Author's Important Note! - This chapter contains violence and blood-related gore. I have not marked the sections; you'll be able to tell which ones are which if you merely skim. They do, however, include important bits of information that pertain not only to the end of this story but also to the third and final fic in the series, Pieces (not yet written).
To give you a heads-up, after Cut is completed, there is a companion fic that comes with it that will help you understand upcoming elements in Pieces. However, it contains pairings that cannot be posted on Portkey. Therefore, after Cut is finished, I will complete the companion fic and post it on Restricted Section. When the companion is published, I will update Cut with a link to the story so you'll be all filled in!
As always, hugs and whatnot to where_is_truth and rainpuddle13.
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***
Even as he Apparated home with his father, Draco experienced a twinge of regret. He hoped Ginny would just go home once he hadn't shown up. Perhaps he could send her an owl when everything was sorted out. And it was odd, too, that he couldn't seem to connect with her. Torn between concern for his mother and worry for Ginny, he tried hard to collect himself.
"What has happened to Mother?" he asked stiffly, shaking slightly. "And why did we come here first? Why can't we just go to St. Mungo's?"
Lucius shook his head.
"I'm afraid she began having fits this morning, Draco. She fell out of her bed and managed to injure herself as well as two Mediwitches." Draco narrowed his eyes.
"That's impossible," he said tightly. "Mother sits very still all day."
"Apparently not," Lucius said, his eyes flashing dangerously. "Perhaps they changed her medication. All I know is that she has suffered a serious head injury and is not expected to live."
At his father's grave words, Draco bit his lip and turned away. Ashamed of his reaction, he valiantly tried to curb the silver tears that threatened to flow.
Lucius laid an unexpected hand on Draco's shoulder, turning his incrementally taller son around to face him.
"Here, drink this," Lucius said. "This firewhiskey will take the edge off your nerves. This is why we didn't go directly to St. Mungo's, Draco, I knew you would be upset and we can't show our faces there with you crying like a girl, can we?"
Curling his lip, Draco took the small glass his father had poured from a decanter on the sideboard. Throwing it back defiantly, he grasped the delicate glass so roughly it shattered in his fingers.
"By Merlin, Father, I…" Draco began, trailing off and abruptly falling like a sack of stones to the cold marble floor.
Lucius allowed himself a cold smile as he summoned a house elf to clean up the glass.
"Take Draco to the guest suite next to his bedroom. He should not wake for several hours. If he shows any sign of waking, you are to alert me immediately." He paused, leaning down to rip several fresh hairs from Draco's scalp.
"As for me, I have other matters to attend to."
***
Lucius was beside himself with delight. How he had waited, no, slavered over this day, this time, these opportunities. He had sedated the flame-haired girl and put her in Draco's bedroom. After going through her luggage he instructed a house elf to dress her in a specific garment. Delicious irony nearly made him giggle. How the tables had turned, indeed.
Entering his study, he went to his desk and removed a marked-up map of the world. He quickly located the destination he desired for himself and the Weasley girl should anything go wrong with his plans for this evening. The tiny dot on which he was fixated was apparently the most magical place on Earth, though he knew it was overrun with Muggles to a fault. No matter; he could blend in.
Lucius then took his wand and caressed it, thinking he was surely in possession of one of the finest pieces Ollivander had ever crafted. It never let him down when performing a horrifying spell; instead it seemed to become a part of him, warm and glowing, when he cast evil charms. And he used that wand to make an illicit Distress Portkey of his favorite crop. The people authorized to use it had only to touch it and it would transport them without a spoken spell. Lucius summoned yet another house elf to handle the Portkey until it was needed.
"Dear Virginia, I do believe it is your turn."
***
Ginny was extremely muzzy, her limbs leaden and immobile. Weakly, she opened her mouth to speak, but found it full of cold ice water. The cool liquid soothed her parched throat, but she couldn't remember what made it so scratchy and irritated.
