The Memories

Ginny Weasley had a secret. A secret that could change the course of the war. A secret no one would dream of associating with the youngest Weasley.

She'd been keeping this secret for four years straight. It was beginning to wear on her. Two people who shouldn't be on speaking terms, who hold their roles so well that none would deem them to be friendly to each other.

And yet...they were. Once a year, every year.

*

Hogwarts Express, 1992

Ginny was in shock. She numbed herself from feelings, emotions, anything that she had shared with Tom Riddle. It was as if she wasn't worthy to feel those things anymore. She'd recorded a happy moment in that blasted diary, and as such she never wanted to feel happy again.

She was hiding in the luggage car, amongst assorted trunks, bags, and cages. She didn't want to face anyone. She just wanted to be alone with her numbness.

The door creaked open. She cringed into the corner, hoping whoever it was would go away before they saw her. Their footsteps sounded strangely muffled in the dark, cramped space, as the person advanced into the car.

The footsteps stopped. Ginny heard the rustling of a cloak. Then a low, methodical thunk.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

Ginny lifted her head, attempting to see what the person was doing. She couldn't see them anymore. A little wary, she rose silently from the floor and crept towards the door.

There. A flash of sunlight.

She walked quietly towards the flash, and was astounded with the sight that met her eyes. A boy, resting with his back against a stack of trunks, picking up his head and letting it fall in a never-ceasing tempo, a dazed look on his face. The movement of his head caused his hair to catch the light, which explained the flash she'd seen.

Not just any boy.

Draco Malfoy.

He suddenly stopped. "Weasley?" came his surprised voice.

"Malfoy," she returned, her voice slightly tinged with dislike. She winced as she heard it, because it was an exact imitation of Tom Riddle's familiar drawling disdain. He had wormed his way inside of her, and much as she tried, his mannerisms and habits wouldn't leave her.

"What're you doing here?" Draco demanded.

"Trying to be alone," she said. "But you interrupted."

"Why do you want to be alone?" he wanted to know.

"I should ask you the same question," she replied.

"I asked first," Draco pointed out.

"I want to be alone because..." Words failed her. "Because. I don't want to be around people."

"Tainted," Draco said. One word, yet it summed up exactly how she felt. So she nodded. "I understand," he continued. "And I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" she repeated, confused.

"It was my father that did it," he explained. "It was low. I really am sorry."

Ginny wrinkled her nose. "I can't believe you're apologizing to me."

"You're not the only one," he said ruefully. "I'm a shame to the name of Malfoy."

"Seems like the name of Malfoy isn't a very honorable thing," Ginny said immediately.

Draco stiffened up. "Yeah, because you Weasleys are so well off and grand."

"Well, at least we have some pride," Ginny said.

"Associating with Muggles?" Draco demanded. "You call that pride?"

"Some of us have a very different idea of what's right and what's not," Ginny said scathingly.

They both paused.

Ginny was the first to laugh. "We sound just like our parents."

"Sad, isn't it?" Draco asked rhetorically.

"Let's change the subject," Ginny suggested.

So they did. They talked about everything, and nothing, and all that was in between. Ginny sat down cross-legged across from him, and they talked through the entire train ride. Draco told her of what he was doing during the summer, she told him about her dad entering the Daily Prophet Galleon Draw. He refrained, for once in his life, from pointing out how much they probably needed the money.

They talked about their childhoods, and Ginny marveled inwardly about how different they were from each other. He talked of manors, she of trees. He mentioned parties, she went on about birthday bashes. He talked coldly of his parents, she told story after story of her family.

By the time they ran out of things to say, the train had reached the station. As it started to slow, Draco got up and held out his hand. She took it and hauled herself off the floor.

"I'll see you next term, Weasley," he said, giving her the first genuine smile she'd ever seen on his face.

She returned the smile. "See you then, Malfoy."

He walked out of the luggage car, and she followed shortly after.

"Ginny!" came Ron's voice through the crowd on the platform. "Ginny, over here! Where'd you get off to?" he added when she'd made her way over to where he, Hermione and Harry were standing.

"Um, I sat with some friends," Ginny lied glibly. She felt a small tap on the middle of her back, but when she turned around all she caught was a flash of blonde hair moving quickly away from her.

She grinned and understood. It was a goodbye.

*

Hogwarts Express, 1993

Ginny knew he wouldn't come back. She knew he wouldn't dare to talk with her again. And yet, midway through the trip home, she found herself in the luggage car once again. She sat on a trunk and soon became lost in contemplation of recent events.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of someone humming. She laughed when she recognized the tune as 'His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad.'

