CHAPTER SEVEN- The Words of the Mute
Gryffindors are, by definition, brave.
Bravery is, by definition, a lack of fear.
I suppose that makes me brave in some ways, for in the grand scheme of things, from the very beginning, I'd never been scared of Draco Malfoy. Of his father, perhaps. Of what they both stood for, perhaps. But never of the boy himself, the sneering, coiffed, flawless, icy boy. All I'd felt for him was a supercilious sort of pity, and later a healthy dose of scorn.
Even after seeing what he was capable of, I felt no fear, only disappointment and anger and confusion and a sort of relentless guilt.
In a school, in adolescence, in any sort of community, we each forge one another. Every action we take molds someone else.
So what had been done to forge this particular monster? What had been done to make this beauty barbaric?
And why in Merlin's name did I give a damn?
Not because I was brave, but because I was too stupid to fear him, and too stupid to fear what could happen.
~~~
They were proud of her, of all things. It boggled the mind, really, how a few small details could completely change a situation. Go to Azkaban to prove a point to your father and you were being foolish-do it for a job and you were being courageous.
"It was very brave of you, darling, to go on behalf of those who can't," Molly said, heaping an extra portion of trifle into Ginny's bowl. "Perhaps it can do some good."
Ginny smiled wanly, her hand slipping down to her side to brush over her hip, where the phantom traces of his wand's energy heated her skin. The wand was long since removed, stowed for the night in a small wooden box in her father's "study." In reality, it was only a desk crammed with papers, but he loved it.
The only problem was, it was in plain sight of the table, and Ginny could hardly keep her eyes from it.
"Anything to help," she said finally, turning curved lips to her parents and feeling ten kinds of a fool. She'd acted horribly at the prison, shamefully. It hadn't occurred to her at the time, with the wand warbling in her pocket and the wand's owner sitting catatonic before her. All she'd wanted-all she'd needed-was a reaction, any sort of reaction. If he truly was in a sort of walking comatose state, then guilt would be beyond him.
But if he could react, then she knew he had to know something, had to feel something, no matter how cold-hearted of a bastard he was.
So she'd had a bit of an outburst, what of it?
She didn't give a tinker's damn what Draco Malfoy thought of her or her infantile outbursts.
Bearing that in mind, Ginny finished her dessert quickly, not tasting a bit of it, and excused herself from the table. At least if she were in her room she could be away from reminders of her day's errand. But even in her room, in the silent comfort of that which had always been hers, the thoughts swarmed and nagged, and Ginny fell asleep thinking of four inescapable walls and the prospect of eternity.
Things could have been similar for her, she knew, if people hadn't been so understanding. After all, she'd done more damage on her own that year than all the Death Eaters combined. Damage wrought by her own small, slim hands, perhaps, but damage also wrought by a cruel, icy man who carried an ornate walking stick, with a son who mimicked his every move.
Damage wrought by a cruelly handsome wizard who was weak in the present but strong in the past.
It was she who had been weak in the present.
"Not anymore," she said definitely, her mouth set. It was just what Voldemort did, even in his death. He sowed doubt and fear and guilt and hatred, and fed off it all. But she wouldn't feel it anymore. Tom Riddle was what he'd always been-a shadow, a phantom, no more than a blot of ink on a page.
She was real, and she'd make enough of a difference to prove it.
She'd undo part of what she'd unwittingly helped along.
~~~
The next morning, she was received with gratitude at St. Mungo's, effusive praise in long supply for the little Mediwitch-in-training. Though the beast's wand could well turn out to be no help at all, it was a fantastic gesture, everyone said. A meaningful gesture.
Only Glennys Gylfoyle saw the forlorn look in Ginny's eyes, however, when she went on rounds that day, when an incoherent Luna Lovegood grabbed the young Weasley's arm and began to speak.
"It's in the dog," she said earnestly, even a bit urgently. "Moon deep on a split pudding."
Ginny could feel the grief, wailing inside her, scouring the back of her throat like a handful of nails "All right, Luna, love," Ginny said, patting the ethereal blonde's hand comfortingly. "I'll be sure to look for it." The Ravenclaw had been so kind, and she'd stood truer than most, had done so repeatedly.
Ginny worked without pause for the rest of the day, taking on the small, odd jobs she was allowed, learning more about those tasks that were yet beyond her, and the more she worked, the more solid her purpose became.
Once Ginny Weasley had made up her mind, there was no swaying it.
~~~
She shouldered off the coat she wore over her green robes, handing it to the guard at the front. "Visitor for Malfoy," she said tersely. She would go through the proper channels this late afternoon, would do things as regulated by the Ministry, as regulated by her father.
She highly doubted he'd meant these regulations for her. She also highly doubted he'd understand her insistence on returning. But no matter anyone's understanding, the guard, thin-lipped and suspicious-eyed, was obligated to check her wand at the door and send her on her way. Her chair and paper were already in place when she approached the long corridor of chambers, her hands icy and her mind suddenly blank.
"Good evening, miss," the chamber guard said politely. He'd been given instructions-very specific ones-from Kingsley.
"Treat the girl well, Paternoster, treat her well and watch her as you would one of your own."
Kingsley hadn't really known what had compelled him to give such an order. He believed she meant well, but somewhere in those beautiful bronze-brown eyes, under all that flame-red hair, the girl was in trouble, and if she wasn't now, she would be. Of that, Kingsley was certain.
