Reciprocality

After he did it, people realized what had happened between us. Well, of course they did, but I mean to say, there was no way I could hide it. It's hard for a girl to pretend like the suicide of Draco Malfoy meant nothing her when she was, in actuality, in the middle of a rampant affair with him. And maybe in love, with him, I mean. I wondered why he did it. Did he fear his father's rejection of my worn leather shoes, second-generation wand and firey red hair? Did he have some uncurable affliction he would rather cause me such pain as this than suffer through? That is to say, I wondered until I knew. I have no idea which is worse.

Sometime about a week after the ordeal was more or less over with, I violently threw myself into my canopy bed. I remember thinking it was ironic, because it was the only place I still found refuge despite its significance to my relationship with Draco. The shining dark wood and soft covers were foreign to me when I first arrived at Hogwarts, and the luxury of it seemed condescending of the shabiness of my home. But I grew to love it as the years passed. It seemed natural to me that such a beautiful, trusted bed should be the sole witness of the deepest physical attributes of our relationship. I once told Draco that only I and my canopy bed would believe he was capable of tears, because sometimes he cried when he made love to me. Oh, I have to stop myself before I continue on this sloppy path. I mean to say that I threw myself onto my mattress, bouncing back with the force of it. I buried my wet face into the softness of the single pillow and biting into the soft underside of my arm and tasting acid in the back of my mouth. I snaked one arm into the cool underside of the pillow and felt it, the distinct sound of a piece of parchment in my pillowcase. A detailed apology, really, not a suicide note, although it described his intentions. I never turned it in. The most heart-wrenching part, though, was at the bottom. A ring was dribbled with wax to keep it in place, carefully, and only on the palmside. Small, with stunningly ornate filigree work, very old. I do not claim to have much knowledge about jewelry or precious stones, but I have heard that a very small but unclouded emerald is worth more than a sizeable diamond. And this emerald was not very small at all, and framed by two fire opals. Underneath, in the slanted, hurried but careful script that was so typical of him, Draco had included instructions: "Burn it, sell it, trade it, wear it. Just know that I love you. D." Now I wear it on a long ribbon (I could never hope to afford the gold chain it deserves...) around my neck so that it swings between my breasts and no one sees it. But I always feel it. I've forgotten the weight of it, but he coolness startles me and the ribbon catches in my hair. It helps, somehow. It makes it seem less real, like a story to read rather than a life to live.

It's difficult sometimes. It's difficult all the time really, but mostly I sleep a lot and drift from class to class without aim or reason and it doesn't hurt. I don't cry about what he did or my loss of him. But last Wednesday, Crookshanks brought a dead bird up the stairs to the girls' dormitories. I saw silver on its feathers and red under its wing and wide open eyes and I heaved up the contents of my stomach and sobbed for hours on end. They all came to try to help and said it was just a bird, a slow bird. But it was Draco, Draco was a slow bird and a fast cat and someone I'd never see again. So I cried for a silver bird, but never for Draco. For him, I hurt. Orchids were his favorite flowers, which I always valued for the simple fact that Draco Malfoy had a favorite flower. So, my heart aches when I see or smell or even hear the word. There was a certain place we sat by the lake on nice days, and once in the rain, to talk and pretend us being together was okay. I sat there a day ago and that hurt, too. But what was worse was when Harry approached me, walking the way he does like a person who grew a lot in a short period of time and forgets the length of his own legs everytime they leave the ground. What he told me made for the decision of what I'm about to do. He said he'd talked to Draco, right before. He said he saw it, saw him do it. He pulled the ribbon away from my body, his fingers touching the tops of my breasts and the silk ribbon sliding across my skin. I shivered and pulled away. He pretended not to notice. "Draco told me he why he did it. He did it to make you happy. He wants you to live without him in the way you never could have with him." He dropped the ring and watched it fall to my chest. I tucked it back in hurriedly, I felt exposed. "I know he didn't mean for everyone to find out what happened between you, but you can recover from it and I can help. Draco wanted me to take care of you, and eventually marry you. I know you used to love me, Ginny, and I love you now. You can pull yourself out of all this gossip if you'll be with me." He dragged his fingers through the ends of my hair; I quickly pulled back and inched even further away until I was pressed against a tree trunk. He sighed. "He wanted us to be together. He understood that we're meant to be together and that he couldn't stand in the way of that." I got up and walked away, feeling sick. I knew Harry wasn't making it up. Maybe he was a little eccentric about it, and he was certainly attempting to take advantage of the situation, but it was the truth. Draco killed himself so I could 'be happy'. Somehow, it had made sense to him. But how could I ever be without him?

So that's up to now, what happened to bring me to now. Now I'm sitting in my bed and I'm looking at a shining silver blade held in a hand I don't recognize as my own. Such a happy dagger to plunge into my heart to stop the pain. Everything's going to be silent and serene and maybe gone, and I can be with Draco, or at least without anyone. I feel the coolness of the ring between my breasts as warmness coats me, it isn't until a few moments later that I recognize it as blood and only then by the scent, and I feel a more primal, internal cold. I think of the inscription on my ring, the one offering of love Draco left me, as I'm overcome. "If only" it says. If only things could have been different.