Chimera

She touched the brambles, entranced, and yanked feebly at one strand of thorn, as if she wished to pull it away yet keep it close. Her thin fingers speared a long thorn, and she hissed in pain as dark blood welled up in a stinging cut. The fog that always fell down around the lake this early in the morning made the world smaller, and she could just see the castle's outline across the lake. The tiny flag Harry had once strapped to Gryffindor Tower shuddered in a wind that Ginny could not feel. She smiled, remembering the image on the flag even though she was too far to see it with her eyes. A raven perched happily on a lion's back; it symbolized, to anyone who knew, Harry and Luna Lovegood's recently established relationship. Of course, there would always be some clueless kids who thought he was still mourning over Cho Chang like any teenage boy, but that could not be helped. Kids will always dutifully act like kids.

Ginny smiled again, but it was softer, and sorrowful. She did not regret that she had given up her love for Harry, because she had learned something important at that moment two years ago. She had never actually loved him; she had idolized him, and that was not the same at all.

She turned back to the trees and watched through their branches, brown eyes unfocused, as a gray swan landed on the water's surface. His large wings stretched and settled, his neck curving haughtily. When he turned his black eyes towards her, she self-consciously ran a hand through her loose hair without quite knowing why. She stared at the swan as he stared back at her. With vague surprise, she saw the swan begin to swim towards her, and she pushed away the fine hanging of briars between her and the lake.

As she reached the edge of the lake, she fell down onto her knees, looking out over the water's even surface. The swan stopped a few feet away from her and preened aimlessly. The great bird's manner reminded her dimly of someone she knew, but she could not place the character with the face. When the bird turned to look at her again, she lost her sense of reality in the depths of the swan's intelligent black eyes. Who? Who are you? She leaned forwards, reaching urgently towards the creature with one hand.

"Weasley?" The voice sounded desperately choked with amusement, but also bafflement. Disoriented in that quick, feral second, she scrambled for the simple knowledge of where she was and what she was doing. In one, fluid motion, she fell further into the shallow water of the lake.

For a long moment, she gaped, wide-eyed, out across the empty water, devoid of any wildlife, swan or not. She had not noticed the water spread around her until she was kneeling in numbingly cold water, her fingers splayed out in the earthy sand below her. It was as if she had been sleepwalking, and had only just woken.

"What the hell are you doing? Communing with nature?"

Her back straightened, and she whipped around, her long hair fanning out behind her and splashing myriad drops of cold water on the boy standing behind her. The blond sputtered and coughed, then, with as much dignity as he could find, glared at her. A piece of wet hair clung to his forehead, but she could see the cream white skin behind it coloring to a pinky rouge as she observed him without fear. It was then Ginny realized why: for all that her brother hated him, Draco Malfoy was but a boy.

"Hello," she said calmly, looking up at him. The water swam around her submerged knees and feet. She knew the hem of her kilt was getting wet, but as she no longer seemed to feel the cold, Ginny stayed where she was. She smiled up at Malfoy.

"What are you doing in there?" Malfoy asked again, gazing down at her in confusion. His white button-up top was speckled with water, and drops trickled down his arms. He looked vulnerable, less like the great Draco Malfoy of Slytherin and more like a pale deer stumbling out of a forest into a flood of light. He looked like a creature created by the wilderness of nature.

He crouched down next to her. "I thought I saw a swan," Ginny said, looking at his gray eyes for a moment. He shifted uneasily, then he turned away and looked out across the lake.

"I don't see any."

"It's gone," she answered quietly. "It must have been magical, to have disappeared like that."

He looked at her then. "I've been watching you for the last five minutes. There wasn't any swan at all."

She shook her head, helpless to explain. "I know I saw a swan. It was right here," -she reached out over the water again- "and now it's not. I can't say where it went. It disappeared when--when you spoke to me." When he didn't respond, she added, "Why watch me?"

"You seem different out here than in Hogwarts - is it the lake, or the forest? The early morning?" he said, guessing, not looking at her, not answering a question.

She watched the far shores of the lake. "I've never come out here in the mornings before, only the afternoons. In school, it is hard to be like this. It's cruel to judge people."

Malfoy smirked, but it was a very small smirk. "It's cruel to guilt trip people."

She looked at him then in amusement. "We're both to blame then. May I call a truce?"

"You want to truce with me?" Malfoy asked, surprised. "Why? I've been terrible to you these past years, and I can't say I've enjoyed your company either."

She shrugged, her lips set in an uncomfortable quiver. Gryffindors were so weak when they weren't being brave, she thought. "Well, Malfoy, people never seem to be like what they appear on the outside. You don't act like this during school. You aren't a bad person."

"You don't know that. This could all be fake - all be an illusion," he said gruffly, his voice violent but subdued, as if he were trying to be bad, but he couldn't find it in him to try harder. It was as if a battle had been fought in his voice, in such few words. "That's the beauty of this... of this fantasy, you call it. Figment of the imagination, if you will. The question is, whose imagination?"

"Excuse me?"

"Would you daydream this - you meeting me - me seeing a swan? Oh, would you?" Her voice strained wistfully, and she picked at the dirt clinging to her arms, trying to brush her skin clean. "Neither of us is actually sure the other is real, see? Out here, even our personalities are different. It's all an illusion."

"How can we be sure we're real?" he said quietly, looking at the girl kneeling in the water in front of him. For a long while, they said nothing, did nothing, pretended nothing. Ginny thought the castle should have been waking up, or birds should have been clambering at the sun disdainfully. That small section of the world was caught in a still life moment, caught unawares and immobile. To break the silence, she sighed, and then looked up into Malfoy's face.

"Malfoy?" she asked, helplessly not knowing what she had wanted to ask him, why she had wanted to speak to him. He turned towards her, sitting back on her heels in the shallow water.

"You want to know which one of us is real, right?" He sounded so gentle. She nodded; she pleaded silently with her eyes only. He replied with a nod, and bent down towards her, balanced, his moments made of ease and elegance. He stopped half a foot away from her face; she gazed up at his nose and eyes and mouth for a long moment where she would not breathe. Then, she whispered, "Who are you?" and he dropped his lips onto hers for a heartbeat. She breathed again, lifted her chin to follow his retreating mouth, clenched her submerged fists with water, released them slowly, and breathed again. Malfoy pulled his mouth away and returned it again.

"You have taken my sin; give it back to me now," he whispered, his pale lips moving along hers. Tiny hairs along the back of her neck shivered, and she closed her eyes. An imprint of his gray eyes stayed in her vision, watching her soul as she squirmed and leaped at once. She felt his lips kiss her again, still so soft that she felt an intense longing building up, but as she tried to satisfy the yearning, she felt Malfoy's lips move away slowly. In her mind, a dull noise that sounded like drums pressed against her ears, and her body jerked awake. Her eyes fluttered, deeply confused, as she stared into the sky above her where she thought a boy named Draco Malfoy had kissed her only seconds - heartbeats - before.

"Malfoy?" Her voice quivered and failed, and she looked out over the lake at the castle. There was no one there. She looked at the brambles behind her, and at the ground below her. There were no footprints, no Malfoy. She looked up at the sky again, and saw a small gray figure vanish as fog pushed it into oblivion. She was alone.

And, floating gently in the water in front of her, exactly as gently as Malfoy had kissed her, was a long gray feather.