♥ "Passion and Patience" for mini_beauty11 ♥
Title: Passion and Patience
Rating: PG-13
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Just mention of acts of sexual nature, angst. Some harsh language.
Summary: Draco has been missing for two years. When Ginny’s Quidditch team makes a trip to New Orleans, the place Draco was last seen alive, Ginny accidentally finds him, which brings up a lot of unresolved issues.
A/N: This was not the plot I planned, or the style I planned, or anything I planned. I tried to squeeze some comedy in there, it just didn’t quite take. But it was a blast, watching it write itself, and I hope you enjoy it!
Passion and Patience
*
Ginny hates travelling. She just does. Especially Muggle travelling. She has no problems with Muggles, really she doesn’t, she just has a problem with all their ways. Everything takes forever, everything is ridiculously complicated, and the real problem is that she just doesn’t understand why they couldn’t take Floo, or brooms, or swim over the ocean, for Merlin’s sake, as opposed to taking the huge metal bird and spending three hours at customs trying to explain to a sweaty bald man why they are adamant about transporting over a dozen brooms overseas, preferably as carry-ons.
She wishes she could just swallow this day and forget about it. She wishes she could forget the article, forget the day, not go to United States to play bloody Quidditch when it’s only a barely-important tournament, and crawl under blankets and sleep. Or think. Or anything that isn’t what she’s doing right now.
Gwenog chats her ear off the whole way. Ginny grunts and nods at all the right times, staring sullenly out of the plane window, imagining the air that could be blowing in her face if she was flying - really flying.
She knows she’s not herself. Usually, she’s the one cheerful traveller on her team, taking everything in stride, but she doesn’t want to be here. This is her first trip to the States - being a part of the British and Irish League and not having the most successful last few years, the team hasn’t had occasion to travel overseas since she joined. To top it off, they just have to stop over at new New Orleans, don’t they? Someone just had to get the bright idea to do some “tourist stuff on the way” and pick that city to start with.
No one in the wizarding world can think about New Orleans and not think about Draco Malfoy, too, and he’s the last person she wants to be thinking about.
On arrival, they huddle in the corner of the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, trying to appear as inconspicuous as possible, which is to say not at all. Over a dozen women, most wearing peculiarly-mismatched clothing, holding suspicious long packages is not very incognito.
“You look awful, Ginny,” Angela, the star Chaser, says with a fake concern she exhibits towards everyone. Ginny dislikes her greatly.
“Just tired. Kind of weird being here.”
“Muggle ways of travelling take getting used to,” Gwenog says in what she thinks is a comforting voice and pats Ginny awkwardly on the shoulder. The nurturing thing is not in her blood, but being the captain, she tries hard. “You do look really sick, Weasley, but you’ll be fine in a moment, don’t worry.”
“I’m fine now.”
“Of course, this is New Orleans, girls,” Angela sing-songs in an over-exaggerated creepy voice. “Take care not to end up like Draco Malfoy.”
“Angela!” Gwenog snaps, back in her element now.
An awkward silence descends. A few girls chuckle, some look down nervously, a couple don’t seem quite decided on what kind of reaction their own personal feelings towards the whole Draco thing warrants. Ginny finds the joke tasteless and looks out at the departing planes with a frown.
Draco disappeared two years ago, “in the line of duty”. When he had first decided to be a Hit Wizard, the wizarding world didn’t react too kindly. Yet when he became the best, no one seemed too surprised, either. It takes a Death Eater to hunt one down. Besides, he was reckless, impulsive, he lived and breathed his job and in the end, considering the job description and life expectancy of Hit Wizards, it was perhaps in the end decided that throwing some recognition and awards at a reformed former Death Eater would be easier than having to fill the multiple jobs he was doing single-handedly. The line for Hit Wizard recruitment was never very long.
