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The Untitled D/G Story, done!
I am rushing off to a doctor's appointment, but wanted to get this posted. In my haste, I might have been a little more lax than usual with my editing. Again, no beta, so feel free to point out anything you see amiss.
If you missed the first part, it's here.
When last we saw our hero...
Draco was on his way to the pitch for Quidditch practice when he was confronted with a ghastly sight. There was Ginny, her long red hair being whipped around by the wind, and she was entwined in the arms of someone, a boy with dark hair, and the two of them were kissing.
A feeling Draco had never known before swelled in his chest, making his stomach roil and red dots explode in front of his eyes. The kissing couple, though rather far off in the distance, seemed to loom in Draco's vision, blocking out everything else. Though he wanted to race toward them and pummel the other boy senseless before taking Ginny away to some obscure location and locking her in a tower -- no, dungeon, his dungeon, that would be best -- he remained rooted to the spot. Part of him could not believe what he was seeing … but as much as he wanted to deny it, there was no mistaking that the girl was Ginny. He would recognize her anywhere.
But what he wanted most of all (after disposing of her unknown lover) was to demand what the hell she thought she was doing. How could she kiss someone else? How could she allow someone else to kiss her? How dare she be unfaithful to him, when he had never been unfaithful to her, and yet he was the one in Slytherin? Draco wanted to know how long this treason had been going on. No, he didn't; he couldn't bear to know. Yet, he did want to know. No, he didn't. Yes, he did.
Outrage and something else propelled him forward. He would confront them, even if it was against his better judgment. Intellectually, he knew that what he ought to do was cut his losses -- walk away and forget that Ginny Weasley ever existed. But somehow, he didn't think he'd be able to do that. Justice would not be served, and he would derive so much more satisfaction from a bit of violence.
As he got closer to the snogging couple, Draco had another upsetting realization. The boy was Potter. Harry fucking Potter. Ginny had her fingers buried in Potter's hair -- the way she always does with yours, he masochistically pointed out to himself -- and Potter's hand was under her shirt, touching the skin of her back. Draco wanted to retch copiously, but steeled himself to at least wait until he could do it on Potter's shoes.
When they were within shouting distance, however, they disappeared.
Draco stopped short, breathing heavily, jerking his head from side to side. Where the bloody hell had they gone? Had they seen him coming, and made a swift retreat? Certainly he could not blame them, if that were the case -- the way he was feeling right now, he could have easily killed one of them. He ran to where he'd seen them last, but there was no trace that anyone had been there. Were they hiding behind the Quidditch stands? He began looking in all the nooks and crannies like a madman, but couldn't find any hints as to their whereabouts. A check of the changing room only revealed his bewildered teammates.
"Malfoy…?" one of them ventured. "What's wrong? You look -- er…"
"Shut up!"
Draco changed into his Quidditch clothes, throwing his gear around so aggressively that his teammates made tracks as they could. On the way out, one of them muttered, "Great. So it's going to be one of those practices."
Despite his yelling and pointing out his team's every mistake (real or imagined), it was Draco who was paying the least attention to practice. He couldn't seem to get his head in the game; all he saw in his mind's eye was Ginny. Ginny and Potter. Ginny kissing Potter. He didn't want to play fucking Quidditch. He wanted to find them -- find her -- and demand answers. And some goddamn fucking fidelity.
Obviously, what he should really do was break up with her. But to his complete disgust, he didn't want to do that. The idea of breaking up with her filled him with such feelings of aversion that he couldn't entertain the thought for more than a second. And that made him even more disgusted with himself. No, the only solution was to impress upon her that her behavior was unacceptable, and once she fully understood how grievously she had wronged him, he would allow her to try and make it up to him. Just in case, he might have to put a tracking charm on her, but only for a little while, just until he could deem her trustworthy again. And since by that point she would have realized how terrible and nearly unforgivable her actions had been, she would agree.
Even with such foolproof plans, Draco's stomach was twisted into knots as he went in to dinner. A second year ran by, crying about giant flying monkeys, but Draco barely noticed. What was he going to say to her? Had she seen him earlier, or would she pretend as though nothing had happened? Not, of course, that they could have a real conversation in the Great Hall. He'd have to communicate using only glares, knitted eyebrows, and a truly pissed-off aura. (Luckily, he'd had practice with this sort of thing.) He wasn't going to pretend he hadn't seen what he'd seen, and he'd be damned if he'd let her carry on with her deception. Who knew how long she'd been making a fool of him? Falsehearted bitch.
Hadn't he been a good secret boyfriend? Hadn't he given her everything she could ask for -- great sex, witty conversation, the sheer joy of being in his company? How could she throw that all away?
Potter probably tells her he loves her, came the unbidden thought. But those were only words! Meaningless. In the end, didn't action count more than mere lip service? You mean like the act of telling someone how much you care about them? Draco didn't understand why there was a throbbing feeling in his hand until a passing Ravenclaw said helpfully, "Hey, your hand's bleeding," and he realized he'd punched the wall in a fit. He'd punched a stone wall. In a fit. He could hardly credit such asinine behavior to himself.
"Shut up!"
