CHAPTER FOUR
The grounds were more familiar to him than his own "home" back at Privet Drive, a place he hadn't seen since the death of Voldemort. The Burrow had always been his home, from the moment he'd seen it, and Harry felt no differently now than he had all those years before.
There were many other things that had changed since then, however.
Harry was lonely, sometimes excruciatingly so, sharing his memories and his regrets only with Remus. Though Ron was still a close friend, there were things Harry felt he could not tell the Quidditch official who had once been his school chum. There were things he had seen, had done, had felt.
Most of all, there was Hermione.
Though resentment was something Harry had long grappled with, he'd never quite mastered it, and always, always, Hermione made that resentment so much easier to bear and so much harder to beat.
Once upon a time, Harry thought, Ginny would have killed to be walking around the Burrow with her arm linked through his. And once upon a time, Harry reckoned he would have nearly killed to have Ginny just where she was.
But now his little Ginny, Harry's very first admirer, was with someone else, and in his heart, Harry was with someone else.
So when Harry's someone else had come to him, asking him to help, how could he have said no?
His answer to Hermione was always, always yes, no matter what he rationally knew was right.
"You've changed," he said matter-of-factly, glancing down at the slim, softly curved woman at his side. It was more than physical changes, though Harry would objectively admit Ginny Weasley had grown into more of a woman than any of them had expected. Her eyes were older, and held both more pain and more pleasure than they had before, and for a brief moment, Harry was forced to wonder if perhaps Draco was actually good for Ginny.
It was no more than a moment, however, and the cold, murderous voice of Lucius Malfoy slithered through Harry's memories, a voice behind a cold, dead mask.
Draco Malfoy couldn't be good for anyone.
"I suppose I have," Ginny said, glancing up at Harry. It didn't take much; he'd never quite grown as tall as his comrades, staying slight and thin even throughout years of strenuous Quidditch practices. She was stricken by differences, not in Harry himself, but between Harry and Draco. Here was the man she'd wanted, and he was so different from the man she'd gotten. Light and dark, tall and short, temperamental and calm. "Though you're the only once who's noticed," she finished her thought hurriedly, her mental comparisons embarrassing her.
"Apparently not," he said before he could stop himself, the words followed by a grimace. "I'm sorry, Ginny, that was completely uncalled for."
"No, it wasn't," she said softly, a womanly smile playing about her lips. "It was no more than the truth, and I'll not be ashamed of as much as that."
Harry had never noticed her in time, always too late, and it seemed no different this time. But what had made him come to her at this particular moment in her life?
"Harry… I hope you'll not think me rude… but why are you really here?"
Harry flinched imperceptibly, the stern, wise voice of Hermione playing its way out.
She's always adored you, Harry, and it would be nice for you to get back in touch, wouldn't it? Couldn't harm a thing.
And he'd nodded, nodded, nodded, like a broken idiot toy.
Damn Hermione. What must it be like to always be right?
"Because it's been too long, Ginny," Harry said, and felt the truth of the statement warm him a bit. He glanced up at the house, smiled a little, and stooped only centimeters to brush his lips over her cheek.
She closed her eyes, trying to feel something more than despair as the famous Harry Potter kissed her right there, at the corner of her mouth. But the dark was too dark, no fair-haired boy to be seen in the Boy Who Lived, and she felt her heart sink even lower as she realized what Harry was doing .
He was doing what Draco never had.
Harry Potter was courting her.
Love - come quick
Love - come in a hurry
There are thieves in the temple tonight
He slammed the heavy door on his way in, the thundering sound it sent through the mansion very nearly matching the thunderous roar of blood in his ears. He felt as though he needed a long, scalding shower to take away the crawling sensation creeping over his skin.
Draco had thought them dead, and had given little more thought to it, but his Slytherin house still remained.
His father had been fanatical about the Dark Lord, preaching power and prestige to a small boy too young to understand it, a boy who still laughed and a boy who loved playtime with his mother and the glamours she cast for their amusement. It had taken Draco, always a bright boy, little time to figure out what he thought of the Dark Lord.
Envious.
Not envious of the power, or envious of the prestige, but Draco Malfoy learned at an early age that green was his color.
He was jealous of the time his father spent on a man who was not a man, a wizard who no longer deserved that title, and so he'd tried hard to be interested in the Death Eaters. They were just one more source of resentment for Draco Malfoy, the boy who boasted loyalty to his father all while praying for a little loyalty in return.
Are you ready, are you devoted, are you committed?
He didn't want to face the implications of her inquisition, Pansy's reedy voice digging into his brain like the broken shards of a wand.
It's me, he thought feverishly, cold sweat breaking out over his face as he wandered from room to room in the big house his father had once commanded with a heavy hand and a black mind.
He fell to his knees at the loo just in time, the two drinks he'd had pouring up and out of him with twice as much force with which they were downed. His long fingers scrabbled on the marble floor of the bathroom, searching for his wand to clean up the mess, but his vision was doubled and the voices careened around his head in a mad cacophony.
Connections like the Dark Lord.
The chosen one.
The red-haired whore.
The stab at Ginny registered, the fact they knew of her, they knew she was his, and Draco pulled his knees to his chest.
If they knew she was his, they could find where she was.
"Scourgify," his mother's voice said from the doorway, her long-unused wand vanishing the mess he'd made with surprising ease. Though her eyes held mild disapproval, she did not raise her voice.
There had been enough of that in the Malfoy household to last several lifetimes.
"You've been drinking," she stated. "And don't bother lying, we're both too old for that."
Was her voice real, or was it just one more to add to the ones constantly replaying in his head, constantly moving like pictures and constantly breathing like snakes?
"Get up off the floor, Draco, that's no place for you." Narcissa bent then, swatting at his back gently.
Real, then, he decided, struggling to his feet, locks of thick blond hair dropping into his grey eyes. His mother's voice was real and attached to a real mother he'd tried to learn to live without. Part of him longed to tell her, longed to beg her to leave, but he couldn't force the words up and out of his mouth.
First the husband, then the son?
He wouldn't put her through it.
"Just giving myself a welcome-home fete," he said steadily, wiping his hand over the back of his mouth and arching an eyebrow smoothly at his mother, feeling the transformation come over him easily, the thin layer of confidence sliding over him like a well-worn cloak.
And though the concern flashed and went in her eyes, Narcissa banked it and put a comforting hand on her son's back.
He would tell her what ailed him, in his own time, and if he didn't, she would know.
A smart woman never repeated her mistakes.
~~~
She'd thought of a thousand ways to gently discourage him, to send him on his way feeling none worse for the wear, but none of the thoughtful phrases seemed to make their way to her voice.
The weight of her family, the guilt of her obligations, weighed down on Ginny, and so she said nothing as Harry took her back up to the Burrow, the face of her mother appearing briefly behind the worn kitchen drapes before disappearing into the house.
She said nothing because she had nothing to say, only disappointment that she couldn't seem to be what was expected of her. Where gentle hands and quiet words had done nothing to spark her in the childhood crush she'd had, she longed for rougher hands and honesty, and she wondered how Draco was faring without her.
Most of all, she knew keenly that if she'd only been more patient-if she'd only stayed put in Boston, where he'd asked her to be-none of this would be happening.