Ice

Ice

Deirafalcon

I wasted years of my life swooning over Harry Potter. Strange to think of it, now. Simply because he was a hero. To the wizarding world, perhaps, but he was never heroic to me.

A hero would not have laughed at my devotion, even if he did not return it. A hero would not have taken it for granted, either. It took me over three years to realise that, but when I did, it was for good.

The spell was broken, suddenly and completely. I woke up and knew that Harry was a waste of my time. He would never care for me, and I hadn't really cared for him. Just a childish infatuation. And now I was ready to become.

It wasn't difficult. Mum said I "blossomed" over the summer, and it was true. I had gotten much taller--close on to six feet--and I guess I'd changed in some other ways too. It made it sort of easy to be more...outgoing. Well, maybe a little more than outgoing.

It was my fourth year, and I was fourteen years old. Last year I had waited in vain for Harry to ask me to the Yule Ball, and had agreed to go with Neville in despair--the day before he asked me. Ironic? Yes. Unexpected? No.

So I didn't need to be hanging on Harry any more. All he'd ever done was embarrass and disappoint me. I guess I started flirting.

Not flirting, per se, but I didn't need to flirt, really. Boys just sort of flocked to me, and if I didn't discourage them, that was that. But it's terribly impractical to have a load of boys around, sort of like being at home with my brothers, so I just saw Ernie Macmillan for a while. I always liked Ernie: he was sweet and thoughtful and he believed what Harry said about Voldemort returning. But he wasn't really the type of boy you could fall in love with. That is, I couldn't fall in love with him. Hannah Abbott could, and he's meant for her. Honestly, it's not hard to see. So I let him go, and then Michael Corner caught my eye. Yes, I know, it was a bit shallow, but he really was attractive--I always thought I liked boys with dark hair like Harry's until that year, when I realized my penchant for blond. Of course, after Michael got to be such a bore about Quidditch and I ditched him, I started with Dean Thomas. A fun, friendly, and not altogether ugly Gryffindor. I really thought I had something there. Of course, he didn't really write that summer, and I heard rumors about Padma Patil. I'm not sure having boys who don't work out is any better than being hung up on heroes.

That was the worst time of my life, being dumped by a boy. Hermione and Luna were sweet, but they couldn't really relate. Sure, Hermione was always waiting for my waffling brother to wake up and ask her out, and Luna had fallen into the Potter Quagmire I'd escaped from, but they'd never been dropped cold. I sat aroung eating a lot of ice cream and feeling sorry for myself and gaining too much weight that summer. In the two weeks before school, I got a grip on myself. No way I could get another boy looking like that!

I did have one or two qualms about school. My marks weren't quite as good as I was accustomed to in fourth year, and with OWLS coming I didn't need to be slacking off. Mum would kill me; I was her hope for Head Girl. Of course, I did make prefect that year, miraculously. So I found myself sitting all alone in the prefect carriage on the train.

Then Draco Malfoy walked in.

I have to admit he was sublime. A slug, yes, but sublime. He was spoiled, rich, snobbish, and a future Death Eater. Everyone knew it, and they either detested him or worshipped him for it. I knew he was evil, oh, yes, everyone know Draco Malfoy was evil. But he had smooth skin, robes that were trimmed with silver although it wasn't really allowed, and hair so blond it looked silver. Then he had those eyes, those cold, gray, icy eyes that could swallow you whole. At least, they swallowed me.

"Weasley," he said lazily in that unmistakable drawl, "if you could afford some decent robes, you might not look half bad, you know." And he stared at me where he really didn't have any business looking at all. He was so conceited!

But I knew I could take him. I was out of my moonstruck Harry phase, out of my immature, gawky phase, out of my demure childhood innocence phase. I had been scorned and I had triumphed. I was on the prowl, I was looking pretty again, and I was ready to tear out the throat of anyone who so much as told me a lock of hair was out of place. And then his cold, icy eyes met mine. I swallowed hard.

