Cigarettes, Smoke and Shadows

"It’s lovely out here, isn’t it?"

She doesn’t look up. Doesn’t acknowledge his presence. She takes a drag off her cigarette and continues staring into the water.

She feels him behind her. Feels him walking around to seat himself beside her. Close, but not close enough to touch. She wonders if that is on purpose.

They sit in silence for a few moments, her watching the way the stars reflect off the water. Him watching her.

"Smoking is bad for you," he says finally, when she is down to a tiny stub of a cigarette. She throws it down into the water, where it is lost in the gentle current.

Then she turns to look at him, her expression stony. Her brown eyes have a certain hardness to them, something that will take a lot of getting used to. That is, if he can’t break it down.

"What do you want?" she asks, sounding perfectly cavalier.

He smirks. A trademark classic. "I should think that would be obvious by now."

She pulls another cigarette out of her pocket and lights it, inhaling as she does. Only when she has exhaled a pale cloud of smoke does she respond.

"Right. Me. Of course."

Her voice is bitingly sarcastic now.

"You don’t seem to believe me."

"Acute observation."

He sighs, an exasperated, annoyed sound. "Look, I know what I did – "

"I don’t care. So you up and left me. Disappeared for five years. It’s fine with me. Peachy fucking keen. Really."

"I had to. You don’t understand."

"I do understand. You were in danger. We all were. But the difference between you and me is that I fought. You ran."

"Look, Red, if I was brave, I would have been sorted into bloody Gryffindor. But I wasn’t. I’m a Slytherin. A snake. Snakes look out for themselves, and no one else."

She flicks her ashes onto the ground beside her. "You’re right. How could I ever expect you to look out for anyone else? Especially me."

He sighs again and puts his hand on her shoulder.

"Come on, Red, don’t be like that. I’ve waited five years to see you again. Five long years. Doesn’t that mean something?"

She doesn’t say anything. Just looks down at the ground.

"I love you, Ginny. Doesn’t that mean anything?"

She smiles. A small smile, but still a smile, and for a moment he really thinks he’s won her over.

But then she brushes her red hair back behind her ears and he sees her eyes. And they look as cold and hard as ever.

"You don’t love me, Draco," she says, her voice low.

"What?" he starts angrily, "How dare you tell me what I do and don’t feel!"

She raises her eyes to his, the shadow of a smile completely gone from her face.

"You don’t love me. Because you can’t love me. You don’t know what love is, you never did. And I highly doubt that five years on the lam taught you anything about it."

"So you and I?"

"We ended five years ago. And that’s the way it’s going to stay."

He narrows his eyes, heat rising to his face. "Then what am I even still doing here?"

She shrugs her small shoulders and turns her face back to the lake as he angrily strides away. She knows he is kicking up patches of grass, as he always does when he is really upset.

She smiles sardonically to herself, looks into the water, and tries not to think about how perfect his reflection had been.