- Chapter 5 -

It wasn't long before they finally arrived at a cozy, family-run shop with the best homemade pizza Ginny had ever stumbled upon.

Her eyes danced to watch Draco take in the eclectic decor with its riot of clashing colors. There were the checkered walls in all their avocado green and hot pink glory. The tables were mustard yellow and plastic, their chairs worn and wooden and painted a ketchup red. A wheelbarrow overflowing with potted plants occupied one corner while a four-foot-tall statue of a garden gnome greeted visitors at the door.

A grimace of distaste curled back Draco's lips, and his raised eyebrows silently communicated a questioning of both her tastes and her sanity. She patted his arm in teasing reassurance before leading the way to a window-side table facing the street. The lunch rush was past, in which she'd seen the place packed like Flobberworms in a bucket, but even now, a decent number of patrons remained.

In seconds, a doe-eyed, impossibly perky waitress swung by to drop off menus. Having already decided, Ginny set her menu aside and spent the time biting her lips to keep laughter in check as Draco scrutinized the offerings like an Auror scanning for death traps.

Growing bored with him still mumbling over his choices, she flitted her eyes around the room and grinned to find other ladies and even a gentleman returning repeated glances Draco's way. Though it was no longer the case, months ago the observation would have surprised her.

For Draco wasn't handsome in the conventional way. Even now that he was grown, his face remained too pointed, his features too sharp for him to be labeled so. His blade of a nose and razors for jaw lines cut out a rather severe profile when paired with his accustomed scowl.

She'd often thought he had too many frown lines for a twenty-one-year-old and didn't laugh hardly enough to counter them. Some nights, especially when buzzed, she'd made it a personal mission to rectify that depressing fact. It didn't help matters either that when stressed and exhausted (which he'd been all too often in their early acquaintance), the shadows under his eyes would darken until they resembled ghastly bruises, turning him practically ghoul-like.

At the moment though, well-rested after their late lie-in, there was a healthy glow to the pearl shade of his skin, his posture relaxed, free of tension, but no less poised. With all the good breeding drilled into him since birth, she suspected he couldn't sit gracelessly if he tried, no matter how much his surroundings might discomfit him. His refined bearing only added to the way his well-tailored clothing defined him, no place too tight or too loose, the cut perfectly emphasizing the broad slope of his shoulders tapering into a fit torso. Memories ghosted over her, recalling the sensation of those firm planes of heated skin and muscle quivering beneath her hands and mouth and tongue, his deep groans of pleasure urging her on like the pull of a spell.

Oh hell, if she let him, he could draw her in just by being. Ginny attempted to tamp down her wildly inappropriate thoughts, given their setting, but her gaze continued to take him in.

There was something about Draco that drew the eye as she'd come to learn, something beyond his statuesque appearance with its unusual, too pale coloring that made one look twice. Not that she'd been able to pinpoint what it was exactly. Perhaps it was in the way he carried himself with the unfailing manners of an aristocrat or in his steely self-assurance that remained regardless of how far the Malfoy name had fallen. Sometimes, too, in her more whimsical, inebriated state of mind, she'd find something utterly tragic in the slant of his cheekbones that invited the comparison to fallen angels.

Internally, Ginny snorted. That was too ridiculous a thought to be had in the middle of the afternoon while fully sober.

At the moment, however, he did look different, somehow. Maybe it was the way his hair and the long fringe of his lashes caught the sunlight slanting through the wide bay window, the golden rays turning the silvery-blond strands into an even more ethereal shade. As she stared, he glanced up at her. The light played wicked tricks then too, highlighting icy blue flecks that she could've sworn had never existed in the grey of his eyes before. Said grey seemed different as well—the color more intense and piercing. The moment his gaze met hers, she felt suddenly choked, like her breath had caught in her throat, annoyingly so.

The late afternoon light became him, which she couldn't have known, not when all their rendezvous until this point had transpired only between the dark of night and bleary grey of dawn.

