Draco's Diary (It's Our Secret, Beloved)

One - The Letter Arrives

Lover, You Should've Come Over - Jeff Buckley

It's never over, my kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder
It's never over, all my riches for her smiles when I slept so soft against her
It's never over, all my blood for the sweetness of her laughter
It's never over, she's the tear that hangs inside my soul forever

Ottery-St. Catchpole, 15 March 2004

'Morning, Mum,' Ginny said brightly. She brushed her mother's cheek with a swift kiss and hunted in the cupboard for a bowl.

'You're in good form,' Molly commented.

'I guess so,' replied Ginny. 'For once, I slept the whole night through.'

'So,' Molly said, hesitating a little, 'you didn't have any more dreams about...him?'

There was an undeniable stress on the word him that Ginny knew well. Her mother couldn't bring herself to say the name that had caused her so much pain.

Ginny felt her lower lip begin to tremble, and disguised it by banging the cupboard door shut.

'Nope,' she said in a falsely breezy tone. 'I think I'm finally beginning to forget him, Mum!'

It was a good lie. Her mother had too often stayed up into the night with her, cuddling her and stroking her hair. It was Molly who had stayed with her all night, uncaring that she lost her own sleep in seeing that her daughter could doze fitfully, only to awake again, crying her eyes out. Ginny didn't want her to keep doing it.

'Well done, my girl!' Molly praised her. 'Locomotor pot!'

The pot of porridge moved smoothly through the air to the table, closely followed by Molly.

'Careful, dear, it's terribly hot,' she warned as Ginny scooped out two ladles of the hot cereal into her bowl.

'Thanks, Mum,' Ginny said.

'It's no problem, darling,' she replied, tossing her daughter's short red hair. Ginny had cut it only a month after she left him, determined to move on as much as was possible. 'Now, where are your brothers?'

'I think Bill's still asleep,' mumbled the girl through a mouthful of porridge, 'And Ron and Charlie are out the back de-gnoming the garden.'

'What about Percy and the twins?' Mrs. Weasley pressed.

Ginny swallowed before continuing. 'Fred is probably not long in bed after last night. Said he and George had some party to go to. And as to Percy, he's already gone to work. I saw him Apparate before I came downstairs.'

Molly scowled. 'Well then! They can just make their own breakfast. Your father had the decency to eat some porridge before he took off, at any rate. And that Percy! How dare he go without saying goodbye? The cheek of him! I'll flay him next time I lay eyes on him, mark my words!'

Ginny smiled into her bowl, hoping her mother wouldn't notice the smirk. She remembered what had happened nine years ago, when Percy had turned his back on the Weasleys to work for the Ministry of Magic, citing them all as traitors and sympathisers to Dumbledore. He had come crawling back as soon as the rumours about Voldemort were verified, and while Molly was only too happy to welcome him home, the boys had continued to be wary of him. Ginny, always an avid reader, remembered a line from the Chronicles of Narnia that made it easier to forgive Percy - "Even a traitor may mend." Nowadays, Percy worked in St. Mungo's doing administrative work.

'What time is it, Mum?' she enquired.

'It's just gone past seven,' Mrs. Weasley answered. 'D'you mind clearing up the breakfast things? I have to go into the town and buy some milk. I used the last of it in the porridge, more fool me!'

'No problem,' Ginny replied.

'Such a good girl!' Molly beamed.

'Mum! I'm twenty-three, for goodness' sake. I'm not a little girl any more.'

'Ginevra Molly Weasley,' Molly said patiently, 'even when you are eighty-three, you will still be my little girl.'

Ginny hugged her mother. 'I'm so glad of that.'

'Me, too. Now, what time are you in work today?'

'I'm not, actually,' Ginny admitted. 'Accrued holiday time for hours worked outside my contract. I'm going to be bored to tears for the next week!'

'How would you like to help Ron and Charlie, then?' A tap at the window interrupted her. 'Oh, look!' Molly opened the window to let a handsome barn owl fly in, a letter clutched in its beak. 'It's for you...probably Hermione,' Molly said breezily, passing the sealed envelope to her daughter.

