Learning to Breathe

She's tired.

It's been a long and exhausting journey to get to the point she's at now, and it has taken almost everything out of her. She's so tired that these days she can barely read an entire page in a book without falling asleep. It didn't used to be like that.

Once upon a time, she had the ability to read through an entire book in less than an hour. Once upon a time, she loved to spend endless summer days playing Quidditch with five of her six brothers. Those days she would come back into the house with skin as red as a lobster's shell, but it had been all right, because her closest sibling would always have a sunburn much worse than hers.

Now that seems like a lifetime ago.

Now she's lost interest in Quidditch. She quit the team during her fifth year, when the war with Voldemort came to a head. She had too many other things to worry about; had too many other adventures to go on, and couldn't be arsed to go to practice. Harry somehow still found a way to go, and so had Ron, but not her. She'd re-prioritized, and Quidditch hadn't made her list of things to do.

She thinks about these things as she wanders through the halls of Hogwarts, walking with her head down and her eyes glued to the stone floor. She dwells on these things during classes, and subsequently forgets to listen to the Professors. They all know that her grades have fallen, and they all know why. It's nothing new to them; after Harry fought his final battle, they noticed that it was a common phenomena among the students, and they didn't question it.

She drops her bookbag on the floor beside her desk and sinks into the chair, her eyes never leaving the desktop. Today will be the day they send her into tutoring, and she's been dreading it for weeks. She knew that eventually things would reach this point, although she's the first to admit that it's her own fault things went this far. She's just been too tired to care.

This evening, she's been sentenced to sit through a tutoring session with a seventh year, and she's less than excited about it. She knows that the seventh years who are tutoring feel the same way (except, perhaps, Hermione). She knows because she hears them whispering about it in the loos and the corridors when they think they're alone.

Hannah Abbott tells Susan Bones that she's been stuck with Colin Creevey, and she rolls her eyes as she explains that he's failing Herbology. This comes as no surprise to Ginny, since she remembers that in the final battle, Colin was stuck facing off with some enchanted greenery on the Malfoy property.

Blaise Zabini, one of the few non-Voldemort supporting Slytherins tells Harry that he's been assigned a Ravenclaw girl that Ginny has had one class with, though hearing the girl's name doesn't call a face to her mind. Ginny also knows that Harry has not been allowed to tutor, for whatever reasons that Dumbledore sees fit to exclude him this time.

Harry is more relaxed these days, now that Voldemort is gone and he has no life-or-death battle to fear, although now he seems listless. Ginny has overheard him admitting to Ron and Hermione that he doesn't know what to do with himself any longer. For so long, all he has been is The Boy Who Lived, and now he has fulfilled his destiny and defeated Voldemort again. He is lost and confused, and fears that his lack of direction will have lasting effects.

Ginny often wonders if his nightmares still come. She remembers a time before the last battle when he would wake the entire Tower, screaming in terror. Dumbledore later told them that Harry had been having prescient dreams for months, and the reasons for his night terrors were gone, once the battle was over.

So now she sits behind the desk, staring at the desktop as Professor Binns drones on about something she has no interest in. She has not even bothered to remove quill and parchment from her bookbag, which no one else notices. She is not surprised at this. These days the students are all busy just trying to cope with what's happened.

Hogwarts seems a little empty now, without the Slytherins around.

Well, there were still some Slytherins around - just not the entire house. Professor Snape had light duty these days, with only a handful of his students left to oversee. There were three, to be exact. Zabini, Bulstrode, and Tracey Davis. Tracey's parents had never cared about the war to begin with, so her family remained in tact. Millicent had run away from home when the battle had begun, and Dumbledore had let her hide at Hogwarts, where she'd been safe. Zabini had simply refused to fight, and had been hexed to hell and back by his own father.

He still walked with a limp, although it wasn't as noticeable as it had once been.

Blaise had actually surprised everyone when he'd approached Harry after the battle and asked to shake the hand of Voldemort's defeater. After that, Blaise had become a regular face at meal and study times, and he'd become fast friends with the Golden Trio. Since there were no longer enough Slytherins to fill their table in the Great Hall, he'd taken to sitting with the Gryffindors.

