "We're living a lie, and I live in terror of someone finding out the lie. Don't you live in terror of that as well?" She shifted, and I watched helplessly as my cloak slid off her legs and fell to the floor. I tried to speak, but couldn't, and satisfied myself by gazing out the window. The green of the fields and the trees seemed to mock me, to fight me, to challenge me. I dimly heard Virginia say, "He...he promised to take care of me, Draco. And it's possible for this to happen. Harry loves me, Draco. He really, honestly does." She seemed to take strength from these words, and she licked her lips, as though trying a new dish for the first time. She had tasted the words, and she had felt them. She took a deep breath. "Harry loves me."

White roses...

"Malfoy!"

"What?"

The-Boy-Who-Lived glanced at me. I refused to meet his gaze, because I know what those abhorrent eyes held. Pity and hatred were fused in those eyes, and all I could feel was hopelessness when I was trapped in the swirling interior of those eyes. Was this how she felt when she looked at him?

"I said, what are you doing here? You never cared for Ginny Weasley, alive or dead, and if you're going to disrespect her memory by standing here and looking down upon her grave then I suggest that you go." The suppressed rage in his voice was dulled by a slight tremor of fear. I chanced a glance into his eyes, and was met with doubt and fear. So he doesn't know. She never told him. He's worried that there's something he doesn't know.

For a fleeting instant I was tempted to tell him where Virginia Weasley had learned to kiss like she did, where she had learned to dance like she did. The dam I had built around my soul threatened to give, and I was tempted to tell him exactly where Virginia Weasley had been on the nights of May and June in our seventh year.

My seventh year...

We were drunk, of course, but it didn't stop us from trying to dance. I tried to weave around the room, my ballet lessons betraying me as I managed to stay on my toes through the steady haze of drunkenness that was descending upon me. But Virginia...ah, Virginia was beautiful, trying valiantly to show me that she could do a tap dance while sitting in a potted plant. Her red hair was mussed up around her face, and her eyes shone bright with laughter. Without a word, I kneeled next to her, and glanced up into her warm, inviting eyes. A little roughly, I later recalled, I tilted her head down, and kissed her, but she laughed all the same before returning the kiss, a little more lightly than I would have liked.

"Virginia..." I murmured through the kiss, the words a low rumble in the back of my throat. Suddenly, the drunkenness was replaced by a sudden desire, a hunger that I would never be able to explain, but before I knew it, I was trying to pull sweet, innocent Virginia Weasley onto the floor with me. But she wouldn't get out of the potted plant, and put her finger to my lips.

"Draco, I'm Catholic," she murmured, as if that explained everything. I nodded; as if I gave a damn what Muggle beliefs Virginia attached herself to. Her lips lifted up slightly in a wistful smile, and she continued, "I'm still a virgin, and will be a virgin until marriage." She gazed down at me. "My faith commands it, and I love my faith."

I drew back slowly. She would choose her faith over me? She would choose to be a little saint instead of mine? But then, after I gazed back into her eyes, I knew that this moment would be all the better for the waiting. I knew that Virginia Weasley would be mine someday, and that I would have all of her, and she would be at peace. I took her small, delicate hand in mine, and gave it a little squeeze. "Virginia Weasley, I love you."

Our seventh year...

Something, perhaps the memory, stopped me. I didn't know if it was the terror in his eyes that silenced me, or the slight whisper that seemed to come from the grave. I sighed softly, and withdrew the red poppy from under my cloak. Potter's eyes followed my every move, and I met his gaze this time, relieved to see nothing in his eyes. The emerald interiors were dull and lifeless. Something inside me whispered, Let the past rest in the past, Draco.

"Virginia Weasley deserves to be honored after what she went through, Potter. Just because I was the enemy doesn't mean that I hated everyone else." A few petals of the poppy blew away in the wind, and Potter shifted uncomfortably.

"Your father killed her."

I didn't rise to the bait. "Yes, he did. But before she died, Potter, she told me to tell you something." I could feel the words burning in my throat, burning in my mind, torturing my soul. I wanted to shut my mouth, to stop those words forever. But then, they would always be there, lurking in the back of my mind, trying to get out forever. I took a deep breath, as though I wanted to plunge into the pool of my memories and stop the incessant burning of these words. I licked my lips, and the frigid air seemed to be drawn to the moisture.

Water...

A steady stream of water was trickling down onto my head, soaking into the folds of my cloak, and splashing onto the face of the red-head in my arms. Her face was dirty, and she was soaked with sweat. The sweat had made little rivers of clean skin through the filth, but there were no rivers under her eyes. Virginia Weasley never cried. Desperate to do something for her, I took my cloak of my shoulders, and draped it over her frail, thin body. Wearily, she cracked open her eye. I tried to push the hair out of her face.

"Harry?" she whispered, her voice cracking. I shook my head, and murmured, "Don't talk now. Don't talk, Virginia." The broken and beaten woman in my arms smiled. She actually smiled and managed a weak chuckle.

"Are you...ever...going to call me...Ginny?" She gasped with sudden pain, and I pulled her more tightly to my body. She gave a violent shudder. I shook my head wordlessly, and Virginia licked her lips before continuing in a halting, quavering voice. "Draco...just tell Harry something for me. Tell him that...I'm sorry...but don't tell...him...about us." I could feel the warmth leaving her body. She took a deep breath. "Just tell him I love him."

Then, she left me. The battle, the Great Battle, was going on around me. Nearby, my father was already dead, his long blonde hair spread out on the muddy, filthy ground. His wand, the wand that had cast the curse on Virginia Weasley to slowly kill her, was lying on the ground some four feet away from me. That's when I leaned over her, and I noticed it was raining, the rain washing away the dirt from her face, and the tears from my eyes. Washing away sin, and leaving a memory. Washing away the past, and beginning the present.

The present...

I took a long, hard look at Harry Potter. How fragile he suddenly looked to me, how delicate he seemed. A sudden gust of wind could knock him over, and blow him into tomorrow. How weak her death must have left him. A sudden wave of pity broke over me, but almost immediately, I felt it dissolve. I didn't have pity left for anyone but myself, and until I was back in a position where self-pity wasn't an option, I couldn't spare any for a man who had always gotten what I had desperately yearned for; attention, friends, money, my father's attention, and Virginia Weasley. I felt the old, familiar mask settle over my face, and turned to leave.

"What did she say?"

The sheer desperation in the voice reminded me of a small child, desperate for the attention of a distracted and occupied mother. I turned around slowly, allowing the wind to fill the vast, awkward silence between us. It whistled through the holes in my heart, flying out to rattle through the holes in his.

Potter, you are still a child.

His hands were behind his back, but I could tell the fingers were tightly locked, intertwined and pulling desperately at each other. "What did she say, Malfoy?" Frosted eyes were turned to the man in front of me.

"She said that she loved you, Potter."

There. I had said it. The detested and despised words which had been churning in my mind for so many months were out, and were resting in the mind of their truly intended listener. I turned, and began the long and weary walk back to my home. The snow was still falling, the wind was still blowing. The only evidence that anything had changed was the single poppy petal clinging to my cloak.

I watched carefully as it flew to the grave of Virginia Weasley, quickly becoming buried under the snow. The whisper that I had heard earlier floated back to my mind, wrapping its long, curling tendrils around me, and pulling me into its welcoming arms.

Thank you, Draco.