He stomped to the infirmary and practiced his glares on Madam Pomfrey, who clucked around him like an overgrown hen and scowled right back as she fixed up his hand. She put some kind of strange-smelling ointment on it before wrapping it up securely. All the while, Draco pictured how Ginny would look on her knees, clinging to him, begging him not to break up with her, reassuring him that it had only happened the one time, that she'd been under Imperious, that she would do anything to make it up to him...
Draco nearly ran into her as he was exiting the infirmary. The unexpected sight of her nearly made all the thoughts in his head fly away, just because he was glad to see her. And then he remembered. He opened his mouth to say something -- he didn't know what, because she beat him to it.
"I want to break up," she said, without any fanfare whatsoever. "I'm with Harry now, and I love him. Always have done, you know. Oh, also I'm pregnant, and it's not yours," she added.
Was she trying to kill him? Draco felt as though he'd been pole-axed. He could only stare at her -- hopefully disdainfully -- wondering if all the feeling leaving his body was because he was in a towering rage, or because he simply could not comprehend the words she had just said. Or maybe it was something else, something he couldn't identify, because he'd never felt it before.
"Are you joking?" he asked hoarsely, because it was the only thing he could think of to say -- the only thing he wanted to be true. But from the look of pity on her face, the utter lack of humor, he knew he was grasping at straws. The attempt to find some other explanation for what she'd said had only managed to reveal how hopeful he was when it came to her. Pathetic.
"Why would I joke about something like that?" Ginny stared at him, her big brown eyes wide and her beloved face, the one he had so enjoyed caressing and contemplating when she was asleep, looking puzzled. "I'm sorry, but this probably wouldn't have happened if I hadn't felt so insecure about you. I could just never tell whether you cared about me at all."
He was going to vomit. That was what that feeling in his stomach meant. It would just be the humiliation on top of all humiliations to do it in front of her. "I don't -- I have to --" He stumbled past her, and she moved swiftly so as not to touch him.
Draco's appetite had been obliterated. He was glad now that he'd injured himself, glad to have that distraction, that pain to focus on. Because the other pain, if he allowed himself to dwell on it for even a second, would kill him. Somehow he managed to make it to his room, though he couldn't remember getting there. Not for the first time, he was glad to be Head Boy, glad to have his own room, glad there would be no witnesses to the sight of him in complete and total misery.
Ginny's words played over and over again in his mind, almost as if she had conjured them from his worst nightmare. What he wouldn't give for it to be yesterday, or the day before, or any day when he'd been with her, stupidly happy, not knowing he was destroying their relationship little by little until she'd turned to someone else. He'd lost her, a possibility that he'd never allowed himself to contemplate. Lost her, and it was his fault. All his fault. God, he was so fucking stupid. How could he have let her slip away from him like that? Just last night she'd given him another chance, when they'd had that row about his never telling her that he loved her. Then they'd shared a spectacular shag -- had that simply been a pity shag? A farewell-it-was-nice-while-it-lasted shag? What else could it have been?
She hadn't even asked how he'd injured his hand.
Time passed as he lay in bed, staring at the canopy above. His thoughts were jumbled, swirling around in his head. He wondered when it had all gone wrong, when she had started seeing Potter, if it was too late to win her back. But of course it was too late; she was pregnant for Merlin's sake (remembering that nearly made all of Draco's thought processes shut down). She was with Potter, the boy she'd always loved and never thought she could have, the one she was meant to be with, the one everyone would nod at in approval when they discovered who she'd chosen. Of course Ginny Weasley should be with Harry Potter, not Draco Malfoy, son of a Death Eater, descendant of a family with a long and illustrious history of dark magic.
Was this what depression felt like? When the idea of staying in bed for the next forty or so years was the most attractive proposition he'd ever heard?
Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be. The clock next to his bed eventually began to chime.
It's just as boring as it sounds
Hurry up, time to do your rounds!
Feeling as though a bevy of weights were pressing on his chest, Draco reluctantly dragged himself out of bed and stared at himself in the mirror: wrinkled clothes, unkempt hair, hollow eyes. For possibly the first time in his life, he couldn't have cared less about his appearance, and left the room without changing.
His mood grew darker and darker as he patrolled the halls, getting even more satisfaction than usual from reprimanding other students and taking away house points. No one had immunity from his wrath, not even his fellow Slytherins; he took fifteen points from Blaise Zabini for snogging a redheaded girl behind the statue of Goric the Brave for the Most Part. Draco's earlier melancholy was slowly being replaced by a sense of outrage, indignation, anger. He was in a strop and he didn't care who knew it.
And then he saw them.
Ginny and Potter, kissing just as they had done earlier that day near the Quidditch pitch. They weren't even trying to hide it! It made Draco absolutely furious -- not hurt, not at all -- to see them. How dare she toss him over for that ridiculous prat? How dare she not appreciate him and all the things he gave her, like his shirt to wear when she didn't have pyjamas, or his best jokes, which he always delighted in telling to make her smile, or all the hot sex she could ever want? Hmm. Perhaps there had been a bit too much of that; he couldn't ever seem to not want her. She'd often joked -- or at least, he had thought she was joking -- that keeping him satisfied was a full-time responsibility. Possibly that was why she preferred Potter -- his sex drive was obviously nothing compared to Draco's. Well, if that was what she wanted, then she deserved the impotent berk.
