A Birthday Wish

A BIRTHDAY WISH

Ginny sat miserably at the dining room table, absentmindedly running her perfectly manicured fingers over the dark mahogany table in front of her. Ten years. Ten years of absolute devotion, ten years of true love. And what had it gotten her? This mansion, richly furnished in authentic 18th century furniture. A limitless account at Gladrags. An extensive collection of Italian shoes and outfits, the proceeds of
which could rid every country in the world of its national debt. It seemed petty to count material gains, but, in the end, they had outlasted love, trust, devotion...everything they thought would last forever.

Ginny felt tiny vibrations run under her fingers just as she heard the echo of the mansion's twenty-foot front doors closing, and her trained ear was even able to pick up the murmurs of the family's butler greeting his master. After ten years of repeating the same ritual, at five o'clock on the dot every evening, Ginny was being to
feel less and less like a wife and more and more like a robot. She listened out for the steps. One, two, three, four, pause. Her husband picking up the evening edition of the Daily Prophet, on its stand in the hallway, as it had been every evening since the day they married. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, bang. Her husband closing the door to the library, which she always left open and he always complained let a draft into the house. One, two, three, four, pause, to check something that caught his eye on the front page of the Prophet. Then ten more steps to the door of the dining room, where she should be waiting, sipping her cup of tea - weak, black, and with one teaspoon of sugar.

Today the only things in front of her were her hands, tightly clenched together.

The dining room door swung open, the hinge squeaking at the exact moment she knew it would. Her husband entered the room and took his customary place in the chair across from her, his gorgeous face buried in the paper. Yes, she still thought he was beautiful. Even after all the bumps and potholes their marriage had hit as it
traveled down the road of time, she could not help drawing back slightly as he entered the room.

"Hello, darling," Draco Malfoy said, not raising his head from the paper.

"H-Hello," she choked out. He didn't even raise an eyebrow. "How...how was your day?" she said, the words spilling from her lips before she even realized she was saying them.

"Fine," he replied as he always did. His response came a beat too late. It was then that she realized that he was not reading the paper - instead, his cloudy eyes were riveted on one spot, a spot which seemed to be an add for some type of new, improved magical mess remover. Draco had never been much of a housekeeper.

With no tea to sip, the silence that she had endured every night for longer than she cared to remember seemed to drag by even more slowly. She pretended to examine one slightly chipped nail as she watched him through the corner of her eye. She was sure he was doing the same to her.

Draco had aged the same was as he did everything - gracefully. Though it had been over twenty years since she had first laid eyes on him in Flourish and Botts all those years ago, he still possessed the same perfect hair, the same flawless skin, and the same soul-wrenching grey eyes which had first drawn her towards the idea that maybe, just maybe there might be a man in the world worthy of her attentions
other than Harry Potter. It had taken him awhile to see her in the same light, but once he finally did, there was nothing in the world that could have torn them apart. Ginny always felt as if she were under the influence of some divine, exotic drug whenever she was around Draco, and he told her that she invoked the same feelings in
him. They thought that as long as they were together, there was nothing else they could want.

But forever hadn't lasted nearly as long as they thought it would.

"What are you thinking about?" Draco's voice came out of nowhere, causing Ginny to jump in her seat. Snapping back to attention, she say that he was looking at her, really looking at her, in a way that he hadn't done for years. The paper lay discarded off to the side, and in his face, Ginny discerned a sadness she felt was mirrored in her own.

"I was thinking of nothing," she replied. A moment passed before she spoke again. "I was thinking of us."

"Nothing? Us? Are the two synonymous in your mind, Ginny?" he snapped. He sounded irritated.

"Are they in yours?" she retorted, raising her brown eyes to his grey ones and holding his glance for longer than she had dared to in months. He didn't answer her, but he didn't look away. "What happened to us, Draco?" she asked softly, her anger melting away. "What do you want from me?"

He was looking extremely agitated - she didn't think she had ever seen him in this state, not in any one of the many years she had known him. A long silence followed.

"I don't know what it is I want..." he finally said, leaning across the table and gently taking her hands in his, "...but I do know that, whatever it is, you can't give it to me."

Ginny drew in a sharp breath and yanked her hands away from him. She could feel tears swiftly rising to her eyes. So this was it, this was what he had wanted to say to her for so long. After all these years, all the years she had stood by him, all the years she had supported him, and after everything she had went trough for him, he
was going to end it. Just like that. "What are you talking about?" she whispered in disbelief, not wanting to hear the answer.

"Ginny," he said gently, trying to take her hands again. Unable to contain it, a sob burst from her throat and she roughly pushed him away. "Ginny, please," he begged, and she actually saw tears beginning to form in his eyes as well. "Ginny, I have to say this.
You know I love you. I told you I loved you, and I wasn't lying when I did so. The years I've spent with you, Ginny, are the best I've ever had in my life, and I know that no matter how long I live, no matter where I go or do, these past ten years will never be duplicated. I've lost you, Ginny. I don't know exactly when, I don't know exactly how. Maybe - maybe...." He was crying openly now, as was she. "Maybe our love just wasn't meant to survive. How many people in the world can honestly say that they've experienced our kind of love, huh, Gin? We were lucky enough to find each other and have our time together. Now it's just.... run out."

She didn't answer. She couldn't. She was crying too hard. So much pain inside her chest had exploded at his words, and she felt as if she was dying. No, this was worse than dying. This was being tortured within a half inch of her life, then being left alive to slowly recuperate and carry the scars with her from this world to the next.

"What's her name?" she choked out through her tears. Draco didn't answer, but the way his eyes fell from hers to the table told her all to well that he had heard her. "WHAT IS HER NAME?" she screamed at the top of her lungs, banging her fist into the table so hard that she was sure she dented the five-hundred-year-old wood.

"Her name is Victoria," he said, not raising his eyes. "This isn't her doing. This had all been set in motion long before I met her."

"So do you love her, then?" spat Ginny. "Do you love her, then, the way you used to love me? Twenty years from now, will you be delivering this speech to her? Twenty years from now, will she be the one sitting at this table, feeling as if someone is ripping her soul out through her ears as you put on an Oscar-winning performance for
her? Or by that time, will you not even need a speech? Will you just leave? Disappear? What's going to happen to you, Draco?" She sobbed. They both did. What's going to happen to me?"

No more words were spoken. They sat across from each other in the dark, quietly crying, until eventually their tears dried. Then there was just silence. After than more than twenty years in each other lives, they couldn't even find the simple words to say good-bye. Finally, Draco broke the silence. "She's expecting me," he simply stated.

Ginny turned her face away. She couldn't look at him. "Go to her, then."

He closed the door behind him, the hinge squeaking at the exact moment she knew it would.

THE END