"What?" he asked with suspicion, no doubt having noted her keen stare.

Not like I'd tell you. The bloke had a big enough ego as it was. Ginny shook her head to clear it of the exasperating, dumbfounded shroud that had overtaken her seconds ago and reached within her mind for the first available deflection, which came easily enough. "For Circe's sake, Draco, I didn't bring you here to kill you. Haven't you decided yet? I'm hungry."

One pale eyebrow twitched, and like a man resigned to his fate, he sighed. "Fine. I'll take what you recommended, and if I suffer, it's all on you."

She shrugged with a grin. "All the more for me."

When the steaming slabs of pizza arrived and he gave no obvious signs of disapproval after the first wary bite, she shot him a smirk of smug triumph that he was determined to ignore.

His reaction hardly came as a surprise. Draco was never one to gush, to show effusively any of the positive sort of emotions. Even in anger these days, he was reserved. She supposed he was forced into it, to adapt quickly under the intense scrutiny his family faced post-war. One volatile word, a single wand or hand raised and either he or his family would suffer for it. Things had quieted down considerably since then, the accusatory editorials fewer and farther between, but as he bitterly reminded her every so often, the shadow was forever cast on the Malfoy name. People still stared and whispered and were prone to violent confrontations, especially when drunk enough.

Sometimes, especially on chilly nights when she found him sitting alone in godforsaken joints, the grey of his eyes dull and distant, unsettling pangs would disturb her chest—pity or even sympathy spasms perhaps. Somehow the sight of a fallen Malfoy hitting rock bottom struck too close to home, and she wouldn't be able to leave him alone anymore than she could stop breathing.

How delighted her younger self would've been to see the arrogant Malfoys brought low. But oh how the Fates have played them both to have brought them here, tucked into a corner of a Muggle restaurant, and with her infinitely preferring the current Draco with the bright glint of playful exasperation in his eyes to the one on those frigid nights, seemingly ready to give up on the world.

Unbidden, the thought unfurled in her mind.

I'd hate to lose him.

The pizza slice she held froze halfway to her lips; her unoccupied hand gripped at the table, nail scraping against the plastic. Her stutter in movement was fleeting for she immediately smoothed over her hiccup to avoid drawing Draco's questions.

Still, there it was. The awful admission. She could no longer take it back.

Ginny stuffed her mouth and chewed for far too long as an excuse not to talk, further turning her head towards the window in pretense of people watching.

Damn it, but it was true. She would hate to lose him in that awful, cold, permanent way as another thorn-covered tombstone in the graveyard of relationships she'd left behind her. But you won't, her voice of reason interjected, and she was all too eager to listen.

No, of course not. He's not like the rest, she reminded herself.

She glanced back at him and nearly choked with suppressed laughter to see him so concentrated on taking a neat, precise bite as she'd shamed and forbidden him from asking for a fork and knife.

Merlin what was I even worried about there for a second? Their connection was one of lighthearted fun, leaving no ways in which to wound one another, to betray. He was a perfect companion in that way, and she was wholly content to go on as they were—a rarity for her these days when it came to people.

That's probably the main reason why, why I keep coming back.

"How are you?" she asked abruptly and knew Draco would give the question his full consideration. She was done with false pleasantries, had been for a long time now, and he knew it. She didn't ask if she didn't care, and she hated fake answers just for the sake of answering. I'd rather that you'd ignore me than to try and mollify me, she'd told him harshly one night.

Draco swallowed his food and pinned her with the focused stare she still had trouble deciphering. A moment of contemplative silence passed before he answered."Better, I suppose."

"You suppose?"

He glanced sideways, directing his gaze to the sparse foot traffic outside the window before turning back to her with a shrug. "Hard to tell at times. You know all about it—whether something's a blessing or a curse—"

"—we're both hogwash at telling." She laughed, the notes of it weighted with cynicism.