Only he's not so impotent, is he?
At the reminder, Draco tightened his grip on his wand, prepared to hex the both of them into oblivion.
And that's when Ginny Weasley came around the corner. "Hello!" she chirped. "There you are. Do you realize how long I've been looking for you, you idiot?" She lowered her voice furtively before continuing, "I forgot you had rounds tonight and was waiting for you in your room." She pouted. "I was wearing your favorite outfit, you know."
'Confused' didn't even begin to describe Draco's state of mind. He looked from the Ginny addressing him to the Ginny who was currently sticking her tongue down Potter's throat, and tried to make sense of it. They both looked exactly like her.
Obviously, he had gone mad. She'd driven him to it.
"What's the matter with you?" the second Ginny asked. "What are you -- oh. Oh my," she said, following the direction of his gaze. "Well, that's odd."
Recovering slightly, Draco seized Ginny by her upper arms and hauled her toward him, snarling, "Explain yourself!" and shaking her a bit. She tried to swat his hands away, but his grip was too tight and she finally gave up.
"What do you mean, explain myself? I haven't done anything, you maniac!"
"Then what's that?" he hissed, inclining his head in the direction where the other Ginny and Potter were still snogging as if there were no tomorrow. Now that he had something better to focus on, he refused to look directly upon the repulsive sight.
"How the bloody hell should I know?" Ginny retorted, and it infuriated him that she was not showing the least amount of regret, nor did it appear that an apology for having grossly betrayed him was forthcoming. "Why don't you give some thought to what might be going on? What did you do today? I've been hearing rumors--"
"The question is not what I did today! The question is what you did! Where were you this morning?" he demanded.
Ginny gave him an annoyed look, which he really felt he did not deserve. It put him on the defensive, which was galling. Shouldn't she be the one feeling defensive, all things considered? "If you ever listened to a word I said, you'd know! I told you days ago that I was going to be visiting my brother today!"
Draco vaguely recalled her saying something of the sort, but it wasn't his fault that when she'd told him, she'd been wearing a really tight shirt, was it? No, obviously that was her fault. Still, he decided not to point this out, since a small flare of hope had ignited in his chest. "So you haven't been at Hogwarts all day? You've been with Will?"
His hold on her relaxed, and she pulled away and crossed her arms. That never boded well. If anything, the brassed-off look on her face had intensified. "Yes, though his name is -- hang on. Are you telling me you've been seeing that" -- she pointed without looking -- "all day?"
"Yes," Draco said, almost not daring to believe that there might actually be another explanation for the encounters he'd had with Ginny that day. Or maybe this was the hallucination. But if so, he preferred it to the other. "Though obviously, I never really believed you'd prefer Potter to me."
Ginny narrowed her eyes, examining his face so closely that it was all Draco could do to remain impassive and not squirm. "You did," she exclaimed. "You did think that was me, and that I've been snogging Harry! And you were worried!"
"I wasn't!" Draco denied. "Or if I was, it was only because I was concerned for your lack of taste."
"Oh, come off it, Malfoy, it's written all over you," Ginny said, smirking. "You were jealous! It's kind of sweet, actually."
He spluttered but could not find anything to say to this outrageous remark. Instead, he pulled her close, and instead of shaking her this time, he kissed her. It felt so good, so right with her in his arms, that if she wasn't the real Ginny he could just about live with it. Abstractedly, he sensed that she was struggling against him, but it wasn't until she gave him a good hard shove that he allowed his lips to disconnect from hers.
"What's the idea?" he asked reasonably.
"Don't you take that tone with me! You thought I was cheating on you? That I'm capable of being so two-faced?"
Draco pondered this new turn of events and what his tactics were in order to proceed. "I thought you said it was sweet."
"Yes, well, now I've had some time to think on it more," Ginny replied. "Now I think you've insulted me."
"Insulted you! What about me? What about all the terrible things I've had to put up with all day? I think we should be sympathizing with me and what I had to go through!"
At this, Ginny seemed to relax a bit, and a hint of a smile appeared on her face. "Seeing me kiss Harry was that bad?"
"Well, it put me right off my dinner, I'll tell you that," Draco said. "But it wasn't just the disgusting snogging. You also told me that you loved him and wanted to be with him, and that you were … pregnant! And it wasn't even mine!"
To his surprise, and great irritation, Ginny's response was not the sympathy he'd been looking for. Instead, she began to laugh. "She -- it -- whatever -- told you I was pregnant? Hahahaha!"
"You look like a hyena when you do that, you know," Draco said sullenly. All right, so it all seemed a bit ridiculous and far fetched now that he was saying it out loud. But it had felt real! And if it wasn't real, then what the hell was going on? He could still see the other Ginny and Potter, who had not once come up for air.
"It knew just how to get to you, didn't it?" Ginny said, grinning and wiping tears of mirth from her eyes. "Well, I know for a fact it isn't me over there, and I saw Harry in the common room before coming to look for you. He was about to head off to bed, so I don't think that's really Harry, either."
It knew just how to get to you. Who would know him that well? What magic had been used to torture him all day? Who even knew that he and Ginny were together, much less to use her and Potter as the best way to get under his skin?
