You Are The Only One

Summary – DG, Post Hogwarts, a tad AU-ish. What happens when your marriage does not turn out the way you envisioned? Would you stay, knowing that life would be a bit worse? Or would you cut and leave? Most importantly does true love last a lifetime? Ginny and Draco struggle to find out the answers before it is too late.

DISCLAIMER – Anything you recognise is not mine.

Part I

They are so many keys to a happy marriage, you probably need a key ring - Anonymous

"Why did you even want to divorce him in the first place?"

Ginny stared at her best female friend and sister-in-law, Hermione Weasley, who was sitting across from her at one of the many sidewalk cafés that had popped up in Daigon Alley after The Second War, attacking her seafood croissant.

"This stuff is good." She mumbled through a mouthful.

Ginny bit back a grin. Four years of marriage to Ron and already Hermione was cussing like him and eating like him without even knowing it.

"What? Why are you smirking like your husband for?"

"Ex-husband." Ginny corrected her wearily. "You would think with the divorce finally in the works after a year over of separation, you would stop calling him my husband."

"Which brings me back to my question. We all knew separation period was for you both to revitalise and revive your relationship. So what happened? Why are you gunning for a divorce?" Hermione had set down her cutlery and was focusing all her attention on Ginny who shook her head, exhausted with having to deal with family and friends who could not seem to comprehend her predicament.

"Remind me that you're one of the people who flat out refused to attend my wedding six years ago."

Hermione drew in a deep breath and blew it out in fustration. "Hey, that's not my fault. Neither Ron nor I knew he was on our side and when I did found out, pronto, I was your maid of honour. Don't try and change the topic, Ginny." She pointed her fork discriminatingly at Ginny.

"Good afternoon, ladies."

Ginny's spoon that she had been using to eat her delicious cheesecake fell with a clatter onto the table as she looked up into the face of the man she fell in love with at the age of sixteen – Draco Malfoy.

His robes were a fine rich black billowing about him. His gloves were silky suede, his blonde hair reaching the nape of his neck, covering his ears, an attractive rumpled mess. He looked as handsome and wealthy as ever. As would the man behind the Malfoy business empire, which he had rebuilt, with his own two hands after Hogwarts.

It was amazing how you could feel nothing for someone you shared a life with and had a child with when you had been hurt so badly by him, Ginny realised.

"Where's Rafael?" Ginny had checked her schedule before meeting Hermione for tea and knew that Draco was supposed to pick up their son from grade school and drop him off with her.

"Getting ice cream." Draco told her, brushing his wheat blonde hair out of his grey eyes in a gesture that made Ginny hesitate just for a moment – was that her heart pounding in her chest?

She turned around and her face lit up as she smiled at the sight of her son standing by the counter, picking the flavour of his ice cream. He had a cherubic face, red hair that formed a mop on his head and grey eyes that reminded Ginny of Draco every time she looked into them. There was a time when she had just separated from Draco that looking to her son's eyes made her want to bawl her heart out.

Ginny had the most beautiful smile in the world, Draco had to give her that. Her smile could knock a dove out of a tree. It could turn a man's head so completely he might spill his drink and not even notice that a pool was spreading across the table and onto the floor. That was what had hooked him in the first place – her smile had been the light at the very end of his dark tunnel.

Making her smile for him was all that he had wanted for sometime. And he did whatever he could to win her over, to make her love him; be it discarding all the values which had been indoctrinated him since he was a child, be it joining the light side, be it constant arguments with his mother that he knew what he was doing, be it refraining from calling Granger 'mudblood'.

Though treating Potter and Ginny's brother in a civilised manner was asking a bit too much but he attempted to ignore them, at least in front of Ginny. Soon enough these little things he forced himself to stop doing became life time habits and before knew it, he had become a different person – a man Ginevra Weasley had fallen in love with.

Then later on when he finally had her, all he wanted was for her to have his babies and be with him forever. During the War, he had often proposed getting married as soon as possible instead of waiting till the War was over. He wanted her safe in the Malfoy Manor, for him to come home to every night and make love to, not on the battlefield helping to heal the wounded.

As medieval as it sounded he could not help it – Ginny Weasley brought out the cave man in him. Maybe that explained why he had flung the entire bedside table, at her from across their bedroom, missing her face by a few inches. But she had made him so angry telling him that he was a lousy father to Rafael, never spent time with the family and was always at work. That had absolutely been below the belt and she knew that.

