A/N: Hello darling readers. Sorry it's been so long but I've been waiting to hear back from Alexis and she's gone MIA so I decided to just post this now and edit it later if she ever comes back from where she's gone. Goodness, I miss her. Needless to say, this hasn't been beta read so any mistakes or funny looking things are all mine. If you see anything, don't hesitate to let me know so I can fix it.
Anyway, there are a few hints in here from events that happened waaaay back at the beginning of the story, and some references to things that were later edited into chapter one. So if you started reading AIDE after The Big Edit, go back and re-read chapter one so you know just what Dumbledore is talking about later.
To all those who love smut, you should be happy with some smutty goodness in a few chapters, so please be patient. I'm also about to move, but I don't anticipate that affecting updates too much since they're infrequent anyway. But I'm going to attempt to make another update this week before I move next weekend.
So yes, in this chapter you get some mother/daughter moments, trio moments, and Draco vs. Dumbledore moments before it ends. Hope everyone enjoys! ::waves::
"Hold your arm up a little higher, dear."
Ginny sighed and did as her mother requested. She was tired of this wedding nonsense. She wanted it to be over already. Ginny glanced over at Mrs Malfoy. The woman was watching her discomfort with one eyebrow raised, a haughty smirk firmly in place. It was like being stuck with a female Draco.
One who wasn't afraid of her mother.
"These robes are . . . charming, Molly."
Mrs Weasley sighed and flicked her wand at Ginny's robes once more before replying. "They've been in my family for a few generations. We wear them when we marry. It's tradition."
"They look like they've been in your family for several generations. And honestly," Mrs Malfoy tsked as she picked up the edge of the robes between her delicate fingers and examined it. "You could at least have cast a charm on it to keep the moths away."
"Well," Mrs Weasley sniffed. "I can take care of that. I have some of Mrs Buttering's Cloth Restorer here."
Mrs Malfoy lifted her carefully sculpted brow again. "That will repair the holes?"
"That will repair the holes."
Mrs Malfoy scoffed and continued to study the robes, threading the bronze silk through her fingers. "I suspect that this was beautiful when it was new," she acceded. "When would that be, Molly?" she asked as she looked up, a dagger-like sharpness underscoring her saccharine tone. "The fifteenth century?"
Mrs Weasley's face flamed. "Eighteenth."
"Ah, I see," she sighed. Mrs Malfoy folded her long fingers together and rested them at her waist. "Tradition is all well and fine, but usually a bride would prefer something less tattered, I would think."
"They were a gift to my grandmother Prewett from Muggle nobility," Mrs Weasley ground out, her teeth clicking in agitation.
"Muggle?" Mrs Malfoy asked, the slight rise in pitch indicating her horror at the thought. "My son will be standing next to your daughter - in front of international press, may I add - whilst she's wearing antique Muggle robes!"
Mrs Weasley smiled grimly as she tucked another pin in place with her wand. "Yes." Tuck. "And there will be no press at the wedding. It needs to be kept quiet for the moment."
Mrs Malfoy sat down and swiftly summoned a house-elf to bring her a cup of strong tea. Ginny smirked and hid her face by raising the billowing, iridescent cloth of her sleeve up a little higher.
"Mum, were these robes really . . . ?"
"No," Mrs Weasley whispered back. "I just told Narcissa that to bother her." Her eyes were sparkling with mirth. "Grandmother Prewett's family had about as much interaction with Muggles in the eighteenth century as the Malfoys do now."
Ginny chuckled and peeped over the edge of her sleeve at Mrs Malfoy, who was sneaking a green splash of something from a tiny silver flask into her tea. But then she sobered when she really looked at Mrs Malfoy. The woman had the same exhausted, pinched face her son had in recent weeks. It reminded her of Draco again.
"Why do I have to do this, Mum?"
Mrs Weasley zipped along one more seam with her wand, apparently thinking of an answer. "Because this is the way things are, Ginny. I already had this argument with your father. He may like Muggles, but we aren't Muggles. Arthur knows this." She smoothed down a fold in the cloth of Ginny's skirt and dabbed it gently with the cloth restorer. "There's nothing to be frightened of, dear." Dab, dab, dab. "Draco is a good boy. I would try to arrange something else for you if I thought otherwise." She tipped the bottle onto the cloth in her hand again. "Perhaps you can get him to mellow. He needs the influence of a good woman."
