Delicious Hatred

Delicious Hatred

Sometimes, in this world, the situations that seem the easiest to solve, are, in fact, the most difficult. This is because each situation involves choices, decisions to be made. Ginny Weasley is one of the types of people who has a hard time deciding things. Today, Sunday, she walks the musty Hogwarts corridors alone, externally the picture of calm, and yet internally feeling...

She refuses to admit it. She will not allow him to confuse her. She doesn't even care. Draco Malfoy is nothing to her. Just a puzzle to solve, a curiousity that forces the dusty, dreary gears of her mind to spin. Ginny is a shell, to others. She is an empty shell, for she has receded inside herself. But in the deep recesses of her mind is a complex weaving, a barrier that blocks off her soul to all others, except herself.

Ginny tells herself to think rationally, to ignore Draco. He is teasing her, trying to confuse her, she says to herself. She is wasting her time on him. He is connecting her to the outside world, the world that transformed into a hell before her very eyes. This hell refuses to spit her out, and so she allows it to pull her and push her and hurt her, just as she got hurt and lost by her own mistakes and failures, fated to wander among the normal as unnatural, forever. So she turns her back on it, on this hell, the world, reality itself.

And she wants to turn her back on Draco Malfoy, to ignore him, for he is useless, the enemy, if she thinks of him, she will be related to the world that she has retreated from. Thus, thoughts of him will only bring me more suffering. He is a wolf that prowls the earth with hungry jaws. I am a spirit that flows through the air with no semblance of attachment to reality.

But she can't stop thinking of him. He is the first person that has caught her interest in years. She is curious, wondering if this darkling, passionate and hateful, will bite her, gnaw at her broken and blackened heart like the other darkling, or if he will be different. No, he already is. He is different. Complicated.

Ginny smiles. That is the difference. He is fierce, hateful, dark. But he is complicated. Most darklings aren't. It is easy to understand them, because they only think of power, of hatred, of who and what they can use for their own purposes. They are nought but a statement, a goal, a desire. That is what makes them, what drives them. One single, selfish, sick thought. But Malfoy is different. He is unpredictable. He hides things. He thinks of more than himself, for his mind is a web that creates a story, and it is still a story, however disturbed and malevolent.

Finally, Ginny stops pacing, and walks out of the castle, going down to the lake. Taking out a book she got from the library yesterday, she begins to read. But her mind is elsewhere. She is trying to figure out the puzzle that is Draco Malfoy. Ginny is like that. She always faces a challenge, is always willing to explore and to ask questions and be insistent, if it will allow her to find out things. Everyone has something deep inside them that belongs only to them. I will be the one to find out what that thing is in Draco Malfoy. I must.

Uncomfortable, Ginny moves so that she is lying on the grass, her legs stretched upward against the tree trunk, bare toes wiggling into a dip in the bark. She sighs loudly, her physical comfort, challenged and busily thinking mind, and a cool autumn breeze making her slightly content. A sudden shake of the tree's branches causes Ginny to look up, and she watches, expression unmoved, as Draco climbs down from the tree.

She watches him, head cocked in curiousity, trying to delve into that mind, read something into every movement of his. But his back is turned, and she knows by experience that the eyes are what usually reveal emotions in a person, and her only chance of discovering anything about Draco Malfoy, for he has ultimate control of his every movement; it is impossible to read his body language, or emotions in his voice, for he has none.

Those slender hands slide down the length of his torso, pale fingers, nails neatly manicured, brushing nonexistent pieces of lint from his black cashmere coat. Trousers get tugged a little higher, belt adjusted, then those fingers begin to comb through that silky fair hair, the slightly tousled state not subtracting beauty from the pampered, luxurious mane.

Ginny opens her mouth slightly in wonderment, somehow even more curious about Draco Malfoy because his presence caused her to think of the word beauty, a word she has shunned for years, and she is even more shocked because that word is related to him. Then, getting sick of his show of vanity, for he knows she is there, she sighs loudly, and says irritated, "You need to shave."

