For Sarea, who's having a terrible, awful, no good very bad day. Unbeta'd, for I believe it is better to get this to her, stat, rather than trying to get it perfect. *g* Meant to serve as a pick-me-up sort of fic for anyone who needs it.




He knew better than to ask. Ginny Weasley was not the sort of person he wanted to engage in conversation on the best of days, to say nothing of the worst. Under normal circumstances he would not even consider approaching her, but these were not normal circumstances. The littlest Weasley was sitting underneath what Draco had begun to privately think of as His Tree, and she was having a right snit under it, and he wouldn't be at all surprised if she was ruining the perfection of his spot with her undeserving Weasley Parts.

If she were a first year, he'd simply march up to her and order her away; for a moment, he thought of the immense gratification that would come as her eyes would widen in terror, and she'd fall all over herself scurrying out of his way like the lowly little rodent she was.

Then, he remembered that time she put a Bat Bogey hex on him, and a scowl replaced the fond smirk on his face.

Fine. Feigning interest in her pathetic life was the only sensible thing to attempt, and he was willing to give it a go.

"What crawled under your skin and died?" Perhaps that hadn't been as solicitous as it could have been, but he was willing to amend his new plan of action; pissing her off and having her go off in an even greater snit would accomplish the same goal as being nice, and would be loads more fun.

"Sod off, Malfoy," she mumbled, and he realized that her snit was more than just a snit; she was actually crying. He was shocked for a moment -- he couldn't recall seeing her cry since her first year. It was as though the Ginny Weasley that emerged from the Chamber had grown beyond such things after whispering secrets in the dark with Tom Riddle. She was bright and almost insufferably cheery, and the only time she displayed ill temper was usually, in Draco's limited experience, when she came in contact with him.

This changed his plans somewhat. Draco was uncomfortable with a woman crying. His mother had taken to the practice all too frequently since his father's sentence to Azkaban, and as a result, girlish weeping tended to make Draco feel disgusting emotions like sympathy and helplessness and the desire to alleviate suffering.

That it was Ginny Weasley making these pathetic sounds did nothing to dissuade his instincts. He was most cross about it, but he still wanted her away from his tree, so he put it aside and ploughed on.

"Look, it can't be that bad, can it?" That sounded better, Draco thought. Hardly confrontational at all, something a friend might say, assuming one's friends weren't deathly afraid of you, which his were. But it sounded like something the insufferable Granger or the insipid Potter might have said to one another, so he figured it would do something positive for the Weasel girl.

"What would you know about it?" she snapped. "Look, just go away, would you? I'm as far away from the school as possible without actually going into the forest, I'm trying to keep from bothering anyone, why do you have to go and ruin it?"

Then, to his horror, she started sobbing.

At that point, he seriously considered abandoning his tree and all that it meant to him and simply leaving her there. He was not at all equipped to deal with a hysterical woman, particularly one he found immensely distasteful at best, and completely unsuitable for continued existence at worst. But he couldn't abandon it; it was too important to him, this tree, and so he went against his better judgement just this once.

He sat down beside her, his back against the tree, an inch or two between them.

Her head snapped around and shocked eyes looked at him as though he'd gone mad. He couldn't entirely disagree.

"What do you think you're doing?" she asked, her voice sounding dull and a little afraid. It almost made him smile.

"I'm sitting under my tree," he answered. "It's the best tree, you know. As you said, it's as far as you can get from the school, from everything, without breaking any rules. No one knows about it, no one bothers you here." That, he said pointedly staring at her.

It made her eyes narrow. "I think I see what you're getting at," she said, "and I don't care for it one bit."

"There's a shock I shall never recover from," he muttered with a roll of his eyes.

"You don't own this tree, Malfoy," she said firmly. "You can't own a place just because you like it, you can't own a person and tell them what to do just because you think you know best, you can't..."

And then she started weeping again.

"For the love of..." Draco sighed, and thought of his mother too weak to leave her bed. She had no one to care for her, no one to hold her, because the one person who should have been there was gone, locked away from wife and child for the foreseeable future. Ginny -- he tried the name out in his mind, turned it over a few times, and surprisingly found that he didn't hate it -- had an entire support system, a brother right here at school, friends (however questionable friendships like Potter's and the Mudblood's might be), a whole litter of family a quick Floo away...

