Hold Me, Heal Me

Author's Note: Many thanks to Mynuet, ClanMalfoy and Where_Is_Truth for betaing this on the spot and reading snips as they came down the pike. Sorry this isn't in my usual writing style, and it won't be. Hope that doesn't turn off a lot of readers, but hey, you can't please everyone. This fic was/is written by me in honor of my own birthday that passed on September 26, because I'm weird like that. The line “'S a load of…” was shamelessly stolen from Where_Is_Truth because she let me and I love it. Though I don't remember which fic of hers it came from, you can probably bet it was something in which Ron was referring to Draco.

“Ron! Will you stop it?” Harry's disembodied, somewhat muffled voice snapped angrily. “You're going to hurt him.”

Harry's uncharacteristic tone was the first thing that woke Ginny, who lay shivering in her single bed, trying to conserve some body heat. Instead of hearing Ron's anticipated reply, all she heard was a sharp thump, presumably of the heavy oak dining room chairs slapping against the antique table in 12 Grimmauld Place.

“Will you fucking cut it out?” Harry shouted, and this brought Ginny immediately to action. Shoving her frozen feet into frayed slippers, she dashed for the door and cracked it, peering from her bedroom off the kitchen into said room.

“Damn it, if you hurt him, his mother will claw your eyes out, okay? As if she needs a reason to hate you! And if she doesn't kill you, Professor Snape will. So just be careful! Holy God, you're a stupid arse some times,” Harry blurted, his face framed rectangular by the crack in her door.

“'S a load of shite, `swhat it is!” Ron replied, unseen to Ginny but voice more than audible. “He's a fucking Death Eater!”

“Ronald Weasley!” shrieked Molly Weasley, best Howler voice in place and clattering down the stairs from the third floor. “Watch your language and keep your voice down! Some people are trying to rest!”

Deciding this was too weird for words, Ginny stepped into the hall and padded into the kitchen.

“What is going…uh…” she began authoritatively, trying her best to mimic her mother, and stopping short.

Attached to Ron's wand by invisible magic was the unconscious body of a bloody, snowy Draco Malfoy.

***

They could only use a few spells anymore, what with the small but deadly pockets of Death Eaters still on the loose.

In the six years since Ginny had graduated, the Ministry had stepped up their efforts to systematically kill Death Eaters. After Azkaban prison proved to be fallible, the wizarding authorities had no good way to incarcerate them. As if the entire society had taken a step back into the Middle Ages, incineration proved to be the only way to be reassured that a Death Eater could not and would not be resurrected.

The Death Eaters had learned ways to make their magic more powerful. Necessity is the mother of invention. Wily dark wizards discovered ways to track spells and thus suss out supposedly Unplottable homes and the wizards hiding within. In particular, fire, heating, protection and glamour spells were easily detected, due in part to their lingering nature. Now, those fighting the dark wizards had to hide in the wide open.

***

“What is he doing here?” Molly and Ginny asked at the same time, hands going to hips in identical fashion. Harry had to quirk his lips at the unconscious action, but explained as Ron glared at him and Draco respectively.

“Lucius Malfoy and a small band of Death Eaters are holed up near my old home in Godric's Hollow,” Harry said, ignoring the obvious irony and Molly's shocked gasp. “Ron and I were to help on a raid with them tonight and when we got there, Professor Lupin and Mr. Weasley were busy tending to Draco. They're also on their way back, Mrs. Weasley,” he added hastily, seeing Molly's concerned face.

“But what does this have to do with Malfoy?” Ginny demanded, and Harry was reminded uncannily of Hermione.

“I'm getting there, Gin. Hold on.” Harry's gaze traveled over to Ron and the floating Malfoy, fixing him with a hard stare.

“Turns out that Draco's been working for the Order,” Harry said slowly, still unable to truly comprehend how his rival had been working for Dumbledore for more than three years and he hadn't known about it. “He had been tracking his father and had the time of the raid wrong by a few minutes. He thought everyone else was going to Apparate in with him and attack. Which they were…only he was about ten minutes too soon. Someone hit him with the Cruciatus, Stunned him, and then shoved him in a snow bank head first.”

“What are you doing, then?” Ginny nearly shrieked, face purpling with rage. “Why have you got him suspended with a traceable spell when I could have been working to warm him up? Don't you know anything about humans, Harry? Doesn't matter if he's been Stunned, he could still have hypothermia!”

***

“I have a feeling you're going to need to know more than just magic healing,” Hermione told her. “My mum and dad have nurses who work for them as dental assistants, and one of them let me buy her old university textbooks from her.”

That had been four years ago. Before spells were restricted. Before Muggle healing techniques became absolutely necessary and Ginny's services were sought after by many.

She considered every wizard she healed by Muggle means her own way of spitting in Tom Riddle's papery, ugly face.

***

“What are you on about, you crazy bint?” Ron yelled, heedless of the nine other people sleeping on the third and fourth floors of Grimmauld Place. “His dad tried to kill you!”

Ginny's cold-numbed legs carried her faster across the kitchen than Molly attacking with a wooden spoon to the back of the head. Her small but well-aimed hand planted a stinging slap on her brother's face and she stood her ground furiously.

“If he's working for Dumbledore, that's good enough for me,” she spat in a low, frightening tone. “Don't you realize that he's probably the only person who could get close enough to that bastard and maybe do away with him once and for all? Maybe if we can get some information out of him I can light Lucius's match.”

Molly Weasley was too stunned to reprimand her two youngest children and silently let them duke it out. Harry merely waited for the standoff to end. Ron stepped back first, deciding that perhaps wasn't the best time to test his sister's mettle.

Ginny reached out and snatched Ron's wand, with a silent, deathly pale Malfoy trailing wanly along.

“I have the most blankets in the house. After I put him to bed I'm going to go bunk with Fred and George, you know, the sanest people in the family,” Ginny snapped, maneuvering Malfoy behind her. “Don't disturb me or him, and I'm taking his wand. Any questions?” The next split-second passed without a peep and she stalked off to her bedroom.

***

Ginny had never been sure how she ended up with the smallest and chilliest room in Grimmauld Place. The unused grate let in the maximum of cold outside air, and the feather-ticked bed could only hold so much body heat. Of course, she'd salvaged what quilts she could from her room in the Burrow and Dumbledore had allowed her to take a Hogwarts down comforter before the school was no longer a safe place for wizard families and evacuated.

Hermione's pedantic teachings echoed in her head and she reflected on how much she missed her girlhood friend. Hermione, forced back into the Muggle world as an unwed mother carrying a baby with bright green eyes.

Replaying the bushy-haired Head Girl's treatise on hypothermia helped to calm Ginny as she floated Malfoy over the bed and released him from the spell, covering him loosely with a thin quilt and then the heavier comforter. His platinum hair was plastered to his forehead and damp with snow. Grabbing her bath sheet, she briskly rubbed his hair dry and placed her Weasley-spun knit cap over his locks.

Holding back a giggle at how ridiculous he looked in the maroon hat with ear flaps, she concentrated on shoving the bed across the hardwood floor and into the corner, away from the drafty grate. Once she settled him, she moved her night table and the threadbare, overstuffed lounge chair to the side of the bed and observed him.

His breathing was steady, but somewhat shallow. Color was slowly reappearing in his nearly translucent cheeks, and she took that as a good sign. Realizing he still had his wand on him, she patted down his pockets as gracefully as possible and wondered if there was any way to tactfully remove his wet clothing.

She left him shivering for a few moments and returned with a grumbling Fred and George, who agreed to give up some of their own warm clothes so Draco wouldn't lie in the soggy, cold mess of his trousers and heavy sweater. Ginny stood outside the door as the twins used as few spells as possible to turn him and remove his clothes.

Once they were finished, they admonished her in unison to forget about the prat and let him lie there and come and stay in their room, which was much toastier. Smiling, Ginny shook her head and went back in to check on Draco.

He was still breathing, perhaps a little less thready than before. Satisfied, she sat in the chair and wrapped herself in the only blanket left in the room. She told herself she would watch him for another hour or so and would then go join her brothers.

***

Ginny woke as daylight broke into the small, grimy window. Shaking herself alert, she immediately checked on Malfoy. He didn't appear to have moved the entire night, his hat was still in place, and the blankets were pulled firmly up to his chin. Deciding she didn't want to wake him, she pattered out of the room and headed to the kitchen, where she could smell her mother's cooking.

Over breakfast, while Harry retold Malfoy's story, Ginny thought about the restorative powers of sleep. The best course of action in this case seemed to be letting Draco sleep until natural bodily functions prodded him to wake. She was confident he would wake later in the afternoon.

Over the day, Ginny went out to the various hiding-in-plain-sight wizarding enclaves and treated some members of the Order and a few elderly wizards and some children with runny noses. Professor Snape had been able to stockpile a few potions to help combat illness, but they were severely rationed, and Ginny found herself tipping teaspoonfuls of medicinal concoctions into small vials to spread one dose among four or five people.

After spending a goodly portion of the day away from Grimmauld Place, she trekked back to the now-visible front door and went inside, stomping her boots to loosen the packed snow in the treads. The house was quiet, which seemed out of place. When she ascended the stairs to the second floor, she found everyone stuffing their faces with food. Ah, now she understood the silence. Harry had gone to the Muggle market and purchased fresh meat, fish, and vegetables from the small amount of pounds he was able to convert from his vault in Gringotts. It was her mother's job to keep feeding the family and friends on practically nothing, and as a young, poor mother she had learned her replicating skills well.

Ginny took her place at the table, and was informed by Molly that Draco still hadn't budged, except his woolen hat had been dislodged. Inwardly, Ginny laughed. Trust Draco even in sleep to know he had some Weasley-tainted item about his person. She ate her portion of the relatively sumptuous meal and went to her room to change into some nightclothes.

It was almost as if no one was in the room when she changed. She had no compunctions about disrobing and redressing in front of him; after all, he was little more than breath in a body at this point. Before she went to the loo to wash her face, she threw her blanket over Draco's still body. No reason he couldn't warm her blanket for her, eh?

As she returned from the lavatory, the twins accosted her.

“Why didn't you come in last night, sister ours?” Fred asked sweetly, but there was concern written in his eyes.

“No reason,” she said honestly. “I just fell asleep in the chair.”

“We just don't want you in there with Malfoy if he wakes up and is combative,” George said, and Ginny wondered where George had learned that word.

“Really, if and when he wakes he's not going to have any strength. Besides, I have his wand and I keep it with me,” Ginny said as lightly as she knew how. “I'll be fine. Truth be told, I prefer to sleep in my own room. I'm used to it, and I rest better.”

George raised a sleek eyebrow.

“If you say so. Just be careful.”

“I am careful,” Ginny bit out. “You think I can't handle Malfoy when I spend my days sneaking about and treating people? Come off it.”

She turned her back on her brothers and entered her bedroom, completely missing her brothers' hurt expressions.

***

Ginny retrieved her blanket from Malfoy's prone body. It wasn't precisely warm, but the thick chill that had settled into the cloth was gone. Eyeing him, she decided the woolen cap didn't need to be replaced. Malfoy's hair was dry as a bone and so was his body. All he had to do now was wake up.

Pulling the chair and side table closer, she snuggled in the cushions and placed Draco's ostentatious wand on the table. She took a moment to contemplate how funny this was, and had Draco not been working for the Order she would have slipped him some belladonna and nightshade by now.

Beyond the exquisite irony of the situation, she pondered Draco physically. He hadn't grown much since his last year at Hogwarts, but his shoulders seemed broader and his hands and fingertips were callused. His hair was longer, and she imagined, had he been sitting up, the platinum locks would have fallen just below his shoulders. His lips were even nice, considering they weren't curled in a sneer for once. Pity, really, that such beauty was wasted on an utter git like Malfoy, even if he was working for the good side.

Ginny was more than a little surprised that the need for food and elimination hadn't woken him yet. He hadn't had any water since he'd been there, and there was no way for her to determine when he had last taken care of these functions. Privately, she wondered if subconsciously he realized he was somewhere safe and he could take the time to reenergize. She had heard of people who were under great duress or in stressful situations who had done this same sort of thing, and not woken for days.

She wished for a parchment and quill, but they were in short supply these days. Harry had thoughtfully procured pens and paper, and she fished them out of the side table's drawer. It would be important to put Draco back on food gradually, and depending on if he had any injuries that manifested after he woke, it was entirely possible he might have to be physically rehabilitated in some manner. Being hit with a Cruciatus was very serious and she knew of few people who had escaped without some reminder of the curse.

And again, she had no idea how long he suffered. Another question to be answered when he woke. Shaking her head, she propped her feet on the edge of the bed and wrapped the blanket around her. For a moment, she was reminded of the curious pictures Bill had shown her of Egyptian mummies. She sure felt like one, shrouded in the cloth. Thank Merlin she had memories like those to keep her sane, in times like these.

***

Deep into the morning, Draco Malfoy's nose twitched. An unpleasant aroma hit his delicate nostrils and he flinched. He tried to move, and felt distinctly muzzier than usual when he came off a drunk. Taking individual account of all of his appendages, he decided everything was present and accounted for. But what was the smell?

His eyes were slightly crusted with sleep, and when he raised an arm to brush it away he was assailed with noxious fumes from his underarm.

Draco Malfoy was never smelly. But this - this indicated he hadn't bathed in days! How could that be? He groaned as the memory of being hit with the Cruciatus came roaring back into his brain. Gods, if that was the case, he was lucky he woke at all. It probably also accounted for why he was lying in a strange bed - comfortable but small - with the girl Weasley sleeping peacefully in a chair next to him.

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AN: Sorry it took me so long to post this. I thought I had more up here and on a whim decided to check. Yup, only one chap when I had two. So here it is.

A dull ache hit him and he realized his right ankle was throbbing. Vaguely he recalled trying to pivot on it to escape his attackers, and must have injured it then. Then his mind instantly told him he was long overdue for a trip to the loo, but the bone-deep ache in his muscles told his bladder to knock off the whinging.

Drawing a deep breath, his eyes returned to the girl Weasel. She seemed to be sleeping comfortably, damn her. He was shivering despite the thick comforter covering him. It royally chapped him that he smelled like the bottom of a rancid pumpkin juice tankard and this ragged peasant blanket smelled like fresh linen.

By far, though, the most important issue was warming himself. Squinting, he caught the familiar outline of his wand on the bedside table. Opening his mouth to utter an accio, he found that what instead came forth was a distinctly unmanly whuff. Gritting his teeth, he swallowed and wet his lips. When he finally voiced the command, it was so soft he wasn't even sure his wand would respond.

But thank Merlin it did, and whooshed toward his hand. The slight disturbance of the nearby air caused Weasley to stir, and for a split second he was afraid he'd woken her. He needn't have worried, though, as she continued to sleep.

Breathing a sigh of relief, he did what countless other Malfoys had done when faced with a Weasley. Casting a deep sleep charm on the slumbering girl, he quietly levitated her and put her in her place. Next to him, to be exact, as she couldn't be trusted not to break his toes if he lay her across his feet like a dog. He sighed at being so close to the enemy, but she was doing him no good sitting there and just radiating heat into the air.

***

Waking up for Ginny was never particularly hard, as she'd become accustomed over the years to loud brothers and later, loud dorm mates. But this wintry Saturday morning, her limbs were infused with lead and her mind was just as groggy.

She was lying down. She didn't remember going to the twins' room, but perhaps she had. And she'd bunked with one of them, to be sure, as Fred or George was putting out heat like the sun.

Her brother moved behind her, and immediately a moist, acrid scent hit her nostrils. Wrinkling her nose, she willed her heavy body to turn over.

Sleepy gray eyes met hers. Without hesitation, she spoke.

“Malfoy…you stink.”

“It's you, I'm sure,” he replied just as easily, using his free hand to rub his eyes, the action releasing more fetid air.

“Why can't I move?” she asked calmly, looking down their bodies and noticing that she was atop his covers and saw his wand closed tightly in long fingers.

“The deep sleep charm,” he sighed. “I was freezing and you were just sitting there letting perfectly good heat into the atmosphere. I was going to turn you around so your head was at my feet, but the idea of waking up next to your dirty weasel paws was even less appealing than your face.”

The jibe rolled off her back. Having heard and seen much worse, the war protected her from Malfoy's childish insults.

“Furthermore, why exactly am I here with you? Where am I?” She opened her mouth to answer his questions before he struggled to sit up and waved off her concerned look with an impatient hand.

“Never mind. I have to drain the dragon. Where's the loo?” he asked abruptly, swinging his aching body to the other side of the bed and standing gingerly. She couldn't see his face and had no idea if he was having any lasting effects from the curses he sustained, but if the acerbic tone was any indicator, he was probably fine.

“Out the door, to the left, three doors down.”

She rolled over in time to watch him hobble the short distance to the door. He favored his right leg considerably and she realized that by the extreme swelling on his foot that she'd have some work to do on him.

Grimacing the entire way, he limped to the loo only to find Potter emerging.

“Draco!” he said, blinking furiously behind glasses. “You're awake!” Draco shoved past him into the small lav.

“You're obvious,” Draco stated, and slammed the door. As he went to unbutton his fly, he realized belatedly that these were most certainly not his clothes. Pushing the waistband down, he released himself and took the most satisfying piss of his life.