"Funny," she said.

"I thought it fitting," Draco said. "Seeing as how you poured pumpkin juice all over your toast last week, lost in staring at him."

Ginny blushed. "I was hoping no one saw that."

"Ah, someone did," he said, plopping down on the trunk beside her. "And that someone was me."

"Malfoy," Ginny said suddenly. "Why are you always so nasty to Harry and Ron?"

"And Granger," Draco added. "Don't forget Granger."

"So, are you going to answer me?" Ginny demanded.

"Because," Draco said. "Because...I don't know."

"Because it makes you feel better about yourself to tear them apart?" Ginny suggested, with that same disdain she'd expressed the year before. "Because you don't think you'll ever measure up, and you have to do whatever your father wants you to do?"

Draco looked defeated. "Possibly."

"Will you stop it?"

"No."

"Why not?" she wanted to know.

"Because, even if I wanted to, if I started being all nice and Gryffindor-like, do you think they'd just welcome me with open arms?"

Ginny fell silent.

"Talk about something else, please," Draco practically begged.

"So, how about that Sirius Black?" Ginny said brightly.

Draco laughed. "You mean my mother's cousin?"

"He's your mother's cousin?" Ginny said in surprise.

"I kid you not," Draco said, crossing his finger over his heart.

And so it went, all through the trip. When the train pulled to a stop, he again walked out of the luggage car a few minutes before her.

"Ginny!" Hermione yelled, waving at her. "We're over here!"

"Where'd you go?" Ron wanted to know, for the second time.

"I fell asleep in an empty compartment," Ginny supplied immediately. "Woke up when the whistle sounded." As she looked rather rumpled from her cramped perch on the trunk, none of them questioned her.

Again a tap on the middle of her back. A flash of blonde hair. Draco was gone for another year.

*

Hogwarts Express, 1994

Ginny swore darkly when she saw what they'd done to Draco and his two goons. She leaned down to examine one of the lumps, a smaller one she assumed was the blonde prat she was looking for. She poked it, and it squirmed and made muffled noises that she was sure weren't flattering to her.

Yup. Definitely Draco.

"You just can't keep that big mouth of yours shut," Ginny scolded the lump. "Don't deny it, I heard you. What would possess you to start cracking about Cedric, and Harry on the wrong side, and all that load of duff?"

The lump made more noises.

"For one thing, we both know you're shoveling the dung on thick here. The question, dearest Malfoy, is why? I know you don't believe that, you know it too, and your continual acting like you buy into this rubbish you're trying to sell is really starting to get on my nerves."

She poked him again. He shot something that was undoubtedly a curse at her.

"I am of half a mind to leave you like this and let the students getting off the train find you. You ungrateful, irresponsible, no good prat."

Ginny was certain he was cursing at her now.

"But, out of the goodness of my heart, I am going to turn you and your shadows back into something resembling humans. Although it's my personal opinion that you look much better this way."

Oh yeah. She thought she made out a word that rhymed with duck.

"Seeing as I'm but a lowly third year," she said sweetly, "I'm going to go filch some books from Hermione. I'll be right back, so don't...go anywhere."

When she'd borrowed a spell book from Hermione and turned the three Slytherins back to themselves, she fixed Draco with a stony glare.

"We are not finished, Ferret," she warned.

"Not hardly," he agreed in a vaguely threatening tone. "Crabbe, Goyle, go wait for me in our compartment." The two hulking figures retreated obediently.

Ginny raised her eyebrows. "Wow, Malfoy, do they really do everything you say?"

"Pretty much, yeah," Draco said with a shrug.

"Cool," Ginny said with a grin. "I want goons!"

"You can have mine," Draco muttered.

Ginny batted her eyelashes at him. "Oh, really? You're too kind."

"Shall we retreat to the luggage compartment?" he asked, holding his arm out to her.

"Of course," she replied genially, threading her arm through his.

And so it was.

*

Hogwarts Express, 1995

"Not again," Ginny moaned, surveying the three lumps in the luggage compartment with chagrin. "If I've told you once, Draco Malfoy, I've told you a hundred times. Shut your big, fat trap for once!"

The smallest lump squirmed.

"And just look at you," Ginny continued her tirade. "If I hadn't been in the DA, you'd be in serious trouble. I'd have to go get Hermione. And you, in your never-ceasing idiocy, managed to get that disbanded. Damn you, Malfoy."

The lump was properly motionless. Ashamed, she hoped.

She performed a series of counter-jinxes on the three of them, bringing them back to regular form.