He laughed bitterly with her and lifted another slice to his mouth. Despite his care this time, the bite was far from tidy. His face crinkled in annoyance as a stringy bit of mozzarella stuck stubbornly to his lip.

Reminded of a petulant child, an image at odds with the normally dignified wizard, she giggled and reflexively reached over to take a light hold of his chin, swiping away the cheese with her thumb.

He stiffened under her touch, leading her to freeze also before letting go and leaning back to let her peals of laughter ring loose. People turned and stared, and Draco levied at her his strongest you're-clearly-unhinged look.

She slapped the tabletop a few times over to regain control. "Good Godric, the picture we must make. A Prophet journalist somewhere would give a good arm or leg for it. Can you imagine?" There'd been the occasional shadowed photo of them, snapped in the dim lighting of taverns and published with the most hilarious, scandalous headline—but in an average-Joe, Muggle restaurant? That was media gold. She'd joked with Draco before that they could fake their own scandal as a get-rich-quick scheme.

Come to think of it, this is a first for us, isn't it? A proper sit-down meal, no hard liquor in sight or in their system, and in broad daylight no less. The thought set her off again. It really was difficult to tell sometimes who or what was more insane—her or life in general. Stomach aching, Ginny drew a deep breath and drained half a glass of water to calm herself.

"You're a good sport, Draco," she said as she reached for another slice of pizza. "I admit I don't give you nearly enough credit for that."

"And for a lot of other things beside," he scoffed.

She grinned mid-bite, and unlike him, took little care in containing the gooey burst of sauce and cheese spilling over her lips. It was an added bonus knowing that the display of bad manners would only further annoy Draco. Across from her, he cast his eyes towards the ceiling, muttering something inaudible under his breath. Ginny giggled and with deliberate intent, reached with her fingers to swipe at her sauce-smeared mouth. The action was never completed as Draco's arms got in the way, startling her to find his hands suddenly cupping her face.

She'd expected annoyance and exasperation in his expression but not the intensity that seemed to bottle flash lighting in his eyes.

"Stop that," he said, and in one fluid movement, he leaned over the table's narrow surface and closed his mouth over her lower lip, deftly sucking it clean before moving to coax her mouth to open for him.

She smirked against his lips, playfully puckering up but denying him entry until she drew an almost growl from him. He took instant advantage of her laugh, swallowing the sound as he sealed his mouth to hers.

For the moment, she indulged him—hardly a sacrifice when he tasted of spices and heat, his knowledgeable tongue turning languid strokes into an insistent rhythm of a song and dance whose meaning she knew by heart. More. Closer. Not nearly enough. His warm fingertips slid against her cheeks and jaw line, pressing in harder.

She leaned forward, chasing that burning need he was so adept at stirring, bracing herself by gripping at his forearms, deliciously taut and firm beneath her hold. Damn if he wasn't good at making her forget herself. Even if she was technically letting him, in a corner of her mind, it vexed her that she couldn't be entirely sure if she was in control.

The annoyance though was but a background buzz to the heady sensations of his lips and tongue on hers. Coherent thoughts were fleeting until the catcalls and disapproving mutters became too loud to ignore.

"Mmm," she hummed in appreciation when they simultaneously pulled back. His long, tapered fingers coasted languidly down her cheeks before his hands fully released her and settled back by his side.

She arched an eyebrow in amusement. "So wiping with one's fingers is too plebian and crass for a Malfoy, but public snogging isn't?"

His lips tilted in a rakish smile, a look she found much too attractive on him. "It's infinitely preferable, especially when the witch forces your hand."

"I did, did I? Figures you'd have an excuse. You Malfoys would scarcely be the P.D.A. types."

"We aren't, no. Every Malfoy learns all too quickly that openly displayed emotions are a dangerous thing." He chuckled without mirth.