Nobody misses Draco much, of course, and they’re too quick and only too happy to forget about the big inconvenient controversy no one seemed to be able to agree on when he was around. Now there is no need to agree. Ginny knows that the Malfoys are still desperately searching - there is a short article in the Prophet every once in a while.
Ginny was able to wheedle some unreleased details out of Harry on the subject. Draco disappeared at the end of an assignment, which he had completed successfully, apprehending a whole group of Voldemort-supporters with only a few other Hit Wizards. Ginny remembers Harry telling her reluctantly that it’s possible that Draco was kidnapped, in which case he was most likely killed, as no ransom note or information had ever arrived, or Draco had just walked off into nothingness on his own volition. There are some things Harry knows about Draco, no matter the unchanged dislike between them, that Harry doesn’t even know he knows, but she completely trusts his instincts. She doesn’t even know what she would like to be the case.
She feels exhausted, tired, apprehensive. She doesn’t look around like the other girls when they board a bus, barely even registers anything around her on their way to what she thinks someone says is called Rooster New Orleans Hotel. She dismisses everyone’s concerns with excuses of plane-sickness and fatigue and doesn’t know how she finally gets to her room, where she stands in the scalding shower for half an hour, enjoying the absolute warmth and silence of hot water in her ears.
*
She thinks about it non-stop, but she doesn’t really expect to find him. Not on this trip, nor ever again. Even though she shares Harry’s suspicions, when he’s just there, sitting in an outside café sipping coffee for all the world to see, she just can’t believe it. She attempts to wake up a couple of times, and seriously considers turning on her heels and fleeing before forcing a mental image of putting on her Gryffindor scarf and marches right over there, looking a lot more confident than she feels, she hopes.
He doesn’t look up at her when she stands in front of his table, unsure whether to tap him or call him. Finally, she quietly says his name. He looks up at her so quickly she half-wonders how he doesn’t dislocate his own neck. He’s no different from the way he’s always been, though she thinks from some angles, he looks like he may have lost hair. He has a deep cut on the lower right side of his lip. It makes his signature smirk seem now permanently etched in his face, and she can’t think of anything more suiting. He’s dressed like a Muggle, but well, as usual. He seems to have a good understanding of both style and Muggle fashion and ways of clothes, because Ginny has to admit he looks good, conspicuously good.
“Your parents will want a refund for all the investigators they’ve sent out looking for you, because you don’t seem to be hiding very well.”
She has no idea why she says that - where that even comes from. It kind of has the general sentiment she intended to convey, but definitely not in the way she hoped it would come out.
He stares at her as if he’s seeing a ghost. She almost wants to squirm under such undivided intense attention, so she takes a seat opposite him.
“What are you doing here, Weasley?” Draco finally says. His voice is cold and hard, and she remembers him, vividly, all at once, all the little details that time has managed to dull. She recollects herself, allowing everything she’s felt about him, about his disappearance, to wash over here.
“No, what are you doing here?” she snaps back at him. It’s as if no time has passed at all. As if they have just ran into each other at the Ministry and commenced their usual unfriendly games neither could ever resist each time they saw each other.
“None of your…” He trails off, looks away. The shock of seeing her begins to pass, and he seems uncharacteristically confused at how to react to her. The hatred and the anger are default, but she knows his bullshit quite well and the anger can’t seem to withstand that too effectively.
“I’m here with the team. We have a tournament in a couple of weeks, and it was decided to tour a couple of states before that, unwind after a difficult training season and meet at the tournament with renewed energies.” Only when she finishes does she realize she’s just recited Gwenog’s speech from a few weeks ago verbatim. What does he care about her team’s vacation or training plans? She just feels the need to keep talking. He could Disapparate at any moment, she realizes. She shouldn’t have told him about the rest of her team being here. Or maybe she should have, she doesn’t even know anymore.
He rummages in his pockets, pulls out a few bills and throws it on the table. One lands in his coffee and he pushes his cup away. He’s still a good Hit Wizard at heart. It may look like his moves are leisurely, but Ginny can see he’s making ready for a very quick getaway.
