A Kiss On The Cheek

Draco Malfoy was used to taking orders.

In the beginning, he took them from his father. In school, he would take them from his professors (the ones he respected enough). He knew he would have to endure orders from Lord Voldemort for the rest of his adult life. Draco had been brought up to recognize and acquiesce orders, as was only fitting for the heir of an important Death Eater.

It would be a long time before Draco recognized he had been taking orders from Ginny Weasley.

Though they had spent six concupiscent months together, Draco found that most of his memories of Ginny wemuddled in a disorderly fusion of endless days and ephemeral nights. He found it unusual that the only memories to stand out among the others were of the beginning and the end.

It was nothing remarkable at first, an owl from the Daily Prophet, as was quite common since he had graduated from Hogwarts. There was something different about this owl, however. It was a request for an interview, one that obsequiously referred to him as 'one of the wizarding world's most important and influential heirs' nonetheless, and it was written by a Weasley. He had a few abstract memories of tall, redheaded Ginny Weasley from Hogwarts, another fawning admirer of Potter's apparent inability to just die. He accepted her request curtly, and invited her to the Manor one gloomy Sunday evening. After all, what kind of Malfoy would turn down a chance to lord his wealth and stature over a lowly Weasley?

The night had begun blandly and typically, yet as the evening crept onwards, and the decanter of brandy he had set down between them began to progressively empty, Draco found himself revealing more than was reasonable to the young reporter. He found himself speaking of his impending marriage to Pansy Parkinson, of his initiation as a Death Eater, of hopes, dreams, fears and all manners of things a Malfoy should never mention nor acknowledge. He opened himself up to the demure journalist, and she received him with warm words, sweet smile, a hand on his, and eventually pink lips pressed forcefully against his own.

That first time, they barely made it to the bedroom, unknowingly setting the pattern for many future encounters. Any ideas Draco might have had about the youngest Weasley's timidity were shattered that night. Draco's main impression was of an unexpected, unimaginable and entirely unforgettable experience.

Needless to say, Draco never saw that article.

When he woke the following morning, he found Ginny hurriedly buttoning her her ink-stained cuffs.

"Will this happen again?" he asked, lifting a hand to shield his eyes from the morning sun.

She responded only with an ambiguous smile, pausing at his bedside to give him a kiss on the cheek before sweeping out the door.

Six days, seven hours and thirty-three minutes passed before Draco next saw Ginny. He had given up waiting for a message from her, and had sought her out at work, only to have an exciting encounter in a barely-visited filing room. Things progressed onwards, from chance meetings to deliberate rendezvous to weekend visits, until Ginny Weasley became an addiction just as potent and noxious as that fine brandy Draco was so fond of.

There were always some discrepancies about their relationship that bothered Draco. For him, Ginny was a touchstone; she had become his confidante, his human-diary. However, he noticed that she rarely spoke of herself. Ginny, Draco would find out, had little use for words.

Yet as time passed, Draco felt uneasy, as if there were something Ginny was keeping from him. She constantly evaded his questions, clarified nothing of her relationship with Potter, spoke only of mundane and common topics, if at all. She was all lips, hips and, occasionally, whips. He found himself withhealthy and desperate desire to hurt her; he exaggerated his relationship with Pansy, made up horrible tales of his plans for the future, and even threatened to expose her as sleeping with the enemy. Ginny, however, would always wave it off with a simple 'But you won't.'

Nothing, it seemed, fazed Ginny Weasley.

Every night she soothed his worries in the most libidinous of ways, and every morning she would give him that annoyingly chaste kiss on the cheek, as if she were sealing away all the night's lewd escapades with such a virginal action. Reaffirming herself as sweet, innocent Ginny Weasley, and leaving Draco with nothing but an abundance of unrequited emotions and unresolved memories.

The last straw for Draco came on the night of a lavish St. Mungo's Charity Ball (it must be noted that, light or dark, the wizarding world will always have its aristocratic balls). In a moment of rare openness, Ginny had informed him she would be attending with Potter. Draco had tried extensively to prepare himself for such a sight, yet the whole night he felt a yearning to speak with Ginny, just to know that the last six months hadn't been some bizarre fantasy entirely of his own creation. He watched her broodingly from his seat, he would refused to get up when Pansy suggested they dance, he would not meet his father's, nor his mother's eyes when they spoke to him. Finally, he was so desperate for a word from Ginny, some indication that this was not all a hallucination, that he dropped a note scribbled on a paper napkin into her lap when Potter was not looking, only to see her toss it a few moments later. He attempted to whisper something in her ear, or to purposefully bump into her, but he found she was studiously avoiding him all night. Finally, he resorted to making loud, obnoxious comments on the state of Potter's robes, or his hair, or even his glasses, yet even this seemed to garner no response from Ginny.

At last, Draco had given up, resigning himself to the balcony, where he planned to drink himself into an unfeeling stupor. He was on his third glass of brandy when he heard the resounding click of heels on the stone surface behind him.

"Draco, what do you want from me?" Ginny spoke like a woman heavily burdened.

"I could go in there and relate every sordid detail of the past six months, right now," Draco mused without turning around. He loathed the pitiful undertone in his voice, the way he sounded like a petty human drama.

He felt cool fingers enclose his forearm, and suddenly Ginny was pressed against his back, her fingers playing with the fine curls at the nape of his neck, her lips brushing his ear.

"But you won't, because you're weak, and you couldn't bear to tell your Father. You couldn't bear to feel all their eyes on you, boring into you, scrutinizing every single word you say. You care too much about appearances, Draco," she tugged sharply at his elbow and brought him spinning around to face her. They were nose-to-nose, brown eyes locked on gray. "The name Malfoy will always be a blessing and a curse for you."

He watched as her lips slid into their customary pout. He watched her brown eyes widen, imploring him to surrender. He noticed tarp contrast between her freckles and her livid face, displaying intensity that could, should he answer correctly, be channeled into something different. For the first time, Draco felt disaffected, as if he was distantly observing an actress in a play, with little emotion save for a mild curiosity as to the outcome. He wondered if this was what Ginny had felt like the entire six months.

"Is this about my name? I thought we were past an infantile family feud."

"This is not about your name, Draco, but who carries it. Your Father and his precious Tom tore my life apart. They manipulated a poor, naïve girl almost to death. Is it not just to use their own arts against them?"

"I'm not my father, nor am I Tom, Ginny."

"You haven't the presence of mind to be either!" she snapped, "Yet I thought it contained an element of wrenching irony, no?"

Every muddled memory flew vividly through Draco's mind, and he understood perfectly. Her words were a sharp blow, bringing him down to reality after months of self-induced fantasy. He could think of nothing but the burning sensation flooding him, and what hurt the most was that Ginny had no definite motive. She was not a spy, nor trying to swindle him of his money, she had only wanted to hurt him. Wrenching irony, indeed. For the first time in a long six months, Draco knew exactly what to do. He leaned in, and pressed his lips to Ginny's cheek. He felt what it was like to transfer his own burden in that single mockery of innocence. For a single and perfect moment, Draco Malfoy felt free.

The pounding in his ears was in time with his steps as he walked away.