Ginny saw her mother glance critically at Mrs Malfoy from the corner of her eye.
"Mum, he doesn't listen to anything I say. It would be pointless to even try."
Mrs Weasley smiled at her. It was one of those secret smiles Ginny remembered so well from her childhood when they were doing something her mother didn't want the men in the family to know about; sneaking special biscuits just for them or reading silly romance novels together. "You don't get a man to do something by telling him to do it."
"But¾ "
"You have to be more subtle than that, Ginny."
"How?"
Mrs Weasley blushed. "I'm sure that you can figure it out, dear."
Ginny's eyes widened in sudden understanding. "Oh!" Then the thought of her mother doing that to her father . . . She wrinkled her nose and Mrs Weasley laughed.
"Don't play innocent." She poked Ginny with her wand. "You know what I mean."
"I suppose so, Mum." Ginny picked at the heavy Alençon lace on her bodice. "I just don't think that Draco and I are going to work out, is all. He's so cold to me lately. I¾ I don't know what I did or what to do."
Mrs Weasley was silent for a long time, pinning, hemming, sewing on buttons. After several minutes, she spoke again. "Draco isn't comfortable with his feelings, poppet." Flick. Swish. "Perhaps you made him feel something that he doesn't want to admit to feeling." She stuck a few pins in her mouth and concentrated on the skirt of Ginny's robes.
Ginny thought that she could understand that. Tom had told her many times that emotions are a way to manipulate people into doing what you want them to do. And Draco would never want to be manipulated. She pushed aside the niggling thought that he was also manipulating her . . .
"I still don't know what to do," Ginny whispered. Mrs Malfoy was nodding her head in a sleepy manner just inside Ginny's field of vision.
Mrs Weasley ripped out a seam with her wand and pinned it back in place before sewing the seam up a little tighter. "You're a woman now, Ginny. This is what we do. We talk. Sometimes they listen, sometimes they don't. It isn't always fair, but it's how things are. We'll always be the ones to sacrifice."
Ginny raised her eyebrows in disbelief. "Why do I suddenly want to read those pamphlets Hermione put on my bedside table about women's liberation?"
Mrs Weasley made an indelicate noise through her nose and pulled some pins out of her mouth. "Hermione Granger needs to mind her own business." Tuck. Tuck. "The thing she doesn't understand is that women are not superior to men and vice versa." Zip. "Women are good at certain things, and men are good at others. It's the way things are." Tuck. "For instance, I don't think the world would have half as many people as it does if men had to have the babies." Zip. "They're all still babies themselves when it comes to pain." Swish. "You saw what happened when your father caught his finger in that silly Muggle thing last summer. He could have cut it off and made less fuss." Flick. "And when Draco was hexed by that snow sprite over winter holidays you would think that the world was going to end."
Mrs Weasley stopped sewing and grasped Ginny by the shoulders. Her gaze was more intense than Ginny had ever seen before. "I don't want you to be miserable, Ginny. I want you to have a happy marriage like your father and I have. But there are some things you simply must do yourself. This is one of them. Draco won't put his pride on the line because he's too wrapped up with being a Malfoy, whatever that is." Mrs Weasley pulled Ginny close to her bosom suddenly.
Ginny remembered this from childhood and wished that she wasn't sixteen going on seventeen and about to be married to someone who didn't give two Knuts for her. She closed her eyes and inhaled her mother's scent, spare threads from sewing tickling her nose. Her mother's breath was deep and even, calm under Ginny's ear and cheek; her chest warm and soft as homemade bread.
"My little Ginny is all grown up now." Those were tears in her mother's voice. Ginny fancied that she could hear them trickling down over her worn cheeks. "Save him. Save yourself." Mrs Weasley pushed Ginny back to look at her and wipe her own cheeks. "Have pride. You're a Weasley. Don't give him what he wants just to give it to him. Make him earn your respect. But don't let pride do you in. It can do, believe me on that, little love."
Ginny opened her mouth to reply, but her mother put a calloused finger to her lips. She had the sudden, terrible impression that her mother knew precisely what she was talking about here. Surely in her youth . . .
