CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - Grimmauld Place
"I won't do it." Draco struggled against Arthur's hand against his arm and tried to look over his shoulder at Ginny. She kept her head down, huddled under her mother's arm and looking much smaller than she actually was. She would not look at him, and he could feel himself start to become panicked. How could he allow himself to be blinded and deafened-even momentarily-when she was clearly in need?
He needed to tend to her.
Arthur clamped his hands on Draco's shoulders, forcing the young man to look him in the eye. It didn't matter what Arthur knew, what he had found out, he still had to protect the Order's identity as best he could. "You must do as I say," Arthur said, his voice harsher than usual. "Her mother is taking care of her." Though it broke his heart to see his daughter so silent, so listless. "If you do not let me do as I please, we will go without you, and you will never see her again."
Draco swallowed hard but refused to cut his eyes back to her one more time. "Do it," he said, his eyes steady on Arthur's.
Arthur was merciful in his swiftness, casting a blinding spell and a silencing spell so Draco could neither hear nor see what was about to happen. In only a moment, Arthur had entered 12 Grimmauld Place with Draco in tow, his wife and his daughter trailing behind him.
"Take her upstairs," he said, gesturing toward the stairs and looking back at Molly. "Now." If she didn't go before he rescinded the spells he'd put on Draco, they would never get what they needed from Draco, and they might never get Ginny to rest.
They had nearly destroyed one another while trying to shelter one another. He didn't think he could bear to see them finish off the job. He waited until he had ushered Draco into the kitchen and Molly had taken Ginny to a bedroom before he freed the young man.
Draco looked around slowly when he got his vision back, taking in the dreary surroundings, the over-scrubbed walls and the threadbare furniture. It looked familiar, but he couldn't put his finger on it.
He didn't want to take the time to figure it out.
"I need to see her." He tried to rise from his chair and found himself bound, faced by Remus Lupin, that Auror Shacklebolt, and somehow worst of all, Albus Dumbledore, all three of them calmly sipping tea as though nothing were wrong. "Damn it, you can't-"
"You need to tell them," Arthur said, understanding perfectly what Draco needed. He himself wanted to kiss his daughter's forehead, tuck her into the bed, sit by her side and hold her hand. But as he had told Molly, she was only one person.
None of them, including Ginny, would survive if they couldn't band together.
"Tell them where these came from." The wands Draco had given Arthur appeared on the table. Remus and the big Auror both reacted detectably, Kingsley by muttering a loud oath and the werewolf by pushing his chair back from the table. Of those gathered, Albus was the only one to maintain his composure, merely raising a bushy eyebrow. "Some collection you've managed, my boy," he finally stated. "Many people have been looking for those."
Draco closed his eyes, inhaled deeply and exhaled. How many things could he worry about at once? He wanted to know where they had taken her, and he only wanted to justify his actions to one person-the one person they would not allow him to see. He did not want their judgment, their approval or damnation.
"Unbind me," he finally said, sneering because he knew no other way to defend himself. "If I'm to speak to you, I will not do so under duress." He felt a slight relaxation around his arms and wondered which of them had plied their silent magic. "I killed them," he said flatly.
It was disgusting how much easier it got with each time he said it.
"You already know I poisoned them. It should be obvious why." And it should have been, he thought. It should have been obvious to all of them. If he would betray all his family teachings by loving a Weasley, wasn't it likely he would change other things? "They were Death Eaters. They ruled my life for as long as I can remember. I should have thought you would be grateful." He heard footsteps and his defensive tone wavered. The door opened, and he leapt to his feet, hand reaching for his wand.
"Draco, no!" Arthur stepped in front of the young man, his eyes squeezed shut with the fervent hope he wouldn't be fatally hexed.
"No?" Draco growled, shoving Arthur out of the way with strength the older man had not expected. "He isn't what you think!"
"No," Severus drawled, his tone nearly amused. "He isn't what you think. And neither is my star pupil, it seems." Severus poured himself a cup of tea and leaned over the table to inspect the wands. "Hm. Seems you were paying attention in Potions, after all. I had rather thought you were too busy sneering at Potter or ogling Miss Weasley."
"Severus," Arthur said sharply, uncomfortable with the statement.
Draco was too stunned to speak, his mind trying to sort out Severus's presence here. "You… you're a-"
"I think it best we bypass this part of the realization process," the Potions Master said, "And get straight to business."
~~~
What time was it? He didn't know. He'd been in the kitchen for what seemed like days, among a constantly changing group of people. Molly was in and out, that idiot Potter had walked in a few times. Hermione Granger had put her thoughts in more than once, and Draco would have been more spiteful to her if she hadn't been so worried about Ginny and if the baby hadn't been so damned cute.
These people were worth saving.
He never knew they could be.
Every step up the stairs felt as though his feet weighed a ton, and he thanked Merlin, not for the first time, for his intelligence. A slower man would have been swamped-the Order of the Phoenix, being vouched for by Snape, Arthur, and Dumbledore simultaneously, the plans, the plots.
The inclusion.
It felt foreign.
And it fell away as he reached her door. They had things to do. They had people to see.
He had assignments already, and all the assignments of the woman who lay behind the door had been reallocated to others.
He let himself in, knowing it was his last opportunity to talk to her before things got ugly, before he was called upon to do in person what he'd been doing behind a disguise, behind a poisoned tankard and a black hood.
"Ginny." He'd meant to be strong, had meant to be steady, but her voice came out in a near sob, and Draco collapsed at the foot of the bed on his knees. She wasn't sleeping; her eyes were open, dark and wet and clear in the lamplight, but she said nothing, instead sliding her hands over the sheets as though trying to cleanse her palms.
Your father's blood.
"Will you listen to me?" he asked, wondering if she heard him, if perhaps something had happened, if she'd done herself damage, if his father had done damage to her, but she nodded, finally reaching up to wipe a tear off her cheek.
So he began to talk.
He could have explained it all to the group that had gathered downstairs, but how long would it have taken? How many words? He hadn't the energy to give it to them. But to her, he could.
He told her things she already knew, gave her the history she had lived with him, how he'd given up everything for her in another world, given up his heritage and his birthright, given up the only thing his father knew how to give.
He moved to the side of the bed, sliding his hand beneath hers and clasping her fingers so she would stop their travel along the sheet.
Still she had not answered him.
"How do you think it made me feel to come back here, to come back to a place where I never made that decision? Where I wasn't free from my father and couldn't be because he would kill me, and kill you?" He closed his eyes and felt her fingers squeeze more tightly against his, giving him the strength to press on.
"He was-he is my father, Ginny. It doesn't matter how much I hate what he stands for, I couldn't fight him face to face. He would have killed me."
"Draco." It was only one word, only his name, but he picked up her hand and kissed it, his eyes fierce.
Ginny swallowed hard and fought the tears that were sliding from her eyes down her temples and onto her pillow.
"You made that choice twice," she said, her voice tremulous, uncertain. She had given up nothing for him.
She had taken away.
"I made the wrong choices," she whispered.
"I made that choice twice," Draco said, desperate to make her see, desperate to make her see before things were set into motion, "because it didn't matter who we were, where we were. I loved you there, and I love you here. I had to make that choice."
"I made the wrong choice!" she repeated, sitting up in the bed, her fingers convulsing around his and making him wince in pain. "Listen to me."
He would have taken the memory from her if he could have, and for a moment, he wanted to, but time was short. So he kissed the backs of her knuckles until she was silent, tears streaming down her face, and as he leaned over to whisper, "I would have done it myself if I could have," he slid into bed with her.
He needed rest, for an hour or two, and he could only find it with her.