Saint-Seducing Gold

Chapter Seven: In Realization

"Call me but love, and I'll be new baptiz'd."

-----

For the next several days, Ginny's grades took a sharp turn in the wrong direction. When she wasn't skiving classes to look for Draco, she spent the time she should have been to listening to her professors in bewildered thought trying to figure out exactly how she could fix the rift between them. He sent her owls back unanswered and refused to look her way anytime she attempted to catch his gaze. She left him notes in the abandoned classroom on the third floor that she later found torn to bits or burned to ash. Ginny almost burst into tears when she discovered that he'd even refused to take back the robes he'd lent her that night. His return owl only said two words - 'Permanently damaged.'

Even worse, Draco's hurt seemed to have morphed itself into an insatiable anger against her House. Fighting between the Gryffindors and Slytherins was worse than ever, and Ginny was nearly positive that Draco was behind every new scheme for revenge. She could see his hand in everything, despite the fact that none of the teachers seemed able to catch him. He was becoming something of a hero to the rest of the Slytherins though, all of whom had always respected his authority, but were now, on top of that, also treating him like some sort of god come to Earth. The blonde appeared to revel in the new spotlight cast upon him and Ginny found herself wondering if she'd ever truly known him.

Her normal friends quickly despaired of finding out what had Ginny so preoccupied, as she ignored them even more thoroughly than she ignored her schoolwork. Hermione and Ron would have still been worried, had it not been for the fact that they were now so caught up in each other they wouldn't have noticed if the world was crumbling about them. Harry and Ella remained her only friends still trying desperately to get her to admit what was going on. And neither of them was very good at getting her to communicate with them.

It wasn't until Ginny received a Howler from her mother about her grades that she realized she had to find some way to resolve herself to the fact that Draco would never forgive her. She was lost without him, but if he had found some way to get along without her, well, she could do it too.

Three weeks had passed since Halloween, and Ginny was soon buried in a veritable mountain of make-up work. Harry and Ella, happy that the redhead seemed to have woken up from whatever dream she'd been absorbed in, offered to help her get back on track. The three were soon staying up till all hours in the Gryffindor Common Room, wading through Ginny's assignments. She loved them both for sticking by her, but couldn't help feel that they weren't Draco.

-----

It was early December, and Ginny was sitting at a table in the Common Room, staring at the flames billowing in the fireplace. She'd sent Ella to bed long ago, and Harry was already asleep in a chair by the fire, the light playing in graceful lines over his face as he slept. Ginny was, for the first time in a long time, thinking about her writing. She hadn't touched a single notebook since Halloween and had just concluded that she missed her scribbling and felt that maybe she would take it up again.

From somewhere out of the darkness, she heard the sound of the Fat Lady's portrait swing open. Turning in her chair, she saw Harry disappear through the portrait hole into the black hallway outside.

"Harry?" she called softly, in questioning. Harry didn't answer. He disappeared as the darkness swallowed him from view. Alarmed, Ginny got to her feet and ran to the portrait hole before it could close.

"Harry!" she called again, still quiet. Her eyes probed the length of the hallway but she could find no sign of her raven-haired friend.

"Strange," she muttered to herself, turning around to go back into the Common Room. But instead of the Fat Lady she met a solid wall.

Pulling back with a start, she looked about in confusion. She wasn't in the hallway by the Gryffindor Common Room at all. She was standing in the Great Hall with all of the student's tables missing. And she wasn't alone.

Shadows from the guttering torches on the walls flickered fitfully across Draco's pale face as he stood, staring down the length of the hall. Ginny stepped up beside him and frowned.

"Draco?" she asked. When he did not respond, she hesitantly lifted a hand to touch his shoulder and said his name again.

As she had expected, he shook off her touch immediately. Sighing, she bent her head and whispered, "Draco, I'm sorry. How many times do I have to say it? I--"

"Don't." Ginny nearly jumped out of her skin. It had been so long since he'd said anything to her. "I don't deserve it."

