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Promises	By : recension Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Ginny Views: 2750 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: Harry Potter, all characters items and worlds, do not belong to me but to WB and JK Rowling. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 6
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Ginny ran her fingers across Harry's scalp as he slept. She had recommitted herself to the marriage, recommitted herself to their life, but in the weeks since Christmas little had really changed.

Though it was clear Harry knew about the affair, he never mentioned it. Ginny never spoke of it, and she tried her best to prove she wouldn't waver again. As the dalliance grew further and further from her mind, she was grateful it had ended quietly and with some dignity.

She still thought of Draco, but she knew their relationship was no longer a possibility. Their time had been the once upon a time when he had needed kindness and she had needed honesty, but the affair had never been permanent.

Harry shifted in his sleep and Ginny let him resettle, his arm slung across her lap, his face resting on her thigh. He gave a soft snore. She shut her book silently and set it at her bedside, tracing over the infamous scar on Harry's forehead. When they had married, they had sworn to honor one another, and she would try her best to do so again. Harry would never do anything to hurt her. Not intentionally. It was the lie that she had built her life around.

With the Quidditch season starting, Ginny began to find her workload overwhelming. There were never enough correspondents to cover all the matches, and the race to meet deadline was challenging. Tacking away at her notes of the just-finished Kestrals-Cannons game in the wee hours of the night, Ginny tried her hardest to keep focus.

"Potter! Lend us a hand?" Cal McDougall shouted down to her. The night editor was four feet tall and constantly running about as if on fire. "I need a pull on anything related to the Malfoys in the past five years," he called out in urgency as he raced across the narrow byway above the open bullpen, the metal giving a terrible clacking noise with each of his hurried footsteps, "Priority one!"

"What's going on?" Ginny frowned at the urgency. "I have to finish up the match write-up..."

"Priority one," he demanded. "Obits need it!" Cal called, running along the second floor offices before pausing at the mouth of a hallway headed towards the hall of records. "Rumor has it Narcissa Malfoy won't last the night," he shouted, shuffling down the hallway, his footsteps fading into the darkness.

Ginny stood at the gates to Malfoy Manor with a bouquet in her hands. For the first time in weeks, she'd lied to Harry about where she was going when she left the house. He wouldn't understand and she didn't want to waste her breath explaining.

She remembered so vividly the last time she had been inside the gates. Draco had given her a full tour of the house, from the attic to the dungeons. As he calmly explained the horrors of the household and his childhood there, he held her hand tight.

It was the day she realized she had fallen in love with him.

He moved on to explain each object he'd collected, filling the rooms of the dark house, breathing new purpose into the home. There was every kind of object in magical history, restored and cataloged with great care. He'd turned the house into a museum of sorts—using his wits and his fortune to try and preserve history. It was proof to anyone with a mind that Draco Malfoy was a believer in magical progress, but it was unlikely to be how history would remember him.

Narcissa had been dead for less than a day and Ginny herself had already overheard phrases the woman did not deserve. 'No one ever lets me forget who I was,' Draco had told her once. She understood that more than ever.

She stood at the gates of the manor for almost a half hour debating if she was even welcome to cross onto the property. In the end, she placed her bouquet at the gate, and retreated.

The winter continued to be mild. A few snowfalls after Christmas, a few thaws, and spring broke early to raucous color. Just as the cherry blossoms began to bloom in mid-March, just as the Falmouth Falcons were preparing for their season opening, Narcissa Malfoy fell ill and swiftly passed on not long after.

Unprepared, Draco retreated from the world.

In an effort to feel near to her again—the steadfast woman who had protected him above all else—Draco had slept in her bedroom since her death. Surrounding himself with her belongings comforted him in a rare and precious way.

With no family and no remaining close friends, there was no funeral and no fanfare. Draco was grateful he did not have to host in his state. Without others around, he was free to grieve without attempts at maintaining his mask. He could remember his mother as she truly was to him. He was certain he had never been weaker than he was then. Those days seemed without hope of an end, until he found the diary.

Narcissa dipped her quill in ink, bringing it to hover over the page as she watched Draco out on the heath. The cottage was more humble than either of them had anticipated, but it was the perfect hiding place while they weathered out the aftershock. Leaving Lucius behind had been a necessity, but she wasn't sure her son believed it to be so.

