Breaking The Habit
By: Anti Darth Ani
Chapter Twelve: Scream
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Wanted to let you know real quick before I start this chapter that I've finished the past Dean part of my story. If you go back to the beginning and read all the way through it, and then go back to the beginning and read through the past Draco, they should join right together. That's my goal, anyways. Thanks :P
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-present-
Ginny watched as Draco picked up his wand slowly. She knew it hurt him just to reach out, not to mention bend down, but he refused her help with anything. He had to be the macho man to get them out of their current situation. Ginny pushed back her dirty hair and watched him, biting her lower lip. She hadn't meant to tell him that she loved him, it had simply spilled out. Following his behavior change, Ginny knew he wasn't exactly comfortable with her confession. "Draco, what I said earlier-"
"I think I got the spell to use," he cut her off before she could finish. Eyeing the ground, he continued, "You're wearing your knickers, aren't you?"
Ginny stared at him, wondering if she had heard him correctly. "Yeah, I'm wearing my knickers." She paused and raised a single eyebrow. "Why?"
"Because showing up at the Malfoy mansion in just a rag isn't going to cut it," he told her, finally look up at her. "Come over here so I get you in the spell too."
Ginny stayed rooted to her spot on the filthy floor. "Draco… no." Draco ignored her, pulling her close and holding his hand out, pointing his wand at both of them. "NO!" she yelled, but he already muttered the spell by the time she got the word out.
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When Ginny stopped screaming, she was standing in the second biggest room she'd ever been in (the biggest being the Great Hall). This room, however, remained much more elaborate than anything at Hogwarts. Swallowing, Ginny shut her mouth and glanced over at Draco, who whistled loudly. Wincing at the noise, Ginny saw a short little House Elf stagger into the room.
"Yes, young Master?" the House Elf asked in a squeaky voice, lowering his head until it almost touched the floor.
"Take care of her," Draco demanded, indicating towards Ginny. "And make sure my father and I are not disturbed." Draco started to head away. Ginny reached out for him, but he was too far away for her grasp.
"Young Ma…Master," the House Elf trembled. "My master is not home right now. He is away on… business."
Draco nodded, turning back to face them. "In that case, go up to the guest suite and start a warm bath for the lady. With rose bubbles." Ginny smiled, touched that he remembered.
The House Elf nodded and disappeared with a snap of his finger. Ginny turned to Draco, her hands hugging herself to keep from shivering. "Why are we here? Why can't we go back to Hogwarts where it's safe?"
Draco walked up to her. "We need to fix you up a bit first." He gently took her hand in his and turned it over, palm facing up. "We need to mend your hand." He looked her straight in the eyes, "And I need some answers."
"We are going back, right? Sooner, rather than later?" She suddenly missed the protection she'd complained to her brothers about for her entire life. Now, all she wanted was to have Fred and George sit on either side of her on her bed and read her a bed time story while her father checked for dementors again in her closest and under her bed.
"Gin…" Draco started, but Ginny shook her head, stepping away. "They're going to be worried about me. I need to get back. I need to tell them that I'm alright."
"In due time, you will. But for now, we need to figure how who got us there and how they did it. Then we can go back," Draco stated.
"Can't you do that by yourself? You don't need me to talk to your father, Draco-" Ginny continued to ramble, but Draco cut her off by placing a finger to her lips.
"I don't expect you to understand, Ginny. But you have to trust me for now. I'll get this all figured out."
Ginny swatted his hand away, "You've given me no reason to trust you! You've all but kidnapped me and brought me to your house where you're holding me prisoner. How do I know that you weren't the one that put us in that cave in the first place?"
"Ginny, you need to understand-"
"Just stop it!" she snapped back. "I need to see my brothers. Now!!!! I need to see Fred and George. You can't keep me here forever, Malfoy." Ginny looked up at him and sighed, reaching up and barely grazing his face. "I… I didn't mean to snap at you. The last thing I want to do is upset you. I do trust you, Draco. I just need to be with someone who can comfort me right now. And for as long as I've breathed, Fred and George have always been the ones to take care of me."
