Learning to Breathe

Chapter Eight

It seems to Draco that everything is a little bit brighter with Ginny around. Things that he thought were earth shattering last month don't really seem to phase him right now. He realizes this when they enter the Three Broomsticks together, and Millicent Bulstrode is having a light supper there with her Mother.

Her eyes widen when she sees Draco; he has no doubt that she too has mistaken his disappearance for death. She watches with those eagle-like eyes of hers as he and Ginny are shown to a corner booth, which secludes them from the majority of the other patrons.

Ginny has been extremely light hearted since their encounter with her brother and Potter, and he has to wonder if it actually even has to do with him. Perhaps she's simply glad to have stood up to them, regardless of why it happened - he doesn't know. He doesn't want to lose the closeness that they've developed, though; she is still the only person on the face of the planet that he trusts right now, besides the old man.

Draco ignores Millicent for the most part. He knows that Ginny has seen her, but to her credit, Ginny says nothing. She seems to understand that Draco will come around on his own terms and won't be pushed too far, and she accepts this. He likes to think that she is so in tune with him that she just knows when to stay silent.

He orders a butterbeer, and she does the same. They are quiet for a while, and when the waitress brings their drinks, it seems to loosen them up. Ginny keeps giving him shy smiles that make his pulse race, and all he can think about is getting her back to his tower where he can be alone with her.

It's not that he hasn't enjoyed his day out with her, he reasons silently. He has. He's even enjoyed running into the Boy Wonder and his Bumbling Sidekick, which is saying a lot. He gives her a warm look across the table - he now has something that Potter will never have.

"Do you want to fly again tonight?" she asks, breaking his reverie. He nods.

"Sure," he says, taking another drink of his butterbeer.

"Draco?" He looks up, and there is Millicent, standing at the edge of their booth. He glances at Ginny and is comforted to see that her knuckles are white, she is gripping the mug's handle so tightly.

"Millicent," he echoes coolly. She relaxes visibly, and gives him a weak smile.

"It's really you."

"Who else would it be?"

"It's just- I thought you were-" He sighs. He knows that he'd better get used to this for a while, at least; everyone thinks him to be dead, and everyone he meets is probably going to ask him the same damned thing when they see him for the first time.

"Yes, well, as you can see, I'm not." He looks at Ginny, who is staring into her mug. She seems to have frozen, and Draco wonders if she thinks that not moving will make her invisible to Millicent. When Ginny glances up at him, he winks at her. She bites her lower lip to hide her smile, and her cheeks turn a delightful pink.

"Ginny Weasley, right?" Millicent says, looking down her nose at Ginny. Draco is filled with pride when Ginny looks up and sticks her chin out defiantly.

"In the flesh," she says sweetly. She is being somewhat guarded with her response, and Draco can tell. Perhaps she doesn't know yet whether or not he wants to rekindle friendship with Millicent, and she doesn't want to ruin it for him if he does. Or perhaps she thinks that he's interested in Millicent as more than a friend.

"Was there something you wanted?" he drawls lazily. "Or did you just come over here to gawk at my friend and I?"

"Your friend?" Millicent echoes, looking uncertainly at Ginny.

"Did I stutter?" he asks, leveling an icy glare at her.

"It's just that I thought you hated her family." Draco's temper flares immediately.

"Well then, I suppose it's a good thing that no one's paying you to think," he says, his eyes narrowing. Millicent's face goes red and splotchy with embarrassment, and Ginny almost feels sorry for the girl. Almost.

"You don't have to be this way," she says, fingering the hem of her jumper nervously. "Things are different now. None of us are anything like what we used to be."

"You still look the same to me," he comments dryly, reaching for his drink.

Millicent deflates at this, and her hands drop to her sides. Ginny doesn't think she's ever seen someone look crestfallen before; she's only read the word in books, but if she had to pin an expression to the word, Millicent's would be spot on.

"Things have changed, Draco. Blaise is friends with Potter, Tracey is living with the Ravenclaws, and I've been staying with the Hufflepuffs."

"Did your little speech have a point, Bulstrode?" he asks, irritated.

"No, I suppose not," she murmurs, eyeing Ginny distastefully. "I can see that you have changed, and that your loyalties have shifted, after all."

"Indeed they have," he agrees, looking at Ginny. His lips curve into a soft smile that is meant just for her, and warmth spreads from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. He turns back to Millicent, who is gaping openly at him.

"I'll just see you around school then, shall I?"

"Whatever," he says, shrugging noncommittally. Millicent turns and walks away, casting one final glance at him over her shoulder before she disappears from sight. He turns back to Ginny. "Well, that was interesting."

"What are the odds?" she wonders aloud.

