Ginny dreams. There's the all-too familiar one about Tom, but after enduring the same sense-blend of helplessness and hopelessness all these long years, this time, it feels different. It's not as bad. A paler shade of awful. It was shorter, too, ending weirdly enough, not choking and dying, but somewhere near the Manor, holding hands with Draco Malfoy.

She drifts slowly, comfortably to consciousness.

Ginny lets out an undignified squeak as she feels her body being hauled on top of another. Draco's not soft- thankfully, she supposes- and her breasts are squashed uncomfortably between them. She's got wicked dragonbreath, and he does, too. The grit in her eyes itches and the leftover scents from the previous night linger on her skin and in her hair. She's not sure if it's odd that her first impulse wasn't to hop out of bed and tidy herself.

When he kisses her, it's not unpleasant, despite their malodorous mouths, but when it's over she nonetheless reaches over to grab her wand from the nightstand and performs a breath-freshening charm first on herself, then on him. The next kiss is better, but after she repositions her breasts for comfort, she finds herself rolled under him before she can so much as take another breath.

Something in her chest twists up tight, but she is too busy being swallowed whole by Draco to bother analyzing what she's feeling. Her left knee comes up to press against his hip, and he presses forward and through two layers she feels that heat and hardness of him.

Ginny's spent a great deal of time with Draco, has, in fact, spent more time with him the last ten years of her life than anybody else. She knows what he looks like in in dim shadows, in the bright light of day, when he's sick and when he's well. She's lately seen him naked and she remembers him with his eyes pressed together and his mouth open as he moans in pleasure, though she doesn't always like to admit that to herself.

She's never seen him like this before, bright morning light filtering through his mussed, almost-white hair, a smile on his face like he's opened a present and finally gotten what he's been asking for.

The red-head can't help but return it, that smile, and she reaches up and pulls his face to hers. Even though she's been happy and content before, she can't remember the last time she'd felt so lightheaded with glee that she can't keep from grinning.

Makes kissing a bit of a challenge, with her lips refusing to purse against his, so her teeth scrape against his- which is because it seems that he can't stop smiling either. His fingers get snagged on the tangles in her hair, but she doesn't mind. Mostly, because his other hand is trying to push her vest up, and when he finally succeeds the feel of his fingers against her naked skin is nearly enough to make her come.

They pull apart, by some mutual unspoken agreement, breathing hard. He is still smiling and so is she.

Draco stands briefly, giving her the opportunity to ogle him. He pushes his hair back, it's long enough now that it hooks behind his ears neatly and watches her as she struggles to pull the tight cotton of her top over her head. His lips aren't pulled as tight now, the smile almost gone when her breasts are finally revealed.

Ginny can't help but smirk at him, he's so fascinated with breasts it's sort of cute. She drew a deep breath, watching his reaction with a silly smugness; that gaze of his makes her feel warm and confident. Draco shakes his head slightly, seems to come back his senses and pulls off his pajama bottoms.

A catch in her throat, then, because he is really fit. Really, very fit. She lets her eyes roam over his well proportioned body; from his wide shoulders, down to his defined chest and his muscled stomach and further to his... willie, a completely childish and laughing part of her supplies. Her lips curl and she almost giggles, but she keeps looking him over- his surprisingly thick thighs and calves, his narrow and pale feet planted firmly on the ground. Ginny can practically feel him posing and flexing; she can take no more, and finally does giggle, though he's about as gorgeous a specimen of manhood as she has ever had the good fortune to look at.

Her boxer shorts with the broomsticks on them flutter to the floor in short order, and she beckons him back to bed with a jerk of her head. The mattress dips as he settles and she doesn't think twice about pushing him over and arranging his limbs to her liking- in a esthetically pleasing pose similar to the Vitruvian Man with his legs spread. She doesn't think about how she moves to kneel between his outstretched legs. She just looks at him long and hard. Malfoy twitches just a little when their bodies brush against each other. Something echoes between them and she considers the sensation in the back of her mind for a few seconds as she twists her hair into a knot at the nape of her neck before she discards the thought as irrelevant.

His hand brushes down the side of her face as she leans forward. His lips move, but whatever he is about to say is cut off, quite deliberately, by her mouth finding his hardness. He gasps instead, and she delights in this, in tormenting him further as she licks and sucks and nips. Her hands join in the party to roll his sac and knead his thigh. Draco is salty, musky and somehow fresh in her mouth.

She listens to his gasps and groans, to the nonsense he occasionally lets fly;"Merlin, Ginny" is prominent, along with the odd "Holy fuck! What was that?", but she likes it best when he just moans "Please". She feels the clench of his muscles, the jerk of his flesh against her lips, smells him, gets a little lost in the sensations until he tries to push her off, saying, "Oh, shit, wait, Ginny, I'm about to-", but of course she knows what is coming- so to speak. He erupts into her mouth and she's satisfied, deeply satisfied that she did that to him.

She lets him slide of her mouth with a pop, then just straightens and lays there head propped against his thigh while he breathes heavily somewhere up there at the top of the bed.

