Title: Red Hair and Weeping
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Harry/Draco pre-slash, past Harry/Ginny
Content Notes: Angst, EWE
Wordcount: 4500
Rating: PG-13
Summary: In the wake of yet another break-up with Ginny, Harry finds an unexpected option: Draco Malfoy and an offer that will change his future.
Author's Notes: This is another of my Advent fics, for a request that Draco "save" Harry from marrying a woman like his mother and prevent the epilogue from happening.

Red Hair and Weeping

"That's the end."

It had been a full day since Ginny had said that and slammed the door, but the words still seemed to echo in the air. Harry wandered around the main room of their flat, tracing his fingers along the cracks between the stones, and across the mantel, and down the side of the iron dragon that Ginny had bought for him as a birthday gift.

She'd never taken her gifts back, or suggested he should return them to her. That was one reason that let Harry cling to hope. In a few weeks or months, Ginny would be back, and she would move her clothes and the gifts he had given her back in, and then it would be as if she'd never left.

This wasn't the first time they'd broken up. But every interval between when she left and when she came back got shorter and shorter. That had to mean something, right?

Harry sighed and sat down on the couch, looking around. Ginny had so much life to her. She filled the room with glittering light, tossing her hair and hanging up her Quidditch gear and complaining about the Harpies' new coach who wanted her to be "safe" and didn't understand that sometimes the Seeker needed to dive after the Snitch. Even though Harry's job as an Auror was technically more dangerous, he thought hers sounded better.

He didn't have the genius Ginny did for telling stories. It was one reason he needed her so badly.

Someone knocked on the door. Harry looked up and blinked. It was probably Hermione coming to console him, but she usually Flooed first. Maybe she had already heard Ginny's side of the story and wanted to hear Harry's right away, without asking if she could come over first.

Or maybe she thinks that I'm brooding and she needs to snap me out of it, Harry thought in amusement as he went over to open the door. Not that he was brooding. He knew Ginny would come back. He would only be brooding if he thought there was any chance that she would stay away forever.

To say that he was startled when he opened the door and found Draco Malfoy standing in the small corridor outside his flat was to say that Voldemort had been a bit unstable. Harry knew he was gaping, and that Malfoy was watching him with a faint smile, but he didn't care. It wasn't like there was a crowd there for Malfoy to humiliate him in front of.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" Harry finally asked.

"To talk to you." Malfoy sounded eminently reasonable, even as he brushed forwards and past Harry into the flat. "No problem, right? I know you're not busy right now."

"Sure, come in," said Harry sarcastically, and turned to watch Malfoy with a frown. He disturbed the echoes of Ginny's presence and made Harry think of other echoes instead, like the fights they'd had in Hogwarts.

Harry didn't want that to happen. He wanted to be alone with the echoes until he could have the real thing back again. "What do you want, Malfoy?" he asked, folding his arms so that the git couldn't think he was welcome.

Malfoy was darting these expert, scathing looks around that made Harry feel like he'd already estimated the value of everything in the flat and found it wanting. He turned back with the same faint smile. "To talk to you. I did say that, right?"

"There's no reason for you to be here. We've already repaid all the debts that we have." They'd agreed on that. Harry had testified for the Malfoys in the Death Eater trials and returned Malfoy's wand, and Malfoy had donated some money to a new orphanage and stopped insulting the Weasleys. That took care of everything.

"I know. But there's a different kind of debt. One I think you know. You wouldn't see someone walking towards a cliff and not tell them it's there, right?"

"I would assume they knew about the cliff."

"Trust me, not in this instance."

The way Malfoy's eyes glittered made Harry feel uneasy and defensive. He moved over to fiddle with the iron dragon again, using that as an excuse to keep looking away from Malfoy. "Fine. What's the cliff you wanted to warn me about?"

"Your relationship with Weasley."

The first Weasley Harry thought of was Ron, because surely Malfoy couldn't be stupid enough to comment on the one he had with Ginny. But from the way Malfoy raised his eyebrows and coughed a little, apparently he was, and Harry felt like he was the stupid slow one.

"I'm an adult. It's my business who I want to date."

"Oh, ultimately? Of course that choice is up to you. There's a few things that you need to know before you can make it in the full light of truth, though."