His lips barely moved as he talked, but Ginny heard all five words as though he'd shouted them. "What do you mean, Draco?" she breathed. "I am sorry, and I want more than anything in the world for us to be friends again."

Draco didn't answer this time, but his eyes narrowed as he continued to gaze across the hall, as though waiting for someone. Ginny peered in the direction that the Slytherin was staring and found nothing but shadow and torchlight. She turned back to Draco and was surprised to discover that someone else had joined them.

"Harry!" she exclaimed, forgetting herself. Wincing at the sound of her voice echoing around the empty hall, she resisted the urge to babble out an explanation for why she was standing here alone with Draco Malfoy. Instead, she tilted her chin up defiantly and said, "What are you doing here?" just as though it was he who was in the wrong and not her.

But Harry ignored her. He crossed his arms and glared at Draco, green eyes blazing in the dark like embers.

"Why did you do it, Draco?" he asked angrily. "Was it only a ploy to get at me? Are you that obsessed with our rivalry?"

Draco appeared unruffled by Harry's appearance. He listened to Harry gravely, then shook his head. "You don't understand," he said, his eyes on Harry's face. "Everything that happened was an accident."

"An accident?" Harry laughed, but it sounded forced to Ginny's ears. He stopped short, and waved Draco's answer away. "That's an excuse, and you know it."

"Harry..." Ginny looked between the two boys in confusion. "What's going on?"

"It's not an excuse," Draco said calmly, ignoring Ginny's interruption. "It's the truth."

Harry's face flushed red in anger. He whipped out his wand. "I am not going to let you ruin my life anymore."

"What are you doing, Harry?" Ginny asked, staring at his bared wand with dread. She took a step toward Draco.

"You don't understand, Potter..." Draco was saying. For the first time, he looked at Ginny. She met his fearful gaze and took another step toward him.

"Of course I understand," Harry snapped, his smoldering eyes erupting into emerald flames. Ginny gaped as he leveled his wand at Draco's chest. "You killed him, Draco, and I am not going to leave you alone."

"It was an accident!" Draco suddenly shouted, his calmness gone in a spasm of fury. His cheekbones were tinged red but his eyes somehow remained clear and focused. "Everything that happened was an accident!" He raised his hands, but they were empty. Ginny realized with a jolt that the Slytherin didn't have his wand with him.

"Why do you keep saying that?" Harry said, and the tip of his wand glowed red for a brief moment. There was a strange sharpness to his words as he spoke, and it chilled Ginny to the core. "Everything you've ever done has been to hurt me," Harry went on. "But you can't hurt me anymore, Draco." He motioned at Ginny, trying to get her behind him, but she shook her head and refused.

"No, Harry. You have to stop this. I don't know what you think he did, but Draco must be telling the truth about it being an accident." She took one more step and stood right next to Draco, not feeling anxious at all when he gratefully took her hand in his.

Harry's eyes widened and he flew at Draco with wand outstretched as he screamed, "Don't touch her!" Ginny was knocked roughly aside as the two boys grappled with each other. She stumbled backwards into a wall and hit her head so hard that spots of color danced before her eyes. She heard Harry shout a curse that sounded like it came from only a few feet away from her and the entire Great Hall spun sideways. The torches hissed and spat as twisted shadows raced across the floor and walls. Ginny shrieked as everything seemed to dissolve and felt as though she was falling even though she didn't move. Several long moments passed before things righted themselves again.

Ginny immediately dropped to her knees and felt the floor with hands seeking reassurance. She was in the Common Room again. Upon finding things reasonably stable, she rose and looked around, wondering what Harry had done. Was it his curse that had brought her back here?

"Harry?" she inquired in a small voice, peering at the shadows. The Common Room was eerily quiet compared to the shouting match she'd been engulfed in a few moments ago. "Draco?" she whispered, a little more softly.

