CHAPTER FIVE - Distracted and Distressed
It was, in its own way, a quiet day. There had been talk, of course, of the evening before, whispered gossip about the Death Eaters' rampages, who might have been responsible for Flint's death, who was and wasn't a Death Eater.
"You know, I'm positive we're all okay around here," one witch had said, casting her eyes around furtively. "Except maybe for Malfoy. You know he's only here because the Minister was afraid to tell him no."
"Like we need his kind here on the inside," another voice had joined in, and Ginny had been required to force herself to walk away so she wouldn't open her mouth and say something completely obvious.
They hadn't spent two years keeping themselves a secret just to have it all toppled by a moment of Weasley temper.
Those years may not have been the easiest, between fighting with her family and hiding from his, but in retrospect, considering things as they were now, Ginny supposed they hadn't been all bad. It had been romantic at first, the sneaking around, the look at a different lifestyle. Then, after he'd graduated, things had started to grow tense, to change. Holes gapped in their conversation, opened up because there were things they would not talk about. His job at the Ministry-gotten through Dumbledore and not out of scare tactics, no matter what busybodies claimed-had given them something to talk about, but it never expanded to fill the spaces of the impending war. But it had never been as it was now, separated and fearful and panicked… and the war wasn't half as bad as it could be-and likely would be, before it was all over.
Ginny packed up her things at the end of the day, stooping surreptitiously to tug the parchment Draco had sent her out of the waste bin. She flattened it out and slid it into her folio, feeling more than a little like a foolish little girl with a love note.
"Ginny." It was rare for Percy to approach her more than once a day at work; he liked to keep family and business separate, something the twins hadn't ever subscribed to. She jumped guiltily at the sound of his voice, thinking he must have seen her rummaging through the bin.
"Percival," Ginny said back to him, tucking her folio under her arm. Really, she could have just told him it was a note from Draco, but… he persistently got a sour look on his face any time Draco was so much as mentioned, and she could all but see the struggle he had convincing himself it was simply best not to make a scene.
"I have a message for you," he said, pursing his lips and blowing a restrained sigh out his nose. "Confidential," he added in a whisper, and she barely kept herself from the urge to retort "No, really?!" in mock shock at her brother's obviousness.
He was such a lovable git sometimes.
She broke the seal on the outside of the parchment-a Ministry seal, which was odd; they never sealed internal documents-and saw her father's handwriting. It was a bit of a disappointment. She'd been hoping for another note from Draco, no matter how foolish that would have been.
"Number Twelve, directly after work. Don't be late." Her eyes were drawn to the bottom of the page, where Arthur had written a postscript. "This is written with a Muggle pen. It's called a ballpoint. Positively fantastic!"
Even in war, some things were still worth smiling over.
~~~
"You are distracted." Narcissa Malfoy frowned at her son's full plate. "Really, Draco, I don't maintain the best elves in the wizarding world simply to make ornamental culinary bits. It's food, my dear. You eat it." As though to prove that, she put a bite of her filet mignon in her mouth and chewed it elaborately.
"I'm not distracted," Draco said hollowly. He'd been looking at his mother, though, and thinking of Ginny. Wondering if a few decades from now Ginny would be this woman, trying to nurture their son as best she could despite a controlling, cold bastard of a father.
"I know distracted. I've lived with distracted, my darling, before you were even an heirlet in your father's ego." And it bothered her a bit to see her son in the same situation. Really, Lucius's ambition had been an asset once, even an aphrodisiac. These days, it just seemed self-destructive.
She would destroy herself before she let her son destroy himself. It was a privilege of motherhood.
"Is it a woman?" Narcissa asked, reaching across the table and nudging her son's elbow. She had a right to wish for grandchildren, no matter what the political climate. That, too, was a mother's privilege. A son's curse, perhaps, but no matter.
Draco's eyes cut to his mother and his brows drew together. It was hard for him to remember this wasn't the same woman who had taken him aside, asked him if losing his love was worth the money it would get him. It was so hard. "It isn't a woman," he said, not entirely lying.
He didn't miss the mammoth sigh that brought from his mother. They ate in silence-or rather, she ate and he pushed his food around his plate, feeling more than a bit like a petulant six-year-old-and that was all right with him. Time spent with his mother never felt wasted, or constricting, as time spent with his father did.
He knew she felt it, too, the companionship of the silence, and he wondered if having a child had been more like bringing a friend into the world, desperate for a connection with anyone, desperate for a piece of Lucius he couldn't walk away with.
And thoughts like that made Draco hate being an adult.
He kissed the top of his mother's head before he left.
~~~
"I have thought for many hours on the matter, and there is only one conclusion to come to about the death of Tiberius Flint." Albus Dumbledore paced the floor and looked at all the faces he'd been running, reached out a bit with his mind and tried to probe.
He caught snatches of thoughts, feelings, doubt, lust, grief, exhaustion, but no guilt. Not over this. And no triumph, either.
"Would the one conclusion be that's one less Death Eater for us to deal with?" Charlie Weasley asked, leaning back in his chair and crossing his feet at the ankles. He'd forgotten to scrape his boots at the door, he noted worriedly, hoping his Mum wouldn't notice.
Albus stifled a snicker at the unbidden mental image Charlie projected of Molly boxing him in the ear.
