Catch Me When I Fall

Catch Me When I Fall

Is anybody out there?

Does anybody see?

That when the lights are

Off something's killing me?

I know it seems like people care

Cause they're always around me

But when the day is done

And everybody runs

Who will be the one to save me from myself?

Who will be the one who's there?

And not ashamed to see me crawl?

Who's gonna catch me when I fall?

When the show is over

And it's empty everywhere

It's hard to face going back alone

So I walk around the city

Anything, anything to clear my head

I've got no where to go

No where but home

Who will be the one to save me from myself?

Who will be the one who's there?

And not ashamed to see me crawl?

Who's gonna catch me when I fall?

It may seem I have everything

But everything means nothing

When the ride that you been on

That you're coming off

Leaves you feeling lost

Is anybody out there?

Does anybody see?

That sometimes loneliness is just a part of me?

Who will be the one to save me from myself?

Who will be the one who's there?

And not ashamed to see me crawl?

Who's gonna catch me when I fall?

-Catch Me When I Fall - Ashlee Simpson - I Am Me CD

There was a deadly silence as the limp body fell to the blood covered soil. The only noise was the heavy breathing of the man holding his wand in an outstretched hand. As the body hit the ground with a weak thump people looked upon the boy with a disbelieving look.

It had really happened. Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, had defeated He Who Must Not Be Named, a.k.a. The Dark Lord - Voldemort.

With a heavy sigh, he dropped his arm and fainted unconsciously to the ground with his wand gripped tightly in his hand.

-)(-

Weeks later, as the survivors of the war were attempting to clean the destruction that the war had left, a blonde boy stood hidden in the shadows under a dimming light of a porch. Tears had trickled from his sore eyes and down his cheeks, making it even worse to do this. But he had to. It was his only chance of making it through this whole ordeal mortals called 'life'.

With a shaking fist, he lightly knocked on the wooden door, causing his raw knuckles to sting. A few minutes later, the door opened a crack and he could warily see a wand in the darkness; this person was obviously awaiting battle. But the boy had no strength for a duel. He was too tired, too weak. Another battle could quite possibly cause his death.

He saw a wide, sunken, hollow eye as the door opened a little more. A pale hand with a wrapping bandage around it was on the side of the door. Tangled auburn hair rested like a nest on the head of the person, and behind her hollow eyes he could visibly see curiosity, fear, anger, and sadness through the darkness. He didn't know who this person was, but once she opened her mouth and spoke, he knew exactly who it was.

"Malfoy?" Ginny Weasley hissed, and gripped her wand tighter as if she expected him to attack her. "What the hell are you doing here?"

With a sniff, he looked down to the rough shag carpet in front of the door. "Please," he whispered in a hoarse voice, his throat scratching with each word. "Can I come in?"

She looked at him for a moment; saw that he had no wand out and that nobody was with him or listening. She looked back inside and sighed, "Sure. Come on in. Just don't try anything or I swear on my mother's grave that you'll regret ever being born."

"I'm too tired to fight you, Weasley," he said as he stepped in through the wide door. He heard no noises within the house, he didn't smell anything cooking, and didn't see anybody from the places he was able to see.

She closed the door and he sat down on the couch, dust coming up from the sides, making him sneeze. When he opened his eyes, Ginny was standing in front of him with her arms crossed. Silence filled the room until Draco felt he might chock.

He cleared his throat and said, "I'm sorry about your mother. I truly am. I know how it feels to loose a mother, someone who loved you despite everything. Someone who was there for you no matter what. Someone who you loved more than any body else in the world."

Upon seeing her disbelieving expression, he laughed dryly and said, "Yes, I know how to feel. I lost my mother in the summer before my seventh year. My father beat her until she was lying on the floor with broken bones and soaking with blood. I had to watch." He swallowed the lump in his throat and closed his eyes, feeling the tears well up in his eyes again. "I loved her so much, she was the only one who truly cared for me, who would do anything to protect you even if it meant risking her own life."

A tear crept down Ginny's cheek and she felt herself walking over to the couch and sitting next to him. She pulled him into a hug and he buried his face into her neck. She pushed his greasy hair back and rubbed his back, trying to comfort him but she couldn't even comfort herself from her own mother's brutal death.

"He was beating me," Draco whispered roughly. "He was beating me, Ginny, his own son. Of course it hadn't been the first time. But it was the first time she had tried to stop him, tried to protect me. She wanted me to live through this war. She knew she was going to die if she tried to stop him, but she went on anyway.