Trying to hold back the groan that accompanied this sort of relief, he realized he had to be in some sort of safe house if Dumbledore put precious Potter there. Wondering who else he'd have the displeasure of meeting, he finished his business and washed his hands, musing that it was certainly the shabbiest lavatory he'd ever seen in his life.

Wondering if the shower was some sort of hose mechanism instead of a civilized stream from the ceiling, he exited the small room, glimpsing what had to be Weasleys around a table.

***

Molly Weasley detected the smallest sliver of platinum hair in between the dark wood panels of the short hallway.

“Draco!” she boomed. “My dear boy, we were thinking you'd never wake!”

Dear boy? Remembering that his mother would have casually flicked a Cruciatus at him for being insolent to his elders, and to distant family no less, he forced himself to reply in a civil tone.

“Thank you, Mrs. Weasley,” he said stiffly, the hated word rolling off his tongue. She clucked at him in return, shepherding him to an empty chair.

“You must be starving!” she declared, and instantly a plate of eggs, ham and crispy bacon sat in front of him, and a goblet of fresh milk was in his hand.

The smell of the eggs nauseated him, but the meat looked safe to eat. Without a second glace to Arthur, Bill, Charlie, Fred, George or Ron, he put his head down and began to shovel in his bacon.

“So, Malfoy, d'you own a watch?” one of the twins (indistinguishable! he thought wearily) asked cheekily.

“Unless you've stolen it, yes,” he replied around a bite of ham. Arthur Weasley narrowed his eyes at what he knew was coming.

“Funny, didn't seem to do you any good at that raid,” Ron piped up snidely, grinning maliciously.

“No more,” said a steely but feminine voice. “Any of you Weasleys say one more word like that and you'll be belching slugs far longer than Ron ever did.”

Molly smiled privately at her daughter's efficient silencing of the table. She'd be the master of her brood, that one.

“I don't need you fighting my fights for me, Weasley,” Draco said deliberately.

“I'd say you do, Malfoy,” Harry said, popping into the room with Draco's hideous Mudblood cousin Nymphadora Tonks. “She's the one who kept Ron from hexing you to kingdom come. Not to mention made sure you didn't die of the cold.”

“Yes, well, thank you,” he hissed, shoving back from the table as best he could with his weak arms. He got to his feet and began pushing through Scarhead and his cousin to go anywhere but there.

And then, on the floor Molly Weasley polished until she could see her reflection, Draco Malfoy's broken right foot slipped in its white cotton sock covering and he crumpled silently to the floor.

She seemed to be beside him before his head bounced off the floor. Instantly, she had her hands underneath his armpits and with inhuman strength hauled his upper body from the floor and spoke in a fierce, low tone.

“Get up and let's get out of here.”

***

He was still long enough for her to jerk him to his feet, and then he began to struggle.

“Get off me, girl!” he snapped furiously. Silently, she let go of him, allowing him to stumble over the slick floors. Without a backward glance, she followed the lanky, hobbling figure back into her chamber.

She walked in to find him ransacking the pitifully small room, ostensibly looking for his personal effects.

“Where are my things, Weaselette? Did you let your horrid identical brothers steal my watch? Hmm? What about those expensive robes I was wearing? Can you answer for that?” he raged, wand flinging blankets off the bed, then firing blasts of air underneath it to make sure she'd not secreted anything there.

“They're safe, Draco,” she said in a monotone, not even remembering to use his much-maligned surname. “Mum hand-washed your robes, magicked out the bloodstains and cleaned your intricate little watch by hand, since you'd been shoved into the snow deep enough to bury your hand in mud.”

He stopped cold. “She what?” he queried, limping toward her.

She turned an unemotional face toward him.

“She cleaned it. You know, Malfoy, we're not at Hogwarts any more. Everyone here knows whose side you're on, okay? And so when I tell you that my mum cleaned your things, she did it because she trusts in you and also because she wants to help you, whether you need or want it. You can decide if you want to believe what Harry told you, but if Ron had had his way, you'd be dead. So for once, take that giant chip off your shoulder and throw it away.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “I get it, Weasley, you're having me on. Great fun, I'm sure, to provoke and belittle an injured man.”

Shrugging, she turned to walk out the door, having had enough of his antics and airs.

“Perhaps you've forgotten but I wasn't doing either. Forgive me for wanting to help someone.”

Her fingertips closed around the tarnished doorknob when he spoke up behind her. He was sitting on the bed now, cradling his swollen ankle and foot.

“I, erm, I didn't mean what I said about you,” he said grudgingly.

“Don't sugarcoat it on my account,” she snapped.

“I'm not,” he snarled. “Maybe you've forgotten but I nearly got offed by my father and his merry men. I'm a touch cranky when I narrowly escape death, Weasley, give me a break, okay? It's not my greatest wish to be stuck here with a bum foot and smelling like a cellar.”

“I guess we've reached a truce, then,” she said, her face softening. “You don't want to be here and I can help you get out faster.”

“Right,” he said warily, and she could see that he was still processing all of this, sussing out every motive she and the home's occupants had.

“Since we've agreed that you're pretty rank, I'm going to go steal some of the twins' shampoo and soap for you,” she said, mercifully changing the subject and interrupting the unintended little staring match they'd started. “And while I'm at it, I'm going to nick more of the twins' clothes until we can go and get you some more.”

He appeared to be uncomfortable.

“How, err, how does one go about that without any money?” he asked in a tense, low voice, looking pointedly away from her.

“You know, Malfoy, you can be pretty fucking insulting—

“I don't mean you.”

Wheeling around, her jaw dropped.

“Oh, buggering hell,” he spat. “You want the answer? I'll tell you. Dumbledore controls me. He's got the key to all the Malfoy vaults. Fudge froze them and gave them to Dumbledore to fund the war effort. I'm on a shoestring, you get it? By serving him he thinks I can atone for every foul thing I've ever done. And until he decides I've served my penance, I have nothing. I have to depend on him for everything. He only let me keep those robes and my watch, because my Mum bought it for me. And since I'm willing to bet he can't come near this place without alerting scads of Death Eaters, I'm a little indisposed at the moment.”

She tried vainly to think of a suitable response to the haughtiest man she knew revealing his poverty. He struck a curiously sad figure, and Ginny realized she didn't pity for him, she ached. It should have funny to see Draco Malfoy being taken down nearly all the pegs he had, but she couldn't bring herself to laugh. It was heartbreaking, no matter how much shared enmity had flowed between them, to see him bleeding like this.

“I've been dirt poor my entire life,” she said slowly, softly. “And I can't say that I understand how you feel. But I can help make it as painless as possible until you get back to the top.”

And because her breath caught in her throat due to the lump that had formed there, she darted for the door and escaped, searching both for toiletries and respite.

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When she returned to the cold, cramped room, she saw that he had stripped off his borrowed sweatshirt and dozed off on the bed, his right foot propped precariously on her pillows. Taking a moment to observe his swollen extremity, she noted a particularly nasty bruise and the slight protrusion of bone. Unhappily she realized that keeping the break immobilized and in the proper place could be difficult.

She left him a half-full bottle of shampoo and a wrapped bar of soap. A folded terrycloth robe was at the top of a stack of the twins' stolen clothing. Her mother had promised to deposit towels for him in the lavatory. As much as she wanted to wake him and get him off to the shower, where she was sure he'd feel infinitely better, she had rounds to make.

Passing unobserved through Muggle London was a blessing, she thought. As she came to revisit recurring patients and serve new ones, she knew what she could ask for in payment.

“I'll take a spare board of wood, if you please. And any leftover yarn or wool. No, I don't care what color or length. Just the end of a skein, something like that.”

When she reentered 12 Grimmauld Place in the evening, her pockets were bursting with loose strings of yarn and bits of wool. A surreptitious shrinking spell had reduced the five short boards she'd procured to mere splinters in her handbag.

The house was curiously silent, and Ginny knew why when she came into the kitchen.

All eight other Weasleys, Tonks, Harry, Lupin, Snape and Kingsley Shacklebolt were sitting at the hastily elongated dinner table, all perceptibly giving Draco extra space as they ate dinner.

Professor Snape was the only one brave enough to sit directly next to Draco, thus the chair on his other side was empty. Ginny removed her coat and draped it over the back of the rickety chair, and a clean plate passed wordlessly down to her.

“Ginny, how was your day?” Tonks piped up, daring to break the silence she could hardly stand.

“As usual,” she said softly. “But some of the people are getting better. Professor Snape's divided potions were more powerful than we originally thought. More able-bodied witches and wizards are well.”

A hmph sounded from Snape, and she realized it was the only acknowledgement he'd make of her statement.

But Tonks' question was enough to start conversation. Ginny wondered how long they'd been sitting in silence.

Food was shuffled down to her and she filled her plate.

“Draco, could you please pass the butter?” she asked. He nodded tersely and handed the small crock to her.

“Well, one thing's for sure,” she said lightly, her words meant for his ears only.

“What?”

“You've showered.”

“Yes, Weasley,” he snapped quietly. “I'm poor but I still bathe.”

The rest of the table was jovial except for the little cabal of darkness at one end.

***

She walked ahead of Draco into her room, and instructed him to get on the bed.

“What tiresome thing have you planned now, Weasley?” he asked acidly. “Jumping jacks? Sliding down the banister? All activities I'm sure will strengthen my foot.”

“Just shut up,” she said tiredly. “I got these for you.” And forgetting they were shrunken, she pulled out the five splinters she'd bound together with string.

“Oh, to pierce my heart. Good idea.”

She fought the urge to deck him.

“No, you damned prat,” she seethed. She took out her wand and removed the spell as quickly as she could. The boards fell out of her hand and clattered to the floor.

“I'm going to make you a splint,” she said. “It's not as good as a cast, and Professor Snape does not have the ingredients he needs to help mend the bone properly. It will have to be done more primitively.”

Draco's head fell back on the pillow. “I thought Snape could open his robes and find an entire apothecary in there,” he moaned.

She barely succeeded in holding back a tart comment that there was a war going on.

“Fine, do whatever you have to do,” he said dismissively, but she couldn't help but notice the apprehension in his voice.

“Please, just sit up and hang you knees over the edge of the bed. I'm going to see which of these fit you the best and bind it to you.”

“Are you sure you care to do that sort of lingering spell?” he asked, voice suddenly without rancor.

“I've done it before for a patient who had a broken arm. I had Mad-Eye Moody check up on it at random times. He said he could only pick up the faintest flicker of magic, and only because he was looking for it.”

“I don't trust that Moody, he's dangerous, do you know that?” Draco asked, unresolved anger creeping into his voice. “Do you recall him turning me into a weasel?”

“I believe a ferret is part of the weasel family, Draco,” she said lightly.

He began to drone on extensively about how much he hated Moody, hated the Aurors, and hated his cousin Nymphadora. Trying hard to ignore him, she decided his rant was probably a good thing; he needed to vent some steam. Besides, it was taking his mind away from his foot as she splinted it, and it wasn't until she cinched the contraption with a spell did he utter an expletive.

“Fucking hell, that's tight!” he swore, leaning down and swatting her hands away. “Do you mean to cut off all blood supply? I can't run after Death Eaters with a stump, you know!”

“Any looser and you won't be running at all,” she retorted, crossing her arms over her chest. “Without being able to take you to St. Mungo's, I can't tell how long you'll have to stay off your foot.”

He hung his head, shaking it.

“I can't believe I was so stupid,” he muttered, swinging his legs back into her bed and pulling the blankets up to his waist.

“You can hardly help breaking a bone when you're dodging an Unforgivable, Draco,” Ginny said, her tone a bit softer now.

He averted his eyes and turned over, facing away from her.

“No, that's not what I mean.”

“Well, what do you mean?” she asked reasonably.

“You're a nosy chit, you know that?”

“Inquiring minds want to know.”

“They have my mum.”

“What?” she blurted. “No one said anything about your mum.”

“Why would they?” he asked bitterly, raising his head to eye her coldly. “Narcissa Malfoy, wife of the Death Eater, mother of the spawn.”

“But Snape always said your mother had no part in this!” Ginny exclaimed, feeling sick.

“Yeah, well, she didn't,” Draco railed. “Not until my father got the extraordinarily brilliant idea of using her to bait me.”

Bile rose in her throat and she covered her mouth, willing herself not to think of her own father offering up her mother as a sacrifice.

Seeing her recoil, Draco barged ahead.

“Yes, Weasley, war's a bitch, isn't it? My father knew I would be on that raid, and made it known that he had my mother. He would release her from Merlin knows where if I showed up to collect her and gave my word I wouldn't rat him out.”

He paused, hatred twisting his face.

“And like a right idiot I showed up early, not only proving to my father that there was a raid but giving him a chance to shut me up. Guess I'm lucky he didn't actually try to kill me. Very civil of him.”

“What about your mother?” Ginny asked dumbly, not able to hold back the question.

“What about her, Weasley? I conveniently ended up here under your wing. I certainly have no idea where she is or how she is, only that I'm sincerely hoping my father hasn't thrown her to his friends for fun.”

Knowing with absolute certainty the type of fun he was alluding to, she looked up and wished she hadn't. His face was a mask of stone, but a single tear had already run its course and left a trail.

“I need you for one thing, Weasley, and that's to get me fixed up again. Because I will need all my strength to kill my father with my bare hands if he's even so much as broken her fingernail.”

A loud knock broke the charged atmosphere. Molly Weasley ducked her head into the room with a big smile and two steaming mugs of cocoa.

“I thought you two dears might need some sustenance,” she said, bustling over to them and pressing the handle of one of the mugs in Draco's hand.

“Now, Draco, I know how much you like sweets, and I made this especially for you.”

He took it cautiously, sipping the rich drink carefully.

“Thank you,” he said formally. “But how did you know I liked sweets?” he asked, an edge to his voice.

“All the Blacks do, dear,” she said, patting his head. “Your cousins Sirius and Nymphadora, your aunt Andromeda.”

He could only nod as she turned to Ginny.

“Ginny, love, I've brought you more jumpers,” Molly said. Ginny fought not to roll her eyes, but knew this was the best way to get her out of here.

“Thanks,” Ginny said, trying to smile at her mother.

“Ginny, I think your father will be up here soon. He said he had something to talk to the both of you about,” Molly said.

“I do,” said a voice from the doorway. Arthur Weasley walked in, his face looking wearier and more lined than Ginny could recall.

He faced Malfoy and directed all of his comments at him.

“Now that you're up and around, I think it's time we moved you to a different bedroom,” Arthur said tightly. “It's inappropriate for you to stay here in Ginny's bed, especially with her…” he paused, and turned a glare on Ginny now, “not staying with her brothers like she promised.”

“It's fine,” Draco said, draining his cocoa and setting the empty mug on the bedside table. He began to move himself off the bed, but Ginny saw him wince and immediate shot up to face her father.

“Da,” she said firmly, “I know you want to put him in the room beneath the stairs, and I won't have that.”

Unused to such a reply from his daughter, Arthur's expression at once turned from mildly menacing to confused.

“Why not, Gin?” he asked. “I don't see any problem with it.”

“There's no problem with moving rooms,” she said, “but if he stays here he's closer to the loo and he won't have to go up and down the stairs.”

“I told you I don't need you to fight my fights for me,” Draco said, his eyes snapping in barely restrained anger.

“You told me you needed me to make you well again,” she pointed out, “and having you break your neck on those stairs is not going to put you back out on the trail.”

Turning back to her parents, Ginny spoke again.

“Now that that's settled, can you two help me take some blankets down there?”

Draco was all but forgotten as the Weasleys trailed after their daughter. He could hear Molly fretting about how chilly Ginny would be. He sneered, laughing at Arthur Weasley's feeble attempt to defend his daughter's honor. Thank Merlin most of their clan tried to avoid him.

Nature called him then, and he made his way awkwardly to the loo, making a fair bit of noise with his splinted foot on the polished floor. Once returned to his room, he settled as deeply as possible into the available covers. He had discovered the small pile of Weasley jumpers Molly had left behind and wrapped one around his feet and the other around his shoulders.

As he lay there, hovering between sleep and wakefulness, he vaguely thought that it was too bad he'd lost his bed-warmer. Ginny Weasley was perfect for the job, and now she was a flight of stairs down and shivering alone, just like him.

-->

Author's Note: I know it has taken me umpteen weeks to update this, let alone anything else I have out. I also am aware of the rating placed on this story. Due to its nature, it's not something I can rush into, but I think this chapter gets me right where I want to be. Remember, NONE of my stories are done until the little indicator says it is done.

***********************************************************************

Several hours later, in the darkest recesses of the night, Ginny lay awake, blankets wrapped around her prone form. If she'd been able to stand it, she would have covered her face too, but putting cloth over her face made her feel smothered.

Instead she passed the time trying not to think about her not-quite-warm body and about Draco and how to heal him. In truth there was not much more she could do for him, and without knowing how fast or well his broken bones would mend, there was not a reliable way for her to determine when she could help him gain mobility again in the useless foot and ankle.