"If you're talking about rumors that Ginny cheats on me when we're separated, I won't believe them, Malfoy. The Prophet spreads those all the time, and there's never any truth to them."

"I don't believe them, either. But I see they're completely accurate about how pathetic you are when she's not with you." Harry bristled, but Malfoy shook his head and threw something hard and square at him. "First, I wanted you to see this."

Harry blinked and turned the hard object around. It appeared to be a picture frame, and he wondered what sort of picture Malfoy could have got or taken that he thought would show Harry the "truth."

When Harry had the frame upright, he realized it was actually a swivel frame, split in two. In one side was a picture of his parents on their wedding day, from a photograph Harry knew had been in the Prophet. His mother's hair shone as she leaned on his father's shoulder and they both smiled up at Harry.

In the other frame was a picture of him and Ginny. Harry frowned at it. It wasn't a recent one, he finally decided, which was probably why he didn't remember it. There was a white corner behind them that might be Dumbledore's tomb. Ginny leaned her head against his shoulder and smiled up at the camera, while Harry put an arm around her shoulders and bent over to inhale the scent of her hair.

"Yes, what about it?" Harry asked, finally glancing up at Malfoy. He hoped that might tell him something.

Malfoy stared at him and then rolled his eyes. "You really don't see it?"

"Ginny and my mum have the same color hair, if that's what you mean-"

"And you and your dad look so much alike."

Harry blinked at the sound of the words, which were insinuating. But insinuating what? "Er, okay. Everyone's told me that for years, Malfoy. It's not exactly news."

"But why would you want to marry a woman who looks exactly like your mum?"

"Ginny doesn't have green eyes." She might have a temper as fiery as Mum's, though. From Snape's memories, Harry had learned his mother could be angry sometimes, which wasn't emphasized in the stories of anyone still alive. Even McGonagall only told him over and over how sweet his mum was.

"But you're acting exactly like your father," Malfoy said, and his voice had lowered. "Marrying a woman exactly like your mother. Is that really what you want to do?"

Harry felt a little stir of unease, but he said again, "Ginny doesn't have green eyes."

"Do you think you'll have a child exactly like you, too? That you'll have lives exactly like theirs?"

"I hope we won't get killed in a war," Harry snapped back. "And I hope we'll have more than one child. If we had a boy we could die to protect, though, that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world." He folded his arms. "I'm still waiting for this huge revelation that you promised me, Malfoy."

Malfoy looked at him and clucked his tongue once. "What makes you think you'll have the perfect life with Weasley?"

"I never thought it would be perfect."

"But you think it'll be blissful."

Harry hesitated, then shrugged. He'd never said that exact thing about his upcoming marriage to Ginny-always delayed, always pushed away, but never forgotten-but he supposed he could like the word. "It could be."

"Are you going to be happy because you're marrying the woman you love, or because you're marrying a woman you expect to give you back the life that your parents could have lived with you?"

"What right do you have to ask these questions anyway, Malfoy?"

"The right of someone who overheard Weasley talking in a pub yesterday, and didn't want to show you the memories," Malfoy snapped back. "I'll tell you that the resemblances came to mind for her a good deal earlier. And she's frightened by them."

"Um. What?"

"Do you have a Pensieve around this uncultured hovel?" Malfoy had already touched his wand to his temple, but paused and looked around as he seemed to realize that he would have nowhere to put the memories.

"Fine," Harry said, which he hoped Malfoy took as agreement even though it wasn't really, and went over and opened the cabinet where he kept the Pensieve he'd bought soon after the war. It was expensive, but worth every Knut he had to spend. He plopped it down in front of Malfoy and watched in silence as he pulled out the memories.

That he had memories of something was honestly more than Harry had expected. He found himself bending towards the Pensieve before Malfoy had finished yanking the silvery strands out of his head. Malfoy gave him a smug look.

"So confident that you're going to prove me wrong, Potter?"

"Still wondering why you've interested yourself at all, no matter what you heard Ginny say," Harry retorted, and bent down to plunge his face into the gathered memories. But Malfoy took his arm and held it. His eyes were so dark that Harry frowned at him.

"I want to see you happy."

That was so absurd Harry gaped. Then he gave a bark of laughter. "And you think seeing this is going to make me happy?"

