Work Text:
Pairing: Drinny
Setting: Hogwarts Post War AU
The platform is less crowded than I’ve ever seen it. Less boisterous, too. The steam from the train, usually welcoming after a summer away, now feels omnipressant. It’s probably my perspective.
There are too many faces missing.
Hermione walks with me, and she’s noticeably quiet; a testament to how much life has changed. Where she used to be near vibrating with excitement, she now gazes ahead forlornly, maybe nervous too.
“Is this a good idea?” I ask her, and she meets my eyes in understanding.
“Probably not.” She cocks her head to the side and looks at the train. “But I’m not ready to give up my education. We’ve sacrificed too much as it is.”
Truer words have never been spoken.
Hermione and I are the only ones coming back this year. Harry and Ron decided to forgo another year of Education in favor of assisting the Aurors in rounding up the last vestiges of the Death Eaters. Kingsley has offered them a position in the trainee program, and they’ve both agreed with gusto.
We enter the prefect carriage and, unsurprisingly, are the first to arrive. A shiny Head Girl badge arrived with my Hogwarts letter, and I only accepted because it was the first time mum showed enthusiasm for anything since Fred died.
The hole in my chest aches painfully, and Hermione pretends not to notice as I curl into myself.
It’s closer to the hour when the other Prefects file in. I am more nervous about this than I let on because sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe when I’m in small spaces, let alone small spaces with people crammed into them. Hermione says I have klaustrofobia and ptsd, whatever those are. I just know it makes me antsy.
I rub my hands together. I’ve been perpetually cold since May, despite the heat of the summer. It doesn’t feel altogether an inability to regulate my body temperature, more like an outside vat of cool water is continuously being poured on my being. Surprisingly, I feel warmer than I have in months.
“Okay, should we get started then?” Ernie MacMillan, the Head Boy, asks.
It shouldn’t bother me that everyone is staring at Hermione, waiting for her to take charge. It does, though. People expect Hermione to be Head Girl, and maybe it wouldn’t sting so much if she hadn’t turned it down in the first place. Being the youngest of seven made me no stranger to hand-me-downs, but Head Girl is something I’ve earned, even if it was offered to Hermione Granger first.
“Ginny is Head Girl,” Hermione states quietly, directing her eyes to me before resuming her staring out the window. I notice her fingers clenched into tight fists, and resolve to check in on her after the meeting.
“Right,” I said, and looked somewhere over Justin Finch-fetchleys shoulders before resolve settles in my stomach.
“If this last year has taught us anything, it’s that we need to grow up. I didn’t expect to be Head Girl, but since I am I promise you this: No house or blood prejudices will be tolerated on my watch. It might not be proper, but I have no trouble hexing anyone who fails to adhere to that. Trouble be damned. We worked too hard to fall back into these toxic patterns and I, for one, will do anything not to repeat those mistakes.”
Ernie looks at me with wide eyes, as though I’ve frightened him. Maybe I have. Maybe I don’t really care.
A derisive snort causes me to look to the corner of the carriage, where Michael Corner is glaring daggers at Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson, as well as the other Slytherin prefects that had been suspiciously silent.
“There a problem, Michael?” I ask, though I’m sure I know.
“You really expect us to work with Slytherins, and act like their two leaders weren’t Death Eaters or ready to hand us all over to You-Know-Who to save their skins? Better they all be locked up in Azkaban or dead for-”
“Voldemort.”
Hermione stands tall and though her voice is quiet, it carries nonetheless. There is a crackling energy about her and I feel it rolling off of her in waves.
“Go on, Corner. Say his name. Voldemort . You want to wish them dead for being forced to follow the whims of a Mad Man? How are you any better to wish such things on a person? A human being? You should stay your tongue before you hand out judgements.”
“Granger you can’t possibly-” he started, but I jumped to Hermiones defense against my -admittedly stupid- exboyfriend.
“She can, as do I.” I ignore Hermione's surprised huff as she grips my fingers in solidarity.