And then, as if called by her tentative question, the portrait hole swung open and Draco staggered inside, wild-eyed and clutching his stomach. Ginny's questions died on her lips when he caught sight of her. He uttered a tiny cry of distress that made her give a start and run across the room to him. He stumbled forward and fell into her arms, knocking her back so that they collapsed onto the floor together.

"Draco, what..." Ginny said, out of breath, as she struggled to get up. Draco was dead weight on top of her. She shifted and he tilted his head back to gasp for air, his grey eyes wide and shocked. "Oh, Merlin," Ginny breathed, her own eyes widening in horror. "Draco, what happened?"

Red blood soaked the front of the blonde's v-neck sweater. Ginny moved quickly, laying Draco on the carpet and fumbling in the pocket of her robes for her wand, remembering too late that she had left it upstairs in her room. Her hands flew to Draco's bloody sweater, where the crimson fluid was sticky and wet and quickly engulfed her probing fingers. Draco cried out in pain when she touched the right side of his lower chest, and Ginny's eyes grew even wider in her face as she realized the implications of so much blood.

"Ginny," Draco said breathlessly, his wild eyes focusing on her face bent over his. His silver-blonde hair was streaked with blood where he'd pushed it away from his forehead, and his pale skin was much whiter than normal, giving him the otherworldly look of a preternatural soul in torment. She saw that he was gasping for every breath, and she gave him a desperate look as tears came, unbidden, to her eyes. "I told you," Draco mumbled, his gaze clouding slightly. "I told you..."

He half-rose and Ginny tried to press him back onto the carpet but the Slytherin refused to cooperate. His eyes were brightening again. "What did you tell me?" she asked hopelessly, settling for trying to staunch his blood flow with her robes and giving a sob of terror when the blood began to drip from them to pool on the floor.

"I told you..." Draco's voice was so faint that Ginny had to bend close to his mouth to hear it. His hands grasped frantically at her shoulders and his fevered breath tickled her ear in an erratic rhythm as he went on. "I told you...that I never deserved it...I never...Ginny..."

Suddenly his back arched and his mouth opened up into a silent scream of agony. Ginny jerked back and clapped a hand over her mouth, the other hovering helplessly over Draco's chest. She watched in horror as, just as suddenly, he relaxed against the floor. A dark trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth and his eyes slowly glazed over.

Ginny sat there, frozen, and staring in disbelief. Finally, she closed her eyes and lowered the fingers of her left hand to rest over Draco's heart. When she found no heartbeat, a sound of muffled anguish escaped her mouth and her eyes flew open, automatically searching for reassurance from his face. But, of course, his face was still and his smoke-colored eyes gave her no hint that this was some kind of sick joke or surprise.

It felt like a sick joke. Ginny rocked back on her heels and grabbed her stomach sure she was going to be ill. Draco looked far too peaceful lying in front of her, one arm fallen across his torso where it'd slipped from Ginny's shoulder. Ginny turned away and squeezed her eyes shut, her tears slipping down ashen cheeks. Draco had never been that peaceful; even when the Slytherin was silent he had the sort of charisma that tugged at the eye and captured it. But now... Ginny couldn't stand to see his body without the enigmatic spirit that usually filled it. It was wrong.

She opened her eyes and stared at the blood-stained carpet, feeling numb and wishing she could stop the sobbing sounds of hurt that were coming from her mouth. Everything was wrong, all wrong. Things like this just didn't happen without explanation. There had to be an explanation for the strangeness... for the dreamlike quality of everything... for how surreal everything still seemed to be...Draco couldn't yet be dead because she had only just realized what he felt that night outside the tower... and... It was all wrong!

-----

Ginny awoke with a start, her head jerking up from the textbook she'd been sleeping on. Looking around, she thought at first that it was a mistake. She was still in the Common Room and the fire was still crackling away in the fireplace across the room. She was still crying, and her thoughts were still muddled, but Draco wasn't there anymore.