And on top of it all, she was shuffled out of her own room for honor. What a joke. She knew in her heart her father meant well, but to even think that Draco Malfoy would be caught dead consorting with a Weasley was laughable. It had been obvious that morning he was simply using her as a warmer, and if she thought hard enough about it, she really hadn't minded. The extra, shared heat was welcome, and she had slept better than in previous nights.

Bunking with her brothers was out of the question. They were too annoying, and too used to her. They would think nothing of belching, farting, and rolling over on her like a lumpy pillow. She loved them dearly, but she knew as well as the sun would rise in the east that Draco Malfoy would rather slit his throat than have a public bodily function.

With this distinctly humorous image in her mind, she laughed a bit in the silence and clutched her blankets closer to her body. Snuggling in, she tried to sleep.

***

Draco was easily bored. He had no interest in the books available in the small Grimmauld Place library, though he liked to read, and had no one who would honestly hold a conversation with him, though he had things to say. The eldest Weasley brothers were somewhat attractive as an option, but they tended to dismiss him altogether as one of the Trio's ilk. Charlie did once speak with him briefly about his love of tending dragons in Romania, but other than that his only other choices were Professor Snape and Ginny.

The professor was often out and about on business, and was more frequently called away to Voldemort's side. And when he returned to the tiny bastion of safety, he was too tired and preoccupied for Draco to rationalize bothering him. He had too much respect for the man he considered an uncle to try and catch him in trivial conversation.

“What do you do here, Weasley?” he asked her one day as she prepared to leave and visit some ill children in the area.

“I thought it was pretty obvious by now. I pretend to be a Healer, and everyone else goes out and gets hurt.”

Her flippant answer stung him more than he realized it would. He tried again.

“I mean, when you're here. Bored. Alone.”

She had been tying her battered oxfords, and lifted her chin to regard him, red hair streaming around her face. An eyebrow raised.

“As in, for fun?” she asked slowly, as if she could not comprehend his words.

“Yes, for fun,” he said agitatedly, running a hand through his loose hair and frowning. She stared at him for a few moments longer, and then her wide mouth broke into a smile.

“Draco,” she said gently, “there's not much fun. We didn't just suddenly stop playing our nightly game of charades because you showed up.”

“Oh, piss off!” he said vehemently. “Even when I was pretending to be friends with Crabbe and Goyle, we did something to pass the time. Exploding Snap, Gobstones…hell, at least those two would talk to me.”

She studied him for a moment as he half-turned away from her, as if he could not bear to look her in the face as he admitted his ennui.

“When you are better, I will take you with me on short trips,” she pledged, hoping that she could actually deliver on this. Even if it was just to the Muggle market, it would be somewhere that wasn't here.

“Do you promise?” he asked mournfully, stressing the word. An image of a young, petulant Draco suddenly permeated her mind.

“Yes,” she stated resolutely. “Besides, you're going to have to walk on that foot at some point, and not just around here. In a week or two I'll take you with me to get fruit at the little stand round the corner.”

His lip curled. “Muggle fruit stand. Quaint.”

She shrugged, knowing his attitude would change soon after he continued to be cooped up.

“Fine. Stay here. Die of scurvy. I don't care.”

She swept out the door to his faint, questioning “Scurvy?”

***

When she returned that day she had a pack of Muggle playing cards and a sort of game in which one used wooden pegs to jump over one another, the idea to leave as few pegs as possible. It wasn't much, but at least Draco could have something to occupy him when everyone in the house essentially ignored him.

She waited until after dinner to give him the little gifts she'd picked up for him, paid for with her own scarce pocket money. They'd retreated to his (her?) room and she checked the swelling in his lower extremity.

He sat on the bed and she removed the splint, pleased that the swelling seemed to be going down. She was loath to move the joints too much lest they only be tenuously healed, but Draco pointed out at least he could wiggle his toes, and demonstrated such.

“I've something to give you,” she said, her voice attaining a warning note, “but I want to know why you've been such an absolute git to everyone these past few days.”

Obstinately he glared at her, and opened his mouth to speak, and she cut him off.

“If you even so much as insinuate that you were bored, I will cut this foot off with a dull knife.”

Rolling his slate-gray eyes, he finally harrumphed, crossing his arms over his chest.

“If you must know, it's because I cannot sleep,” he huffed childishly. “I can't seem to get myself warm, and I've always been thin-blooded. I had warming charms down pat in my first month in Slytherin, it was so cold in that wretched dungeon.”

At this, he moved his hands rapidly up and down his forearms, which were covered in a long-sleeved tee shirt provided by the twins that proclaimed the Cannons to be the best team in the league.

“The cold here just seeps into you, you know? I ache so much from the chill that I can't sleep.” This last bit was said with finality and he faced her again. “There, you bloody harpy. Happy now?”

“Don't you have anything you can think about to take your mind off of it?” she asked, regretting the words instantly. Of course she knew he didn't; none of them did. Cringing in anticipation of his sarcastic reply, she waited for the barrage to come. It did not.

“I try, sometimes. I think about my mum, of course. I remember mentally torturing your brother, and that makes me warm inside.” The edge of his mouth quirked, and she was grateful. “About that gift, now.”

“Oh!” she said, rummaging in the deep pockets of her robe, trying not to look at the bright, pitiful look in his eyes. Suddenly ashamed of the trinkets she carried, she pulled them out and thrust them at him. “It's not much.”

“Thank you, I think,” he said. Examining them and coming up short, he asked, “What is this stuff?”

She patiently explained the solitary games, and he seemed amused enough, if not by the games than at least their Muggle novelty.

He began to play the peg game, peering curiously at the instructions printed on the block of wood. Methodically, he jumped peg after peg, looking first puzzled and then annoyed.

“I am not an ignoramus!”

His proclamation broke the silence and she laughed, really laughed, for the first time in days. He tried to valiantly hold on to a scowl, but found he couldn't in the face of her bright smile.

“I'm exhausted,” she finally said, stretching her arms above her head and yawning widely. “I'm going to bed. You should too. Think warm thoughts, okay?”

She'd cleared the door by scant inches when she heard his dark reply.

“Oh, you mean of you?”

***

Ginny lay perfectly still, counting minutes, seconds and sheep. Sleep eluded her, danced in and out of her grasp, teasing her with healing slumber. After not sleeping for one hundred sixty-one minutes, she threw off her bedclothes and hurled herself out of bed. Wadding up her thickest blanket under her arm, she let herself out of the cupboard bedroom and ascended the stairs.

She opened her bedroom door, and Draco shot up from the bed, wand in hand and ready to blast her to kingdom come. Wild eyes appraised her then relaxed.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he snarled, replacing his wand on the side table. “I could have hexed you silly.”

She merely ignored him and approached the bed.

“Budge over,” she commanded. He stared at her dumbly, uncomprehendingly until she sighed heavily.

“I said, move over,” she reiterated. When his eyebrows shot sky-high, she groaned and shoved him to the side of the small bed. Her deft fingers smoothed the rumpled sheets around him.

“What are you doing?” he asked slowly.

“What does it look like?” she said tiredly, flicking the blanket out so it would cover both of them. “There, blankets between us. You won't get Weasley germs. It's obvious neither of us can sleep because we're too cold. At least we'll be warm. Shut up and sleep.”

***

Too few hours later, they were both waking. Ginny's internal alarm clock told her she'd better get back to her own room, and Draco just seemed to be awake. Both lay rigid on their backs, Draco literally bound in place by blankets.

“You mind getting off me?” he mumbled in her ear, breathing in the sleep-scent of her skin. “I've got a feeling you wouldn't take too kindly to me pissing all over you.”

“Thanks for the consideration,” she yawned agreeably, rolling off her tiny slice of the mattress and taking her blanket. “And I wasn't on you, Malfoy. Keep dreaming.”

He snorted inelegantly as he peeled off the covers and headed toward the door.

“I'm going out today,” she said to his retreating figure. “Amuse yourself. Or try being nice to someone. They might just talk to you.”

Later he trailed her to the front door before she left, and she was convinced it was because he wanted to be sure there still was an outdoors, that there was still something normal out there.

“Don't get caught out there,” he said suddenly as her hand closed on the doorknob.

“Right,” she said slowly. “I'll be back.”

***

Life progressed uneventfully at 12 Grimmauld Place. There were no planned raids, but the Order diligently scoured for the tiniest shred of information that might lead to Voldemort or now Narcissa Malfoy.

Professor Snape had called Draco into his private room several times to discuss her possible whereabouts. The problem was, as Draco frankly told her later, was that Death Eaters were notoriously wealthy. Even the lowliest of minions had two or three dwellings, sometimes more. Ancestral homes and other outbuildings posed their own problem, as many were uninhabited and Unplottable to anyone but the family. There were literally dozens of locations in which she could have been stashed in the whole of Europe, and the resources needed to for such an undertaking weren't exactly coming out of the woodwork.

“Snape is the only one who cares,” Draco had said bitterly to her that night as they lay together, trying not to shiver. “It's obvious he cares more than my father. I just hope that fucking bastard hasn't killed her by now.”

He had choked back a sob and Ginny found herself desperately wishing for the cold, arrogant Draco Malfoy she knew so well. It killed her to see him flayed to the bone like this, so laid-open and bare. Stripped of his haughty veneer, he was surprisingly interesting to talk to, but like this…his vulnerability was devastating.

***

He'd been living with them for a fortnight now, and had settled into an uneasy truce with the household. He often brought his solitaire deck into the lounge, where most everyone gathered to share body heat. Ginny found herself observing that he looked regal while hunched over his card game, while everyone else appeared to be miserable.

“Draco,” Molly said, bustling into the room, drawing everyone's attention. “I have your robe to give back to you.”

She held the thick, lustrous robe in a neat folded square, secure in her sturdy hands. But her voice quavered just a bit and her hands visibly trembled when she handed the repaired robe to the young man who could have been her son. As if waiting for him to verbally strike, she backed up slightly and spoke.

“They were damaged a bit, you see,” she said quickly, and the room wondered when Molly Weasley's backbone had broken. “There were some holes, and I…I mended them by hand, so I could be more precise, you know.”

Draco accepted his clothing casually.

“Thank you, Mrs. Weasley.”

She gave him a tentative smile, and began to retreat. The room at large returned to their occupations for a split second before Draco's drawl rent the air.

“I think the whole lot of us would be in rags if it wasn't for you, Mrs. Weasley,” Draco said, looking at the assembly meaningfully, finding their eyes carefully and looking at every one of them.

“He's right,” Ron said slowly. “Thank you, Mum.”

Agreeing voices quietly chorused in the wake of Draco's proclamation. Ginny thought her heart would burst. She felt tears sting her eyes, blinking furiously to will them away. Draco had already turned back to his game, but she knew it was studiously staged to make the rest of the group feel rotten that they'd not mentioned Molly's obvious contributions before. Sneaky Slytherin.

He must have felt her gaze on him, because he looked back up then, brushing his shoulder-length platinum strands away from his eyes with a long finger. The corner of his mouth tipped up in a smirk and she worked hard to hold back a smile.

He couldn't have made her mum any happier than if he'd brought her Christmas on a plate.

***

It was still early in the evening when Ginny feigned sleep-deprivation and begged off from the lounge. A litany of good-nights had been said, but she couldn't really focus on them, just nodded and bounded off to her cupboard bedchamber. While thus ensconced, she listened as various other voices and feet ascended the stairs, but she had ears only for a distinct, heavy step that signaled Draco was on his way to bed.

After waiting what she believed to be a prudent amount of time, she plucked her blanket from the disused bed and stole upstairs.

She'd learned how to noiselessly slip in and out of the room, how to open and close the door without rousing suspicion. This night was no different. He was already abed, turned on his side and propped on one elbow.

“Took you long enough,” he said petulantly, but she knew it was false. He obediently moved to allow her more space, and she settled next to him, also turning on her side and facing him, noses scant inches away.

It took a bit of wriggling for both of them to get comfortable; finally, each was settled in for their now-customary conversation before falling asleep. The guttering candle he'd lit sputtered light over them, rendering them in soft shadows. Ginny had never been so glad for the candle as she was now.

Without sufficient light, he couldn't see her blush.

“Draco,” she said eventually, after they had pondered the merits of gnomes, the ancient and undetectable glamours on Grimmauld Place and more.

“Hmm?” he asked, eyelids drooping slightly, not even taking the time to articulate the sound with his lips.

“Thank you,” she whispered softly.

“F'what?” he replied, yawning.

“For what you said to my mum. For complimenting her on the one thing your family always despised her for. You single-handedly made her day and showed up everyone else, in one choice sentence.”

He roused slightly.

“I did, didn't I?” he said craftily, and she grinned at his tone.

“Yes, you did, and you know it.”

“I did not,” he protested. “Far be it from me to contrive a compliment.” He sobered for a moment, then yawned, moving back into the grips of slumber once more.

When his respirations slowed, she took stock of his closed eyes, relaxed mouth, smoothed frown lines.

“Thank you,” she whispered again, leaning forward and softly pecking him on the lips. Taking care not to jostle him, she moved carefully to her back.

“Ginny.”

Mortified, she felt all the blood drain from her face.

“Ginny.”

She turned her head and found herself staring into fog-clouded eyes that mirrored her own fear. Beginning to apologize for her ill-conceived kiss, she found her lips desperately covered with his trembling mouth.

-->

The touch sent streamers of shock through her, not allowing her to fully register that he merely had his lips pressed to hers. But when his tongue moved hotly over her lower lip, her mouth opened on a gasp and he swept inside.

He worked his hands out from underneath the blankets, moving them instead to cup her face. He had…he had to touch her. Had to know there was another human being out there who seemed to care, to know there was someone who would respond to him. Ginny's blush suffused her cheeks with heat, and he could feel it seeping into his palms.

His rough fingertips skimmed the edges of her ears, and she moaned quietly, meeting his tongue tentatively with her own. The sensual gesture would have in the past caused him to delve deeply, ruthlessly into the mouth of his partner. Now he was frighteningly content to rub his tongue with hers, to taste her.

Playfully, the tip of her tongue touched the underside of his own, making him jump from the sheer tickling sensation of it. A rumbling laugh emanated from his throat, never making it to his mouth. The tiny bit of levity was encouraging. Ginny unconsciously pressed herself closer to his warmth, closer to his gentle fingers and soft touch.

Voices sounded outside the door and Ginny pulled away first, breathlessly, then froze. It sounded like Professors Snape and Lupin, discussing the day's events on their way to their respective bed chambers. But the audible intrusion was enough. The mood was broken.

Scrambling for her blanket, Ginny began to right herself and move off the bed.

“I'm sorry, Draco, I didn't mean…” she began stupidly, feeling ten kinds of fool as she began to make her escape.

“Sorry for what?” he queried, his voice hard now, no trace of the camaraderie they'd earlier shared.

“I, well, I'm sorry for—

“Nothing. There's nothing to be sorry about. Come back.”

When she hesitated, she could hear the snarl in his voice.

“Come back. I'm not going to maul you again. I just…couldn't control myself.”

She approached him and the bed warily, and he moved back to his side and let her smooth the blankets. Gingerly she entered the bed, lying next to him and feeling their shared heat mingle in the small space.

“You didn't maul me.”

***

She slipped out of bed the next morning before the sun had risen. The dull dawn afforded her only a glimpse of his face in repose, and she espied his rather lush mouth that she had been so enamored of the night before.

Mustn't think about Draco Malfoy's mouth. Plenty of people had desperate reactions when placed in a situation that was stressful. Perhaps sexual expressions weren't uncommon either.

She hurried downstairs to the loo and washed up, trying desperately not to luxuriate in the ten minutes the magically-timed water heating spell afforded her. She'd long since brought many of her clothes downstairs with her, and she sifted through the pile of clean vestments until she could find her warmest, softest jumpers and pants.

A quick glance at the hall clock told her it was five thirty, the perfect time to use what was left of her pocket money on some food from the market and then begin her rounds with some of Snape's newly brewed potions.

“Take this,” a voice rasped behind her, and she nearly didn't recognize Draco's rusty tones. It was as if he'd not spoken in days or had suddenly taken ill.

“Are you all right?” she asked immediately, face clouding in concern. She rushed up to him and stood on tiptoes so she could place a cool palm on his forehead to feel for fever. “You sound sick.”

“I am not sick,” he said irritably, pulling away from her mothering. “I want you to take this.”

He held out the neat package of his thick robe, which her mother had so expertly mended.

“I cannot possibly wear that,” she said. “It's too fine and would attract attention. Besides, you're much taller than I am. It would drag in the street.”

“Don't argue, witch,” he said. “Put it underneath your own robes for all I care. Bloody freezing out there in January, you should know that. Plus, these robes happen to have buttons on the inside to adjust the length. I've already done it.”

The strength to argue was sapped from her. Wearily, she accepted the robe, shucking her own and pulling the heavy, much warmer material over her shoulders before replacing her own robe over the top.

“If you freeze to death you're not much good to me, are you?” he asked, eyes boring queerly into hers.

“No good at all,” she agreed, shutting the door in his face.

***

She stayed much warmer with the added layer, but her mind felt curiously cool when she recalled the kiss she had shared with Draco.

