Love, and Other Things That Hurt

Chapter Two

"Malfoy. Are you listening to me?"

Draco glanced up. Blaise was regarding him with an annoyed look on his dark, chiseled face.

"Not really," Draco responded with a yawn, flipping a page in his Transfiguration textbook. He had tuned out almost immediately after Blaise had sat down across from him and started babbling about a fight that had just gone on between two seventh year girls in the Entrance Hall, something that Draco could not care less about. Blaise grinned.

"I can always count on you for the straight answers," he said genially, leaning over to clap Draco on the back. "No bullshitting around."

Draco nodded vaguely. He wasn't usually so carelessly flippant with Blaise, mostly because Blaise was usually saying something worth hearing. Unlike Crabbe and Goyle, the mindless minions he had grown up with who enjoyed mimicking his every move and grunting stupidly at everything he said, Draco generally enjoyed Blaise's company. He was amusing, interesting, and intelligent, and as a bonus point, he didn't usually stir in Draco the urge to commit murder by means of the Leg-Locker jinx and the giant squid.

And the way Draco generally felt about people, this was practically love.

"So, if you were ignoring my enthralling tale about Bulstrode and Abbott ripping out each other's hair and going at each other, what were you consumed in thought with?" Blaise asked, leaning back on his chair legs and stretching out his arms. "And don't tell me Transfiguration," he added as Draco motioned to his textbook. "You're brooding."

"I am not brooding," Draco said indignantly, even though he knew he was. "I was just thinking."

"What are you, a fucking Ravenclaw?" Blaise asked with a snigger, causing Boot and Goldstein at the next table to look up, scowling. Blaise shot a smirk at them before turning back to Draco, who was gazing blankly at the cloudy skies outside the library windows, clearly having lost interest in the conversation again.

With a sigh, Blaise glanced at his wristwatch and stood up. "Lunchtime. You coming?"

Draco shook his head absently. "Later."

"Whatever, mate," Blaise said with a chuckle. "Have fun with your thinking." He strode away and out of sight into the corridor off the library.

Draco slammed his book shut and laid his head on the cover. Fuck.

He hated this. Hated it. Waking up with his arms empty and the opposite side of the bed made was, as far as he was concerned, the worst feeling in the world. He would fall asleep with the scent of her, the feeling of her body against his, and then to open his eyes and have her gone as though she had been a hallucination; it gave the sensation of what Draco imagined swallowing a lead weight would be like.

This wasn't the first time either, and the fact that Ginny had done it in full awareness of how unhappy it made him just intensified Draco's anger.

He had gone to the Room of Requirement the night before in vain hope, on the unlikely chance that she would show up at some point during the night, just as she once had every night. The fact that she had been there waiting for him, and in the skimpy nightgown he loved that hugged her petite curves and shimmered in the lamplight no less, had been the highlight to what had been a long and ungratifying week.

The fact that she had been so eager to get to the sex had been a bonus, though Draco noticed, and the fact of it unsettled him, that getting her naked had not even been the first compulsion he had when he had seen her.

Okay. What?

He gritted his teeth. What was he thinking? What was going on in his brain? He was a Malfoy, for fuck's sake! And, Jesus Christ, he loved sex! Loved it! When had this cuddling shit become so goddamn appealing to his subconscious self, anyway? He sat, seething, for a few moments, and could almost hear her voice in his ear, melodious with laughter, teasing, "Maybe you do have a soul after all."

"I LOVE sex," Draco declared suddenly, so loudly that several people looked round in shock and Madam Pince hissed, "Quiet!" from her desk. Gathering up his books and shoving them into his bag, he sauntered out of the library, ignoring the disgusted stares he received. Reactions to his random and explicit declaration were not of great consequence. He had other things to...brood about.

