A Stone's Throw From The Soul
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Summary: Sequel to Rest In Pieces. After the events in the chamber, Ginny is locked up for her own good in St. Mungo's. But when Draco gets accused of being responsible for everything, she runs away to find the truth herself, with unexpected help.
Author's Notes: If you choose to comment on Draco's odd behaviour in this chapter, please bear in mind that he is not OOC. Not really. What I mean by that will be revealed in a later chapter. Also, this chapter bodes. Don't ask how it bodes, it just does. Let's just hope I'm not being too confusing. Have fun reading!
Chapter 3: Trevor
"Who are you talking to, Ginny?" a concerned voice from the doorway startled her to a point where she nearly screamed.
"Oh, it's you Trevor," the redheaded girl said, trying to think of a possible way to answer his question.
"I thought I heard voices," the young man in the white cotton clothes with the St. Mungo's mediwizard crest on the left breast pocket said, rubbing the hair at the back of his head awkwardly when he noticed that Ginny was alone.
"I was...talking to myself," she said hastily, silently thankful that Draco had gone to wherever he had come from. She caught herself hoping that it was a fiery hellhole with lots of little demons with pitchforks and thumbscrews, and immediately felt bad for it again.
"Gah," she screamed, not aware that Trevor was eyeing her curiously. How could her own mind be so damn fickle when she herself didn't want it to be?
"Ginny?" Trevor said hesitantly, stepping closer to her and finally sitting down beside her on the bed. "I know you're having a hard time," he began and put an arm around her shoulders, drawing her close.
Ginny immediately stiffened at the unwanted contact and shook his arm off, not feeling bad for it even when she saw his slightly hurt expression. What was it about that guy? She was a patient.
"I don't really want to talk about it," she mumbled, grabbing her pillow and hugging it to herself.
"I'm here to help you Ginny," he said, sighing.
"I don't need help," she said stubbornly. "What I need is some freedom, my peace and my wand."
"You know as well as I do that you're not allowed to leave the ward, and I can't change anything about that," Trevor said exasperatedly while looking at her with his faded blue eyes apologetically. "Peace? We can't leave you all to yourself, Ginny, you need help. And I can't hand you your wand. Only healers and mediwizards and -witches are allowed their wands in here. Safety is important, surely you understand that?"
No, she did not, not in her case at least. What would she do with her wand, after all, that would hurt anybody? She fully understood these precautions when it came to Peepin' Pat two doors down the corridor, who would probably - nah, she didn't even want to imagine it.
"I just want to be alone, Trevor. Please?" Nobody had ever been able to resist Ginny when she turned the puppy dog eyes on, and Trevor was no exception, as he nodded reluctantly after a moment and left, giving her a last, almost longing look before he closed the door behind him.
"I'm here to help you Ginny, oooooh, look at me in gay little nightshirt with the stupid crest on it, ooooh, won't you fuck me Ginny," the familiar, mocking voice of Draco Malfoy reached her ears as soon as the mediwizard had left the room.
Ginny just rolled her eyes and let her head fall on the pillow she was still holding and then drew her knees up to her body in order for the position to be a little more comfortable.
"Who does he think he is?" she heard Draco fume from the other end of the room and chose not to comment. She really didn't know what had come over him to behave like this. It was childish, stupid and unnecessary.
"You're a patient," the ghost ranted on, and when Ginny finally lifted her head to look at him she noted that he must be really agitated about this, for he forgot to stay in one and the same place for long, always appearing and disappearing again. She got the distinct impression that the world looked a little different for a ghost. Or perhaps it didn't, but as ghosts lacked a distinct shape and things that kept them together, they had to consciously remind themselves where they were and what they should look like all the time. At least that's what it looked like with Draco, at the moment. Give it another 50 years and he'll be used to it, she thought cynically.
"So what?" she finally snapped, getting a headache from watching him fleeting around the room. "And stand still, for God's sake. I really don't know why you're making such a fuss," she added exasperatedly. "Trevor's a nice man."