They'd swapped a few childhood stories, and though she knew Draco had been far from unloved, it was a kind of love night and day to the one she'd received from her parents. Colder and lonelier, it seemed in some ways, coming from her perspective as the baby of a large, impoverished family, but she found herself wondering these days if the ruthless, steel strength of the Malfoys' brand of love might ironically endure, keeping their family together where her family's bond could not. The example of Percy and herself rung loud in her mind. A strange thought, but these were stranger times than any she'd lived. At least the war had been predictable in the death and devastation it wrought. But this...

She glanced around the restaurant, catching a few disproving stares along with some knowing winks for their earlier wanton display before turning back to Draco.

How unbelievable was all this? More than half of the time, her life felt unreal these days. Unpredictable. Volatile. So what else could she do but take it one step at a time?

"You're thinking too loud," Draco said, and she knew that something too was on his mind when, without complaint, he sipped absently at the far inferior wine that came with their meal.

She didn't want to talk about unpleasantries just then, and she doubted he did either. It was likely the same issue from earlier that he'd evaded, and she wasn't about to pry where she was clearly unwanted just as he'd thankfully backed off for her numerous times over. No need to ruin a good meal on top of it either.

"Distract me," she told him instead. "I don't want to dwell on what I have to do today."

Annoyance flushed his pale skin with pink, and she knew exactly what he was about to offer. "You don't have to do any of it. Frankly, it wouldn't be—"

"Not a chance, Draco. I still have my pride even if it kills me."

He scoffed. "Famous last words."

She raised her own wine glass at him in mocking salute. "Hello pot, I'm kettle."

"Honestly, sometimes I haven't a clue what to do with you," he muttered before downing the rest of his wine.

"I don't know about that," she said with a playful waggle of her eyebrows. "Experience says you seem to be fairly knowledgeable in that area."

He latched onto the line as she knew he would, irritation giving way to a wicked gleam in his eyes. "Really now, but how long has it been? Perhaps we should refresh your memory just to be sure."

She smiled as her non-answer and took an impish delight in how he grew visibly more frustrated. I'll pay for this all right. After all this teasing, when he finally gets his hands on me...

A pleasant shiver shot through her center, and she suspected that Draco must have sensed it or merely guessed at her thoughts. His agitation smoothed over in seconds, and he returned a smile that was positively devilish in nature, the promise of retribution shining in the granite glints of his eyes.

He finally did comply with her request, indulging her with tales of petty office politics and Blaise's latest escapades as they polished off their meal. She sprayed wine in laughter and laughed even harder at his responding show of exaggerated, mortified disgust. She regaled him in turn with tales of her night time revels in the month since they last met. Predictably, he took particular relish in learning about her terrible hook-ups to which she rolled her eyes with an internal sigh.

And like before, his ready commentary had her in stitches. The wine continued to flow and her sides continued to heave with hilarity between swallowed morsels of the savory pizza; as the afternoon ticked by, it was as if the rest of the world, restaurant and all, had faded away, leaving only the tiny sphere occupied by the two of them—so much that it was a palpable shock when a chance glance at the clock, the hands creeping past four o'clock, sent all of reality crashing back.

"Shite! I have to go." She had to get it done before dinnertime.

Ginny flagged down the waitress for the bill and paid with her remaining Muggle notes. Draco glared at her the entire time, but she'd banked on the fact that he hadn't been prepared with Muggle money to fight her on it.

"I'll have you know that this doesn't mean I gave in," he asserted. "This is simply collateral so that I get to pick next time."

"Whatever keeps your food down," she replied smugly.

Back in the Shielded alleyway, he asked if she needed a hand with the move.

She stared at him, a bark of disbelieving laughter escaping her lips. "Are you seriously saying you're up for being skinned alive by my family?"

"I'm not afraid of them, if that's what you're implying," he replied, lips curling back in derision.

"Liar. In this, you're ever still the coward, Draco."

The whole of him stiffened, indignation flooding his cheeks with color. It was becoming easier to get under his skin, she mused with a quirk of her lips. Teenage Draco had been an easy piece of work to rile up, but post-war Draco in contrast had acquired the control of a rock. In those early encounters with the older Draco, especially on his bad nights, it had been nearly a game for her just to get him to react.