He didn't want that trouble coming to a head on his watch-or at the prison at all, really. Kingsley Shacklebolt didn't want to break any sort of news to the weary elder wizard Weasley.
She made her way down the hall, first cell on the right, and immediately made as though to sit in the chair provided her.
Why so comfortable, Virginia? she asked herself, more than a little snidely. Why so natural? It wasn't a natural, a comfortable setup, to be certain- "That's how it has to be," her father had said offhandedly that morning. "The more times the wards on the glass are taken down and re-erected, the weaker they become."
And so here she perched, slightly stooped, readying herself to sit, her eyes once again riveted to the prisoner before her.
Was it lowering, then, to have had everything, to have lived lavishly, only to have it all replaced by one robe, cold walls, and a rickety cot the whole world could peek in on? And was it even more lowering that Azkaban no longer presented an air of noble suffering? That he wasn't treated as a threat, but as a common criminal?
And as these thoughts flew threw her mind, the words left her mouth from the clamor of her mind before she could regulate them.
"I'm sorry," her cold lips stammered, and even as her eyes widened with shock, his blinked once, rapidly. Because she felt a fool, a betrayer, Ginny rushed to qualify with the only rationale her scattered brain could manage. "For yesterday. For acting like a child."
That got her nothing, no reaction, which was very nearly a relief. A Weasley apologizing to a Malfoy?
Talk about being a blood traitor.
She may as well keep up appearances while she was here, she thought; if not for him, then for herself. So, as she sat, she quietly asked "Why?"
She did not wait for an answer and did not expect one, so she immediately sat and started reading the Daily Prophet.
~~~
Before much longer, it became a habit, a pattern. Each afternoon signaled the end of her shift at St. Mungo's, and she in her blazing green robes made her way to the once-dreaded Azkaban, the same one Lucius Malfoy and all his ilk had escaped from.
The same one his son would likely never escape from.
And as the days wore into one week, then two, Ginny could feel the tension mounting in the Burrow, the long, telling glances at the "clock" which indicated her daily presence at work and at the prison.
But there were no questions in those first days, not just yet. For now, the Weasleys comforted themselves with the knowledge that their princess, their jewel, was doing right by her job at St. Mungo's. Surely, they thought, that was the reason for her daily voyages to the stark halls of the wizard prison.
And then came the day when habit was overturned, the pattern disturbed and worlds thrown off their axes. She had entered the prison, checked her wand, and entered the corridor. She had spoken her usual desultory greeting of "Why?", still not expecting an answer, and started to sit down; when the glitch, the interruption came, she was almost comically frozen in a half-sitting position-("Pop a squat!" Fred's voice cried gleefully in her mind's ear-) and he spoke.
"I'm guilty, you know." He did not move, did not bother to face her with his words. His voice was surprisingly strong for having been months unused, but he kept his volume low.
It was a suspended moment, each millisecond passing like an hour as Ginny straightened, as a rare prisoner down the hall gasped, as Paternoster at his desk dropped his paper and half-stood, as the silent prisoner, the stoic captive, the mute murderer of Cell One broke his silence.
"I know," Ginny responded, her own voice a whisper as she stepped closer to the glass.
"Miss, step away from there," Paternoster cautioned, starting forward. Ginny stayed him with a shake of her head, keeping her eyes on the cell and its contents.
"I killed him," Draco said in a contemplative voice. The words had been shaping on his tongue for weeks, but though he'd crafted them as honed, they were dull, rounded as he spoke. He had meant to wound her, and yet she stepped closer.
"I know," she said again, her eyes frankly curious, and that garnered his attention, his odd eyes flashing to hers, his face twisted in an ugly grimace.
"Don't you have any wits, Weasley? Don't you have any good, healthy fear?" He spat the words as he stood. There was the sharpness he'd so desired.
"I don't see anything to be afraid of," she said honestly. "What I see is a misguided man behind several inches of glass and too many curses to count… or break."
When he moved, his speed was serpentine, eerily smooth steps carrying her toward the glass and reflexively, Ginny stepped back as he stepped forward. A slow, smug, somehow melancholy smile flitted over his lips, and she cursed herself inwardly.
She'd be damned if she backed down so easily, and so she stepped toward the glass once more.
At her movement, he sketched a mocking bow, stepping back and then raising his eyes to hers.
"Now we're dancing," he said in a lilting, cultured voice. Her breath backed up in her lungs and he broke the bow. "Go home, little one. I never asked to dance with you." And as he turned to return to his cot, the proud angle of his shoulders softened marginally. "I killed the only one who asked… remember?"
And it was those words, that jarring reference to the Yule Ball-(how had he even noticed that Neville took me?!?)-that had her moving, propelled toward the exit.
Draco Malfoy, after more than a month in prison, had spoken.
~~~
Ah… now we're all caught up with his words and my words, and the somehow elegant inception of our dance.
Another set of spokes, another hub, this time his instead of mine, one of those elegant, long-fingered hands reaching up to start the wheel and its hub and its spokes turning, turning so you can not see the spokes, only a blur. The only thing you see is the hub.
All those spokes end up at the same place.
All those hinges swing the same door.
All the decisions lead to the same conclusion.
Destiny?
I only wish I knew.