And yet here she was, seemingly all alone in the world (was it worse, he wondered, being all alone by circumstance, or by choice? He knew what his answer would be, but he thought hers might be very different, indeed), sitting beneath a tree facing the forest so no one would hear her crying.

But someone had. Because for some annoying reason, she'd picked his tree, wanting to be alone, on the day he'd been coming to his tree, secretly wishing there was anyone in the world he had to spend an afternoon with.

He acted before he talked himself out of it. His arm went across her shoulders and he patted her arm once, awkwardly, before letting his hand still. Her eyes widened again, and she looked at him like he was beyond mad, like he'd truly lost all sense, reason, and rationality.

Again, he couldn't entirely disagree.

"Just shut up," he instructed. "You don't have to worry about being perfectly all right around me, all right, because I don't care how you are, so you can just be the miserable wreck you seem to be and it doesn't matter." He didn't mention that he'd be getting something out of the deal, that human contact, however unwilling, was something he'd been lacking, craving, needing for longer than he could remember, and that, Weasley or not, she felt nice pressed up against his side, and he really wished that she'd just let this happen without making a big fuss about it.

And then, shockingly, she did. Her body sagged against him, then jumped with the force of her sobs, and he didn't know how it happened, or why, but he was holding Ginny Weasley beneath his (their?) tree, and he was comforting her (or maybe she was comforting him) and he honestly couldn't recall why he'd ever wanted to make her leave in the first place.

After who knew how long had passed, she slowly pulled away and he couldn't stop himself from wiping the tears from her cheeks. Her eyes were wide and mistrustful as she looked at him, but somehow, didn't try to impede his motions. She gathered her robes about her and stood up. Her mouth was open, trying to find something to say, and whatever she'd think of, he didn't think he could bear hearing it.

"Save it," he said. "We'll pretend like it never happened. No one ever needs to know." Please, he thought, trying to make her hear him; please.

The funny thing was, he didn't know what he was begging her to do at all.

"Fine," she said stiffly, smoothing the creases out of her robes with jerky movements. "I'll just be going then, leave you to your tree." She turned, then stopped, her back facing him. He wanted to see her face just then, and cursed himself for the thought. "Thank you," she whispered, then walked briskly away.

Draco shut his eyes and let his head thunk back against the tree, bitterly disappointed and oddly filled with hope. Because his shirt was wet where she'd blubbered all over it, and the grass beside him was flattened down where she'd been sitting, and it all served as silent testimonial that for a few moments in the middle of a November afternoon, he hadn't been alone.

It was, he thought sullenly, the sort of thought that could haunt him for the rest of term, if not the rest of his life. It was the sort of thought that made him lean around the tree on the off chance of spotting Ginny Weasley still in the distance, still far enough from the school that no one would see them.

It was the sort of thought that made him leap up and hurry after her.

~

She remembered that day, the day she met him, so clearly in her mind. Of course it wasn't entirely accurate to say she'd only just met him that day, as she'd known him for half her life, but the boy that sat next to her beneath a tree and held her when she'd needed it bore only a passing physical resemblance to the Draco Malfoy she'd hated for so long.

All she could think, for the longest time, was how on earth was she expected to reconcile the two boys? It was the same man, but his entire demeanor had shifted when he put his arm around her. Draco Malfoy did not care about her, not even in passing, and certainly not enough to offer such personal comfort. But beneath a tree in the late afternoon, he had, and as a result, a curious, tenuous, strange sort of friendship had blossomed.

He'd chased after her (something she would never have fathomed Draco Malfoy doing for any girl, let alone her) and actually called her name to get her to stop. She'd been close to weeping again, her emotions a taut wire ready to snap in any direction at the slightest provocation. Her day had started bad and got worse, with news of Percy's promotion within the ministry (taking him further from the family, as far as Ginny was concerned), her father being sacked, and she and Ron getting into a row over her latest breakup with a friend of his, and she'd been worn out.

Naturally, Draco Malfoy would sense that weakness and go in for the kill. Except he hadn't. Gone in for the kill, that is. Instead, he'd let her cry on his shoulder without humiliating her, then simply let her walk away.

Of course it wasn't that simple. Of course he was chasing after her, probably to knock down what little self-possession she'd managed to regain with the wind on her face and the fading sun at her back.