Her intentions had been the sweetest possible, but to have him respond in such a manner…Merlin, it was disconcerting. She found him attractive, but couldn't think of any witch who would repudiate him, no matter how much they hated him. And so far, he'd behaved in an exemplary manner and even complimented her mother.

Her head spun with implications.

***

Staying out far later than normal did have some perks, even if they were only imagined. Unable to buck up enough to face Draco before retiring together, she made extra stops to see patients, staying out three hours after dark.

Her mum came at her full bore with blazing eyes and a heaping platter of food, alternately scolding her for dallying and urging her to eat up. It felt familiar, and Ginny let it go without protest.

Ginny skipped the lounge when she peeked in and saw that Draco was not among the sluggish occupants. There was no way she could stand another few hours of being among these people, these freedom fighters who were cooped up and miserable. Her misery had its own company, and it was waiting in her bed upstairs.

It was getting easier and easier to slip upstairs under the radar. And the confrontation that would likely come needed to be done and over with. She donned her warmest pajamas and padded silently to her upstairs room.

Steeling herself for an argument of some description, she opened the door and swung it open on noiseless hinges. Inside, Draco slept on his side, his breathing too deep and even to be faking slumber. Tiptoeing in, she stopped short at the foot of the bed, regarding it strangely.

In the relatively few days they'd had to fall into this habit, Draco had been abed and asleep before her more than once. And he always pulled the sheets up decorously mid-chest, smoothing the extra fabric over Ginny's side, the barrier omnipresent.

Tonight, though, he'd made a decision for himself and a dilemma for her. The blankets were neatly, precisely folded on a diagonal, inviting her to slip between them, to slip in beside him. Still, the tableau presented was vaguely unsettling, giving her choices she didn't necessarily want to make. Blankets shouldn't rightly have caused this amount of grief.

***

Sweating. He was sweating, and doing it profusely. His sweatshirt was stuck to his back, and so was Ginny. Somehow she'd managed to fit her body to his, molding him like a second skin. Even her knees were drawn up, tucked in behind his. Draco could feel a slender arm threaded through the space between his neck and the pillow, and his cheek half-rested on soft, warm skin. Her other arm was proprietarily thrown over his waist, limp fingers a little too close to his bits for comfort.

Soft breath stirred the hairs at the back of his neck, and he fought to keep down an erection, which would be totally inappropriate, he told himself. He didn't know what sort of situation he'd set himself up for, wordlessly inviting her to join him beneath the sheets. It certainly wasn't this, though it was nice.

I've a hard-on for a Gryffindor, he thought wanly as his unruly cock stirred out of sheer proximity to her fingers. Focusing on the unbearable heat they were generating, he tried not to swear as rivulets of perspiration bloomed from his upper chest and ran down his midline.

Reaching down with his free hand, he caught the hem of the sweatshirt and began to gently but firmly peel upward. He couldn't help but move slightly to wriggle out of it, but he was loath to disturb her. Gingerly, he worked the garment off, earning a small, muttered whuff from her as she affixed herself more firmly to his back.

Tossing the damp clothing to the ground, he felt her murmur something against his neck, and it sent shocks straight to his crotch. Forcing himself not to think about it, he instead concentrated on how damn soothing it was to have someone else just be there, nothing else. Pure, uncomplicated companionship. Even if one of them was asleep.

***

Quidditch changing rooms? How in the world did that scent get in here? There was no Quidditch, anymore. Faintly wrinkling her nose, she sensed that the source of the foul odor was too close for her liking. Opening her eyes, she was startled to see an expanse of pale skin not more than two inches from her nose.

Her arms felt like lead, and she realized belatedly that she was practically embracing Malfoy and likely had for most of the night. Fighting the pins and needles of her nerveless arms, she tried to slide them back toward her body. Dull pain shot up her arms and she groaned reflexively.

“Hurting, are you?” Draco asked softly.

“Oh, god,” she moaned, trying to ignore her inability to flex her arms at the elbows.

His surprisingly muscular arm moved and she felt both his hands clasping over hers, the one that hung limply over his waist. His fingers began to work some life into her own, and once she could feel the pain receding, she simply allowed herself to enjoy the massage he was giving her hand.

“Better?”

“Yes.”

He let go of her left hand and latched on to her still-tingling right, the arm that was rather painfully wedged between his head and the pillow. Silently she let him work on her, and was adrift in the rather pleasant sensations until he spoke next.

“Take me to the Muggle market.”

His words startled her.

“You sweet-talker, you,” she said slowly. “Is that how you proposition all the other girls?”

The kneading on her hand intensified.

“I need to get out of here,” he said urgently. “I need to walk somewhere that isn't packed to the gills with Weasleys and professors. I need oranges, remember? I could be dying of scurvy right now.”

His last sentence took the edge off the first, but she understood.

He looked over his shoulder at her, and somber gray eyes met hers.

“Please?”

It was hard to resist someone who had likely never asked permission in his life.

***

“Will you quit badgering me, Weasel?” Draco grumbled as he jammed the homespun Weasley-knit cap on his head, tying the strings underneath his chin. “It's bad enough to have to wear this thing on my head, but you needn't lecture me in stealth.”

Ginny whirled on him, fixing him with a glare of epic proportions. He held his hands out in front of him immediately in supplication.

“Hey, take it easy,” he said. “Maybe that last bit was a little off.”

“I'll say,” she huffed, turning back toward the open door. “Keep your hood up and your eyes down. Last thing I need is an errant witch seeing the famous Malfoy eyes and swooning in the street. That sort of thing draws attention.”

“You mean fainting in fear,” he said darkly.

“I'm not going to fight with you about this,” she sighed. “You are scrounging for a compliment I'm not going to give you.”

“What?” he asked irritably, bent over to release the buttons holding up the bottom of his cloak. “What are you on about?”

“Don't be a prat, Draco. You know perfectly well what I mean.”

“No, I don't, you obtuse bint. Spit it out.”

“You know very well that girls fancy you, and your supposed flirting with the Dark Lord makes you some pretty hot property,” she fumed, not wanting to come out and say it.

“Are you implying that I can't come with you because I'm a bad boy?” he said incredulously, eyes darkening. “That merely being in public will cause the few girls who might recognize me to pull up their robes and give me a glimpse of the short and curlies? Is that your problem?”

“I'm doing this as a favor to you,” she spat, poking him sharply in the upper chest. “Aside from the fact that I'm most certainly not kidding about female reaction to you, I am dead serious that you can't cause any kind of a stir, Muggle or magic. Understood?”

“Crystal clear, my dear,” he snarled snidely. “Can we just get out of this place?”

Forcing her lip not to curl, she turned on her heel and resisted slamming the door in his face.

***

Visiting the market was blessedly unremarkable, save for the low-level of animosity that simmered between them all morning. He made it a point to keep his head down and step even, though she noticed fleeting pain manifest itself by way of a wrinkled forehead.

He only began to protest when he saw them going back to the overcrowded house far too soon.

“Come on, Weasley, can't I go with you?” he grumbled in a tone that was as close as Ginny guessed he could get to wheedling.

“Back to surnames, is that it?” she asked briskly, hefting two canvas bags of assorted citrus fruits and strawberries, thanking whatever Muggle agricultural gods made summer foods available all year round.

“When you act like a jealous witch, it's back to surnames,” he shot back.

“I am not jealous of anything,” she rejoined childishly.

“Come off it,” he growled. “Eligible girls make up the smallest percentage of possible passers-by, and we're in Muggle London at a Muggle market. Granted, I realize it would be foolish to say we'd never meet up with wizarding kind, but come on. Something else is chapping your arse.”

“You are,” she muttered. She could positively feel him eye her speculatively.

“If it weren't for the fact that I know it's entirely uncouth to insinuate to a grumpy woman that it must be her time of the month, I would have asked if you needed a cramp-reducing potion,” he said magnanimously. “Far be it from me to be ill-bred.”

He barely dodged a solid blow to his stomach as she whirled on him and tried to slug him sharply in the gut.

“You're a fucking wanker,” she hissed, picking up her pace. “I would rather die than tell you I was on my period.”

“So, are you?” he asked cheerfully, finding that he liked riling her up.

“I am NOT!” she yelled finally, causing several exercising Muggles to look their way. “It was last week, and I was sweet as a kitten!”

Shaking her head furiously and mumbling under her breath, she fairly ran the last three blocks to Grimmauld Place and was forced to stand there waiting as he shambled agreeably toward her.

“You'd better watch your back,” she huffed. “Bat bogeys are child's play compared to the defensive hexes I know, you snaky bugger.”

He just smiled at her, even white teeth gleaming. She shoved him in the door, dropped all her packages in the entryway, and set off alone.

***

Draco smiled to himself, collecting the bags she had unceremoniously dumped. He made his way to the kitchen, where Molly Weasley was rolling out dough for dumplings.

“Good morning, Draco! My! It looks like you and Ginny bought the whole market!”

Her motherly ways were growing on him just a teensy bit.

“Well, there's a lot of people here to feed.”

Bustling over, Molly relieved Draco of some of his load, and both of them began to put away the produce. Molly questioned him relentlessly on his first trip out of the house, was it pleasant, did he hurt any, did he see anyone he knew?

He answered her inquiries politely, secretly grateful for someone to talk to that wasn't being an obstinate chit. When the items were safely stowed away, Molly wiped her hands on her apron and motioned for Draco to sit at the large, empty table with her.

Gingerly, he seated himself and then pulled up another chair to elevate his foot.

“You know, Draco,” Molly said, dabbing at the corner of her eye, “what you said to me the other night was just about the nicest thing anyone could have said!”

Draco nodded at her, unused to being lavished with this much undivided attention.

“Well, it is true,” he said carefully, not wanting to delve too deeply into it.

She sniffled. “None of my boys ever say that to me. I'm just their Mum, I'm supposed to do it, but to hear it from someone else, it's really special. Thank you, Draco.”

She pulled the skirt of her apron up higher, wiping her damp eyes, smiling wanly at Draco, who was momentarily speechless.

“Oh, don't worry, my boy. I won't be getting weepy. Perhaps a little…sentimental.”

Suddenly, she jumped up from the table, her eyes alight.

“I know just the thing!” she crowed, moving briskly to the cabinets and pulling out seemingly random objects.

“When the boys and Ginny were younger, we'd bake chocolate biscuits together. They're too old for that now, but I know you'd love it, with your notorious sweet tooth!”

Before Draco could point out that he was, in fact, older than both Ron and Ginny, Molly flicked her wand in Draco's direction. He gasped and tried to duck the spell, flinching as he felt it wash over him.

When he opened his eyes and forced himself to stop cringing like a house elf, he looked down and found himself clad in a white, frilly apron.

***

Ginny returned to the house again after dark. Upon entering, the smell of freshly baked biscuits assailed her senses and she smiled, knowing that there would be some sweet treats to be had tonight.

Entering the still-busy kitchen (which looked like it hadn't even paused for supper), she stopped short at the shrill shout of her name.

When she whirled around guiltily, she felt her mouth drop open. In front of her, Draco Malfoy stood next to her mother, both of them clad in dirty, wrinkled aprons, hands on hips, and smudges of errant flour decorating their foreheads and noses.

“Where have you been?” they yelled in unison.

-->

Author's Note: Please don't tell me that my chapters are too short. They are never less than 1000 words, and the last chapter was over 3,000 and this one is over 2,800. I am a working adult with a job and overtime that I have to do for another part of my company, so sometimes my time is limited. Sometimes the muse doesn't visit. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. I do try to make each chapter entertaining. That being said, I realize you are all wondering when the story is going to earn its rating. Not in this chapter, but very soon. Just so you know. :-)

***

***

***

Their verbal barrage stunned her for a moment, and then she found her feet and walked very close to Draco, who was still glaring.

Who are you and what have you done with my Slytherin? she thought. “I've been out,” she said simply, as if it explained everything.

“Would it kill you to maybe tell us you're going to be gone after dark?” Draco asked, eyes flashing.

“I wasn't aware I had to answer to anyone, thank you very much,” she said haughtily. “There's no set time for ministering to the infirm.”

Molly noted that her only daughter was standing up to the considerably taller Draco, and had fixed him with a glare Molly could be proud of. But she didn't put it past either one of them to start a tiff, so she intervened.

“Ginny, dear, maybe just let us know beforehand that you might be out after nightfall,” her mother suggested tactfully.

“I'll think about it,” she returned, surprising Molly and jarring Draco out of his firmly set displeasure. “For now, I just want to get out of these robes and into some warm clothes.”

Thinking of her changing clothes gave him pause for a moment, and felt a bolt of heat shoot to his groin when he recalled how warm she had been pressed behind him in bed. Subject change, Draco thought wildly.

Abruptly, he turned around and picked up a baking sheet, then swiveled around and with oven-mitted hands, shoved the whole thing toward her.

“We made chocolate biscuits, see? They're still warm. Your mum showed me how to work this Muggle oven so we didn't have to use a heating spell.”

Ginny found that she couldn't form words, could only raise her eyebrow in suspicion.

“Just take one,” he said irritably. “Your mum already had one and she's still standing here with no ill effects.”

She reached out for the chocolate chip-filled biscuit. It was indeed warm, and already beginning to break apart a bit in the center. She chewed it slowly, savoring the chocolate on her tongue.

“It's good,” she said honestly, popping the rest in her mouth.

Molly noted that Draco struggled mightily not to break into a smile when Ginny pronounced it edible.

Draco busied himself with sliding the biscuits off the baking sheet and onto a plate. Molly had told him before Ginny made her entrance that she planned to offer them to anyone who was in the lounge as a little treat.

When he turned around, Ginny was gone.

“She doesn't mean anything by her attitude,” Molly soothed, not quite sure why she was justifying her daughter's actions to a Malfoy.

“It certainly doesn't bother me,” Draco said briskly, hearing her bedroom door shut in the distance. “I couldn't care less.”

***

He went to bed early, hoping that she would take the hint and join him soon. But half nine passed, half ten, and then it was eleven and she hadn't shown. Tossing the sheets around irritably, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood.

She had taken his splint off three days ago, and it felt nice to have fairly unrestricted movement in that foot. He could also climb or descend the stairs more or less silently, and he was counting on that tonight.

Slipping out the door, he walked down the stairs very carefully, making sure every foot was well planted. Reaching her cupboard door, he opened it and found that he was walking into a room so small his hair nearly brushed the ceiling.

She only had one candle, and it was close to the end of its wick. She was sprawled (or, as sprawled as one person could be in a single) across the entire mattress. Her face was relaxed in the guttering light, shadows dancing over the apples of her cheeks and the dark sweep of her eyelashes.

Gently, he reached down and slid one hand underneath the small of her back and the other behind her near shoulder, turning her on her side. When she was suitably arranged, he slid into bed behind her, mirroring her position with his. Not feeling comfortable enough to drape his arm over her waist, he settled for resting it along the line of his hip.

“Wha'y'doin'?” Ginny mumbled softly, stretching. Not wanting her to wake completely, he fit his chin over her shoulder so he could whisper directly in her ear.

“You didn't come upstairs,” he said reproachfully. “So I came down here.”

“C'd get caught,” was the answering murmur. She moved her head on the pillow then, and he could smell the fresh scent of her hair.

“I'm stealthy,” he whispered. “Besides, if you cared one whit about my recovery, you'd have come upstairs, because you know I can't sleep without you now. So kindly pipe down and go to sleep.”

“I care,” she said, her speech becoming clearer. “I'm sorry.”

“Shh,” he muttered into her ear. “Don't be sorry. Sleep.”

***

Daybreak found Draco in the kitchen, using his newfound skill with the Muggle range to boil water in a kettle for tea. Listening intently for the sounds of rapidly escaping steam, he turned off the burner before the kettle could whistle shrilly.

He was busying himself with the machinations of tea when Remus Lupin entered the room.

“Good morning, Draco,” Lupin said cordially.

“Professor,” Draco acknowledged. He never had thought this werewolf to be a true professor, but neither did he feel comfortable enough to call him by his first or surname.

“Did you sleep well?” Lupin asked. Draco set down the strainer and looked over at the shabby man sitting at the table with a Muggle newspaper.

“I did, thank you,” Draco replied, wondering why Lupin really cared to ask.

“I heard you come downstairs last night, but I never heard you come back up,” Lupin remarked, his voice deceptively casual.

“I fell asleep on the couch after getting a glass of water,” Draco lied smoothly, facing the meddling werewolf head-on.

“That's interesting, Draco. Because I think you `fell asleep' with Ginny. Her scent is all over you.”

“And how would you know what she smells like?” Draco questioned belligerently.

Lupin smiled ruefully and tapped his nose. “Side effect, good in some cases, others, not.”

Oh, Merlin. For a sickening second, he'd thought the man was about to tell him he'd sampled Ginny's delightfully scented skin and hair firsthand.

Knowing he was caught put Draco into a predicament. “So what is this about, then? You want to punch me? Hex me? Tell the Weasleys?” he said, eyes narrowed on the scruffy mutt in front of him.

Lupin smiled again, shaking his head.

“Don't be so defensive, Mr. Malfoy. I happen to know that whatever you two are doing, it isn't much. It's a very light scent, and trust me, I'd know if you'd actually, ah, coupled.”

Fucking sharp-nosed dog. He worked very carefully to school his features into his favorite bland face.