"Don't talk. Just think about it." Mrs Weasley sniffed a few times and beamed through her tears. "Now turn around and see how well the robes fit."
Ginny turned to gaze at herself in the floor-length mirror behind her and didn't recognise herself at all.
She looked like a woman.
The bronze silk skirt was covered by a filmy, dark cream-coloured material that shimmered when the light hit it. Her bodice was silk, too, and it swelled up over her breasts. They seemed fuller and larger encased in silk. Her waist smaller than usual with a rounded hump that no one would see under the skirts of her robe. The bottom half of her sleeves flared out and draped in the same billowy material that swathed her skirt, utterly sheer and transparent. It took her breath away.
"Mum, you wore this when you and dad were married?"
Mrs Weasley smiled and tucked her wand into the waistband of her robes. "Yes. But you look more comfortable in it than I ever did."
"It's lovely."
"Be careful, though, there's a hoop that's supposed to go under the skirt of those robes. You may have trouble manoeuvring it during the ceremony."
Ginny frowned. Yes, there was a reason that she was standing in these beautiful robes. She had to get married. Her mother prattled on, not noticing the expression on Ginny's face.
"There are little pockets in the skirt that you can slip your hands into. The hoop is charmed, so it will bend if you press it with your fingers. That way you can walk through doors and everything."
"Mum." Ginny shook her head and licked her lips. It was on the tip of her tongue to say that she'd wear any other robes but these. These robes had history and had seen generations of happy brides. If she wore them, perhaps she'd stain them with her misery and ruin the next bride. Then she thought that the next bride could very possibly be her own daughter.
Maybe the robes were lucky and could rub off some of their good luck instead of the other way around.
"They're perfect, Mum." Ginny turned and smiled as widely and as brightly as she could. Even though on the inside, her heart was racing a panicked tattoo. "Everything will be just perfect."
Mrs Malfoy had roused from her stupor and wended her way around imaginary furniture to inspect the newly restored robes. Ginny suspected that she'd had an awful lot of tea.
"Merlin," Mrs Malfoy commented, her elegant fingers tripping over the lace on Ginny's bodice. "Is that Alençon lace?"
Ginny smirked.
*~*~*~*~*
Ron decided that this was not one of his better days.
Pansy ran from him every time he came near; Millicent Bulstrode refused to help him convince Pansy to stop running away, and had an excellent right hook to boot; Ginny was holed up with their mother and Mrs Malfoy in some unused room in the Astronomy tower to play dress-up with some old robes; and Harry and Hermione were trying to convince him to join in their latest scheme, which involved the Mirror of Erised.
No knight was complete without a mystic quest, was he?
"You're mad, the pair of you." Ron crossed his arms and leant up against the rough stone wall behind him, but his arms were wrapped around himself more to keep them from trembling than to look uninterested in the conversation. "Why do you need me?"
Hermione flicked her eyes to Harry and licked her lips. There had been a time when such a small action on her part would set off a firestorm in his stomach and . . . other places. But now he wasn't affected at all. He supposed that most of his attachment to Hermione was lust and some strange part of his mind that told him that she was the only one who ever stood the slightest chance of having him, but now that he had worked so much of that out of his system . . .
Harry stepped forward. "You know we're sorry, Ron."
"Do I?" Ron raised his eyebrows. "Just because I'm talking to you doesn't mean that we're friends again, and it doesn't mean that I know you're sorry, either."
They both seemed uncomfortable now, Hermione most of all. "Of course we are. Things tangled up and got out of hand."
"Out of hand?" Ron asked incredulously, snorting to blow off some of the steam filling his ears. "I'd say that it was more than just out of hand. You two did the most heartless¾ " Ron closed his eyes. "I didn't know that either of you could be cruel. Especially to me." He twiddled his hands, his eyes cracked open just enough to see Harry before him. "We were in a rough patch, but we could have worked it out, honestly."
"We thought we were doing the right thing, Ron." Harry stumbled over his words and rubbed the back of his neck. "Or at least, I thought we were. Didn't think you'd want us to see you- um, well . . ."