He made his way to the Great Hall with some reluctance. He had decided to make an appearance over the lunch hour against his will and better judgment, not able to find any other way around it. If he skived off, Ginny would think he was avoiding her, which meant that he would be acting like a child. So, like a grown-up, he dumped his stuff in his dormitory and headed back up the stone staircase, scowling at a gaggle of little first year girls who all squeaked with fear as he passed them.

As he entered the Great Hall, nobody took much notice. As such, it didn't take long for him to notice one certain pair of eyes on him all the way to his seat between Blaise and Nott at the Slytherin table...a pair of eyes at the table under the red and gold banner at the far end of the hall.

"Hey," Nott grunted, reaching across Draco as he sat down for the butter.

"Decided to join us, have you?" Blaise said with raised eyebrows. "We're honored, I'm sure."

Draco ignored this. Ginny was staring him down, but he was refusing to meet her gaze. After five minutes of Draco looking resolutely in another direction, she seemed to give up. With a glance towards her, he saw that she was listening to something Granger was babbling about, nodding and smiling, leaning forwards intently. Draco snorted, and Crabbe and Goyle across the table looked up in dumb surprise.

"What?" asked Nott through a mouthful of potatoes.

"Oh, you know," Draco said with a theatrical sigh, training his eyes on the ceiling as he leaned back, putting the tips of his long fingers together. "Just registering my astonishment of the blatant unawareness of mankind."

Blaise, Crabbe, Goyle, and Nott all stared at him blankly.

"Don't hurt yourselves," Draco said dryly, and they all exchanged bewildered glances before resuming the attack on their plates.

Draco sighed again. Unbelievable, really, that Ginny insisted that she and Granger had always been such close friends. Draco was sitting twenty feet away and he could see right through the transparency of Ginny's interest in whatever they were conversing about - the transparency that none of her friends seemed to notice.

"I know you," he muttered under his breath, his eyes narrowing as he watched, out of the corner of his eye, Ginny throw back her head in a convincing spirit of a laugh. Even though he knew how fake it was, it didn't prevent the familiar sensation from intruding upon him as the faint sunlight streaming in through the ceiling threw gold threads into the red of her hair. He had come to associate this particular feeling with having his heart beat against his ribcage with a Beater's bat.

She caught his eye suddenly, and he felt his stomach clench. He didn't want to see the pleading in her expression. He didn't want to care like he did at all. He had gotten last night what he wanted - twice, as a matter of fact - which should have meant that he felt fulfilled. What exactly was bothering him? He couldn't figure it out, and it was grating on him.

When he got tired of listening to the chewing sounds coming at him from all sides and avoiding the increasingly frantic gaze searching for his, Draco pushed back from the table, muttered a farewell to Blaise and nodded to the others, and traipsed out of the hall as quickly as he could.

He was halfway down the stairs that led to the dungeons when she caught up with him.

"Draco."

He turned after a lengthy pause to see her at the top of the stairs, one hand on the door frame, her cheeks flushed and her eyes over bright. When he didn't say anything, she hurried down the stone steps until they were level and reached out to touch his arm. He didn't pull away, and she looked outwardly relieved at that, seizing the chance to take a step closer, placing one hand on his chest.

"You're angry with me," Ginny said. It wasn't a question.

"Curious," he responded, his tone cool. "Just curious, Gin. Makes me wonder where we stand, you know, with you feeling the need to disappear before morning like a fucking prostitute."

He may as well have just slapped her. She regarded him with shock and anger on her face. "Don't say things like that, Draco," she said, her voice trembling under the steady exterior. "You know it isn't like that. I'm sorry I left, I know you hate that, but - "

"Yeah, I do." His voice snapped like an elastic band. "I understand our secrecy. We've been doing this for long enough that we should know how it works, and I do. We're careful. I don't see how you doing me the courtesy of hanging around until morning is going to bring everyone to the staggering conclusion that you're shagging Malfoy."

"I know," she said, and he saw the genuine surprise in her cinnamon eyes. "I know. I just get...I just want to be cautious. That's all. I don't want..."