And suddenly, the answer came to him. "Me," he said in realization.
Ginny rolled her eyes. "Can't we get off your favorite topic for one second?"
Draco shot her a quelling look, then began to stalk toward the furiously snogging couple. Ginny followed right on his heels. When he was about ten feet away, the other Ginny looked up, her lips swollen. Potter had a smug look on his face. Despite knowing it wasn't real, Draco couldn't help but close the distance between them to connect his fist with not-Potter's face. Both Ginnys gaped at him.
"Might have known you'd do that," not-Potter said. "But it doesn't change anything. Ginny loves me and always has." He placed a hand on her abdomen. "And we're going to be a family."
Draco's hand tightened convulsively on his wand. Not-Potter's words made something fierce and terrible throb in his head. Maybe, no matter what Ginny said, she really did prefer the other boy. Maybe she was only settling for Draco because she couldn't have Potter.
"It's not real," came her voice in his ear. "I love you, you idiot."
It was as if he'd been jolted by lightning. Before he knew it, he'd lifted his wand and shouted, "Riddikulus!"
Immediately, not-Ginny kneed not-Potter in the stones and gave him a wallop with her right hook, for good measure. Not-Potter writhed in pain on the ground for a moment, and as Draco began to laugh, the two of them vanished.
"Well done," Ginny said. "Of course, the fact that it took the Head Boy this long to figure out a third-year DADA scenario is a bit of a concern..."
"It wasn't real," Draco said to himself. Relief like nothing he'd known was making the blood sing in his veins.
"It wasn't real," Ginny agreed. "Though you'll have to tell Professor Bahdaire there's a boggart on the loose."
Impulsively, Draco placed his hands on her shoulders, making sure she was paying attention to what he said next. "Ginny, I … care about you a lot," he blurted. "You see, during the day, if something memorable happens, or even if it's not memorable at all, all I can think about is when I can see you to share it with you. I wonder what you might say, or if you'll laugh. I think about you all the time. When you're not with me I want you with me, and when you are with me, I want you closer to me than my own skin. And it's not just the shagging," he added, in case she misunderstood. "Though I do really like that part."
"Oh, Draco," said Ginny, sighing and looking at him in a way that made him wish he'd shared these ridiculous lovelorn sentiments far earlier. "Thank you." She kissed his cheek. "Now, about the boggart? We should probably alert a professor about it…"
"It's been loose all day," Draco replied, twining her fingers with his. "It can wait until the morning."
"You're so responsible," she chided, but was smiling.
He grinned wickedly and tugged her close. "I have other responsibilities. Now what's that you were saying earlier about wearing my favorite outfit? You meant nothing at all, right?" he asked hopefully.
"I meant nothing at all," Ginny agreed, purring into his ear and making him shiver all over. "Though I do hope that if I show you mine, you'll show me yours."
"I'll do a lot more than that," Draco promised, urging her in the direction of his room.
But she wouldn't budge, for some reason. "Hey," she said, concern in her eyes. "What happened to your hand?" Ginny grabbed his wrist and gently ran her fingers over the injury site, as if she could somehow heal him by her touch alone.
"Nothing, but thank you for noticing," Draco said, and kissed her soundly.
= the end =
Notes: Okay, about boggarts. It's always bothered me that boggarts are supposed to show one's "greatest fear," yet it was always a person or thing, and never a situation. What if your biggest fear was the idea of your sibling dying? Or skydiving? Or being made to sing in front of an audience? Not sure how those would work, but I did want to show a kind of 'fear' that one couldn't make ridiculous by dressing them in women's clothes, or putting roller skates on a spider's legs. (It's been awhile since I last read PoA, so my examples are from the movie.) As for whether boggarts can actually talk/have physical form, no idea. I don't think it's been said they can't, so I took the liberty of saying they can, for the purposes of this story. <g> Besides, if a boggart-as-dementor can actually affect Harry like a real dementor, I say this argues for "can."
As for the title of the piece ... obviously, "Draco's Boggart" would be most fitting. But while it's not exactly a huge intellectual challenge to figure out what's going on, I'd also prefer not to give the whole game away from the get go. Any other suggestions? :D They're very welcome.
This was fluffy fun to write (hmm, just like my last story; it's becoming a trend). Thank you to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kourttears for winning that meme and making me write D/G. :D
Bye!
If you missed the first part, it's here.
When last we saw our hero...
Draco was on his way to the pitch for Quidditch practice when he was confronted with a ghastly sight. There was Ginny, her long red hair being whipped around by the wind, and she was entwined in the arms of someone, a boy with dark hair, and the two of them were kissing.
A feeling Draco had never known before swelled in his chest, making his stomach roil and red dots explode in front of his eyes. The kissing couple, though rather far off in the distance, seemed to loom in Draco's vision, blocking out everything else. Though he wanted to race toward them and pummel the other boy senseless before taking Ginny away to some obscure location and locking her in a tower -- no, dungeon, his dungeon, that would be best -- he remained rooted to the spot. Part of him could not believe what he was seeing … but as much as he wanted to deny it, there was no mistaking that the girl was Ginny. He would recognize her anywhere.