“Could we just go and talk somewhere first, Malfoy? It’s not like I can force you to come back, and I can assure you I have no back-up with me. I didn’t expect to see you, ok?” But it should have crossed my mind, she adds in her minds, her eyes not leaving his. “Just… Just give me a minute of your time. Do you think you could do that?”
You owe me that, she doesn’t say, but he hears it. Without a word, he stands up abruptly, seizes a cane she hasn’t noticed he had with him, and jerks his head at her to follow him.
*
She’s not sure whether the way to his house is long and complicated, or he’s been leading her in circles. They finally arrive at a nice townhouse. Inside, it’s surprisingly bland and lifeless. There is very little evidence of Draco anywhere. Not a loose sock, not a book or any other personal effect in sight.
He walks in, throws the keys onto a small table and continues walking into the living room, leaving her to close and lock the door and follow him. When he reaches a white couch that looks as if it has never once been touched, he turns to look at her. All of a sudden, he seems tired, deflated somehow. His eyes are duller than they used to be, she realizes, and there is a line on his forehead that’s entirely new as well.
There are so many questions that she can’t even begin to try and formulate them all. She leaves it up to him to speak. After all, he had to be prepared to tell her something if he agreed to talk with her.
After what seems like forever he takes a small step toward her. “You hate me.” The words don’t sound like a question, or an accusation, even. They’re just fact. He doesn’t sound like the fact bothers him so much, either, almost.
She frowns. “It was akin to a betrayal. If you chose this.”
“I chose it.”
Silence again. This time, he doesn’t hesitate to walk up to her. She stares up into his face defiantly, angrily, but when his lips touch hers she doesn’t push him away. In fact, she kisses him back, hard. He kisses her lips, her cheeks, her eyes. His lips travel down to her neck, his fingers running through her hair. It’s so natural it doesn’t feel real. She feels like she’s watching it all outside herself; everything feels hazy. He moves slowly, methodically. Passion and patience. Not something she thought possible, but he manages to practically ravage her at a painfully slow pace.
She only revels in him for a few moments before she needs him too, now. She tears at his clothes, digs her nails into his back, pulls his hair. She’s waited long enough. Deep inside she’s never doubted that this would happen someday. It’s not faith in him, and it’s not forgiveness. She doesn’t know whether she could ever offer him that, whether he deserves that, or is worth it, but for tonight they seem to surrender completely. Because they both need each other. Without explanations, knowing anything or understanding what has happened in the last few years. They both know that perhaps if - when - they finally talk, they may find themselves out of reach of each other again.
There is an unspoken agreement between them. They never could find common ground, otherwise.
*
They’re not touching, but only just. She can feel the warmth coming off his skin, and enjoys the breeze on her own. The silence this time is not charged, not tense. She won’t mind if neither of them choose to break it, just for tonight.
Draco breaks the silence eventually, his eyes trained on the ceiling as if trying to see through it. “It’s what I needed to do. I don’t need to explain myself to you, ok?”
She sighs. “Then why are you explaining yourself to me?” Silence. “You could have told me, Malfoy. Told me… something. That just wasn’t fair, even considering you’re you.”
“It’s not like we had a relationship.” He closes his eyes and his face adopts a look she had seen him wear back at Hogwarts - one of stubborn, hurt denial. “Don’t tell me you cared.”
She sits up, hugging her knees and putting her head on her arms so she can look down at him. “You can call it whatever you want, Draco. I knew you had a problem with defining it as anything and I was absolutely cool about that, because I only cared about the way you acted. But in all respects, it was a relationship. We spent so much time together, although, ok, not in public. We saw only each other, we had sex, we shared interests, what else do you call it?” She narrows her eyes at him. “I knew who you are, and what I was getting myself into, but this whole thing was just unwarranted. “
“I had to get away from it. From it all.” He scowls. “You want me to admit it? You were the only part of my life that I didn’t completely hate. I didn’t mind it, in any case. Everything else was torture; I just couldn’t deal with it anymore. I don’t expect you to understand and I didn’t back then, either.”
