Disclaimer: I only own the plot, which wouldn’t exist without JK Rowling’s wonderful creations. ^_^
A/N: I went back and made the time span between the Hogwarts graduation and this story a little longer. Instead of three years after, it is five now.
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Chapter 2: The Birth
Draco slowly approached Ginny as she lay sobbing with pain. A house elf stood in a chair near her bed, watching her with huge, fretful eyes.
"Potion is coming soon, love," said Draco. Of course that was an assumption, but he hated watching Ginny in so much pain. Ginny looked over to him, trying to take slow, deep breaths. The house elf, Mauri, leapt off the chair and scampered out, as if Draco’s words reminded him he needed to get the potion.
Draco folded his arms and stood near the bed, appearing rather aloof. He was thoroughly unsure of what to do, and instead of panicking, he chose to...not react. Ginny winced loudly, a sheen of sweat breaking out over her skin. She rested her head back against the pillow after the contraction passed, suddenly feeling rather dizzy. The nurse then entered, followed by Mauri, who climbed back into the chair and offered Ginny a flask of pale purple liquid.
"Drink, love." Mauri pleaded, his ears drooping. He took to calling Ginny ‘love’ after hearing Draco call her that so often. Ginny allowed a small smile of appreciation grace her sullen features as she took the potion from Marui’s small hands. She downed the flask in one huge gulp, eager to relieve the intense pain. Almost as instantly as the last drop hit her stomach, she began to feel the veil of pain lifted. She closed her eyes as a peaceful calm flowed through her veins, thankfully dulling her senses as if she were in a drunken stupor.
An odd sort of pressure was applied to Ginny’s tummy and she looked down to it to find Draco’s slim hand resting there. Her eyes dragged up his arm and eventually rested on his face, which was impassive as ever. Ginny smiled at him lovingly, able to see beyond the ice in his eyes and into the warmth in his heart only she had been able to invoke. Draco began to rub in slow circles over her tummy and pulled a chair over by hooking his foot around its leg.
"Okay, Mistress, you need to put your legs up. I have to see how far along you are." Came the nurse’s voice at the foot of the bed. Ginny did as she was told, and Mauri scampered out again, possibly in an attempt to avoid witnessing anything too intense. Just moments after he left, Molly Weasley rushed in and sat in the chair Marui stood on previously.
"My dear, I couldn’t just stand out there and wait. I have to be in here with you." Molly explained, taking Ginny’s hand. Ginny offered her mother a happy, yet weak smile.
"I love you, mum." Ginny said, her voice wavering from the combination of the potion’s effects and hoarseness from yelling in pain before she took the potion. Draco watched them exchange their mother-to-daughter bonding session with partially detached interest, and took Ginny’s other hand with both of his.
"It’s about time for you to push," warned the nurse. Ginny wondered how she would push when she couldn’t feel anything happening to herself. She awaited the nurse’s cues, and with encouragement and support from her mother and Draco, Ginny’s efforts of labor were rewarded with a healthy little cry.
When Draco heard the cry of his newborn child, his entire world spun backwards for a few moments. It was almost as if his entire life up to this point had no relevance, well, except the day Ginny surprised the hell out of him and said, ‘Yes.’ He began to feel slightly sentimental, and it was almost disgusting. A voice in his head told him that it was all right to care deeply about things like this... It was Ginny’s voice of course, something he remembered her trying to prove to him long ago.
~*~* Flashback *~*~
The wind breathed wistfully over tall grasses that surrounded the lake at Hogwarts. Behind Ginny, the sounds of the Seventh Year Graduation Celebration echoed against the Forbidden Forest that loomed to the west. The battle against Lord Voldemort and the Death Eaters ended just a couple of months earlier—forcing the students to endure an additional month of classes to make up for the lost time. Perhaps that is why this year’s Graduation Ceremony was much more elaborate and festive than it has ever been in the history of Hogwarts. It had lasted for the past few days, with parties in Hogsmeade all day long and loud celebrations in the evening on the Hogwarts grounds.