"The conclusion," Albus said correctively, "Is there is no way of knowing who did it, but I feel fairly certain none of us did."
"That's too bad," Mundungus Fletcher said, only to be cut off by Snape.
"Actually, you old fool, you'd have been better off by far if Flint were still alive. Do you wish to push them into attack before you are prepared for it?" Snape glared at the robust man. "They need little more provocation than existence."
"Tell us what you know, Severus, do not lead us into a fruitless argument." Albus was too tired to listen to that particular discussion blow into a tirade between Severus and everyone else. "If you please."
"What I know," Snape said stiffly, clearly feeling chastised, "Is that Flint was to be meeting another Death Eater. No one quite knows who, and no one has come forth yet. His wand is missing, and he was poisoned." He wished to withhold his next statement, but knew it must be said. "I have not yet been able to determine what potion was given him."
Fred and George tried valiantly to stifle their smirks.
They failed.
"I wish for each of you to be listening, be thinking. We haven't much time." He looked at Severus for confirmation. "Eventually, they will engage us in battle, and our jobs will cease to matter. Our daily lives." As much as he hated it, Albus looked at Ron sitting in the corner with Luna on his lap, at Harry holding his baby girl. "Our greatest loves. None of it will matter in the face of danger. If we lose, we may well wish we had expired."
His words left them all uncomfortable, and he sat, feeling old, creaky, arthritic. When would it be time for someone else to take the helm?
Not yet, he knew. His time was not yet through.
Molly cleared her throat and clapped her hands briskly. "There's food in the kitchen," she said, her tone neither bright nor dark, only very factual. "Let's move, now, be careful with the furniture."
No one thought to disobey her, especially when they saw her deliver a particularly merciless cuff to the side of Charlie's head.
She'd caught sight of the muddy boots.
Albus caught Ginny's elbow as she passed, motioning with his head for her to follow her back into a long-since abandoned bedroom of the house. "I wished to speak with you alone," he said. "I have concerns I would like to share with you."
Ginny nodded, her eyes wide. She couldn't seem to quell the bird in her stomach, the one made of fear, the one whose wings were scraping madly against the insides of her stomach, against her ribs, feathering her lungs and making it difficult to breathe. Did he know something? Something about Draco? "I should like to hear your concerns," she said breathlessly, wondering why he didn't proceed.
"Ginevra, your relationship with-" Tom, he'd nearly said. Your relationship with Tom. He'd have sooner bitten his tongue out than made that particular error. "Young Master Malfoy. It concerns me. He could be in danger, in more ways than one." He could die at the hands of one of the Order. He could die at the hands of a fellow Death Eater.
He could allow himself to be taken into servitude for them. Or he could have already done so.
"I'd be a fool if I didn't realize that already," Ginny said, her head swimming. She hadn't even spoken with her parents about that possibility, nor had she spoken with her friends, with Harry or Hermione or Luna…
"I felt I should avail you of these concerns before others start to share them," he pressed gently, aching for her. He had hoped… he had hoped this young woman might be Draco's redemption.
It was a hefty weight to put on such a small young woman.
"And what?" Ginny said, feeling her face flush bright under his eternally inscrutable gaze. "You'd like me to step away from something your actions started? Was your experiment so fleeting, then, Headmaster? To prove you could thrust students into situations that would alter their entire lives, just for a temporary fix to your school?"
He did not speak, merely templed his fingers and felt pain, pain, pain at the possibility that something he had done had misled a student.
"This… we… are no longer any of your concern," Ginny said, spitting the words out. "You may think this war supercedes our greatest loves, as you so put it, but I do not." The pressure of the previous evening and the entire day built up, exploded like an acidic bubble in her chest, in her heart. "My greatest love has nothing to do with this war. And my greatest love has nothing to do with you."
His expression was no longer unreadable, had she cared to take note of it. His face was drawn, his eyes incredibly aggrieved.
"I shall keep myself and my secrets… your secrets… safe," she said. "But aside from that, you may lay any concerns you have to rest. I have no respite to offer you."
She left the house, ignoring the calls of her parents, of her brothers, wondering when she would find respite for herself.
~~~
How many kilometers was it? She hadn't the foggiest notion, this trip made of a conglomeration of wizarding travel and Muggle travel, the winding streets of Muggle London, the moisture gathering at the hem of her heavy cloak as she grew nearer to her destination.
It was a small house, humble, though it was likely sturdier than her own. The small building that stood behind it was her destination, however, and as she held the small key clumsily between gloved fingers, Ginny said a silent prayer, a hope that she'd find what she was looking for here. It had been months she'd been here, months since it had been necessary for them to get away here. It had come in handy early in the relationship, when he had still lived at home and she had still been in school, but somewhere along the way they'd outgrown this, become too busy.
She turned the key and stepped into the small building with its huge wall-sized door at one end and looked at the strange automated carriage sitting in the middle, the green metal contraption she had memories of from another life, memories of Drake and this beloved Muggle machine.
But he was not here, and the garage felt cold.
Ginny walked around the auto, running her fingers over the sleek silver feline affixed to it, and opened the passenger door.
She climbed in, drew her knees to her chest, and let herself weep, let her sobs echo off the cold concrete floor and soak into the soft leather interior of the car.