She pushed back her chair and tried to dash the tears from her eyes, to no avail. She kept seeing Draco, covered in blood, his grey eyes dull and lifeless. She kept feeling the awful numbness of realization fill her chest and...

"Draco!" she cried suddenly and softly, looking around with the last shreds of hope. But he wasn't there... And she was sitting at a table full of homework...

Slowly Ginny sat back and looked at her hands. They were clean. There was no blood. She took a deep breath and glanced down at the carpet. It too was clean of any blood. And Ginny sighed, seeing at last that it had been a dream. There had been no strange duel between Harry and Draco, and the Slytherin Head Boy hadn't died in her arms in the middle of the Gryffindor Common Room.

"Ginny?"

Ginny's head snapped around to stare at the source of the sleepy voice that had said her name. Hermione rubbed her eyes wearily and got up from her chair by the fire, Crookshanks reluctantly leaving her lap as she stood.

"Ginny..." Hermione admonished gently, shaking off sleep and coming over to stand by her redheaded friend. "What are you still doing down here? It's nearly--" She gave a start when she caught sight of the clock on the wall. "--two in the morning!"

Ginny didn't answer, but stared at the older girl. She was torn between wanting to tell Hermione about her nightmare, and wanting to rush down to the Slytherin dungeons to make sure that it truly hadn't happened.

Hermione stared back for a moment, frowning. Then she reached forward and brushed the tears from Ginny's cheek. Ginny's eyes widened in alarm. "Oh!" said Hermione, and she rushed forward to embrace her. Ginny stood stock-still and let Hermione hug her tightly, before she felt something inside of her split wide open. The next thing she knew she was hugging the other girl back and sobbing uncontrollably onto her shoulder, trying to babble the entire story out in less than a minute.

Hermione, although caught up in her world of two with Ron, had been expecting Ginny to do this for quite some time now. She gently guided her over to a couch and sat her down, making soothing noises and patting the other girl's back. She couldn't understand a thing that Ginny was saying, but wanted her to get it all out of her system before they could talk about things rationally. When Ginny had slowed down to hiccupping and could no longer speak, Hermione let her go and drew back a little.

"What were you saying about Draco?" she asked, a crease forming in her forehead as her eyebrows drew together.

"That I was... wrong... and I think... I love him... too..." Ginny gasped between hiccups, her eyes downcast.

Hermione frowned. "That's what I thought you said," she muttered. Ginny glanced up at her in sudden surprise, realizing that what she had just confessed to Hermione was something she hadn't even confessed to herself. She gasped and Hermione looked up to see her white as a ghost and trembling.

"Oh, don't worry, Ginny," she said, waving her hand as though to dismiss the other's fears. "I knew it was a Slytherin you were seeing from that note Ella gave me about Halloween night. I'm just trying to get my mind around... Draco Malfoy."

Ginny made an indistinct sound in her throat and hurried to examine her feelings. Were they real? Was she really in love with Draco? And why hadn't she recognized it before that awful dream? Did it take her seeing him die to realize that she couldn't live without him? Oh, Merlin... The room spun around her as she stood up and took a few stumbling steps toward the staircase.

"What are you doing?" Hermione was now behind her, a worried ring to her voice. Ginny shook her head, a hand flying to her throat as she spun around and made for the Fat Lady instead.

"I have to go," she whispered, hurrying across the room.

"But, Ginny!"

Something in Hermione's voice brought everything inside of Ginny to a screaming halt. Turning around with her eyes closed, she winced, waiting for the inevitable.

But the shouting and the screeching about her being in love with a Slytherin and a Malfoy never came. Instead she heard a slightly frightened voice ask, "How did it happen?"

"How?" Ginny opened her eyes. Hermione was standing where she'd left her, her brown eyes shimmering in reflected firelight. Ginny's shoulders dropped as she uttered a half-hearted laugh. "Oh, Hermione. I don't even know. We were both at the Drowned Rat and..."