Finally, she feels anger. About time. “Did you consider anything, or anyone before you did this?” She yanks the sheet around her, suddenly aware of the utter frankness of their conversation. “Do you not care that you screwed over you whole department? You were carrying a load of five and then just vanished without notice, without at least making sure you had a sufficient replacement and a well-established group before throwing them all into the chaos of your sudden absence. And your parents? I never thought I’d say this about these people, but don’t you think they deserve better than having to live with the gnawing possibility that their son is dead in a ditch somewhere?”
He sits up too, pulling the blankets over his lower body and leaning against the wall. He still avoids looking at her. “I was never that close to my parents, especially after the war. At the time I left, we hadn’t spoken in months. And I never intended to leave the impression I may be dead. I left. “
“And you haven’t seen the papers since?”
“I live across the ocean and I haven’t once consciously encountered a witch or a wizard the whole time I’ve been here. I won’t be able to tell you who the British Minister for Magic is, if you’ve changed him. Or who the American one, either, for that matter. I left New Orleans for a while when I knew there will be people looking, but since I’ve come back I haven’t once been troubled about staying hidden, until today.”
“You were in Witch Weekly today. Two year anniversary since you disappeared. The first thing I saw today when I woke up was you, scowling at me from the front pages of that bloody issue.”
He reaches out to her, and it’s so unexpected she jumps at his touch. She knows he won’t be able to say he’s sorry. He won’t even probably be able to explain why he left and what he’s looking for sufficiently enough for her to understand it. She doesn’t want to understand something that has hurt her so much, but perhaps he’s right. Perhaps she just can’t, anyway.
She can’t honestly say this came completely as a surprise to her, as shocked as she was. Now that she is beside him, now that she’s said what’s been burning her inside out for the past two years, she can see past it to at least understand that she has always known that Draco was a little different, still broken, still mostly unreachable, still working through things she couldn’t help him with. It’s hard to admit this, because she can almost feel the anger seep out of her at the thought, but she can’t fix him, can’t help him in any way but let him do what he thinks needs to be done and home it will be enough someday. Or give up, which she’s considered every day since they first kissed and finds herself less capable of doing with every day since.
“We’re leaving in a few days,” she says. “You won’t have to worry about being seen for too long.” She brings her fingers to grasp his hand on her arm. “The tournament will be over in a month, that’s if we keep winning, and then I will be back.”
He shakes his head slowly and then stops, as if giving up resistance. She smiles, and she thinks he attempts something similar in return, though he looks like a scared animal baring its teeth more than a contented human being.
She doesn’t know what she feels. She can’t deny the strength of her feelings for him, magnified all the more after seeing him unexpectedly after so long, and she knows he has ample blame in all this that he should be accountable for, but the immediate choice before her is whether she wants to bother at all. She can walk away and not look back, forget she ever saw him, or pretend to, and let him continue running for just as long as he pleased.
Somehow, their hands intertwine. She’s not sure. This will take serious time and consideration. But she highly doubts she can settle for giving him up. Not yet.
“How about showing me around this city tonight? I happen to know everyone is going to be at dinner and where.”
His lips twitch again and he gives her a serious look. “Maybe I can find the time.”
She rolled her eyes and relaxed. “Oh, if I were you, I would.”
Original Prompt that we sent you: The tone/mood of the fic: Sweet and sad. Comedy is a huge plus too.
An element/line of dialogue/object you would specifically like in your fic: New Orleans (even if it's just mentioned, Draco in Witch Weekly). These are not mandatory, but I'd love to see them.
Preferred rating of the the fic you want: Any
Canon or AU? Either
Deal Breakers (anything you don't want?): OOC. Keep them as close to
canon, as far as character-wise, as you can.