"Odds for what?"

"The odds that on the one day we decide to go out, we run into everyone we know." He smirks at this.

"If your brother, Potter, and Granger are the only people in your social circle, then we have bigger problems than I thought." She rolls her eyes and laughs at him.

"I didn't mean literally, and you know it, Draco." A thrill runs through him at the sound of his name from her lips. She has said it before, and she will say it again, but he's beginning to think that the sensation it causes will never fade. "But now that Millicent has seen us, you know that the whole school will probably know that we're friends before the break is even over."

"Will they?" he asks, amused. "Well they'd all be wrong, wouldn't they?"

"What do you mean?" she asks, frowning slightly. He reaches across the table and covers her hand with his, brushing his thumb lightly across her knuckles.

"We're a bit more than friends, so they'd be wrong."

"I suppose you're right," she admits breathlessly, her stomach turning wild somersaults. The look that she's giving him makes him curious, and he wonders if she thinks that they're only friends, too.

Ginny rises when he's ready to leave, and she agrees that it's time to head back to the school. They are silent on the walk back, for which she is grateful. It gives her time to think about the day's events; to mull them over in her head.

She had purposely avoided thinking about their shared kisses too much for fear that she would overanalyze and ruin the memory of it with doubts and misgivings. She had hoped that they would be more than friends, but she hadn't dared label the kiss as anything other than experimentation - she doesn't like disappointment, and it would disappoint her terribly if he held no interest in her again after those kisses.

When they reach his tower, she watches as he removes his cloak and hangs it back in his closet. He helps her out of hers and hangs it as well. It gives her a sense of belonging to see that he's hung her cloak next to his, and she is suddenly taken with the urge to hug him.

As soon as he's finished hanging the cloaks and closes the closet door, he turns around. She flings herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and squeezing. She is gratified when his arms encircle her and squeeze back.

"Is something wrong?" he asks, feeling her tremble.

"No," she says, burying her face in the place where his neck and shoulder meet. "I just - I've had a lovely day, and I wanted to say thank you."

He holds tightly to her, with one arm wrapped around her waist and his other hand tangled in her hair. He has been aching to hold her since they left this morning, but has settled for holding her hand instead, for fear that he will smother her.

"Do you still want to fly?" she asks. He grins to himself - as she speaks, he can feel her jaw moving on his shoulder, and it tickles.

"I'd really rather just stay here tonight," he says.

"Are you hungry?"

"Not really. You?"

"No." They have already eaten their fill of sweets from Honeydukes, and Ginny has no room for real food this evening. Even if she had had room, she knows that she still would have said no to food right now; since this morning, her stomach has been in knots every time Draco touches her.

"What do you want to do?"

"Chess?" she suggests, pulling away from him slowly.

"Not tonight," he breathes, his face inches away from hers.

"Talking?" As she speaks, her eyes are focused on his mouth.

"Maybe later." When his lips touch hers, she can feel her knees getting weak. The thought passes briefly through her mind that this is the design of some higher power - otherwise would she fit so perfectly against him?

When his tongue teases her lips apart, her legs give way beneath her. Draco is surprised, to say the least, and he helps her to the bed, where she sits down on the edge. She looks thoroughly embarrassed, which Draco finds endearing. He sits down beside her and puts his hand on her knee.

"All right there, pet?"

"I'm sorry," she says, shaking her head. "My knees..." Her voice trails off.

"What about your knees?" As soon as the words leave his lips, he realizes what she's trying to say. A smirk of epic proportions graces his face, and he squeezes her knee gently.

"Don't go getting a big head because of this," she laughs.

"Oh, of course not," he says, arching an eyebrow and grinning wickedly at her. "Do you need to lie down, or anything?" She gives him a gentle shove.

"As if your ego wasn't big enough," she sighs melodramatically. He chuckles at this. "If it gets much bigger, it's going to suffocate the both of us."

He doesn't have an answer to this, other than that he knows that after he killed his father, he didn't have an ego to speak of. He knows that she has changed things inside of him, setting off a chain reaction like tumblers in a lock. With every day that passes, he feels his old self coming back, although it's modified slightly from what it used to be.

He's spent the last several months questioning his father's beliefs and teachings, wondering if perhaps he hasn't been led astray somehow. He has spent the last week questioning why his father thought that the Weasleys were beneath them, too. Sure, they weren't wealthy in the conventional way, but Draco understands now that there are different ways in which one can be wealthy.

If he thinks of things in those terms, Ginny Weasley holds more wealth in one of her pinkies than he does in his entire body.

Only now, he thinks. Now she's imparted something to him. She's chosen to share the wealth with him, and try as he might, he can't fathom why. He knows that he likes it and that he doesn't want it to stop. He fears what will become of him should she ever see fit to take that light away.

