The Other Tower

Going Back

Currently, Ginny was heading towards the Tower- the same tower she had visited every night for nearly a year now. She was walking down the now familiar hallways without bothering to light her wand; she did not need it after all these months of traveling down the exact same path. As she walked, she thought of a list of things that she wanted to talk about, she thought about the thousands of things that she didn't even care if she said because in the end all she wanted was to sit with him, chat with him, laugh with him, and just generally be with him. She wanted to be able to lean against him and feel him beside her and know that she didn't belong anywhere else.

Ginny Weasley was only sixteen years old and by all rights she should not have known any relationship beyond mere puppy love. She should have wanted nothing but to kiss a boy and have him hold her hand in the hall. She should have wanted flowers on valentines' day and chocolates on Christmas. She should have wanted shopping trips and inside jokes. She should have wanted to blush in the corridors and smile secretly at the boy of her dreams and have her friends tease her endlessly.

Instead she got Draco.

In the place of holding hands in the hall she had secret rendezvous in a hidden tower. Instead of flowers she got smiles that were worth ten times the price. Instead of having her friends tease her endlessly, they worried about her apparent loneliness. Instead of the boy of her dreams she got the boy that gave her back her dreams.

Draco had become her truest and best friend. He judged her openly and honestly and she appreciated it. He would smile at her in the hallways before saying sarcastic remarks and making her hide her laughter. He had made her laugh openly and honestly for the first time since she had come to this school that had become her prison. He had taken the fear of poor judgment off her shoulders and replaced it with his friendship.

In the past year she had learned quite a few lessons about herself. She had learned to live in the moment, to take people at their face value. She learned to trust in at least one thing: the certainty of the night.

But she'd also forgotten one of the lessons she learned before Draco: Nothing lasts forever.

Ginny Weasley opened the door to the South East Tower expecting to find a silver-haired boy waiting for her. He would be writing a letter or maybe just sitting there. Whatever the case Ginny opened the door expecting to smile and found that she couldn't because instead of Draco, Ginny saw

"Ron?" she asked, seeing a redheaded boy was staring straight at the door. He looked as though he'd been doing it for hours. He glared at her like she was a piece of trash. Nothing like what Draco would have done in his anger.

"I heard rumors. I never thought they were true," he said, sounding terribly angry.

"What've you heard?"

"That you sneak out and come here in the middle of the night to shag Malfoy." Ron's voice was nearly inaudible but Ginny heard. She knew her brother well enough to know what hearing those words must have done to his heart. She knew herself well enough to know that she couldn't bring herself to care. She knew Draco well enough to know that he would have encouraged them.

"You believe that?"

"What am I supposed to believe? I came up here and found Malfoy. He left right away and then not two minutes later you're here." He sounded even angrier than the time she had stepped on Scabbers.

"We don't do anything like that," she said casually.

"But you do come up here to meet him?" She nodded. "How long?"

"Nearly a year." She wasn't ashamed.

"With Malfoy?!"

"Ron-"

"I don't understand! You've been coming up here after curfew for the past year to meet with Malfoy? You could've been killed. Not to mention you were with MALFOY!"

"Ron-"

"He's a self serving EVIL Slytherin that doesn't understand anything but evil and dark arts!"

"He seems to understand me," she said simply, never breaking eye contact. If Ron seemed to understand the connection between Malfoy only understanding evil and dark arts and him being able to understand her, he certainly did not show it.

"Malfoy hasn't even known you half as long as I have!"

"And that is why it's easier, Ron!" Ginny's temper was starting to flare, no matter how she tried to control it, she simply did not have the ability to hide herself as well as Draco did. That was actually something of a relief. "He's knows how to handle things that you don't-"

"That's why you're sneaking out at night to see him?! BECAUSE HE KNOWS DARK MAGIC!"

"Because he's just like me, Ron."

Ron blinked.

"What?"

"Draco grew up knowing about Death Eaters and You-Know-Who so he doesn't think my first year was anything too horrible. He knows what I did and says it wasn't that bad. It's just another incident to him so he likes me even though he knows what I did."

"I like you and I know what happened."

"But you aren't the same! You're my brother, you have to love me, but you don't really understand what happened down there. Tom chose me. Me. Why? Because I was gullible and pathetic. I'm not like you. I'm not like Hermione. And I am anything but like Harry."