Rating: PG-13
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Just mention of acts of sexual nature, angst. Some harsh language.
Summary: Draco has been missing for two years. When Ginny’s Quidditch team makes a trip to New Orleans, the place Draco was last seen alive, Ginny accidentally finds him, which brings up a lot of unresolved issues.
A/N: This was not the plot I planned, or the style I planned, or anything I planned. I tried to squeeze some comedy in there, it just didn’t quite take. But it was a blast, watching it write itself, and I hope you enjoy it!
Passion and Patience
*
Ginny hates travelling. She just does. Especially Muggle travelling. She has no problems with Muggles, really she doesn’t, she just has a problem with all their ways. Everything takes forever, everything is ridiculously complicated, and the real problem is that she just doesn’t understand why they couldn’t take Floo, or brooms, or swim over the ocean, for Merlin’s sake, as opposed to taking the huge metal bird and spending three hours at customs trying to explain to a sweaty bald man why they are adamant about transporting over a dozen brooms overseas, preferably as carry-ons.
She wishes she could just swallow this day and forget about it. She wishes she could forget the article, forget the day, not go to United States to play bloody Quidditch when it’s only a barely-important tournament, and crawl under blankets and sleep. Or think. Or anything that isn’t what she’s doing right now.
Gwenog chats her ear off the whole way. Ginny grunts and nods at all the right times, staring sullenly out of the plane window, imagining the air that could be blowing in her face if she was flying - really flying.
She knows she’s not herself. Usually, she’s the one cheerful traveller on her team, taking everything in stride, but she doesn’t want to be here. This is her first trip to the States - being a part of the British and Irish League and not having the most successful last few years, the team hasn’t had occasion to travel overseas since she joined. To top it off, they just have to stop over at new New Orleans, don’t they? Someone just had to get the bright idea to do some “tourist stuff on the way” and pick that city to start with.
No one in the wizarding world can think about New Orleans and not think about Draco Malfoy, too, and he’s the last person she wants to be thinking about.
On arrival, they huddle in the corner of the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, trying to appear as inconspicuous as possible, which is to say not at all. Over a dozen women, most wearing peculiarly-mismatched clothing, holding suspicious long packages is not very incognito.
“You look awful, Ginny,” Angela, the star Chaser, says with a fake concern she exhibits towards everyone. Ginny dislikes her greatly.
“Just tired. Kind of weird being here.”
“Muggle ways of travelling take getting used to,” Gwenog says in what she thinks is a comforting voice and pats Ginny awkwardly on the shoulder. The nurturing thing is not in her blood, but being the captain, she tries hard. “You do look really sick, Weasley, but you’ll be fine in a moment, don’t worry.”
“I’m fine now.”
“Of course, this is New Orleans, girls,” Angela sing-songs in an over-exaggerated creepy voice. “Take care not to end up like Draco Malfoy.”
“Angela!” Gwenog snaps, back in her element now.
An awkward silence descends. A few girls chuckle, some look down nervously, a couple don’t seem quite decided on what kind of reaction their own personal feelings towards the whole Draco thing warrants. Ginny finds the joke tasteless and looks out at the departing planes with a frown.
Draco disappeared two years ago, “in the line of duty”. When he had first decided to be a Hit Wizard, the wizarding world didn’t react too kindly. Yet when he became the best, no one seemed too surprised, either. It takes a Death Eater to hunt one down. Besides, he was reckless, impulsive, he lived and breathed his job and in the end, considering the job description and life expectancy of Hit Wizards, it was perhaps in the end decided that throwing some recognition and awards at a reformed former Death Eater would be easier than having to fill the multiple jobs he was doing single-handedly. The line for Hit Wizard recruitment was never very long.
Nobody misses Draco much, of course, and they’re too quick and only too happy to forget about the big inconvenient controversy no one seemed to be able to agree on when he was around. Now there is no need to agree. Ginny knows that the Malfoys are still desperately searching - there is a short article in the Prophet every once in a while.