“You weren’t on the front lines, or your family wasn’t. You didn’t have a target on your back because you were a Weasley. Or Harry Potter's Mudblood.” The word tastes like ash in my mouth, but does it’s purpose as everyone, including the Slytherins, flinch.
I swallow back my surprise at that.
“I’m not invalidating your experiences, just stating that you don’t have the corner of hate. If Hermione Granger and Harry Potter can forgive them in front of a Court of Law, you can be civil with them in a school. It is, after all, what we fought for.”
I wasn’t a hypocrite, but even as I said these things, I wondered how much truth I put into them. I know I have no desire for a repeat of last year. But the ugly parts of me, the ones I can’t keep locked up since Fred died, cheer on Michaels righteous indignation. I want someone to be punished. The man who killed Fred is dead, killed by Percy. But I sometimes wish I’d gotten a crack at him, myself.
Looking at them, I can’t deny there is something there. In the past, the Slytherins might’ve made scathing remarks, or even thrown hexes. Now, they look downtrodden. Not meek, but maybe they’ve been just as humbled by this war as I have. Maybe they also had a few hard-learned lessons.
Ernie takes control of the meeting then, and I only chime in a few more times about being sure to take quidditch practices into consideration when setting patrol schedules. Being a captain myself, I all but rolled my eyes at the request as though it wasn’t a given.
The meeting finally ends and I call for Malfoy to stay behind. Warmth flushes my face and neck as he approaches. His stare, blank for most of the meeting, hardens into a glare.
“What can I do for you, Weaslette?”
I ignore the jab that might’ve irritated me before last year, because though I intensely dislike Draco Malfoy, I see there is a resignation in his visage I’ve not noticed before. Like he expects to be beaten into submission. This thought stops me short. I realize that’s probably happened to him more than any other person on this train.
“I know I’m going to sound like a complete prat, but I need to hear from you that you’re not going to cause us any trouble.”
“I should’ve known that drivel you spouted was utter shite.”
The urge to hex him is overwhelming. While I had never really interacted with the Malfoy heir like my brother and his friends did, he’d led the Slytherins from a young age due to his pedigree. Any harassment I did receive, it was likely he had orchestrated, or had known about it.
I’ve always had a problem with my temper.
My wand pressed to his chin with as much pressure as I could muster given his height over me.
“I could probably get away with ending your life- but I’m nothing like you. This is your warning. If you say anything to Hermione about her blood status, or anyone else’s- I will hex your tongue out of your throat. Capiche?”
Delicious heat rolls down my spine as I meet his gaze head on. It feels powerful after feeling so beaten down. He looks surprised, and his eyes darken slightly before hardening into flint.
We’re chest to chest, and his is surprisingly solid. I’d expect someone who’d been born to aristocracy to be more… flaccid. But there was only hard muscle where we touched.
Huh.
When did Draco Malfoy become attractive?
Gross.
“You have my word. Lower your wand.”
His fingers encircled my wrist, tightening painfully before shoving my arm to the side and storming out.
I don’t know why my chest is heaving. It surprises me that I feel so alive.
Maybe having someone to hurl insults at was cathartic. Anything beat the eggshells we constantly walked on at home. Anything beat thinking about Fred, or Harry. Or the people I lost along the way.
I was so incredibly tired of being kept on a leash.
I wanted the anger.
I wanted to burn .
Somehow, Malfoy is in all the same classes as I am. It irritates me to no end. Luckily Hermione is my partner. I’d never been able to share classes with her before, and I now witness first hand the witches voracious appetite for knowledge.
Her notes save me, if I’m totally honest. I’ve always done well in school. But being tortured over and over again has somewhat ruined my ability to focus for any decent amount of time.
I find myself doodling more, and note taking less. I was never a doodler.
Hermione automatically copies her notes for me, and I’m grateful she’s no longer the swot she used to be about school. Then I think about why that is, and the loss of innocence makes me sad.
Malfoy and Nott are partners, and there’s an unspoken challenge between us. We’re one upping each other constantly. It’s only weird that there’s no real antagonism to it.
Malfoy has gotten in the habit of greeting us before he slides into his seat.
I don’t like it.