"But you are like us!" Ron yelled. "I know what you're like."

"You have no idea what I'm like, Ron," she said quietly and saw the hurt spread quickly across his face and could not help but feel a twinge of guilt, though that left quickly with his next words.

"You loves bananas and swings. You don't care much for Quidditch. You're scared of teddy bears and love when Bill and Charlie come over because they always bring you things. You never open a letter from the twins. You know how to make a killer cake and you will probably marry Harry Potter," Ron finished with conviction. He stared at her with that confident gaze and looked for all the world as if he had proven his point and was ready to leave. And Ginny's eyes stung with tears but whether it was because he cared so much or was so wrong she couldn't tell.

"I'm your little sister who loves Charms and flying," she began slowly. "I love Quidditch games but not in large groups. I'm scared of nothing except a memory that won't let me alone and the face that comes with that memory.

"I hate it when Bill and Charlie come over because they never did anything wrong, because compared to them I'm weak and useless. They, just like the rest of my family, brushed off my first year, saying I didn't know what I was doing. They said I didn't know the diary was evil. You all ignored everything I did for that stupid diary. I broke into the second year boys' room and trashed it in my frenzy to find the evil thing. It was my drug and I didn't want to share."

Ginny might have stopped there if she had seen the look on Ron's face, the one that mingled pain and fury and love and pity, but she didn't so she continued.

"I love my letters from the twins because they alone said I made a mistake and thought it easily forgivable. I lived through the Chamber. I lived through the Ministry fight and now I am ready to chose whom I trust and two of those people are Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy," Ginny finished, tears that she refused to shed, building up underneath her eyelids.

"Ginny..."

"I'm not the child that you need to look out for."

"I didn't know."

"I know," she said, standing proud before him. Ron walked over silently, reached out as if to touch her shoulder, then drew his hand back.

"Why didn't you tell me before now?"

"I didn't even mean to tell you now," she admitted. "You still aren't someone who will understand."

"Maybe I have some idea."

"You don't. Draco does though." Her eyes focused sharply on his, forcing him to meet her gaze only to look away, but in that instant she saw everything he felt: pain, disappointment, anger, and pity.

"Harry would understand. He's been in the same position."

"No he wouldn't Ron. He was in the same situation but he fought it with everything he had. I blocked it out when I realized what I'd done. And then when I found he had my diary- when I found out that Harry could talk to Tom, it wasn't like I was blinded by my fear. I knew it would be bad to take back the diary. I knew it would be bad for me and probably the entire school but I didn't want someone else to have Tom."

"No, Ginny," Ron began.

"You don't want to believe me because then you'd hate me for it," she said, shaking her head slightly, though giving no indication in either voice or action that she doubted what she said.

"That's not true."

"Then don't tell me 'No, Ginny'. I know what I felt. I know what I did and why I did it. Draco seems the only one that thinks that's okay, and he taught me to think it was okay, too."

The two redheads paused for a moment, the girl's sharp eyes cutting into her brothers head, telling him that she knew what she was talking about, that she knew who she was and what she wanted to be. Suddenly Ron looked at her and realized he did not know the woman, yes woman, who stood before him. She looked nothing like the Ginny he had thought he knew all his life.

"I don't recognize anything about you anymore," Ron said, sounding not hostile, but rather sincerely interested, as he once more reached out and almost touched her.

"I know," Ginny replied truthfully. She felt an overwhelming sense of loss.

Bill and Charlie adored her the most. Percy taught her the most. The twins protected her the most, even if it was in their own strange way. Ron had loved her the most. He had loved her unconditionally as only a brother so close in age could because they had shared the most. They had been the ones left behind together, year after year as brother after brother packed up and left for their beloved Hogwarts. But then he too had left in the end, hadn't he?

"You had two best friends to take my place," Ginny said, surprising even herself.

"They never-"

"They did Ron," she said. "I'm sixteen now and I know what I have always known: Harry and Hermione are the people you'll know the rest of your life by choice. I'm the person you'll know the rest of your life by obligation."

"You were never an obligation."

Ginny wanted to believe him. She wanted to know that all those summers they'd spent together hadn't been erased that quickly. She wanted to know that her choice to not bring anyone to the Quidditch World Cup so that Hermione could come, had really meant something to him. Ginny wanted to believe that when he left for his first year and heard her ask to go too that he understood it wasn't the school she wanted to go to, she just wanted to go with him. She wanted to believe he felt the same way.

