Captivity
AN: This ficlet was inspired by A Perfect Circle's "Pet." Thanks to Rainpuddle for beta reading!
***
He wasn't allowed near the windows.
Before, he might have stridden up to the window nonetheless, and gazed down at the street like the prince he thought he was. He would have felt he was lording over whatever lay below, be it land or people or buildings, and he would have enjoyed the feeling. He was bred for adoration, after all.
But now approaching the window was a feat that he knew he wouldn't attempt.
She might come just as he came close enough to peer around the pale gauzy curtains and through the glass panes. She might see his pitiful attempt to defy her, and she might allow her fury to take hold of her fully. She might do something he would regret.
Before, he never would have imagined that he would fear the sweet-faced little girl. Her presence was barely noted as she hung on the peripheral of those he deigned to notice. She was the sister of one of his schoolyard enemies, and though he might have slung insults her way, and she might have slung curses his way, he never considered her.
Now, of course, he could do nothing but consider her. Ginny Weasley dominated his waking thoughts and haunted his dreams.
It would be easier, he thought if he were under her spell. He wasn't. No Unforgivable bound him to her, no sort of magic-induced loyalty held him in her home, meek and mild. Instead, he was bound by fear and cowardice, and that made it all the more unbearable.
Draco Malfoy hated to admit defeat, but it was undeniable.
"I'm back." Her voice was sweet, innocent and everything that she wasn't.
He scowled involuntarily, a remnant of his past life then hoped that the shadows hid the expression.
"I hope you didn't fret, my heart," she continued. "I came as quickly as I could."
He wished that she hadn't. She crossed the room, peering out the window. "I can't see them, precious, but I know they're there."
She had told him, upon his arrival here, that they watched her house constantly, waiting for the opportunity to bring her unjustly in on false charges. "Just like Sirius Black," she'd said. "No trial, straight to Azkaban with no hope for ever having a normal life."
He'd snorted. Now, four months and a thousand lifetimes later, he cringed at the memory, but then he'd still been the confident young prince. "Sirius Black wasn't innocent."
"He was," insisted Ginny.
"Fine," he had said dismissively, unwilling to argue with the slip of a girl who had brought him to her home at wandpoint.
The next instant, he found himself frozen immobile and propped against the wall as Ginny glared at him. "You will speak to me respectfully," she said coldly. "You are not superior. You are not in charge here. Stop acting like you are."
This is the point when he would have laughed, and told her what a pathetic waste of wizarding blood her entire poor, Muggle-loving family was, but he was unable to speak. Instead, he was forced to listen.
"I know you think that because of your privileged birth you're better than me. Because your parents have more money than they know what to do with that you are somehow a breed apart from me, and you are better. You thought that joining with You-Know-Who would give you even more power and an opportunity to prove that you are indeed superior." She leaned close, her eyes burning with fanaticism. "That doesn't mean shit now. You can't buy your way out of this situation, Malfoy. Your precious Dark Lord is not going to burst through that door and rescue you. You belong to me now."
She removed the spell suddenly, then, and he slumped to the floor at the unexpected burden of his own weight. She tuned on her heel, and walked to the door. "Don't go near the window," she said before shutting the door behind her.
He hadn't taken her seriously, even then. Only after what he had mentally labeled as a torture session, even though he attained neither grievous injury or emotional damage. It was simply an endless time of her dominating him, forcing him to believe that she was superior to him through curses and spells and impassioned speeches.
***
He sometimes imagined what would be outside the window. He would edge up to the unspoken but undeniable line that marked where he would become visible through the window, and he would look as hard as he could at the curtains which never fluttered and the tiny scrap of grey that he knew was the sky.
He thought that the war was still going on. There would occasionally be a yell or other loud noises from outside that became the soundtrack to elaborate battles within his mind, with the Death Eaters fighting valiantly against their suppressors within the Ministry and their oppressors without the wizarding community.