Personally, the whole situation made Ginny's stomach ache.

She'd never been a big fan of the Slytherins, so to speak, but she was smart enough to realize that the school needed them. The school needed the cunning (and sometimes evil) students to balance out the other three houses, and now they were gone. She'd been especially chagrined at the losses of Malfoy and his goons, as much as she'd disliked them. Malfoy had remained unchanged until the end, still insulting those he deemed lower than himself, and generally looking down his pointy nose at everyone.

She would never admit it to anyone, but Ginny missed the normality of his hurled insults and superior smirks.

She realizes with a start that class has been dismissed, and she reaches for her bookbag, slinging it over her shoulder with one fluid movement. She waits patiently until all of the students have exited the classroom before she leaves - she finds that it's easier to go unnoticed that way.

She tucks a strand of copper hair behind her left ear as she walks, to stop the hairs from moving around and tickling her nose. She wishes vaguely that she could cut her hair shorter than Ron's, because then she wouldn't have to worry about it getting in her face again. She knows that her Mum would never allow it, and so she doesn't ask.

She makes her way slowly to the Great Hall, and takes her usual seat across from Hermione. Today it would seem that Hermione is preparing for her tutoring session, since she sits with a textbook spread open on the table in front of her. When Harry enters flanked by Ron and Blaise, Hermione quickly tucks the book away, not wanting to hurt Harry's feelings by reminding him that he won't be tutoring as well.

Ginny is amazed by their continuity; by their ability to go on the way they do. Anyone looking at Hermione, Harry, and Ron would never guess that they'd faced death and come out unscathed - they would probably be deceived into believing that they were simply normal teenagers, and close friends.

Ginny studies them with religious fervor, and she knows how deceptive their appearances are. She knows how they achieve their comfort, and she knows that they have no idea that anyone else in the world has any idea. One night several months ago, they were all at the Burrow, and everyone had gone to bed. Ginny had awoken thirsty, and had tiptoed around Hermione's bed before she'd realized that it was empty.

When she'd gone downstairs to get a drink of water, she'd heard noises out in the garden, and had gone to satisfy her curiosity. What she'd seen really shouldn't have been as much of a surprise as it had been; it should have been something she'd expected. Now that she thought about it, it seemed perfectly normal, and a reasonably predictable thing to have happened, considering the amount of time that Hermione, Ron, and Harry spent together.

She glances over at Blaise and notes the rosy spots on his cheeks, and wonders briefly if he's begun joining them. When she sees him glance over at a pretty Hufflepuff girl, she knows this is not true, and that the girl is the reason for his flushed, glowing skin. She wonders if she's the only one who isn't in love; who doesn't have someone.

Hermione looks up and smiles beatifically as the boys take their seats and surround her. Ginny thinks that they way they always flank her makes it seem as though she's encased in a cocoon or a bubble, and she wonders that her friend doesn't seem to mind it in the least.

She finishes her dinner and leaves the table silently, unnoticed as they begin regaling Hermione with tales of Professor Trelawney's latest facetious predictions. The last thing she hears as she walks through the doors of the Great Hall is the tinkling of Hermione's laughter, and she does her best to ignore it.

She heads towards the library and the study room to which she's been assigned, and she takes her seat to wait for her tutor. She knows that she is almost a half an hour early, but she has nothing else to do and nowhere else to be at this hour, and so she waits. Forty five minutes later, the door to the study room opens.

She smells him before she sees him, and she can feel her eyes widening and her pulse quickens. When he finally moves around to the opposite side of the table and sits down, she stares. He frowns at her intense gaze, and pulls a book out of his bookbag. She can feel her curiosity growing, and it forms a burning pool in her stomach as she waits for him to speak. When he remains silent, she clears her throat. She can see his jaw clench and realizes that he is prepared for her scrutiny. Even more curious to her is the fact that he doesn't shrink away from it - instead he looks up and meets her eyes with his own.

"Go ahead and ask me," he says flatly. "I can tell you want to. Might as well get it over with now, so we can get on with what needs to be done."

"I thought you were dead." This statement doesn't surprise him, although she can tell that it wasn't what he thought she'd say first.