"More like I might keep you from making yourself permanently unhappy if you marry Weasley."

Harry removed his hand from Malfoy's grasp and bent determinedly over the bowl again. He would make his own decisions, his own judgments. This was probably something minor that Malfoy was exaggerating to make himself look important.

Then again, Harry was uneasily aware that Malfoy hadn't demanded anything of him in the past two years since they'd settled their debts. And he'd never seemed concerned about Harry's bond with Ginny before this.

Harry shoved the thoughts out of his mind. The Pensieve was waiting.

The silvery surface broke and reformed into the hot, smoky interior of the Leaky Cauldron. Harry leaned out of the way of someone staggering by with mugs of butterbeer-he could never quite convince himself a Pensieve memory wasn't real-and looked around.

He easily caught sight of Ginny's hair, one of the brightest things in the place, and turned determinedly towards the table. Malfoy was doing the same thing beside him, silent. He saw the past Malfoy out of the corner of his eye, and snorted. He was under the wavering haze of a Disillusionment Charm.

He really wanted to listen in, didn't he?

Harry shook the thought of why away from his head. Malfoy had always been prone to paying more attention to Harry than he ought to, and that had presumably extended to his relationship with Ginny. He watched as Ginny slammed down the mug she was drinking from and scowled at Kyla Ternorn, another Harpies player.

"Harry isn't like that at all, Kyla."

"I only thought he was because you complain about him so much." Ternorn widened her eyes in what Harry knew was mock innocence, and would have known even if he hadn't just seen it in Malfoy's face. "Forgive me for taking an assumption to its logical conclusion."

"You can shut up about it any time," said Ginny sullenly, and stared into her drink. Ternorn only waited, with the patient air of someone who expected the conversation to continue any moment. Harry swallowed. Had Ginny complained about him a lot? And what about? He wished Malfoy hadn't missed the first part of the conversation.

Then he winced. He shouldn't be hoping that a school bully had been more successful in spying on his girlfriend.

"He just...he doesn't really understand me," Ginny went on, and she was rambling a little, but Ternorn still listened. "He thinks we're going to have a perfect life, like Mum and Dad, or his mum and dad. But I don't want to stay home and be mother to seven kids like my Mum. I don't even want to fight in a war like Lily Potter."

"What do you want to do?"

"Play Quidditch. And then have a couple kids, but not for years. But Harry never listens to me when I talk about that." Ginny slumped at the table.

"You never talk about that," Harry snapped, before remembering he was talking to a memory. He saw Malfoy smirk from the corner of his eye. Scowling fiercely, Harry redirected his attention to Ginny.

"Well, men don't like to listen to that kind of thing, darling." Ternorn dabbled her fingers in what looked like the sauce from a pervious meal. "You might admit that your Harry is like that, just like I was saying."

Ginny didn't seem to hear her. She stared at the far wall of the pub, and sighed. "I think this might be permanent."

"What is?" Ternorn covered her mouth with sauce-streaked fingers and yawned a little.

"The last break-up with Harry."

Harry swallowed. He certainly hadn't thought that might be true. Ginny had fought with him about a stupid thing and left for a stupid reason, just like all the other times. He had thought she would come back.

She always came back. It was one of the undeniable truths of his life.

He felt a hand on his arm, and looked at the present Malfoy. The past one was over near the other side of the table, but Harry didn't feel compelled to look at him. He was staring at the emotion burning in Malfoy's eyes, instead.

It wasn't triumph, the way Harry had thought it would be. It was concern.

"Are you sure that you really want to listen to the rest of this?" Malfoy whispered.

Harry only shook his head and focused on Ginny again. "I can listen to this. I need to listen to this."

"I worry that I keep going back to him because I'm going back to a dream," Ginny whispered. "A dream of the Boy-Who-Lived I was going to marry. I used to lie awake at night swearing that I would do that, you know? I dreamed of walking up to him in a beautiful set of robes, and he would look at me and find me most worthy of all the witches who were throwing themselves at him."

Harry blinked. That was certainly a dream she'd never confessed to him, and he thought he knew all of Ginny's dreams and fantasies.

"It's not entirely his fault if he falls short of that, you know," said Ternorn, and picked up a small piece of cheese to crunch between her teeth. "No one can live up to a young girl's desires."