But what he wanted most of all (after disposing of her unknown lover) was to demand what the hell she thought she was doing. How could she kiss someone else? How could she allow someone else to kiss her? How dare she be unfaithful to him, when he had never been unfaithful to her, and yet he was the one in Slytherin? Draco wanted to know how long this treason had been going on. No, he didn't; he couldn't bear to know. Yet, he did want to know. No, he didn't. Yes, he did.
Outrage and something else propelled him forward. He would confront them, even if it was against his better judgment. Intellectually, he knew that what he ought to do was cut his losses -- walk away and forget that Ginny Weasley ever existed. But somehow, he didn't think he'd be able to do that. Justice would not be served, and he would derive so much more satisfaction from a bit of violence.
As he got closer to the snogging couple, Draco had another upsetting realization. The boy was Potter. Harry fucking Potter. Ginny had her fingers buried in Potter's hair -- the way she always does with yours, he masochistically pointed out to himself -- and Potter's hand was under her shirt, touching the skin of her back. Draco wanted to retch copiously, but steeled himself to at least wait until he could do it on Potter's shoes.
When they were within shouting distance, however, they disappeared.
Draco stopped short, breathing heavily, jerking his head from side to side. Where the bloody hell had they gone? Had they seen him coming, and made a swift retreat? Certainly he could not blame them, if that were the case -- the way he was feeling right now, he could have easily killed one of them. He ran to where he'd seen them last, but there was no trace that anyone had been there. Were they hiding behind the Quidditch stands? He began looking in all the nooks and crannies like a madman, but couldn't find any hints as to their whereabouts. A check of the changing room only revealed his bewildered teammates.
"Malfoy…?" one of them ventured. "What's wrong? You look -- er…"
"Shut up!"
Draco changed into his Quidditch clothes, throwing his gear around so aggressively that his teammates made tracks as they could. On the way out, one of them muttered, "Great. So it's going to be one of those practices."
Despite his yelling and pointing out his team's every mistake (real or imagined), it was Draco who was paying the least attention to practice. He couldn't seem to get his head in the game; all he saw in his mind's eye was Ginny. Ginny and Potter. Ginny kissing Potter. He didn't want to play fucking Quidditch. He wanted to find them -- find her -- and demand answers. And some goddamn fucking fidelity.
Obviously, what he should really do was break up with her. But to his complete disgust, he didn't want to do that. The idea of breaking up with her filled him with such feelings of aversion that he couldn't entertain the thought for more than a second. And that made him even more disgusted with himself. No, the only solution was to impress upon her that her behavior was unacceptable, and once she fully understood how grievously she had wronged him, he would allow her to try and make it up to him. Just in case, he might have to put a tracking charm on her, but only for a little while, just until he could deem her trustworthy again. And since by that point she would have realized how terrible and nearly unforgivable her actions had been, she would agree.
Even with such foolproof plans, Draco's stomach was twisted into knots as he went in to dinner. A second year ran by, crying about giant flying monkeys, but Draco barely noticed. What was he going to say to her? Had she seen him earlier, or would she pretend as though nothing had happened? Not, of course, that they could have a real conversation in the Great Hall. He'd have to communicate using only glares, knitted eyebrows, and a truly pissed-off aura. (Luckily, he'd had practice with this sort of thing.) He wasn't going to pretend he hadn't seen what he'd seen, and he'd be damned if he'd let her carry on with her deception. Who knew how long she'd been making a fool of him? Falsehearted bitch.
Hadn't he been a good secret boyfriend? Hadn't he given her everything she could ask for -- great sex, witty conversation, the sheer joy of being in his company? How could she throw that all away?
Potter probably tells her he loves her, came the unbidden thought. But those were only words! Meaningless. In the end, didn't action count more than mere lip service? You mean like the act of telling someone how much you care about them? Draco didn't understand why there was a throbbing feeling in his hand until a passing Ravenclaw said helpfully, "Hey, your hand's bleeding," and he realized he'd punched the wall in a fit. He'd punched a stone wall. In a fit. He could hardly credit such asinine behavior to himself.
"Shut up!"
He stomped to the infirmary and practiced his glares on Madam Pomfrey, who clucked around him like an overgrown hen and scowled right back as she fixed up his hand. She put some kind of strange-smelling ointment on it before wrapping it up securely. All the while, Draco pictured how Ginny would look on her knees, clinging to him, begging him not to break up with her, reassuring him that it had only happened the one time, that she'd been under Imperious, that she would do anything to make it up to him...
Draco nearly ran into her as he was exiting the infirmary. The unexpected sight of her nearly made all the thoughts in his head fly away, just because he was glad to see her. And then he remembered. He opened his mouth to say something -- he didn't know what, because she beat him to it.
"I want to break up," she said, without any fanfare whatsoever. "I'm with Harry now, and I love him. Always have done, you know. Oh, also I'm pregnant, and it's not yours," she added.
Was she trying to kill him? Draco felt as though he'd been pole-axed. He could only stare at her -- hopefully disdainfully -- wondering if all the feeling leaving his body was because he was in a towering rage, or because he simply could not comprehend the words she had just said. Or maybe it was something else, something he couldn't identify, because he'd never felt it before.