He imagined the street below to be grey and dingy, with the injured and dying leaning against buildings moaning in agony while the war-calloused public walked by, uncaring. There would be few supplies left, now, with the magical world focusing on destruction rather than production. The supplies in the shops would be dingy leftovers of a happier time being sold for exorbitant prices, and Muggle things being sold out of necessity. He knew that Muggle food, drink and products would be reminiscent of Azkaban fare, and that the wizarding world would be waning.
Witches would no longer spend hours making themselves beautiful with charms and potions, and instead would become as drab as their surroundings. Witches like his mother would feel lost in this new regime, and wizards like his father would console their wives and promise that when the war was over things would return to normal.
Everyone out there was as miserable as he was, he knew. In fact, his room and regular, sparce meals was probably the same as how everyone else was living, if not better. He really should be grateful that he was being treated so well while the rest of the world suffered.
***
He just had to see what was outside that window.
He knew that she probably monitored his movements, which was why the few times he had approached the window during his first few days in captivity she had appeared at the door before he had gotten there. She had expressed her extreme displeasure in his action through brutal curses, one after another until he had finally broken down and promised he would not do it again in order to give his shivering, agonized body relief.
He'd been wary, since then, and would slowly edge towards the window on the few other occasions that he took it upon himself to try to see out. Thinking back, the slowness of his approach was probably what had given Ginny the time to realize what he was doing.
This time, he would sprint. He would dash to the window, and get his glimpse at the world outside before his punishment began. He would affirm his imagined scenarios of the plight of the wizarding world, and he would get to see the full sky again, perhaps for the last time. He somewhat doubted that Ginny's favorite stories about a changed world where they could be happy together and live their lives together without fear were true.
He steeled himself. He would make his stand soon. He figured that it was sometime in the early afternoon, and that Ginny was out. She left everyday, off doing something that left her nerves frazzled and worn. He figured it would take her longer to get to him if she was out.
He took a deep breath then ran across the room. Nothing he had ever done was as nerve-wracking as those timeless seconds it took him to cross the room, and he reached the window. He shoved the curtains aside to reveal that the glass had been covered with grey material. He couldn't see out.
He only had a few seconds before Ginny made her inevitable appearance at the door.
He wrenched at the bottom of the window, scraping his hands on the rough wood and trying to quickly unfasten the latch. It seemed to be spelled shut. He jerked and pulled to no avail.
He heard a creak in the hallway.
He took another deep breath, and rammed his elbow into one of the panes of covered glass. He had to see outside. After all this trouble, all this time he had to see the outside again. He was so close...
The glass shattered on the third time, and as the doorknob rattled open he finally peered outside.
The curse hit him in the back. He crumpled with sunlight still shining down on him as he hit the floor. He wasn't sure what the curse was, but fine tremors ran down his back and he seemed unable to move. The sun- God, the sun- hit his face, and created orange spots on the inside of his eyelids. The sensation was ecstasy.
Then he remembered what he had seen outside the window.
That made another tremor run down his spine, one that had nothing to do with the spell that still kept him from rising. He refused to believe it was true. It had to be another spell- something to confuse him in case he ever saw out. It had to be.
Because the world couldn't be as cheerful and bright as always. He couldn't have been in a room above Diagon Alley, which was as bustling and cheerful as ever. Hundreds of wizards and witches, going about normal, daily lives, buying things and laughing and being completely fucking merry...
That couldn't be right.
The curse was lifted, and he snapped his eyes open. The sunlight was gone. The window he had broken was fixed. Ginny stood over him, looking furious.
"Did you see?" she demanded. He stared at her. "Did you see?" she screamed.
He glared up at her, and hissed, "I saw."
She stepped back, looked around and then moved forward to kick him ferociously in the side. "I told you to stay away from the window! You were safe when you stayed away from the window!"
He carefully moved an arm, and then stood when he saw that she wasn't going to kick him again. His side ached enough already.
"You couldn't know! I could keep you as long as you didn't know!" she wailed.
"Keep me?" Draco said.
"I kept you safe. I keep you safe," said Ginny. She was crying, he saw. She tangled her fingers in her hair, and moved around the room. "Get away from the bloody window!"