But she knew the truth.

"I never felt like an obligation until third year," she replied. "Third year was the first year that I knew you were keeping a secret from me. And now I realize that you must have known that Sirius was innocent and not told me, but it doesn't make it any better to know that you had good reason. It doesn't make it any easier to know that I know now because I know you're still keeping secrets. I was and always will be a fourth wheel in the highly exclusive Harry, Ron, and Hermione friendship."

"I'm not keeping anything from you now," Ron said, but Ginny knew that he was lying. God help them if he ever needed to lie to anyone about something really important.

"Draco has been the best friend that I have found in this place," Ginny said, allowing him an escape from farther lying and the relief was obvious on his face. "He's suits me well. He's probably as perfect for me as Hermione is for you."

"Harry'd be great for you," Ron said, showing his dislike for Draco ever so apparently on his face.

Ginny heard his words only in passing as she let her mind wander to the boy with the ever so apparent scar on his forehead who always wore his glasses slightly askew. She had spent nearly six years trying to figure the boy who had become another brother to her out. Only now did she think she may have understood him a little more.

Harry carried the burden of the wishes and dreams of two generations on his back. His parents died believing him worthier than them. The world stood him on a podium so high that to get down would mean to jump to his death. His friends trusted in his ability to pull them through everything, to teach them everything. And through it all, Harry Potter tried to live up to their expectations. He was the perfect hero.

"I don't need a savior, Ron. Nor do I need another brother."

"Harry isn't either of those things to you." The words slapped Ginny across the face and left its ugly mark behind. Ron did not think Harry was a brother to Ginny. Ron did not think Ginny mattered to him. If only Ron knew... but Ginny stopped herself from saying anything in response. She did not want to argue the point with Ron.

"I'm not supposed to be with Harry."

"Well you certainly aren't supposed to be with Draco Malfoy."

"On the contrary, Weasley. I believe she is," a new voice announced.

Ron turned around in the blink of an eye with a look on his face displaying nothing but hatred. Ginny casually looked over at the angular face of the boy she had come to appreciate more than any of her housemates.

"Get out, Malfoy!" Ron yelled.

"Nice try with the commanding voice, Weasley, but it doesn't do it for me. Maybe you should go practice some more on that cow you call a girlfriend," Draco drawled and Ginny rolled her eyes. Ron shot straight into action. His tossed his wand aside and dove for Draco. Luckily Ginny was faster than him, the training having paid off greatly.

"Wingarum Leviosa!" she said quickly, brandishing her wand. Ron rose almost to the roof.

"Ginny, let me down from here!" Ron yelled, still trying to dive at Malfoy from his floating position.

"Please, Weasley. You should enjoy your momentary station above a Malfoy," Draco said, catching Ginny's eye. She raised her eyebrows in his direction.

"Let me hit him, Ginny!" Ron yelled. "Didn't you here what he just said about Hermione?"

She gradually lowered her brother to the floor, assuring that he didn't end up anywhere near Draco. And once her brother was standing upright she went over and stood next to Draco. She was going to say something to him, but Draco was faster.

"At least your sister has some sort of a sense of humor."

"Ginny, this piece of trash doesn't deserve you," Ron spat out. Ginny understood that Ron was trying to grasp with multiple emotions at once (he had come in angry, found himself sad, and was returning to angry), and that it was a hard thing for him to try to do. He looked coldly at Draco. "What do you even know about her, Malfoy?"

"Please do not expect me to say anything like what she or you did. That would be bringing myself to the poor and pathetic level." While Ron wanted to hit him upside the head, Ginny snorted, then reached out and casually hit Draco on the back of the head.

"Quit trying to provoke him," Ginny said, looking at Draco.

"But it's so easy," Draco said, smirking, though Ginny saw he was also rubbing the back of his head.

"Ron," Ginny began, "Draco's just making a joke. It's like when I say that Goyle looked a little too happy cleaning Draco's pants for him. While they were on." Draco coughed and smirked while Ron stood flabbergasted.

"That's no excuse-"

"I never said it was. It is simply how he is," Ginny cut her brother off. Ron looked momentarily motionless before glaring back at Draco.

"And am I supposed to say that I like you just as you are? Can we get a little more sappy please?" Draco drawled.

"Shut up, Malfoy," Ron snapped.

