Chapter III: One Lie Leads to Another
*~*~*
Ginny felt her breath leave her lungs as she stared at the equally shocked boy who had pulled her into his room. She had had her suspicions about their guest and now she yearned to take back being right. She wanted to be wrong that it was a kind old wizard from the original Order or a young Recruit, but all the wishing couldn't deny the truth.
It was Draco Malfoy.
*~*~*
Fear wasn't a foreign instinct to Ginny, but she did find it strange that it was gripping her as thoroughly as it was. At the age of eleven when she'd faced Draco Malfoy inside Flourish and Blotts she'd felt nothing but the need to protect Harry. Two years ago, that evening in Umbridge's office she hadn't blinked at his threats or held her tongue when telling him what he could do with them. But now, inside Grimmuald Place completely unarmed Ginny could feel her left thigh twitch in the same familiar habit it did before a Quidditch match.
Adrenaline sharpened Ginny's sudden imperative sense of self‑preservation. Her left was firmly blocked by the now visible wardrobe and she took her only opportunity, lunging herself at Malfoy, but with a fierce jerk he flung her back against the wall with a painful thump. Hysteria was quickly overcoming her commonsense and she pounced at him again, but he only proved that he wasn't a Seeker for nothing, easily arresting her arm.
Trapped by his body, Ginny could feel his breath against her face as he whispered a spell that stuck her thrashing limbs to the dusty wall like fly paper. Unable to free her arms and legs, Ginny opened her mouth to scream, but Malfoy quickly put an end to it covering her mouth with the palm of his hand. The thought of biting him flashed through her mind, but was quickly squashed as he directed his wand back to its original spot against her throat.
"Weasley I advise you not to do that again." His demeanor was a mixture of surprise and confusion, but it was obvious Malfoy was composing himself quickly. "I'm going to take my hand from your mouth and you're not going to scream. Do you understand?"
Ginny could do nothing, but nod, bumping the top of her head against the grimy wallpaper.
"Now, tell me what you and your family are doing here," he ordered with a more controlled voice, lowering his hand from her mouth, but not his wand.
"What are you?" she spat back, no trace of the high pitch that had distorted her voice the previous time she had spoken.
"I don't think you're in any position to be asking questions, Weasley," he replied and the feel of his wand digging deeper into her skin made Ginny hiss. "Now, I'll ask one more time what are you doing here?"
She forced her eyes wide as she answered him through clenched teeth, "I can't say and even if I could I don't think I would be telling you now would I?"
To her surprise Malfoy pulled his wand from her throat as he took a single step back and crossed his arms. Ginny knew relief should have flooded her, but this controlled creature made her body more alert than when he'd been prodding her neck. He was silent as he stared at her and she could feel the weight of his gaze as he decided what to do next.
"Snape, where is he? What have you done with him?"
The sudden and unexpected question found Ginny's mind blank. "Where's who?"
"Professor Snape. Where. Is. He?" he repeated, slowly pronouncing each word for her as if she were a small child.
"How should I know? The last time I saw him he was with you and my mother."
"Oh yes, how could I forget about your mother the squatty shrew who locked me in here," he said in his customary drawl. "I hope she knows I saw right through her pathetic attempt at a glamour. What is it you people wanted? Ransom?"
At his accusations, foul words and hexes instantly sprouted onto Ginny's tongue, but the constant reminder of the wand he held help foster her self-control as she bit deep into her bottom lip while glaring up at him.
"I can't tell you why you're here, Malfoy. I don't know, but I do know my parents didn't bloody well kidnap you. My mother just let you in when you and Snape came scratching at the door."
"Liar," he accused his voice matter‑of‑fact. "If Snape were free, he would have come back to collect me by now. He would have brought Mother like he said he would."
"Are you so sure about that Malfoy, because Slytherins aren't exactly known for being honorable?" she asked, her bravery returning to her as she watched Malfoy's face pale. It was clear he refused to acknowledge the truth and even with her arms and legs paralyzed, Ginny couldn't help but feel a sense of victory.
