Slipped Away

Author's Note: This Fic is not meant to make you cry, guys, so don't review me to say it wasn't sad. Its just mindless drabble I wrote while listening to the last song on Avril's new CD...The song always made me cry...

Ginny ran down the cobbled pathway in the evening gloom, her heart sending horrible pangs of realization to her head, making her dizzy. Her black high-heeled shoes making clicking sounds on the stones. She was running so fast, ignoring the shouts of her parents and friends and every one. She didn't care. He couldn't be gone. Ginny lurched and fell face first to the floor, cushioning the blow with her hands, causing a bolt of lightning pain to spread up her right arm and finally settle at her wrist as a continually throbbing ache. Ignoring the fact that her expensive black dress was dragging on the floor, she crept feebly off of the pathway and into the surrounding woods. After a few minutes of creeping deeper into the wildlife, she settled against a tree and assessed her situation. 'He's not gone,' she thought, 'They're lying to me. They never wanted me to marry him, anyway.'

But some small part of her told her it was true. So true that she felt her heart break all over again.

'He's not gone,' she repeated, but it didn't stop the pain, the immense sadness. Why had she come here in the first place? She came here to see him off...she just hadn't believed it had been that kind of off. She recalled, with shaking hands, the letter she had recieved two days ago, while coincidently in a worried frenzy due to the fact that he hadn't contacted her for the past week.

Dear Ms. Weasley,

She had immiediatly been put off my the way they had adressed the letter. Didn't they know?

We have written under theses unfortunate circumstance to report to you the death of one Draco Malfoy, a man who is believed to be very close to you...

Ginny's heart had skipped a beat. Believed? They had been married for the love of god. She didn't even realize what she had just read, until minutes after she had finished reading the whole letter.

As you must be aware of, he had not returned home on the date alotted to him (December 15). Due to this information recieved from some of his close relatives...

She was a close relative, but she had not told any authorities about Draco being missing. And the letter had went on, until, finally, Ginny had finished, and found herself in tears, though her actual being had not yet processed what the tears were for.

Ginny hadn't been the same after that. She didn't sleep, eat or talk, things that Ginny, being Ginny, was famous for. To her, nothing was the same either. Every little thing in life reminded her of Draco. Whenever she woke every morning in their London flat, and she stared out the window at the blends of grey, steel and amber, she was reminded of his eyes. Heck, whenever she saw Ron, she remembered Draco and the way he and Ron would always bicker about breathing the same air. At least Harry and Hermione had grown out of that stage, but she had to admit, they never had liked Draco.

What stung her the most, though, was the fact that she hadn't even seen him before he died. The Ministry said that he had been killed by a small group of Death Eaters who wouldn't give up on the hope that Voldemort was still alive, even though Harry had consequently overcome him. He had been given time off from extinguishing the remaining Death Eaters to come home to her for Christmas, but he had never made it home.

How Ginny regretted now that she had not told him she loved him every day. How she regretted fighting with him about the fact that his job had kept him away from her for the better part of their two year marriage. How she regretted not telling him the little secret she had been hiding from him for his Christmas present.

But now he would never know that on Christmas morning, there would be nothing under the tree for him. No wrapped gift or anything of that sort. Instead, Ginny had planned to get up early and sit in the arm chair near the fireplace, and when he came out of their room like the blundering, childish idiot he always was on Christmas, she was going to tell him that in eight months, he would be a father.

He'd never know his child, and his child would never know him. Ginny would never get to see the look on his face when he held his child for the first time, nor would she get to see the look on his face when he changed his child's diaper for the first time.

It was true, when she had arrived here this morning she hadn't believed he was dead. But then, she'd seen the casket, and the tears she had forgotten to cry were the ones she had suddenly remembered, and the ones that had pushed their way down her cheeks, smudging her mascara and breaking her facade. She had run then, run as fast as her heeled feet would carry her, and this is where she had ended up. She cried for what seemed an eternity, before getting to her feet and clutching her stomach feebly. "I love you Draco," she said aloud.

And she could have sworn that Draco was right there behind her, whispering the same thing into her ear.

Four years and eight months later, a little blonde-haired boy by the name of Draco would ask his red-headed mother the question she had expected, but dreaded for a long time. "Mum, where's Daddy?"

And 'Mum' would answer, with but a quiver in her voice, "Draco, dear, Daddy slipped away."

Author's Note: Based on Avril Lavigne's 'Slipped Away'...This fic is dedicated to my friend Nita, Victoria and to myself. Nita lost her mother, Victoria lost her grandmother...and I lost my best friend...

I have absolutely no idea why this got deleted off oof It said something about this not being my story. I can assure you guys, though, that this is my story, and that I wrote it and came up with it. If any one has anything to say to that, please notify me.

PS: Deleted for the lyrics, which I've removed. Its still the same story.