“Weaslette. Granger.” There’s hardly any inflection in his tone, and there’s even a hint of a smirk at the corner of his mouth.
“Malfoy,” Hermione dutifully greets.
I only nod mulishly.
What is he up to? A nice Malfoy is as common as a cuddly Blast-Ended Screwt.
I tell Hermione of my suspicions at dinner. I even ask her to borrow the Map.
She pauses and scrutinizes me.
“What was the first thing I told you after you and Harry had sex?”
“Trick question. You held your hands over your ears and screamed that he was your brother. Very childish, I might add. Who else was I supposed to tell? Why?”
“Just making sure you’re not Harry under Polyjuice. What’s the obsession with Malfoy, Gin? He’s been surprisingly pleasant.”
“I don’t know! He says hi to us, Hermione. He hates us. He’s always got an angle.”
There’s also the weird feeling I get when he’s in the vicinity. Like a warm blanket has been wrapped around my shoulders. It would be comforting if not for him being the source.
I say nothing about this to Hermione.
She purses her lips, and looks at me in that way that would make me feel ashamed if I wasn’t shameless.
“Last year was hard. I imagine it was very eye-opening for people like Malfoy. Maybe he’s taking this as a second chance. You never know. You might end up being his friend.”
We both snort.
Friends. Right.
The Three Broomsticks was lively, how it was before war tore Hogsmeade apart. I wanted the laughter to somehow seep into my bones and chase the chill away. I’d been dreading this weekend for the past month. Not because it would fundamentally change anything in my life. More so, that it wouldn’t.
He was already there, of course, and I smiled a bit at the way he fidgets nervously once his eyes find mine.
“Hey Harry,” I say, and habit has me reaching for his hand before I remember what we’ve become.
“Ginny,” he greets, and gestures for me to take a seat.
He’s grown his hair out a bit, and the length keeps it from sticking up in all directions, though it was still messy as ever. I miss the short hair. His eyes seemed brighter than the last time we’d spoken, and I’m glad for it. If anyone deserves happiness, it is Harry.
“You look good,” I nod towards him, sipping the butterbeer that appears on my table.
“I feel good,” Harry responds. “I’m doing well in the Auror department. Ron is, too. He’s around here somewhere, no doubt trying to whisk Hermione off to somewhere private.”
We smirk at each other before the weight of us settles in.
“I don’t think we work anymore, Harry.”
“I don’t either.”
“Let’s go for a walk.”
“Okay.”
Our feet take us towards the Shrieking Shack, seeking something familiar and quiet. I dread this conversation even if a part of me is ready for it to be over. Things were always so easy with Harry. I’d been in love with him for as long as I could remember. But we’d both changed.
I told him this.
“I know,” he agrees and I don’t comment on the sheen in his eyes, and he ignores mine too.
“I love you, Ginny. I think a part of me always will. But, I need to be alone. I need to figure out what my life looks like without Voldemort hovering over my head. I have so much trauma to sort through, and a relationship is not good for me right now. Please don’t hate me.”
I take his hand and give it a reassuring squeeze, because I won’t abandon him in his pain, even if my role in his life is different now.
“You were my hero for a long time, Harry. I’ll always love you, too. You’re still one of my best friends. But I agree. I think we’re both too different now. I need different things. But you are, and always will be, family.”
We talk, and it feels like nothing has changed. Harry seems to organically shift from a romantic partner to dear friend with ease, but Harry has always adapted easily. He asks me about Head Girl duties, and Quidditch. I ask him about Auror training.
It’s nice.
He teases me when he asks me about boys.
“You know whoever he is will never be good enough for you,” Harry laughs. “Between having nothing but war heroes in your family and The Chosen One as your ex, he’s going to develop a complex.”
The grimace he makes when I punch him is satisfying.
“Well, the same goes for you with girls. If they can get past Hermione and I, that is.”
We’re at the gates of Hogwarts now, Harry's chivalry demands I not walk alone (I scoffed). I smile as he hugs me goodbye. He promises to write, to which I say I don’t expect him to. I kiss his cheek, and then with a loud pop, he’s gone.