"Obviously you thought wrong." He looks down at his book and opens it, leafing through sections until he comes to the place he's looking for. "Are we going to study, or not?"

"You're not in school anymore. What are you doing here?" She struggles not to sound accusing, but it doesn't work. He arches an eyebrow and glances up again. She is suddenly overcome with the need to touch him; to make sure that he's really there, and not just a memory that she's somehow managed to project in front of herself.

"I am in school. Just because I don't live with the rest of the Slytherins doesn't mean that I'm not still here."

"Where do you live now?"

"Dumbledore has arranged special quarters for me. No one else knows I'm here except you and the teachers. Can we start now? Is your curiosity satisfied? Because I have other things that I could be doing."

"Don't you get lonely, living by yourself?" Something in her voice makes him look up, and she can see that he wants to say something. He struggles to hold it in, but it looks to be a losing battle. His head bows and he closes his eyes, as though he's trying to forget something.

"Sometimes," he admits, to her surprise.

"Why don't you ask him to let you live somewhere else?" At this, he looks up.

"And where would I go? Everyone else thinks I'm either dead or that I've run away. The dungeons aren't my home anymore. I don't fit in with any of the other houses. I don't belong anywhere now."

"If that was true, you would have run away," she accuses, her brow furrowing. He closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose.

"Why must you talk so much? You're giving me a headache, and I won't be able to get rid of it."

"Why not?"

"I'm not allowed to brew potions in my room, and I can't go to Madam Pomfrey."

"Why not?"

"The other students might see me if I did."

"Do you want me to get you some headache potion?" she offers softly. He seems genuinely surprised at her offer, and seems to consider it, before he shakes his head and turns his attention back to the book that's lying open on the table. "If you don't want the other students to know that you're here, why did you volunteer to tutor?"

"I didn't. Dumbledore is forcing me to."

"I expect he's trying to resocialize you," she muses. He nods in agreement.

"It won't work. I don't care to be resocialized."

"Why not?"

"People are stupid."

"Why don't you tell them what happened?"

"You're the only one who knows what happened," he whispers, sighing. He turns his head and stares out the window at the streaks of red and orange that are swirling across the evening sky. "I know you saw me."

"How do you know?" she asks, not denying anything.

"I smelled your perfume," he admits. She is surprised at this; she didn't think that anyone ever paid enough attention to her to remember the type of perfume that she favored. She is silent for a moment, processing this new tidbit of information before she speaks again.

"You requested to tutor me." She realizes as she says the words that they're true, although she can't quite understand why.

"Yes," is all he says. She nods and takes her book out of her bag, placing it on the table in front of her. He seems relieved that she is going to drop the subject and leave things where they lie, and then thinks better of it. "Why aren't you asking me more?"

"What else should I ask you?"

"Why I did it. How I got out of being punished for it."

"I don't care why you did it - you know your reasons. And you are being punished for it."

"Am I?"

"Aren't you? You're being punished by isolating yourself from everyone else. I'd say that that's a pretty hefty punishment."

"And you don't care why I killed my own father?"

"Your father was a bad man, Malfoy. If you hadn't done what you did, who knows what else he would have done - who else he would have hurt."

"I loved my father."

"I don't doubt that."

"Why did I kill him, then?" She hears the note of desperation in his voice, and understands. He knows that what he's done is right, but for whatever reason, he can't figure out why it was right.

"He would have killed you if you hadn't."

"How long were you there, watching?"

"Long enough to know that you did it in self defense," she murmurs, checking his text to make sure that she's on the same page that he's on. "Long enough to learn that despite what I thought, you are not your father." At this, he turns his face away.

"You're the only one who thinks that."

"Dumbledore must think it, too, or you wouldn't be here right now," she points out, reaching for some parchment and a quill. He gives her another odd look before he quits talking about himself and begins to tutor her in potions.

Much later, when she returns to Gryffindor Tower, she realizes that during the entire two hours in which they were stuck together, he never insulted her. He remained focused and on task, and she is struck by the thought that she actually paid attention to him. These days she finds it hard to listen to anyone, and she wonders what it means that he's the one who's finally gotten her attention.