She trailed off. Draco looked at her, his features twisted in a furious glare. Frustration was fogging his mind, and he couldn't understand for the life of him why what had been a slight annoyance, a pet peeve if anything, had spiraled into such a torrential anger. "Cautious, right," he said icily, his voice hard as stone. "Because imagine if your friends found out about me, Weasley! They would be so disapproving, wouldn't they? Of course, if my father found out about you, I would be disowned, disinherited, and likely dismembered before you could say 'avada kedavra'. Do you understand that? For ten months, I have been risking everything my life depends on to be with you, and you're telling me that you want to be cautious?"

Draco saw her eyes glisten and felt his stomach clench as the words he had just spoken echoed in his mind, the reverberation of his hostile voice cutting through him like an icy knife. Pulling away from Ginny, he put his hands to his face, inhaling deeply as he tried to get his temper back under control. When he dropped his hands, he saw that Ginny had sank down to sit on one of the stone steps, staring straight ahead, her hands in her lap shaking as she determinedly prevented any moisture from leaving her eyes.

Draco's regret hit him like a ton of bricks, and he was immediately cursing himself, wishing he could take the words back. This wasn't her fault. This, their separation, their constant absence from each other's lives and the way they had to be so very careful was born of circumstance, the circumstance of their covert, illicit, and very, very forbidden relationship. He felt disgust in himself for using his father's brutal nature as ammunition in this battle, and he sank down onto the step beside her and said, a gruff, pleading note in his voice, "Ginny -"

She took one look at him, and before he could stop himself he had moved towards her. He didn't have any one thought in his mind except to banish that pain that he saw lingering in her amber-brown eyes, that pain that his outburst had caused...the pain that seemed to hurt him more than anything else ever had. Draco slipped his arms around Ginny and pulled her onto his lap, holding her tight to his chest and breathing in the familiar scent of her as she turned her face up to look at him.

"I'm sorry," Ginny whispered and he bent his head to brush his lips against hers, cradling her face in his hands.

"Me too," he said simply, and just like that, they were they again. Dysfunctional. Heated. Furious. But completely and undeniably together.

-

The act of transfiguration on a creature or human alike is a delicate and dangerous process. To assure absolute success, it is vital to be conscious and in full awareness of the intricacies of the process. The sorceress Glenda Glabblefoot (1102-1224) was one of the first humans to discover an established relationship between the magical properties which allow an alteration of the balance in -

Draco glanced up from his Transfiguration textbook as Ginny shifted in her sleep, her forehead creasing as she mumbled something incoherent. He adjusted his back against the stack of pillows behind him and resumed his delve into chapter eighteen, which was leaning against his knee. One of his arms was slung across Ginny who was cuddled against his side, the other hand toying with a loose strand of her hair as she slept on.

It was Thursday evening, and Ginny had been determinedly making plans to meet in the Room of Requirement every day (or night) since their argument on Sunday, clearly trying to prove her devotion to the relationship. When Draco had slipped into the Room today after dinner, he had found, to his amusement, Ginny curled up on the made bed, fast asleep. Though Draco knew that she would be annoyed that he hadn't woken her up when he had arrived two hours before, he couldn't bring himself to. For one thing, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to get through some homework. For another, she just looked so damn cute.

As he withdrew his hand from her to turn a page in the book, she jolted awake very suddenly, yawning and looking up at him in wide-eyed surprise.

"Draco?" she asked sleepily.

"In the flesh," he responded with raised eyebrows, brushing her hair out of her eyes as she tried to rub them awake. "Nice to see you conscious, Sleeping Beauty."

"Sleeping Beauty?" Ginny said with another yawn. "Did you think that one up all by yourself, smooth talker?"

"Nah, it's a Muggle thing," Draco admitted grudgingly. "Pity. I wish I could take credit. Do you want to go back to sleep? It's only eight."

"No, of course not," Ginny said, regarding him in bemusement as he flipped another page. "We're supposed to be spending time with each other. Why did you let me sleep so long, anyway? I don't even remember drifting off."