'Oh, Mum, Hermione always sends a full scroll!' Ginny laughed, but froze when she recognised the writing on the letter. It was addressed simply in a flowing script:

Ginevra Molly Weasley,

The Burrow,

Ottery-St. Catchpole

Only one person in the world (apart from her mother) ever called her Ginevra, or wrote like that...

'All right then, dear, I'm off. If you need anything, just Apparate, all right?'

Ginny nodded mutely as her mother disappeared with a tiny *pop*.

'Draco,' she murmured, saying the name for the first time in a year.

Slowly, she regarded her delivery. Fine parchment, written in silver ink with a fine, delicate script. She turned the envelope over slowly and looked closely at the seal - green sealing wax, embossed with the Malfoy family seal of a Romanesque capital 'M', framed by two serpents.

'It really is you...' she breathed.

Slowly, she broke the seal and read the opening lines.

'Dear Ginevra,'

Those two simple words had her gasping for breath as memories flooded back, colliding with more force than a thousand earthquakes and avalanches combined. Her hands shook as she struggled to contain her reminiscences, and gasped as tears fell down her cheek.

Ginny held the letter at arms length, the words blurring with her tears. Her cereal lay forgotten on the plain wooden table.

'Oh, God...' she whimpered. 'How the hell can you still have this effect on me?'

After a few minutes she pulled herself together and read the letter.

'But then, you left. My darling one. My Ginny left me. A year, one month, six days, eleven hours and eighteen minutes ago to be precise. I haven't been obsessing over you or anything.'

'Why are you doing this to me, Draco?' she hissed. 'Why must you remind me of it all?'

She had to admit, he had lost none of his furor scribendi. He was as poetic as ever, as articulate as it was possible to be. As a matter of fact, he had more fire and passion than before.

'You always said I went too far with those romantic gestures, but what could I do? I was crazy about you. I still am as a matter of fact, which is probably why I keep calling you my Ginevra. I know you no longer belong to me, and that's what hurts the most. Everything reminds me of you, absolutely everything.'

The ring he gave her... Her hand went to her neck and clutched at the leather thong that she always wore about it. His beautiful ring, the overly extravagant and impossibly gorgeous ring he had made for her never left her neck. No matter how often she had been tempted to throw it into the ocean and forget all about him for once and for all, she could never bring herself to do it. It reminded her of all the good times they had once had, and made it all the more bearable to know that, at one stage, he loved her enough to go to the ends of the earth to make something beautiful for her.

She read the quote from Blink 182. How could he know that song was one of her favourites? She did note that he got one word wrong. 'Moor' should have been 'morgue'. It was the first part of his letter that made her smile.

'I want to be worthy of you. You were the one and only truly beautiful thing in any part of my life.'

'Are you trying to hurt me all over again?' she sighed. 'All I want is to forget you.'

'I want you back here, in my arms. It's been too difficult for me without you.'

Ginny tried her best not to think of lying, dazed and contented in his arms, snuggled against the concave of his neck and trembling with the aftermath of their coupling...and failed miserably. She shivered as she went on to read the remainder of his letter.

'It is my own fault that I am where I am now, suffering alone.'

'Damn right, it is Malfoy!' she snarled. 'I certainly hope you're suffering, Merlin's beard, I do!'

Her heart softened as she read the next line. She knew this pain.

'It's like every passing minute is a full day and every hour feels like a week. I found myself sniffing my pillow, hoping for the scent of your hair. I reach out in the mornings, expecting the silk of your skin across your neck.'

She shuddered at these lines, knowing that she too had dreamed of him every night and woken up, expecting to find him there and despairing anew with every dawn that he was not.

'I painted a mural on the wall in monochrome grey; illustrating the way that shadows once lay on your lily-white skin as you slept by my side (and I envy those shadows now, oh believe me, I do).'

Typical Draco. He always knew how to make her quiver. Sometimes when they were kissing, he'd move to her neck and then whisper in her ear, 'I envy your clothes. Oh, believe me, I do...' which would make her giggle and suggest that maybe he could keep her as warm as her clothes did...

Ginny half-heartedly tried to shove these thoughts to the back of her mind as she forced herself to read on.

Good God, I even know the delicate arch of your instep, the cute little curve of your shell-like ear, the perfect cupid's bow of your lips and their soft, demanding pressure...'