"For the love of all things unholy, would you just wait, woman," he hollered, and she waited, her arms folded ungraciously, her posture preparing for a blow of some kind. He must have picked up on her oh-so-subtle body language, because he rolled his eyes and made some sort of waving gesture with his hand. "Look, I just wanted to know if you'd like to see me again. Under the tree. In the future sometime. Perhaps with food next time."

The offer had been such a genuine shock that she hadn't known what to say. The word "Okay," popped out of her mouth before she could take it back, and she was more than a little horrified about it. More surprising still was the look of almost sick relief that passed over his face, like he couldn't decide if he were thrilled or depressed by her easy capitulation.

To be honest, she couldn't be sure how she felt about it, either. But he hadn't said another word, only nodded, and hurried on ahead of her back to the castle. Her brisk pace slowed, she tried to sort out how she was feeling, what it all meant, whether she was being daringly brave or foolishly stupid, but the only emotion she could clearly define was a small, brightly glowing spark of joy that she might have someone in her life now that was just hers, who didn't have any loyalties to Ron or to Harry or to anyone else in her life; someone she might be able to be honest with and have a real connection to without everyone else getting in the way.

That this person was Draco Malfoy didn't quite puncture her little bubble until she found herself sitting beneath the tree a few afternoons later, a box of pumpkin cakes at her side, waiting to see if he'd show up.

He did. And they started fighting immediately. He asked where she'd been the last few days, and if she thought it was funny, keeping him waiting. She argued that he'd never set a specific time, and why should she be responsible for his lack of forethought? That had gotten him good and riled up, and he'd gone on a rant about how he didn't have to wait for anyone, least of all the likes of her, and it was about a minute into it that Ginny realized a very vital fact:

"You were waiting for me?" she asked quietly, and it silenced him and he stared at the ground. That was the moment she decided he wasn't the same boy she'd always known, not at all, and that whoever this was she might be willing to do anything to make sure he didn't get lost.

"I brought pumpkin cakes," she continued, and held one out to him; a peace offering, and he took it as such, sitting beside her and chewing delicately as the sun went down. They made plans to meet again -- "Firm plans," he said doggedly, "that you've no way of worming out of without looking bad" -- and went their separate ways.

They went on this way for months. So long, in fact, that when the Christmas holidays rolled around, Ginny told her parents she wouldn't be able to come home this year because she had a lot of studying she needed to do for the O.W.L.s, and Draco told his mother the same ("Not that she's really in much condition to notice if I'm there or not," he confided one night) and they found themselves two of only a handful of students left behind.

Ginny did study for her O.W.L.s; the only thing she left out of her explanation to her parents was that Draco Malfoy was serving as her tutor, and having passed his O.W.L.s the year before, was quite adept at guiding her through hers. She left out the long walks they took to Hogsmeade, and the secrets they started telling each other beneath their tree. She left out the gifts they exchanged on Christmas Eve, and the fact that they slept outside, beneath a huge blanket Draco had charmed for warmth and woke up Christmas morning with snow that didn't freeze them everywhere, arms and legs hopelessly tangled together.

She was very, very careful not to mention that they'd shared their first kiss warm and cold all at once, snowflakes decorating their hair until they'd been forced to duck beneath the blanket to continue exploring and tasting and falling further into something she was entirely sure no one save the two of them would like one bit.

The holidays ended, and it was even harder than before, pretending they didn't know each other, didn't like each other. Soon, they gave up the pretense entirely and began sitting together for meals, studying at the same table, horrifying their respective houses. They didn't kiss in public, never made themselves out to be anything but friends, but it was enough. Her parents thought her mad and his housemates turned on him like wolves. She was regarded as an oddity, he outright ostracized, and she found it increasingly hard to care what other people thought when he told her secret, private things no one else knew, and kissed her so hard she thought her breath would never come back.

Then came graduation, his, and the end of term, hers, and she wasn't sure what would happen. The last days of term were the ones she spend trying to reconcile the boy he'd been to the boy he was with her. She didn't know what had changed in him, what had made him different with her. He still hated Harry desperately, still called Hermione a Mudblood, still took every opportunity to rile Ron up... but it wasn't the same, and she didn't know what made it different.