Ginny was able to wheedle some unreleased details out of Harry on the subject. Draco disappeared at the end of an assignment, which he had completed successfully, apprehending a whole group of Voldemort-supporters with only a few other Hit Wizards. Ginny remembers Harry telling her reluctantly that it’s possible that Draco was kidnapped, in which case he was most likely killed, as no ransom note or information had ever arrived, or Draco had just walked off into nothingness on his own volition. There are some things Harry knows about Draco, no matter the unchanged dislike between them, that Harry doesn’t even know he knows, but she completely trusts his instincts. She doesn’t even know what she would like to be the case.
She feels exhausted, tired, apprehensive. She doesn’t look around like the other girls when they board a bus, barely even registers anything around her on their way to what she thinks someone says is called Rooster New Orleans Hotel. She dismisses everyone’s concerns with excuses of plane-sickness and fatigue and doesn’t know how she finally gets to her room, where she stands in the scalding shower for half an hour, enjoying the absolute warmth and silence of hot water in her ears.
*
She thinks about it non-stop, but she doesn’t really expect to find him. Not on this trip, nor ever again. Even though she shares Harry’s suspicions, when he’s just there, sitting in an outside café sipping coffee for all the world to see, she just can’t believe it. She attempts to wake up a couple of times, and seriously considers turning on her heels and fleeing before forcing a mental image of putting on her Gryffindor scarf and marches right over there, looking a lot more confident than she feels, she hopes.
He doesn’t look up at her when she stands in front of his table, unsure whether to tap him or call him. Finally, she quietly says his name. He looks up at her so quickly she half-wonders how he doesn’t dislocate his own neck. He’s no different from the way he’s always been, though she thinks from some angles, he looks like he may have lost hair. He has a deep cut on the lower right side of his lip. It makes his signature smirk seem now permanently etched in his face, and she can’t think of anything more suiting. He’s dressed like a Muggle, but well, as usual. He seems to have a good understanding of both style and Muggle fashion and ways of clothes, because Ginny has to admit he looks good, conspicuously good.
“Your parents will want a refund for all the investigators they’ve sent out looking for you, because you don’t seem to be hiding very well.”
She has no idea why she says that - where that even comes from. It kind of has the general sentiment she intended to convey, but definitely not in the way she hoped it would come out.
He stares at her as if he’s seeing a ghost. She almost wants to squirm under such undivided intense attention, so she takes a seat opposite him.
“What are you doing here, Weasley?” Draco finally says. His voice is cold and hard, and she remembers him, vividly, all at once, all the little details that time has managed to dull. She recollects herself, allowing everything she’s felt about him, about his disappearance, to wash over here.
“No, what are you doing here?” she snaps back at him. It’s as if no time has passed at all. As if they have just ran into each other at the Ministry and commenced their usual unfriendly games neither could ever resist each time they saw each other.
“None of your…” He trails off, looks away. The shock of seeing her begins to pass, and he seems uncharacteristically confused at how to react to her. The hatred and the anger are default, but she knows his bullshit quite well and the anger can’t seem to withstand that too effectively.
“I’m here with the team. We have a tournament in a couple of weeks, and it was decided to tour a couple of states before that, unwind after a difficult training season and meet at the tournament with renewed energies.” Only when she finishes does she realize she’s just recited Gwenog’s speech from a few weeks ago verbatim. What does he care about her team’s vacation or training plans? She just feels the need to keep talking. He could Disapparate at any moment, she realizes. She shouldn’t have told him about the rest of her team being here. Or maybe she should have, she doesn’t even know anymore.
He rummages in his pockets, pulls out a few bills and throws it on the table. One lands in his coffee and he pushes his cup away. He’s still a good Hit Wizard at heart. It may look like his moves are leisurely, but Ginny can see he’s making ready for a very quick getaway.