She felt like weeping. This was too much, too much! She felt just the way he did, if this was not all some grand lie from a master writer. She knew every inch of his face intimately, from the fine down on his upper lip and chin to the seductive angles of his bone structure and the exact shade of his eyes. His kiss haunted her even now. She could almost feel its phantasmal touch, his lips gentle at first, almost timid, becoming more and more passionate as she'd kiss him back and feeling every part of her body respond to him, her arms reaching out to encircle him and her body moving forward to press against him.

She wanted to slap herself. She had fought against these memories for over a year, and she should be over him by now. Now matter how much she tried to forget him, she never would. He would be the tear that hung inside her soul forever, the eternal bruise on her heart.

'I can remember exactly how many freckles you have, one hundred and eighty-two. You wanted to prove to me that I didn't know everything about you, and I surprised you by knowing that precise number. We then counted them to make sure.'

She smiled again, surprised at herself. She remembered that incident intimately.

'I wonder if someone else has counted them for you since. Is that the case, Ginny? Have you found someone who will treat you better than I ever did?'

Ginny sighed heavily. There had been one since then. The famous Harry Potter had wooed her for a while but gave up when he realised that he could never compete with Draco Malfoy. He was heartbroken by her refusal to commit, but he claimed he could understand.

'It's funny,' Harry had said. 'It takes a minute to have a crush on someone, and hour to like someone, and a day to love someone, but it takes a lifetime to forget them. I suppose now I'll know what you're going through.'

Ginny watched him walk away and take off on his broomstick, feeling as though she were the biggest cow alive. She then remembered how much it hurt when she caught Draco with that other girl, and wondered if it was anything like what Harry was experiencing.

Harry had been so respectful to her...almost too respectful. He almost revered her, which drove Ginny insane. She was strong, independent. She didn't need Harry to constantly tell her she was beautiful and remind her every day how much he respected her. In fact, she would have preferred it if she didn't need to hear that she was loved, and she just knew from the things he did, like writing countless poems starring a red-haired warrior-maiden who would make everyone fall in love with her and spurn them all, only to be tamed by a platinum blonde Roman senator...the way Draco always would.

Nobody could treat her better than Draco. He treated her just right, except for all the cheating and lying. He was perfect when he was with her, and she would never even have dreamed of asking for another. She missed him constantly if he ever left her side; she felt his absence like a physical weakness in herself.

'Every word of it is true. I am dying for you.'

Ginny finally allowed herself to cry at those words. How could he? How dare he? He was manipulating her with these beautiful words, with his very pain! She had to force herself to think that he was lying, to think that it was all an elaborate act and a desperate attempt to have her one last time, only to hurt her again.

'Oh, just please give me one more chance, Ginevra! I am aching so badly for you, and for once it's not my body that calls for something to whet its lust. In truth, you have brought me more physical pleasure than any I have ever encountered, but something about you is what I need to complete me. Your soul matches mine somehow.'

'If it did, you'd never have hurt me like that!' Ginny snapped, angrily swiping at the tears on her cheeks.

'You are the only one I have ever dared to call beloved; the only one I have ever bared my soul to. You were the one who inspired me to become a writer and have my poetry and writing published. Your gentle disapproval shamed me into trying to forsake my old ways, and old habits die hard I can tell you now, experto crede!'

Ginny pressed one hand to her temple and rubbed it down her face, a gesture of despair. Still in love with his bad habits, no doubt, not to mention his obsession for Latin phrases!

'You are my first and only love. Can you imagine what that is like for any male, to admit that he has had but one love in the world but that he has lost her out of pure selfishness? You made me forget how to be macho and I gave up being a pureblood elitist, all because of you.'

'Are you blaming me for that, Draco Malfoy?' Ginny muttered. 'I never asked you to.'

'As I once told you, I am in love with myself - '

Ginny snorted. He never wrote a truer word!

' - and committed to myself until my dying day, but you? You, I will love until the end of time, until God wearies of this grand, mad experiment called the universe and crushes it in his mighty fist, grinding the stars, planets and people into a massive pile of dust under his immortal feet, and all that has happened and been achieved by this world is meaningless. Amongst all that death and destruction, Ginny, my love for you will go on.'