"Looks to me like you haven't gotten much sleep lately," he responded. "You looked like you needed it. You're obviously completely burnt out."

"I don't mind losing a little sleep," Ginny insisted, carefully stroking his shaggy platinum hair until he looked at her again. "The point is to be with you as much as possible whenever we can, and if it means sacrificing sleep, so be it. I don't care."

"I'm flattered," Draco assured her as she pushed his book aside and hugged his hard chest, burying her face into his neck and sending shockwaves through his system as her lips touched his skin. "Unfortunately, and I hate to break the news to you, Red, but this lack of sleep, no matter how...gratifying the reason is to both of us, is bound to catch up to you at some point."

"I see," Ginny sighed, running her finger idly across the contours of his abdominal muscles through his shirt. "And is that your tactful way of telling me I look like a bloody mess?"

"Well, that's a bit harsh, even for me," Draco said after a moment's consideration. "Then again, your eyes are bloodshot, you have huge purple circles under your eyes, you look like a zombie when I see you in the corridors. So...yeah, Weasley. You look like a bloody mess."

"Gee, thanks."

"But," Draco said, lowering his voice and smirking at her before brushing a kiss on the tip of her nose. "You're my bloody mess."

"Nice recovery," Ginny whispered back. She tried to smile, but it morphed almost immediately into a huge yawn.

"Ugh, I'm sorry," she said in frustration, groaning. "I don't understand why I'm so..." Yawn.

"I think that's the cue for bedtime," Draco said cheerfully, yanking the bedspread out from under them with one hand and wrapping Ginny in it. She tried to argue but he kissed away her protests until she gave in.

"I don't understand why you're not as tired as I am," she muttered irritably. "We're engaged in the same extracurricular activities, are we not?"

"Mmm, yes," Draco said teasingly in her ear. "But I believe I am working you considerably harder than you are me."

That earned him a punch in the stomach, but it was half-hearted and from the wince that crossed her face, it had hurt her more than him. He caught her fist in his hand and brought it up to his lips, brushing his mouth against her knuckles with his eyes on hers. He heard her breath catch in her chest and smirked as she pulled herself closer to him, her eyelids fluttering shut.

"Sweet dreams," Draco murmured. Within seconds, Ginny began breathing slowly and deeply again as she slipped off to sleep.

Draco lay there beside her, watching her for some time. He could see it in the way that her face was so tense, her skin so pale that her freckles were standing out more than usual - Ginny was clearly exhausted. He knew that it was his fault, of course. He was, after all, the one who complained that they didn't get to see each other often enough, rendering her to feel obligated to strain herself so he didn't feel neglected.

Not that he felt neglected. Obviously that wasn't the case. But physically, it was far more comfortable to release all his adolescent sexual frustration when between the sheets with Red than with regular trips to the little wizard's room. That was what he had been resorting to all those days that he didn't have that option, and Draco had long since established that self-servicing wasn't nearly as satisfying as the real thing.

Merlin, she was hot. She always had been, really. Even back when their loathing of each other had been as complete as Draco's own little ongoing feud with Potter, she had been easily the best looking girl in Hogwarts. It was the hair that did it for him. Sure, it helped that she had those impossibly long legs, that creamy porcelain skin, that crimson rosebud mouth - not to mention the rack that Pansy Parkinson only wished she had. But, in the end, it was the sixteen inches of wavy scarlet silk that spilled over her shoulders and down her back that made him go mad every time she brushed against him in the corridor.

Of course, her hair wasn't the only thing that drove Draco mad about Ginny.

You care, that little voice taunted him.

No, I don't.

He watched her sleep with a lump in his throat, his hand draped across her stomach moving up and down with each of her slow, deep breaths. At one point her lips parted, and she sighed out his name. "Draco."

He tensed, wondering if she had awoken, if he should respond, but she merely slept on. He wondered what she was dreaming about.