Draco had found a spot in the grass, his dark clothes easily spottable against the greenery of the country field and the cloudless blue sky. She wanted to know more than anything the thoughts going through his head. His whole entire world had changed. Unlike her, Draco had no experience of the first war to call upon. He had no idea what lay before them going forward. He was still a boy to her, just seventeen.

She brought the quill to the page and began to write. She explained to him that one day he would realize all his father had done for him. One day he would realize the awful situation thrust upon their family. "Mal foi," she defined for him. "Bad faith."

She told him the words she could never find the courage to tell him out loud: how often she had prayed for the courage to leave the pureblood life behind. She begged him to find love, true love, and to throw away all obstacles in the way even if they were of his own making.

"Do not mistake stubbornness for strength," she advised him.

Narcissa realized how grateful she was that she had escaped the war with the only thing that really mattered to her: Draco. Sitting in a dusty cottage in the middle of nowhere with barely a possession to her name and no money to speak of, she was content.

She watched her son's face the wind, his hair carrying, his unshaven jaw a strong profile as he shut his eyes in the fading sun of the day. They had spent so long in darkness, the both of them. No longer.

"Leave this earth having expended all you have to give. Be brave," she signed it. "Your ever-loving mother."

Ginny tried her hardest to maintain a smile, finding it impossible to shake the set of eyes burrowing into her. Harry was speaking at the podium now, something she was used to, but she felt a thousand leagues under water. The chuckles and smiles of the rest of the crowd drifted above her in reminder of how charming Harry could be when the effort would go applauded. She wasn't even listening. Ginny added extra effort to her expression, flashing her eyes to her husband in what she hoped read as adoration. Inside, she couldn't breathe.

When Harry had concluded, amidst a loud cheer, Percy joined him on the stage. With a clapped hand to the back and clasped hands, they held for a photograph. Her brother, the most ambitious one, had finally decided to announce his candidacy for Minister of Magic. Running on a strong boost of post-war support—with Harry as a firm endorser of his name—Percy was already making a fast run out of the political gate. This, the first of many fundraising dinners to come, was sure to be an important evening for her family. Not wanting to detract any attention, she quietly excused herself to get some fresh air.

Ginny weaved through rows of circular tables, navigating her way quickly towards the exit. Though it was chilled outside, she was just happy to momentarily be gone from the hall and the silver eyes that had been tracking her all night.

"You look ill," he drawled, joining her on the steps of the venue without invitation. It was the first set of words she'd heard from him in over four months; their time apart had grown longer than their time together. His voice was sharper than she remembered.

"You are the last person I expected to see here," Ginny faced him, noticing up close how he seemed to be quite gaunt. She suspected his mother's death was to blame.

"My best guess is your body is slowly killing itself so that you don't have to plaster on the smile anymore. The charade is draining you," Draco produced his silver cigarette case from an inside breast pocket, placing the fag between his lips and lighting it with a soft snap of his fingers. He held the open case out to her in invitation, frowning as she shook her head in refusal. He snapped the case shut rudely and replaced it to its pocket before expelling a breath.

Ginny felt the sting of his words but knew he was probably just intending to hurt her. He had heard all of her confessions, if he truly wanted to wound her he had better ammunition. She decided to aim for pleasantry at an easier approach. "I was sorry to hear about your mother. I brought flowers, but..."

"I got them," he quipped to cut her off, expelling a smoke-filled exhale.

She felt frustrated by his attitude, but knew she deserved the treatment. "I am sorry about the way we—"

"—Don't," he murmured, pulling the cigarette from his lips with his right hand, rubbing between his eyes briefly with the thumb of the same hand.

"Why are you even here?" She asked softly, crossing her arms over her chest.

"I am considering donating to the campaign. Something about that Potter chap just sweeps me up in wallet-opening nostalgia," he sardonically spoke, bringing his eyes to meet hers.

"He's here to annoy me," Harry interjected, drawing attention at the top of the steps. He descended slowly, pausing to slide off his cloak when he reached the others.