"Funny, I seem to be having an odd sense of déjà vu," she said coldly. "Malfoy. Goons."

Crabbe and Goyle looked vaguely aware that she was insulting them. They glowered and cracked their knuckles at her in what she supposed was meant to be a menacing manner.

"Easy, boys," Draco said in a bored tone. "I can take care of this little slip of annoyance on my own."

The goons trudged out of the luggage compartment, speaking to each other in low, surly voices.

"The masses are revolting, I see," Ginny said, looking after them.

"Being a goon isn't all it's cracked up to be," Draco told her. "Not that I'd know."

"Malfoys are not goons," Ginny said in a mock-scandalized tone. "They order the goons around."

"Exactly," Draco agreed.

They sat down on the floor, backs against a stack of trunks as always, and began to talk. The conversation varied between light and serious, neither of them bringing up what was on both of their minds. The Department of Mysteries.

"Ginny," Draco said suddenly, and very seriously. "I need to tell you something."

What caught her attention was the unprecedented use of her first name. "What?"

"I'm going to have to do something I don't like," Draco said.

"It wouldn't be the first time," Ginny pointed out.

"No, it's really bad," he said. "It...Weasley, some times we have to do bad things for the greater good."

"A nauseating sentiment coming from you," Ginny said.

"I'm being serious here, Weasley," Draco warned. "It's like when I subverted your hero's little sojourn into Umbridge's office."

"I knew it was you," Ginny said vehemently. "You told on us so that we wouldn't go to the Department of Mysteries, didn't you?"

"Guilty," Draco said, a rueful look on his face.

"You tried to save us."

"I tried to save you," Draco corrected.

"Oh."

"This is another of those things," Draco said heavily. "I just want you to remember, Weasley. Remember what you told me here, and what I've told you. How we are now. This. This is what I am, Weasley, not that other stuff. And whatever you hear, it's not what I wanted to do. And I'm doing it for you, and for your precious Potter."

Ginny nodded. "Okay. But Malfoy?"

"What?"

"He's not my precious Potter," Ginny informed him. That was all the confession Draco would ever get from her. All she would allow him of her heart.

"I'm glad," Draco said.

All of a sudden, Ginny was conscious of just how close they were sitting. How they were touching knees, thighs and shoulders. How, at some point during the conversation, her head had come to rest on his shoulder. How he suddenly put one of his long fingers under her chin and lifted her face to his.

How his breath mingled with hers, how her eyes were fluttering shut...

And just how much of her heart she'd actually given him.

"Ginny?" a female voice called. "Are you in here?"

Ginny's eyes widened. "Hermione," she whispered to Draco. He closed his eyes in frustration. Then he nodded.

"Ginny?"

"Over here, Hermione," Ginny called, standing up and walking quickly towards her friend. "What do you need?"

Hermione was looking around. "This is where you disappear to every year?"

"No," Ginny lied, acting forlorn. "Most of the time I'm off pranking someone. But, alas, this year I didn't think it would go over too well. This year I just wanted to be alone."

"Oh," Hermione said, understanding. "Do you want to come back to our compartment?"

Ginny paused, indecisive. "Um...I'll be there in a few minutes, alright?"

"Okay," Hermione said, reaching out and giving Ginny's arm a squeeze. "It's going to be alright, Ginny."

Now Ginny was really starting to get emotional. "I know. Just...wait for me in our compartment, okay?"

"I'll come back for you if you don't show up," Hermione said in a comforting tone, then walked out and shut the door behind her.

Almost immediately, the tears leaked out of Ginny's eyes. Quicker than she could say "Quidditch," a pair of arms wrapped themselves around her waist.

"Hey," Draco said hoarsely. "Don't cry."

"I'm not," she insisted, wiping her eyes and leaning back into his torso.

"You lie terribly," he informed her. Then he moved her hair aside and kissed her on the neck.

She stiffened. "Malfoy..."

He kissed her again. He trailed soft kisses up her neck to her ear, his hot breath tickling her skin. She tensed against him, and at the same time leaned into his kisses.

She turned, and he lifted his head. Their eyes met, smoky gray and deepest brown, and Ginny's eyes fluttered shut for the second time.

WHEE.

The train whistle sounded, indicating that they were arriving at the station. They started to slow down, and the inertia threw Draco and Ginny off their feet.

Ginny literally hit the ground running. She reached the doorway, looked back at Draco for one long moment, then bolted.

She caught up to Hermione as she was coming back from the loo, and grabbed the other girl by the arm, breathing hard.

