Chapter Text
The Crush
Prologue
Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night
William Blake, Auguries of Innocence
You will believe in me
And I can never be ignored
Garbage, #1 Crush
When he thought about it, his attachment to Ginny Weasley – this crush – had been ongoing for thirteen years. It was an unreasonably long time, but then, nothing had ever been reasonable about Ginny.
He’d long since stopped calling her anything but her first name. Ginny. Or his preferred – Gin. Gin. The syllable lodged in him like it could burrow in, bury itself deep, like a live, struggling thing.
The times he’d had to speak to her, in Hogwarts – it’d been hard to commit to “Weasley”. Eventually, a few years back, he couldn’t keep it up. The fracture, the division, was impossible to maintain. Even as a Malfoy. And he couldn’t care anymore. Not after he’d kissed her – really kissed her – tongue in her mouth, fingers tangled in her bright hair, clutching at her neck, drowning in her. The whole affair a madness tipped into reality like a free fall off a cliff. He didn’t think he needed to pretend, anymore.
And anyway – after that. After those brief, bright, perfect two weeks before she, of course, chose Potter – he’d just wanted her to remember. Remember the intimacies. The scent of his bergamot and rose, cutting through her magnolia. The sensation of his pale skin against her creamy expanse. He only wanted her to remember that he knew her.
It didn’t matter that other Slytherins or Gryffindors looked at him suspiciously when he called her by her first name. Fuck, maybe he wanted them to know.
Gin.
Gin.
Gin.
And now – seeing her here, in the Magpies uniform. Again, so close. After two years of nothing. Of her never replying to his last letter, the only time he’d ever told her what he wanted, in writing. Knowing that, yet again, she and Potter were on a break. This time so public (a screaming match in the middle of a benefit, something about her refusing to settle down, something about him never being around to settle down with – who even cared) that the papers ran it, for days, so gleefully.
After two years where not seeing her had dulled the ache into ambient noise – a constancy but not a knife, where he could see her face in photographs in the Prophet and manage to go forward with his day – he remembered again: the bite of it, the persistent shape of it, every bit of it, wanting her. Needing her like fucking breath.
He hated her, he needed her, she would not look at him.
***
The first time he’d seen her, she’d been eating. He was six going on seven, and she was five.
Draco had never seen hair like hers. It fell in waves, needlessly long past her shoulders, down her back, so bright and so red even in the pale winter sunlight, and in his short life of wanting things and always being given them, he’d never wanted to touch – to keep – this tiny thing before him, more.
She had the prettiest, smallest face, the face of storybook fae, and he needed to touch her, needed to know she was real.
But she was eating, and she was not paying attention to him.
She used her hands. She was eating a strawberry tart – one of those that looked so inviting, all strawberries bright and red and with their tips pointed upwards and glazed over the top of the tart, begging to be bitten into, promising a wet, sweet deliciousness even as the tart tempted you with the slow flow of slightly bitter chocolate. And then you bit into it, and there was still the crumble-sugary comfort of the biscuit base. It was everything a child’s heart could want.
She was eating it like she’d never had one before, and Draco had been fascinated.
He’d never been allowed to touch food with his hands, for as long as he could remember. He’d never shown such want, such pleasure in consuming, and seeing it in her was almost as necessary to him as breathing, as were her brilliant hair, her pretty face.
Even as a child, he couldn’t look away.
When she’d finally finished and looked up at him – her eyes were such a warm brown, alight with gold, so mischievous and so bright, Draco knew: he had to have her, and this girl had to be his, forever.
***
That evening, after spending the entire day with her, watching as she ate more tarts, convincing her to let him feed her tarts, holding her hand, breathing in the magnolia in her hair, refusing to leave her, ignoring the other children – he’d almost thrown a tantrum at having to go home, seeing her leave with her parents – Lucius had told him: Draco, I’ll not see you want common things.
She was a common thing, apparently.
Even then, as a six-year-old, this had planted Draco’s first seed of doubt in his father’s judgment, because of her.
She was anything but common. She’d burned into his consciousness, engraved herself into his heart.
Every social or ministry event after – he looked for her, searched for her light, her fire among the dull.