"But I will admit that I like the way you kiss," Draco said after a thoughtful pause, ignoring the fact that Ron had said anything.

"You said you'd be ashamed if anyone knew you kissed a Weasley," she commented. His silver hair fell in front of his face as he bent his head to look at her.

"Who do you think leaked about our meetings?" She reached over and hit him in the back of the head once more.

"You knew my brother would hear about it!"

"And?" Her hand reached back again, but this time he kept hold of her hand.

"That was a horrible thing to do," she said condescendingly.

"Not horrible, just lazy. See I wanted to see how between classes but that would require everyone know about us. Since I didn't really want to go through to whole procedure of telling everyone individually that I kiss you, I just said a little something to a reliable Hufflepuff in Charms..."

"He heard that you and I were actually..." Ginny left the sentence hanging there and Ron looked anxious for confirmation.

"Well I didn't want to completely ruin my reputation you know. Had to embellish a little to make up for the fact that you're in Gryffindor."

"You're both disgusting!" Ron yelled, and Ginny was startled to find that she had almost completely forgotten about her brother's presence in the room. She shot a look at Ron before he stormed out the door. Ginny turned to chase him, sending one apologetic look at Draco before she went.

"Ron!" she yelled as he continued his fast paced charge down the corridors. She was lighter, faster, and less angry. She caught up with him quickly, grabbing his arm to spin him around. "It's after hours, don't just go running about in the open."

"What did I ever do to deserve this, Ginny?" Ron raged at her, not heeding her warning and he wretched his arm away from her.

"What?" she asked, completely shocked by his question.

"I just want to know what it is you're so angry with me about that led you to have this insane affair with Malfoy!" He sounded serious and her temper shot up as she stood at a loss for his audacity.

"Are you serious?" Ginny asked.

"I don't think I've been a bad brother or anything!" Ron continued to rant, not responding to her question with words but answering it just the same.

"This isn't about you," Ginny said, quickly cutting him off.

"How can you ever say that?"

Did he really not get it? Was he really that thick? Ginny wondered as she stared at his blank face and realized suddenly and violently that yes, he was indeed that thick. It got her furious.

"Look around you, Ron. I hate this school. I hate the way the teachers look at me, knowing that I'm not the good little Weasley I should be. I hate the way my friends look at me like I've done nothing wrong. I hate the way Mum and Dad act like nothing's happened. I hate the way you don't even look at me at all. I hate that you left me behind!" Ginny screamed, completely forgetting that it was well after curfew and she should be in her dormitory fast asleep. "The only thing in this whole damned place that I have found that I like is that stupid git back there and you can't even appreciate that!"

"I will never approve of this!" And again Ginny was shocked into silence that that was his only response to her outburst.

"Who's asking you to?" Ginny said, quieter but fiercer.

"You don't care that I think you're seriously idiotic to want to spend any of your time with that evil son of a-"

"I care so little you wouldn't believe it," Ginny finished. Ron looked scandalized.

"If you don't care about my opinion then I guess I should just leave." He turned to go but she ran in front of him, blocking his way.

"Don't you dare try to turn this into the thing that will drive us apart. Don't you dare! This isn't what made us drift apart."

"Then what is?"

"How about everything?" Ginny yelled.

"Everything? Please! I've never done anything to wreck our friendship. I wasn't the one sneaking out to meet your worst enemy," Ron concluded, looking decidedly proud of himself. It made Ginny disgusted.

"No, you were the one who couldn't be bothered to save me from Voldemort!" Ginny yelled back.

"What are you talking about?" Ron asked.

"You didn't even try to come and get me," she accused.

"What?" Ron asked. Ginny decided right then and there to let it all out- to let the six years worth of wondering and self-doubt out of her system.

"Harry was the one who woke me up, not you or Percy or Bill or Charlie or the twins. No, it was Harry, whom I barely knew and wasn't even on speaking terms with. You were right there, only a few hundred meters away and you couldn't be bothered to come. You were right there!" Her anger was boiling over at this point, taking her words and molding them into the emotions she had suppressed for all these years just to mollify her family.

"You keep saying that Harry'd be so good to me. Well, he already was! It was you that left me there in the Chamber of Secrets to die. It wasn't the twins or Percy- they didn't even know what happened! It was you. You were so close and didn't even seem to care enough to help your best friend fight a wizard that he couldn't beat to save your sister!

