See the prologue for the disclaimer.
Afraid of the Dark
Written by LJP
Chapter 12
Harry looked up when he heard Ginny laughing. He found her on the ground; Draco Malfoy sprawled out on top of her, both of them laughing uncontrollably. Harry watched as Draco finally rolled off from on top of her, clutching at his stomach.
Ginny propped herself up on her elbow and watched Draco. She had never seen him laugh before. In fact, she had never even seen him smile before. And the last thing she would ever have expected was that he would kiss her. They had been so close. A few more millimeters — a split second later — and she would have felt those small, thin, pink lips on hers. She closed her eyes, only able to imagine how they would have felt on her own.
"Mr. Malfoy, Ms Weasley!" Madame Prince had appeared at their sides. "I will not tolerate this kind of behavior in my library. If you two cannot conduct yourselves accordingly, you will need to find someone else in which to have your little rendezvous."
Ginny turned to her other side to look at the librarian. Madame Prince stood over them, her hands on her hips and her mouth forming a disappointed frown. Right behind her stood Harry Potter, his mouth wide open.
She struggled to her feet, gathering her books and notebooks and throwing them into her bag. Draco stopped laughing. He stood up next to her, putting a hand out to keep her from running off. "Ginny...?" His gaze traveled to the side, where Potter was standing.
Harry raised an eyebrow. "Ginny? He calls you Ginny?"
The girl being addressed let out a sigh and pulled away from Draco’s grasp. "Harry, Draco’s my tutor. For Potions. We were just studying."
"That wasn’t what it looked like to me."
She rolled her eyes, walking toward him and away from Draco. "Draco can be very charming sometimes Harry. You could learn a thing or two from him. He was doing a very funny impersonation of Snape, and we just happened to be laughing so hard that we lost our balance and fell." Ginny reached out to wrap her arm through Harry’s. "C’mon, don’t you have Quidditch practice tonight? I’ll come and watch."
As she and Harry walked toward the library door, Ginny snuck a glance over her shoulder, sending Draco an apologetic smile. He stood next to the table, alone, a frown distorting those wonderful lips of his. "I’m sorry." She mouthed sadly, before turning back to Harry, who had picked up on her fake enthusiasm for Quidditch and had begun to tell her all about the new plays the team had been working on.
Draco watched her leave. Once she and that prat had disappeared, Draco fell back into the chair, leaning on the table. He caught sight of a small brown book lying on the floor, probably having been knocked off in their fall. He picked it up and flipped it open to the first page.
"My Thought and Feelings: Virginia Annabel Weasley."
Once he had read the title and come to the conclusion that he was holding Ginny’s diary in his hand, he should have immediately went off in search of her to return it. Either that or he should have shoved it deep into his own bag to return at a later date. Unfortunately, he did the only thing he knew he should have done. He kept reading.
#42 Never take Ron’s Quidditch Weekly
He has this issue with those magazines. Especially when the Chudley Cannons are on the front. He’s always carrying it around with him; sometimes he even hangs the covers up on his wall. So, this one time, when I was so sick and tired of listening to him rant and rave about how they lost *another* game, I took the magazine. He wasn’t home when it came by owl post, so instead of giving it to him, like I should have, I used it to line Pig’s cage. You should have seen his face when he realized what the lining was...
Draco laughed out loud. He flipped to another page.
Reasons why I love Harry Potter — 1. His unruly brown hair and his gorgeous green eyes. 2. His scar — isn’t it *so* sexy? 3. He’s the world’s best seeker. 4. He could beat You-Know-Who with his wand tied behind his back. 5. He’s smart. 6. He’s funny — yesterday he told Ron he looked like a tomato when he got angry. 7. Because he’s Harry Potter!
Draco couldn’t read anymore of that, so, since his curiosity had already gotten the better of him, he turned to another page. Instead of words though, he found a drawing Ginny had sketched. And, to his surprise, it was of him.
He trailed his fingers over the dull gray lines. It was a sketch of the evening of the ceremony, in which Draco was at the center, his hood down and his face looking up at the moon. His sleeve was pushed up, and Draco could see the faint lines of the Dark Mark drawn onto his own forearm. She had captured the moment as if it had happened. Draco thought back. Had it? No one but him was in the picture. He looked at himself, and realized there was a tear at the corner of the drawn Draco’s eye. Was this how Ginny saw him? He glanced down at the bottom of the page for the caption — Perfection...
On the page opposite was a short poem. Curious, he read through it briefly.
Through the looking glass
peeking in on life.
Crystal clear images burn
while unheard thoughts appear.
Reality is a mirror of truth.
Is what you see real,
is reality really true?
Sitting, waiting, wondering.
Images blur past
chatter isn’t understood;
feelings, emotions, needs,
jumbled together as one.
Nothing makes sense to me.
Am I an outsider looking in,
or an insider looking out
into the face of reality?
Draco managed to tear his eyes from the page. He slammed the book shut and set it on the table. How did she see him? That evening, when they had both pledged themselves to the Dark Lord, did his feelings betray him? Had she been able to see the truth, that he had not wanted to be there? Why had she been there? Is this how she felt? She was an ousider to the rest of the world? Did she believe in reality?
There were so many questions racing through Draco’s mind at that moment. He wanted to know the answers to all of them. Part of him was sure he’d find them in the book that was now sitting on the table. But another part knew that was betraying her trust. Ginny was too perfect to lose.
Just as he was about to get up and head to the Quidditch pitch in search of her, a sharp, burning pain shot through his forearm. He clutched at it, sucking in a deep breath. Then, he jumped up, grabbed the diary and tossed it into his bag, and bolted for the Dungeons.
He needed to see Snape.
***
Author’s Note: The poem found in Ginny’s diary is mine.
"To thine own self be true." - William Shakespeare, Hamlet
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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.