"Just wait, Weasley. Wait until Snape comes for me, then you'll see. Then you and your family will regret ever abducting me." His voice wasn't displaying any signs of hysteria, but Ginny could feel that his self-control was slowly draining from him.
"Oh yes, like I was supposed to regret when your father got out of prison. I must say I'm still waiting on that one, Malfoy," she spat, resisting the urge to squeeze her eyes closed as she waited for the hex she was sure he would cast.
*~*~*
Draco shook with rage, but forced himself to keep his wand at his side and take another step away from the Weasley-girl. Controlling himself no matter the consequence was vital to him and his progress, losing his temper would resolve nothing and would only add to his list of already existing problems.
Except managing his decisions in a situation like this was more taxing than Draco had ever imagined. When he'd imagined interrogating a captor, he'd had the power. He'd had time to be methodical, but in reality things were moving much too fast and he needed to slow them down and take control of the situation. That's what his father would have done, what his father would have wanted.
Desperate to take control of the situation and his emotions, Draco began to pace in hopes that he would be able to slow his actions and clear his mind. He needed time to think, to focus, to sort out what he knew as fact from the lies the Weasley-girl was trying to feed him.
Snape wouldn't have left him here like a caged beast. No, it was another one of the Muggle lover's lies, another one of her tricks. If she were anything like the rest of her kin, she was probably full of those. Draco stopped mid-step and turned an eye on her.
While he had been struggling with her, all he had seen were red hair and flailing limbs, but now as he got a decent look, she appeared different than he had remembered her at Hogwarts. She seemed shorter, not nearly as scrawny, older, but yet missing that air of polish that came with age. It was clear that class and style would forever elude her in her shapeless roll-cuffed trousers and oversized t-shirt. It disgusted Draco that any Pureblood could care so very little about their appearance, but he quickly reminded himself that the Weasleys were hardly your normal Pureblood family.
"Awfully rude to stare, Malfoy," she spat, her narrowed eyes becoming black slits.
Draco sneered in reply, for a mere second he'd managed to focus on something trivial, something to distract him from his anger, but the Weasley chit had found the need to ruin it by opening her gob. Taking a deep breath, Draco resumed his pacing, directing his thoughts to more important things than the Weasel and her stupid mouth.
He needed a plan. The few options he'd come up with were beginning to collapse. The first idea that had sprung to mind was to simply hold her hostage, but no, that wouldn't do. Weaselys were like Garden Gnomes - you kill one and there are ten more to take its place. He wouldn't make it to the front door before being turned into a slug or a ferret or something equally foul . . . Again. Draco tried not to shudder at the sudden chill that tickled up his spine at the memories.
With the hostage scenario having failed in foresight, Draco knew his control was quickly deteriorating only to replaced with desperation. He wasn't accustomed to this sort of treatment and wasn't going to be able to take this much longer, being trapped in this windowless room, not knowing where his mother was, not knowing anything. It was destined going to drive him mad.
How had he even gotten in here? It was a question he had been asking himself for the last week, but all his answers had been unsatisfactory. His self-exploratory question suddenly came to a new light for Draco: How had Weasley gotten in here?
She hadn't just appeared out of thin air. She had crawled from somewhere, he had heard the dragging of her knees
against the wooden floor. She had come from somewhere, but it had been too dark for him to see. If Weasley got in here
then she knew how to get out, and in her predicament she had no other choice but to tell him.
"How did you get in here?"
"I Apparited," she answered with not even the decency of a blush staining her freckled cheeks.
Draco tried, but couldn't stifle a mirthless chuckle. "Without a wand? That's a talent indeed, Weasley, but since it's quite obvious that you're lying how about you try the truth?"
The widening of her dark eyes behind her unkempt fringe told Draco that her word had probably never been questioned before. How was it possible that she could have thought that such a blatant lie would have fooled him? His answer was simple. She was a Weasley and they weren't placed in Ravenclaw for a reason.