“War does odd things to people, makes them reach out to others they normally wouldn't have helped. Nevertheless, I feel very protective toward Ginny. Whatever you two consent to do isn't my business, but you'd better watch out for her brothers.”

“We're not `consenting' to do anything other than sleep in the same bed, fully clothed,” Draco snarled. “In case you haven't noticed, this hellhole lacks proper heating charms and is as drafty as a shack. We stay together for warmth, nothing more. So help me, if you even insinuate that I'm trying to hurt her, I will have no compunction about casting an Unforgiveable. Understood?”

“Understood,” Lupin said easily, the corners of his lips upturned.

Draco stalked out of the kitchen, his carefully prepared tea abandoned. Lupin stood and stretched, idly scratching his chest. He wasn't one to let good tea go to waste.

***

In the lounge, Draco encountered Professor Snape, sitting at the small desk there and scratching wildly on parchment.

“Mr. Malfoy. I had not expected you to rise so early.”

Draco grunted in reply, and seated himself on the overstuffed chair near Snape. Snape turned to face him, and had to hold back a gasp. Severus Snape's face was covered in welts and small gashes, sliced skin and dried trickles of blood.

“My God, Professor, what—“

“I was Summoned last night,” Snape said, as if it was an everyday occurrence. “There was a conversation in which I dissented, and was hexed for my impertinence.”

“Ginny can heal those for you, Professor,” Draco said, without thinking. Snape regarded him with a sideways look.

“Who do you think creates those healing potions and salves for her?”

Suitably chagrined, Draco didn't want to chance another silky rebuke.

“The conversation that earned me these wounds would be of particular interest to you, Draco. It centered on your mother.”

“She's alive?” Draco asked neutrally, trying to hold back the bile that was now roiling in his stomach.

“Of course she is. Do you think the Dark Lord would trouble himself with speaking of the dead? They're of no use to him, and therefore they cease to exist.”

“What did you find out?” Draco queried, digging his fingers into the arms of the chair. Despite Snape's words, Draco knew Snape cared a lot more than he let on.

“Some two weeks ago a Muggle farmer reported to the local law enforcement that he thought he had seen a rather large man abducting a tall blonde woman from an outbuilding on his land. Funnily enough, he couldn't remember very much about it, and in fact questioned his own sanity. He felt he should turn it in just in case he wasn't mistaken.”

Draco sat, stunned. Why had it taken two weeks for this to be known?

“I suppose you are wondering why it took this long for this information to come to light? Yes? So happens that one of the local gendarmes is a former Hogwarts student who lives entirely as a Muggle. It took him a bit, but as he told Dumbledore, he hadn't thought about Obliviate in some time. Not to mention that the only tall, blonde witch he could think of was your mother.”

“If they're taking the risk of moving her, that means she's still useful to them,” Draco said slowly, rolling the thought around in his head. “That tells me that my father has either had a change of heart, or he's trying to lure you or me, or both, out into the open as traitors.”

“Likely you're right,” Snape said calmly. “I found out last night that it was Goyle Senior who was moving your mother.”

“What caused the dissent, Professor?” Draco asked with a sinking feeling. He just knew that Snape had been injured because he had probably objected to his mother's rough handling.

“I suggested that she be kept in one place, so that she could be well-fed and healthy, because dead or near-dead bait does not make the predator bite. I also recommended that if they insisted on moving her to place to place, that perhaps they send someone more talented with charms than Goyle.”

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Draco found himself laughing a little.

“I don't know, sir, maybe if they keep sending Goyle we can get new reports,” Draco said, picturing his classmate's bumbling father trying to cast a spell on a curious Muggle from long distance.

Snape smiled thinly. “It is slightly humorous to think of his lack of sense or magical ability. There are only two things that I am grateful for in this whole turn of events. First, that Goyle slipped up. Second, Narcissa was always experimenting with wandless magic. In addition to being formidable no matter what her disposition, I feel she could most probably hex his balls off.”

Goggling slightly, Draco stared at his professor, who merely let the corners of his mouth tip up.

***

It was a Saturday afternoon in Grimmauld Place, and Draco and Ginny were holed up in her bedroom. She had gone to the Muggle store and bought a huge rubber band that she explained was used by Muggles to hold liner bags in rubbish bins. She'd split it in half, and fashioned a serviceable physical therapy device for him. He sat on the bed while she tended to him.

He was flexing his muscles, rolling his ankle as she checked for tenderness and any residual swelling. Since her was out of the splint, she felt he was rapidly improving and had said as much in passing to her father. Arthur surprised her by asking for regular updates on Draco's progress. When pressed, Arthur admitted it was because the Order wanted to train him in other methods of stealth, tracking and surprise.

“We can't do it unless he's in tip-top shape. Moody, Tonks and Kingsley all want cracks at him,” her father had said. “Especially Tonks.”

Oh, sure. As if that wouldn't result in some sort of bloodshed.

Draco was busy trying not to sprout an erection every time she touched his feet. Gritting his teeth, he wondered furiously if feet were supposed to be some sort of erogenous zone. Hell, she was only being clinical and his cock wanted to say hello.

“I think you're doing a lot better,” Ginny said, looking up at him from where she sat at his feet. “In fact, there might be an opportunity for some physical training.”

“How's that?” he asked, watching her slim fingers press around the site of the break.

“Well, the Order felt you could begin working with them,” she said, careful to deliver the news calmly. “In fact, your cousin has expressed interest in helping you.”

Draco snorted. “That multicolor bint? I don't think so.”

“Don't be like that, Draco. She's your family.”

“By blood only,” he scoffed. Her hands stilled on his foot.

“And isn't that what you stand for? Blood loyalty? She didn't ask to be a half-blood.”

Anger welled in his chest.

“You're twisting my words,” he said bitterly.

“Am I?” she returned calmly.

He didn't answer, and frankly was afraid to. He hadn't met his colorful relation until just a few years ago. His mother had told him tactfully that the Black sisters did not see their black sheep after she married a Muggle, and it was better that way for all of them. Privately, Lucius told Draco about the blood betrayal Andromeda Black had perpetrated against their most noble house, and that it was not to be borne. All of that being said, he knew deep down that it really wasn't a decent reason to hate her. But over two decades of ingrained racism was hard to overcome.

“I think we're done here,” Ginny said, rising to her feet and not looking directly at him. “I'm going to the lounge.”

She started toward the door when his quiet voice stopped her.

“My mother has been seen alive,” he said, desperate to change the subject, to bring it back to something less controversial.

She stopped short, ceased in mid-step, heart suddenly thumping in her chest. Alive. Despite whatever things she had heard about Narcissa Malfoy, she was still Draco's mother, and he still had a right to love and care about her. He had taken to her own mother surprisingly well, and it was clear he needed the support. Happiness welled within her, and she found it was more for Draco than for his mother, though she was of course relieved that she was still living.

“Oh, Draco, that's brilliant!” she said, a smile lighting up her face. Rushing toward him, she stepped between his spread-out knees and hugged him tightly.

“I'm so glad,” she said into his ear.

He was so startled that it took him a moment to put his arms around her too.

“I am too,” Draco murmured into her neck.

She pulled away, releasing him but still standing between his legs. She was at eye level for the first time since they had been children.

“How did you find out?” she bubbled.

Draco reiterated his conversation with Snape, leaving out the part about his wounds.

“You could use some of the training the Order is offering to help find her!” Ginny suggested excitedly. “I know Tonks would help you. Kingsley too.”

“Malfoys don't need training,” he rejoined childishly, a hint of a smile crossing his lips.

“And again I say, if that were true, you wouldn't be here,” she replied, the same sort of smile gracing her face. He rolled his eyes.

And in those few, silent seconds, they both realized that Draco had rested his hands about her hips and waist after releasing her.

Her face turned tomato red and she stepped away from him.

“Right. Er, the lounge. Yes. Just going to catch up on some reading.”

And the redhead beat a hasty retreat down the hall, allowing the blond time alone to recall the exact feel of her lush hips under his hands.

He couldn't help but feel embarrassed and shameful when he knocked off for a wanking session disguised as an afternoon nap.

-->

For two days, they did not speak. Sunday morning found Ginny having a lie-in of epic proportions, but it was nothing more than a careful contrivance to ensure she'd not encounter Draco at breakfast. When she finally had to come to the kitchen, she resolutely kept her eyes glued to her plate.

Monday was a little better, as she was out most of the day, and Draco found himself locked in the long salon of Grimmauld Place with his cousin Tonks and Kingsley Shacklebolt. Supper was the only obstacle, and it was a race to see who could be excused from the table first.

Monday night, Ginny lay in her bed, which seemed so big without another presence. She knew she rightly should have enjoyed it, having her room back, and to herself. But she didn't. She still lay on her side of the bed only, as if she was leaving it open for Draco to come and claim. He wouldn't. Whatever they had was now irretrievably broken down, and it rankled.

She wasn't a schoolgirl scared of the Slytherin bully any longer. In fact, she was ruddy pissed off, and was pretty sure she could demand an explanation. Such feelings were an oddity to her, but at the very least there had to be a reason for the demise of their easy camaraderie.

Fuck it. Heaving her blankets off, she planted her feet on the floor and sprang up, searching for her wand and slippers to soften her footfalls. As quietly as a hacked-off Weasley could manage, she descended the stairs. Stopping in front of the door that had so recently been her own, she put her hand to the doorknob and nearly fell inside the door she expected to be tightly closed.

From the darkness, his cool voice rose and resonated in the close walls.

“Shut that behind you.”

She scowled, though he couldn't see it. “Thought I'd leave it open for giggles.”

Her uncharacteristic words brought a smile to his lips, as unseen as her scowl.

Standing in front of the door gave her the advantage of easy escape, and furthest distance, though admittedly that distance wasn't much. Her hands went automatically to her hips, and Draco could almost hear her squaring her stance.

“Want to tell me what's going on here?” she asked coolly.

“You've come to visit me in the cupboard.”

Groaning, she wrangled her wand out of her pajama pocket. “Silencio!” she hissed. Satisfied the spell covered the entire room, she yelled.

“What did I ever do to you, you prick? I make sure you live through the night the first time you're brought here, heal your injuries, take you along with me - and at great personal risk, I might add - and listen to you snark all day long, and Saturday I'm summarily dismissed. Care to explain that?”

“I did not dismiss you, mouthy bint! I just didn't know what else to do!” he shouted back at her, shooting out of the bed and stalking toward her.

“Know what else to do?” she questioned. “I wasn't aware of any problem.”

Immediately, he clammed up.

“What? What is the problem?” she persisted angrily.

“Nothing,” he said tightly.

“It's obviously something,” she pointed out.

“Look, Ginny, it's personal, okay? Can you just leave it at that? I swear on my mother's life that I'm not mad at you, you didn't do anything to me, nothing like that. Just go with it.”

Considering she experienced a nearly identical day to day life as Draco, she couldn't for the life of her figure out what his little personal problem was. She didn't think Draco would be so vehement over nothing. Still, his impassioned admission that she'd not done anything wrong did leave her vaguely relieved. She surmised that she'd never know all his secrets and motives, and maybe it was better that way.

His touch scared her witless, as he'd apparently been standing not three paces away. In the pitch-black, windowless room, there was no way to even discern his outline. A broad hand took hers and began leading her toward the bed.

“Stay here,” he said, voice one notch above imploring. She allowed herself to be led.

“Don't know why I bother,” she said, mock petulantly.

“Because if you're anything like me, you spent last night lying on your side for no good reason.”

She had no comeback, no rejoinder, for his succinct and completely correct statement.

The darkness made them bump into one another a few times as they settled themselves, but soon Ginny found Draco's heat at her back. Feeling content for the first time in forty eight hours, she let her eyes slide shut.

***

It seemed only moments later that Draco was awakened by subdued thrashing. Ginny was whimpering and muttering, her left arm and leg pushing and sometimes kicking against him.

“No, no,” she whispered. “Leave him alone. Run! Get out of here!” Her voice hitched, and Draco was sure she was crying.

In a scarily automatic gesture, Draco slid his arms around her midriff and pulled her back to him. Clasping his hands on the bare skin exposed by her rucked-up tee shirt, he kissed the back of her neck.

“It's okay, you're all right,” he intoned softly, placing his lips here and there on her nape. He repeated the words several times, and her restless body stilled. Confident that she was sleeping, Draco found a soft spot for his head on the pillow and breathed in the scent of her hair.

Two smaller, smoother hands covered his, and he was instantly on his guard.

“Draco,” she whispered, running her fingertips over his interlaced knuckles. “What are you doing?”

“You were having a bad dream,” he breathed. “This seemed to calm you,” he continued, flexing his hands ever so slightly on her abdomen, the skin so hot he thought he was branded.

“I'm okay now,” she said, not making any effort to move. “Thank you.”

“You're welcome.”

Her hands remained atop his, stroking his long fingers and caressing his knuckles. And then they were pulling his hands apart, spreading out his fingers and placing them separately on her belly. He waited for her to carefully nudge his hands back to where they belonged. Instead, she moved his hands closer to her bare breasts.

“Gin,” he rasped, feeling his erection flare insistently and carelessly shortening her name.

Inexorably he was pushed closer still.

“Shut up,” she said. And kiss me.

***

The weight and softness of her breasts felt like they should never be anywhere other than in his hands. Hissing as her hard-tipped nipples grazed his palms, he pressed himself against her buttocks and let her feel his erection.

“Merlin fuck me,” he swore softly, pulling insistently on her nipples, making her gasp and moan.

“He'd have to wait in line,” she murmured breathlessly, and his control snapped.

Draco unceremoniously hauled her atop him, ignoring her surprised squeak. Making sure his hardness nestled in the hot softness covered by her pajama bottoms, he made short work of her tee shirt and she reciprocated by yanking his over his head so hard he thought he would lose his left ear.

No matter. Spearing his hand through her hair, he pulled her down to meet his mouth.

Oh. This was nothing like their kiss before. This was hotter, wetter, infinitely more satisfying. His other hand slid down the groove of her spine to squeeze her buttock and press her harder into him. Groaning into her mouth, Draco began to buck very slowly, just enough to leave her gasping against his lips.

She broke free to gulp air, and reached behind her to knot her hair out of the way.

“No, I like it,” he said, and she wondered how he could even tell in this absolute darkness. “Let it down.”

“It's hot,” she complained.

“Mmmhmm,” he agreed, pulling her back down, this time using his own hands to thread through her hair and hold it away from her face.

Tongues intertwined, only their moans and gasps broke the silence.

Draco broke away this time, sounding slightly winded.

“Move up here,” he commanded, but already moving her to his liking, her arse now somewhere around his belly. Gods, every soft whisper of worn flannel against his skin set him afire. When he felt one of her breasts touch his cheek, he stopped pushing her.

“What are you doing?” she asked, not really caring.

“Tasting,” he replied, before setting hot mouth and nibbling teeth to her nipple. Her fingernails digging into his shoulder were sweet pain, and nuzzling her velvet skin with his nose and lips was like ambrosia from above. With both hands now free, Draco wasted no time in kneading the rounded flesh of her arse as he licked and suckled on her delightfully responsive nipples.

Ginny could feel wetness seeping from her at an alarming rate, and somewhere in the back of her mind a voice screamed that she was surely dampening Draco's skin through her pajamas. And she was absolutely convinced she could smell her own arousal and couldn't decide whether to be embarrassed or not.

Finally, he stopped worshipping her breasts and his voice dropped a register.

“I want you to turn over on me, lie back, and take off your pajamas,” he said, lips at her ear.

She shivered.

“Couldn't I just get up?” she questioned.

“I don't want you off me.”

Gingerly, she acquiesced, allowing his strong arms to hold her in place as she laid herself on him, her back to his chest, and slipped off her trousers. A heady scent rose immediately and she could feel her entire body suffuse with a hot blush.

“Turn over, and slide up my chest,” he commanded.

Slowly she made the rotation, knowing that sliding up his body would press her sex against him, and in turn leave a fragrant trail of wetness up his center. Her curls were drenched, and she could feel her ears burning at the indignity.

He apparently had different ideas.

“Yeah, that's it, come right up here,” he rasped, hooking his arms around her spread thighs and pulling her inexorably toward his waiting mouth. He could feel her slickness on the smooth skin of his chest, and his cock jumped a little, knowing her scent would still be on him in the morning.

He brought her to rest somewhere about his collarbones, and stroked her soft thighs. Heat radiated from her center, and he stretched out his tongue to just sweep across the outer skin of her cleft.

“I'm not going to fuck you tonight,” he said conversationally. “I'm not about to do it when I can't see you. And when I have my cock deep inside, I want to - have to - see your face.”

Her breathing wavered erratically, a mental picture of the act racing into her mind's eye and making her body clench in sweet response.

“I'm going to make you come for every time you unintentionally made me hard by nursing my bloody foot back to health. And for every time you lay there in the morning, gorgeous and asleep, and I wanted to wake you up like this.”

His blazingly hot tongue split her folds and she screamed, never having felt something so exquisite in her entire life. In the war, no man had ever had time to taste her, hold her, kiss her.

