Light And Dark

Chapter Two: Life Goes On Without You

"Hello, Weasley. Fancy meeting you here."

Same smirk. Same silver-gold hair, styled a little longer than Ginny remembered, and not slicked back as he did at school, but falling softly around his pointed face. It suited him. But the smirk. Still staring at her with his violet-grey eyes, laughing at her, mocking. She was lost for words, humiliated beyond speech, as his eyes trailed over her now blushing body, naked in front of Draco Malfoy. At that moment she hated him more than she had ever in her whole life, hated him with the bitterness of years of hard living and wrong choices.

"A gentleman would lend me his coat at this point." Cold. Unaffected. She'd show him.

He took one last lingering look with those eyes before languidly taking off his expensive coat and placing it lightly on her shoulders. She drew it stiffly over her body and buttoned it up, looking at the floor, trying to pretend this was just another customer. But her shaking hands wouldn't stop, and she knew she couldn't brazen it out, keep it in.

"What the hell are you doing here, Malfoy?"

"I'm talking to you, of course. But that's not all I paid for tonight, my dear."

The edge in his voice unnerved Ginny. It spoke of unpleasantness - more disturbing than a drunken leer - and unvoiced threats. All at once Ginny realised that this was the first person she had met in almost six years who knew she wasn't really Virgina West from some little backwater English town they'd never heard of here in California, who knew her family, who...KNEW HARRY. The realisation undid Ginny. Panic crawled into her stomach and all the way to her voice, and suddenly she snapped.

"You can't tell anyone! You hear me?! You can't tell anyone about this oh god this isn't happening to me." She leant, weakened and silent, against a cool pillar of the corridor through the garden, leading from the bar tent to the hotel proper. She struggled to get hold of her careening feelings as Malfoy stood there in the moonlight, smirk replaced by intense look of satisfaction, not one movement to help her to her feet. Ginny found calm in the anger that rushed to her brain at seeing the bastard so smug. She stood up, brought herself to full height, and addressed him again.

"You won't tell anyone about this. I'll tolerate you because you've paid for me and no matter how dirty that makes me feel that's the way things are. But you will promise me, promise me on whatever is left of your honour, that you will never tell a soul where I am. Or what I am."

"And what's that Weasley? Say it out loud."

"Get fucked, Malfoy."

"Oh I intend to be. By you - Miss Virginia."

He spat that last insult at her, silver-violet eyes flashing, menacing and laughing in turn. She glared at him and walked on, silence falling in the space between them. Then, in a tone so casual it had to be adopted, Draco spoke again.

"You know...you know, even if I did tell it probably wouldn't matter. Your family have given you up for dead." Beside him, lost in humiliation an misery, Ginny started at the mention of her family, then slumped as the hurt settled in. Draco continued.

" I mean, they say they don't believe you're dead, that they're still waiting for you to come home, but believe me, their lives go on. It's like you never really existed." Draco chuckled, as if something very amusing had just occurred to him. Lightly, almost under his breath, he whispered, "It's like I'm going to sleep with a ghost." Ginny looked away. Pain like a knife in every part of her chest.

"He married that Mudblood Granger you know." Out of nowhere, Draco spoke again Ginny couldn't help herself. "Ron?" She asked, with hope in her heart and in her voice.

"Who else? Those two were inseparable after 7th year...they got married about a year after that. Potter was best man." Here, Draco chuckled again, and Ginny knew that whatever was coming up would be nasty.

"Of course, they're certainly separated now. Didn't last very long, did it?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well...definitely not playing at happy families any more...not after your brother came home to find Hermione shagging someone else in the living room."

Bombshell dropped, Draco glided on. Behind him, Ginny stood still, unable to move. "Who?" She finally sqeaked, toes glued to carpet, hoping against hope for the answer to prove her traitorous thoughts wrong.

Draco roared with laughter this time. "Oh, you'll never believe me..." Here he collapsed with mirth, prolonging Ginny's agony. Finally, he collected himself with an un-Malfoy like snort, and went on, face animated, obviously loving every minute of dishing dirt on the Ginny's beloved family and friends.

"I guess I should've said someone else," he announced. "Your other brothers - the twins, to be exact."

Ginny suddenly found herself by Malfoy's side. She gripped him tightly by the wrist, ignoring the pain it caused her also. "If you are lying, you rotten bastard, I'll kill you and consequences be damned." Fear flickered in Malfoy's eyes for a second; then, with an ungentlemanly wrench, he had Ginny pinned cheek to luxurious wall, breath hot on her ear.

"Little one - there's plenty more horrid stories from nasty Uncle Draco, but unfortunately for you, they're all true."

Ginny heard the wicked glint in his voice and she understood immediately. He was enjoying himself too immensely. "Harry?" She asked softly, dazed. Draco released her and propelled her down the corridor, towards the executive lift.

"Oh you better believe it."

Just as softly whispered back.