She had said enough was enough. If he was not a family man, that was not her problem. With that, she had threatened to leave him and take their son with her. That was when he snapped. That was when he threw the table at her and instantly regretted it. The look on her face he would never forget – fear, regret, disappointment, distress and utterly devastated.

He had wanted to weep himself. Then she was gone and he did not blame her. He had never been violent towards his wife, never raised a finger on his son. Yelled at Ginny, yes. The past year had been screaming matches in their bedroom – shrill words that he thought he could never take back- with a heavy silencing charm on the door but he had never slapped her, never attempted to even hit her.

Now as he watched her rise from her seat with fluid grace borne from the years of being a Malfoy, rushing through the café and embracing their son in a bone crushing hug in a purely Weasley style, he could not help but wonder whether he knew what he wanted anymore.

He glanced at Hermione who had a knowing smile on her face as she watched him watch Ginny. She nodded, smiling that irritatingly knowing smile which grated on his nerves. These Gryffindors thought they knew everything.

"Ah, you changed your perfume." Draco smiled down at Ginny. She ignored his comment as she came to stand beside him, her one arm around Rafael's waist as she smothered him with kisses.

"Mummee. Stop." The five year old whined, though he was inordinately pleased to be hugged.

Rafael was a lover, a hugger, one of those children who would for no stated reason come to her, silent and wistful, seeking a hug as other children might ask for candy. Ginny would peck him on the forehead or cheek, a reassurance of love, before pulling him into a tight, warm embrace.

'I thought you love hugs and kisses. Didn't you come to my study last night, wanting a hug." Ginny tickled her son as she leaned forward to grab her black handbag.

Draco averted his gaze. She was no longer really his wife. He had to relinquish the right to gaze at her breasts when she bend down in those blouses she often wore to work with those muggle black skirts that were becoming all the rage now in the wizarding world. They fit her rear end rather snugly too, he realised, cursing himself immediately. Ex- Wife. He reminded himself a thousand times a day.

"But that was last night, at home, when no one was around." Rafael explained to his mother.

"Well, I've gotta go, 'Mione. Got to pick up some new robes for little Rafael here and drop by The Burrow before I get home." She was apologetic.

"I'm not little, anymore, Mum! I'm five." Rafael protested, heatedly.

"Yes you are, darling, sorry I forgot." Ginny ruffled his hair.

"It's not a problem." Hermione told her, hugging her and leaning down to hug her only godson. "You didn't say hi to me."

He shrugged. 'Sorry, I didn't see you. Mummy was hugging me." He smiled impishly. Hermione's heart melted and she forgave him instantly – not that she could hold a grudge against such an adorable child.

"Say bye to daddy." Ginny told him. He hugged his father who whispered something in his ear that made him laugh and nod.

"Give daddy a good bye kiss." Ginny reminded him.

After he did so, Draco looked at his wife, a smirk painted across his lips, "Do I get a good bye kiss from you too?"

She rolled her eyes, ignored him and was off – down the street, bag in one hand, Rafael holding onto the other.

Draco sank down into the seat Ginny had vacated. Hermione stared at him across the table, an expectant look on her face.

"What?" Draco snapped, at the end of his tether.

"You don't have to be so insolent, y'know Malfoy. It's obvious you want Ginny back in your life."

Draco was not going to deny it. 'But I can't. That's the bitch of it."

"It always is," She commented, wisely. "We always want what we cannot have."

"You need a break." Molly told her youngest daughter observing the dark circles around her pretty brown eyes and the flushed look on her face. She sat down in front of her, pushing a plate of cookies in front of her with a mug of warm milk.

Ginny shook her head, her head throbbing with a migraine. Seeing Draco that evening had not done her any good. It always brought back this great overwhelming flood of disappointment, regret and even doubts about leaving him.

Ginny averted her gaze on Rafael who was chasing after the garden gnomes, squealing in delight. Lanterns hung up in the trees in the garden of The Burrow lend a glow to the scene, forming a halo around her son's head as he looked at her, smiling. She smiled back at him, her heart filling up with something warm.

His was a difficult birth, life threatening for both mother and child. Every attempt to turn the baby had failed and soon enough the healers begun to dread the outcome. Ginny, a usually self reliant, practical woman found herself screaming for her mother much to her husband's fright.