"Are you joking?" he asked hoarsely, because it was the only thing he could think of to say -- the only thing he wanted to be true. But from the look of pity on her face, the utter lack of humor, he knew he was grasping at straws. The attempt to find some other explanation for what she'd said had only managed to reveal how hopeful he was when it came to her. Pathetic.
"Why would I joke about something like that?" Ginny stared at him, her big brown eyes wide and her beloved face, the one he had so enjoyed caressing and contemplating when she was asleep, looking puzzled. "I'm sorry, but this probably wouldn't have happened if I hadn't felt so insecure about you. I could just never tell whether you cared about me at all."
He was going to vomit. That was what that feeling in his stomach meant. It would just be the humiliation on top of all humiliations to do it in front of her. "I don't -- I have to --" He stumbled past her, and she moved swiftly so as not to touch him.
Draco's appetite had been obliterated. He was glad now that he'd injured himself, glad to have that distraction, that pain to focus on. Because the other pain, if he allowed himself to dwell on it for even a second, would kill him. Somehow he managed to make it to his room, though he couldn't remember getting there. Not for the first time, he was glad to be Head Boy, glad to have his own room, glad there would be no witnesses to the sight of him in complete and total misery.
Ginny's words played over and over again in his mind, almost as if she had conjured them from his worst nightmare. What he wouldn't give for it to be yesterday, or the day before, or any day when he'd been with her, stupidly happy, not knowing he was destroying their relationship little by little until she'd turned to someone else. He'd lost her, a possibility that he'd never allowed himself to contemplate. Lost her, and it was his fault. All his fault. God, he was so fucking stupid. How could he have let her slip away from him like that? Just last night she'd given him another chance, when they'd had that row about his never telling her that he loved her. Then they'd shared a spectacular shag -- had that simply been a pity shag? A farewell-it-was-nice-while-it-lasted shag? What else could it have been?
She hadn't even asked how he'd injured his hand.
Time passed as he lay in bed, staring at the canopy above. His thoughts were jumbled, swirling around in his head. He wondered when it had all gone wrong, when she had started seeing Potter, if it was too late to win her back. But of course it was too late; she was pregnant for Merlin's sake (remembering that nearly made all of Draco's thought processes shut down). She was with Potter, the boy she'd always loved and never thought she could have, the one she was meant to be with, the one everyone would nod at in approval when they discovered who she'd chosen. Of course Ginny Weasley should be with Harry Potter, not Draco Malfoy, son of a Death Eater, descendant of a family with a long and illustrious history of dark magic.
Was this what depression felt like? When the idea of staying in bed for the next forty or so years was the most attractive proposition he'd ever heard?
Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be. The clock next to his bed eventually began to chime.
It's just as boring as it sounds
Hurry up, time to do your rounds!
Feeling as though a bevy of weights were pressing on his chest, Draco reluctantly dragged himself out of bed and stared at himself in the mirror: wrinkled clothes, unkempt hair, hollow eyes. For possibly the first time in his life, he couldn't have cared less about his appearance, and left the room without changing.
His mood grew darker and darker as he patrolled the halls, getting even more satisfaction than usual from reprimanding other students and taking away house points. No one had immunity from his wrath, not even his fellow Slytherins; he took fifteen points from Blaise Zabini for snogging a redheaded girl behind the statue of Goric the Brave for the Most Part. Draco's earlier melancholy was slowly being replaced by a sense of outrage, indignation, anger. He was in a strop and he didn't care who knew it.
And then he saw them.
Ginny and Potter, kissing just as they had done earlier that day near the Quidditch pitch. They weren't even trying to hide it! It made Draco absolutely furious -- not hurt, not at all -- to see them. How dare she toss him over for that ridiculous prat? How dare she not appreciate him and all the things he gave her, like his shirt to wear when she didn't have pyjamas, or his best jokes, which he always delighted in telling to make her smile, or all the hot sex she could ever want? Hmm. Perhaps there had been a bit too much of that; he couldn't ever seem to not want her. She'd often joked -- or at least, he had thought she was joking -- that keeping him satisfied was a full-time responsibility. Possibly that was why she preferred Potter -- his sex drive was obviously nothing compared to Draco's. Well, if that was what she wanted, then she deserved the impotent berk.
Only he's not so impotent, is he?
At the reminder, Draco tightened his grip on his wand, prepared to hex the both of them into oblivion.
And that's when Ginny Weasley came around the corner. "Hello!" she chirped. "There you are. Do you realize how long I've been looking for you, you idiot?" She lowered her voice furtively before continuing, "I forgot you had rounds tonight and was waiting for you in your room." She pouted. "I was wearing your favorite outfit, you know."
'Confused' didn't even begin to describe Draco's state of mind. He looked from the Ginny addressing him to the Ginny who was currently sticking her tongue down Potter's throat, and tried to make sense of it. They both looked exactly like her.
Obviously, he had gone mad. She'd driven him to it.
"What's the matter with you?" the second Ginny asked. "What are you -- oh. Oh my," she said, following the direction of his gaze. "Well, that's odd."