***
But the next time he saw her – one year later, at the same Christmas party – an older brother was with her, and he didn’t allow them to be together.
Draco was seven, by then, and he would not, could not cry in public – knew that the punishment was worse if he did, when they returned home. But she did, not loudly, but with tears so large on her small face that Draco wanted to hit her older brother. Knew of violent things.
For the first time in his short life: Draco knew to think – what injustice. What unfairness.
And then Narcissa had come, bundling Draco away from the scene. It was embarrassing to consort with Weasleys, even more embarrassing to be rejected by Weasleys.
Lucius had still punished him, that evening at the Manor.
But throughout the whole event – he followed her, with his eyes, willed her to see him. But she was already distracted, and already another boy had collected her, led her away by the hand, gave her another tart, fed her strawberry shortcake, instead.
Ginny.
***
That set the tone, really – was the fulfilled prophecy for his years yearning for her – wanting her always being a kind of punishment, always ending with her being led away, by another boy, given tarts, being distracted by other treats, then given kisses.
Everything he couldn’t give her.
It would hurt each time, heat sparking in his cheekbones, pain radiating out from his palms into the tips of his fingers, a clawing at his chest.
The injustice.
***
He didn’t see her again, after that, but every Christmas – he looked out for the girl with the red hair, at every Ministry function. He had worked out – her family wasn’t invited to social ones which the Malfoys attended.
By the time he next saw her, he had already fully absorbed, into his bones, why.
In his short life, there were only two things he ever wanted which he’d been denied, at that point, when he saw her again: Harry Potter’s friendship, and Ginny Weasley.
The former was merely a political mistake. The latter was a stain into his very being he would never be rid of.
***
When she’d next appeared before him, at Flourish and Blotts, she didn’t seem to even remember him.
She was 11 now, and she was defending Harry Potter.
Now, there were no tears, there was no smiling after he fed her a tart, using his own hands for the first time with food, pushing the last bit of tart up into her small mouth with his finger. She was just angry, and shouting at him. For Potter.
He’d never been angrier in his entire short life, and his next insult at Potter had been flung out at the room with more viciousness than he’d even realised he could muster.
After that, he’d kept that viciousness, nursed it, tended to it, used it more.
Especially on Potter.
She didn’t look at him, when her family and Potter left the premises.
He’d missed her so much, waited and looked for her, wanted her so much – knew she was coming to Hogwarts, this year, wanted to find her again, now that no one could stop him, show her all the tarts he’d tried in Hogwarts the year before, thinking of how she would like them. Thinking of feeding each of them to her, with his hands, touching her skin, her lips.
He hadn’t cared that she was Ron Weasley’s sister. Somehow, it wouldn’t have mattered.
Somehow, in his mind, he’d assumed she would be in the same House as him, and they would spend all their time together, and he’d hold her hand again, and touch a tart, for her. Feed her, kiss her hair. She would never leave his side.
But she wouldn’t even ever look at him, and she was Sorted into Gryffindor.
***
And still, he’d heard – she loved Quidditch, was excited that she would get to watch Potter as Gryffindors’ Seeker.
That evening – he’d written to Lucius, demanding that he be made Seeker for Slytherin.
Because if she wouldn’t look at him, he would have to force her to.
***
So – his first match – he’d been more focussed on riling Potter than on Seeking – because she was wearing red, in the stands, cheering for Potter and the Gryffindor Quidditch team.
He couldn’t even win, to deny her a chance to celebrate, to force her to be angry at him.
***
He stopped eating fucking strawberry tarts, in particular. He could barely abide other tarts.
She ruined everything.
***
Narcissa had written to him, asking – had he given all the tarts she’d sent him away to the other children?
Then she’d praised him, saying that it was good for a Malfoy to appear generous.
And she kept sending him fucking tarts.
***
But he couldn’t stop watching her. And he’d noticed – a light had dimmed, and she was withdrawing. Her hair started to become limp, steeped into a darker red, and she’d gone quiet.
No one else in Gryffindor seemed to notice anything amiss.
If he hadn’t been so worried for her, he could’ve remembered to think – maybe this was his chance.