Draco thought he was going to lose his wife, the only woman who loved him for all his idiosyncrasies. He wanted to weep but instead he snapped angrily at one of the healers. He had always been the meanest when he was most afraid of losing something or somebody.

Curbing his panic, he went to fetch Molly. He was surprised she had not heard her daughter herself. Ginny's cries were piercing and desperate enough to reach even the hard hearted.

At last the child arrived, after seventeen hours of brutal labour, born feet first – the sign of a true healer. The healer in charge snapped a shoulder to ease the birth, for Ginny's pulse was rapidly dropping. Rafael cried the moment he came out, staring at everyone around him with his big wide lake grey eyes. The baby was easily soothed, just a pat or two but it was too late.

His first and only cry had grown right through Ginny, a hook piercing through blood and bones. She did not care about the blood on the floor or the trembling in her legs, not even about Draco or her mother, both standing beside her in muted anxiety and bliss. Her eyes were filled with dizzying circles of light, little pinpricks that glimmered her inside her eyelids. It was not starlight, but something else entirely.

Something she could not comprehend till the healer handed her the child, the damaged left shoulder taped up with white adhesive as though it were a broken wing. Ginny gazed into the child's calm face, into his grey eyes that stared back up at her silently.

In that instant, she experienced complete devotion. She was drawn to him with an intensity she could not feign. The son she had dreamt of. Then and there, on the fifth floor of St. Mungo's, she understood what it meant to be blinded by love and knew that she would spend the rest of her life trying to win this child.

As she passed the baby to Draco to hold in his arm, she knew he was just as enthralled. The look of pure devotion on his face as their baby grabbed into his father's index finger, his tiny fingers wrapped around that sole slender finger, made Ginny feel something so insurmountable she could barely describe it.

From then on, they loved him, this child their radiance and wonder of their lives, their little prince. As baby with his sweet expression and chubby features, he was quite a charmer. He rarely kicked off his blankets in red faced, screaming rage. He always had seemed well mannered, right from the beginning. When he smiled, his smile lit up the entire nursery. Draco insisted it was Ginny's smile, through and through. Ginny knew otherwise, her smile had never melted a stranger's heart the way Rafael's did.

Recently though, he had been increasingly stubborn and spent most of then time at home holed up in a book or lying on the front hallway carpet, kicking his legs as if cycling in the air. Getting him ready for school or making him clear his toys or even having breakfast was a tough chore for Ginny but when he simply smiled at her, she wanted nothing more than to please this angel. She hoped it was not the effect of Draco and her going splitsville.

"In order to be a good mother for Rafael, you can't afford to be stressed." Molly told Ginny, following her daughter's gaze as she tracked the progress of Rafael chasing a particularly grouchy garden gnome.

"I'm fine, Mum. Really." Ginny bit half-heartedly on a cookie. It felt like sawdust in her mouth. She usually loved her mother's cookies. That was what love gone wrong did to you – it left a permanently bitter taste in your mouth.

"No you're not. You're working full time at the publishing company and you're trying to raise a five-year-old child all by yourself. On top of all that, you have the divorce going on."

"Mum, Draco's helping-"

"I didn't he say he was not but he's only seeing his son on weekends and picking him up after school when you can't make it. It's not the same as what you're doing. You need a break, sweetheart."

"I can handle it."

"Maybe you can now but after a while.."

Ginny sighed, sipping the warm milk that refreshed her a bit. She could not ask more from her mother. Among her family, her mother was the only one who had been supportive of her divorce for the right reasons. She trusted her daughter enough to stand by her.

Arthur had never completely warmed up to the idea of having a Malfoy as a son-in-law but his love for Ginny brought him around. The separation unsettled him more than expected. He was just getting around to getting to know the enigmatic man his daughter was deeply in love with and was taken aback to find out things were not working out.

Marriage was all about hard work – that was what he had told Ginny – you stuck through with it and you worked at it and you did this because you loved each other. Unfortunately, Ginny had had enough. So her father accepted her decision and continued to love her. Her brothers though were mostly non-committal, sympathetic when it counted, save for Ron who detested Draco till today.

"So what do you want me to do, Mum?"

"Go out with Luna, have a girls' night out. It's Friday night. Let Rafael spend the night at The Burrow. Your father and I would love to have the little man for company." Molly suggested.

Ginny suddenly felt as if she was being ambushed by a plan her mother seemed to have hatched hours ago.