"Look, Malfoy," I said, trying hard to make my voice as cold as his soul, "none of your friends are aroung to watch you embarrass me, so what's the point?"

He smirked, confident and conceited and clearly enjoying himself. He shrugged casually, disinterested. "It's all part of the game, love," he said, in a low and incredibly sexy voice. Then he walked over to me and somehow our lips met. I didn't resist. I didn't discourage him. I might have even wanted my world to explode.

~~~~~~~~~~

Draco was different. I wasn't as...well, experienced as he was, but I certainly wasn't inexperienced. I'd kissed several boys, not including my brothers, and it had been a little bit fun and a little bit naughty. It hadn't been a whole new way of looking at life, a whole new myriad of worlds, a whole new road uncovered before my eyes. I met Draco in the Astronomy Tower that night, because I knew he was different.

I loved him. He was my soul mate. It was so obvious stating it made it seem dull and prosaic, but it was more than that, too. It was wonderful and exciting and it was the littlest bit dangerous. It was freeing and containing all at once, wild and at the same time comforting. I loved him, and I wanted the world to know.

He swore me to secrecy on the train, in the brief moments before my brother and Hermione came in, as he sat carefully on the opposite side of the compartment, asked me to meet him that night, and opened Hogwarts, a History and read.

I worried a bit about meeting him in the Astronomy Tower. I was a little afraid he would have his minions there, to laugh at me, to ridicule me, a Weasley falling for the Prince of Darkness. But he was alone, and his eyes sparkled steel when they saw me. I was glad to see him too, but I had other things on my mind. I asked him immediately why we couldn't be seen together, why he would conceal something so beautiful and right.

He said the world wouldn't understand.

They wouldn't, of course they wouldn't! Last year the world didn't understand that Voldemort was back because they were afraid. They shouldn't be afraid of us, they shouldn't fear us! There was nothing to fear!

"To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead," I informed him after his harangue on death and secrecy and sworn enmity and chaos.

His eyes seemed to melt a little then, dissolve the icy sheen that was his mask. "I don't fear love," he said, so quietly I could barely hear him. "I fear loss."

I tried to explain to him that loss is nothing, that death is nothing, that Love can conquer death. "Omnia vincit Amor: et nos cedamus Amori." (Love conquers all things: let us too give in to Love.) For a minute I was afraid he wouldn't understand Latin, but he certainly did understand. I put my arms around him, and he didn't pull away for several minutes. When he did, it was with somber eyes and a human tone of voice.

"I can give in to Love, but not to death."

So we kept our precious secret.

~~~~~~~~~~

I loved him, Merlin knows, I loved him. I didn't see anyone that year, except him, at night, when no one was near. I shooed away the boys who swarmed me like flies, until they got the idea and left me alone. I was fiercely possessive of Draco, jealously watching Pansy Parkinson's every obvious ploy, and his skillful deflections. He was so cool, detached, poised at every moment. He ruled Hogwarts that year, the collected Slytherin snob with the fabulous hair and the daredevil smirk, too old to fear and too young to die, easily winning Quiddtitch matches and girls' hearts. But his heart was mine.

I was so caught up in loving him that I never really thought about his history as a Dark wizard, his father's insider status as a Death Eater, whether he had any part in the rising death toll. Perhaps I shuld have; his callous disregard for the war wouldn't have come as such a surprise to me then.

The day before we left school, there was a mass murder at Diagon Alley. Flourish and Blotts was having a signing by Miranda Goshawk, a talented author of both spellbooks and fiction and a Muggle-born witch. It didn't help that Mr. Flourish was a squib.

That night I still couldn't get over it. We'd used Goshawk books all through school, and I also loved her debut work of fiction, The Day After, about an alternate reality in which Voldemort had killed Harry and gained complete power. It was supposedly the first in a trilogy. Now I'd never know how it ended.

Draco seemed perfectly normal, intense and relaxed and cold as ice. It was reassuring to see him, just as always, and at the same time alarming. Hadn't he heard? Didn't he care?