Hours passed. He tried to get through more Transfiguration, but every time his eyes scanned a sentence, it seemed that most of his mind was subconsciously devoting itself to listen to Ginny's slow, soft breathing, tensed for her to speak again.

He didn't know what he might hear.

Draco was wide awake at midnight when, finally, she opened her eyes. She turned onto her stomach and looked at him in the dark where he lay with his hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling.

"You OK?" Ginny asked him softly.

"I'm fine," Draco responded shortly. "It's late. You should get back to the Tower now that you're awake."

Ginny sat up, regarding him warily. He fully expected, even hoped, that she would demand to know why he was suggesting that she leave, that she would dispute his claim that he was 'fine' and order him to tell her why he was refusing to look at her. But she surprised him.

"Okay," she said simply, sliding out of the bed and getting to her feet. "Thanks for staying with me, Draco."

He didn't know what to say. She moved over to his side of the bed and kissed him so hard that their teeth banged together, the kind of kiss that was reminiscent of Draco's own style rather than Ginny's tender preference. She ended it fast, drawing back before he could even react, and he was taken aback by the look that was suddenly blazing like fire in her eyes.

"I've never said it before," she said, her voice unyielding like stone. "But it's been true for months. I love you."

The world stopped.

She had turned before the words had hit him, was already at the door as he moved to stand. But she was gone like a shadow, the door shutting with a click behind her, leaving only silence in her wake.

He wasn't certain how long he stood there, in the dark quite confines of the room that had once been free of the tension that had suddenly solidified in the air.

He wasn't certain how long it took him to make his legs move, to walk towards the door, and to slip ghost-like into the corridor alone.

He wasn't certain how he managed to make his way to the dungeons through the green-lit Slytherin common room, down to the dormitory.

He could not, for the life of him, recall what he was thinking of as he undressed and collapsed on his four poster bed near the window, out of which he could see murky shapes in the green water of the lake.

Draco's mind was blank, it seemed, as he lay there in cold silence, a chill passing over him as her face materialized in his mind, blocking all other images from it. Her eyes were blazing again, the way they had when she had spoken those three words that scared him more than anything, the irises alight with a fire he had never seen there before.

I love you.

I love you.

The words had been voiced now, he registered as though from very far away. They were real. They were alive. And, it seemed to Draco that those three little words were destroying him from the inside out as he lay there, his eyes frozen to the ceiling, eating away at that carefully placed wall he had always kept around his soul.

She had run away because she had known. She had known that the words would do this to him...cloud his mind, make him incapable of speech, of rational thought.

He realized too that he had known this would happen, just the way it had - she would say them first, and he would not be able to say them back.

What was she doing now? What was she thinking of? Was she sleeping? Was she crying? Or was she simply lying awake as he was, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling, feeling as though her very being was breaking into pieces?

Draco felt angry; angry at Ginny for bringing it up, a subject they had silently agreed was taboo, and angry at himself for letting her go like that. But what else could he have done? Love did not pertain to them. It was an outside emotion, an abstract idea, something to observe in others but to never feel first hand - all but a myth. Other people fell in love, but Draco and Ginny had been brought together by passion and fury and pure sexual lust, because that's who they were.

They were from different sides of the universe, different worlds, different...everything. They were together for the sex, and the companionship, and, as sparingly as possible, the comfort. They got along. They understood each other. And, Merlin's sake, they fit together. It was wrong, all wrong in every way but one, and that alone had always made it worth it. The secrecy, the concealment, the way he forced himself to look through her every single day...it was all worth it when they moved their bodies together in their own private world, their mutual heat intensifying, theirs minds sharing the same wavelength that they alone had discovered.

Sex was fun. Love was pain. Both had the potential to be messy.

It wasn't hard to know which one scared Draco more.

The sun had risen, casting a milky glow over the lake like emerald light before he found sleep, and when Blaise tried to rouse him for class at eight AM, he would not wake up.