"Whose side are you on, here?"

"Yours, of course, darling. I'm just trying to offer an explanation for why your dream seems more special to you than he does."

Ginny stared at the table and traced the outside of a butterbeer ring. "But I thought...I thought I'd accepted the reality, and even preferred it to the dream. I don't want the dream to be the thing that matters to me."

"And you don't want his dreams, do you, either?" Ternorn placed a hand on Ginny's arm and patted it in a way that told Harry she was familiar with Ginny's moods. She didn't want to be in the way if Ginny would snap in a temper. "You don't want to be a perfect wife, or him to be a perfect husband."

"No," Ginny said through a throat that sounded dry. "I convinced myself it would be a perfect compromise between dreams and reality. We would be as happy as his parents or mine, but for different reasons. We would have children with red hair and green eyes when we were ready. I would stop playing Quidditch when I was ready, and he would find some less dangerous job than an Auror's."

Harry shook his head, feeling the irritation buzz in his ear like a bee. Ginny had never said that was what she wanted. He was upset he hadn't fulfilled her dream, but on the other hand, she had never told him what he fell short of.

"What keeps you from having that kind of future?"

"We fight all the time, about stupid things."

"Most couples do."

"But I realized the other day that I wasn't looking forward to going back to him because I value the privacy I have right now more than the chance to make up with him." Ginny looked up at her friend. "What kind of future does that say I should have? One with him, or without him? What does it say that I find it creepy that he looks so much like his father and I look so much like his mother? I don't want to be a second-rate Lily Potter."

Harry made a little grunting noise before he thought about stopping himself. Malfoy kept his hand on Harry's arm and glanced at him.

"Yes," he murmured.

Harry had no idea what he was saying. He moved a little to the side, again away from the Disillusioned Malfoy of the past, so that he could see Ginny's expression more clearly.

Ginny looked as if she had just hit herself in the stomach with a Bludger. Her friend Ternorn looked much the same. She cleared her throat and awkwardly passed what looked like the remains of a mug of butterbeer across the table to Ginny.

"I think you need something to drink."

Ginny did drink, and spluttered a little when she swallowed. That made Harry decide it was probably something stronger than butterbeer. Ginny turned her head to the side and muttered, "Did I look that bad?"

"Yes, you did."

Ternorn's bluntness seemed to be what Ginny needed. She smiled faintly and said, "Okay. So I've come out with it, and that resemblance that my mum was always gushing about because she thought it made our marriage destined is just creepy to me. So what do I do?"

"Well, obviously you're not going to marry him." Ginny's expression changed a little, and Ternorn snorted and rolled her eyes. "Come on, Gin, I know you. You won't condemn yourself to unhappiness for the rest of your life because you want to make other people happy. I know it. Don't kid me, now."

"You're right about that much."

"Good." Ternorn leaned forwards. "Are you afraid he might not let you go? Do you need a place to stay for a while? I'm pretty sure that he doesn't know who your closest friend on the team is, if he never pays attention to you the way you say he doesn't."

Harry felt his heart ache again. He'd known who Ternorn was because of what Ginny called her and because he had seen her photograph in the paper clippings that Ginny and Molly hung up. It was true that he'd never heard Ginny talk about her as someone more special than the rest of her Harpy teammates.

I never really did listen to her.

Of course, she'd never listened to him, either, if she thought Harry would track her down and force her into a marriage she really didn't want.

Ginny laughed in a watery voice and shook her head. "I have my own place, Kyla. Harry and I are broken up right now, remember?" Again she traced her fingernail around the outside of a circle on the table. "I think I'll just avoid him and then not come back. Refuse to hear him when he Floos me. That is the best way."

"It's the coward's way," Malfoy muttered from behind Harry.

Harry started, partially because he agreed with Malfoy. There was plenty of time for Ginny to come to him and explain that she didn't want to go through with the marriage before they actually did it. But she wouldn't, apparently, so it was up to him to break things off and confront Ginny directly.

As he rose out of the memory, he wondered how much of what Ginny had said was the result of him "never listening" and what part was her just never saying anything. He couldn't recall the last time they'd had a substantial conversation about the marriage. They talked about Quidditch and his Auror career and her family and the way crazy fans wouldn't leave Harry alone, and sometimes Hogwarts. And their arguments.

