Bound by Silence

The silence in their flat at Grimmauld Place was a living thing, thick and suffocating. It wasn't an angry silence, which Ginny thought might almost be a relief. It was the quiet of routine, of two people who had said everything there was to say and were now just… existing. Side by side. Harry was in the other room, likely polishing his glasses for the tenth time or rereading a Quidditch magazine. He was good. He was kind. He was the saviour of the wizarding world, and he loved her with a steady, dependable warmth that felt more like a comfortable old jumper than a blazing fire.

And Ginny, Merlin help her, was starting to fucking hate it.

She ran a hand through her fiery hair, leaning against the cool glass of the window. Outside, London hummed with a life she felt utterly disconnected from. Inside, she felt like a ghost haunting her own life. The love she felt for Harry was still there, a deep, foundational thing, but the passion had dwindled to a polite flicker. Their nights were a study in gentle predictability. He’d kiss her softly, his touch familiar and tender, and move inside her with a practiced rhythm that was meant to be loving but felt more like a chore. He’d finish with a soft sigh, roll over, and be asleep in minutes, leaving her staring at the ceiling, her body humming with an unspent, frustrated energy. An ache had taken up permanent residence deep in her belly, a hollow craving for something sharp, something dangerous. Something that wasn't so goddamn nice.

She couldn't breathe. Grabbing her cloak, she slipped out of the flat without a word. Harry wouldn't even notice she was gone for at least an hour. The thought didn't sting as much as it should have.

The Ministry of Magic's internal library was her secret refuge. Not the main, bustling repository on Level Two, but the deep archives in the sub-basements—the Department of Magical Law Enforcement's Records Room. It was a place few visited, a dusty catacomb of forgotten cases, redacted histories, and obsolete spellbooks. The air was cool and smelled of aging parchment and binding glue, a scent she found more comforting than any perfume.

Here, she wasn't Harry Potter's girlfriend. She wasn't a Weasley. She was just a body moving through a labyrinth of shadows and forgotten words. The towering shelves soared into the gloom above, creating narrow canyons of silence. She ran her fingers along the spines of ancient tomes, the cracked leather a welcome friction against her skin. She found a secluded alcove at the very back, hidden behind a towering stack of texts on lycanthropic jurisprudence. Dust motes danced in the single, weak beam of light from a charmed orb floating high above. Sinking onto a worn wooden stool, Ginny finally let out a breath she felt like she’d been holding for months. Here, in the quiet dark, she could almost forget the ache inside her. She could pretend she was someone else entirely, someone not bound by love and history and the suffocating weight of being one half of a perfect wizarding fairytale.

A soft scuff of dragon-hide against stone broke the hallowed silence. Ginny didn't look up, assuming it was a junior archivist on a pointless errand. But the footsteps stopped, far too close. A shadow fell over the book resting in her lap.

“I didn’t take you for a reader, Weasley.”

The voice was a low drawl, stripped of its adolescent sneer but still sharp enough to cut. Ginny’s head snapped up. Draco Malfoy stood there, holding a thin, leather-bound volume. He wasn't the boy she remembered. The pointed, pale features had hardened into something more severe, more defined. He wore tailored black robes that spoke of quiet wealth, not ostentatious power. But it was his eyes that held her—the colour of a storm-tossed sea, and shadowed with a weariness she recognized because she saw it in the mirror every morning.

“And I didn’t take you for someone who skulks in basements, Malfoy,” she shot back, her voice tight. “Get lost. I’m busy.”

A ghost of a smile touched his lips, a bitter, humourless thing. “As am I. This section happens to contain the most comprehensive collection of pre-Victorian curse-lifting treatises. A professional interest.” He gestured vaguely with the book in his hand. “Some of us have to work for a living.”

The barb was there, the implicit dig at her connection to Harry, to a life of assumed ease. The old Ginny would have hexed him. But the woman sitting on the stool was too tired. Instead, a raw, unbidden honesty slipped out. “So do I. This is just… quiet.”

Her admission hung in the dusty air between them. He didn't mock her. He simply watched her, his gaze analytical, intense. He took in the defiant set of her jaw, the restless energy thrumming just beneath her skin. For a moment, she felt utterly exposed, as if he could see the hollow ache inside her, the suffocating boredom she was fleeing.

“It is that,” he conceded, his voice softer now. He leaned against the opposing bookshelf, the movement fluid and unnervingly casual. He wasn't leaving. “The Ministry is a cacophony of fools convinced of their own importance. Down here… at least the dead have the decency to shut up.”