The warming charm I cast has faded along with the sun. I shouldn’t be out this late, and habit has me fingering my wand every few minutes- but moments alone are few and far between. My broom sits next to me, and the adrenaline is still pumping from the laps I finished not too long ago.
The sky is clear tonight, and despite the chill I’m reluctant to move.
I lean back against the bleachers and close my eyes.
It’s easier to be on the quidditch pitch where there’s no reminder of death. Just the freedom of the wind whipping against my face as I fly through the air. It has become one of the only places where I can find solace.
“Weaslette.”
Well, so much for that. I squeeze my eyelids together as hard as possible.
“It’s past curfew, Malfoy. What are you doing out here?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“I’m Head Girl, curfew doesn’t apply to me.”
“Touche.”
The bench creaks as he plops down, not three feet from me. Suddenly, I’m warm without charms. I allow myself one teeny, tiny moment to bask in it. Maybe if I ignore him long enough, he’ll go away.
“Why are you sitting out here?”
I groan, and turn to glare at him. He’s wearing a long sleeve shirt that is obviously tailored to his form. It looks warm. His broom is atop the seat next to him.
His eyes are the same mercurial grey. They don’t look mean, in the silver of moonlight. They merely look curious. His face is more open than I’ve ever seen it.
It strikes me again, how nauseatingly attractive he’s become. He’s filled out, so rather than gangly- he’s tall and lean. His hair is no longer severely gelled back, but hangs in his eyes in a more casual way. His chin is still pointy, but his jaw is sharp and his mouth is full.
Dammit.
“Why are you being…” I struggle for words. “Less you? More someone relatively human?”
Malfoy laughs, and the sound is more self deprecating than malicious.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but being a Death Eater didn’t make my life easy.”
“But you chose that.”
“Did I?” There was a hint of anger in his voice.
“Didn’t you?” I fire back.
Malfoy sighs, and runs his hands through his hair.
“Are you actually interested in having this conversation with me?”
The question causes me to pause. Did I really want to know anything about him? Was this something I could do? I remember when Aurors placed his hands in shackles after the final battle. He didn’t look like a Death Eater. Only a scared boy who was resigned to his fate. Now, he looks like a man waiting to face a dragon.
I want to know, I decide. So I nod for him to continue.
“No. I didn’t. I don’t know when I stopped believing that Mud- sorry, it’s a habit I’m breaking- Muggleborns and blood traitors were less than. It was probably around the time I saw that even his servants weren’t spared his wrath. I only joined because he required me to. It was a punishment for my father’s failures. They expected me to fail. He wanted me to, just so he could punish my parents. More than anything, I wish we would have ran.”
I say nothing.
“It wasn’t exactly unicorns and rainbows last year for me, either. I’m not saying that to get your pity. But you’ve no idea what it’s like to have the Dark Lord rooting around in your head, living under your roof, everyday for over a year.”
“I do, actually,” I find myself saying. “He possessed me for the better part of a year. Forcing me to open the Chamber of Secrets. Remember?”
Malfoy looks at me. With understanding. It’s odd even if it’s nice to know he does.
“I’d never felt so violated. Not having control of my body. My thoughts weren’t my own, nor were they secret. I do, understand that is. I’m sorry you had him in your mind too. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”
“Something else that’s my family’s fault. Our crimes against your family can never be alleviated. But for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
My eyes sting.
“Sometimes I can’t stomach being here. So many of them are so happy, like nothing happened. Like nothing has changed,” my voice is embarrassingly broken. “I don’t want to act like I’m happy. Like people expect me to.”
How odd, confessing this to Malfoy of all people.
“I feel like I’m going to disappear,” he says. “I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t know who I’m supposed to be. Being pure ” he spat the word as though it was a curse “was how we defined ourselves for a thousand years. And now I know it’s meaningless. My whole life has been a lie. What am I, now that nothing I’ve ever known matters?”
It dawns on me that Draco Malfoy is, in fact, a human being. Some ugly part of me has kept him in this neat and tidy box labeled “Evil: Do Not Open.”