Regardless of the entire randomness of her comment, Ginny is not embarrassed. She never lets herself be. Involuntarily she smiles when Draco turns around, his acknowledgement of her presence, spoken words of, "Why if it isn't the Weasley runt. Ginny," somehow not eliciting a reaction from her. The smiles remains, but then she lets it float away, sinking into oblivion, as, smirking, the young man drapes himself on top of her.

Indignant at the contact, Ginny is breathless with turmoil, feigning anger, as his touch sends sizzling sparks through her body. Suddenly it seems as if his hands are everywhere; against her hips; grazing her cheek, tracing a finger against her collarbone, lower, and then...

It is all Ginny can do to not scream at him, to tell him every contradicting thought inside her head; but she knows not whether she would be screaming at him stop or to never, ever let his fingers leave her skin. And for once Ginny is scared, frightened to death that he will violate her strength, douse the fire within her and leave her helpless, lost, but without the defense of being able to sink into herself when she feels any interest or pain from the reality she is barely in.

He pauses, fingers pressing against the tie at the neck of her blouse, posed as if ready to, at any moment, rip her heart from her. Smiling, he slides his fingers away, and taking her hands in his, stretches her arms above her head. Rubbing his chin against hers, lips less than inches away from Ginny's, he says, "How can you say I need to shave? You weren't even looking at me. Besides, my light stubble is nearly invisible."

Ginny laughs at the proud tone in his last sentence. Showing him through her sparkling eyes that she is laughing because of him, at him, she replies, "And so the vain get ever vainer. But that is obvious."

Her voice takes a sudden questioning tone. "Mr. Complicated," she sees now that he is staring at her quite intently, "you must have something to hide, something contradictory to what you are externally, if you're complicated at all."

"You want to hear what it is that makes me complicated, why I'm complicated?"

His body against hers is so firm, masculine, rough, and yet his voice is husky, skin against hers soft, warm, lips so smooth, full, inviting...

But Ginny quickly shoves such thoughts from her mind, and realizes that he is defeating her, cracking her open like a coconut, trying to taste the pure white hidden inside. She becomes bitter at the irony of it. There is nothing pure, nothing positive inside her. When she is not an empty shell, she is a furnace, hot and black and dangerous, fierce, unforgiving.

She will never forgive him for this, never, never let him tempt her, change her, ever, ever again. She is about to slap him, to scream "I hate you," or say some witty comment in reply, or simply shove him away. But then she realizes, with a cold, dull horror, that he is right, that he won already, because there is no way that Ginny can deny that what he said is true: hatred is complicated.

And, she knows upon hearing what he says next, so is he. He is right again. Will she ever be able to defeat him?

Strong, long fingers against hers, his hands gripping hers tightly, Draco leans down so that his cheek presses against hers, lips able to pour sweet, poisonous nectar almost touching her. His hot tongue momentarily slides against her skin, that mouth kissing right below her ear, sending shivers up and down her body, before he whispers, "I'm complicated, because...Delicious hatred. I hate you, and yet...I find you, and my hatred for you, utterly, and irresistibly...delicious."

Draco knows not how much his words have effected Ginny, as he stands up and leaves the redhead to bathe in the ultimate conflict and torrid hatred. He soon sinks into the shadows, prepared for another match against Ginny Weasley, his enemy, and prepared to taste the sour sweetness of her skin, but not prepared for what neither of the two expect.

[A/N: I was going to end it right here. But that would have meant a triquel, or many complaining readers. It would have been extremely evil of me, don't you think?]

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Ginny leans against the balcony, the wind ruffling her hair, causing a reddened frenzy to swirl around her head. Sighing, she places her cheek against her hand, fingers brushing against her rounded, pink lips. She cannot get thoughts of Draco Malfoy out of her mind, and an unfamiliar voice, one she does not recognize, speaks to her from within.