With care, and a sharp glance of warning, Harry slung the garment over his wife's shoulders. "They're just about to bring out dessert," he spoke to her, resting his arm around her waist in gentle possession. Something about Draco observing the display made Ginny's stomach twist.

"Enough," she gently warned her husband, wanting to diffuse the situation quickly. Harry had been kind-hearted about the affair thusfar but Draco could never resist getting the last word in. She knew it was best to let herself be lead. Harry guided her up the steps, but as she crossed the threshold of the hall she heard her lover's voice resonate inside her head.

"I would gladly step aside if I knew you were happy," Draco's words sent a chill up her spine but she kept walking, lulled by the clear message and the sensation she hadn't felt since girlhood. "This world has begun to strip me of everything and the only thing I mind is that I am facing a life alone. Without you."

Ginny tried her best to conceal what was going on, looking around at all the faces of her family and friends, feeling further from them than ever. She could see Draco had reentered the hall and his eyes were on nothing but her as she settled into her seat.

"I need someone to be kind to me but you need someone to be truthful. For my part I never was quite as honest as I should have been."

"What you are doing may feel right, like you are making everyone happy, but betraying yourself can never be the right choice. Anyone with eyes can see how miserable you are," Draco spoke, and Ginny shut her eyes tight as he pulled forth memories of their time together from the deep corners of her mind. She couldn't block him out—her Occlumency skills were incredibly rusty and she had no real will to fight him.

"This is who you truly are. This being," he spoke, pulling her memories of their midnight flights together, of making love in his bedroom at the Manor, of sharing meals and the morning paper at the Savoy. He pulled apart memories from her Harpies games, DA meetings, moments from before they knew one another. "This is the woman I love."

Ginny felt tears form behind her shut eyelids and she used all her will to push one question into their shared consciousness, "Why are you being so cruel?"

She immediately felt the images recede from her mind and his voice went quiet. She opened her eyes and found him in the crowd again. She could feel sweat had formed on her brow but she didn't break concentration to wipe it away.

"I was invited, tonight," Draco's voice whispered.

"Do not be a coward, I beg of you," he called to her once more, as she watched him turn towards the exit and disappear.

Ginny sat at the foot of her bed waiting for her husband to return. Draco's presence and his words had shaken her for the rest of the evening. While Harry had lingered to glad-hand donors, she headed home first to gather her thoughts. 'Do not be a coward,' he'd said, and the haunting explanation of his presence echoed in her mind: 'I was invited.'

The door to 12 Grimmauld Place shut with a firm click and a lock and Ginny felt ice start to pump in her veins. Harry's shoes climbed the stairs, uneven footsteps making the old house creak. He pushed open the door to the bedroom with a huge grin, "That went quite well, don't you think?" he bellowed, cheeks rosy with alcohol, eyes alight with ego.

"You invited him," she spoke clearly, standing to face her husband. "You are the one that invited Draco tonight."

Harry's movements slowed and he turned, tugging his tucked shirt from his pants before clumsily working on the buttons. He didn't respond. His silence was answer enough.

"I thought he went there to torture me... but it was you," she accused him softly.

Harry's eyes raised to meet hers and she felt anger course through her body at his nonchalance. "Maybe you deserved a little torture."

"Every day with you is torture enough," she whispered under her breath, regretting the words as soon as they had left her lips.

Her husband's eyes turned mean, and he tugged his shirt from his shoulders. "Like it's such a pleasure having the ice queen in my bed," he murmured, moving to the bathroom and tugging the door shut with a slam.

"I thought it was a kindness that you never brought up the affair, but you were just keeping quiet because you knew how much guiltier it made me," Ginny shouted through the door. "But I'm finished feeling guilty about it, especially if we're going to treat one another this way."

"I never brought up the affair because you never brought up mine, Ginny," Harry shouted back, not opening the door. "We both knew it was never worth throwing anything away for."

She let the words hover for a long minute, wondering how much slack she should cut him for a late night and a few drinks. Do not be a coward. The thought had never occurred to her that Harry had been stepping out on her, though it felt obnoxiously obvious once it was proposed. Harry had moments of unparalleled narcissism, covered in jest or joking—always—but she knew better. Details aligned themselves in logic: he had been so understanding when her sex drive disappeared, he had been so supportive of her taking time to 'figure things out'.