I’ve never had such an existential crisis. I have known who I was my entire life. My morals, ideals, the essence of me has never been tilted on its axis. I realize that he’s at the precipice of change. Change that, with a little nurturing, could grow into something beautiful.
Maybe he could turn into someone worth knowing.
He’s looking at me, waiting for an answer.
“Maybe,” I say slowly, ignoring the heat that scalds me as I take his hand and give it a squeeze. “You can be whatever you want to be.”
That is how I started seeing Malfoy - Draco - at the quidditch pitch after dark. It wasn’t something we ever spoke of, and it wasn’t as though I asked him to meet me. It was just an unspoken agreement that two people could share a space together and just be .
Sometimes we talk about everything and nothing. Sometimes we sit for hours without speaking. Either way, it’s nice. It’s funny that we were the antithesis of each other, and somehow I relate to him in ways that are baffling.
It’s the little things I would have never known had we not been through the war. It’s a no brainer that potions is his favorite subject. But what surprises me is his love for Transfiguration, though his teacher is a “ Bloody Gryffindor.” His words, not mine.
It’s his borderline obsession with Bertie Botts, because they remind him that not everything has to make sense. Including candy flavors.
It’s the love he has for his family. Even if I hate his father, I have nothing but empathy for all the ways he struggles with hating him, but still loves him so fiercely.
He’s an amalgamation of light and dark, something I appreciate now more than ever.
It’s right before the Christmas hols that I finally have the courage to tell Hermione this. We’re at Hogsmeade waiting for the train, and my hands are cold despite wearing gloves.
She looks at me for a long time, and I can see the cogs in her brain turning. The silence continues for longer than I have patience for.
“Will you stop staring at me and say something?”
She lets out a derisive snort.
“I was debating whether you were Imperiused or not.”
I also snort. But then, her eyes soften and she smiles a bit.
“You like him, don’t you?”
Hermiones history with Malfoy is legendary. Somehow, I’ve been able to shove that knowledge down deep in a box labeled “ Do Not Disturb.” Hermione is the sister I always wanted, and I know, more than anyone elses, her opinion holds the most weight. He was essentially her tormenter for six consecutive years. She was tortured on his very floor.
I nod miserably, because if nothing else, Hermione deserves the truth.
She breathes deeply. “Okay.”
“Okay?” I gasp.
“Okay,” Hermione nods.
“How are you possibly okay with this? He’s bullied you for years. How does this not bother you? It bothers me. ”
“Yes he did. But those are my issues with him. Maybe I would object more, had he not apologized to me. But, he has. So, I’m willing to give him a chance. It wasn’t only war heroes who suffered last year. I have to believe that Draco Malfoy can change. If he can, then this wasn’t for nothing. We can be better, if he can.”
I imagine I looked like a half transfigured fish, the way my mouth opened and closed stupidly.
“He apologized to you?”
Hermione nods, and I feel warmth rush over me. I look to the station's entrance, and there he is. He must feel my gaze on him, because he glances my way and a small smile graces his lips.
I’m on my feet, and a glance at Hermiones knowing smirk tells me that she will have my back during the inevitable fallout my choices will cause me. Maybe later I’ll regret the impulsiveness that comes with being a Gryffindor. For this decision is surely reckless.
I stop in front of him, strangely out of breath despite only having walked twenty feet. If I was Hermione I’d probably have better prose, and something witty would come out of my mouth and it would be perfect, and not at all embarrassing.
As such, I am not.
“I think I like you,” I blurt out.
His brows disappear behind his fringe, and Theodore Nott snorts next to him. I ignore him, my gaze not leaving Dracos. His eyes are darker than I’ve ever seen them, and his mouth turns upward into a smirk.
“You do, do you?” He asks.
I nod, wondering if there was a hole nearby I could crawl into.
He looks me up and down, measuring me and the heat that radiates off of him seems to increase exponentially.
“Took you long enough, didn’t it?”
I resist the urge to smack him.
“Were you waiting?”
The smirk softens into a more genuine smile. Malfoy reaches for my hand and jerks me forward.
“Yeah,” he says. “I was.”
Kissing him feels like coming home. I’m warm all over.