Her body could have been boneless for all the support it provided her. In the end, she had to settle for running her fingers through Draco's thick, silken mop or holding onto the bedposts. Before she realized it, her hips were ever so slightly grinding her against his ravenous mouth, and his strong hands were encouraging it.

Concentration on her clit made her cry out repeatedly, and when his name passed her lips in reverent tones, he stepped up his assault. Her thighs trembled as he tasted her entrance, delving deeply into her.

An orgasm like she'd never felt before began to well up inside her, and everything between her breasts and her knees tingled sharply. He played her flesh like an instrument he had studied all his life, and she was keening.

Her passage began to tighten, the rush of completion coming. Hazily, she wished for his fingers, for something, to fill her as she came.

She would never know if she spoke her desire, but suddenly he pushed her up and forward and neatly slid two fingers into her.

Her cries reverberated off the silenced walls of the tiny room. Draco tasted and lapped every drop from her, and pressed his tongue against her too-sensitive clit simply to draw shuddering aftershocks from her body.

Before she could collapse atop him, he pressed her hips back down until he could kiss her, which he did. Hungrily.

It should have been shocking, distasteful, even. She kissed him back with every breath she could muster.

Later, much later, their kisses had reduced to tiny licks and nibbles, and her head finally rested on his shoulder. He had refused to let her off him, and despite his defined body, was a very nice pillow.

“You have to be gone in the morning,” he said languidly, unhappily, pajama-pant-covered cock lodged securely between her damp thighs.

“I know,” she sighed, breath tickling his skin.

He rested his cheek against the cushion of her hair. If betraying family pride was this sinful, he'd sign up to have his head buried between Ginny Weasley's thighs -- right in front of his father.

***

He woke when she reluctantly left, pressing a kiss to the valley between her breasts as she struggled to move her stiff body off his. He dozed for several more hours, then finally let wakefulness suffuse him. His cock stood proudly as he remembered the events of hours barely past. As he stroked himself to sweet release, he pictured them lolling in his bed, locked in a heady soixante-neuf. Hot streams of release spurted onto his chest as he made one last upward pull, a lazy smile curling his lips.

Dressing and purposely not bothering to shower or wash beforehand, he strolled into the kitchen where Lupin, Snape, and Bill Weasley were eating. Lupin was closest, and his head was already turned when Draco entered, his eyes hard and accusing, nose lifted slightly. The werewolf's ugly snarl softened when Ginny walked in moments later.

Delighting in watching the confused beast, Draco saw Lupin's head snap toward Ginny, then back to Draco, obviously not sure why he smelled Ginny on Draco, but not Draco on Ginny.

Before taking his seat, Draco quirked an eyebrow at the furious professor and smirked.

-->

“Are you aware I think you're an intolerable bint?” Draco asked snidely. Tonks, who was rather handily pointing her wand at his pale throat, merely smiled and offered her cousin a hand.

He ignored the gesture and picked himself up off the dusty floor, shaking off the excess dirt clinging to his robes.

“I'm fully aware that you hate me, but I think at this point you hate me less than you hate your father,” Tonks returned brightly, smiling all the while. “So shut up and keep dueling. I'm giving it to you easy. Your father won't.”

“Funny, I can't decide which of you I want gone more,” Draco retorted, retreating to his side of the salon and raising his wand.

“Lucky for you, I'd like to see your mother back in one piece. I'd like to meet her. And until you learn the skills you need to help defend yourself and her, I'm quite content to be an intolerable bint.”

Kingsley watched the entire exchange and held back a laugh, thinking that the Black cousins were very much alike. He signaled to Tonks to wait for a moment before beginning, giving Draco a pointer on his stance.

Hexes, spells and charms began to fly though the huge room, and after five non-stop hours, Draco was becoming a bit lighter on his feet. He was quicker to respond to little sounds that could indicate someone was trying to surprise him. Tonks felt his progression seemed a bit slow, he was making headway.

Draco even allowed Kingsley to instruct him in some physical dodging of spells, methods in which one could jump or leap or drop to the ground to avoid magical damage, but would enable that person to fire off spells from some unconventional positions.

But after those five grueling hours, Tonks could see that Draco was about ready to drop where he stood.

“Get out of here,” Tonks said good-naturedly, shooing him toward the double doors. “You stink. Get a shower.”

Draco gladly went. He didn't want to admit it, but he had picked up a great many tips and techniques from Tonks and that chap Shacklebolt. He knew he would be in for a round of the same for the next few days, and all Draco wanted to do was drop in to bed. He procured some clean towels and clothing from his room and dragged himself upstairs. In a daze, he showered until his hot water ran out and icy needles of spray rained down. Taking that as his cue to leave, he blindly descended the stairs and entered his room.

He barely remembered turning down the sheets and crawling between them.

***

Ginny excused herself from dinner, as Draco hadn't shown. Kingsley had remarked that he and Tonks had worked Draco very hard. Tiptoeing down the stairs, she quietly nudged his door open.

He was sprawled over the entire bed, light snores emitting from between parted lips. Ginny found her own lips twisting into a fond smile, and she gently closed the door. Retreating to her own room, she fell into the sheets and slept deeply as well, content that Draco was having the same restful slumber downstairs.

***

It was a week later when Professor Snape staggered into the lounge as elegantly as he could and announced that Narcissa Malfoy was unequivocally alive before he fainted dead away.

Everyone present in the lounge was in a furor; Professor Snape never showed himself in public after he had been Summoned, and if Narcissa was indeed still alive there was a fighting chance of bringing down Lucius as well.

Ginny immediately went into action and forced everyone but her mother, Draco, Tonks and Shacklebolt out of the room so she could tend to Snape.

“Carry him to the sofa,” Ginny directed Draco and Kingsley. Immediately Snape was hefted onto the soft davenport, and a groan of relief could be heard. Fishing in Snape's outer robes, Ginny located a vial of an all-purpose healing potion. Her eyes lit up when she spied it, and as much as she wanted to parcel it out, she tipped the entire tube into the unresisting man's mouth.

“I'm going to get a cool cloth for his forehead,” Molly announced. “Shall I get anything else?”

“A few other cloths and a dish of water, I think. He's got a lot of dirt and blood on him.” Ginny asked, trying to quickly evaluate what supplies she needed.

Molly nodded and swept out of the room.

When she turned around, she found Tonks holding Snape's hand and muttering quietly to him; though whether or not Snape could hear Tonks, Ginny did not know. As she was recovering from the surprise of seeing someone voluntarily touch the fearsome Professor Snape, she wheeled around to see Kingsley and Draco sitting in a pair of chairs some distance away, deep in conversation.

Surely this is the first sign that the world is going to end, Ginny thought crazily.

As she thought about pinching herself to make sure she really was experiencing this surreal scene, Molly hustled back in with the requested items.

“Draco, Kingsley…could you come and lift the professor again so Mum can take off his outer robes and frock coat?” she asked. They nodded in tandem, and soon Snape was hoisted far enough off the sofa for Molly to unbutton those top two layers of clothing.

Underneath, Snape wore a starched white shirt which was presently stained with blood.

Tonks gasped when she saw the thin red lines permeating the linen.

“You've got to take that off,” Tonks said to Molly, face stricken. When the shirt was removed, nasty vertical gashes decorated Professor Snape's thin, pale chest.

“That's enough,” Ginny said to Draco and Kingsley, motioning for them to release Snape, who was already starting to come around a bit and moaning quietly.

“Professor, can you hear me?” Ginny asked him. When he frowned before answering, she pretty sure he was going to be all right.

“Of course I can hear you,” he snapped as well as he could. “Would you be so kind as to wipe this blood off?”

Wordlessly Ginny nodded, and began dipping the washcloth in the water Molly brought, wiping away the congealed blood on his torso.

“Slicing hex,” Tonks said, somewhere in the background. Snape opened one eye and glared with all his might.

“Of course it is. Glad to see they teach you that in Auror school.”

Tonks ignored him and came closer. “What happened to you?” she asked.

“When I was Summoned, the Dark Lord informed those present that Lucius had gone back to Malfoy Manor with Narcissa, where he planned to hide in a nearly untraceable room within,” Snape said, coughing slightly and wincing.

“That's impossible,” Kingsley said, voice thoughtful. “We sealed off the Manor some time ago.”

“Well, there you go,” Snape said derisively. “You left it there and never checked it again, thinking that the wards you placed on it were unbreakable by an outsider. Well, my little magical police, it is only by your lack of surveillance that Narcissa is still alive.”

Seeing the murderous look on Tonks' face prompted Draco to speak up as Molly and Ginny finished cleaning Snape up as best they could.

“I don't know of any untraceable room in the Manor,” Draco said to Professor Snape. “Father never told me about one, at any rate.”

“Draco, at times your lack of wit astounds me. Remember, I've been in your home longer than you've been in your home. There is a small room underneath the southwest wing of the Manor which is guarded by ancient and nearly undetectable wards. The secret of it has been passed from Malfoy patriarch to patriarch, from your grandfather to your father. Only your father was such a foolish show off that one summer he showed me the location so I could find him, on the chance that he had to hide.”

“But he didn't tell me,” Draco insisted stubbornly.

“I know he didn't!” Snape roared, cheeks tinted in an uncharacteristic pink. “You as much sealed your fate when you refused the Mark. Would he tell a turncoat about the most secret room in the Manor?”

Draco clammed up immediately, and it was clear he was mortally embarrassed by Snape's pronouncement.

“We'll have to get her out of there,” Kingsley interjected, trying to lead the conversation away from the present uncomfortable topic.

“As it happens, you're a lucky lot,” Snape sneered, his attention back on the Aurors. “The Dark Lord is planning on convening the inner circle in that room this Saturday at three a.m. I suggest you formulate a plan.”

“We're going to have to discuss this with Arthur and Remus,” Tonks said to Kingsley over Snape's prone body. “And Dumbledore has to know, since Harry will have to be there.”

Kingsley nodded, his handsome face becoming drawn in thought. He joined Tonks, the pair leaving immediately to discuss the implications of Snape's knowledge.

“Could you all just leave?” Snape requested irritably. “My public humiliation is complete for the night.” Snape tried to hoist himself from the squashy surface and failed, snapping Draco into action.

“I'll assist you, Professor,” Draco said firmly, and helped his godfather to his feet. Molly and Ginny watched the tall Potions Master and his equally tall godson stalk slowly out of the room.

“I worry about him,” Molly breathed, shaking her head. “Someday I fear he won't make it home.”

***

After all the lights were out, Ginny snuck halfway down the stairs and waited for Draco. Sitting on the hard steps, she hoped he hadn't already gone to bed and she'd missed him. He was very tired lately, what with all the hoops Tonks was making him jump through.

Her thoughts broke when Draco came slowly down the dark stairs.

“Draco,” she said softly, hoping she wouldn't startle him.

“Mmm,” he murmured, shuffling forward tentatively until he was sitting one step above her.

“How is Professor Snape?” Ginny asked, the Healer in her hoping the patient was recovering.

“Tired, and pretty much asleep by the time I got him in to bed. I almost had to swear a blood oath before I left that I would never divulge the state in which I saw him tonight.”

“Can't say as I'm surprised,” Ginny mused. She reached out in the darkness to pat his knee.

“I'm just glad to know your mother is back at Malfoy Manor. I mean, doesn't that give us a fighting chance? You and Snape know a lot about it,” she continued.

He laughed tonelessly. “That's the problem. So do the Death Eaters.”

Chagrined, Ginny didn't say any more.

She shivered when his hand found its way into her hair and began to stroke her scalp.

“I don't want to think about all that right now,” Draco said, his hand letting go of her long tresses and teasing the skin around her collarbones.

“That tickles,” she protested, trying to squirm away.

“I'll have to remember that,” he said, stepping up his gentle assault. She tried not to giggle, but was quickly losing that battle.

“Shh,” Draco cautioned, his mouth suddenly very near her ear. “We don't want them to hear us.”

Her titter was cut off by Draco's shifting body. Moments ago he had been sitting sideways on the narrow staircase, his back to the wall. Now he sat properly on the step, facing her with his knees open. Before she could ask what he was on about, he hooked his hands under her arms and brought her crashing onto his mouth.

His fervor caught her off guard, and she found herself trying to steady her shaking body by grabbing on to his firm thighs.

“Draco,” she murmured desperately, “what's going on?”

He clutched her more firmly to his chest and crushed another kiss to her lips.

“I don't want to die,” he said softly, burying his head in the soft skin of her neck and nipping.

“And snogging me will make a difference?” she said lightly, hoping to direct his thoughts away from the impending battle for his mother's freedom and his own exoneration.

“Because you remind me that there's something to come back to.”

“Malfoy Manor?”

“You.”

He was holding her so tightly against him that she could now feel his growing hardness against her stomach. Memories of their shared night raced through her head. When she thought about touching him through his trousers, her head felt weak and her bent knees suddenly didn't seem like enough support any more.

If he didn't stop licking her ear, she was going to be a puddle of goo. Tentatively, she slid her free hand between them and caressed his erection. A sharp gasp whistled between his teeth and he released her ear.

Draco was completely silent as she gained confidence and steadied herself, rubbing and stroking him through the rough fabric of the denims he wore. Hard puffs of hot air blew past her ear, his labored pants somehow very sexy.

“Fuck,” he swore softly, moving his hips ever so slowly against her palm. “I get hard just looking at you.”

“I'm guessing this isn't hurting anything either,” she quipped, squeezing him a bit for emphasis.

“No, no, perfectly fine,” he said hurriedly, voice a little higher-pitched than usual.

She laughed deep in her throat, the husky sound surprisingly sensual to her own ears. Locating the zip of the trousers, she hoped she could still perform her little trick of unzipping pants with her teeth. After overhearing some girls in her year at Hogwarts talk about how much the boys liked it, she had practiced with every type of pants she owned. Though she'd only had chance to try it twice during an abortive attempt at dating a Ministry official's son, it seemed to please well enough.

When she lowered her face to teasingly search for the metal hidden behind the placket, Draco groaned and pressed his knees to her side.

“Hmm…” she murmured, just loud enough for him to hear, “where does one find the zip on a man's pants?” Nuzzling her way around his clothed cock, she reveled in his little groans as she rested her cheek against his heat. Working her tongue through the placket, she flipped up the tab and caught the metal between her front teeth.

He moaned when he felt the metal teeth unlocking, one by one. She forgot how much she'd enjoyed this female power play, when she'd had the chance to use it. Too wary to pull his denims further down, she let him soak in the warmth of her hand as she pretended to search for the opening in his boxer shorts.

“You're going to kill me,” he said between gritted teeth.

She hoped he could hear the smile in her voice as she closed her fingers around his raging erection.

“The French call it `the little death.”

Suddenly dying didn't sound like such a bad option when she enveloped him in her smooth, hot mouth.

The musky saltiness of his skin and combined with his radiating body heat was heady indeed. Rapidly becoming reacquainted with fascinating male contours, she worked hard to curl her tongue around him; to turn her head parallel to him and slide him through her mouth.

His breathing was ratcheting up and she was afraid he would suddenly start stroking through her mouth in earnest when he abruptly leaned back on the stairs, arching his back and supporting himself on unsteady arms.

“Can't look at you,” he muttered. “Makes me want to come when I do that.” Her resultant laugh vibrated his cock inside her mouth and his body jerked violently.

“No laughing,” he ordered sternly. “Feels too good.”

Presently she wrapped her hand around what she couldn't take inside her mouth and stroked, varying the speed and pressure. Well, as much as she could remember to do it, as his intense arousal was bringing on her own in short order. Unconsciously she began to rock back and forth, trying to move her thighs together to maybe, just maybe, assuage the pressure building inside.

Mindlessly she moved her body and her tongue in an ancient rhythm, picking up speed as she fell under the spell of it all. Almost before she knew it, he was coming in long, soul-deep shudders as he clenched his teeth around his fist to keep from shouting out his pleasure.

His orgasm surprised her, so deep was she in her reverie. He allowed her to hold him loosely while he caught his breath. When he felt sufficiently calm, he pulled her close and kissed her, tasting himself over the minty hard candy she always sucked on.

“You're excellent,” he breathed into her ear, sliding his own fingers down her torso and into the front of her pants, seeking the wet heat he could tell had been building. When he parted her folds she gasped, grabbing his bum tightly. She was at the perfect height for him to stroke her body and lick the hollow of her throat.

A particularly sensitive spot made her gasp, and Draco nearly missed hearing the approaching footsteps over her excited vocalizations. He withdrew his hand in a flash and her eyes flew open, hurt and bewildered.

“Someone's coming!” Draco managed, trying to nod his head in the direction of the mostly unused cellar entrance a few paces away from his bedroom door.

“What?” she asked, whirling around.

Draco had barely tucked himself back inside his trousers when the owners of said trousers made an appearance in front of him and Ginny.

“What are you doing?” the twins asked in menacing unison.

“Nothing you haven't done!” Ginny blustered right back, shielding Draco from their view as much as possible.

“She's probably right, mate,” Fred said, sotto voce. His twin elbowed him hard in the ribs.

“Did Malfoy hurt you?” George asked fiercely, training his gaze on Draco and staring.

“Do I look hurt?” she replied tartly.

“Does Mum…” Fred began and was promptly cut off by his sister's small hand covering his mouth.