Images swam blurrily in front of her eyes, and she distantly heard a laugh as she tried to focus. Long, cool fingers stroked her cheek and she turned her head in that direction. Draco! He would tell her what had happened. She remembered little, but was sure she was late in getting home.
Dimly, she realized her extremities weren't just numb but restrained, and that she could see more of herself than she remembered being exposed by her traveling robes. She could hear a low, smooth voice speaking to her and struggled to make out the words. The ringing in her ears drowned out any chance of comprehension.
Exhausted, she lay back, hoping another nap might clear away the pesky cobwebs in her mind. Draco would take care of her and take her home when she was well again. She slid into unconsciousness.
***
His voice woke her for good.
"Ginny, Ginny…" Draco said quietly. "Wake up, my crimson beauty." Her eyes opened and she was instantly aware she wasn't at home and most likely was in Draco's huge mansion.
She lay in the middle of a large bed in a room lit by candle and firelight, and the walls covered in heavy, dark tapestries. Silver scarves bound her tightly, but seemed to be anchored nowhere. She wore the barely-there Slytherin green French lace lingerie she had purchased with Draco in mind. Suddenly she was incensed. For her to be here, likely in Draco's own bedroom, meant either Lucius had suddenly had a turn of heart about his son courting a Weasley or he was dead. Plain and simple, those were the only two options. And she definitely wasn't betting on the former.
Looking up, she spotted Draco sitting in a large, black leather armchair, regarding her with an amused smile.
"Draco!" she hissed. "What's going on? Is your father here? We could be caught, Draco, how daft can you be? He'll flay me alive and do worse to you if he finds me here!" Ginny struggled against the bonds, and she was infuriated to see his long fingers drumming idly along the arm rest.
"Draco!" she said again, his silence increasing her fear exponentially with every passing second.
Suddenly, in the low light, his skin bubbled and his hair grew longer.
"Indeed, how daft is Draco?"
***
As Lucius advanced on Ginny, she felt the terror course through her like a sick reverse orgasm. She remembered the first time she met Lucius Malfoy.
Furiously, her mind sorted through images of their meeting in Flourish and Blotts. Before he spoke hateful things against her family, before he slipped Tom Riddle's diary into her cauldron with slim, treacherous hands, she had been awestruck by his glacial beauty.
How Draco mirrored his father, in bearing and gesture. It was eerily terrifying how Lucius smiled at her and still she could see Draco's face somewhere in his. The spare movements, the cool, appraising eyes. Even as Lucius began to neatly shed his clothing, Ginny stared at him, her terror allowing no other reaction. Somewhere in the back of her a mind, baser impulses fired, triggering survival. It was a shame, Ginny thought dully, that survival meant submission.
"My dearest Weasley, must you tremble and shake in that manner? I know that my presence can be commanding, but I'm only a man," Lucius said, his dulcet tone deceptively light as he neatly folded his robes and shirt.
Ginny could see his chest wasn't well-defined, but still spoke of power and poise. The crisp light hairs smattering his chest would rub up against her skin like Draco's, and she would be reminded once more of this treason and her inability to remedy it. A tear squeezed from her eye and Lucius darted down to lick it from her cheek. Flinching, she tried to squirm away.
"Don't touch me!" she managed through fear-numbed lips. He chuckled deeply in his chest, sitting next to her on the bed, still clad in his trousers and now barefoot. It was an odd picture, but it didn't diminish his power. Stroking Ginny's leg from pert toe to taut thigh, Lucius resisted a smile that threatened to break.
"I still cannot understand what possessed Draco to fuck you," Lucius said, his subtle inflection on the curse making it ten times dirtier. "Obviously, it must be this above-average body. Tell me, Weasley, did you seduce him with knickers like these until he was begging for release?"
Ginny refused to dignify his crude comments with a response. Snapping her eyes shut, she felt him open the delicate catches of her lingerie. She could not stop the hot tears that leaked constantly as he divested her of the only protection she had against him. The false gentility he was showing made an absolute mockery of the care Draco showed her.
