Chapter Three: Ginevre et le Dragon (Ginny and the Dragon)
Ginevre Véslée re-adjusted her white cap to show her flaming red hair at best advantage. She didn't expect to meet any handsome young men today, but if she did, she would be ready for them.
The house was in an uproar today. Her mother and her sister-in-law, Fleur, had decided it was cleaning day. They took this task very seriously. While Ginevre was by no means a friend to squalor, she failed to see why this dingy little log house needed that amount of scrubbing.
Le Bureau, her father had nicknamed the house. He had been an official of the king for many years, and the house was also full of papers that needed his attention. Today, these had been put away in chests, to keep them out of the way of the mops and dusters.
"Ginevre," said Fleur, interrupting the girl's thoughts. "Could you be a dear and bring the men their luncheon? We'd rather not have them messing up the house."
Ginevre nodded. It was exactly what she wished to do. Her brother Guillaume had married Fleur Delacour less than a month before, and Fleur was already the plague of her existence. Unlike Ginevre and her siblings, who had been born here in New France, Fleur came from the old country. She'd been born and raised in the city of Rouen. On the death of her parents, the nuns there had arranged for Fleur to be sent to the colony, like so many other girls, since there were not enough women in New France. This background made Fleur insufferable. She claimed to be an expert on French fashion and manners, even though she had been a penniless orphan back in Rouen. "That is not how it is done in France," she would always be saying. Ginevre wished very hard that Henri would return soon and deliver her from this horror of a sister-in-law.
Her father and Guillaume were clearing the stumps from what would be a new field in the spring. It was hard work, and they really needed another pair of hands. But the Véslée boys were scattered this autumn. Charles was now Père Charles, a curé in Trois-Rivières. The twins, