Disclaimer: No, I don't own any Harry Potter characters....yet.
And thank you to my friend Durza for editing this story.
She stood alone, her long red hair flying around her in the cold air. Her friends were either dead on the ground, or wounded. Harry Potter was locked in a trance with the Dark Lord, and she was alone and helpless in the face of the tall blond Death Eater.
That tall blond Death Eater was Draco Malfoy. He too, stood alone. His eyes were hard and cold and his white-blond hair fluttered around his head, blown back from his bruised and bloodied face. His heart was making the terrible decision: to kill or not to kill.
Ginny’s heart pounded wildly, but she couldn’t move, she was entranced. Tears streaked her face, her mind still wounded from when she had had to watch her beloved brother die, killed by Bellatrix Lestrange. She could only remember Harry’s face; white and stricken, glancing at her, tears in his eyes at the loss of his best friend. But even Harry, the Harry she had loved ever since she first met him, that same Harry, had left her alone.
Now she stood over Ron’s body, watching a man who she considered her enemy…silently wishing he would kill her, and let her misery end. He did nothing. He stood there, his eyes looking sad, wishing he did not have to make this decision. How can I kill her? What should I do? I can’t…her eyes…I can’t do it…I’m not a killer.
She waited, and waited. The silent tears continued to come, her eyes locked on Malfoy’s, waiting for death to come to her. But he raised his wand, and spoke the words that would kill her. And as she closed her eyes, knowing this was the end, she fell. She opened her eyes and saw that she was lying on top of Ron's dead body, and that Draco Malfoy was standing above her. He had missed. She was still alive.
Malfoy realized with relief, that he hadn’t hit her, that she had fallen to the ground and the spell had sailed over her head. He reached out his hand to her, and pulled her up, and wrapped his arms around her. After a faint wave of suprise that her old enemy was hugging her, she hugged him back, and as she hugged him, the tears she had been holding back broke free.
She cried, cried for Ron, and for Harry, and for her parents who had died the day before, and for Hermione who lay on the ground, knocked out completely, and mostly for Draco. He stood there, comforting her, but then his own tears came. His were tears of sadness, and anger at his own stupidity, tears for his mother, and for Ginny.
How long they stood there, they didn’t know. The battle was over…the blood already had been spilled, and the final confrontation between Harry Potter and Voldemort was taking place. But there they stood, Ginny and Draco, holding on to each other, while all else around them fell away. Alone and now together, fire and ice, dark and light, they stood alone.
Their embrace was broken when a cold and all too familiar voice pierced their thoughts…breaking the bond that they had formed.
“Draco, what do you think you are doing!?” Lucius Malfoy reached out and pulled his only son away from the small redhead. When Malfoy turned, his eyes red and bright from the tears he had shed, and glared at his father.
“Step away Draco, I’m going to kill her. She is a blood-traitor, and a child of blood-traitors, and she will die. Now step away!” The tall man pushed his son back and raised his wand.
Then, Draco made the greatest decision he would ever make in his entire life. He stepped in front of his father, between him and Ginny, the girl who used to be his enemy. Then, in a blink, he cast the Greater Shield Charm, which he and Snape had discovered a year before…but it only worked occasionally. If this doesn’t work, I’ll die, and then he’ll kill Ginny. Crap, I have no choice, I’ve got to just do it. And he did. The bright green light came towards him, and he felt her slender arms wrap around him, her head leaning against his back. Then in a burst of green light, Malfoy died.
A minute later, Ginny looked up and saw Lucius on the ground, his eyes wide open and shocked, most definitely dead. She turned Draco around and looked up into his horror-stricken eyes, and hugged him all the harder.
“What have I done?” He looked at her, wrapped around him, holding him close. Then he lifted up her face, and looked into her hazel eyes. They were so full of gratefulness, and with hope, and gratefulness. He kissed her. He did not know what possessed him to kiss her, but he just did.
She looked into his blue eyes, and saw that the hardness was gone, and all that was left was Draco. Draco Malfoy, the man who had saved her life. She kissed him back.
***
A hundred yards away, Harry Potter was battling the Dark Lord. He looked away from his worst enemy for just a second, and saw Ginny and Malfoy wrapped around each other. His heart skipped a beat. He had left her behind, left her and gone on to fight the battle of his life, and she had found someone else. A pang of jealousy tore its way across his heart, but, swallowing his feelings, he turned back to Voldemort, and smiled.
He’s going to kill me, Harry thought. He’s going to say Avada Kedavra, and I’m going to die just like my parents. But I’m going to kill him too. If I die, he’ll die with me. I’m not going to let all that I have worked for go to waste. I’m going to kill him too.
“Avada Kedavra!” Two voices spoke, two voices uttered the same curse, that same Unforgivable Curse. Two wizards died. The next thing he knew, Harry was walking down a path of light, as if an invisible force was pulling him. This was the path towards death, and next to him walked Tom Riddle. They walked towards the great golden gates, the gates to the other world, and when they reached them, they automatically opened. Harry knew that inside was Sirius, his mother and his father, and how he wanted to run to them. But he waited, and looked at Tom, who stood stock still, then spoke quietly.
“This is the second time I’ve stood before these gates and not gone through. I was alone the first time, that time you sent me away. But, now I won’t be alone, I have you. Are you going to go through?” He looked at Harry, and waited. It took an age for Harry to decide, he looked back at the other side of the tunnel, where he could just see Ginny and Draco on the other side of the passage. If I turn back now, I’ll just be a ghost. I’ll be trapped in that world forever. I’ll have to watch all of them die, and I won’t be able to follow them. Is that what I want? They don’t really need me anymore. I have fulfilled my destiny, and I’m going to go on through. Just like Dumbledore and Sirius. I’m going to be brave, not a coward. I’m going through. Then with a final look at Ginny and Malfoy, he swallowed the last pang of jealousy and regret, whispered goodbye, then turned and followed Tom Riddle through the great golden gates.
Ginny looked at Harry and Voldemort, but all she saw was Harry. He was covered in blood and dirt, and he smiled at her. “Goodbye Harry,” she said quietly. He looked at her, and she saw the tears in his eyes, tears of happiness. He was going to die too. He was going to leave her alone again. But this time it was going to be for good.
His mouth formed the words, “Goodbye,” as he fell to the ground. He was gone. Her heart screamed with the overload of pain and hurt, and she cried louder than she ever had before, and held onto Malfoy even harder.
He stroked her trembling back, and looked at Harry’s body lying on the ground. “You took the glory, Potter. And all I got was myself; it’s funny how it all seems to work. We were the same, you and I, both having to follow paths that we didn’t want to, both trying to fight against our destinies. But you followed yours, and I didn’t. And now you’re gone, and I can be just Draco, because I chose not to be what my parents wanted me to be, I became me. But you got the glory, and that is the way it should be, isn’t it?” Then he left that question hanging in the air, and kissed Ginny again. It was a kiss of hope for the future, which didn’t look so bad after all.
A/N: and feel free to click on the reveiws button and assist me with my problem of no reveiws. Because seventy-two reads and not one reveiw? I thinks me reveiwers are just stunned. Right?
A/N: I know...I know...in normal life of Harry Potter Ginny wouldn't hug and kiss Malfoy. Yes, she probably would have gone and helped Hermione, or Harry, but this is my version...not what it probably would be. So, please don't clog up my review box with negative comments about the OOCness of my characters. A little OOCness never hurt anyone, now did it?