"But Luna's probably busy. I mean, she's most likely out with Harry-"

"Harry's out of town on an Auror assignment. Luna's bored out of her wits at home." Ginny looked at her mother questioningly. This was beginning to sound more and more like a well-laid plan.

'Does Luna know about this?" Ginny asked, shrewdly.

Her mother went an uncustomary red in the face. "She sort of discussed it with me this morning when she came over for breakfast."

"I don't believe this – my good friend and my own mother scheming against me!" Ginny threw her hands up in the air, disbelieving.

"Luna's waiting over at her place. You can floo over to her place." Her mother told her, finalising the discussion.

"Lu! This is ridiculous." Ginny gestured at her outfit that made her feel very overexposed – a flimsy halter top and a black skirt that ended just above her knees

"You look great, Ginny." Luna told her, beaming.

She was very proud of all they had accomplished in such a short span of time. From her place they had apparated to the more upmarket district of Diagon Alley that Ginny had become familiar during her wealthy years as Draco's wife. Once there, they had gone shopping for a downright gorgeous outfit for Ginny, then a manicure and a pedicure, topping it all off with a visit to the hair salon for blowing and drying.

Now they were finally ready to hit Club Street nearby for some good old fun and clubbing. Ginny had not done this in years, not since Rafael was born. Before they had Rafael, and after the war, she and Draco used to go out for dinners, social functions and now and then clubbing.

His favourite club had been the one right at the end, with its fine drinks, good music and interesting architecture. He used to love to see her all dressed up in some barely there outfit and used to spend half his time trying to find some dark corner to snog her brains out. Just remembering made her tremble with the sudden spurt of unexpected desire. The hurt was worse though, effectively quelling any sort of desire.

"You okay?" Lu asked her as they walked into one of the clubs. She nodded, squeezing her friend's arm reassuringly.

A good half hour later, Ginny felt even worse. She was on her fifth glass of some alcoholic concoction called Dragon's Fire that seemed to go right to her head. So far all the men who had asked to dance or attempted to pick her up had attempted to look down her blouse. She had to resist the urge to slap them across the face and tell them that she was a Malfoy wife, so beware.

"I'm going out for some fresh air." She told Luna.

Before her friend could protest, Ginny was halfway towards the exit. She stumbled out into the night, taking a deep breath. She missed Rafie. Ever since Draco had left, her son had taken to crawling into bed with her, her arms around him as he slept, a source of great security for the both of them. She hoped he was all right.

Ginny gazed up at the night sky, her arms crossed across her chest. A ring had appeared around the moon. High above in the sky, the ring had already begun to twist around itself, an illuminated snake of possibility, double looped and pulled tight by gravity.

When it was a double ring like that, all tangled and snarled, like an agitated rainbow or a love affair gone wrong, anything could happen. At times such as this, it was wisest to sit at home, in bed. Trouble was just like love after all; it comes unannounced and takes over before you had a chance to reconsider or even think.

"Ginevra." His voice knocked Ginny a loop. She felt as if she was walking into something she could not control by just looking up at him. The man who made her feel a thousand emotions during those heated days in Hogwarts - one of them superfluous desire – Draco Malfoy was walking towards her. He stopped, barely a feet away from her.

His eyes were as stormy gray as ever but there were deep lines etched in his face that he was too young to have. Ginny had not noticed that till now. He looked more masculine that she could ever remember, awakening a strange, long forgotten feeling in the pit of her abdomen, like a curled up cat stretching. She bit her lip, shaking her head slightly as if to clear it of all these unexpected emotions caused most likely by the drinks she had consumed.

"What are you doing here?' Draco asked, a jealous possessive anger sweeping over him at the thought of Ginny in a club, close to midnight.

"I should ask you the same thing." She told him, her delicate chin tilted upwards in defiance.

She looked beautiful tonight. Draco had a lump in his throat just looking at her. He was already thinking about things they could do if the two of them were alone in a room.

She looked exactly like the girl he had fallen in love with that starry Christmas night during his last year at Hogwarts, as he stepped into Three Broomsticks and her laughter had fallen on his ears, like fairy bells tinkling in the cold night. Her laughter had wrapped around him like a warm blanket. Then he had looked for the source of the laughter, and her smile had hit him like a pile of bricks. She had looked so young, innocent, pretty and carefree he had wanted to hold her, have her wrap his arms around him.

Now though, as pretty, young and carefree she looked; there was an alluring air of sexy femininity around her. Maybe it was the outfit. She never dressed like that nowadays, opting for the classy and elegant style as a Malfoy wife rather than the sexy and saucy look.