They'd made plans to spend their last day together under their tree with a bottle of cider and some food nicked from the house elves. Both had been careful not to mention what would happen after he left school and Ginny was both eager to get it out in the open, and desperate not to shatter their fragile existence.

"My father's in prison." It was the first thing he said to her that day, and the last thing she'd expected to hear.

"I know," she said slowly. She was wearing a pair of jeans and a brown sweater he'd once told her looked lovely with her eyes. They're just plain brown, she'd argued, but he'd insisted they were like cognac or brandy or chocolate, and she'd lost the argument in favor of more pleasurable pursuits.

"It doesn't quite seem real to me sometimes," he went on. "I know it, it's always with me, but sometimes I still... forget."

"You... forget."

"I forget that... he can't tell me what to do anymore," he said. "That he isn't in charge of my life, or what I do. I miss him, you know, but sometimes I think I only miss him because I know I'm supposed to, and I'm afraid of what he'd do if he ever found out I didn't."

"You're not making sense," she said, though she actually thought he was making a great deal of sense; she'd just never thought to hear him speak of his father this way.

"I don't want to lose you," he said. "And I don't want to keep pretending like if we don't talk about it, it won't be real."

"We don't have to talk about it," she said. "We don't. All we have to do is promise that we don't want to lose each other, and we won't."

He laughed, a little bitterly. "It's just that simple, is it? I don't know why I didn't think of that myself." He shook his head. "It must be so easy to be you, Ginny, so sure that when people say they'll do something, they'll do it."

"You could write to me," she said. "I could visit you at weekends or holidays and--"

"It won't work," he insisted. "You'll have your life here and your friends will turn you against me--"

"How nice to know you think so highly of my free will," she snapped.

"Look, I just realize how the world works, is all," he said. "It's better if we end things here, now, cleanly, both agreeing that we had a great time together, and not ruin it by trying to make it more than it is."

"I don't understand why you're saying this," she whispered, but she did understand. He was going away, getting lost, and the other Draco, the one who would never talk to a Weasley, much less kiss her, was preparing the way for his return.

Her Draco was too fragile, too new to the world to survive without her. He was going away. She wanted to beg him not to, to stay, no matter how hard it would be for him in his world, the one she was only now beginning to understand could kill him, but it was useless. She could see it in the set of his jaw and the look in his eye. Her Draco was dying, and there was nothing she could do to save him if he was unwilling to save himself.

So she let him do it. They exchanged heated words, she said things she regretted, and stormed off, leaving him beneath his tree.

The next day, he left, and she returned to her relieved family.

~

Days past, summer was slow and hot, but even the slowest of summers eventually faded into fall, and the new school term began. This was her last year at school, and the first where there was no Ron, no Harry, no Hermione to be friends with. She had friends of a sort in her own year, of course, but they had grown apart during the previous term and Ginny found herself in the position of having absolutely no one.

She started doing something she'd sworn she never would; visiting the tree. And when she visited, she remembered, and she missed him, and she thought about him with a blinding force that should have shaken the earth beneath her, but instead merely left her heart feeling unsettled and broken.

Of course, she didn't take into account that everything in the world around her was magic, and that even the power of thought had potential for greatness.

~

Ginny,

I found a tree on my property.

Draco

~

The owl was sitting on her bed when she returned several nights later, patient, regal, and looking fairly bored with the entire letter delivering affair. She read it three times before a small, cautious smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

It took her less than a minute to hurriedly scrawl a reply and send the owl off with it.

~

Draco,

What are you on about?

Ginny

~

Ginny,

I never knew it was here. I asked the servants about it, and they can't remember when it grew, or who planted it, but it definitely wasn't there a year ago when mother won the annual blood roses competition and got a picture of the yard in the paper.

I miss you.

Draco

~

The letter arrived on a Saturday. She did not reply to it. But that evening, she found herself in the gardens at Malfoy Manor, sitting beneath a giant tree that should have been there for a hundred years, but which she suspected sprouted up fully formed with no more than all the love in a young girl's heart to nourish it. She sat until the sun went down and she heard his footfalls on the ground behind her.

Waiting.

~

END

Edit: I meant to say that I nicked the vague premise of Draco and his perfect tree off a season 4 episode of Gilmore Girls. Ah, inspiration, you can truly strike anywhere.

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