He likes the way her name sounds in his mouth. It starts with a pursing of the lips up and around the teeth, and the tongue meets the roof for the G. Then the entire mouth relaxes for the rest of the name, as if the hard part's over and they can all relax; it's so easy to lose the 'inny' into a murmur or a kiss. It's hard to say it without a smile or a grimace.

She thinks his name is dreadful: she's said it to his face. "Who names their child after dragons and demons and horrible things?" she'd said.

"I have absolutely no idea," he'd responded caustically, "but while we're at it, perhaps you could help me figure out why, hypothetically, someone so poor would have seven children?"

She'd sneered at him and looked away, and he had watched her for quite a while afterward.

The fact that they work together – that they work well together – startles him a bit. She writes fantastically, almost too well, clacking away at her typewriter like her fingers are magic, and he agonizes over each piece for hours looking for something to edit. It's either that she makes very few mistakes or that he likes the way he seems to hear her voice reading it in his mind. He hasn't quite been able to convince himself of either just yet.

She has a very pale complexion, much like his own, but with ferocious pink undertones that are always bursting across her face with her moods. He blushes evenly and becomingly, but she blushes hard and scattered and red even across her breasts.

Autumn is his favorite season, because she always smiles in the mornings during that time of year. In winters she comes in half asleep with mussed hair and carafes of coffee, and in summer she would come in wearing old mens' shorts and sweating all over her paperwork. In spring she had allergies and was sneezing half the time. He thought all of these seasons were quite fine, of course. But in the fall she wore soft sweaters and high boots, lacy camisoles beneath sharp blazers, thin scarves, and a smile.

It was November when he asked if she would be attending the Auror's ball as Potter's date, and she had stopped smiling and wouldn't speak to him for a week.

Seven days later she'd said: "Harry and I are quite fine friends, and I am quite fine with us being that. But you already know that, so you were—you were just being rude."

He'd thanked her for doing his apologizing for him, and pretended to go back to his work. Really he had watched her from under his lashes, as she pouted angrily for a moment and then left.

When Voldemort is gone – really, honestly gone this time – they don't say anything for a greeting. She flutters through the door, a bundle of excitement and awe, grabs up an issue of the Prophet and turns on the Wireless.
After fifteen minutes of soaking in the news, she lowers the paper and looks up at him. She gives him her most sparkling smile. "Let's take the week off," she suggests.

He purses his lips in thought. "All week?" he says.

"Yes," she says, crossing her white, freckled legs, and he sees that she is wearing red shoes with little bows in the back above the heel, and her toes are peeking out. They look brand new, and he wonders faintly if she bought them as a victory gift to herself.

"That sounds reasonable," he finally says.

She smiles, and then starts rifling through her drawers, seemingly searching for something. At first he tries to act uninterested, and then he resigns himself to looming over her desk nosily. "What are you looking for?" he wonders.

"Some brochures I picked up a while ago… travel ones. Exotic places, getaways, you know, hotels, beaches, mountains, that sort of thing." She now digs in the back of her bottom drawer, and then pulls out a stack of faded, colorful papers. "Here they are! Where should I go?"

She spreads them out across her desktop and they look down at them together. "Oh, the Bahamas?" she says, picking up an orange leaflet.

Draco snorts, but turns his head slightly so he can read a little blurb on one about France.

"Do you want to come with me?" she says, abruptly hiding her face behind the brochure.

He looks up her, completely terrified, and has to set his black coffee on her desk so that it doesn’t slosh all over his suddenly jittery hands and scald them. He stares at her, unblinking for a long moment, wondering if she'll ever put down the Bahamas booklet. He opens his mouth to say something, coughs, and then closes it. He looks down at his shoes. Very few times in his life has he felt this uncomfortable before.

Ginny lets out a very strained, nervous laugh. "That was silly," she says, "just a bit caught up in the eh—victory mood or whatnot." She's putting her Bahamas leaflet down and he can see she's blushing. That splotchy, ugly red explodes across her nose and cheeks, in between her breasts. Draco looks away.

"Don't you think I'd get a horrible sunburn in the Bahamas?" he says, tracing a finger around the lip of his mug.

She looks up at him suddenly, mouth slightly open. "Well – it… it doesn't have to be the Bahamas," and she is shuffling through the brochures, nervous, blushing and fumbling.

Something slithers down Draco's spine, and it very nearly makes him put his hand over hers. But he bites down hard on his tongue, and then he picks up his mug and takes a hasty gulp. "Let me know when you decide, I'll see if it sounds like any fun," he says then, and leaves for his office.

He says no later.

Regret seeps into his bones and he can't stop from chewing his lip when he thinks about her, all alone in some distant locale. Surrounded by colors and men, being bought drinks with tiny umbrellas in them – strong drinks with something extra, something dangerous added?

Draco has never been worried about someone besides himself in his life. But as he peeks through his blinds at her looking through the advertisement (with a slightly disappointed smile on her face) alone, he worries. Her shoes seem less red, her freckles seem to have faded slightly, and her hair is beginning to frizz. The thought that he had caused the change in her demeanor is startlingly difficult to process. He sneaks back out of his office, and hovers in the doorway.