Ginny was starting to get tired of the constant celebration. Since she was not a seventh year, there were many parties and gatherings that she could not attend, including the one currently throbbing loudly in the distance. Most of the attention had been directed towards Harry Potter, which was to be expected. She picked up a smooth pebble and skipped it over the surface of the lake. A tail of silver light followed the pebble as it skipped, and Ginny thought it looked sort of like a shooting star against the night sky that was reflected in the lake’s glassy surface.
"I wonder if you make a wish on a star pebble, would it come true?" Spoke a familiar drawling voice behind Ginny. She jumped a bit, and turned to be greeted by long, dark robes. Following the silver runes that traveled up the hem of the dark material, she met Draco’s cold, gray gaze. He glanced down at her, arms folded loosely over his chest, and offered a slight smirk.
"Sick of celebrating?" Ginny said, not moving from her seated position on the edge of the lake.
"Extremely." Draco answered disdainfully.
"How did you know where to find me?"
"I followed the shooting stars," Draco began, eliciting a blush from Ginny, "After a couple of hours suffering through the current celebration, I went up to the battlements to be alone...You know, it’s always Potter this, and Potter that at those dreadful gatherings... I saw your pebbles skipping over the lake—hard to miss from such a height. I guess it just seemed like something you would be doing, so I came to see."
"How can you know me so well, but I can’t even begin to figure you out?" Ginny teased, picking up another pebble.
Draco remained silent at that, and moved to sit down next to her. After the battle, he pretty much had to figure himself out all over again. Without the clear, albeit dreadful, fate he once possessed, Draco felt somewhat lost. Limitless horizons weren’t exactly something he was used to. He no longer had the threat of becoming a Death Eater hanging over his head, and the shadow of his father was now absent from his path in life.
Ginny watched Draco, who obviously had traveled into deep thoughts. She felt intense compassion for him after all he had been through. Loosing a father must be a dreadful feeling...regardless of how terrible he was. Ginny was almost certain that Draco felt aimless. They hadn’t talked much about the relationship that was developing between them ever since the battle. In some ways, Ginny was afraid that he was trying to avoid the topic altogether.
That instant, she made up her mind...she would confess to him how she felt.
"Draco, I love you..." The syllables slipped from her tongue without hesitation. However, after Ginny spoke those words, she began to feel him slipping away.
Draco continued to stare over the black surface of the lake. He heard her voice saying the words over and over in his mind. In all honesty, he knew very well that he felt the same way, but he also knew that she deserved someone who would be able to give her a fulfilling and blissful future. With the state of mind he currently suffered, he knew that someone was definitely not himself.
"I’m sorry," Draco finally responded. Ginny narrowed her eyes for a moment, not quite expecting that one.
"What?" She shifted so that she fully faced him now. He turned his face slightly to look to her flustered expression.
"I know we’ve been sort of...getting closer over the past few months, but, Ginny, it just can’t happen. Look at my life, at my past...I have nothing positive to offer you. The Ministry knows that my father was a Death Eater, and they also know that I was to be initiated. No doubt they will be keeping a watchful eye out for me. There are just too many dark secrets, and I don’t want you to get mixed up in the poison that runs through the Malfoy bloodline..." Draco’s eyes softened for a moment when he saw how vacant her expression had become.
"Don’t you see that none of that matters to me? I care about you so much...I’m my own person, I can make my own decisions. If my family hates the fact that I love you then they will just have to live with it."
"Maybe it should matter then. You are setting yourself up to have your heart ripped out and stomped over. I have no idea how to care about you or how to love you. Those are feelings I decided to close myself off to long ago." Draco stood as he spoke, brushing off his robes.