She told her the story briefly, sure that Hermione would keep her secret but not wanting to share too many details.

"...and then I woke up and realized that I..." She stopped suddenly and looked at the ground, unsure whether Hermione had grasped how significant Draco was in her life from the bare bones version of events she'd offered her.

"You realized that you felt the same way." Hermione shook her head. "Ginny... I know you don't want to hear this, but I wish you'd think about this. Draco Malfoy is still a Slytherin, no matter how well you think you might know him. Just look at what he did when you rejected him! Are you quite sure that you want to be in a relationship with someone capable of that kind of discrimination? Not to mention what your family and fellow housemates might do if they find out you're fraternizing with the enemy..."

Ginny looked up. "But Hermione, don't you get it? It doesn't matter that Draco is a Slytherin or a Malfoy. He doesn't like his family anyway, and he only reacted that way to my rejection because... well, he doesn't know how else to deal with things. And that's part of the reason that he likes me, Hermione. He likes that I can teach him those kinds of things without having to actually say anything. Just being around me... Just me being around him..." She smiled sadly and gave the portrait hole a yearning look. "We're only happy when we're with each other. Don't you feel something like that with Ron?"

Hermione gave her an astonished look, and then a slow nod. "But what about everyone else? They won't be happy about this."

"They don't have to know," Ginny replied a bit viciously. "Besides, look at the way you reacted! You're not trying to kill me."

Hermione frowned. "Still... Not everyone will--"

"Look. I know nothing about this is easy, Hermione. Just... please keep my secret?" Ginny waited for the other girl's nod before making her way again across the room to the portrait hole.

"But where are you going?" Hermione asked bewilderedly, looking at the clock again.

"I have to go tell Draco, of course!" Ginny exclaimed, and then she'd gone, disappeared into the darkness of Hogwarts' night.

Hermione let out a sigh she'd been suppressing and sank into the armchair behind her. Crookshanks jumped into her lap, purring loudly, and Hermione gave him a distracted scratch behind the ears.

"That's good for her, but, meanwhile, how am I supposed to get back to sleep?"

-----

Draco awoke with a sleepy start as someone eased shut the door to his bedroom. He hadn't been sleeping well for the past few weeks and was hardly surprised that he awoken so easily. He made out a dim figure in the darkness and raised his head up a bit to see more clearly. Just as he was thinking that Blaise was already asleep in the bed across the way and that maybe he ought to think about grabbing his wand, the person let out a little cry and flew toward him.

He managed a smothered yell of surprise as the girl threw herself on top of him. He tried to sit up, but she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him soundly on the lips. Quite abruptly, Draco forgot where he was and what he was doing.

"Ginny?" he gasped, weak in amazement as she finally drew away from him. "What the--"

Ginny grinned crazily at him through the darkness, tears still shining upon her cheeks although she'd stopped crying the moment she saw Draco. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm so, so, very sorry." She kissed him again, almost bruising his mouth with her voracity.

Draco's hands rose up between them and he pushed at her shoulders, detaching his mouth from hers. Thrilled as he was to have Ginny Weasley in his bed, apparently willing to snog him to death, he was a bit suspicious of this sudden turnaround. "What the hell is going on?" he hissed, squinting to see her without any light in the room.

Ginny laughed softly, under her breath, not bothered by his reservations. "I'll tell you what's going on," she replied, her hand finding his in the darkness. "I've just realized what a damn idiot I was being. Draco..." She drew close again, and he could feel the heat radiating off her. She'd obviously run all the way down to the dungeons. He'd forgotten that he'd even given her the password and told her where she could find him if she ever had reason. It seemed so long ago now... Almost a lifetime away. But with Ginny this close again, his anger was dissolving too quickly for him to even realize that he'd held on to it this long.

"I'm sorry about Halloween," she said then, and Draco realized that she didn't need to say any more. He'd heard everything in her voice, all of the confusion and denial and fear. But it was gone now. And they were together as they'd never been.