Maybe it was the fact that those soft curves on her body were given by motherhood and made her even more attractive. Maybe it was the fact that he knew her from head to toe literally and could do things to her that made her toes curl at the mere thought of it.

Ginny took two steps back at the look on his face. The way Draco was looking down at her was so transparent she felt her as if she was flying and drowning at the same time, it left her in a heat of confusion. She could not believe the way he was looking at her, even after all this time.

"You never answer my questions." He smirked at her.

"Wipe that smirk off your face." She demanded, suddenly annoyed. The same fiery, vivacious girl he had fallen in love with. He attempted to stop smirking but wound up smiling. She softened at the smile that lit up his classic chiselled face.

"Draco." She said, breathily, her voice unnaturally husky.

It was music; it was a sound that was absurdly beautiful in her mouth. He moved closer towards her, pulled by gravity, pulled by forces he could not begin to control. Ginny too moved towards him, so that the nothing separated them.

He was whispering that he had wanted this forever. When he touched her, his hands were so hot on her skin she could not believe it. She certainly could not think. All she knew was that this felt just so right.

This was what it must be like to be drunk, Ginny found herself thinking, as Draco pressed against her. His hands were on her skin, they were under her blouse, and she did not think of stopping him. She wanted the heat that he was making her feel. She, who could not function without directions and a map, wanted to get lost right now.

His hair brushed against her forehead as he leaned forward, his breath mingling with hers before he touched his lips against hers. She gasped in pleasure, as his tongue entered her mouth, mating with her own.

The familiar taste of his mouth filled hers. Her fingers were in his hair, entangled with his silky pale blonde locks while he cupped her heart shaped face that always fit his big handsome hands perfectly. She could feel herself giving in to his kisses, scorching on her lips, and sending electric jolts right down to the core of her very being.

Her fingers tightening her hold on his shoulder and her body softening against his. His hands slid down her sides and pressed her against him. He felt her body tremble beneath the gentle onslaught, and he slowly released her, feeling his insides knot at leaving the warmth of her mouth.

He broke away from her, staring down at her and feeling slightly breathless. Her eyes fluttered open to stare up at him, and he felt that if this was the last moment in his life, it would be his happiest. He did not move away, his arms still around her. Ginny could feel the bunching of his taut thighs against her own.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Ginny's voice was barely above a whisper.

She had no thought of what she was saying or doing. All she knew was that if Draco removed his arms, which were encircled around her hips, her knees would give away and she would be on the ground. She had no idea how she could have survived this long without kissing him. Well, you only know what you need when you get it.

He leaned down, his eyes glinting dangerously in the dim light of the sidewalk. "Like this?" He murmured, his eyes locked with hers, as if forcing her to look right into their depths, to see him as the man he was, the man he tried to be. She nodded, licking her lips in anticipation. Draco needed no further invitation.

"If only you knew how you looked to me." He murmured before kissing her. That efficiently killed Ginny's mood. Placing her hands, palm flat on his chest, she broke the kiss by pushing him away from her.

'What?" Draco asked, baffled.

Ginny's face was flushed with anger. She felt such an indignant rage she could have slapped Draco but she held herself back.

"So it's because of this slutty outfit that you can't get your hands off me, is that it?" She questioned. The tips of her auburn red hair were grazing her shoulders, the whites of her eyes flashing in anger. Her hands were on her hips. Ginny cut a formidable and enticing figure when she was angry.

Draco shook his head, wondering why he always seemed to say the wrong thing at the wrong time.

"It's not that, Gin. You look gorgeous tonight but you always do, to me at least. Because I love you. That's why I kissed you." He lowered his voice, leaned down in an attempt to meet her cold, harsh stare, "That's why I want you."

"Don't butter me up, Draco. You've always been good at doing that." She spat at him, angry and hurt more than with Draco but at herself, at the way her body had betrayed her, the way she had reacted towards his touch, his embrace and his kisses.

"But it's the truth." She wanted to believe him then, wanted to trust that look of love and tenderness in his eyes. Besides, she knew he had loved her and maybe, just maybe he still did. But the question was if his love for her was enough for him to want to work at what they had, to make sacrifices to make her and their son happy?

"Then why did you say all those hurtful words? Why did you spend so little time with me and Rafael? Why have you realised it only now? It took you one year apart to realise that you still loved me?"