Ron leaned forward, the skin of his face painful and tight over his cheekbones. "It wasn't just because of Hagrid, that's for sure." His eyes stung but remained agonisingly dry. "I don't need either of you anymore. I can stand up on my own two feet." Ron rested his chin on his chest, examining his new dragonhide boots and counting the scuffs he'd already adorned them with just since Harry and Hermione arrived. "I can cast my own shadow, you know."
Hermione clapped a hand over her mouth and the sound made Ron look up. He glanced over to see Harry standing grim and heroic in the subtle light of the unused corridor, much more so than he himself did, Ron thought.
"We never meant to¾ "
He cut Harry off. "Well, you did." Ron scraped the heel of his shoe against the wall again. Hermione's incredible brains and Harry's incredible bravery and talent . . . "I know you never meant to do it. It's just the way things were."
Were sounded so terribly final, all of a sudden.
Harry's smile was forced and brittle. "If you're all grown up and independent, then we really need you now. More than ever before."
They needed him. What did he have to offer? What could they possibly want him for?
Ron heaved a sigh and twisted his lips. "You really need me?" He caught Hermione's eye. "Both of you?"
She nodded, her eyes very wet and bright. "Always. And for more than just this, Ron."
"We can cast a really big shadow together. Right, Ron?" Harry's gaze was penetrating, his spectacles reflecting the light from the torch he held.
Ron chewed his lip for a second more before making his decision. If he went on this adventure with them, would he lose everything he had become? Would all of that new-found control abandon him? He reached out suddenly to curl his fingers with Harry's, their palms facing away from each other. Hermione let her hand flutter down to seal over theirs. Perhaps it would be just a business deal, but if he was truly lucky, this would bring them together again.
"I'm in."
~*~*~*~*~*~*
Draco came to a stop at the spiral stairs leading to the Headmaster's office, which were down since Dumbledore was expecting him. He was keenly aware of what happened the last time he was there, the last two times, actually. They were both bad. Draco sucked in a breath and prepared to walk into the proverbial lion's den, fully expecting to be attacked and killed this time by that stupid bird.
Dumbledore called for him to enter and he did, striding quickly past Fawkes' perch, and stopped directly before the Headmaster's desk.
"You wanted to see me, sir?"
"Ah yes, Mr Malfoy. Please take a seat."
Draco's eyes shifted down to the chair beside him briefly before looking back at Dumbledore. He did not sit down.
Dumbledore inclined his head. "As you wish. I'll attempt to be brief." He leant back in his chair and stroked his long, white beard. "I would congratulate you on your upcoming marriage to Miss Weasley, but I feel that would be in bad taste considering the circumstances." He pursed his lips as if vexed about something or the other. "Instead, I would like to offer you some advice."
Draco could feel his lips twisting up in a sneer. "Really?"
If Dumbledore saw this, he ignored it. "Yes. Your father is gone and, to be honest, we both know that his advice would be a trifle skewed."
"Ah." Draco straightened his back at the injury to his father. Lucius may have been a bastard, but it wasn't polite for other people to acknowledge it. At least not in his presence.
"Have you thought of what you will do after you leave school in June?"
"Run an orphanage for cast-off Muggles, of course," Draco replied snidely. "I'll be married to a Weasley, so I suppose it's expected of me to cater to the lowest of the low. Can't get much lower than something the Muggles have cast off, can you?"
Dumbledore shook his head and sighed. "Be serious for a moment, Mr Malfoy." His long-fingered hands steepled and he pressed the palms flat before pulling them back and squeezing them together over and over. It was an oddly nervous gesture for the usually over-confident Headmaster and Draco's practiced eye caught it. "I think that the Weasley family did you a great service."
"Service!" Draco spat, the word offending his sensibilities in the extreme.
Dumbledore's blue eyes were uncharacteristically stern, commanding Draco's attention. "Yes, they helped open your eyes to a world of emotion and love and laughter you'd never known before. You were- " His eyes shifted suddenly to Fawkes' before looking back at Draco "You were guided there, by chance or what-have-you, to learn from them."