His blind eye towards her affair was just an attempt at paying her back for a shared knowledge she had been ignorant of. He thought I knew.

She moved to her closet and hastily dressed again, buttoning up a pair of jeans as Harry emerged from the bathroom. "Where are you going?" he asked, slow, anger rising in him again. "To Malfoy? To be fucked by a fucking Death Eater again?"

"The war is over, Harry! The war has been over for twenty years," Ginny found her volume rising. "It's not an excuse for your behavior anymore. I can't even stand to look at you right now."

"Where will you stay?" Harry's voice softened, anger leaving him with every passing moment. "With him?"

"No. I doubt I will," Ginny crossed her arms defensively. "I'll probably be with my family, until we sort out the next step. I'll come back tomorrow to pack, if that's okay."

Harry nodded and cleared his throat in a sudden shyness, "I'll make myself scarce."

Ginny took a deep breath and nodded, struggling to find the proper words to conclude the night, to conclude her marriage. "I never intended for this, Harry. I do hope you know that," she finally spoke.

Harry minutely shrugged his shoulders. "It happened, Gin. That's all that matters."

Ginny had intended to go straight to Luna and Rolf's. She'd knock on the door, explain in vague terms, and occupy their guest room for the night. She'd sort out things in the morning. But somehow her feet and a hunch carried her to The Daily Prophet headquarters instead.

The office was dark, long deserted, as Ginny lit the overhead lamps with a whispered incantation. The desks, scattered with papers and clippings came into view, rising out of the pitch black as if they were coming to life. This place had been her sanctuary. It had been always been hard work, but she was proud of her rise in institution. The people who occupied these desks and offices were a reliable family to her, genuinely caring for the person she was and respectful of the home life that defined her. The thought that she might have been betrayed by The Prophet was one she did not want to leap to without foundation.

She dropped her keys on her desk, shucking her coat and hanging it on the back of her chair in habit. She looked around the room and decided her first stop should be to the Society editor's office. The witch who ran the small department—Edna Sinclaire—was a terrible gossip, and fond of the gray areas of journalism. On more than one occasion she had been known to dispatch private investigators to help fuel her 'news scoops'. Ginny tried a few simple unlocking charms for the door, frowning as the knob refused to turn. The more rational side of her psyche begged her irrational head to see the light. This is absolutely mad behavior. Her irrational side refused to listen.

Ginny, prepared for the level of security, transfigured the door itself to gelatin. She reached her hand through the door, turning the manual lock and withdrawing her hand before transfiguring the door back. It swung open with no trouble.

She was careful not to dislodge too many items in her search. If the evidence she was looking for was here, it would be cataloged and readily reachable. Ginny opened all locked drawers and filing cabinets, searching under 'H' for Harry, 'P' for Potter, 'G' for her own name, and finally 'B' for Boy Who Lived.

Turning up empty, Ginny rearranged the office and locked the door on her way out.

She ran her eyes over the desks in the bullpen trying to discern who was next likely, raking over the chairs and nameplates of people she considered friends. With sanity taking over slowly, she returned to her desk and donned her jacket again, picking up her keys and slipping them into her pocket.

Go home. You don't even know this exists. Snooping around everyone's belongings is a sure way to get fired.

She glanced over the offices on her way out, unable to help pausing in front of Felix's. She had grown to trust her editor, but standing in front of his office door she felt drawn to give his things a once-over before putting the matter to sleep.

Ginny tried the knob and found the door unlocked, her pulse racing as she invited herself into the office and began a search. His filing cabinets again proved empty, but in the bottom drawer of his desk under a bottle of fine scotch and a few lewd magazines, Ginny found a sealed envelope with the word "Potter" scrawled across it.

She settled into his chair and gingerly pulled the envelope out of the drawer. She flipped it over, untying the twine in haste. Mentally, she chastised herself for the pain she was about to inflict on herself. I have to know.

She reached a hand into the envelope and pulled out a stack of glossy photographs. Dates were marked in the corners of the photos in red wax crayon; going as far back as three years prior. She laid out the photographs—eleven in total—on Felix's desk in chronological order. She was staring down at a catalogue of Harry J. Potter's briefly moving trysts.