He stepped away quickly. "Why did you lie about the war?"
She had never told him that the war was over. Her words to him had all been lies. He wasn't sure why that bothered him, since she had kept him captive in this damned room for too long and that told him all he needed to know about her personality, but with a war it had almost seemed justified. In a way.
"It isn't over," she said. "It really isn't. They've just tried to make people think it is. That's why I've been keeping you safe."
"Safe from what?" He couldn't stop himself from asking.
"Them! They don't understand like I do," Ginny said. "About you. I know you, my heart, and I love you more dearly every day."
"Then let me leave!" he yelled.
"I can't!" she said. "I don't want you to go." She pouted, and looked for all the world like an innocent child, but then the look faded into something infinitely more dangerous. "I won't let you."
He knew that she wouldn't let him go. If she'd been holding him prisoner, not for noble reasons but instead for selfish ones, then she was little more than a criminal. Possibly she was insane, since she had taken it upon herself to hold the heir to the Malfoy fortune hostage.
He wondered what his parents thought of his disappearance.
"I don't understand," he said. "What about the war?"
"You-Know-Who fell nearly four months ago," said Ginny. "The Death Eaters imprisoned, the Ministry thrown into chaos and the wizarding world mourning its losses. Everything is nearly healed, now. Everyone in the Order are known as heroes, finally."
The Order. That could only mean that she was part of the infamous Order of the Phoenix. His father had spoken of them, always disdainfully. They were a self-righteous group with hero complexes that sought to destroy the natural order of the wizarding world, and Ginny Weasley was part of them. Her behavior became clear to him in a flash of understanding. She undoubtedly had convinced herself that he was a dark wizard whom she was cleansing of evil, or perhaps rehabilitating to protect from the rest of the world. Her belief that her group of fanatics were on a better moral plane than his group of determined wizards allowed her to treat him just as badly as the Death Eaters had ever treated their prisoners.
"Hasn't anyone been looking for me?" he asked desperately. There was no way his father would accept that he had simply disappeared.
"Everyone thinks you took off as soon as the going got tough. You're considered a coward." The expression on her face could be described as a smirk. She thought it was funny that his penchant for self preservation had resulted in no one questioning his disappearance.
"Can't I just go?" he asked. "I'll go far away, to somewhere that has never heard the Malfoy name." Not much chance of that, but what she didn't know couldn't hurt her. "I'll live the life that everyone thinks I am. Just let me leave." He was aware that it sounded like he was begging, and he knew in his heart that he was. He just needed to leave, and he knew now was probably his only chance to negotiate.
Ginny laughed. "I can't let you go."
He watched as she moved closer to him, wand held at the ready. He wanted to tell her again that she could, or maybe ask her why she couldn't, but the words froze in his throat. He recognized the look on her face. It was the one she wore when she punished him. He should have known this was coming, but the shock that his entire imagined wizarding crisis was false had jarred the seriousness of his situation out of his mind.
"I love you," she said pitifully.
Images of his life before, of other girls saying the same thing in infinitely different situations flashed before his eyes, and somehow those incidents seemed hollow and fake. He stared at Ginny in horror as he realized that he had grown used to her, and that he wasn't entirely sure that he wanted to leave her. But he had to get out of this room. He had to see the sky that had seemed unimportant to him before, and enjoy the freedom to leave any time he wished.
"I don't care," he said cruelly.
Her eyes were glossy with tears. She gave him an unreadable look, and said, "I didn't want it to come to this."
He had a sinking feeling that things were going to get a lot worse for him.
"I'm sorry. I didn't want to cheapen what we have," she continued.
Cheapen? What the bloody hell was she going on about?
"I wanted your feelings to be genuine and from the heart," she continued.
An idea was forming in the back of his mind, but he didn't dare allow it to manifest into a fear. She was a good girl. She wouldn't do that...
"I'm sorry," she repeated. "Imperio."
And then he was happy, because he was in love with his sweetheart, and all he had to do all day was please her.