Recovering slightly, Draco seized Ginny by her upper arms and hauled her toward him, snarling, "Explain yourself!" and shaking her a bit. She tried to swat his hands away, but his grip was too tight and she finally gave up.
"What do you mean, explain myself? I haven't done anything, you maniac!"
"Then what's that?" he hissed, inclining his head in the direction where the other Ginny and Potter were still snogging as if there were no tomorrow. Now that he had something better to focus on, he refused to look directly upon the repulsive sight.
"How the bloody hell should I know?" Ginny retorted, and it infuriated him that she was not showing the least amount of regret, nor did it appear that an apology for having grossly betrayed him was forthcoming. "Why don't you give some thought to what might be going on? What did you do today? I've been hearing rumors--"
"The question is not what I did today! The question is what you did! Where were you this morning?" he demanded.
Ginny gave him an annoyed look, which he really felt he did not deserve. It put him on the defensive, which was galling. Shouldn't she be the one feeling defensive, all things considered? "If you ever listened to a word I said, you'd know! I told you days ago that I was going to be visiting my brother today!"
Draco vaguely recalled her saying something of the sort, but it wasn't his fault that when she'd told him, she'd been wearing a really tight shirt, was it? No, obviously that was her fault. Still, he decided not to point this out, since a small flare of hope had ignited in his chest. "So you haven't been at Hogwarts all day? You've been with Will?"
His hold on her relaxed, and she pulled away and crossed her arms. That never boded well. If anything, the brassed-off look on her face had intensified. "Yes, though his name is -- hang on. Are you telling me you've been seeing that" -- she pointed without looking -- "all day?"
"Yes," Draco said, almost not daring to believe that there might actually be another explanation for the encounters he'd had with Ginny that day. Or maybe this was the hallucination. But if so, he preferred it to the other. "Though obviously, I never really believed you'd prefer Potter to me."
Ginny narrowed her eyes, examining his face so closely that it was all Draco could do to remain impassive and not squirm. "You did," she exclaimed. "You did think that was me, and that I've been snogging Harry! And you were worried!"
"I wasn't!" Draco denied. "Or if I was, it was only because I was concerned for your lack of taste."
"Oh, come off it, Malfoy, it's written all over you," Ginny said, smirking. "You were jealous! It's kind of sweet, actually."
He spluttered but could not find anything to say to this outrageous remark. Instead, he pulled her close, and instead of shaking her this time, he kissed her. It felt so good, so right with her in his arms, that if she wasn't the real Ginny he could just about live with it. Abstractedly, he sensed that she was struggling against him, but it wasn't until she gave him a good hard shove that he allowed his lips to disconnect from hers.
"What's the idea?" he asked reasonably.
"Don't you take that tone with me! You thought I was cheating on you? That I'm capable of being so two-faced?"
Draco pondered this new turn of events and what his tactics were in order to proceed. "I thought you said it was sweet."
"Yes, well, now I've had some time to think on it more," Ginny replied. "Now I think you've insulted me."
"Insulted you! What about me? What about all the terrible things I've had to put up with all day? I think we should be sympathizing with me and what I had to go through!"
At this, Ginny seemed to relax a bit, and a hint of a smile appeared on her face. "Seeing me kiss Harry was that bad?"
"Well, it put me right off my dinner, I'll tell you that," Draco said. "But it wasn't just the disgusting snogging. You also told me that you loved him and wanted to be with him, and that you were … pregnant! And it wasn't even mine!"
To his surprise, and great irritation, Ginny's response was not the sympathy he'd been looking for. Instead, she began to laugh. "She -- it -- whatever -- told you I was pregnant? Hahahaha!"
"You look like a hyena when you do that, you know," Draco said sullenly. All right, so it all seemed a bit ridiculous and far fetched now that he was saying it out loud. But it had felt real! And if it wasn't real, then what the hell was going on? He could still see the other Ginny and Potter, who had not once come up for air.
"It knew just how to get to you, didn't it?" Ginny said, grinning and wiping tears of mirth from her eyes. "Well, I know for a fact it isn't me over there, and I saw Harry in the common room before coming to look for you. He was about to head off to bed, so I don't think that's really Harry, either."
It knew just how to get to you. Who would know him that well? What magic had been used to torture him all day? Who even knew that he and Ginny were together, much less to use her and Potter as the best way to get under his skin?
And suddenly, the answer came to him. "Me," he said in realization.
Ginny rolled her eyes. "Can't we get off your favorite topic for one second?"
Draco shot her a quelling look, then began to stalk toward the furiously snogging couple. Ginny followed right on his heels. When he was about ten feet away, the other Ginny looked up, her lips swollen. Potter had a smug look on his face. Despite knowing it wasn't real, Draco couldn't help but close the distance between them to connect his fist with not-Potter's face. Both Ginnys gaped at him.
"Might have known you'd do that," not-Potter said. "But it doesn't change anything. Ginny loves me and always has." He placed a hand on her abdomen. "And we're going to be a family."
Draco's hand tightened convulsively on his wand. Not-Potter's words made something fierce and terrible throb in his head. Maybe, no matter what Ginny said, she really did prefer the other boy. Maybe she was only settling for Draco because she couldn't have Potter.
"It's not real," came her voice in his ear. "I love you, you idiot."