Ginny bit her lip and shook her head.

'No,' she murmured. 'No. Don't do this to me, Draco, please...just stop your lies and let me move on with my life!'

'If you were to read this, of course you would think it a shameless lie from the mind of a celebrated writer (even if I do say so myself), all designed and exacted with one purpose - to win you back.'

Ginny felt a tiny bit of guilt. Yes, she was thinking that even as she read the words.

'I may well look back on this and deem it to be sentimental hogwash one day, but Ginny, believe me now...I mean it all. Every last word, every single syllable was chosen with you in mind. I have written this letter thousands of times over the last six months, which probably explains why it's so poetic. I wanted only the best for you.'

She felt dumbfounded. He spent six months on a letter to her?

'I could send you jewels and roses, had I a mind to.'

He was quoting Emily Dickinson, one of her favourites. 'Manipulative scum,' Ginny muttered.

'They don't make up for what I have done. I could get down on my knees and beg for your forgiveness, but that would lower you. I want to place you on a pedestal, where my behaviour cannot pollute your pure and beautiful soul.'

'Liar,' she said, with much less passion than she would normally have used.

'And how can it be there are only seventeen synonyms for beautiful, and yet none of them can come close to describing you? There should be whole books full of words that mean beautiful, all dedicated to and printed in honour of you.'

'Oh, stop, stop now!' She began to cry again, and she hated herself for it.

'My tears don't redeem me. Nothing ever shall. I have hurt you in a most callous and shameful way, and for that I deserve a thousand deaths and torment at the hands of the servants of hell. No, I do not know what I deserve. Not really. I deserve the worst in the world, and I suppose that the anguish of knowing what I have done, the pain of knowing you cried and the countless hours I have wept for are penance for my crime.'

'But do you know I'm still crying?' she asked the letter. 'Do you know that I'm in tears right now?'

'I will never forget the look on your face when you caught me. Maybe that's my greatest punishment to date. Perhaps one day you will forgive me, but in the meantime I've decided to cleanse myself in extremis.

It will be a long, hard journey to do so. I suppose I could call it the second quest of my life, although the first was so farcical it hardly even merits the title.'

Ginny remembered their quest with a little smile through her runny nose and watering eyes. What on earth did he mean, though, second quest?

'To begin on my journey, I have decided to sell my apartment, this place that once thrilled with the sound of your laughter and was lit by your smile and eyes. It echoes now, cries from a former life hiss about these empty rooms, filling me with even greater melancholic despair.'

'Then why couldn't you stay there and wither away in it instead of tormenting me?' Ginny said bitterly.

'I am going to go on a pilgrimage to your old home, the Burrow, then on to Hogwarts and its empty corridors and passageways. After that, I will go to India. Perhaps there I shall learn faith. I want to go to Africa, which is where I pray I will learn charity. Nepal will teach me the power of my own mind over my flesh, while China, Japan and Thailand will train me in respect and honour. Australia will instruct me in my own humility, something I desperately need. Canada and the north will show me the Aurora Borealis, which will undoubtedly make me weep tears of joy at the sight of such beauty and will make me appreciate yours all the more. America will give me a stronger sense of self and drain me of my fears and qualms. South America will school me in survival and lack of the luxury and conditioning I have been subject to since birth. Europe will improve my mind, making me more tolerant and hopefully more educated mentally. I know how much you love a clever turn of phrase, and also how much you love foreign languages. The next to last stop will be Ireland, where I will be coached in chivalry and hear the old legends of the Fianna, with the ancient axiom of "death before dishonour".'

'Idiot,' she mumbled. 'Like it means anything when you're a wizard. You can just fly there, or Apparate!'

'I am not going to Apparate or fly to any of these places.'

'Oh.'

'I am going to travel the Muggle way. It seems purer somehow. You see, I have to redeem myself. I have to be purged, to be punished and pushed to the extremes to truly comprehend what I put you through. Perhaps one day I will have fully atoned for my sins, and for what it's worth I am truly sorry for hurting you.'

'Not much, but it's a start,' she said softly.

'I will send you each chapter of my journal so that you know exactly what I learned and how, and perhaps you will be inclined to forgive me after reading them.'