"And what did I learn?" Draco asked, his voice hoarse, thick with guilt and anger. "I learnt that they have children who betray them, that one of their sons is a jealous prick, and their daughter will jump in bed-"
"Enough!" Dumbledore stood up and walked around his desk, coming so close that Draco wanted to step back only to find that he could not. "I have done everything in my power to ensure that you had a choice in your destiny, Mr Malfoy," Dumbledore whispered, his eyes unreadable. "You have no excuse anymore for your behaviour."
Draco's eyes widened. "You knew about it!" He stumbled and fell into the cushy grasp of a chair that was now suddenly behind him. Dumbledore seemed larger than life from this position and he scrambled to get to his feet, but found that, again, he couldn't move.
Dumbledore looked down at him with an almost grandfatherly concern. "I watched you very closely for a long time, trying to determine why you were so cold and detached from your fellow students. At first I thought you were only a nasty little boy." He smiled and Draco scowled. "But then, I came across the answer in a sudden flash of insight." Dumbledore leant back up against his desk. "If you'll recall, Mr Potter is now quite a bit taller than nature intended him to be. The Weasley twins dosed him with an experimental sweet that had no cure." He closed his eyes and nodded as if to some music Draco couldn't hear, pulling his curious pocket watch out and glancing at it. "Foolish of them to be sure, but I don't believe there is any lasting harm and Mr Potter seems to enjoy the extra inches¾ "
Draco cut Dumbledore off. "Do you have a point, sir, or shall we be here all night recalling Potter's joy at being closer to a real man instead of a midget?"
Dumbledore smiled that ghostly, mischievous smile of his, the one that made Draco want to strangle him with his own beard. "Yes, Mr Malfoy, there is a point to all this. The change Mr Potter went through was quite similar to the one you went through in your sixth year. It was that drastic, physical change and the sudden reversal at the beginning of your seventh that confirmed it for me."
Draco stared up at him mutely, praying to finally hear some answers.
"Of course, I'm speaking of the curse, which you already know about."
"Tell me what it is," Draco almost pleaded before he could stop himself. Malfoys don't beg, he reminded himself. "What did it do to me?" He looked down at the cuffs of his robes, falling further over his hands than they had the week before. "What is it doing to me?"
Dumbledore sighed and rubbed his nose. "That curse is not meant for growing children. I speculate that it was cast upon you as an infant and reinforced as needed over the years."
"But how do you know about that curse?" Draco asked. "It's supposed to be a Malfoy curse."
"Oh it is." Dumbledore nodded and leant back to rest on his desk. "Chertien de Malfai was the first to cast it on his kin." His lips twisted down in a dark frown. "But he learnt it from someone else."
"Wh¾ "
Dumbledore raised his hand to cut him off. "I won't tell you anymore of this. The curse is mostly gone now, and good riddance to it. It should not have survived long enough to plague you." His head nodded down as if he were about to fall asleep, though his eyes were still sharp. "I regret that I had not noticed this sooner, Mr Malfoy. I would have rectified it before this year had I known."
"I'm sure," Draco replied tersely. "May I leave now?"
Dumbledore looked up and waved his hand toward the door. It opened. "If you ever need someone to talk with, I am here. The door is always open to you, however late it may be."
Draco rose from the chair now that he was free to do so, and rolled his eyes as soon as his back was toward the Headmaster. That stupid, twittering fool. Draco plonked down the stairs and back to his dormitory to revise for his N.E.W.T's. He hadn't discovered anything new about the curse and it was an utterly pointless¾ That stupid, twittering fool. Of course!
Chertien de Malfai.
Turning abruptly in the corridor, Draco headed to the library.
*~*~*~*~*~*
"I've said it before and doubtless will again." Ron considered Harry and Hermione very seriously, his eyebrows raised so that his expression seemed to say that he was at least open to the possibilities. "You're barking."
Hermione sighed in frustration and Harry frowned. Trust Ron to be difficult. "No, we're serious. We think that Dumbledore¾ "
Ron waved his hand at Harry and went back to scowling at Hermione's notes. "I know, I know. You told me. You think he's this Grindylowe fellow."
"Grindlewald," Hermione corrected. "Didn't you ever pay attention in History of Magic?"
"That was over two years ago, Hermione!" Ron exclaimed. "Blimey, even you had problems staying awake during Professor Binn's lectures."