Weasley overcame her sudden surprise, setting her pale lips into a straight line of stubbornness continued her assault of glaring at him but was only successful in painting the ideal picture of a shrew. To Draco it was becoming clear that obstinate was exactly what she was going to be.
Internally he released a sigh. It was quite obvious that Weasley wasn't going to give him something for nothing. The idea of hexing her crossed his mind, but quickly vanished as he remembered that if her mother kept to habit, she would be bringing him dinner in a few hours and it wouldn't do him well if she were to find her daughter covered in puss or scales.
"You tell me how you got in here Weasley and I'll lift the charm."
Her eyes shifted wildly from the door to him and back, her teeth digging deeply into her bottom lip. She wasn't going to be easily convinced.
"I can easily turn that temporary into a permanent sticking charm, Weasley, leaving you as a shabby ornament for the rest of your miserable life or you can just tell me how it is that you got in here," he explained in way of persuasion.
"There's a servant's door," she began as if the very words were being ripped from her. "At the back of your closet here that leads into another room."
"And you crawled through this so called door?"
"Well, I didn't exactly walk through it did I?"
Draco lifted his eyebrow at her. It was certainly clear that he had the upper hand in this situation, but yet the Weasley insisted on running her gob. It was interesting really. Annoying to no end, but interesting.
"Why haven't I seen it before?"
"I don't know, maybe because you haven't looked for it."
"Is it a door that only you can see? Is it stationary or does it move?"
"Doubtful."
"Then I want you to open it," he ordered, feeling as sense of accomplishment. The Bludger was beginning to fly now. But Weasley appeared to have different intentions as she continued to glare at him with her dark eyes.
"Well go on then," he persuaded, waving his wandless hand at her.
Blowing her red fringe from her face, she shifted her eyes to her pale wrists that rested against the dusty wall. "It seems you've forgotten that I can't move Malfoy."
"Right," he agreed, waving his wand and whispering the counter-spell. The Weasley‑girl stumbled nearly falling to the floor as she regained control of her body.
*~*~*
Ginny shook her nearly numb limbs, hoping to force the feeling back into her arms and legs. Malfoy sticking her to the wall had been more harmful to her body than she had realized and now the painful tingling sensation was beginning to enter her feet. She was going to need a few minutes to recuperate if she was going to pull off her escape, but Malfoy was already raising his wand as she turned around.
"Enough of that Weasel," Malfoy snapped, nudging her back with the wand.
With the incentive of Malfoy's weapon against her back, Ginny gave her limbs one last shake and kneeled down and manipulated her body into fitting inside the cramped cupboard. With the gas lamp on inside Malfoy's room and the door wide, she easily found the small servant's door and quickly opened it to a draft of warm air coming up from the floorboards.
She could feel Malfoy's eyes on her back as she stared into the darkness on the other side. To him it must only appear as another dark cupboard, but to Ginny it was freedom. A freedom she had no intention of granting him, but was desperate to gain for herself.
He was studying her every move as he waited patiently for her to crawl back out and let him have his turn, but Ginny had other things in mind as she took a deep breath and began quickly wiggling her body through the small door.
Despite being a Weasley, Ginny had always been small for her age, which in Quidditch had made her an average Seeker, but at the moment was quite fortunate as she easily passed her hips through the miniature threshold. Freedom and thus safety were feet away from her grasp, but as Ginny began pulling her knees through her limbs suddenly stiffened and she felt a painful scratching on the skin of her belly as he dragged her back through the hole.
Ginny wanted to stop him, to reach out and hold onto the sides of the cupboard, but her body refused to obey her and the need to scream overcame her as she got a bug's-eye-view of Malfoy's room.
"Oh foolish little, Weasel," he chided, flipping her onto her back and staring down at her. "Did you honestly think I was going to make it that simple?"