"Draco, are you all right?" Her voice breaks into his thoughts, and he shakes his head gently as though he is trying to clear the thoughts away.

"Yes, I'm fine. I was just thinking."

She doesn't ask about what, which doesn't really surprise him all that much. He has noticed that she anticipates his moods and she can differentiate between them; she knows when she can push and when she shouldn't.

"Are you tired?" He has to smirk at this; he can't resist.

"So eager to get me into bed," he teases. She snorts and rises from the bed, and after she's taken a few steps away, turns to look at him.

"I can stand and walk just fine, thank you very much," she huffs, with her hands on her hips. "And if I recall correctly - which I do - you're the one who suggested that we stay up here the rest of the night."

"I did," he agrees, standing and moving to his dresser to find his pyjamas. "And here we are." She turns away and moves to her bag to get her own pyjamas, ignoring the show that he is putting on for her by removing his shirt and walking around that way.

"I'm not impressed," she teases. He stops walking and stares at her. "It's nothing that I haven't seen before."

"And people think that I'm evil," he mutters, shaking his head. "You are positively wicked, Ginny Weasley. Think what a dynamic team we could be together."

"Yes, the epitome of evil and witty comebacks, that's us," she says, laughing. She disappears into the bathroom to change, and when she emerges, she is wearing her Quidditch t-shirt again. Draco is dumbstruck as she moves past him, seemingly oblivious to the effect that she's having on him.

She moves to her side of the bed and turns the sheets down before climbing into the bed. She glances over to where he's standing, and she raises her eyebrows at him. "I thought you were tired?"

He climbs into bed quickly and dims the candlelight instead of snuffing it. When she gives him a curious look, he shrugs. "I am tired."

"Then why the lights?"

"I thought we could talk for a bit," he says. It is a half-truth, at best. Talking is the furthest thing from his mind at this moment. He wants to hold her, touch her; he wants to see her while he's doing it. This is the first night that he's slept without a shirt, and she is in her t-shirt that doesn't cover anything past her knees. Talk would weigh heavily on the both of him, and tonight he doesn't feel like putting forth the effort that it would require.

"Did you?" she asks, clearly amused. He arches an eyebrow at her.

"Why, you sound as if you don't believe me."

"Maybe it's because I don't," she laughs. He grins at her, and then shifts so that he's lying on his left side with his head propped up on his hand. He is facing her as she lies on her back. It would be so easy, he thinks. So easy to just bend over and kiss her, before she knows what's happened.

"And what else would I have in mind?" he asks, feigning innocence. Her smile fades as she watches him.

"I can't explain it," she whispers, her eyes locked on his. His heartbeat is deafening in his ears; is she making a declaration of her feelings to him? Fear gnaws at the back of his head, lagging just behind curiosity and the worst of all possible emotions - hope.

"Explain what?"

"Me. You. This," she says, her eyes glittering madly in the candlelight. "I want to tell you something."

"Is it a good something, or a bad something?"

"I guess that's up to you," she says, shrugging slightly. "In any case, I don't want to scare you away from being my friend. I'm not foolish enough to think that everything would go back to normal if I told you and you didn't like what I said, but I am foolish enough to hope that we could try."

"You're rambling," he says gently. She gives him a wry smile.

"Sorry. I suppose I do, when I get emotional. Well," she says, taking a deep breath. "I know that you know I have more than a friendly interest in you - or I would hope that you know, after this morning."

"I guessed," he says honestly. Even in the dim light, he can see her neck getting splotchy and her cheeks turning pink.

"It wouldn't be fair to either of us if I spent the rest of the week with you without telling you what I felt," she adds.

"So you just wanted to tell me that you have more than a friendly interest in me?" he asks.

"I-I..." her voice trails off. She thought she could tell him, but now that the moment has arrived, she finds that she can't say the words. She is disappointed in herself. It seems that her Gryffindor bravery has deserted her just when she needs it the most.

"Hey, it's all right," he soothes softly. "You don't have to tell me anything." They watch each other in silence for an entire minute, and then the temptation is too much for him. He leans over slowly, bringing their faces closer together. When her eyes flutter closed and her mouth parts slightly, he closes the distance between them and presses his lips to hers.

He drops his right hand to touch her shoulder, and when she shivers, he increases the pressure of the kiss. It is not frenzied and intense like it was that morning - this time their kissing is slow and full of unspoken feelings. Emotions ripple through him like waves crashing on the sand; he is happy, he is warm, and he is loved. Even if she hasn't said it, he can feel it, and it's the most wondrous thing he's ever experienced.