“Could we just go and talk somewhere first, Malfoy? It’s not like I can force you to come back, and I can assure you I have no back-up with me. I didn’t expect to see you, ok?” But it should have crossed my mind, she adds in her minds, her eyes not leaving his. “Just… Just give me a minute of your time. Do you think you could do that?”
You owe me that, she doesn’t say, but he hears it. Without a word, he stands up abruptly, seizes a cane she hasn’t noticed he had with him, and jerks his head at her to follow him.
*
She’s not sure whether the way to his house is long and complicated, or he’s been leading her in circles. They finally arrive at a nice townhouse. Inside, it’s surprisingly bland and lifeless. There is very little evidence of Draco anywhere. Not a loose sock, not a book or any other personal effect in sight.
He walks in, throws the keys onto a small table and continues walking into the living room, leaving her to close and lock the door and follow him. When he reaches a white couch that looks as if it has never once been touched, he turns to look at her. All of a sudden, he seems tired, deflated somehow. His eyes are duller than they used to be, she realizes, and there is a line on his forehead that’s entirely new as well.
There are so many questions that she can’t even begin to try and formulate them all. She leaves it up to him to speak. After all, he had to be prepared to tell her something if he agreed to talk with her.
After what seems like forever he takes a small step toward her. “You hate me.” The words don’t sound like a question, or an accusation, even. They’re just fact. He doesn’t sound like the fact bothers him so much, either, almost.
She frowns. “It was akin to a betrayal. If you chose this.”
“I chose it.”
Silence again. This time, he doesn’t hesitate to walk up to her. She stares up into his face defiantly, angrily, but when his lips touch hers she doesn’t push him away. In fact, she kisses him back, hard. He kisses her lips, her cheeks, her eyes. His lips travel down to her neck, his fingers running through her hair. It’s so natural it doesn’t feel real. She feels like she’s watching it all outside herself; everything feels hazy. He moves slowly, methodically. Passion and patience. Not something she thought possible, but he manages to practically ravage her at a painfully slow pace.
She only revels in him for a few moments before she needs him too, now. She tears at his clothes, digs her nails into his back, pulls his hair. She’s waited long enough. Deep inside she’s never doubted that this would happen someday. It’s not faith in him, and it’s not forgiveness. She doesn’t know whether she could ever offer him that, whether he deserves that, or is worth it, but for tonight they seem to surrender completely. Because they both need each other. Without explanations, knowing anything or understanding what has happened in the last few years. They both know that perhaps if - when - they finally talk, they may find themselves out of reach of each other again.
There is an unspoken agreement between them. They never could find common ground, otherwise.
*
They’re not touching, but only just. She can feel the warmth coming off his skin, and enjoys the breeze on her own. The silence this time is not charged, not tense. She won’t mind if neither of them choose to break it, just for tonight.
Draco breaks the silence eventually, his eyes trained on the ceiling as if trying to see through it. “It’s what I needed to do. I don’t need to explain myself to you, ok?”
She sighs. “Then why are you explaining yourself to me?” Silence. “You could have told me, Malfoy. Told me… something. That just wasn’t fair, even considering you’re you.”
“It’s not like we had a relationship.” He closes his eyes and his face adopts a look she had seen him wear back at Hogwarts - one of stubborn, hurt denial. “Don’t tell me you cared.”
She sits up, hugging her knees and putting her head on her arms so she can look down at him. “You can call it whatever you want, Draco. I knew you had a problem with defining it as anything and I was absolutely cool about that, because I only cared about the way you acted. But in all respects, it was a relationship. We spent so much time together, although, ok, not in public. We saw only each other, we had sex, we shared interests, what else do you call it?” She narrows her eyes at him. “I knew who you are, and what I was getting myself into, but this whole thing was just unwarranted. “
“I had to get away from it. From it all.” He scowls. “You want me to admit it? You were the only part of my life that I didn’t completely hate. I didn’t mind it, in any case. Everything else was torture; I just couldn’t deal with it anymore. I don’t expect you to understand and I didn’t back then, either.”
