Author's Notes: My deepest gratitude to gotsnape for her help with this chapter. Her wisdom in all things writing knows no boundaries.
Chapter 3
The Rescue
(Three Weeks Later)
Draco Apparated into the campground containing the headquarters of the Order, frantic to save the life of the pregnant witch he had sworn off three weeks earlier. After alerting their leadership to the Dark Lord's impending attack, he raced off to find Ginny.
Panic propelled his boots across the still campground as the pounding of his heart filled the air and the bitter winter current burned his frightened lungs. He didn't hear the shouting erupting in the distance or see the lights turning on in every cabin across the place. His focus was narrowed to the cottage that held his witch, because she was his witch, no matter what had happened since he held her last. She belonged to him, and he would not let her die.
Without breaking pace, he withdrew his wand, aimed, and fired a spectacular hex, blasting open her cabin door and flinging himself inside. It was dark. Too damn dark to see a thing.
"Lumos."
She was sound asleep on a small cot in the corner of the shack.
"Ginny!" He shook her and hauled her up into a sitting position. "Ginny, wake up! We have to go."
Barely conscious, she stared at him grabbing her ankles and shoving her bare feet into her boots before reaching over and snatching her winter cloak off its hook on the wall.
"Draco?"
"Come on, Ginny," he ordered, pulling her up by the arm and tucking the heavy cloak around her shoulders. Her sleepy eyes were focused on him as she stood. He took her hand firmly in his, threw on his hood, and rushed out of her cabin.
"What's going on?"
When they emerged, the throng rushing toward the Apparation stations on the opposite side of the camp engulfed them. Ginny's eyes went wide as fear gripped her in the throat.
"Good lord, Draco. Are we being attacked?"
He didn't hear her. The roar of the crowds and the rush of the multitudes jostling and yelling on their way to safety drowned out her voice. Draco pulled Ginny along as fast as he could, but they were falling further and further behind the crowd. Ginny was unable to keep up with the hurried pace. Finally, she stopped and bent over, panting with exertion. One hand held her pregnant belly, and the other waved him on, attempting to shoo him along.
"Go on, Draco. I'll catch up to you. Go!"
He shook his head. What the hell did she think he was doing here in the first goddamn place? Saving his own arse? The last time he checked, he didn't need to Apparate into ground zero to get his Slytherin arse killed, thank you very much. Then he noticed she was pale and sweating and struggling to remain standing. He threw his arms around her and felt her lean against him.
"I'm sorry," she said.
How pregnant was she? No wonder she couldn't run. While she caught what breath she could, he held her firm in his arms and sent his eyes skyward. There wasn't much time before the Dark Lord attacked. The Order's wards were holding - for now. Without taking his eyes off the sky, he urged her forward again.
"Come on, Ginny." She nodded and walked as quickly as she could, his arms steadying her. Then he grabbed her hand and began to run. Ginny stumbled after him, rushing to keep up with his frantic pace. "Shit."
A sudden hush and collective shudder fell over the chaotic scene. Ginny looked up and saw the Dark Mark emblazoned across the sky above the camp. Merlin.
That's when he heard it. When everyone enclosed in the camp heard the tremendous sizzle and melting crack followed by a fantastic shuddering moan as the previously impenetrable wards surrounding the headquarters of the Order fell, blasting the hell out of every sentient being in the place.
Draco could not hold onto Ginny. The force of the blow ripped her from him. He saw her pregnant form hit the ground a dozen feet from him as they were both thrown back. Picking up his battered body, he scrambled over to her motionless form.
"Ginny! Ginny!" He was yelling her name over and over again, to no avail. She was out cold. Draco heard waves of Death Eaters pouring into the camp and the hysterical yelling and screaming preceding their sea of destruction.
With no other option left, he pulled the fallen witch into his arms and held her securely to his kneeling frame. Then he looked up, ready to Disapparate them. At that moment, his pale grey eyes locked with another set of similar eyes.
His father and a dozen other Death Eaters were headed straight towards them, staring at Draco with Ginny in his arms. It was only then that the Slytherin realized the blast had knocked his hood off, leaving him exposed and vulnerable.
As his father lifted his wand and took aim, Draco Disapparated them to safety, his eyes never losing contact with his father's.
----- ----- -----
Two days later Draco continued his vigil by Ginny's bedside, becoming more and more concerned with each passing minute she remained unconscious and unresponsive. Was she dying? Had her head injury put her into some kind of irreversible coma? What about her baby? What the hell was up with that thing?
Of course he carried the rudimentary healing skills that all soldiers carried but nothing that would have equipped him to deal with something of this complexity. He was a Death Eater, not a Healer. He could kill her baby with one simple incantation, but that really wasn't the point, was it? Merlin. This wasn't what he had in mind when he signed up to save her life.