***
And then, one evening, he’d found her along the corridors, huddled up against the wall, pale and shivering.
Her skin had lost all luminosity – she was just a sheet of white, her lips colourless. Her bright red hair had dulled and stuck against her forehead.
She was still small, still pretty, but something was very wrong.
“Ginny?” he’d asked, crouching down next to her, not bothering to pretend he was supposed to hate her. She didn’t even look like she registered his presence.
Even sick – even ill – no recognition.
“Gin?” He’d asked again, and this time he lifted one small hand into his. Her pulse was weak, and she was cold to the touch. There was definitely something wrong.
Gently, carefully, he’d pulled her up. She didn’t make a sound as he held her hand, and led her to the Infirmary.
***
He had tried to stay with her, as long as he could, but Madam Pomfrey shooed him after thanking him – with a look that said she was suspicious of his intentions anyway – and the last thing he’d seen was her tiny form in an expansive white bed, her dark red hair spread out behind her across the pillow.
***
The next morning – he’d retrieved a strawberry tart from the kitchens – then went to the Infirmary as soon as he could.
She’d left.
***
He’d never felt more terror than when they’d realised – Ginny Weasley had been taken to the Chamber of Secrets.
For months – Draco had felt a certain jagged, cruel glee, that classmates Lucius would look down upon, that a Half-blood like Potter – could be in danger. He’d especially enjoyed the idea, letting it linger in his mouth like sweet honey, after he’d shouted at Potter about Ginny Weasley’s horrific singing valentine to him – thought about it for hours after that, hoping.
He’d not run at the fucking valentine, if she’d sent one for him.
She was so stupid, and so blind.
But now – now – it had taken Snape standing at the doorway to the Slytherin dorms, wand drawn, to keep them safe, to stop him from wanting to rush – where, he wasn’t sure – with Potter? – so that they could go to the Chamber of Secrets, to save her, to retrieve her.
If she died, he was certain – it was clear as day – he might die, too.
***
He'd understood – from Narcissa screaming at Lucius – the first time his well-bred, distant mother had ever raised her voice – that Lucius had given Ginny Weasley the diary of Tom Riddle, the teenaged Lord Voldemort.
He’d never hated his father more in his short life.
And then, the thought: was that what she could love?
Was that so different from what Draco was?
Tom Riddle – even as a teenager not much older than Draco – couldn’t be kind. Couldn’t be sweet. At least – not for long. He’d be like the rest of them, in Slytherin – any kindness as a veneer of civility, that thin, porous barrier against ferality, and a means to retrieve, extract something else.
Tarts given out so that people would remember: Malfoys owned more than you ever would, Malfoys could give you what you want, if you looked to the Malfoys.
Then why didn’t she see Draco?
He could be exactly like him, if that was what she wanted. He could do it all day, he’d stored up viciousness like it was a staple in a famine.
Again, another in a stupid, needless addition to the list of petulance, of cruelties she thoughtlessly, unknowingly inflicted on him.
***
And still, on her birthday – he’d learned of it somewhere, from school – he’d sent her, using his large eagle owl, Artaxerxes, hoping she’d recognise him, everyone else at school did – a necklace.
It was not the sort that Malfoys would usually purchase – it did not suit their colouring. It was a long, thin gold chain, and ended with a small gold heart as a pendant, a ruby in the centre of the heart.
He hadn’t sent it with a note, only a tag with her name on it, but there was a tracking charm which he’d commissioned to be applied to the pendant.
She wasn’t allowed to disappear, again.
That same morning – Artaxerxes was sent back, still carrying the small package, with a note attached:
With apologies, but our daughter will not be accepting any gifts of unknown origin.
She’d not recognised Artaxerxes.
***
When he saw her on the Express a few weeks later, her hair was a shining bright red again, a flag behind her as she came running down the corridor.
She’d glanced at him briefly as she passed him. She was so beautiful, again, her skin creamy and luminous in the sunlight streaming in through the windows, but she didn’t pause, didn’t stay.
Her neck was bare, because of course it was.
***
And still – he’d kept the fucking necklace, had it on his person, in case for some reason he could give it to her.
***
He would have to wait until his sixth year before he’d put it on her himself.
***