Seven ways to change a life

Chapter Two

It has often been said that you hurt the ones you love the most, and love the ones you hurt the most. It's almost impossible to explain why there is such a fine line between love and hate, and why that line can be so easily crossed. Perhaps feelings that strong are rooted in the same thing: passion. Passion lies at the bottom of all of us. Passion to love, passion to hate. Passion is the source of hope and the cause of despair. It is the source of life and the cause of death. But the line between it all is trust. Without trust there can't be love. We cannot love someone if we can't trust them with our heart. We can't trust that love won't become hate.

*****

Draco found that for the first time in his life, he had no witty remark to make. Was he ill? No, he was in love. And with a Weasley. He hit his head against the table in the Slytherin common room, with a satisfying thud. Since he had returned to Hogwarts that year and watched her step off the train, red hair gathered in an elaborate knot it the nape of her neck, looking stunning against her pale face and dark robes, he had been ensnared. And that was what was making his life hell. Seeing her everywhere he went, laughing, talking, and with those Gryffindors. But he knew that nothing would come of it. Nothing could come of it. She was a Gryffindor, he was a Slytherin - sworn enemies. And it probably didn't help that he had been awful to her and her brother's friends for the past five years, insulting her family and everything she cared about. No, she wouldn't come near him with a ten-foot barge pole. He thumped his head against the table again.

'Poor Drakie, what's the matter?' crooned Pansy, thrusting her heavily made up face in his. 'Tell me what's going on in your pretty little head.' She stroked his hair and was beginning to trail a finger across his cheek when he snatched her hand in his.

Draco turned his head to her and she gave him what she must have thought was a coy smile, but looked more as though she was sucking lemons. As he squeezed her hand, she giggled. The smile faded quickly as he squeezed her hand harder. A whimper escaped her painted lips. Her hand was still in his vice-like grip, the same impassive look on his face.

'Drakie, sweetie, you're hurting me.' She said waveringly. It was quite cold in the Slytherin dungeon, but Pansy was flushed.

He watched her for a moment or two, then released her hand. She clutched it protectively in her other. She regarded him carefully.

'Pansy,' said Draco calmly, 'sod off.'

Pansy stared at him incredulously, then a look of hatred crossed her face. She stood up, next to him, still nursing her hand.

'You are a bastard, Draco Malfoy,' She fumed, 'you know that. I try and I try, and you brush me off like some, some mudblood. Here I am, giving you everything and you throw it all back in my face. Well, I've had enough! I don't need to take this any more! It's over Draco, and you will never see me again.'

Pansy flounced off across the Slytherin common room to the door to the girl's dormitories. Draco watched her walk away with a faint air of amusement. She stopped at the door and turned back to him.

'And you can say goodbye to this,' with one carefully manicured hand she indicated her rear end, 'cause you're not going to see it anymore.' She walked through the door. A moment later, her head appeared around the jamb. 'Unless you run into me somewhere and . . . and it's me walking away from you.' Pansy paused, 'but even then, I'll probably just . . . you know, back away.' With that she disappeared again.

Draco gazed at the door with his head still resting on the table. Ugh, Pansy, he thought. She had attached herself to him since the night of the Yule Ball in their fourth year, when he had despairingly agreed to go with her, for want of something better to do. She had simpered at him the whole time and followed him around like a stray dog. Soon after she had announced to all and sundry that they were an item, deluding herself that her even liked her. He hadn't corrected her because... well, he though it was funny, seeing her create her own subtext to everything he said, even believing that 'pass the toast' was a declaration of how their relationship was moving into a new stage. Draco knew somewhere in his heart that he was being cruel, stringing her along, and that really it was quite sad how much she had lead herself to believe, just to create her fantasy. But guilt just wasn't featuring in his range of emotions at the moment, and he was happy to let her believe what she wanted to.