As he removed the lower part of her garments, Ginny gathered every bit of strength possible and vainly tried to summon her wand, not even knowing if it was in the same room or even intact. Opening her eyes for a split second, she saw it rise from the black chair and swish through the air toward her.
Following her diverted gaze, Lucius roared, snatching the delicate wand from the air just before it reached her hand.
"Foolish bitch," Lucius raged. "Do you really think such a pathetic wand could harm me?"
He held her wand in both hands, rising from her body to break it over his trouser-clad knee. Ginny felt as if he had struck her when the wand cracked and she saw the core quivering, the wood trembling. He tossed it aside with a snarl on his lips.
Leaning down, he tore wildly at her bodice, ripping the ribbons and lace to the side, exposing her breasts. He almost missed the tiny heart that covered hers.
Wordlessly, he stared at the heart which quaked atop her left breast. When he traced it with a cold fingertip, she shuddered at his touch.
"You're bound to him, aren't you, little Weasley? This is how you trapped him."
All at once, her memories of Draco rushed warm and pure into her mind. Defiance fueled by equal love for Draco and hatred of Lucius flared.
"Yes, I did it, you bastard. I tricked him into the repeating the spell."
Lucius' eyes turned a slate gray, a maelstrom of emotion flitting over them. Suddenly any sexual punishment just wasn't enough. Only blood could atone for these grievous misdeeds. Frantically searching for a weapon, his eyes alighted on a black box sitting on Draco's dressing table.
The silver bow told him it was the dagger he had gifted Draco with on Christmas Eve. Somehow it seemed a fitting instrument to mete out Ginny Weasley's punishment. He carefully opened the box and removed the Malfoy family heirloom, admiring the way the blade flashed in the low light, imagining the beautiful contrast of blood and steel.
Turning around, he knelt over her again, ignoring her thrashing as he drew the tip across her skin, raising welts. Feeble attempts to dislodge him became more frantic and laced with screams as he effortlessly slit the remaining seams on her lingerie.
Before she could heave another breath, he sliced a vicious X over the red heart. Threads of dark blood streamed over her pale skin and she wailed piteously. Lucius raised the blade to his mouth, licking a slick path from hilt to tip, smearing her blood obscenely on his pale lips and the cold metal.
Her screams were in earnest now, less from pain than from fear. He swept his hand over the smooth expanse of her abdomen.
"What a pretty canvas," he said pleasantly.
***
Molly Weasley had had a singular focus all day. With Arthur working late at the Ministry, she had chosen today to do her summer cleaning. She had scrubbed and scoured with the aid of her wand and some elbow grease. Even though most of her family had moved out, the Burrow was a very dusty place.
So when she finished in the early evening, she made herself a cup of tea and promptly sat in her favorite chair, a reward for a house well-cleaned. When Ginny returned home, she would wake and made dinner, she told herself. Arthur was due back soon after Ginny, and Ron was sure to have eaten while out with Harry and Hermione. She dropped off into an exhausted nap.
She didn't hear the front door of the Burrow open. Sleeping peacefully, she was only awakened by her youngest son's cursed exclamation and shrill cry of "Ginny!"
When Molly made it to the foyer where her hysterical son stood pointing to the family clock, she felt her heart seize as Ginny's hand pointed to "mortal peril." It was 8:30.
***
Lucius sent the girl off with a house elf. He wasn't ready for her quite yet. No, he still had business with Draco. Entering the guest suite adjacent to Draco's room, he strode over to the opulent bed where his son lay, groggy and bound. His work robes had long since been removed and he was clothed only in trousers and his pristine white shirt.
"Well, Draco, there is no way to hide my disappointment," Lucius said, striving to keep his tone even and measured.
"What you mean?" Draco mumbled, eyes heavy-lidded, hair disheveled and lying over his forehead.