He shrugged. "Muggles. They're a lower form of life, aren't they?"

They were, of course, but it was ahrdly their own fault! They didn't choose to be Muggles, after all! "Well, yes, but, that doesn't mean they deserve to die, just because some twisted man says they do! That's sick!"

"Cows are a lower form of life. I suppose you didn't eat any of the delicious steak we had tonight?"

"It's different, they're people too. They look like us, they talk like us, they think like us. You can't say anything about that!"

He sniffed, airily dismissing my logic for his own conditioned response to mass murder. "They don't think like us. Not only do we have magic, we are of clearly superior intellect. You don't see wizards going around declaring war on each other, do you?"

I gasped. I hadn't thought he was that heartless. I hadn't thought he was that stupid. "That's what Voldemort is doing right now. He's fighting a war with justice and democracy and killing millions of innocent people! It's a tragedy!"

"One death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic," he drawled, looking as though I was being a completely and utter bore.

"I honestly thought you were better than that, Draco," I said, biting my lip and trying to stop the tears welling up in my eyes. I shook my head in disbelief, then ran as quickly as I could back to Gryffindor Tower. That was the last time I saw Draco until the day death caught up to us, challenging everything we held dear.

~~~~~~~~~~

It was early in the morning when I heard the sounds, no later than ten. At first it was just a series of pops. I didn't pay any attention to them; it was just Fred and George, I was sure, inventing something else I'd have to watch out for over the next few weeks. Then the crashes started, and I could hear yelling, see neon light flashing under my door.

Somehow I knew what was happening, and I was paralyzed with fear. I couldn't move a muscle,and all I could think was that Draco had done it.

They came upstairs then, breaking down doors and laughing raucously. I closed my eyes tight, praying to wake up. And then they were beside me, on top of me, and I was struggling and I was screaming but it was no good.

~~~~~~~~~~

They left me for dead, and I was dying. I managed to drag myself away from the blood and the mess, aware of the silence in the house, begging to be done with it and die. And then someone else was there, calling my name, running up the stairs. I knew who it would be before I saw him, and I knew it wasn't his fault. I knew I still loved him, and I didn't want to leave him. But I was going to.

He said he would save me, said he was never going to let me go. I tried to tell him it was hopeless. I was going, whether he liked it or not.

He didn't listen. He didn't want to understand. He was afraid.

"No! No, no, you're not! You're fine, Ginny. Everything's fine. You'll be all right, you'll see."

I was crying. I never cried. I hadn't cried until he came, but now the tears were coursing down my face, tasting salty and sweet. With a shock I realized that he was crying too.

"Don't argue," I whispered, unable to raise my voice; I was losing my last stock of strength in the tears mingling with his. "It's too late for me to live, and even if you could save me, I don't think I want you to try." I did want him to try, I did, but I was in so much pain, I was so afraid....

He shook his head, his voice strangled. "I can't lose you. Don't leave me!" he cried, and I knew his worst fears had been realized.

"Muggles say that it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all," I croaked, and he shook his head again.

"I can't live without you."

"Non omnis moriar," I told him. I shall not altogether die.

"I love you," he said.

"And I love you." And I was floating...

~~~~~~~~~~

Death is different than I expected. Quiet, and peaceful. I'm staying by the creek now, mostly, waiting. My brothers don't understand, especially Fred and George. It's peaceful enough that they're all happy, and they only seem to remember the bad things about life. They think I miss Mum and Dad, or Hermione and Harry. And I do. But I'm not waiting for them.

I know it can't be long. He said he couldn't live without me. I know he might not really deserve peace, but I don't know that he deserves hell either. I don't know that anyone does, really, or even if I believe in a hell.

And I know that it won't be long now. I can feel him, coming nearer. Maybe he's dying. Death has no power over love. He's coming nearer, I know it. Does the creek really ripple that much? I can feel him, stronger than ever...I know the creek doesn't ripple that much; someone's coming out, any minute now....