"All you have to do is let yourself...no one knows how until they allow themselves. Just forget every word your father taught you about how you should hide emotions... He taught you how to be a heartless bastard, just like himself, and I know that you truly don’t want to be that way..." Ginny was allowing her emotions to run away with her words. She stood as well, glaring at him unflinchingly, her dark eyes fixed on his.
"I’m sorry, Ginny. It isn’t that easy. It means more to me than anything that you care that much about me, but I don’t deserve it at all."
Ginny was lost for what to say. Tearing her eyes away from him, she focused on the dark line of trees that skirted the other side of the lake. She felt tears welding up in her eyes, and she tried with every ounce of will power to hold them back. Draco’s eyes never left her face. He hated himself for hurting her this way, but it just wouldn’t work. Taking a brave step closer to her, he lifted her chin with his hand and kissed her softly on the lips.
Ginny was unable to stop herself from wrapping her arms around his neck in a desperate attempt to keep him near. She felt his hands resting on her hips gently, and she responded by pressing herself against him. Their kiss lasted only a few moments, but the intensity was enough to send Ginny over the edge. She buried her face against his robes, tears slipping soundlessly down her cheeks.
Draco ran his fingers soothingly through her long fiery hair, going over in his mind everything that just happened. For a fleeting moment, he felt as if he was making a dreadful mistake. It was quickly erased by the memories of his past. Ginny held onto him as if in any moment he would let her go and would be gone to her forever.
"I don’t want it to be this way, you know that, don’t you?" Ginny whispered.
"I know. It has to be, though." Draco carefully pushed her away from him and looked down at her. "If it means anything—I won’t be able to forget you. I...I need to get going now...back to the Manor. I’m sick of this place..."
Ginny soon found herself standing alone once more by the lake. Maybe he was right...
That didn’t change the fact that she loved him, though. For two years Draco and Ginny had no correspondence whatsoever. No communication, until that day their paths crossed once again.
~*~* Back to the Present *~*~
Draco was just about to loose himself in thoughts about the day he came across Ginny after such a long time apart from her, when he felt something being placed in his arms. Blinking away from his memories, he looked down into the sleepy eyes of his newborn baby.
"Congratulations, Master Malfoy. She’s just about as healthy as a newborn could hope to be," the nurse said happily.
"She?" Draco asked, unable to take his eyes away from the baby.
"Yes. Disappointed?"
"No..." He couldn’t help but notice how much the baby’s eyes looked like his. Ginny smiled as she watched him, understanding that this moment must have been stirring up some distant part of Draco’s soul that he had lost long ago.
"She’s beautiful," Ginny said as she turned her gaze to her daughter with an adoring smile. Draco leaned over some so that the baby was partially in his arms and partially leaning against Ginny.
"That comes from my side of the family," Draco said simply, as if it were obvious. Ginny rolled her eyes and laughed softly.
"Well, she has my hair...aren’t you appalled?" Ginny teased, running her fingertips gently over the baby’s fine strands of strawberry hair.
"Your hair is beautiful, love. It isn’t as orange, and it has more finesse, than the other Weasleys." Draco answered, ignoring the sharp glare of his mother in law.
"Well, what are you two going to name my granddaughter?" Molly asked, changing the subject.
"Rachel Ashlyn Malfoy," Ginny said with a smile. Draco nodded at the sound of the name, smirking at how Rachel wrapped her tiny fingers around his thumb.
"She’s totally enamored with you, darling." Ginny said. "I really can’t blame her."
"Me either..." Draco added, his smirk deepening as Rachel opened her mouth for a wide yawn.
To be continued...
A/N: Thank you muches to all who reviewed the first chapter! ^_^ I hope you enjoyed this one as well, and I hope you’ll enjoy the interesting things that will be coming up soon in further chapters... ^_~
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Draco and Ginny belong to JK Rowling, Bloomsbury, Scholastic, Warner Bros and various other corporations. They are being used here without permission and/or affiliation with the above. None of the authors listed here make any profit from these stories.