"I have to go," she says, without turning. Realizing she had known he was there is disconcerting, and he feels embarrassed.

"Weasley—" he says, as she stands, slings her purse over her shoulder and bundles up her coat.

She looks at him warily, pausing.

"Planning on taking Potter instead?" he asks suddenly, a bit of spite exploding in his chest.

She leaves, face twisting into a scowl that matches the one Draco wears.

People don’t change, he assures himself the next day, when he comes in and the office is empty. Outside there are parties, confetti littering the streets. Pubs give away free drinks, people smiling around every corner. It makes him sick. Not because Voldemort is defeated, but because Ginny has gone to Spain alone. And this makes him even more nauseous. He realizes what a mistake he's made, how many mistakes he's made. He wonders what she's doing. If she's enjoying herself. He instantly hopes she is miserable, and then regrets the thought. Why would she be miserable – she's not in his loathsome company.

He looks around his office. It's spring outdoors, but the entire building feels freezing.

Draco is not someone to hesitate very often, but now he is doing it, hovering his fingers over some parchment and ink. Draco decides.

He arrives in Spain the next day, and walks to her hotel after siesta. He uses his charm and a few coins to get her room number, and a pointed wand and a threat for the key. Draco doesn't have much patience for Muggle contraptions in the first place, but he thinks the elevator is the slowest, most harrowing experience of his life; quiet music melting into his ears as he talks himself out of this, and back into it, several times.

He finds himself in front of her door. He puts his fingers on the painted wood, and hesitates. Then he scowls, dredges the key out of his trouser pocket, and unlocks the door harshly, flinging the door open almost violently.

She's sitting by an open window clacking away at a typewriter, hair mussed. She looks up, startled out of her wits.

"…What?" she manages.

"Ginny," he says curtly, the end getting a little lost in a sucked in, suddenly-nervous breath.

She stands up awkwardly, self consciously smoothing out her slacks. "What do you want?" she asks.

He nearly rolls his eyes. "Well, I was invited," he snaps.

Ginny's lip curls, and he's beginning to regret this. "That's awfully funny," she says, "usually when someone's invited to Spain, and they say: 'I don't think you could have picked a less interesting place', it means they're declining the invitation. And usually, after a declination, the invitation is no longer valid."

He does roll his eyes, this time. "Would you rather I just leave?" he gestures at the door, exasperated.

"Yes, actually, I think that would be best."

He opens his mouth, and then shuts it very quickly. He wasn't expecting that. Although, maybe he was delirious if he was expecting her to beg him to stay.

"You know, a million other women would beg me to stay," Draco lets this out of his mouth before he can stop it.

"Well!" spits Ginny. "You didn't exactly chase any of those million women to Spain, did you? No. You chased me. And I'll never beg you for anything."

He makes an almost scandalized face at her accusation of him chasing her - as if Draco Malfoy would ever chase a woman to a foreign country. He grips his fingertips into a shaking, white-knuckled fist. A blush spreads across his face, hot and even.

But then his face relaxes, with a small roll of the eyes in a disregard of all pretext.

"Ginny," he murmurs, miserably.

This is the closest he will probably ever make it to apologizing, to anyone, ever. He doesn't have 'I'm sorry' within his vocabulary, he just was never taught it. No one can ever successfully pretend to know something they've never learned, and it's better to be honest, isn't it.

She doesn't say anything at first, still angry and chilly. "Don't say my name like that," she says, in a sort of half-snap, half-whine. She is trying her very best to be as mean to him as she can. She is trying her best to continue this dance they've had for so long; she is trying to be vengeful for the years of pain he's inflicted on her and her family. But time is winding down, they're getting older, and things seem awfully petty, don't they.

"Don't say your name how?" he says teasing, shutting the door behind him as if he's here to stay. He's beginning to enjoy the way the Spanish afternoon sun is filtering in through the flimsy curtains. It's lighting up her hair so that it's got a golden sort of halo round about it.

"Losing the ending like that," she explains, "you've got no right to melt away the Y, it's my name, isn't it?" She's now pursing her lips as he moves to take his bag over by the bed. She clicks her tongue and grabs it away from him. "If you're staying, you're taking the couch," she explains.

He wants to protest. Something about how Draco Malfoy doesn't sleep on couches, or something sexual and frank about sharing a bed with her. But for once he holds his tongue, and lets her fling his rolling trunk against the sofa.

This doesn't mean she's won, because Draco Malfoy doesn't sleep on couches, certainly not when there are beds to be shared with beautiful women. But it means that he's willing to make a few small sacrifices: letting her think she's bossing him around, for one, and maybe saying her name the way she likes it said.

"Alright, Ginny," he says succinctly, with a predatory smile. He takes off his jacket and opens the curtains. Sunlight floods the room and he wonders about doors closing and windows opening; stories ending but really beginning. Her hair looks all aflame now, and he decides her name has never tasted better.