"Who wants nice men these days?" Draco asked, finally stilling his motions, standing in front of her. Ginny noticed what he was wearing for the first time that moment: the clothes he had worn in the chamber, minus his robe, but strangely enough his tie was loose, the first two buttons undone and his collar was all wrong. He was completely disshelved, something that Ginny did not usually associate with Draco Malfoy. Neither did she associate such an appearance with ghosts.
"Is that what you've been telling yourself all these years?" she asked, eyeing him coolly. He was getting on her nerves with the way he was acting like a drama queen. The veins were standing out on his forehead, for God's sake! He was dead, he was a ghost, and ghosts didn't even have veins, as they distinctly lacked blood. What was wrong with him?
The exact same question was running through his mind at that time? What was wrong with him? He was acting like her bloody brother, the way he was pacing, screaming and doing things in general. He needed to stop this nonsense, fast. Now if only if that was so easy...
He couldn't help but rant and get all worked up over nothing, and it made him feel angry at himself. So what if the stupid, ugly bloke had a crush on Weasley? She deserved a moron like him. He didn't care, really, as long as the two restrained themselves when he was around. But that blatant parading it about in front of his eyes was uncalled for. As if he hadn't been there! Bloody sickening behaviour, that was.
Doing his best to compose himself he glared at her one last time before retreating to the sanctuary of his stone to have a nice, long sulk.
"Yeah, that's it Malfoy, very mature," she murmured, glaring at the grey piece of rock on the table.
She rolled her eyes when she got no answer, but guessed that he could not hear her when he was in there. After all he would have known about the story in the paper if he were able to hear or see things in his little hidey-hole.
Clinging to that thought she dropped her robe, got out of her pajamas and underwear and went into the bathroom to take a nice, hot shower to take her mind off things, and to have some time to think.
Ginny Weasley was officially lost in her own thoughts a couple of minutes later, and she could not find a map that would point her in a direction she should go. Guilt always hung over her head like the sword of Damocles, and Draco Malfoy was the only thing that held it up. Every time he left it crashed down on her full force, making her think of everything that she had rid him of, everything that he would never experience or see because she had been the one to survive the stupid chamber incident. But she should have known, really. It had not been the first time for her to be locked in a chamber by some madman, after all. Only the last time she had been, her saviour had had green eyes and unruly black hair, and he had come in form of an angel of life, saving her and taking her to a safe, warm place, telling her everything would be okay.
With this particular chamber incident, her saviour, if you could call him that, had been a fair skinned, fair eyed, and fair haired boy - sometimes he even seemed like a man already, despite his age, and sometimes the boy in him shone through - that had not assured her of anything, and he'd been the unwilling sacrifice for her life, leaving her to a cold, dark and lonely place that held nothing in life that she wanted for her. Nothing that she wanted now, that is.
He hadn't known who of them would survive. He had not said anything about the matter until now, and she was glad for it. Ginny did not really want to talk to him about it, as she knew that she would regret what she would say to him later on, when she was alone again, much like she was now.
Because every time she talked to him, the guilt would be washed away by something else, by something that was so him that she just had to hate it. He made her angry, he drove her mad, he got on her nerves. She still hated him, and he still hated her, but they were once again thrown together into a situation they'd both much rather not be in.
But it was too late to complain now, as nothing could be done about that. As soon one of them would start talking to the other, her defenses went up, and she could not even to bring herself to apologize for everything she had done to him, albeit inadvertently so, could not speak a kind word, even if she tried.
It was all his fault, she reckoned. He was a ruthless, unscrupulous arsehole with an aura that just screamed 'You know you hate me', at least to her. And she, nice, little Ginny Weasley felt like it screamed even more. It screamed 'Kick me', it screamed 'Hex me', and sometimes, and those were the moments she hated most, it screamed 'Throw your clothes away and accept that you want me'. Because even though his behaviour often indicated that he just thought that, that was not what she meant right now. Oh no, what she meant were the reactions that he created in her.