"She told me to run, to go somewhere safe. She told me this as Lucius beat the shit out of her. She wasn't even sad that the man that she had married was murdering her with his own hands. She just looked at me and I knew that this was her way of telling me that she would be safe after this and so would I. She told me she...she told me loved me. I just stared at her as I watched her being killed by my father."

He couldn't go on and describe the night that his mother was murdered, even though it was fresh in his mind like it had just happened last night, not eleven months and two and a half weeks ago. He could still hear the screams that she had let out and it haunted his nights, making it difficult for him to close his eyes and not see his mother writhing in pain on the blood soaked carpet.

"Shh," he heard her whispered into his ear as he cried. He jerked back and looked at her, surprised that he hadn't noticed she was holding and that he was responding by allowing it. How had he let himself be vulnerable with a Weasley?

"Don't touch me," he hissed and he looked down at his lap.

She backed away and put her hands up. "Sorry," she said quickly with a tint of fear in her voice. "Sorry. I won't touch you again. Sorry." Then as if remembering something, she jumped up from the couch and looked at him suspiciously. "Why are you here? Are you little Death Eater friends outside just waiting to finish me off so that you'll only have Ron to kill? Are you just trying to wipe out the whole Weasley family? Is that your goal?"

"I'm not going to hurt you, Ginny," he said. "I told you. I'm too tired to fight. I wouldn't even be able to get a simple stunning hex out before I collapsed."

"So then what do you need? Surely you didn't just come here to tell me about...about your mother," she closed her eyes as she remembered the story he had told her.

"I...I need help," he whispered softly. "I need a place to stay where Lucius will never find me. I know he has his friends searching for me so they can kill me the same way they did Mother. This was the only place that I thought I could be safe, if even just for a little while. I...I'll pay you if that's what it takes. Just...please, Ginny." He looked up at her through pleading eyes. "I'll do anything. Please."

She looked over him and then with a sneer said, "Why the hell should I believe you? You spent seven years mocking my family by out clothes and our lifestyle, just because we weren't as rich and infamous as you Malfoys were, and now when you need a helping hand you just have to come here? You had to ask help from a Weasley and you even offer to pay us? How low are you?"

"Please," he asked through gritting teeth, even though he knew this was all true. "Just, please-."

"For all I know this is just one of you dirty tricks. Suppose I do let you live here with me and my family - or at least the rest of it. Are your Death Eater buddies going to show up here some day and blast all of us to smithereens?"

He lost it then. He bolted up from the couch without realizing what he was doing and ran her into the wall. He put his hands on the sides of her head and lost at her menacingly, but to his surprise there was no fear in her eyes. She just looked at him the same way he was but still, he could not reign in his anger.

"Don't you ever say that again!" he yelled at her, his words echoing off the chipping walls. "Don't you ever accuse me of being a murderer or one of those Death Eaters, and don't you ever say that this is all a plot to kill you and your family! All I need from you is a place to stay for a little bit!"

"And what are you going to do if I say no?" she yelled back, not showing an ounce of fear. "Torture me? Go ahead! Do whatever you fucking want to! Rape me for all I fucking care! I've been through so much fucking shit in my life that nothing you do to me can hurt me at all! I've been beaten, I've been raped more times than I can count, I've had to witness those I loved more than anything be murdered, and I've had to survive this fucking war! When I was eleven I was raped by Tom Riddle, all thanks to your fucking father for giving me that fucking diary, and now you expect me to just invite you into my fucking house with open arms?! Are you fucking insane?!"

Then she just broke down. Her knees bent and she fell. Draco was so caught off guard that he placed his knee between hers and tried to support her with his weight. He could hear her crying and instinctively, he sympathized for her. He gently set her down until she was sitting against the wall with tears pouring down her cheeks.

Without realizing what he was doing, he put his arms around her and held her while whispering into her ear.

"Shh..." he whispered as he rocked with her. "It's all right. I'm not going to hurt you. I know how you feel. It's okay. I understand."

He slowly pulled away from her and was amazed to find that there were tears in his own eyes. She looked up at him through tear filled eyes and laughed hoarsely. "Funny," she said. "Who would've thought that the Weasley girl and Malfoy boy would be trying to comfort each other and saying they understand how they felt? I bet our ancestors or turning in their graves." She smiled sheepishly and cleared her throat.

He smiled back at her and with his thumbs he wiped away her tears. "All my life I've never been able to depend on, somebody who I know with my heart - as cold as it may seem - somebody who will catch me when I fall." He helped her up and held onto her hand. "It just happens to be Ginevra Weasley."