"Ginny," Hermione said, surprised. "What's the matter?"

Ginny shook her head. Hermione's eyes narrowed. Not at Ginny, but at a point just over her shoulder. Ginny whipped around, and there was Draco, looking disheveled for the first time in her recollection. They stood looking at each other a moment, until Hermione's icy voice cut through the silence.

"Malfoy," she said. One word, and yet Hermione managed to convey all the dislike she harbored towards him. Ginny saw him almost flinch. "Who turned you back from a slug?"

"Ah, that's my secret," Draco said. "You should have poured salt on me while you had the chance."

"Next time I will," Hermione snapped, then turned on her heel and walked away, obviously expecting Ginny to follow her. When the redhead made no move to do so, Hermione turned back around to stare at her askance. "Ginny?"

Ginny, locked in a staring contest with Draco, didn't reply. Draco smiled, a genuine smile, and tapped two fingers to his forehead in a salute. Then he sauntered away, leaving Ginny staring after him.

"What was that all about?" Hermione wanted to know.

"Nothing," Ginny said vaguely. "Nothing at all."

Nothing at all. Unless one counted the fact that she felt as if she had the words 'I almost kissed Draco Malfoy' written across her forehead in flaming script.

The train ground to a stop, and students began to pour out of the compartments, talking amongst themselves and making an unspeakable racket. They were like a flood, and Ginny was a small, lonely island, looking after a shock of platinum blonde hair that caught the sunlight like fine crystal.

*

The next day, at the big breakfast table in the Burrow, the Weasleys, Harry and Hermione were all talking about their summer plans.

"Well, I expect we'll spend most of our time at the joke shop," Fred said.

"But we can still do work for the Order, now that we're out of school," George added.

"I'm headed back to Romania next week," Charlie said over a mouthful of toast. "Got an older bloke I think is coming around."

"And we'll just stay out of everything as usual," Harry said dryly.

"We know nothing," Hermione added.

"We see nothing," Ron agreed.

Everyone looked at Ginny. She was too involved in pushing her eggs around her plate to make a sarcastic remark. She looked up to find everyone looking at her, and hastily mumbled, "Yeah."

"Ginny, are you okay?" Bill asked. "You seem a bit...off."

"I'm fine," she said dully.

She could tell she was about to face the Spanish Inquisition, so was delighted at the arrival of an owl, which sufficiently distracted everyone. Until she realized that it was an eagle owl. A very familiar looking eagle owl.

"Say, that bird looks familiar," Ron said as it lighted on the table. "Wonder who the package is for."

That was when Ginny saw the small package between it's talons.

Ron picked it up, and read the name scrawled across it in neat, even script. "Ginevra Weasley," he read. "Gin, it's for you. Who's it from?"

Ginny took it from him and put it beside her plate, not wanting to open it in front of everyone. But they were all staring at her, and she knew they wouldn't rest until they knew what the package contained. Nosy lot, all of them.

She undid the strings with hands that shook only slightly, and out fell three things. A folded piece of parchment, a necklace, and a small bag of salt.

You should have poured salt on me when you had the chance.

If she'd had any doubts concerning the identity of the sender, they were banished now. She picked up the parchment and unfolded it, revealing a short message.

"Just remember, Weasley. Please. -D"

She picked up the necklace. Hanging from the end of it was a silver pendant carved in the shape of a twisted dragon, eyes smoky opals that exactly matched the color of Draco's own eyes. Without thinking, she fastened it around her neck. She looked up to find Hermione staring at her curiously.

"Salt," Hermione said simply. Ginny nodded. Curiosity satisfied, Hermione went back to her breakfast.

Ron snatched the note off the table. He read it, then frowned confusedly. "Remember what?"

This. What I've told you, and what you've told me. This.

"Nothing," Ginny said, her eyes somewhere far away. "Nothing at all."

That day, the Daily Prophet reported the first of a long series of Death Eater attacks, all led by the brilliant mastermind Draco Malfoy.

This is what I am. Whatever you hear, it's not what I wanted to do. I'm doing it for you.

*

Draco became the most elusive spy in the entire war. To get the information he needed, he had to act the part of a ruthless Death Eater. He passed all the information he got to Dumbledore, through a little redheaded girl who always wore a dragon necklace.

Harry Potter's triumph over the Dark Lord was spoken of for generations, but no one ever heard about the spy who passed him the information he needed to catch Voldemort off guard.

Draco Malfoy saved them all.

I will remember you

Will you remember me?

Don't let your life pass you by

Weep not for the memories

-Sarah McLachlan-