“Doesn't know, and won't know, because there is nothing of her concern happening here. Frankly, if I was Mum, I'd be more concerned about what her twins are doing out dancing with Muggle girls at local nightspots!”

“We're not consorting with the enemy!” George burst out.

“Neither am I,” she bit out, eyes flashing venomously. “When I need or want your help keeping people away from me, I'll let you know.”

The Weasleys held a three-way staring match until finally Fred looked away.

“Damn it!” he growled at Ginny, grabbing George's arm and beginning to pull him up the stairs.

Ginny and Draco warily skirted them, but suddenly Draco was snapped back by two hands like cuffs on his wrists, making it crystal clear the twins were demonstrating a point.

“It's very easy for us to make a party trick fatal,” Fred said nonchalantly.

“And wildly entertaining at the same time,” George added, and the two stomped up the stairs and were soon gone from sight.

Ginny eyed Draco carefully, who was discreetly trying to rub some feeling back into his right wrist.

“I think they like you,” she said cheerfully.

-->

12 Grimmauld Place was a fury of activity in wake of Snape's revelation. Ginny rarely saw Draco and certainly didn't have the chance to slip in bed with him. He was sequestered with Tonks and Kingsley for most of the day, and then sent off for a shower and a long night of sleep.

The only time she really saw him was when Tonks demanded she give a diagnosis on Draco's foot. Ginny was herded into the salon where Draco sat heavily on a divan, face flushed and sweaty, stringy hair sticking to his forehead and cheeks.

He could barely move, it seemed, so she removed his shoe and sock. Palpating the area thoroughly, she looked up into his tired gray eyes and pronounced him healthy. Ginny was cheered, though, when he gave her the smallest, salacious grin at her position between his legs. She blushed furiously, remembering his previous words on the subject.

Tonks, satisfied with Ginny's answer, sent her packing and Draco to the shower.

Arthur, Snape and Remus spent hours of time locked in the small study on the third floor, planning attack mechanisms. When Draco was not sleeping or being put through his paces by the Aurors, he was with the older men filling in all he could about Malfoy Manor.

All the Weasley brothers, Harry and Ginny spent time brushing up on defensive spells, offensive hexes and nasty curses. Ginny fully believed that Harry would mean his words when he said the killing curse this time. She had never seen him look more weary, more determined than she saw him now. Ginny spent time with each of the boys showing them basic healing spells that they could perform on themselves, or more importantly, others.

The headquarters of The Order of the Phoenix had taken on a decidedly different atmosphere than before. Silence abounded in the rooms and corridors; speaking seemed to only happen during dinner and those times when groups of them gathered to discuss strategy. An eerie calm descended two days before the Saturday of reckoning.

Molly spent much of her time preparing the most nutritious meals she could think up, mind focused only on keeping up the strength of her warrior men. She neglected herself as she went into full-blown mother hen mode.

Whatever mood had blanketed Number 12 was not to last.

Friday morning, everyone was gathered around the scarred, pitted kitchen table.

“We've had some contact with Dumbledore,” Arthur said timidly, breaking the silence. “And we've relayed our plans to him. He says he has some small teams of people with him, but he wasn't sure how to Apparate them all in and not upset the wards.”

“The Aurors,” Professor Snape supplied, taking over for the hapless Mr. Weasley and sparing a sneer in Kingsley and Tonks' direction, “will go first and disarm the wards they set several weeks ago. Then Draco and I shall come next and work on taking down some key wards which protect the Manor itself.”

“Are you sure you can do that?” Bill Weasley broke in. “How in the world do you think you can get past ageless wards and curses?”

“Thank you for so subtly offering your curse-breaking services, Mr. Weasley,” Snape said in a greasy tone reminiscent of his classroom voice. “But all I need is my wand and Malfoy's wand.”

“Y'don't have…oh,” Bill finished lamely, ignoring the glare Draco was sending his way.

“Simply being a Malfoy by blood forces the Manor to recognize him. It will also recognize my wand because I have long been granted access to those spells. We will be able to break the wards while causing a minimum of disturbance to those within,” Snape concluded.

“When do the rest of us go, Mr. Weasley?” Harry asked Arthur pointedly, avoiding a glowering Snape who clearly meant to lead the rest of the announcements.

Arthur blushed and squirmed in his chair like a six year old.

“Well, you see, it's going to be like this. After the first two pairs go, it will be Remus, Harry, Bill and Ron. Last will be me, Charlie and the twins.”

Ginny was hit with a momentary pang of sadness when Percy's name didn't come in the familiar order. Four months into his reconciliation with the family, Theodore Nott Sr. felled him in a raid. She was so deeply into brooding about her brother's death that she almost didn't hear her mother's deadly whisper.

“When do Ginny and I arrive, Arthur?” Molly asked, her tone pure venom.

“Er,” Arthur said inelegantly, looking helplessly at Remus who merely shrugged. The entire table trained their eyes on the Weasley volcano they knew was close to eruption.

“Please answer my question, dearest,” she said firmly, never taking her eyes off her rapidly reddening spouse.

“You'retostayhere,” he said in one breath, running his words together.

“Do you honestly think Ginny and I are going to stay here while you all go out to die? Just because we're not female Aurors means we have to stay behind and tend the fires? Well, I'll not have it. I'm not going to stay behind and wonder if my sons and husband are dead or dying. If it is my time to go, I'm going to go out there with you where I belong!” Molly yelled furiously, standing up abruptly and nearly upending her teacup.

She spared a glance at her daughter, who could only nod in bemusement.

“I appreciate your concern for us, Arthur, and all you other well-meaning men,” Molly continued, glaring at said other men around the table. “But the Dark Lord's death means as much to us as it does to you. I won't have it! Do you hear me? I won't have it!” Molly finished, fat tears beginning to roll down her face.

She sobbed once, starkly, before turning and hurrying from the room and clattering up the stairs. The assembly sat in stunned silence until the sound of Arthur's chair scraping the floor rang out through the kitchen. Ginny watched as her father, red-faced and near tears himself, fled after his over-wrought wife.

Snape took over again.

“Well, that's settled,” he said to Ginny. “You will come with Lupin's group. Your mother will go with your father.”

When Charlie Weasley looked mad enough to jump up and strangle Snape with his meaty hands, Snape fixed him with a gimlet eye.

“It's either bring them with us or worry that they'll find their own way into the fray. Frankly, after that little display, I don't think I'd want to cross your mother when she was really angry.”

Snape surveyed the group once more.

“There are other matters to attend to, but now is not the time. I suggest you all go and rest. Tonight's evening meal will be served at 3 p.m. sharp. Curfew is 4 p.m. We must all be awake at midnight.”

After Professor Snape made his exit, those still gathered sat for a few more moments, dazed. It wasn't until Draco stood and exited that anyone else made to leave. As he passed her, Draco ran his fingertips down the back of her neck. Her blood ran cold when she realized it was possible she might never feel his touch again.

***

In her room, Ginny tidied up, an inane action that served to calm her nerves. Tatty comforter folded, check. Bed made, check. Clothing hung neatly on the pegs in the wall, check. When all was in its place, she opened her small bag of supplies and took out every item, cataloguing and consolidating where she could. When she realized she was out of bandages, Ginny cast an eye toward her bed. Removing the perfectly folded top sheet, she used her wand and a severing charm. Forty-five minutes later, she sat amongst several neat piles of cloth strips, varying in shape and size. Some she double and triple layered with a sticking charm.

When her bag was as organized as it could ever be, she calmly cast a silencing spell on the room and lay face down on her bed, sobs wracking her body.

***

It was Remus who knocked on her door just before three that afternoon. Reluctantly, she dragged herself out of the room and into the kitchen.

Her mum and dad sat next to one another, shoulders almost touching as they ate the meal Molly had prepared. Snape finished first, and began to lay out more plans as everyone else finished their food.

“As you all know, I am expected at the meeting the Dark Lord is holding,” he said. This is why Draco and I, as well as Miss Tonks and Mr. Shacklebolt, are leaving early. The Aurors will be leaving at one a.m. Draco and I leave at two, to allow us enough time to dismantle some of the wards and enter the Manor. I shall go to the meeting and Draco will be available to lead you through the front entrance.”

Snape waved his wand and small but detailed maps of the Malfoy Manor floor plan appeared in front of each person's plate.

“The Dark Lord says he will be holding the gathering in the chamber Lucius and Narcissa are secreted in. I do not believe that will ultimately be the case. That chamber is very small. Draco and I believe the actual meeting will take place in one of these two rooms, located here.”

He pointed his wand at the map to indicate with dots the hidden room and the two other likely meeting places.

“Dumbledore's group will be Apparating in purposely to trip the wards and flush the Death Eaters out of the chamber. I will stay behind under the guise of protecting the Dark Lord. Draco will have led you down to the hallway which holds these rooms.”

“Potter will be staying slightly behind to rendezvous with Dumbledore outside that hallway. When they meet, a contingent of Dumbledore's group will protect them and charge up the side of your defense. We intend to get them into the room alone with the Dark Lord.”

“Draco will be charged with finding his mother and removing her immediately to St. Mungo's, as we have no inkling as to her condition. He will return and assist, if that is still necessary.”

Snape paused, and looked uncertain for the first time in Ginny's memory.

“Should anything…adverse…occur between myself and the Dark Lord or Lucius Malfoy, you have my express permission to do what you find necessary to defend the Order. Even if that includes…injuring me, or worse.”

Remus drew in a sharp gasp and Snape turned to look at him directly, though he addressed all at the table.

“If that should become the situation, please know it has been an honor and a privilege to serve The Order of the Phoenix.”

Snape sat and suddenly no one else could finish their food. If the greasy dungeon bat was giving the authority to injure or kill him in the Order's defense, victory seemed far out of reach.

***

Ginny lingered in the lounge after everyone left to go to bed in the middle of the day. Draco was already abed, it seemed, and she was left alone and feeling rather lost. There was simply no way she could sleep. There was no dreamless sleep potion left, and even if there had been, she would have felt too sluggish afterward.

She curled up in a squashy old armchair and hugged her arms around her knees, trying to rub some warmth into them. A noise alerted her and she looked toward the doorway.

“It's clear,” Remus said nonchalantly, coming to sit near her.

“Clear?” she asked, puzzled.

“For you to visit Draco. I told everyone else I'd seen you go upstairs already.”

“I'm not visiting Draco,” Ginny lied.

“I've already confronted Draco about it,” Remus returned, looking her squarely in the eye. “Some time ago, in fact.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Ginny said grimly.

“Humor me, Ginny. Whatever you have or haven't been doing with him is none of my business. All I'm saying is that were you to go stay with him before midnight, I would make sure you're not discovered.”

Ginny felt her face crumple and tears sting her eyes.

“Thank you, Remus,” Ginny said, standing and heading toward the door.

“Ginny,” Remus called, just before she exited the room. She turned and faced him.

“I'll be in to wake you just before midnight. And if I were you, I wouldn't leave any loose ends.”

Ginny rushed out the door and down the stairs.

***

The room beneath the stairs was always dark, and provided the perfect trickery to pretend it was nighttime. Easing the door open, Ginny slipped inside.

“I wondered if you would come,” Draco said from the darkness.

“Why didn't you tell me that Remus knew about us?” she asked, working hard to keep her tone this side of accusatory.

“Frankly, I was far more worried about your brothers than that werewolf.”

She neared the bed and pulled the covers back, sliding in to face Draco in the pitch black.

“There's only three more to impress,” she said, suddenly feeling tired and not wanting to fight.

He chuckled low in his throat and pulled her so close their breath mingled.

For several moments they lay together, not moving or speaking. Draco's fingers stroked her hair and she worked an arm around him to trace circles on his pajama'd back.

“I...I'm grateful for all the help you gave me,” he said quietly.

“It wasn't just me,” she demurred.

“It was.”

He crossed the centimeters between them and caught her lips with his, kissing her softly, slowly. Ginny thought her insides were melting. For a long while, they lay entwined, gently caressing hair, cheeks, arms, ears.

When they broke apart for air, they rested their foreheads together on his pillow.

“If something happens tomorrow morning…” Draco began.

“Don't think that way,” Ginny said desperately.

“If something happens tomorrow morning,” he repeated stubbornly, “I want you to know that for the first time in my life, you had a name and I had a name and it wasn't just Weasley or Malfoy.”

“Nope,” Ginny said tremulously. “Just us.”

She fell asleep in his arms while their tears mixed on the pillow.

Seven hours later, Remus Lupin opened the door.

“Ginny,” he said softly. “It's time.”

-->

Lupin's quietly spoken words were an icy shower over Draco's body. Ginny stirred in his embrace, slowly waking.

“Ginny?” Lupin called again.

“She's awake. Give us a minute, will you?” Draco growled. He could almost hear the werewolf's reticence as he closed the door.

Ginny yawned widely and sat up.

And then it all came racing back to her. Tears built in her eyes and she tried not to outright sob.

“Listen,” Draco said, his voice suddenly at her ear. “Be as careful as you can. Watch your back. Death Eaters don't give a shit whether you're a man or a woman.”

“I'm more worried about you,” she said, voice wobbly.

He laughed hollowly. “I'm probably the safest of you lot. Just being a Malfoy lets me do things in the Manor that no one else could probably do but Snape.” He paused.

“You've got to go,” he said, wrapping his arms tightly around her and kissing her tearstained lips.

Suddenly he pushed her away.

“Go!” he said gruffly, turning himself away from her completely.

She couldn't bring herself to say goodbye as she fled, copious tears plastering strands of hair to her cheeks.

***

When she entered the lounge a half hour later, everyone was there. It was easy to see the prevalent fear. Shaking hands trying to balance cups of hot tea, furtive sniffles, pale, drawn faces with lips pressed tightly together.

Accepting a cuppa from her mum, she sat alone and on the floor in the far corner of the room. Stomach churning, she held the tea more for its inherent warmth and comfort than anything else. Her eyes were unfocused, the opposite wall the only thing in her fuzzy line of sight.

Suddenly there was a flurry of activity and Ginny realized with horror that it was one o'clock, and Tonks and Kingsley were preparing to Apparate to the Manor grounds.

Kingsley was shaking her father's hand and Tonks was leaving Remus' fierce embrace before they left. Ginny watched Snape sneer at it all, and she caught sight of her mother fretting over the first pair's departure.

Hazily she heard the distinctive pop of Apparation. When she looked up, she caught Draco's glance. He bit his lip and looked away, and she felt a fresh flood of tears begin anew.

An unearthly quiet shrouded the room for approximately ten minutes when Tonks Apparated in, shouting frantically.

“Snape! They've put other wards over ours. You've got to come now!” she wheezed, pushing Remus away when he came over to comfort her. “Now!” she repeated shrilly, hair rapidly changing color in her distress.

Snape stood and snapped his fingers at Draco.

“We're coming,” Snape replied to Tonks while beckoning Draco. Tonks disappeared again almost immediately. Ginny could hear a muffled drone of voices as Snape conferred heatedly with her father and Bill Weasley.

Feeling dizzy, she heard Bill announce that he was going too. Standing up to hug him goodbye, she couldn't make it over to the three men before they had their wands at the ready. Bill, who stood a head taller than Draco, looked directly at her and mouthed, “love you.”

Trying to focus on her brother with watery eyes, she began to mouth it back. Instead, she realized Draco was staring right at her. With a pained expression, he shut his eyes, shook his head, and was gone.

***

With the second pair gone far ahead of schedule and one of the third team gone as well, Arthur, Remus, Molly and Charlie were trying to decide when to go in. After a short while, it was decided they would still go at the same time they had all agreed on earlier unless they were alerted.

Ginny moved from her space on the floor to a sofa, her own island. It was half one. She had an hour left before she went to fight for her life.

***

Sweat dripped down Draco's face as he listened intently to spells designed to disarm family wards he'd never known about. Snape seemed to know pretty much everything about being a Malfoy, short of having the blood himself.

Bill, Tonks and Kingsley stood by attentively, but essentially worthless until Draco and Snape could fight their way through several extra layers of protection none of them had counted on.

The Malfoy-tuned wards were the hardest. Many of them Draco had never heard of, and consequently he did not know the spells to counteract them. A system was worked out of Snape giving Draco the words, and Draco would rhythmically repeat them until he was ready to use his wand and say the words in cadence.

Snape and Draco had fought through six wards when the seventh knocked them off their feet and back onto Kingsley and Tonks.

“Professor…” Draco said warily, for he recognized this ward. Snape nodded.

“The library,” they said in grim unison.

All five present knew what this meant. It was common knowledge within the Death Eater and Auror communities that during the height of Voldemort's terror, Lucius Malfoy had kept several special Dark Arts items concealed within a trap door in the library, ensorcelled to repel unwanted visitors on contact.

It required three people to disarm. At present, there were only two available who were intimately familiar with it.

“Miss Tonks,” Snape said in a low voice, “due to your unfortunate familial ties to the Malfoy-Blacks, you may be able to assist in removing the ward. If not, we may be fucked.”

Bill looked positively relieved to be a second cousin four or five times removed.

Draco goggled at his godfather and his choice of words, but they had the intended effect.

His cousin raced forward.