His hand stroked her forehead, and she is relaxed in a way she never really is. She glances across the room, notices the time.

"Fuckity fuck, Malfoy! We're going to be late!"

He rolls his eyes- she can feel it, even if she can't actually see it. She clambers out of bed, quickly, deftly avoiding his outstretched hands and grasping fingers.

"Come back to bed, Weasley. We'll never make the boat, anyway," his voice is gravelly, and she knows he'll sound that way until he gets his first cup of tea, like he's walking sex. Unfair, really, since her morning voice is the exact same as her voice at any other time. Not sexy.

She chucks a shirt at him as she darts into the bathroom, "You showered last night. Just wipe up and pack and we can be out of here in fifteen minutes."

She him sniff behind her, ignores it in favor of at least trying to not miss the boat that will take them to the next stop on their itinerary.

She spends a moment enjoying the heady fall of hot water on her skin, not startled, precisely, when the glass door opens and he slips in behind her. Actually, she's a little surprised he'd held off for the few minutes he had.

"When, exactly, have you known me to be able to get ready in a fifteen minutes, Ginny?" he mutters against her wet neck. "We have no chance of catching that boat, so we'll have to just spend the rest of the day in bed."

"But, the room-."

"Already taken care of," he mumbles quietly as his hands slicks up her hips and her ribs.

Ginny sighs as his hands found her breasts, his fingers her nipples. She braces her arms against the tile, knees weak, grateful for the support of his body pressed against hers.

She tried again, "But the boat-."

"There will be another there tomorrow. Don't worry, I checked."
"You planned this whole thing, didn't you?" she accuses with more petulance than she really feels. She almost moans since he has somehow produced soap from somewhere and he slides it across her skin in a way that nearly leaves her breathless.

"Not exactly."

"How exactly?" she returns, and her voice has lost the edge it had before, because his hand has moved to slip between her legs and frankly she could care less about how devious he is, if the result is this.

She feels a hum in his chest as he chuckles, "Well, I hadn't exactly planned on being late. Know how much you hate to be late. Why do you think there was a knock on the door at 6 in the bloody morning?"

His fingers are rubbing circles around her clit now, but not actually touching it, and it is torture and she cares even less that he has schemed, because he's Malfoy. He'd be someone else if he never had a plot rattling around his blond head. She tries for a witty response, but her brain has turned to empty steam and if he doesn't do something else with his fingers soon, she will die.

"Oh," she ends up saying.

"Anything else you have questions about? Something that needs to be cleared up?" he asks and between his body behind her and the erratic stream of water that occasionally makes contact with her skin, she feels almost without control. He presses his erection into her back, and if he hadn't had an arm around her she would have lost her balance completely.

Her hips circle restlessly and he still doesn't do anything but that maddening exploration of her lips and the area around her clit, stroking not quite inside her, "No, nope. Nothing else needs to be cleared up."

She ends up squealing that last bit because his fingers finally, finally swipe across that point on her body that needs it most.

There is a thump that sort of reverberates as he drops the bar of soap, and he twists her around lifts her up and pins her to the tile in a move so smooth she's reminded why he is so very good at what he does.

Draco Malfoy is strong- almost disproportionately so for his slim build, he's fast, and holy shit he's just so bloody beautiful it sometimes hurts. Ginny doesn't question why his considerable focus has turned to her, not at the moment anyway, she just revels in it.

Her legs wind around his hips and when he slips inside her, Draco stares at her face almost unblinkingly. She can't look away, and they rock together. She grabs his limp, wet hair and pulls him close to kiss him again, groaning as his arm moves up her spine so his hand can cradle her neck. She doesn't even really notice the water anymore, nor the steam or the fact that they could both topple over and break glass and bones. Which would be both painful and embarrassing to explain, to say the least.

She comes before he does, and after he lets her down to stand- mostly- on her own two feet, she is intrigued to see his cock still standing straight and tall. She turns off the water, opens the glass door, pulls a couple of towels from the rack and pats him just enough that water no longer streams off of him, then does the same to herself. She's in a hurry, surprisingly unsatiated despite the events of the morning, surprisingly needy, so she pulls him after her into the other room where she pushes him on the bed. Ginny thinks she's getting rather good at it.

She admires him laying there, all sprawled out limbs and ready confidence. She crawls on top of him and just like the first time they had done this, it's a sweet, slow slide. She meets his stare, almost glad for the bright glare of morning. It reveals to her every nuance of his reaction, the way he grimaces, the way his chest swells when he breathes deeply, the way his eyes are huge and his irises nothing but silver gilt around his pupils, hidden briefly every time his eyelids flutter. It's rather nice to see the evidence of the pleasure she gives him.

As she rides him, her hands smooth across his chest, her fingers tweak his milky pale nipples. She rubs the raspy, but invisible stubble that runs across his jaw and partway down his throat.

As she rides him, she soars.