"Soon, Weasley. I'll make arrangements, I promise. But until then-"
Ginny grinned, leaning in closer to him. "I do believe there is a bubble bath upstairs a calling me little old name." Ginny spun around and walked slowly to the grand staircase. She walked up the steps slowly, feeling very foolish and extremely dirty, her entire body caked in mud and dirt. When she reached the top of the stairs, Ginny turned around and faced Draco, smiling down at him. She didn't know why she had told him she loved him, but suddenly it didn't matter. Now he knew. And the ball was in his court.
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After her long, remarkable bubble bath, Ginny slipped out of the tub, wrapping herself in the plush towel waiting for her on the top of the golden toilet seat. She glanced around the large bathroom until she spotted a pair of robes on the very end of the counter. Ginny walked over, picking them up carefully in her arms, dropping the bottom to let it become it's normal shape in front of her.
Ginny let out a low whistle. The one robe in front of her cost as much as her entire wardrobe combined. Reluctantly, Ginny pulled on the robe. She grinned when she looked at herself in the mirror. Typical Malfoy and his green and black robes. Pulling off her beaded bracelet Hermione had given her for her birthday the year before last, Ginny used it to tie her hair up in a neat bun.
She still couldn't believe he'd brought her to his house; no his mansion. Crossing her arms across her chest, Ginny examined herself in the mirror. The reflection looked as plain as ever, with the bright hair and the pale skin. Nothing special, like Lavender's natural curve or Hermione's radiant smile. Just little old Ginny Weasley. So how had she ended up in a bathroom in the Malfoy mansion?
Ginny knew her life would never be normal again. There was a time when she'd have given anything to be noticed by a popular wizard, like Harry Potter. Now, Ginny just wanted to sink into the floor and fall back into her bed at the Burrow. The world's much too big a place for a simple little Weasley. Her mother's mother always repeated that, ashamed of Arthur Weasley and his family. But Molly Weasley had looked past Arthur wealth status. Ginny didn't know if she would ever be able to see Draco as just another wizard. He's a bloody Malfoy.
"Thinking about me, are we?" a voice whispered against her ear. Startled, Ginny jumped a little and calmed down when she saw Draco's reflection behind hers in the mirror.
"You may be thinking about yourself, Malfoy, but I'm thinking about my brothers," she lied easily. All the Weasley children knew how to lie better than they knew how to tell the truth. With half a dozen siblings, it was always easy to find someone to blame it on besides yourself. "And I was wondering when I'd be getting back to Hogwarts."
"Soon," he told her, staring at her in the mirror. Ginny looked back at her reflection and saw the same thing she had seconds before when he wasn't with her. "How did this happen?" he asked her suddenly, brushing her wet hair back behind her shoulder to bend down and rest his chin on her shoulder. He kissed her neck softly. "How did we happen?" he murmured against her neck.
"We?" Ginny responded, still staring at herself in the mirror. She didn't want to be here with him anymore. She wanted to be at home with her family, in the place where she recognized everything and didn't have to worry about crazed Death Eaters coming after her to kill her in order to allow the Dark Lord to become more powerful. "There's only a you and a me here, Malfoy," she whispered, pulling away from the contact of his lips on her skin, turning and walking slowly out of the room.
"Funny," Draco called after her, "since you say you love me so much."
Ginny shook her head. "I confused love with something else," she lied, trying to hide the tears as she walked further away from him.
"What?" he called after her.
Ginny stopped and looked over her shoulder at him. "Fear."
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-past-post Draco-
Ginny woke up with a splitting headache. Immediately, she felt like she was going to throw up. Stumbling into the bathroom, she reached the toilet right before she was greeted by her previous night's dinner. The retching sound carried through the empty room until she'd lost everything her stomach hadn't digested during the night. Resting her arms on the rim of the toilet seat, Ginny groaned, willing the pain in her head to go away.