Leaning back in the large, forest green arm chair, Draco swung his legs up to rest his feet on the table top, knocking his half-finished history of magic essay to the floor. Sighing he reached down to pick it up, but it was plucked from the stone floor before he could take it. Blaise Zabini materialised beside him, offering his parchment to him with one hand.

Blaise was quite short, with unremarkable dark blonde hair, hazel eyes, and a soft oval face. All in all, she didn't look the sort to be in Slytherin, but she was there all the same. She didn't take a leading role in the house, occasionally trailing around with Pansy and some of the others, but usually keeping herself to herself. Instead of walking, she tended to almost glide along silently, which could be quite unnerving at the best of times. Other than that she was very normal; some may have even said dull. Draco, however, had been suspicious of her for some time. She was too quiet, too reserved. She was up to something; he just couldn't quite put his finger on what.

'You shouldn't be so hard on Pansy,' Blaise said as she dropped the essay in his lap, 'she does try, you know, and it's can't be easy with you brooding all the time.'

'I do not brood.'

'You know what I mean.'

'No, actually, I don't. Pansy follows me round, deluding herself that I don't long to throttle her ever time she speaks, and when I don't fawn over her, she's what? Shocked and disappointed? I'm evil.'

'No you're not.' Blaise leant against the table.

'Gah! Don't say that, I've got a reputation to keep up!'

'Stop acting, Draco. Anyone with half a brain can see that something's eating at you.'

'Good, so no one here will notice,' snapped Draco. 'Look, Blaise, just bugger off. As you've already seen, I am not in the mood for discussing my inner feelings, and how I wish to treat my girlfriend is up to me, don't you think?'

'I thought you said she wasn't your girlfriend? And even if she was, she isn't now.'

'Good,' he said shortly. 'Leave.'

'Draco,' Blaise said patiently, 'you have to learn that you can't always get what you want. You can't order people around.' She caught his gaze and held it. 'You have to be grateful for what you've got, even if it is Pansy.'

He shook his head. 'That's where you're wrong. I'm a Malfoy, I can have what ever I want, whom ever I want.'

'Are you sure?' she asked.

Draco shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Did she know something about that Weasley?

'Look, this isn't what I wanted to talk to you about,' she continued. 'All I meant to say was to cut Pansy some slack. I don't envy her sometimes - '

'That make two of us,' he interrupted.

' - She has such a difficult time. It's not easy being around you on a good day, and lately you've done nothing but bite her head off for no reason. She deserves better.'

'And if the Pansy fan-club could please relocate their meeting...'

'Listen to me, Draco. I see you every day looking more lost. You're hardly ever here anymore. I mean really here. At least last year you used to look at her, now - now all you do is mope around like some angst-ridded hero in a clichéd book. Please, Draco, don't hide your feelings.'

'It's not like anybody here would notice anything I felt, even if I burst out in song with a backing group and a dance routine.'

She knelt down, next to the chair, resting her arms on the arm of the chair. She dropped her chin onto her hands. 'I've noticed,' she said, looking up at him. 'There's something bothering you, and I understand that there's no one here really to speak to about these things, but I want you to know that you can speak to me.'

He looked quizzically at her. 'Are you coming onto me?'

Blaise rolled her eyes. 'Get over yourself, Draco. Stop thinking with your pants, and start thinking with your head. You're alienating yourself from all of us, and that's not a place you want to be.' She left quietly, with her ominous statement thick in the air.

Huh, women, he thought. Ignoring the unfinished homework on his lap, he got up from the chair and walked over to the common room entrance. It was late, and the room was almost deserted. No one was looking his way, so, snatching up his cloak from where it was slung over a sofa, he stepped quietly out of the room, and into the cold dungeon corridor.