"My first thought after all of that was spent on wondering whether you were mad at me or not. My first thought was spent on your opinion. I thought that was the only thing that could have kept you from me, but then I saw you and you hugged me and I knew the only reason you didn't come was because you didn't want to. You left it all for Harry. And the first thing you said was 'wow Harry you've got a bird and a sword.'"

Ginny wasn't even sure if she was making sense at this point. It didn't seem important to even try to. She just needed to tell him this. It didn't matter if he understood it all.

"I couldn't get through the rocks. I'd only just made that big of a hole when you guys came back," he said in a matter-of-fact tone, ignoring the reason they were out in the hall was because he was supposed to be mad at her.

"You were too scared to get through."

"I was scared you were going to die!" Ron said.

"I don't remember anything about you from that night. All my memories are of Harry: Harry waking me up, Harry leading me out, Harry telling me to hold onto the bird, Harry telling Mum and Dad and Dumbledore that it was not me. Harry, not you!"

"And Malfoy would've done better? Is that what you're getting at?" Ron said grasping for something to say that would make him look better.

"It doesn't matter what he would've done! You were the one that was there and you were the one that didn't seem to care. I can't even explain how much that hurt and how little I liked myself after that. But I promised myself that day that that would be the last time your opinion weighed so heavily on my thoughts. That would be and was the last time I was scared you might disapprove."

Ginny was calming down with each breath that she took. It felt amazingly good to just let him know and she felt her anger slowly evaporate as his face reflected his own shock and anger.

"I don't want to lose you over Draco, but I'm not losing him for anyone. He's the first person who has made me feel whole again after the way you treated me in that cavern."

"He's an a-"

"Don't you dare insult him."

"You would choose him over me?"

"I don't want to have to choose."

"Fine! I'll choose for you." Ron turned then and left. He left his sister standing quietly by herself in the middle of a dark, deserted corridor as she stared at the corner where he had disappeared.

"I take it that didn't go well?" Ginny didn't need to turn around to know that Draco wasn't smirking. She didn't need to turn around to know that he cared. He walked up until he was in line with her, his left shoulder brushing against her right. Neither leaned towards the other, but they both felt the other's strength coursing through them, keeping them standing.

"He didn't deny any of it." Ginny tried desperately to suppress the knot that was so painfully residing in her throat.

"He's dumb," Draco replied casually.

"I thought he cared," she said, still staring at the corner.

"He does. He's just confused as he always is," Draco offered in a soothing voice that he didn't have before they'd spent so much time together.

"I can't lose him, Draco," she said quietly.

"You won't."

"Can you promise me that?"

"Yes," he said and she never for a moment doubted him because she had never had a reason to. Her tears eventually dried up but neither of them moved, neither looked at each other, neither wanted to.

Draco and Ginny couldn't have known of their futures together as they stood, silently supporting each other. They couldn't have known what a picture perfect image they made with her red hair beautifully contrasting his pale, sharp features.

They became an inseparable pair from this moment on. Knowing their classmates knew they were together, they met at lunch and in between classes. He was never thought better for it. Most still hated him, though none believed him to be a death eater or even on the side of Voldemort because no one thought Ginny would associate with someone evil. But he was an annoying jerk- that would never change. She never tried to change him and he never tried to change her, but that didn't matter; they both became stronger people, better people, for having known each other.

They grew up in the worst possible time for a relationship between a Gryffindor and a Slytherin. They lived through the greatest battle in history by each other's side. They dealt with the death count and the family conflicts together, and though it was Harry Potter who beat Voldemort and though history would not remember Draco and Ginny, their story lived forever. The Romeo and Julietesque love story that ended a thousand years of interhouse feuding lived in the hearts and memories of every generation to come and changed the world. Draco and Ginny mattered more to Hogwarts than either could ever have guessed or wanted.

And it turned out that Draco was right; Ginny got everything a girl should have wanted. She got to kiss the boy of her dreams and have him hold her hand for the rest of her life. She got flowers every Valentine's Day and chocolates every Christmas. She shopped with him at Diagon Alley for their children's wands. They had inside jokes. She got three children that she adored. She got to fall completely and madly in love. She even got to have all six of her brothers come to her wedding, though that was a far greater challenge than anything else. She got to blush when talking about her wonderful husband and smile secretly at the boy of her dreams.

She got Draco.