Fairy Tale

Fairy Tale

Ginny Weasley has been in love with Harry Potter for as long as she can remember. Her love is a pure and simple devotion, unadorned and ever present. Harry Potter is a hero-more than that, he’s her hero. He is everything extraordinary and virtuous in the world, burned down to its most essential elements.

That was why, after the fiasco with Tom Riddle in her first year, Ginny strove to transcend what she had been; to be as precious as Harry was-to be the perfect match in benevolence. The way to Harry’s heart, she thought, was to be someone he could always turn to in his dark moments-someone who would meld her strength to his when he was weak. So she remained content with the moments of his weakness that he gave her. She willfully ignored the trembling, vulnerable glances that scorched the length of the Great Hall and remained blissfully ignorant in her assumptions that all Harry did at night was sleep.

After all, Ginny knew that her love for him was immaculate and perfect and honest, and everyone knows that Good always wins in the end. She and Harry were simply Meant to Be.

Their wedding was picture perfect, surrounded by lilies as sunlight flooded the room through the windows, creating small rainbows that danced in gaiety. Their friends were all around them, the air full of rice and laughter. Ginny had felt giddy-although there hadn’t been a word spoken, she felt that she had triumphed over something unnamable--her patience had been rewarded, and everything was going to be marvelous. They were going to live Happily Ever After.

The only thing she had ever desired was his mouth on hers and permission to stroke and explore, all hands and sweat-gleaming limbs in tangled bed sheets. She faithfully cradles Harry through his nightmares and stands beside him as his partner and support as they prepare for the inevitable war.

Ginny Weasley has had all of her dreams come true. She is exactly where she intended to be. It doesn’t matter that he closes his eyes when they make love. It doesn’t matter that on the darkest nights, when Harry is inconsolable, it isn’t her name spilling from his lips. Ginny loves her husband so much that the thought never even crosses her mind that he doesn’t love her back.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Pansy Parkinson was going to marry Draco Malfoy. She knew that as surely as she knew she was breathing, because that’s what her parents had told her when she met Draco for the first time at his fifth birthday party. She was ecstatic at the thought, because he had baby soft hair, and an even softer smile. Unfortunately, she labored for years under a misconception.

You see, when Pansy was a child, she believed that people got married because they loved each other.

She knows better now.

Unlike Ginny, Pansy never had the opportunity to believe in things like Meant to Be and Happily Ever After. Instead, she believes in things like Duty and Honor. In words like Deceit. Her only solace is the realization that Draco feels the same way.

Draco doesn’t love her, and she doesn’t love him, and in the end that somehow makes it better.

They are together because they were told to be together, and it’s easier to follow orders than think for themselves.

Their wedding was a hurried affair, solemn vows spoken while at the center of a circle, the only witnesses’ people in dark robes and cloaking hoods who disappeared as soon as the ceremony was over. Pansy felt cheated. Her wedding should have been worthy of a dream, because her life was nothing but a nightmare.

At the moment, Draco and Pansy Malfoy keep up pretense, wandering in and out of respectable Wizarding society while the coils of the unavoidable war draw ever tighter around them. They are seen as a couple perfectly suited to the needs of the aristocracy, glossy and thoroughbred, made up like china dolls with flawlessly empty expressions.

In private, though, they are lenient with each other. Draco never says anything about her other lovers, and Pansy never asks Draco why he stands outside while it rains to watch the lightning.

He keeps his secrets, and she keeps hers, and it really doesn’t matter that they don’t even share the same bed anymore.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

From the beginning, it was painfully obvious that this generation of wizards lacked leadership. With Dumbledore dead, no one was exactly certain what to do. In the end, the Order of the Phoenix relied on Harry Potter, and everyone forgot that he was simply a boy who had too much of the world resting on his shoulders.

And as usual, Harry didn’t disappoint anyone, taking the fight directly to Voldemort in a single, all out strike. And he won, because he was the Boy Who Lived, and he could not lose.

Harry stumbles out into the dark as his fellow Wizards finish the battle, and there is a final flash of light. It surprises no one when they find their hero in the arms of his enemy, moonlight and midnight tresses tangling together on the blood soaked ground, with the tip of his wand pointing at the other’s throat.

The world mourns, and Harry Potter is buried with full honors, with a statue built in memorial of his life. His friends find a portrait of Harry, young and awkward, all oversized clothes and wide eyes, and place it in a hall of Hogwarts. His portrait is painfully shy, and as a result is rarely seen.

Draco Malfoy is burned with the rest of the traitorous Death Eaters, and eagerly forgotten.

Pansy Malfoy, whose involvement with the Death Eaters was never ascertained due to the careful actions of her husband, donates a portrait of Draco to Hogwarts, insisting that they accept on the grounds that he had been a greater Potions Master than even Severus Snape. When reminded that they still had the portrait of Tom Riddle that was painted when he was Head Boy, the Headmaster capitulates.

The world recovers from the war, their days filled with the struggle for reconstruction and eating and sleeping, loving and hating.

Life goes on, even when legends die.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The hallway that holds the portraits of Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter is one of the quietest. The ghosts never wander here, and the students shiver through the solemn silence of the paintings, who watch each other with an uncanny intensity. The students often wonder why the painted memories never go to each other, like so many of the other portraits in the castle move around, and the more romantic of the children make up stories.

Maybe they were cursed. Maybe they’re under a spell. Maybe it’s a staring contest that started years ago, and no one has won the game yet.

Maybe they were enemies, and they died in a Wizard's Duel against each other.

Or maybe, suggests one with a sigh, They were Meant to Be.

No one ever sees the tears shining in the emerald eyes, or the regret tingeing the moonstone. Their pride keeps them apart even now.

Why don’t one of you do something, Mr. Potter? A first year Gryffindor asks, and the portrait keeps his eyes on his rival, heedless of the tear that streaks down the child’s cheek. Why don’t you go to each other?

I was painted before I had the strength, Harry whispers, and Draco’s portrait shuts its eyes.

Once upon a time, there were two boys. They never wanted fairy tales or princesses to rescue. They never wanted dragons to slay or kingdoms to rule. They never wanted the reassurance of Meant to Be or Happily Ever After.

All they ever wanted was each other.