“What is the incantation?” she asked fiercely.

Snape quickly parceled out the three required phrases. The easiest he gave to Tonks to repeat, and Draco took the next.

Taking a deep breath, Snape counted to three.

Together, they shouted the ancient Latin words. The air pressurized and began to pulse. Draco held his breath. The ward had never reacted this way before.

“It is weakening!” Snape yelled as though he was in a thunderstorm.

With a final, explosive burst of air, the heavy ward broke and threw all of them down to the earth once more.

Kingsley stood first, checking his partner to ascertain that she was not injured. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Snape, Bill and Draco standing. Nodding to them, he approached the Manor. Fifty yards from the home, which was much closer than they had been before, Kingsley felt the familiar tingle of wards he had set himself.

“Tonks,” he called. “These are ours.”

***

The Aurors were disarming their wards in record pace. Bill had joined them, as he was familiar with the wards used. Snape pulled out his pocket watch from his frock coat and examined it. It was now 2:15 a.m. If those dunderheads back at 12 Grimmauld Place could follow the plan, the first group should be arriving in fifteen minutes.

“Mr. Shacklebolt,” Snape said, and Kingsley turned around. “Are you nearly complete?”

“Three more,” Kingsley huffed, brow beaded with sweat. “Tonks set the next two, and the last one is mine.”

“Good,” Snape said. “We have only a quarter hour to get through the rest of the normal protective wards and escort the first team inside.”

***

At twenty five minutes after two, Remus, Ginny, Harry and Ron were subjected to much hugging and kissing by a tearful Molly.

“Mum! Let go!” Ron complained, pulling away. “We have to leave now.”

Molly's faded blue eyes were misty.

“My babies,” she cried softly.

The last thing Ginny saw was her father hugging her mother close as he said goodbye.

The four of them ended up in a tangled heap on the cold, foggy grounds of Malfoy Manor. Having only seen a photo of the Apparation point, the group wasn't able to focus clearly enough to have separate landing spots.

A soft snigger was heard and Ginny looked up to find Professor Snape and Bill heading toward them.

“Always lying down on the job, Remus?” Snape said nastily. Remus glared at his childhood foe but said nothing.

“Come this way,” Snape said, leading them down a narrow path and into a French garden that had seen its share of disuse. “Stay here. Draco is taking down the last of the wards on the front entrance. The internal ward alarms will not be tripped if he disarms them. The other group will arrive in ten minutes, correct?” he asked Remus.

“Yes. They are ready to go.”

“Please listen well. As soon as the other group arrives, I will be going inside for the meeting. Draco will be waiting for you inside the foyer behind a tapestry and a Disillusionment charm. He will lead you into the correct hallway and show you where to wait. At three minutes after three, Dumbledore's groups will Apparate in.”

“Precise, eh?” Ron mumbled petulantly. Bill sighed while Ginny elbowed him sharply as Snape fixed his gaze on Ron.

“You would do well to know punctuality, Mr. Weasley. Yes, we are being that precise. The Dark Lord is despotically stringent about beginning a meeting on time.”

Snape looked at his pocket watch.

“Stay here. I am going to meet the other group.”

Snape strode quickly away from the dilapidated garden and out of their sight.

“You know, Ron, I dislike Snape as much as you do,” Harry said, pinning his best friend with a glare, “but antagonizing the git who could help me live is counterproductive.”

Ginny giggled despite herself, and Ron bestowed his own evil eye on her.

“Harry's right, Ron. And you know it.”

Ron sniffed in disdain as Snape reappeared, with Arthur, Molly, Charlie and the twins tagging behind.

“I've briefed them,” Snape said to Remus as the others gathered around. “Follow this path up to the front. The door will be open. Take great care.”

Using his wand to illuminate the path briefly, Snape walked away in a flurry of robes, soon invisible behind the shrubbery.

***

From behind the tapestry depicting Malfoys as gods on Mount Olympus, Draco watched Professor Snape enter the grand foyer. Snape nodded once in his direction, and Draco saw him walk through the long Hall of Ancestors then turn sharply right and ascend the staircase that led to the southwest wing.

Glancing down at his watch and trying not to inhale dust from the overgrown tablecloth he was hiding behind, he saw that he had just a few more minutes before the rest of the group came in. Kingsley and Tonks were already stationed in the designated rooms, waiting to lead the others in the offensive.

A minute ahead of schedule, a passel of redheads and plus some extras filed in. Without ending the Disillusionment Charm, he walked up to them.

“I'm here,” he said softly. All heads whipped toward him, but they looked right through him.

“Draco?” Harry said hesitantly.

“Follow my voice,” Draco said. “We're going upstairs. No nicking anything.”

Ron groaned, but the entire party surged behind Draco as he led them through the Hall and down to the staircase.

“You want the fourth landing. Tonks and Shacklebolt are on opposite sides of the hall. Split up into your original parties. Professor Lupin, your group is to go to the third room on the left side. Mr. Weasley, you go to the second room on the right. The rooms we think they will use are either one of the fifth doors down on both sides of the corridor.”

“Where is the room where your mother and father are?” Arthur asked, trying to picture the hand-drawn map Snape had provided earlier.

“Somewhere between the fourth and fifth door on the right side,” Draco said, and paused. “One last thing…beware my father. Malfoys can apparate inside the Manor. Anyone else who tries will be splinched.”

As those gathered digested his nugget of information, Draco checked his watch again.

“You've got to get in there,” he said urgently. “I have to go back down to meet Dumbledore. I'm coming up with his people.”

They scurried off like ants to the appropriate doors and Draco hotfooted it back down to the foyer.

***

Snape sat next to Voldemort, employing the breathing techniques he had mastered while brewing noxious substances. The…thing…smelled of putrid death. Dolohov, the Crabbes and Goyles junior and senior, Bellatrix Lestrange, Nott, others.

Lucius was conspicuously absent. He normally occupied the chair at Voldemort's right hand, and it was somewhat unsettling to see it empty.

They sat in the study on the right side of the hall, the fifth room down. Snape was a decent tactician, it was true, but he also knew that Voldemort didn't like small spaces and that he preferred a venue in which he could showcase his theatrics.

Everyone had been present for some time; this was something Snape had counted on. Voldemort was notorious for starting early just to amuse himself with torturing the hapless stragglers. Many of the Death Eaters arrived an hour early. And at Malfoy Manor, there was a side entrance hidden in the East wing that was exclusively used for this purpose. It was why Snape had no compunction about entering the veritable fortress from the front. At Malfoy Manor, company never called from the north.

“My Lord,” Snape said, turning to face Voldemort but keeping his eyes carefully on the table. “I do not wish to trouble you, but shall we expect Lucius tonight?”

“We shall not,” Voldemort said, sibilant voice hissing. “He attends Narcissa, who is…indisposed.”

The pause in the Dark Lord's voice caused the slightest of shivers to roll down Snape's spine. In Voldemort's words, indisposed could mean every degree of incapacitation from a stunning spell to shuffling off the mortal coil.

“As always, if I may be of service, my Lord, it is only your word,” Severus said penitently, turning away from the half-ethereal thing at his side and glaring at the others gathered around the circular table.

As the ancient clock struck three, Voldemort stood and surveyed his minions, probing their minds rapidly. Severus was prepared, but imbeciles such as the Crabbes and Goyles could be seen grasping their foreheads and grimacing. Honestly, it would be too easy to divine that quartet's thoughts with one single focused spell.

Snape steadied himself and felt Voldemort intruding rudely into his thoughts. Carefully, he projected images of brewing deadly potions and of Draco's supposedly still-injured foot. Voldemort had not been happy that Draco survived, but was slightly mollified that he had sustained injury.

The silent and invasive roll call was interrupted when the entire room seemed to shake on its foundation.

***

“Draco!” Dumbledore called, seemingly able to see him through the Disillusionment Charm. “I've twenty-two people with me with me. Please lead us!”

Shocked into action and unwilling to remove the charm, he motioned to Dumbledore and the other Order members and assorted Aurors who streamed in through the front door. The mass Apparation had tested the somewhat weakened wards around the Manor, and as planned, the vibrations were easily felt by those inside.

Surprisingly spry for a man of nearly two hundred years old, Dumbledore clattered up the stairs behind Draco while simultaneously shouting instructions. When Draco rounded the fourth floor landing he knocked directly into Potter, who had been huddled in the shadows under his Invisibility Cloak.

“Go!” Dumbledore said urgently, and all but seven of his group surged into the corridor.

***

“We're being attacked!” Bellatrix Lestrange shrieked, wand pointed toward the door. “We've been set up!”

The thirty-seven Death Eaters present stood as one and began to swarm out the door, voices raised and wands unsheathed.

“You dirty bastard!” she shouted at Severus, leveling her wand. “I knew you had two masters!”

In a flash, Voldemort shouted the incarcerating charm at Bellatrix, who fell back onto a sofa in a screaming heap.

“Blame later, woman! Provide protection now!” Voldemort screeched. Her ropes disintegrated immediately and she jumped up, a murderous gleam in her eye.

“Severus! Stay!” Voldemort yelled in his direction. Snape had been pretending to make for the door. Turning on his heel, Snape ran back to Voldemort's side. Aiming his wand at the door, he uttered a wordy sealing spell and shut them inside.

Severus hoped neither Voldemort nor Bellatrix would notice that his “spell” was little more than an elementary locking charm with some choice Latinate insults thrown in for good measure.

Author Note: I just realized I'd previously said that the hidden room was underground. Sorry about that; it's now upstairs. Also, I have also learned the correct noun for `to apparate' is indeed Apparition. I never used that because to me, an apparition is a ghost. I'm going to finish the way I started, but will correct in other stories.

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“Now!” Tonks yelled to the group gathered behind her. Bursting through the door, Remus, Tonks and Bill Weasley began shouting immobilizing hexes at the large group of black-robed Death Eaters. Other Order members joined the fray, venturing out with spells designed to injure.

Behind them, Ron and Ginny were furiously casting protection spells on the people in front of them, hoping to keep them strong enough to resist the first wave of encroaching Death Eaters.

“AAAAAAHHH!” the twins screamed in unison as they exploded out the opposite room's door with Kingsley and Charlie. Behind them, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley started casting the same protection spells their youngest children were using.

There was no way to estimate how many Death Eaters had come streaming out of the little room, but Ginny only knew that more and more of them seemed to be coming forth in a sea of flowing black robes. Only a few Death Eaters had collapsed with the first wave of hexes Remus, Tonks and Bill had thrown, and now the Death Eaters were fighting back. She could see two Order members lying motionlessly on the floor.

The hall was booming with the sounds of screams, the blasting of spells and the cracking of masonry as errant hexes hit walls. The Death Eaters were moving forward, and while the protection spells the oldest and the youngest Weasleys were employing were helping the front lines, they weren't helping to drop Death Eaters.

“I'm going up there!” Ron yelled at Ginny. He turned away from her horrified look and surged into the melée.

“Ron!” her father roared. “Get back!” Ginny only caught a glimpse of her father running forward, ostensibly to grab Ron and bring him back to continue casting protection spells.

And then, she couldn't see either of them.

***

“Severus!” Voldemort shrieked. “Did you have knowledge of this?”

“Of course not, my Lord!” Snape yelled back. “I must go and alert Lucius!”

“No! You will stay here!” the Dark Lord commanded. “I've not the strength to waste if Potter shows his face. Lucius can handle himself!”

Assuming a defensive stance in a corner of the room facing the door, Severus waited for the door to be blown open.

***

“Picture the room. Picture the fucking room!” Draco muttered frantically to himself.

Snape had taken him aside the day after struggling in half-dead from his Summoning and taken a memory of the hidden room and placed it in a chipped Pensieve for Draco to view.

It was literally so unremarkable that Draco was nearly unable to focus on the image he had been shown in the Pensieve. Gray stone walls, low corners that mimicked the roof line, large enough only for a small table and a few chairs. Trying to solidify the picture in his mind, he hammered down on it. His mind flickered for a moment, and he Apparated.

***

Help had arrived. Dumbledore's small contingent arrived behind Ginny and Molly Weasley as the Death Eaters advanced past the unified front her brothers, Tonks, Remus and Kingsley had presented. She could still hear Ron yelling his head off, probably being held back by her father. Blindly Ginny and Molly continued to cast and hold protection spells as long as their waning strength would allow. To sustain such a powerful spell was to drain energy.

Ginny saw her mother being pushed toward the middle of the hall as members of the Order of The Phoenix marched up the right side in a dense bunch. Instinctively, the Order members who had already been fighting began to angle themselves toward Dumbledore's group, protecting them until they could push Harry and the aged professor to the door where Snape and Voldemort were still sequestered.

A break in the clot of bodies opened up and suddenly Ginny could see her father writhing on the floor, Ron hovering protectively over him, bellowing and firing off spells willy-nilly in the direction of three Death Eaters.

“DAD!” Ginny screamed helplessly, unable to curb the shout born of fear and anger.

***

An explosion rocked the hall and thick splinters of dark wood flew through the air as Dumbledore obliterated the door separating him and Harry from Severus and Tom Riddle.

“Harry, now!” Dumbledore commanded, grabbing Harry's arm and dragging him through what remained of the heavy door. A high-pitched scream ricocheted through the small interior, making Harry's eardrums ache. As he looked to the side, he saw Snape in his Death Eater robes and almost fired off a spell out of habit. Glancing to the other side, Harry laid eyes on the enraged Lord Voldemort.

“Dumbledore!” Voldemort thundered, rushing forward, wand outstretched. “I will not miss this time! Severus, hold the boy!”

As Voldemort's sibilant hiss began to incant the words to the Killing Curse, Severus fired off a vortex spell, a tornado-like blast of air that swept the relatively frail Voldemort across the room and thumped him against a wall.

For a moment frozen in time, Severus saw Dumbledore look and him and nod, the signal for Severus to leave the three alone to duke it out. He was tempted to aid his mentor, but Lucius was still unaccounted for and it was his job to find him and hold him alive, if possible.

With a curt, answering nod, Severus slipped out the door.

***

Lucius listened to the death and destruction ensuing outside the small room and merely smiled as if he were enjoying a particularly nice cup of tea. Narcissa had finally quieted, largely in part to the silencing spell he'd placed on her. She still struggled tearfully and angrily against the crude Muggle-type bindings he'd tied around her mouth, hands, knees and ankles.

The rather primitive binding had its uses; he'd cleverly forced her to sit on the floor with her knees drawn up, then had momentarily stunned her to link her wrists together underneath her knees, which he'd also tied together. A final knot around her delicate ankles ensured she would stay put.

“I'm going to see how my brethren are faring,” he said. “Please be a dear and keep watch.”

Carefully he Apparated outside the door.

Crouching low, he could see that his Death Eaters were being steadily pressed back against the long windows at the other end of the corridor. Whatever ragtag bunch of soldiers Dumbledore brought had actually advanced, and Lucius could see black-clad figures huddled on the hardwood floor. Blood stains and spatters decorated sections of the walls.

As his brothers-in-arms were steadily shoved back, he made an assessment. Perhaps he could not stop the Death Eaters from meeting their end. But he could strike some sort of blow to the Order. And now that the front the Order had presented was ahead of the Disillusioned door of the room he was sharing with Narcissa, perhaps he could make a clean getaway and have a satisfying kill. Of a Weasley.

The Weasley he wanted was too far away. The little blood-traitor princess was against the left side of the hallway, firing tricky spells over the heads of the Order and directly into a knot of Death Eaters. Her mother, however, was a different story. Tears were streaming down her plump, red face, and she was visibly struggling to keep up the weak protego she was holding. Even from a dozen meters away, Lucius could see her ample chest heaving as she cried and cast spells. Well. How wonderful. He would entertain himself by killing the mother of practically half the Order and distant family to Narcissa.

***

Ginny thought she saw movement behind her, and a flash of blond made her turn her head to see. Thinking it was Draco, she rejoiced. If he was here in the corridor, perhaps he'd located his mother.

Instead she saw the regal Lucius Malfoy wrapping strong arms around her weak and struggling mother. One pale hand clamped tightly to her mouth and the other was secure around her waist. As her mother wriggled frantically, Lucius looked up and over Molly's shoulder, locking eyes with Ginny.

Those malicious gray eyes gleamed as he smiled prettily at Ginny, then began dragging Molly toward the back of the corridor.

“No!” Ginny screamed, dropping her wand in her haste and running toward the dark corner into which Lucius disappeared.

***

Draco Apparated into the hall, eyes wide at the bloodshed happening only a few dozen meters in front of him. As he tried to orient himself, he realized he wasn't close to the room. Damn it! He couldn't concentrate long enough on the memory to go directly to his father's hideout.

Looking in the direction he believed the room to be, a long streamer of Weasley red hair caught his eye as it vanished into a dim corner of the hall, behind him and to the right of his position.

Ginny.

He ran.

***

Severus flew around the corner, eyes searching out the best route to get beyond the Death Eaters without being noticed so he could bring up the rear of the Order. The din from the battle was unimaginable, and as he vainly sought a safe path, something in the back of the hall and far away from the fight got his attention.

Draco was at a full run, heading toward Lucius' secret room.

Severus rocketed toward his godson's retreating figure.

***

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