*****

The Gryffindor common room was, as ever, full of people chattering away, playing gobstones and doing homework. A fire was crackling away in the fireplace and Crookshanks was curled lazily on the hearth, bathing in the warm glow. He rolled over and stretched with an extremely satisfied look spread across his feline face. Suddenly the expression vanished and was replaced by a look of severe shock, as he was hoisted into the air, rather unwillingly, by a despondent Hermione. Clutched uncomfortably to her chest he lurched as he was borne over to a small huddle of three chairs, already housing a nervous-looking Ron and a very subdued Harry. Hermione sat down heavily in the remaining seat and pinned her cat down, stroking him unmercifully. They sat in silence for a moment, neither one of them looking at another. Harry was leaning on the arm of his chair staring blankly at the wall. Ron was holding a roll of parchment and a quill, the tip of which he was chewing on. He was jiggling his leg which made the parchment balanced on it bounce up and down. In a fit of despair he threw it down and glared angrily.

'I give up. This bloody thing is impossible; I swear it was invented just to make my life more difficult.' He glanced at Hermione. 'C'mon Herm, can you help me? I know you must have done this already, it's due in day after tomorrow. Please?'

She looked at him, a flash of anger passing across her face. 'Why should I have already done that? You think I don't have better things to than homework?'

'No! I just mean - '

'Oh, I know exactly what you mean. Lets all ask Hermione to do our work for her, she's so clever, she's such a pushover. Oh look at her with no life outside of schoolwork.' Her voice shot up an octave.

'Wait, Herm, that's not what - '

'And stop using that stupid nickname!'

'Fine, I'll call you Hermione, if that's what you want.'

She stood up tipping Crookshanks unceremoniously onto the floor. He hissed and stalked back to his place by the fireside, his bushy tail twitching angrily. 'You don't get it! You just don't get it! Men, you're all the same.'

'Oh behalf of my gender - hey!'

'Oh, grow up, Ron. And I'm not going to do that work for you. I don't know all the answers all of the time, I make mistakes, too.' Ron watched speechless as her eyes filled with tears. 'I'm human; I'm not perfect. You can't expect me to be that.'

She broke out of the circle of chairs and fled to the girls' dormitories, leaving confused and shocked people in her wake. It seemed that the whole common room had been listening and were sitting in stunned silence watching Ron. Dean, who was sitting close to them on a moth-eaten couch, raised his eyebrows and said, 'Jesus, what did you say to her, man?' Ron didn't answer; he simply stared at the doorway, which Hermione had disappeared through. Slowly the conversation built back up, and people's attention was less and less focused on what remained of the trio.

Ron sat back in his chair looking bewildered. Harry, however seem unfazed, and was still staring at the same bit of wall.

'Talk about flying off the handle! What the hell is wrong with her? She just flipped! Mental, I swear, Harry. Harry?' Ron looked over at his absent friend. 'Harry? Are you even listening to me?'

With out taking his eyes off the wall he answered, 'Hmm?'

'I'm worried about her. She's been so weird lately.'

'Hmm.'

*****

Damn all squeaking floors! thought Draco as he tiptoed stealthily - and, he wished, silently - through the narrow corridor, and, as if on cue, the floorboard squealed louder beneath his toes.

Suddenly, a bright light flashed in his face.

'Malfoy, what are you doing here?' Ginny held her wand above her head trying to cast more light over the hunched figure before her.

She was wrapped in a pale blue cloak that didn't suit her complexion, but he could see she was wearing pyjamas underneath. Her feet were bare, but she didn't appear to be cold. She began to tap her foot impatiently.

He blushed, a pale pink adorning his high cheekbones. 'Nothing, Weasley.' He opened his mouth to add a cutting insult, but none came as suddenly he was overcome by the thought of how much prettier she was with her hair down.

'I swear, you're following me. I've seen you skulking about the corridors everywhere I go.'

'Don't flatter yourself. Besides, a Malfoy never skulks.' He straightened up, and met her impassive gaze with a rivalling one of his own.

'And what do you call this? Just out for a midnight stroll, and happened to walk in the same direction as me for the past half-hour?' she put one hand on her hip, and brandished her wand, which was still emitting a dim light, in his face.