'Selfish git, what makes you think I'm going to forgive you?' she snapped.

'Yes, I know, selfish even now, but you are what I want most desperately above all things in the world. You have changed me, Ginevra, and have driven me to change myself. Nobody else has ever done that for me.

Now until you receive the first one, please know that I am thinking of you, I miss you and I wish you were here...in my arms.

All my love forever,

Draco Malfoy.'

Ginny crumpled the letter in her fist and sat in silence for a moment.

She sniffled once, and then dissolved into tears. She laid her head on her folded arms and sobbed into them, allowing all the feelings she had fought to forget for a year, one month, eight days, three hours and two minutes.

She then remembered that he would be coming here. How long would it take him to get to the Burrow from America without magic? Would she see him again? Would she care? Would she just lunge for him and kill him, or would she cover him with kisses?

'I need to sort my head out,' she said, wiping tears from her eyes and venturing outside to find her brothers.

'Ron?' she called. 'Charlie?'

'Ginny, over here!' Ron called. He swung a gnome around and cast it into the air, watching it soar a good fifteen feet before it crash-landed.

'Mum suggested I give you a hand...' she said with false brightness.

'We're just done, actually,' Charlie said.

'Oh.'

'Did Mum make breakfast?' Ron asked, leaning back against the stone wall contentedly. Charlie followed suit.

'God, I hope so!' Charlie enthused.

'Yeah, porridge...' Ginny said.

'Gin?' Ron asked. 'Is everything ok?'

'Yeah! Fine. Just fine,' she replied swiftly.

The brothers exchanged looks. 'Are you sure?' Ron said gently.

'No!' Ginny burst into fresh tears and accepted her brother's embraces eagerly.

'Merlin's beard, what happened to you?' Ron was visibly shocked as his little sister sobbed into his shoulder.

Ginny wordlessly proffered the crumpled letter. Ron took it in one hand and read through it, blushing with embarrassment at some parts, turning blood red with anger at others.

'Oh, Ginny...' Ron murmured, handing the letter to Charlie and turning his full attention to the crying girl.

Charlie's reactions were similar to Ron's as he read through, occasionally twitching as though he longed to punch something.

Ginny calmed enough to talk and said, 'I can't believe how unfair he's being! I thought I was over him, you know? And now he turns around and sends me this out of the blue! What right has he? How dare he? I was doing just fine without him, just fine!'

Sparks shot out of her wand, startling Charlie. He was sitting right next to her, and the wand was tucked into her jeans pocket.

'Sis,' Charlie said gently. 'While it's true that we, as self-respecting older brothers, hate and despise Draco merely for the fact that he was your first boyfriend and that he disappeared with you for seven years to America, we have to admit that we never saw you happier.'

'So you're saying I should go back to him?' Ginny asked desperately.

'No, I'm not saying that at all,' Charlie replied.

Ron wrapped an arm around his baby sister's shoulders and said: 'What he's saying is, that you weren't doing great without him. No matter how hard you tried, you couldn't forget him, and it's been killing us to see you this upset over a piece of trash like him.'

'He is trash!' Ginny snarled. 'He hurt me, and I want him to pay for it.'

'Seems to me like he's trying to make up for it,' Charlie hazarded.

'Are you on his side?' Ginny snapped.

'Hardly,' Charlie scoffed. 'I'm a Weasley; I side with family every time. I do think that you ought to at least hear him out. Who knows, maybe he has changed his ways.'

'H-he says that...he's coming here.' Ginny felt herself trembling again.

'Do you want to see him?' asked Ron.

'No...yes...maybe. I mean, I don't know!'

Ron smiled fondly at her. 'He's coming from America without magic? That'll take him at least two days. When did he send the letter?'

'Two days ago!' Ginny replied, almost hysterical.

'Calm down, sis! If he shows up, we'll pretend nobody's here. We'll hide in the attic with the ghoul or something. And if you want to see him, you can just go on down to him. All right?'

'OK, then,' Ginny said with a smile. 'You two are the best. Why can't all men be like you?'

'Because there's nobody quite like a Weasley,' Charlie laughed.

'Come on,' Ron said. 'Let's see about that porridge!'