"I missed you," he said, and, instead of kissing her again, he drew her into his arms and held her tight against his chest. He couldn't ever remember wanting to hold someone so close in his life, but he felt that it was right. Ginny clung to him and her breath was shaky in his ear. She'd almost been scared that Draco wouldn't accept her after all. But now everything was right again...

"Draco? What's going on?" a tired voice demanded from across the room.

"Oh no," Draco groaned. "Ginny, quick, get under the covers." Wide-eyed, Ginny obliged Draco's command and squirmed beneath his blankets just as Blaise's wand flashed light at Draco's bed.

Draco blinked and shielded his eyes. Ginny's ragged breath was tickling his feet. "What are you doing, Zabini?" he whispered fiercely to his fellow Slytherin. "I'm trying to sleep over here." Ginny shifted uncomfortably and Draco seized her foot beneath the sheets to make her stop moving.

Blaise lowered his light. "Sorry, mate. I thought I heard a girl's voice."

"Well, unless you invited Jaclyn for a sleepover, you were probably dreaming," Draco retorted trying to sound annoyed, which wasn't too hard.

"Yeah... Well... Good night." The light disappeared and Blaise sank back against his pillow, already asleep again.

Ginny wriggled out of Draco's blankets and sat up, her hair disheveled, eyes wide and trembling. Draco leaned over and pulled his bed-curtains shut. "What's the matter?" he whispered as he grabbed his wand and performed a Silencing Charm around them.

Ginny's hand shook slightly as she reached up to push the hair out of her eyes. "It's just..." She unconsciously reached out a hand against his chest. Draco frowned. He grabbed her outstretched hand and looked at her intently.

"What? What is it?"

"Do you think it will always be this hard?" she whispered back, pressing her hand in his. "Do you think we'll always have to hide everything?"

Draco smiled at the thought of how easy their feelings now fit together. It was as if the rift between them had never existed at all. "I can think of a time when we won't have to," he said softly, masking his excitement. Ginny heard it in his voice anyway and smiled in spite of herself.

"The Yule Ball," they whispered together, and both of them grinned at the thought of flaunting their new relationship in front of everyone without anyone knowing who exactly they were.

"But what will we go as?" Ginny asked, leaning against him and resting her head on his shoulder.

"Who cares?" Draco replied. "We'll think of that tomorrow. Right now, we still have tonight. Do you wanna go somewhere were we can be alone?"

"But we are alone!" Ginny laughed quietly. Draco frowned at her and pointed though the curtains at the sleeping Blaise. She laughed again. "You worry too much. Who would dare to bother the infamous Draco Malfoy? Certainly not him. He's a loyal minion, from what I've seen."

"Loyal and nosy," Draco complained. "Remember at the Drowned Rat? He--"

Ginny rolled her eyes and Draco stopped. "Don't you care that we might still get caught, Ginny?" he whispered anxiously. "Like you said, this is still wrong..." At that, Ginny gave him a suddenly wicked grin.

"Yes, Draco, yes, it is. But you know what? It's the right kind of wrong." Draco blinked, startled by these words, before realizing that's exactly what it was. The right kind of wrong.

"This may be kind of preemptive..." he said, gazing at her in admiration. "But I think I may truly be in love with you."

Ginny's smile softened. She drew him down beside her so that they were face-to-face on the pillow. "Let's go to sleep forever and ever," she told him, reaching out to smooth the hair away from his face. "Let's stay here together and never wake up again."

"Never wake up again, huh? I could use some sleep." She smiled sleepily at him and Draco yawned, feeling nights upon nights of insomnia catching up with him. Sleeping forever really didn't sound quite so bad at the moment... His hand crept up beside him to catch Ginny's and they fell asleep that way, facing each other with their fingers knotted, and icy blonde hair mingled with fiery red on the pillow beneath their heads.