'No!' he spluttered, 'I - I - Hey! Why do I get all the questions? What are you doing wandering around at this time of night?' he cursed himself silently, how could she make him feel as if suave Draco had left the building?

'Are you feeling all right, Malfoy? Normally you would have insulted my family and me, oh say three times by now, but here you are still talking in a slightly civilised manor. Maybe you have the 'flu?' a smile played around the corner of her lips, as she watched Draco fume.

'Well, I - um, you're really poor -and - I - I never really liked you anyway, and - and you have stupid hair.' He stood, facing her, feeling flustered. Stupid hair? That was pathetic . . .

'Right, I have stupid hair. Good one. I have to be off now, as I have a pressing engagement with a large bar of chocolate and a cheesy novel, if you excuse me.' Ginny tried to brush past him, but he laid a hand on her shoulder. 'Malfoy, get your hand off my shoulder.'

He looked around pathetically. 'Don't go - I mean why are you out of bed at this time of night. I though all Gryffindors would kill themselves before losing house points on purpose.'

'I don't plan on losing any points, and what I do in the middle of the night is really up to me, don't you think?' she shook his hand off her shoulder and walked determinedly off down the corridor.

Draco quickly caught up with her, his long legs matching her pace easily.

'God, Malfoy, you really are following me. Don't you have some annoying brooding to - ' he suddenly clamped a hand over her mouth and pushed her back against the wall, flattening his body against it, next to hers. Ginny stared at him in shock, then bit down hard on his hand. He pulled his hand back and rubbed it with his other hand.

'What the hell did you do that for?' he whispered angrily.

She glared at him indignantly, but before she could answer a pale light appeared at the end of the corridor, bobbing up and down.

'Filch,' Draco whispered as an explanation.

He felt behind him for the door handle of a conveniently located classroom. Luckily it was unlocked, and the door swung wide open. He grabbed Ginny and bundled her into the room. This time she was too shocked to cry out and she simply hovered at the back of the classroom as Draco quietly shut the door.

'Nox,' she murmured under her breath and the light emitting from the tip of her wand vanished, leaving only the obscured illumination from Filch's lantern to break though the dark.

Draco signalled to her to be quiet and motioned her to come to the front of the room. She sneaked through the rows of desks, trying not to breathe and ducking under the line of vision through the glass panel of the door as she passed. Reaching the teacher's desk at the front, he indicated with his hand the space under the desk, which was hidden from sight of the door. She raised her eyebrows at him, but he had already disappeared into the cramped space. Glancing nervously at the door, she resigned herself to her fate and huddled under the desk trying to keep as far away from Draco as possible, which wasn't very easy to say the least. They remained like that for a few moments, Ginny chewing her lip, vigorously. She looked at him. He sat there as if nothing were wrong. As if they weren't squished under a desk or hiding from Filch in the middle of the night, or that they hadn't insulted one another for over two minutes.

'Why did you bother?' she asked.

'Bother about what?' He watched her confused.

'Bother to hide us in this classroom, warn me about Filch.'

He stared at her as if she had gone crazy. 'Why wouldn't I? I'm not really enthusiastic about getting caught out of bed, especially with a Weasley.'

'But you could have left me there, hidden yourself and let me get caught.' Ginny watched his face carefully, to see if there was any hint that he was setting her up.

'Why would I do that?' She arched an eyebrow. 'Okay, I know what you mean, but I just couldn't, you know?'

'No, I don't. You have never seemed to give a damn what happened to me for the past five years, I don't see why you should start now.'

He shifted uncomfortably. 'I just . . . didn't want to, okay? Can't I do something nice for once?' She watched Draco as he squirmed under her uncertain gaze. She was suspicious. What did he want? Why was he trying to help her? She shivered; he was all too much an unknown quantity. He was easier to deal with when he was being a bastard.

'Do you think it's safe to go out yet?' she questioned. He shrugged.