A thousand words and hexes that her Mother had no idea she knew streamed through Ginny's mind as she stared up at him from the grimy wood floor unable to even open her mouth.
"Goodbye, Weasley," he drawled, smirking down at her.
Ginny wanted to close her eyes and hide from her own stupidity, but was unable and laid frozen on the floor staring at the water-stained circles on the ceiling above her. How could she have been so foolish? How could she have let Malfoy slip away? What was her mother going to say when she found the enemy gone and replaced by her own daughter?
A string of foul words quickly pulled Ginny from the list of scenarios and she strained her ears trying to listen as the sound of Malfoy's footsteps came storming across the floorboards.
*~*~*
"What did you people do to this room?" he demanded, and Ginny could see that his self-control had been broken as evidenced by the white rage on his face. He released the spell he'd placed on her and tucked his wand away before pulling her up by the collar of her t-shirt.
"We didn't do anything," she defended, grabbing onto his pale hands in hopes that he would let her go, but there was absolute no cheer behind his grin as he smiled and turned them around until her back met the wall she'd been previously stuck to.
"That's three blatant lies in one hour you must be going for some sort of record Weasel," he answered. "Now, tell me how to get out of this room!"
"I told you the only way I know how," Ginny replied. "It's not my fault if you can't fit through the bloody door."
"Oh, I can fit all right," he answered, his fine brows knitting together. "But your lot did something to this room to stop me from getting out and I want to know how to lift it."
"And for some reason you think that they would give a fifteen-year-old such information," she answered honestly and surprisingly Malfoy released her, letting her slide from her toes to the heels of her feet.
"You knew I was trapped in here."
"Only by chance-"
But Ginny didn't get a chance to finish her sentence as both of them turned in unison at the sound of bolts unlatching. The familiar sense of panic immediately gripped her again. That couldn't be her mother already, could it? How long had she been stuck in here? Worse, what if it was another member of the Order? If she were caught in here it would be seen as a much bigger offense than her innocent eavesdropping.
"Where do you think you're going?" Malfoy snapped, catching her arm as she reached for the servant's door.
Ginny had already acknowledged Malfoy's superior physical power so she knew fighting him would only lose her more time and even if she were to break free he would only freeze her before she made it through the crawlspace. The only option she had left was to reason with him.
"Do you know what my mother will do to me if she catches me in here?"
The smirk he wore was both cruel and sharp in its amusement. "Oh, I have an idea."
"Malfoy, what do you want?"
"Now, who said I wanted anything?"
Ginny glanced at the door. Her mother would be coming through at any moment. She didn't have time for Malfoy and his stupid games.
"Stop playing Malfoy. What do you want?"
*~*~*
Ginny sprinted across the empty landing not caring to muffle her footsteps as she took the stairs two at a time and skidded into the front hall narrowly missing the umbrella stand. The realization of how close she'd been to waking up the portraits and the feel of her heart racing in her chest brought her to a quick stop. She was going to have to compose herself if she planned to get through dinner.
She was expected back by midnight and had to be ready to deliver or Malfoy would make his threat a reality. It was hard for her to believe that out of the things Malfoy could have requested he asked for that. But Ginny found it more than an easy enough trade for his silence.
*~*~*
Ginny stood up from her knees, pulling the folded copy of The Daily Prophet from the back of her plaid pajama bottoms. From the lighting of the gas lamp the room wasn't nearly as dark as it had been the first time she'd been there and she quickly found Malfoy.
He was sitting on his bed, a book laid open in his lap and half a moth-eaten canopy curtain pulled down to conceal him, but Ginny couldn't see why as he was still wearing the clothes he had been before. Watching him nonchalantly sitting there on his massive bed, Ginny felt a twinge of regret and felt for the safety of her wand inside her pocket. The resemblance to his Father was uncanny as if he was ready to step right into his shoes.
Taking a deep breath Ginny crossed the room and stood at the end of his bed. He didn't look up from the book as she tossed the newspaper onto his bed, just checked his wristwatch. "About time," he announced, slowly putting his book down, grabbing at the folded paper.
