The Wife of the Emperor

Across Diagon alley, another man contemplated into another fire about the same woman. Draco turned his glass full of Old Odgen's Firewhiskey in his hand, causing mesmerizing amber rays to transport him to the day he first saw Ginny Weasley.

He had glanced at her in Flourish and Blott's but she was nothing more than a victim to his taunting. The first day he truly saw her was a Wednesday, if he remembered correctly, and the beginning of his second year.

Weasley had received a Howler, and he looked on eagerly, thirsty of more excuses to tease the Weasel with. Its screeching voice berated the redheaded oaf for his stupidity, no doubt led by The Boy-Who-Shouldn't-Live. Then, in an odd bipolar moment, it lovingly congratulated a blushing crimson-haired goddess for her housing placement. He recognized her from the bookstore and was amazed at her beauty. She blushed shyly and he found himself captivated by her innocence. An innocence that was too soon corrupted when Tom Riddle took her into the Chamber. In years to come, he suspected that the Basilisk wasn't the only snake at work that night.

He was too embarrassed with his father at the time to take any notice of the girl who was forced to grow up. After that, he would catch a flutter of red hair in the halls; accidentally glance at the pair of cinnamon eyes in the Great Hall, seeing nothing more than her beauty. He was blind to her loneliness. This hindsight plagued him in the years to come when remembered is ignorance at Hogwarts, when their paths crossed, causing giant waves of discourse.

He never acted on his interest with the ghost-like goddess until his sixth year at Hogwarts. Albus Dumbledore had barely escaped with his life in the now famous Battle at Hogwarts. Many students perished, even more wounded as he did, fighting for the Light. But his wounds came not from a Death Eater, but from Ronald Wesley himself, for he dueled that day with her blockheaded brother. He ran into the stupid beanstalk in the mist of the raging chaos and death. Ron seized the moment and pointed his wand at Draco's heart, muttering a curse.

They dueled for half an hour and in the end neither won nor loss, instead the both ended up in the hospital wing for the critically wounded. It was there Ginny healed him quickly and quietly, casting healing charms over his burning wounds and gashes, murmuring soft reassurances that cut though his screams of agony. Her small hand held his in comfort and he gripped it tight for she was the only anchor between the tangible and intangible worlds of this life and the next.

After that, he often imagined her working hard as a Medi-Witch for the Ministry or aiding others in far-away countries, giving them her healing skills and kindness. But now...but now she was to become instead, the unwilling wife of an emperor, because of him.

Enraged, he threw his still full glass into the slowly dying embers causing flames to crackle and roar with an intensity he wished he could release. He envied the fire for its ability to scream out its anger in one swift flash of flames. What fueled his anger though was not alcohol. His fuel had red hair and penetrating eyes.

He struggled to keep his mind in the present, not wanting to relive what he did. He didn't want to feel that wound anymore, and it had come to the point where he believed it to be no more than a faded scar. Seeing her again was the salt sprinkled into the wound that stung so fiercely it felt as though he only earned it yesterday.

Swamped by the emotions raging from his struggles, he gave in and allowed the salt to pour.