It was as if he'd been jolted by lightning. Before he knew it, he'd lifted his wand and shouted, "Riddikulus!"
Immediately, not-Ginny kneed not-Potter in the stones and gave him a wallop with her right hook, for good measure. Not-Potter writhed in pain on the ground for a moment, and as Draco began to laugh, the two of them vanished.
"Well done," Ginny said. "Of course, the fact that it took the Head Boy this long to figure out a third-year DADA scenario is a bit of a concern..."
"It wasn't real," Draco said to himself. Relief like nothing he'd known was making the blood sing in his veins.
"It wasn't real," Ginny agreed. "Though you'll have to tell Professor Bahdaire there's a boggart on the loose."
Impulsively, Draco placed his hands on her shoulders, making sure she was paying attention to what he said next. "Ginny, I … care about you a lot," he blurted. "You see, during the day, if something memorable happens, or even if it's not memorable at all, all I can think about is when I can see you to share it with you. I wonder what you might say, or if you'll laugh. I think about you all the time. When you're not with me I want you with me, and when you are with me, I want you closer to me than my own skin. And it's not just the shagging," he added, in case she misunderstood. "Though I do really like that part."
"Oh, Draco," said Ginny, sighing and looking at him in a way that made him wish he'd shared these ridiculous lovelorn sentiments far earlier. "Thank you." She kissed his cheek. "Now, about the boggart? We should probably alert a professor about it…"
"It's been loose all day," Draco replied, twining her fingers with his. "It can wait until the morning."
"You're so responsible," she chided, but was smiling.
He grinned wickedly and tugged her close. "I have other responsibilities. Now what's that you were saying earlier about wearing my favorite outfit? You meant nothing at all, right?" he asked hopefully.
"I meant nothing at all," Ginny agreed, purring into his ear and making him shiver all over. "Though I do hope that if I show you mine, you'll show me yours."
"I'll do a lot more than that," Draco promised, urging her in the direction of his room.
But she wouldn't budge, for some reason. "Hey," she said, concern in her eyes. "What happened to your hand?" Ginny grabbed his wrist and gently ran her fingers over the injury site, as if she could somehow heal him by her touch alone.
"Nothing, but thank you for noticing," Draco said, and kissed her soundly.
= the end =
Notes: Okay, about boggarts. It's always bothered me that boggarts are supposed to show one's "greatest fear," yet it was always a person or thing, and never a situation. What if your biggest fear was the idea of your sibling dying? Or skydiving? Or being made to sing in front of an audience? Not sure how those would work, but I did want to show a kind of 'fear' that one couldn't make ridiculous by dressing them in women's clothes, or putting roller skates on a spider's legs. (It's been awhile since I last read PoA, so my examples are from the movie.) As for whether boggarts can actually talk/have physical form, no idea. I don't think it's been said they can't, so I took the liberty of saying they can, for the purposes of this story. <g> Besides, if a boggart-as-dementor can actually affect Harry like a real dementor, I say this argues for "can."
As for the title of the piece ... obviously, "Draco's Boggart" would be most fitting. But while it's not exactly a huge intellectual challenge to figure out what's going on, I'd also prefer not to give the whole game away from the get go. Any other suggestions? :D They're very welcome.
This was fluffy fun to write (hmm, just like my last story; it's becoming a trend). Thank you to
kourttears for winning that meme and making me write D/G. :DBye!
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Thank you! I love hearing that a story has cheered someone up. That cheers me up. :D
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And Mrs. Weasley's boggart (in OotP) is a situation (death of her family members), so your use of boggarts is actually quite canon! :)
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And I'm so glad you liked the story.
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Oh yeah, I really liked it too.
The Only Thing to Fear is Fear Itself.
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I'm still undecided about the title. Nothing fits. Sigh.
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Oh, I remember you were looking for D/G fiction a few entries back--I really like these two stories:
The First Sign of Spring, by Embellished. (http://www.dracoandginny.com/viewstory.php?sid=2455) A lovely one-shot featuring naked! Hogwarts boys. What's not to like?
Before the Storm, by Glass_Mermaid. (http://www.dracoandginny.com/viewstory.php?sid=2329) Kind of dark and angsty, but the writing's very good. Gets a little tiring with all the angst after a while, but still a good read.
Hope you enjoy! ♥
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Ginny was annoyed with him, too -- but really, the poor boy had to deal with the trauma of actually seeing it all. Let's cut him some slack. ;)
Thanks for the recs, I'll check them out!
You wanted a title
For your Idea of Draco's Boggart as a title it really killed everything as I had a glimpse of your author's Note before I read the story and I already knew the end but it was well written so it doesn't matter!! But I thought that something a bit like "You don't what you've got 'til it's gone" would fit for this story!
I almost forgot to say thanks for writting this
Hugs
Kalym
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Ginny rolled her eyes. "Can't we get off your favorite topic for one second?"
Fantastic. The whole piece was cute, though when he was OBVIOUSLY not keeping his mind on the DADA class, I was thinking he might want to look out for boggarts. Silly Draco. I'm acutally glad I did suspect the boggart, because the idea of Harry getting Gin pregnant would put me off my appetite, too. :) Well-done.
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