Draco looked at his wife and knew that no simple answer or shrug of shoulders would satisfy her.

"This is not something we should discuss on a sidewalk."

She nodded, "So what do you suggest?" She asked him, expectantly.

"My place?" The smirk on his lips gave his intentions away. That and the arm he was snaking around her waist.

In all her good sense, she should have refused, even slapped him on his face and walked off but Ginny had not. She had been reduced to a similar state so many years ago when Draco cornered her one dusky spring evening, backing her against the wall and kissing her till she took complete leave of her senses.

So she agreed, convincing herself that they were going back to the Malfoy Manor to discuss all the pressing issues of their relationship. She went back inside to tell Luna where she was going before coming out to join Draco and apparating together back to the Malfoy Manor.

When he helped her remove her brown cashmere jacket, his fingers lingering on her bare back, Ginny knew she was in trouble. She knew what was going to happen if she stayed and yet she could not imagine leaving.

Sure enough, the moment she turned around he took her face in his hands. Draco had done enough time with patience, he had served his sentence and now did not intend to look past what he wanted.

He kissed Ginny before she could mention she was still thinking their relationship over. His kisses made her feel things she did not want to feel, at least not yet. He got her up against the wall and slipped his hands up under her blouse, and that was that. She did not say, "Stop it," she did not say "Wait," she kissed him back until she was too far gone to think anything over.

Draco was driving her crazy. He knew how to kiss her, he really did; He definitely had the ability to make a woman lose her reason completely, because they there were, in the Malfoy Manor, the home she had left and vowed never to return to. Draco trailed a wet, hot path with his lips and tongue down her slender neck.

If he did not take her into the bedroom soon, she would find herself begging him to make love to her. She could not believe Draco was spending this much time kissing her. All this kissing was reminding her of what he could make her feel and how it could be when you wanted someone as much as he wanted you.

By the time Draco pulled her panties off, Ginny was completely weak in the knees. She did not give a damn about going into the bedroom, she wanted it there and she wanted it now. They made love for as long as they could, right there in the hallway, and then went to the master bedroom and slept for hours, as though they had been drugged.

Draco, having woken after a few hours from his deeply sated sleep, stared up at the ceiling, the moonlight filtering through the balcony windows into the master bedroom. There was no reason for his sleeplessness, not like before when he dared not sleep on their marital bed, scared to wake up to the harsh reality of the lack of a warm body beside him, specifically one woman's warm body.

Now, he was simply wondering when he had ever gotten so lucky. He wondered how he had survived before this – before Ginny and before Raphael. He was lying close to Ginny on the bed, his head on her neck, his neck on her breasts, his right arm underneath against her back and his left hand on her behind.

He ran his arms and hands over her slender back, her soft thighs, her supple arse, and also felt the solidity of her breasts and stomach against his neck and chest. Her skin was smooth and soft to the touch, the body beneath it tender and reliable. When his hand lay on her calf, he felt the constant twitching play of muscles as she slept; her regular soft breathing filled the still, quiet air.

Ginny shifted slightly and Draco, by habit of five and more years of sharing the same bed with the same woman, unconsciously shifted as well to accommodate her. Sharing a bed with someone, was more than just about the sex, he had come to realise. In fact sex was just the smallest part of what it meant to share a bed long term.

Until he had married Ginny, he had had the bed in the master bedroom of the Malfoy Manor all to himself. Rather than bliss, Ginny had been tossed into a state of confusion. She regularly sat bolt upright and demanded, "Who are you?" Every time Draco would groggily assure her that he was her husband, the love of her life. Every time she flopped down with a relieved sigh.

Draco wished he could remember how they decided who would sleep on what side but he could not. They just sort of landed – he on her right, she on his left.

During the years after marriage, when Rafael came along, he would snuggle between them for night feedings. During those years, Ginny repeatedly pounded Draco awake, demanding to know if one of them had squashed the baby.

Recently, when the bogeyman took to calling, many nights their bed became a fortress, their bodies the walls, and between them Rafael at peace. Draco smiled, as he remembered all those memories they had created together, drifting back into sleep, a contented smile on his face.

When Ginny awoke, it was early in the morning and the room was still dark. As the familiarity of her surroundings hit her and the events of last night came flooding back, she wondered if she was dreaming.