"Actually, Hermione," Harry started. "I may be a bit dim when it comes to History of Magic, but I did my essays and I don't remember ever hearing of Grindlewald more than once. And it was just a passing reference at that."
Hermione frowned. "Hmmn. You may be right, Harry. Now that I think on it, all of the information I gathered about him was from the library. I don't remember ever doing an essay on him, either. Odd for such a supposedly famous Dark wizard." She shuffled some parchments around, looking through them each carefully before setting them aside. "And they all say that he was an 'evil wizard', but they never state what exactly it was that he did . . . mentions of Muggles," she mumbled, flipping through her research. "Nothing solid or expanded upon."
"He was on one of my Chocolate Frog cards," Ron said quietly. "I remember now that they mentioned Grindlewald on the back of Dumbledore's card." He met Harry's eye across the table. "It said that Dumbledore defeated that bloke ages ago, Harry. He's long dead and even if he weren't, we'd be able to tell if Dumbledore was evil."
"Well, the way Albus was telling it, Grindlewald would be running for Muggle Lover of the Year these days," Harry added, thoughtfully pulling on his lower lip.
Ron's mouth twisted in a frown of confusion. "Albus?"
Hermione threw Harry a worried look. "Perhaps you ought explain."
Harry sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I ought to just show him."
Ron raised his eyebrows and stood up when Harry and Hermione did. "Where are we going?"
"Just up to the dormitory. It's late, so Seamus should be asleep by now," Harry replied.
"What does Seamus have to do with this?"
"It's his Quaffle," Harry explained patiently just before he opened the seventh-year dormitory.
"What?" Ron stepped back a pace. "I'm not¾ "
"Oh Ron!" Hermione whispered frantically. "We'll explain everything once we show you. But you have to be quiet. I'll cast another Sphere just to make sure. All right?"
Ron beetled his brows, cross and confounded as usual. "All right," he grumbled. "But you had better have an excellent explanation for why we're stealing Seamus' Quaffle in the middle of the night."
Harry rolled his eyes and lead them into the dark, quiet room. Seamus' bed was just under a window, so there was plenty of moonlight to guide them. Albus Quaffle slid out from under Seamus' arm when he saw them and crept to the edge of the bed.
"Did that¾ !"
Hermione made a shushing noise at Ron while Harry grabbed the Quaffle and motioned them all to sit on his bed. Hermione cast the Silencing Sphere, and the first thing he heard was two loud, annoying voices.
"Did you know that that Quaffle is moving by itself?" Ron asked shrilly.
"If you think that I'm telling anyone anything after the way you've mishandled me then you're sorely mistaken!" Albus started up.
"He talks!"
"Both of you be quiet!" Hermione said loudest of all, her voice stern and brow knitted in a scowl.
Ron's skin suddenly took on a ghostly hue and he scooted across the bed away from Harry. "Is that who you've been cheating on Hermione with? A¾ a plush, talking Quaffle?"
Hermione's head whirled toward Harry, her hair whipping his cheeks as she arched an eyebrow at him. "Cheating on me?"
Harry's eyes widened and he raised his hands to defend himself. "No! Good God, no! I haven't done¾ With Albus, Hermione? I hate him."
"Then why did I hear you talking about stuffing something in Seamus' Quaffle one morning a while back?" Ron asked, flicking narrow glances between the toy in question and Harry as if he was watching a lively tennis set.
Harry laughed in relieved surprise. "Oh Merlin!" He clutched at his stomach to contain himself, but only laughed harder when he looked up to see Ron's horrified face again. "Albus is¾ you thought¾ " He snorted and clapped a hand over his mouth.
"I've told you about casting a Sphere before you talk to Albus, Harry," Hermione admonished in a stern tone, though her lips were twitching madly. "Now Ron thinks that you've been shagging a plush toy!"
Harry and Hermione leaned against each other and shuddered with silent laughter. Ron sat back on his hands, his eyebrows shadowing his glare. "You two are the oddest people. You know that, right?"
"I quite agree, young man," Albus piped up finally. "And very rude!" His little soft face was collapsed in a deep frown.
Through tears of mirth, Harry saw Ron glance down at the Quaffle. "This thing isn't half bad after all." He looked up at Hermione. "Now would you mind terribly explaining who the hell it is?"
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