Finally, she feels anger. About time. “Did you consider anything, or anyone before you did this?” She yanks the sheet around her, suddenly aware of the utter frankness of their conversation. “Do you not care that you screwed over you whole department? You were carrying a load of five and then just vanished without notice, without at least making sure you had a sufficient replacement and a well-established group before throwing them all into the chaos of your sudden absence. And your parents? I never thought I’d say this about these people, but don’t you think they deserve better than having to live with the gnawing possibility that their son is dead in a ditch somewhere?”
He sits up too, pulling the blankets over his lower body and leaning against the wall. He still avoids looking at her. “I was never that close to my parents, especially after the war. At the time I left, we hadn’t spoken in months. And I never intended to leave the impression I may be dead. I left. “
“And you haven’t seen the papers since?”
“I live across the ocean and I haven’t once consciously encountered a witch or a wizard the whole time I’ve been here. I won’t be able to tell you who the British Minister for Magic is, if you’ve changed him. Or who the American one, either, for that matter. I left New Orleans for a while when I knew there will be people looking, but since I’ve come back I haven’t once been troubled about staying hidden, until today.”
“You were in Witch Weekly today. Two year anniversary since you disappeared. The first thing I saw today when I woke up was you, scowling at me from the front pages of that bloody issue.”
He reaches out to her, and it’s so unexpected she jumps at his touch. She knows he won’t be able to say he’s sorry. He won’t even probably be able to explain why he left and what he’s looking for sufficiently enough for her to understand it. She doesn’t want to understand something that has hurt her so much, but perhaps he’s right. Perhaps she just can’t, anyway.
She can’t honestly say this came completely as a surprise to her, as shocked as she was. Now that she is beside him, now that she’s said what’s been burning her inside out for the past two years, she can see past it to at least understand that she has always known that Draco was a little different, still broken, still mostly unreachable, still working through things she couldn’t help him with. It’s hard to admit this, because she can almost feel the anger seep out of her at the thought, but she can’t fix him, can’t help him in any way but let him do what he thinks needs to be done and home it will be enough someday. Or give up, which she’s considered every day since they first kissed and finds herself less capable of doing with every day since.
“We’re leaving in a few days,” she says. “You won’t have to worry about being seen for too long.” She brings her fingers to grasp his hand on her arm. “The tournament will be over in a month, that’s if we keep winning, and then I will be back.”
He shakes his head slowly and then stops, as if giving up resistance. She smiles, and she thinks he attempts something similar in return, though he looks like a scared animal baring its teeth more than a contented human being.
She doesn’t know what she feels. She can’t deny the strength of her feelings for him, magnified all the more after seeing him unexpectedly after so long, and she knows he has ample blame in all this that he should be accountable for, but the immediate choice before her is whether she wants to bother at all. She can walk away and not look back, forget she ever saw him, or pretend to, and let him continue running for just as long as he pleased.
Somehow, their hands intertwine. She’s not sure. This will take serious time and consideration. But she highly doubts she can settle for giving him up. Not yet.
“How about showing me around this city tonight? I happen to know everyone is going to be at dinner and where.”
His lips twitch again and he gives her a serious look. “Maybe I can find the time.”
She rolled her eyes and relaxed. “Oh, if I were you, I would.”
Original Prompt that we sent you: The tone/mood of the fic: Sweet and sad. Comedy is a huge plus too.
An element/line of dialogue/object you would specifically like in your fic: New Orleans (even if it's just mentioned, Draco in Witch Weekly). These are not mandatory, but I'd love to see them.
Preferred rating of the the fic you want: Any
Canon or AU? Either
Deal Breakers (anything you don't want?): OOC. Keep them as close to
canon, as far as character-wise, as you can.