Also, there was the fact that when she looked at him, the light seemed to be even more diffuse than it already was, lately, because she could not see straight. Of course she could see every contour of his form, when he was in the mood to be in one shape, that is, but in her mind, his picture was hazy. The way he had just behaved. If she hadn't known better, she would have guessed he was jealous. But of course she did know better.
She only didn't knew what she knew better, but that would surely come with time. It would, wouldn't it?
With a start Ginny realized that she had just spent twenty minutes in the shower doing nothing. She hastily bent down to pick up the bottle of shampoo and started lavishing her hair, massaging her scalp and enjoying the way her wet tresses slid through her fingers. Oh yes, despite everything people might say about it, Ginny loved the feel of her own hair. It was silky to the touch, and darker than her brothers'.
Grateful for the distraction she had provided herself, the girl treated her auburn tresses to some hair conditioner and then started to scrub herself with soap, using generous amounts of the nice-smelling substance. She loved the smell of soap.
When she had been younger she had loved it so much she would constantly wash her hands. Her brothers had teased her about it mercilessly and her mother had once taken her to see a doctor because she feared that her little girl was a neurotic. The old man had just smiled at her after talking to her a little and stated that she was apparently going through a phase of extreme sensitivity of senses, especially that of smell, and not to worry about it. Ron still teased her about it sometimes, and the thought of Ron made her smile.
With a sudden sting to her heart she realized that she wanted nothing more than to go home right now. She wanted to smell the all the scents that were so typical of the Weasley household - her mum's cooking, the leathery smell of the old but comfortable chairs in the living room mixed with the mostly sulfurous odours that crept out under Fred and George's door sometimes, the woodsy smell of the old, creaking stairs.
Silent tears were starting to form in her eyes and run down her cheeks, but she was grateful for the water running down her face, as it concealed the tears from the world. Even though she was aware that no-one could see her anyway now, she didn't even want to know about it herself.
Ginny had a feeling that, although they loved her, her family would not believe her even if she tried to convince them that Draco Malfoy was innocent, and that she needed to find out the truth. Should she ever manage to escape from St. Mungo's, which she fervently hoped, she would have to take a longer absence from seeing her kin.
They would not understand, could not understand why she felt obligated to clear his name. His name, of all. He was their enemy, had been from the moment on he had been old enough to make choices of his own. Perhaps even before then, as he had been raised to hate them, as much as she had been raised to hate him.
Ginny shook her head and turned off the water, willing her thoughts there were running rampant to calm down, and grabbed a towel, rubbing herself dry.
When she finally stepped out of the bathroom, cheeks red from the hot water, clad only in a huge towel wrapped around her body, Draco was sitting on her bed again, regarding her calculatingly, and he was obviously more composed than he had been before she'd taken her shower.
While Ginny rummaged in her closet to find some clothes, she could feel his eyes on her back, and she knew that he'd say something soon.
"Do you always take that long in the shower?" she finally heard him say as she found a pair of socks that looked like she would not hate to wear it.
"Sometimes," she replied, not looking at him, and waddled back to the bathroom, trying her best to balance the pile of clothes in her arms while not dropping the darn towel that was dangerously loose.
When she finally re-emerged, her long hair still damp and hanging down her back, she was wearing a pair of muggle jeans, plain black socks, a blue T-shirt that was a little too tight at the chest and a beige hoodie that hung open at the front, and that's hood was slowly getting soaked with water from her tousled hair.
Looking at her rosy cheeks wistfully, Draco almost sighed, but was able to quell the impulse. He'd never look like that again.
When he was finally able to tear his eyes away from her, he looked out of the window and announced what he had cooked up in the past hour.
"I have a plan...," he began, and then proceeded to lay his thoughts out to her.
Author's Notes #2: Actually I hadn't planned on anything in this chapter. I had planned to skip straight to the point of Ginny's escape, but then I decided I should do some character development and introduce Trevor before I could let Ginny try to get away from St. Mungo's. You'll see about it in the next chapter, though.