There are days when Ginny would cheerfully strangle and/or smother Draco. A sock would do in either scenario. She's fantasizing about doing just that as they hike through a jungle in Vietnam. Sitting down in the dead leaves and dirt and insects, pulling off one of her boots and the corresponding sock and either stuffing the sock down his throat or wrapping it around his neck until he's silent.

He's verbose to the points of ridiculousness occasionally, not to mention that he's very fond of complaining. When these traits combine, he could try the patience of a saint. He's in the middle of a tirade about the state of his hair, which she has not only heard a thousand variations of, but considers nonsense. His hair looks fine.

Draco pauses for breath and for a moment, Ginny thinks he's finally going to shut up, but of course he keeps on. She stops short and whirls to face him. Ginny hurls her hat at him, and practically rips the colorful cotton wrap from her head.

"This!" she shouts at the top of her lungs, and points to her head. Her hair is bushier than even Hermione's on a bad day; angry, tangled, knotted hanks of red sticking up in every direction thanks to heat, humidity and sweat. "This is hair worthy of a 45 minute whinge, not that!" she screams at him as her hands flail in the general direction of his head.

He's struck speechless for a moment, but it only lasts until he can draw enough breath to guffaw. She's pretty sure she hates him. She is 100% certain that she loathes every stupid hair on his stupid head.

He laughs it up as she tries to smooth all that hair of hers back into a semblance of order, and despite her best intentions she feels her lips tug upward, as well.

He finally starts to wind down, and looks at her. It's like he shines a spotlight on her and she feels oddly weightless and present, a bubble in the moment. When Draco reaches a hand towards her, smoothing her hair, Ginny smiles and knows its so wide her back teeth are showing.

"Merlin, Weasley," he says and there's still laughter tinging his voice, "I love you."

Ginny feels the answering words rise in her throat, but she can't manage to push them past the slight feeling of panic, so she nods and wraps him in a hug so tight neither can breath.

She doesn't even think twice about sleeping with him anymore, but she was still expecting some odd dreams after his announcement yesterday. Strangely, she doesn't remember having any at all, just remembers him.

There is an instant before she wakes fully, when the bright light of morning bleeds through her eyelids, and makes red shadows and neon patterns against their backs. There is this strange feeling of hope inside of her and it transports her to the another moment in time when she'd felt like this.

In 1993, Ginny Weasley had been a damaged 2nd year, too good at faking emotion. Most of her family knew she was different after the incident, but she maintained a carefully curated and manicured facade for them and anyone else who cared, as close to her former self as she could manage. Ginny hated pity, ever since she could remember. Oh, Merlin, the puns. Poor, poor Ginny, wearing her brothers castoffs. Poor, poor Ginny, the very definition of poverty in large families. Blech. So she smiled and giggled, though not as much as she used to. There was the obligatory crush on Harry Potter, of course. Not that sh had to pretend over much in regards to that, he was after all extremely cute and so tragically heroic, and sometimes her crush on him felt real- too real.

Inside, behind all her falseness and forced good cheer, she was terrified.

Ginny felt like there wasn't an ounce of that famed Gryffindor courage left, like she was a fraud and if anyone knew they'd kick her out. So, fear; of failing, of not mattering, not belonging, of someone finding out what she was really like. Of those doctors and healers that had met with her in St Mungo's, who'd asked those questions, and even if she only told them lies out loud, the truth existed loudly in her mind, and that scared her, too.

But something changed that snowy day in 1993. Though the day followed typical winter patterns- darting between classes, shivering a little under her worn robes, there was an enticing patch of pristine, untouched snow. A spark of her scorched childhood called- the need to make her mark in the blank slate of fresh snow a deep-seated obsession she'd had from birth, it seemed.. It was the twins fault; their competitive streak flowing down through their family tree like sap.

She stood there, holding the garish scarf her mother knitted for Christmas, stuck between doing and immobile. A voice, that voice, mocked her, and in pure defiance (the sun shone, the snow was clean, she was alive) Ginny flung herself backwards, making a clean divot in the snow. Her arms shot out and her legs scissored out and in. Totally ridiculous, absolutely completely idiotic, but Ginny made a perfect snow angel and it was made out of spite and faith. The patterns behind her eyes as she waved her arms like a mad-person, the red haze and neon flashes carried her.

She'd never managed that spell on her own before that day, but she somehow levitated herself out and left a perfect impression. Ginny looked at the blot she'd made, and for the first time in months she felt something different; satisfaction and hope and optimism, and she decided to live.

Fully awake, Ginny shakes Draco awake, too full of everything to wait another second.

"I love you, too, Draco. I love you, too."

You guys. All of you, you are the reason I finished this story. I can't tell you how much I've appreciated the support and the suggestions. I can't explain adequately how much I valued knowing someone, somewhere liked what I wrote. Just know that I was about to shit-can this story about a dozen times, but because of you, I finished it. So thank you. I hope you have enjoyed the story and that the ending doesn't disappoint.

Reviewers, my gratitude knows no bounds. Those who have followed and favorited, your interest has been invaluable. Readers, I hope I have entertained you, and that I'll get the chance to do so again.