He seemed to guess her thoughts or remembered himself because his cheeks cooled to their nonchalant paleness, his gaze holding hers steadfast. "I get the sense that's not the insult it used to be."

She nodded with a half-smile. "It isn't. Not from this ex-Gryffindor. Not from me." I'm not that girl any longer, thank Merlin.

"Regardless, you'd be dead wrong. The offer stands."

She patted his arm before stepping away and pulling her wand from the pocket of her dress. "How generous of you," she said over her shoulder, "but I'll be fine. Can you imagine the hell that would be raised if I brought you?"

His hand on her wrist made her pause, and she turned around to regard him curiously.

"At least..." He hesitated, sounding uncharacteristically unsure, but then, as if a resolution had been reached, all uncertainty in his face dissolved. "You're welcome to come to dinner with me afterwards."

"Dinner? With your parents?" Laughter poured from her, rich as yolk from a cracked egg. "Thanks, but no thanks. Are you out of your mind? It's hardly my idea of a good time, and I'm sure it's not your parents' either."

"I'm serious, and I doubt it will go as you think." His brow crinkled with frown lines, and she felt the odd urge to smooth them out again.

Leaning up on her toes, she planted a swift kiss on his cheek. "It's been nice, Draco, but I know a polite, reluctant offer when I see it. I'll see you later. You can, however, save me some dinner. I'm sure it'll be delicious—that is, if Malfoys even do leftovers."

She chuckled and stepped away again, wand raised, but once more he stopped her with a hand to her wrist.

"It's because of my father, isn't it?"

She spun to face him, her brows shooting into her hairline. He seemed shocked by his own admission, face drained of what little color he had. Briefly, he looked away and then back again at her. His grip on her wrist tightened, and she heard the peculiar shaky intake of his breath.

In a rigid, quiet tone, he continued, "I found out what happened, and I've been meaning to tell you for a while now. There just never seemed to be the right..." He cast a glance around at their surroundings and gave a rough bark of nervous-sounding laughter, so at odd with his normally imperturbable self. "Not like now is any better either, but..." His voice turned ever quieter, sounding more like a mere shadow of the real thing. For a moment, silence stretched on before finally, with an exhaled breath, he said, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for whatever little it's worth—for what my father did to you."

The words hung heavily in the air between them. She knew not how to respond.

When he next spoke, an urgency and fervor laced his tone. "It excuses very little, but you should know that he never knew the extent of the diary, Ginny, never knew that it could possibly..." Draco paused, swallowing visibly, and turned his gaze to some point beyond her left shoulder, his lips twisted in a humorless smile. "Did you know? The foolish boy I was actually wanted to be you in a sense, to serve the heir of Slytherin. I'd thought it'd be a glorious honor." He looked at her then, and she knew that feverish heat in his eyes all too well.

"They taught you to believe that it would be," she said, laying a reassuring hand to his cheek. "You're not entirely to blame, you know that."

His laughter was dry and brittle as rust. "And you know that only makes it worse. If a wizard can't even take full responsibility for what he did, then what does that make him?"

A spineless coward. More dead than alive, he'd told her before in true vino veritas fashion.

She rapped a finger against his temple as if in a wake-up call. "We're not nearly drunk enough for this. As I'm entirely certain I'll need more than a stiff drink or two tonight, let's take a rain check on it, shall we?"

He was silent for a moment before shaking his head, the shadow that had fallen across his face clearing away. "What a terrible enabler you are," he said with a warmth she could nearly label fondness—the exasperated, the-things-I-put-up-with-you kind.

Her roll of the eyes was equally so. "You're one to talk. But really, I have to go if I want this to be as quick and painless as possible."

Instead of releasing her, he grasped both her wrists and yanked her closer, drawing her flush against him.