I have a right to leave her behind if she's planning to leave me behind, Harry thought, as he opened his eyes in his quiet flat once more, and Malfoy stepped away from the Pensieve and eyed him.

He did, but until this conversation, he'd had no clue that she might want to leave him behind permanently. He looked up at Malfoy, whose wand dangled in his hand as he watched Harry carefully.

"I didn't see any sign those memories were tampered with."

As he had thought would probably happy, Malfoy's nostrils flared with indignation. "I wouldn't do something like that," he said in a clipped voice.

Harry waited a second, then dipped his head in response. "Fine. But why would you bring this conversation to me at all? Why not just wait for me and Ginny to break up, and then revel in it from a distance?"

"Because I thought you probably didn't know about it."

"That doesn't answer my question, Malfoy. What do you care if Ginny and I break up?"

Malfoy stared at the floor, his wand dangling in his hand now. Harry watched him. He had no sensation that Malfoy might be about to attack, but on the other hand, he was acting strange.

Then Malfoy took as careful a breath as though his throat was lined with razors, and looked up.

Harry's own wand, which he hadn't even realized he'd drawn, clattered to the floor as he stared disbelievingly at Malfoy. His heart was in his eyes, and he reached out with a hand that trembled and closed his fingers slowly around Harry's wrist. Harry was too stunned to stop him.

"If I'd waited too long," Malfoy said in a fragile voice, "there was the chance that you would already have moved on with someone else."

Harry said the first words that came to him, the ones that would put Malfoy and his fragile voice and open eyes on the other side of the room. "I don't like you that way."

Malfoy flinched hard enough to tear his hand from holding Harry's wrist, but he didn't run away like Harry had expected. Instead, he swallowed and said, "I know. But I want-I wanted to give you the chance to-to know that I do."

There are so many ways to handle this moment wrong.

And Harry chose one of the ones he knew to be right.

"I-I'm not going to be getting back together with Ginny," he said, and saw the way Malfoy's eyes promptly snapped back up to his face. "I didn't know that she felt like this, but at some point, I'll tell her that I know, and I think it's best that we agree to break up forever like mature people." He rubbed his scar, a habit that hadn't faded, and took a deep breath.

Malfoy made no sound. He was so still that Harry couldn't hear him breathing.

"It'll probably be a while before I feel ready to move on with someone else. And I think one reason I kept going back to Ginny is that I trusted her. She was like my mum, sure, but also-she was my best friend's little sister, and a girl I actually dated in Hogwarts. I trusted she would never betray me to the papers the way that some people might."

Malfoy continued to not breathe.

"I need someone I can trust," Harry continued. His tongue felt heavy. "Someone who wouldn't betray him for fame, or money, or because they just can't wait to gossip to someone else about what it's like to date the Boy-Who-Lived. Someone who has interests that I might not even know for certain existed, but that I can rely on."

He shifted his gaze to Malfoy. "Someone who was motivated by caring for me, for instance. Someone who might have continued to care from a distance and wouldn't have imposed himself on me, but someone who couldn't resist when he heard my girlfriend saying what she said."

Harry moved forwards and clasped Draco's hand. Draco was breathing now, but it was quick, shallow pants that made Harry fear for his continued consciousness. He wrung Draco's hand a little and directed his gaze back to Harry.

"Someone motivated by care and selfishness and the notion of doing a good deed and benefiting himself all at the same time. Someone interesting."

He squeezed Draco's hand. Draco began to breathe slowly, but consciously, as if he was struggling against the impulse to simply faint after all.

"Someone who might have to wait still longer while I see if I could muster up a romantic interest in him." Harry gave Draco an apologetic look. "Can that someone stand to wait?"

Draco gathered up his own courage, visibly. Then he whispered, "He could."

Harry squeezed Draco's hand, again. Then he stepped back and added, "Want to help me pack up some of the things Ginny left here? I think they should be returned to her as soon as possible."

Draco's smile was slow and warm, and filled a hollow that had been there, in the middle of Harry's chest, since he'd witnessed the conversation between Ginny and her friend in Draco's memory. He nodded again.

"I could."

The End.