For once, it is not the voice of Tom. He who once haunted her dreams still roams included, and yet the spirit of the voice is nonexistent, and so his voice inside her head is broken, fragmented, pieces of memory rather than dreamed up nightmares. This new voice, not her, and yet not Tom, it tells her to defy the rules, to rebel, and to follow her heart, do what it says out of instinct, rather than stand back for fear that giving in to that tug will mean defeat. She can still defy the rules, and at the same time, defeat Draco Malfoy, humiliate him just as he did her; he needs to be taught a lesson.

But doubts still linger inside Ginny.

Suddenly, that voice becomes louder, and she hears it as if right by her ear. Ginny realizes that the voice is in her ear, and not, anymore, that strange new voice inside of her head. He speaks, and it is the poetry that Ginny has secretly studied and grown to love. A slight tweaking, changing of the words causes her to shiver all the more:

"'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Weasley.
What's Weasley? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a woman. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Ginny would, were she not Ginny call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which she owes
Without that title. Ginny, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.'"

Although she knows the parts have been reversed, and the young man below the balcony should be reciting different lines, a surge of warmth bursts into Ginny's once cold heart, and with joy anew, she recites the lines, crying them out with vigor:

"'I take thee at thy word:
Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized;
Henceforth I never will be Ginny.'"

In that moment, looking down upon him, Ginny realizes that she has already defeated him, that Draco Malfoy stands below her at her service, for his heart cries to her a silent, unanswered plea. She does not even want to defeat him anymore, anyway. Before the blonde Slytherin below, his gaze locked with hers, can say Juliet's next lines, Ginny shouts as Romeo,

"'By a name
I know not how to tell thee who I am:
My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,
Because it is an enemy to thee;
Had I it written, I would tear the word!'"

The words spill from her mouth like a torrent of heaven's tears, and so absorbed in the joy of having someone to share her fascination with is Ginny, that, even as she speaks, her gesture of tearing is a mite too enthused. Unheeding of her danger, or even, barely, of the world around her, Ginny reaches out too far, leaning towards Draco, and falls into his awaiting arms.

He stands her up again, and for a few moments, the two stare into each other's eyes, entranced. Her dark eyes lock with his grey ones, and both feel a surge of sweet connection with the other, yet wonder if the feeling is mutual. He leans down and his lips light perch upon hers is like the touch of a feather, his mouth warm and full, bringing an exquisite feeling to Ginny's mouth and a flutter to her stomach.

But she quickly breaks the lip lock, and stepping back, gives him an accusing glare, and whispers fiercely, "That kiss wasn't one born of hatred!"

Stepping forward, Draco enwraps his arms around her waist, saying, "Oh, but it was. For now you hate me for it, and hated me before I spoke, for you do not know me as well as you once thought, complicated as I am. You hate me, because you can't deny that my lip's touch on yours was...delicious."

Denial pounding through her, seeming to be inside her very blood, Ginny shakes her head, murmuring protests of, "No, no...This isn't right, this is wrong, wrong! I can't feel like this..."

He smiles, the first true sign of mirth she has ever seen on the conman's face; perhaps it is his one true face, and not the mask anymore. "So you admit it! You feel something; it stirs deep within you, doesn't it?"

Ginny stands and thinks about it for a long time. Draco Malfoy is complicated, yet he is the first person to change her in years, to make her think about adjusting herself to the world, to people around her. She will forgive him for this, because if she accepts it, if the change is for the better, than he has not defeated her, and they could hold hands as equals, not exchange sharp words as enemies. The hate would not stab between them, and instead it would bring them together more, and grow and blossom into the trickling of this new emotion Ginny felt inside.

Nodding her head, Ginny buries her hands in Draco's hair, and with another kiss, passionate and promising of growth, a new essence to come in both their hearts, it is the final test.

Hatred is not simple. Both Draco and Ginny are complicated, and yet also opposite in many ways. But nothing can deny their meld, connection, to each other. The hatred had been delicious, and not simple. But their love will be fresh, and more simple and delectable than either have ever experienced.

Both pass the test successfully, and walk away hand in hand knowing that their future is blessed, because it is of them together, for as long as the rose blooming inside them is nourished. And it will be.