He opened it up with a pop before laying it out on his brown duvet. He said nothing, but narrowed his pale eyes as he
went over the second page from top to bottom.
"Can I go now?" Ginny asked, crossing her arms to both feel for her wand and to ward off the cold, she
couldn't see how Malfoy could bear it.
"Not yet," he answered, flipping the last inked page.
Ginny thought that they were through, but suddenly he tore the paper apart sending thin sheets of gray and black floating onto his duvet and the floor.
"What is this?" he asked, tossing another long sheet of The Prophet over his shoulder.
"It's what you asked for. It's the paper," Ginny answered, gripping her wand inside the pocket of her yellow dressing gown.
"I can see that Weasley, but where's the rest of it?"
"That's all there is," she answered, growing annoyed at his demands. Didn't Malfoy know that beggars could not be choosers? But by looking at him crossing his arms over his chest sitting on his bed like a child, Ginny assumed he did not.
"Well, it's not enough," he stated. "A fact that I'm sure your mother would love to hear."
Instantly understanding his implication, Ginny narrowed her eyes. "Look here Malfoy, I brought what I could."
"I can see that as well, but like I said it's not enough," he explained, pointing at the stack of shredded evidence.
Ginny felt her cheeks warm. Malfoy's threats no matter how real they were seemed less menacing with her wand tucked safely within easy reach.
"I'm not scared of you, Malfoy."
"I didn't presume you were."
Malfoy's admission took Ginny by surprise, but she regained her composure quickly. "I held up my end of the bargain Malfoy, I hope I can safely assume that you'll be honorable enough to do the same."
"Of course Weasley, a Malfoy's word is his word. I wouldn't dream of telling your mother about your visit earlier this evening,"
"Good," Ginny said, fighting down a sigh of relief but as she turned to crawl back through the cupboard door something stopped her. "Malfoy, what exactly do you mean by my visit earlier this evening?"
"Precisely that Weasel, I won't tell your mother about your visit earlier this evening."
"Yes but what about my being in here now?"
The smirk that was slowly forming on his lips as he stared at his fingernails made Ginny's stomach burn with anticipation before he eventually looked up at her. "Well, my part of the bargain doesn't extend to this visit, now does it? So, I wouldn't be breaking my word if I were to tell your mother anything about tonight-"
"That's not fair, Malfoy! We had a deal-"
Malfoy swung his legs over the side of his bed and Ginny tilted her head as he planted his feet and stood. "Yes Weasel, we did but you were just foolish enough to leave open a loophole."
Ginny held her ground. Her face was growing warmer as her anger bubbled inside her. How could she have been so daft as to trust a Slytherin and a Malfoy to boot? She should have known that he would find another way to deceive her. She had been desperate yes, but she should have found another way.
"But your mother doesn't have to know, Weasel," he said, shaking his head.
Ginny couldn't believe her ears. Was Draco Malfoy actually offering to do something nice for someone else? No, absolutely not, there had to be an ulterior motive.
*~*~*
"What's the catch?"she asked, her big dark eyes staring warily at him.
"You do a few errands for me and I'll do what I can for you as simple as that."
She smiled softly to herself and took a step towards the door. "I've already told you, I don't know anything."
"But I do," he replied inching towards. "So I'll tell you what I can if you just do these things for me-"
"What kind of things?"
"I need publications, stationery, information about things outside these four bloody walls. You can get that for me and to hold up my end I'll tell you whatever it is you want to know about what's really happening out there," he said, knowing that every word he said was false, but confident in the fact the he had managed to sound sincere.
*~*~*
Ginny knew this couldn't be right. Making deals with Malfoys had never been a situation she desired to be in, but as he continued to talk she couldn't help being convinced that maybe he was making a little bit of sense.
TBC....
Special Thanks to: rainpuddle13 for the lovely BETAing job. She rocks.