The women looked different, but it was hard to be sure they weren't the same witch. The photographs had clear focus on Harry: his scar, his glasses, his eyes unmistakable for anyone else. The settings were different, and the actions of the subjects were varied: sometimes he was kissing her, sometimes they were in the throw of something more intimate, but Harry's grin was omnipresent.

At any moment, it was about to rain. Ginny could feel the moisture in the air, August in London. Harry pressed her up against the window frame of the Whitehall pub they'd just left, his breath hot with beer and desire. They couldn't keep their hands off one another. Two months married, and still honeymooning they'd only come out that night to prove to their school friends they were still alive. The night had involved plenty of teasing and a too-public discussion of newlywed activities but it had been a good time. Ginny pulled Harry's hands from around her, steering her face away from his kisses. "Let's just go home," she begged him.

Harry grinned but shook his head, his strength easily overpowering hers as he pulled her close again, and up against the window pane. Ginny twisted her neck and could see Seamus and Dean pouting their lips childishly as they laughed and watched from inside.

"Harry, enough," Ginny shoved him away firmly, righting her dress and running her fingers through her hair in embarrassment.

"What is anyone going to do, Ginny? I saved the whole wizarding world! I can have a snog in the street with my wife if I like," Harry grinned, approaching her again, his hands gripping her hips and pulling them flush against his, "I can do whatever I want."

Ginny grabbed his wrists and Disapparated them without warning, landing them in the small living room of 12 Grimmauld Place. She shoved him to sit on the couch and tossed him a knit blanket. "Good night," she spat at him.

She stomped her way up the staircase and shut their bedroom door with a slam. It was the first fight they'd had as a married couple.

Ginny reached for the envelope again, hoping for a note or sign of who had sent the photos, but there seemed to be no other trace. She flipped over each one in succession, finding them blank to some frustration. As she looked over her husband's face once more, she felt bile rise in her esophagus with haste. She barely had time to grab Felix's rubbish bin before her stomach emptied.

When she had finished being sick, Ginny cleaned the bin and herself, carefully returning the photographs to the envelope and resealing it.

The envelope sat on the desk, the object of her heartbreak and her freedom. She thought for a moment she might cause the thing to burst into flames with her preoccupation. She was tempted to sit in the office until dawn and confront Felix when he arrived, but she was not in the mood for yet another argument.

Ginny wasn't sure where she could go now, at this late hour of night, but she resisted who she wanted to see the most. After making sure the envelope was un-miss-able—square in the center of Felix Skeeter's desk—Ginny Disapparated.

Draco settled himself on the edge of his bed, tugging shoes from his feet and letting them clamor to the floor loudly. He wasn't proud of his behavior that night—muscling his way into Ginny's mind was not something he ever intended to do—but he felt he had to get through to her somehow. If ever there was anyone worth taking a risk for, it was probably Ginny Weasley.

He rose, shedding his robes on the floor, kicking them away before settling into his bed stripped and alone. The rest of the room was a mess, a reflection of his mental state, but his mother's diary sat tidy and treasured at his bedside.

Ginny settled on the roof of her childhood bedroom as she watched the sun rise over Ottery St. Catchpole. She had not intended to stay up until dawn, but the Burrow roof was more inviting than her bed in the early hours. No doubt the news of her dissolving marriage would be a shock to her family in the morning, and her parents deserved their full night's rest. Ginny craved the moment of peace.

It was almost eerily quiet, the frost of the fields warming to dew in the spring sun. The Otter River, slicing across the countryside and flowing with a gentle, even current. The starlings had woken; tiny black birds taking short flights across the plain only to land and peck at the fertile ground near the river. This world had once been her dominion; it was comforting to once again be amongst the familiar.

In the calm dawning light, the severity of her situation hit her with overwhelming force. Tears began to form and flow freely and Ginny found herself sobbing briefly as the stress of the night imploded within her. After a few minutes of catharsis, she felt much more spent but also much more at peace. For the first time in nearly two decades, Ginny Weasley felt a kind of weightlessness.

She was free.
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Promises