He ran an anxious hand over his worn face before letting out an exhausted sigh. They were alone in his dwelling of last resort, the safe cottage he had fortified, warded, and veiled years ago in preparation for his entry into the Order. He never anticipated this particular scenario. There were no Healers, no spying house elves, nobody. He was bloodied terrified that she was slipping away from him, and he was powerless to stop her irreversible slide to the other side of the veil.
Draco slumped further into his chair and buried his face in his hands with no intention of coming out, ever. What had he done? He had followed his heart, the foul organ that had caused him nothing but grief over the past two and a half years, and slit his own throat in the process. What a fucking disaster.
He remembered the moment the Dark Lord's plan to attack Ginny's camp fell upon his well-placed ears. He had a fast decision to make. He could either let Ginny die and take his Malfoy pride with him to the grave, or he could save her and kill her adulterous arse later. He chose the latter.
Why didn't he hesitate before plunging in to save her? Because he was a goddamn Slytherin impersonating a foolishly brave and noble Gryffindor, that's why. The bloody stuff was obviously contagious and perilous to his health, not to mention his newly shortened lifespan. All the "Scourgifies" in the world couldn't rip her from his contaminated soul. What an arse backward thing to do.
Why didn't he stop to think about his allegiances and obligations or their vital connection to the outcome of the War? He couldn't say. All he knew was when everything when to hell in a handbasket, he was the one who ended up being fucked, royally screwed up the arse.
That uncomfortable moment happened when his father saw him on the ground at the camp of the Order clutching a pregnant Ginny to his frantic frame. Draco remembered the look of outrage and betrayal on his father's face. He could feel the rising fury with each closing footstep. Lucius swiftly deduced Draco's allegiance to the Order and betrayal of the Dark Lord by viewing the scene splayed out before him. He knew that Ginny was the reason for Draco's treacherous betrayal and believed her to be carrying a future Malfoy heir in her pregnant belly.
It was this series of repugnant revelations that sent Lucius over the edge and into a state of murderous rage. He would have struck them dead where they huddled if Draco delayed Disapparating them another moment.
Draco groaned and attempted to push his face further into his hands, but there was no place left to go. He was buried up to his precious neck already, and he had taken Ginny along for the ride. Their fates were now intertwined and sealed, joined forever until death tore them apart. And that, unfortunately, could be sooner than either of them bargained for.
He looked up and took her painfully limp hand into his, interlocking her fingers with his. Then he placed their joined hands on his lips and stared at her. When was she going to wake up and tell him what the hell was going on? He noticed days ago that she wore no rings. So what? It didn't mean a damn thing, that's what.
He remembered his mother telling him she stopped wearing her rings during her pregnancy because her hands were so swollen they no longer fit. Draco looked at Ginny's hands for the millionth time. Were they swollen? How was he supposed to know? The only thing he knew was that her belly was filled with some other wizard's child.
His eyes were drawn to that distasteful lump, growing like a tumor out of her. As he sat there, Draco decided he loathed that baby and could care less if it dropped dead as long as it didn't take Ginny with it. That wretched unborn creature had cost him a bloody fortune. The Slytherin was sure they would have made it safely to the Apparation stations on the opposite side of the camp the night of the attack if Ginny hadn't been pregnant. That baby had blown his cover, put Ginny's life in peril, and placed the balance of the War in jeopardy.
Wasn't there a spell to turn off the raging faucet in his head? Merlin. It was bloody paralyzing was what it was. He was drowning in his own collection of malignant and embittered thoughts. That was the last thing they needed. Because in his mind, the three of them were now one, even the blasted tumor, and it was his job to get them all safely through what was left of the War, because it was fast coming to a close, one way or the other.
The seventh Horcrux had been destroyed by the Order several months ago, and the outcome of the War now hinged on the long awaited and much dreaded duel between the Dark Lord and Potter, either that or an assassination of one or the other. Both sides were scrambling to get the upper hand, and with Draco's unfortunate discovery, the Order had just lost what little advantage it once held.
Fuck it. Draco stripped down to his boxers and crawled into bed bedside Ginny. Then he carefully took her into his arms and held her close to his frightened, breaking heart. He didn't know, and he didn't want to know. He didn't give a rat's arse about her other wizard or her other life. In his world, right here and now, she belonged to him, and he would protect her and care for her until there wasn't a breath left in his cursed body.
And so Ginny's wizard held her and soothed her with his soft-spoken words of endearment. He closed his eyes, shutting out the world he bitterly resented, buried his face in the nape of her neck, and opened his embattled soul to her. He whispered his closely held secrets, shared his shattered illusions, and confessed his terminal love to a woman who could no longer hear him, who might never hear him. And then, without his consent, a peaceful, dreamless sleep took the exhausted Slytherin away.
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