Taking the initiative, she pulled herself out of the confined space and padded softy towards the door. The light from Filch's lamp had disappeared and had been replaced with a soft trickle of moonlight that had escaped from behind a cloud. She looked out through the glass. No one there. Placing her hand on the handle, she hesitated.

'Malfoy,' she said turning back to where he had emerged from the floor, 'I want to, um, say thanks. For not leaving me to get caught, I mean. It was probably the only thing you've ever done that wasn't out of spite, but then I don't know, maybe back in the Slytherin common room you're a fluffy little bundle of love - '

'Oh, don't worry, I'm just as nasty to them as I am to you.'

'Oh great, that's a real comfort. Look all I wanted to say was that whatever it is that's making you be like this,' Ginny looked into his eyes for the first time. They were looking earnestly at her, as if what she was saying really mattered. An odd look. 'It's good, keep it up. Erm, and as strange as it is to say this, if you do something like that again, then I might actually owe you one.' She gave him the briefest of smiles, and started off towards the door again. Then it hit her what was odd about his look. He didn't usually have looks. It was just the same emotionless expression, no mater what happened. She used to imagine him at a funeral, what he would look like, but it always came up with that horrible blank stare. But that had been a look, a brief flash at the emotions beneath the surface. She hesitated anew, looking back at him, but it was gone, there was the same old mask.

'Malfoy . . . is there anything wrong?' He stared at her startled. 'I shouldn't have said that, it's none of my business. I'll just go.' Ginny kicked herself mentally. You have to make things harder on yourself, don't you? As if that wasn't difficult enough as is was.

Stumbling over to the door she cursed her self for not having done a runner right at the start. Now she was confused. Malfoy was being nice and even getting her out of trouble; the world was on its head. Then suddenly a soft voice rung out. She spun around.

'I've been,' Draco rolled his eyes and tinged pink. Ginny almost smiled.

'Watching you world from afar,

I've been trying to be where you are,

And I've been secretly falling apart,

I'll see...'

Ginny watched puzzled. What the hell was going on? Draco however seem now perfectly at ease with this strange development.

'To me, you're strange and you're beautiful,

You'd be so perfect with me but you just can't see,

You turn every head but you don't see me.'

She leant against a near by desk and watched him. He looked almost ethereal in the half-light. His skin was diaphanous with where the faint moonlight fell across one side his face, the other side was cast in shadows. She had never seen Draco with anything other than a sneer disfiguring his features, but underneath, he really was quite handsome . . . No! She shook herself mentally; she was no going to thing about Draco Malfoy like that. Mean, horrible, cunning, intelligent, good-looking . . . stop it! Ginny blinked hard, and returned her attention to him, determined not to let herself he taken in by whatever trick he was playing.

'I'll put a spell on you,

You'll fall asleep and I'll put a spell on you.

And when I wake you,

I'll be the first thing you see,

And you'll realise that you love me.'

Draco was crossing the room, drawing closer to Ginny with every step.

'Sometimes, the last thing you want comes in first,

Sometimes, the first thing you want never comes,

And I know, the waiting is all you can do,

Sometimes...'

They were now standing directly opposite each other, maybe inches apart. Ginny looked up, into his face and saw his eyes looking back at her. Her breath caught in her chest, her whole body tingled anticipating something that might come. She tried to pull herself back. This wasn't real, it wasn't happening...

'I'll put a spell on you,

You'll fall asleep,

I'll put a spell on you,

And when I wake you,

I'll be the first thing you see,

And you'll realise that you love me.

'I'll put a spell on you,

You'll fall asleep 'cos I'll put a spell on you,

And when I wake you,

I'll be the first thing you see,

And you'll realise that you love me, yeah...'

As if coming out of a trance, at the end of the song Ginny felt some sort of release on her soul. She took a steep back and let out her breath. Draco stood exactly where he had before but with a look of horror on his face. He opened his mouth to say something, but turned instead, to the door, and bolted into the corridor with one last glance back in her direction before disappearing. She sat down heavily in the cold stone floor. Why did things always get so confusing?