"Where are your manners, Weasley? I should think I more than deserve a proper goodbye," he admonished, head lowering towards her. In the meantime, the cad had switched his grip to the curve of her hips and backed her right into the brick wall of the alley.

She bit back a laugh. "Manners, huh? Says the one with his hand on my bum."

"Don't lie," he mocked-scold, close enough now that she could feel the air exhaled with each word. "You don't think I know that you chose this dress—its length, its color—for a very nefarious purpose?"

Though pressed for time, she couldn't resist responding, tilting her chin forward in playful defiance, the motion bringing her lips closer to the corner of his. Her counter question was intentionally low and breathy—a combination she knew perfectly well was often his undoing. "And what would that be?"

His mouth turned to speak his answer into her lips. "To drive me mad."

His last word came out as nearly a growl, and in the next instant, his lips were on hers, nipping and demanding them to open up for him. The whole length of his body pressed her further into the wall. She ground back against his hips, and to her satisfaction, he was forced to stop suckling her neck to bite back a groan, his hands digging in harder at her sides.

The man was starved, she could sense it in the heat and persistence of his skilled tongue and hands. Good Godric, Blaise must not have been kidding about the dry spell after all. The thought was a fleeting one amidst the aching need building in her and the fog it induced on her mind, but she tucked it into her memory with the hope that enough alcohol might eventually get to the bottom of said oddity.

It was sheer necessity that speared through her pleasurable haze, startling her just enough to forcibly push Draco back just as his hands slid far up her skirt, his fingers skirting the lacy edges of her knickers. She held him at arm's length, breathing heavily for a second to catch her breath as he stared at her in stunned confusion before she ducked out the side and pulled away from him completely.

That was close. She chuckled as she straightened her clothing, pulling bra straps and the sleeves of the dress back onto her shoulders from where he'd yanked them down to access her bare skin. Those talented fingers of his were positively devious, capable of extracting promises she would never make when sane. Had she waited a moment longer, she likely would've never made it back before dinner time.

Abruptly bereft of her, Draco looked borderline murderous with frustration.

She stifled a laugh and wagged an admonishing finger at him, though she was sure her flushed self betrayed her. "It's all your fault you got worked up. Don't blame me. What was it you were always blowing me off for?" She tapped her finger against her chin in mock contemplation.

"Ginny," he called out to her, his tone half imploring and half threatening.

Her grin grew wider. "Oh yeah, that's right! As you always did say, business before pleasure, Draco!"

With laughter resembling a good old fashioned cackle, Ginny blew him a kiss and Apparated away. She thought she caught him shoving both hands through his hair right before black enveloped her sight. Said image of a disgruntled Draco tickled her bones until she landed on the other side and emerged to a sharp and jarring change.

Rough pavement beneath her feet had turned into long grasses that scraped at her bare legs. The damp, mildew stench of the alley was supplanted by the heady scents of freshly turned earth, cut grass, and wild flowers. Instead of the high brick walls of the alley, a familiar jumbled, overrun garden spread out before her, leading to the sprawling structure beyond.

Even herself was transformed—into a sieve where all humor, cheer, and emotions of any kind, really, seemed to drain out of her in an instant. What's the matter with me? This shouldn't matter. It doesn't matter. She let the numbness take her over and struck out with brisk steps for the house.

Strange seemed to be the theme of the day, and what could be stranger, truly, than feeling like a stranger in one's supposed home? Ginny would've laughed, laughed long and hard if she could only be sure that the lump in her throat wasn't something so pathetic as a swallowed cry.

Author's Note:

If you have time to spare to review, I'd greatly appreciate hearing your thoughts on the chapter! It went through so many tweaks that I'm uncertain how it came out in the end. Again, so sorry for the heinous wait in updates, but I promise you the story will eventually be finished. The final chapter for this one in fact has already been written, but it'll be a few more chapters yet before we get to the end. For anyone reading my other works, the updates for those are also being worked on.

Thanks again to Anise for the beta-reading!