She could not possibly have spent the night in the master bedroom of the Malfoy Manor, sleeping in her marital bed, beside her soon to be ex-husband. But when she pinched herself it hurt. This was still her, all right.

She ran her hand along Draco's back, just to make certain he was real too. In fact he was real enough to startle her; his muscles and his skin and the heat from his sleeping body made her want him all over again, and she felt foolish, like a schoolgirl who did not stop to consider any consequences.

Ginny sat up, the white sheet pulled around her, and knew she had made the biggest mistake. What had she been thinking last night? Did she even think in the first place? How could Luna have let her go off with Draco without even disagreeing or pulling her back to ask her to think twice?

When had she been so reckless and impulsive? So easily swayed by Draco's charm and touch? She was a grown woman for Merlin's sakes who had to know her responsibilities, which included her job, her home in Daigon Alley and her son.

Those thoughts created a guilt filled sense of urgency to get out of bed and as far away from Draco as possible. Familiar with the Malfoy Manor as she was with The Burrow, after wearing her clothes, she slipped out of the room, down the stairs to the front hall where she could apparate back to her apartment.

Back in her apartment, she showered, scrubbing every inch of her skin in an attempt to rid herself of Draco's smell – that of musk, magic and raw masculinity. After dressing herself, she flooed to The Burrow.

The entire house was still and silent, a peaceful Saturday morning mist hovering about it as all the occupants in the household slept in on the first day of the weekend. Even her mother was not bustling about in the kitchen making breakfast but asleep with her father in the parents' bedroom.

Ginny secretly admired her parents for having stuck it out together this long and still being able to love each other. She knew she could never have that. She closed her eyes momentarily as she stood at the foot of the stairs. Hurt and pain was a difficult emotion to live with and now she had to add a lack of pride as well. What else could explain her irrational behaviour last night?

Pushing those gut wrenching thoughts aside, she moved up the stairs quietly, making her way to her old bedroom –the one Rafael always slept in when he spent the night at the Burrow. Sure enough when she opened the door, her son was huddled under the blue and white comforter, his red hair peeking out from beneath it.

He was clutching onto the dragon soft toy Charlie had given him for his three-year-old birthday. Ginny eased herself onto the bed beside him, sitting at the edge, watching her son sleep. She heard her mother's footsteps in the hallway moving towards the bathroom and knew that the day had begun, cool and clear and impossible to avoid.

Rafael opened his eyes to see his mother staring at him. He had missed her last night, as he always did lately whenever she was not around.

"Hey, baby." Ginny hugged her son, burying her face in his soft downy red hair.

"Mummy," Rafael said, eyes rimmed with sleep dust, his voice still dream infected. "You smell like daddy." Ginny was thrown back by Rafael's startlingly astute observation.

"Do I?" Ginny shrugged it away. "I just wanted to know what you want for breakfast. French toast? Waffles? I think Grandma's got some raisin bread. The one with walnut inside."

He stared at her clueless for what seemed a long while. Rafael had a tough time deciding between anything, Ginny had grown to realise. Tying to force him out of this weakness was obviously not going to work.

'Why don't you have raisin bread first?" She offered.

"Okay. Raisin bread." He agreed, snuggling back under his comforter. Rafael was not lazy by nature but he always had these periods of time where he had to lie around and do nothing before bouncing up and engaging in some vigorous activity full steam on.

"I'll go down and let Grandma know, okay. You want to come down with me?"

He shook his head lazily, then held up his hand, all five fingers spread out. "Five moments." He told her solemnly. He had not completely mastered the concept of time yet and obviously meant five minutes. At least Ginny hoped it meant five minutes and not five hours.

She kissed him on the forehead, "Be quick or else there'll be none left for you." She warned, walking out of the room, feeling a lot more grounded and more herself than she had earlier that morning.

Or so she thought.

TBC

AUTHOR'S NOTE –

If you want more of this story, please review and let me know what you think of it.

Also if you liked this story, I am sure you will like my other Draco Ginny fics -

For one shot and a slightly dark D/G fics, 'In the Shadows' and 'Harder to breathe' will suffice.

For a slightly more light hearted D/G one shot fic, please read and review 'Spring Fever'

For a more angst filled and longer fic, 'Love on Earth' a completed six part fic.

For an ongoing epic love story between Draco and Ginny, 'That Thing You Do' should satisfy your appetites.

Do READ AND REVIEW!!!! PLEASE! I promise you will not regret it! If you do, let me know, I'll make it up to you…lol…