Author's Note: Hey, this was originally part of another fic, but as I had written this eariler and the characters developed and yada yada. Just ignore that, and treat it like a one shot or something. stop talking
How do you do it?
Make me feel like I do.
How do you do it?
It's better than I ever knew.
Incubus, Stella
Ginny allowed herself to relax. Somewhere in the house a discarded wireless played, and she tried to guess the songs, only hearing the faint rhythms. Trees outside swayed in the chilly autumn breeze, matching the sound the odd Muggle car made as it drove past. She thought she heard a bike ride by. There was just something intrinsically perfect about Sundays like these…
Beneath her ear, his chest was slowly rising and falling, his fingers had long stopped fiddling with her hair. Finally, he was sleeping. The duvet around her kept the wintry chill creeping in through a open window away – she could feel the fresh, though ever so slight, breeze on her arms and back, yet her legs and stomach were so warm.
Goosebumps rose on his skin yet he didn't stir.
She smiled, then delicately removed herself from his body, and tired to cover herself as much as humanly possible with the clothes within arms length of the bed. Which, she discovered with embarrassment, wasn't a great deal – a pair of boxers (though she suspected they had been there a while, as they were half lodged under the dressing table, and she chose to leave them there), his shirt, a pair of her tights and an extremely crumpled skirt.
Pulling the mixed attire on, she decided to go on a quest for the rest of her clothing.
This was also, at last, to have an unsupervised nosey around the house.
She began in the kitchen, inspecting the bare cupboards and hardly untouched cutlery and crockery. A pack of biscuits, a tin of some ominous looking fruit and shrivelled cucumber were all the foodstuffs she found. The living room was little more worn in, though hardly used at all. The hearth had the remains of the fire they had last night, and the empty glasses – and his trousers.
The rest of the house was boring and dull, and Ginny hated herself with each step she took. The rooms' smelt musty, the furniture covered in white sheets, the curtains drawn except for the occasional break in the thick fabric. The dust she dispelled as she walked around a room floated serenely to the floor in the deadly still air. And the place wasn't as big as perhaps she would have initially thought – it had obviously been magically altered, no Muggle flat would possibly have this much room. And yet… This house was dead.
So what if he doesn't want to tell me anything? Does it really matter? It's not like it's a serious thing anyway…
With a few more items of clothing in her arms, she came back into the master bedroom. She'd seen two other bedrooms on her exploration – both of which were slightly bigger, but considerably colder.
Draco was still asleep in the bed when she returned, and she smiled at him. It was a blustery afternoon outside, and within range of the window, she couldn't see anyone, but heard a dog barking somewhere in the distance. Ginny closed it quietly and shivered from her additional exposure.
Yet she was still short of clothes. It was slightly embarrassing how little he remembered the details of last night… Merlin knew what they'd done with their garments. Merlin knew where she'd been….
A wardrobe caught her eye, and dragged her away from her smiling thoughts. She wandered over and, opening it with as much grandeur as she could wearing a loosely buttoned shirt and a skirt (minus underwear), and surveyed the contents.
It was then the bottom of the stomach fell through the floor.
The closest was full of clothes… women's clothes. Ranging from menacing furs in the corner to a few summery skirts. They took up most of the space – what little there was in there – and a few folded over trousers and roughly hung up cloaks on the other side. But they remained ignored. Ginny was transfixed with horror at the rest… Unable to stop, she leant forward and felt the material on a delicate looking robe. The fabric slid without friction between her fingers – silk, expensive… mocking her modest (and presently mis-matched) clothing. And then the smell hit her – a perfume, a human scent, that made her drop the sleeve in her hand and take an hurried step back.
A voice from the bed made her jump.
"I don't suppose I can pretend I'm a cross dresser, can I?"
Ginny looked at him, hoping to come up with something really clever – "What the hell-?"
He coughed uncomfortably, and looked around the floor for something– presumably for the clothing that she was wearing now. Eventually, he just yanked a blanket of the floor and wrapped it around his waist as he walked over to her.
Instinctively she stepped back, panicking as it suddenly dawned that her wand wasn't to be found anywhere… But when her eyes returned to his face, she discovered something had changed in it. His expression hadn't crumpled like her mother's would when he was hurt, no switch into defensive mode like Ron… It didn't even change.
"I'm not going to hurt you," he whispered, then he grinned bending his head around so she couldn't avoid looking at him. "Can I explain myself?"