Without speaking, Lucius leaned over and cut a line up his shirt, splitting it effortlessly next to the neat row of buttons. Revealing an identical tiny heart, Lucius indicated it with the tip of the dagger.
"That," he said disdainfully, pressing the point into Draco's skin, puncturing it. A surprised yelp came from his son. Lucius ignored it.
"You allowed yourself to be tricked by that traitorous whore, Draco. You've sullied yourself for life now…that is, if the Dark Lord allows you to live." Less precisely than he'd marked the girl, he slashed the same X over the sign of the binding spell.
Pain forced Draco to come to his senses through the heavy pall of sedation.
"It was I who tricked her, Father," he ground out between gnashed teeth. "If I bound myself to her, I would always have someone to love me."
Had he not been at the receiving end of his own dagger, Draco would have thought his father's expression comical. Flared nostrils, bugged eyes and curled lips marred the icy perfection of Lucius' face. Composing himself, he looked down, finding the same span of unmarred skin over Draco's abdomen.
"How much are you willing to sacrifice for love, Draco?"
***
Arthur Weasley Apparated home to chaos. Ron was vainly trying to comfort and calm Molly, and it took Arthur a few moments to grasp that his only daughter's clock hand was pointing to the most dire of straits.
"Molly, Molly, please!" he shouted. "Calm down! You have to calm down for Ginny. If she's in trouble and she's with Draco, it might be Death Eaters. If anyone will know what to do, it's Dumbledore." Surprising himself with his efficiency, he turned to Ron, whose face was blotchy with barely-restrained anger.
"We're Flooing to Hogwarts," Arthur said. "Stay here until we return." With that, Arthur grabbed his sobbing wife and shoved her into the fireplace. Taking an absurd amount of Floo powder, he threw it down.
"Hogwarts!"
His parents disappeared in a flash of green light and for a moment, Ron was at a loss for what to do. He knew he couldn't sit idly by without trying to help his sister. Exiting the Burrow, he grabbed his wand and Apparated to Hermione's flat in Hogsmeade.
He arrived in a heap, his concentration so broken he couldn't manage to appear correctly. Stumbling forward, he beat mercilessly on Hermione's front door. Harry answered, wand drawn.
"Ron? What's going on?" Harry said, his brow creasing as Ron shoved his way past.
"It's Ginny," he said, his breath reedy. "She didn't come back, she's with Draco, and, and, her clock hand says 'mortal peril' and Dad thinks its Death Eaters," he rambled, wheezing.
It looked like the conversation Harry and Hermione had been having about her becoming an Auror was going to be put on hold.
Hermione swept to the door, eyeing Ron apprehensively. "Slow down, Ron," Hermione instructed resolutely, but her pale face gave away her fear. "Slow down and tell us exactly what you know."
***
Arthur and Molly stood in front of an aggrieved Dumbledore, who was stroking his beard and deciding on the best course of action. He did not doubt Arthur's suspicions of Death Eater involvement, but since Severus had not reported any activity or even any pain from his mark, he could only hope they were wrong.
Severus Snape and Minerva McGonagall had been summoned and questioned to determine if either Draco or Ginny had divulged any information about their intentions upon Ginny's return from France. Neither provided any help.
Snape was of the rather snide opinion that the Weasley's probably shabby old clock just needed winding, or was perhaps just over-sensitive to Ginny's relationship with Draco. Wisely deciding not to voice it, he kept his mouth shut as McGonagall tried to comfort the Weasleys.
"We will organize a search party, Molly," McGonagall was saying, an arm around the still-sniffling mother. A surprised gasp drew everyone's attention to Snape.
Wincing, he held his forearm, sallow brow furrowed.
"Perhaps it isn't necessary," Snape said in as dignified a voice as he could muster. Removing his hand, he showed his black Dark Mark, the skin throbbing red around it. "I think I know where your daughter is."