Ginny found herself letting out a small, surprised laugh. The sound was alien in the silence. “Merlin, that’s bleak.”

“It’s honest,” he countered. His eyes met hers again, and this time, there was something else in them. Not pity, but a flicker of shared understanding. A recognition of the gilded cages they both found themselves in—he, the reformed Death Eater’s son, she, the hero’s perfect partner. Both trapped by a narrative written for them. His gaze lingered for a beat too long, dropping to her mouth before flicking back up. A jolt, sharp and hot, shot straight to her core. It was the antithesis of Harry's gentle touch—it was invasive, assessing, and it made her skin prickle with a forbidden thrill.

He pushed off the shelf, the moment broken. “Well, Weasley. I’ll leave you to your… quiet.” He turned to go, then paused. “Don’t let the silence swallow you whole. It has a habit of doing that.”

He disappeared down the narrow aisle, the sound of his footsteps fading into the vastness of the archive. Ginny sat frozen, her heart hammering against her ribs. The air where he had stood seemed to crackle with residual energy. The familiar, hollow ache deep in her belly was still there, but now it was joined by something new. A sharp, dangerous curiosity. A hot, liquid pulse of want that had nothing to do with comfort and everything to do with the cool, grey eyes of a man she was supposed to hate.

The encounter left her breathless, a strange, illicit heat coiling low in her stomach. She stayed on the stool for a long time, tracing the rim of the book in her lap, replaying his words, the unsettling intensity of his gaze. It was the first time in years anyone had looked at her and not seen the girl who’d won Harry Potter’s heart. Malfoy had looked at her and seen… a woman. A restless, hungry woman. And he hadn't flinched. The thought was terrifying and exhilarating in equal measure.

A week later, the same hollow ache drove her back to the archives. She told herself it was for the quiet, but a deeper, more honest part of her knew she was hoping for another collision. She found him in the same section, poring over a crumbling scroll. This time, there was no pretense of surprise.

“Weasley,” he acknowledged without looking up.

“Malfoy,” she returned, her voice steadier than she felt.

They didn't speak for nearly an hour, existing in a shared bubble of silence that was somehow more intimate than conversation. The air between the towering shelves was thick with unspoken things. Ginny could feel his awareness of her, a physical presence that made the fine hairs on her arms stand on end. She was acutely conscious of the way her robes fell across her thighs, the scent of her skin, the sound of her breathing. When he finally straightened up and turned to leave, his eyes snagged on hers.

The air crackled. It wasn't a friendly glance, nor was it entirely hostile. It was a raw, searching look that stripped away the years of animosity and left only a tense, magnetic pull. He held her gaze for a beat too long, his own jaw tight, a muscle feathering along its edge. In that moment, a silent, dangerous question was asked, and an equally dangerous answer was given in the slight parting of her lips, the quickening of her breath.

He gave a sharp, almost imperceptible nod and turned away, leaving her with a racing pulse and a body humming with a forbidden current.

Unseen, from two aisles over, Hermione Granger froze. She had come in search of a rare text on House-Elf resettlement charters, a dry but necessary part of a new proposal she was drafting. Hearing Ginny's voice had been a surprise; hearing Draco Malfoy's had been a shock. She had paused, not wanting to interrupt what was surely a tense, awkward run-in. But what she witnessed through a gap in the ancient tomes was not an argument.

She saw the way Malfoy looked at Ginny. It wasn't the sneer of their school days. It was possessive. Consuming. She saw the way his eyes tracked the line of Ginny’s throat before locking with hers. And she saw Ginny’s reaction. Not revulsion, not anger. Ginny’s expression was one of taut, breathless anticipation. Hermione watched, her own breath caught in her chest, as Ginny’s lips parted slightly, her posture leaning almost imperceptibly toward him. It was a silent, charged exchange that lasted only a few seconds but felt like an eternity.

When Malfoy walked away, Hermione didn't move. She watched her best friend, who stood staring at the empty space where he had been. She saw the flush high on Ginny’s cheeks, the way her hand came up to touch her lips in a gesture that was both dazed and deeply private. A cold knot of dread formed in Hermione’s stomach. This wasn't old animosity. This wasn't a chance encounter. This was something else entirely. Something secret and volatile. And as she watched Ginny finally collect herself, a flicker of guilt crossing her features before being replaced by a stubborn resolve, Hermione knew. She didn't have proof, she didn't have words for it yet, but she knew. A seed of suspicion, ugly and undeniable, had been planted, and she had a terrible feeling she was about to watch it grow.