"Are these your…your… girlfriend's clothes?"
His mouth opened and closed several times. Finally he settled on, "No."
"No?"
"They're my wife's…"
By this point Ginny was walking away. Oh my God… Ginny felt her face go red, with anger, embarrassment and an effort not to cry, all at once.
"Ginny, please-" Her wrist was grabbed with enough force to swing her around, "-let me-"
"Explain yourself? Please… It's painfully obvious what you need to explain. I can't believe I let myself..."
But her voice had now fallen from beneath her. She concentrated on how his fingers and hand were so much bigger than her wrist. It could wrap all the way around that part of her arm, and he wasn't even trying hard. Having just pulled himself out of bed, his hand was warm against her cold limb. She waited.
"I'm married," he said finally, and somewhat lamely. "I should have told you."
"Yeah," she mumbled, pulled her hand out of his grip forcibly, "a long time ago. I can't believe I've been so fucking stupid!"
"Ginny, c'mon just listen…"
She continued to blindly look for her belongings. They remained even more hidden from her. She looked down at the shirt she was wearing and felt her skin crawl… Never, not ever, did she feel as dirty as she felt now; so cheap and low. There was some – no doubt rich – woman out there who would be wondering where her husband was, why he was spending so much time out... Or maybe she wasn't, maybe she didn't know any different, maybe Ginny was just the latest in a long line of on the side projects…
"I don't love her, you know."
She ignored him.
"I don't even like her that much."
Where was her wand?
"She doesn't even like me."
SHUT UP
"I mean I don't think I ever really liked her at all-"
"I don't care anymore!" she snapped after laying her hands on her top. "I can't even think straight! All I want to do is get the hell away from you and the utter bollocks that comes out of your mouth!"
She didn't wait for a reaction; she was already into the hallway, making her way into the living room. Her wand was hidden, with his, amongst the rubbish they had created last night. Wine bottles, a half eaten and discarded takeaway…
…She just grinned at his shocked face as she took the plate out of his hand. "I'm not hungry…"
Flashes of last night. She felt sick. She was going to be sick.
The nausea didn't leave her in the bathroom when she ripped his shirt off and pulled her own on. The door was locked. She ignored the reflection in the mirror, she ignored the voice on the other side of the door and tired to make herself look presentable.
When she wrenched the door open she didn't feel any calmer, but resolve had settled somewhere in her chest. She was going to get out of here, and never look back; at him or anything she had stupidly done in the past few weeks. It was just a phase.
Draco was sitting on the floor opposite, scrambling to his feet when she came into the hall way.
She strode past him.
Her shoes were by the door, as was her coat. Ginny slipped both of them. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him standing at the end of the hallway, looking at her. Looking at her, nothing else. He had no right after what he'd done.
Scumbag…
It was Ron's voice in her head, but the anger bubbling away was all her own. The latch sprung out in her hand and she opened the door.
"I did love her. How's that for honesty? I loved her so much. We used to be one of those annoying couple's who'd have parties and be seen together and do all that bullshit stuff."
Ginny couldn't resist – she turned around and met his eyes. He was closer than she had thought, leaning on the back of the sofa, facing her. From somewhere, one of her questions came up, rasping.
"Who is she?"
It was the one she least wanted to know but a wane smile was pulled onto his face. "I'm surprised you don't already know. It must be in one of your file things."
"I don't."
"You'll love this… Pansy Parkinson. I don't suppose you remember her…"
Ginny closed the door. Her stomach turned icy once more.
"Parkinson?"
"Well. Pansy Malfoy now."
I'm going to be sick. I am actually going to be sick.
"I should have guessed," she said thickly. "I remember her."
"I thought you might."
There was a pause in the conversation. He was looking around the room now, and she was unsure whether he was searching for the right words or looking for inspiration for lies. When he looked back at her, he looked tired. Or uncomfortable. Or ashamed.
She didn't know.
"Do you want to sit-"
"No."
"Okay." Draco walked around the chair and sat down in it heavily.
Ginny stood with her back against the door, watching his back. His hair was catching the lazy morning sun... Stop it. Her arms were shaking badly. One well aimed spell, curse, object at his exposed back and she could be out of here – he wouldn't expect it. But she wanted to hear him. She wanted to hear why.