Dark circles swam around in the bright white light in her vision. Everything else was simply a huge blur to her, the round edges of one object running into another. Squinting, Ginny tried to remember what she had eaten the night before. Then she realized she hadn't made it down to dinner because after the Quidditch game she'd been sidetracked by a certain Slytherin and all thoughts of food had been forgotten.
For lunch she had eaten a bowl of noodles in a sauce she hadn't recognized. And she couldn't remember back far enough to remember breakfast. So, whatever she had eaten most likely wasn't causing her sudden sickness.
For a terrifying moment, Ginny thought she might be pregnant. The thought would have made her throw up all over again if she hadn't already emptied her stomach's contents. Ginny scrambled frantically into a standing position. She took a few uneven steps towards the door of the bathroom, but she quickly sank back down and leaned back over the toilet. Oh, no, Ginny thought to herself, squeezing her eyes shut as she let go of her remaining food contents. I can't be pregnant. Not with a Malfoy baby.
Ginny heard a soft knock on the bathroom and then Hermione's bushy head popped halfway into the room. She wrinkled her nose up once she caught a whiff of the smell. "Ginny?" she gasped, pushing her way into the room and kneeling down beside her friend. She held back Ginny's hair while Ginny barfed into the toilet, her throw up mixing with the tears falling from her eyes.
"It's impossible," Ginny whispered as softly as she could. "No way in the world. I mean, I didn't think about birth control… everything happened so fast. But still, there's no way I can be pregnant…"
"Ginny, what are you talking about?" Hermione asked, pulling Ginny back and helping her lean against the wall.
"Hermione…" she groaned, hanging her head down and covering her mouth with the back of her hand. "I need you to perform a pregnancy charm for me," Ginny whispered, afraid to meet her friend's eye. "I don't know what I'm going to do if I really am… I mean, I've never even thought about the possibility of getting pregnant."
"Are you going to tell him?" Hermione asked, already pulling out her wand to think of the charm to do. "If you are, I mean."
Ginny shook her head, "No. And you can't either. Promise me you won't, okay?"
Hermione just nodded.
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-present-
Ginny walked through the towering halls of the Malfoy mansion and she still couldn't find her way to the front doors. She should have paid more attention to where the house elf had lead her, but Ginny had been so caught up in the idea of a nice, cleansing shower that she didn't even think that she'd need to escape.
But now she needed to get away from him. Water pools were collecting in her eyes and she couldn't manage the idea of having to face again. She wanted to get back to Hogwarts- to the teachers, her friends, and her brother. She wanted to be protected again, from what she still didn't know.
Ginny screamed when something grabbed her from behind. She'd been so wrapped up in her thoughts she was more lost than ever. Kicking, Ginny tried to pull away, but when she managed to turn around to face her capture, nothing was there. Freezing, Ginny stopped moving and forced herself to breathe. The last thing she needed was a panic attack.
Turning around, Ginny gasped, surprised to see Draco standing right in front of her, his arms crossed over his chest and his black hood covering all but the shadows on his face. He stepped closer to Ginny and Ginny let out a little pout of air, tugging herself backwards but not getting anywhere.
"I didn't want to do this," he hissed, getting closer and closer. Ginny let out a little whimper. They'd been `together' for months now, and she'd never really been scared of him before. But as he got closer, Ginny realized she'd never been more afraid in her entire life. Once he was close enough to reach out and touch her, the mark on her arm began to twinge in pain.
"Draco, what's happened to you?" Ginny cried, pushing against the invisible wall behind her, trying to get away. He reached out and his fingers latched around her neck. The tears began to fall down her cheeks, "Draco…" she whispered. He didn't grip her neck tightly, but it still stung a little and the pain in her arm was increasing. Ginny gave up fighting and stood still, taking a deep, shaky breath, "Why are you doing this?"
"Because I have to protect you," he told her and then Ginny saw and felt nothing but darkness.
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