"We got married when we were nineteen… It's what everyone does, isn't it? And then herself. Fall in love and school, or at work, and bam – you're set for life with your sweetheart." Ginny thought of her parents, of Harry, of Bill and Fleur… herself. Draco took the hitching breath she needed to do herself. She couldn't breathe. "And it was great – I could just forget everything, I mean, she reminded me of good times, good stuff I'd done. And you have no idea how much I needed that all those years ago, years before this horrible apathy sank it." He turned around and looked at her. "You know, I used to really care about… everything. My marks, how I looked, Quidditch, pleasing my mother and father. I had a fucking purpose then. Now, I'm glad when I wake up before I realise who I am, what I do."
"That isn't apathy, Draco," she whispered, "that's regret."
His gaze had returned to the front, and didn't return after she'd spoken. Instead, his fingers combed his hair, getting caught up as he rested his head in his hands. "I know. I know. I'm just not willing to admit to it. Would you? I shouldn't have married her – she knew too much about who I really was to be the wife I needed. Need. Whatever. But it's too late now, and that's not the point."
Ginny felt her strength coming back. The sensation of being winded was slowly beginning to lift. "Of course it's the point. What made you… Just… What made you?"
He sighed. "I don't know why I don't love her anymore. Or, I stopped loving her in that way. I don't know. We sort of drifted. Something happened that brought out the ugly side of both of us and kept it at the surface."
There was a pregnant pause.
"What happened?"
The question hung in the dusty air. Draco's fists came out of his hair, and balled up into his eyes. They remained there for a long time, even after he began to speak again. "We were expected to get married. We both knew that – I mean, we'd grown up with it. We were expected to do loads of things, but we were young and the centre of attention of everyone we respected. It was great. But then… Then there was mention of children. I was so… freaked out. I just…We were just kid's ourselves – we might have grown up a lot, but we were still too young. I mean… twenty and nineteen years old? That's nothing isn't it?"
His voice was beginning to get hoarse; straining with the emotion of his babbling. Ginny drew closer.
"So we decided to have children." She glimpsed a weary smile in-between his fingers. "I mean I wasn't ready for them. It was stupid-"
"You have… children?"
Unwanted, images of blonde haired children ran through her mind, laughing with toys, running away from a father that chased them through a garden, hiding behind a mother.
"I don't. We don't. It's...We tried and she, Pansy, became pregnant." He stopped. A whisper. "She… she lost it."
Neither of them spoke for a long time. She sat down on the sofa, Draco's head was out of his hands, looking at the window. Sunlight was streaming through the gap in the pale curtains, falling on the space between them. He turned his head slightly and focused his attention on her, sighing.
"She never really told me what happened, what the medical staff said. We never spoke or talked about it, and things just started to build up. I don't know how to describe it… I think we both turned cold… The only alternative would be to really open up, and neither of us is brave enough to do that. So instead we drifted and became different people around each other."
"When did this happen?"
He leaned back, sighing again. "About… three years ago. Around the time everything went to hell. We weren't the sweet young couple anymore, politics of work began to take over and then that happened It was never going to be perfect, we both knew that, but I had no idea it would be this fucked up."
Her mind was clamming up; her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth. "I'm… I'm sorry."
He glanced back at her, another tired smile, sitting up. She was closer to him that she thought. "It doesn't matter. It happened a long time ago, I was a different person back then. I did some stupid stuff afterwards, more stupid than I would have done anyway. But there's nothing you can do. It's all in the past. It's gone."
"Don't you want to make things better with her?"
He shook his head. "I can't. I don't think could either. Now I just remind her of what happened, and I think she hates me for it. And now she reminds me of the stupid things I've done."
She knew she shouldn't be feeling sorry for him. She knew. "What are you going to do then?"
"I'm going to do what I always do…" Draco was still frowning slightly. "I have never told anyone this. Some people know what happened, but I don't exactly circulate it. Others see what has happened with me and Pansy and think its normal."
What the hell is normal anymore? What was ever normal?
"Why didn't you tell me you were married?"
He rubbed his face. "Would you have had anything to do with me otherwise?"
"I should never have had anything to do with you," she replied, smiling slightly. It wasn't an answer, she knew, he must have known, but there was no point talking about what would have, should have… It was unnecessary, and often led her to asking other questions.
However, Draco's face split into the first watery smile of the morning. "Your problem is you're too principled for your own good."
"And the alternative?" she asked, grinning, and pushing his shoulder slightly, "Would that be your solution of trying to kill yourself?"
He smirked. "I resent that."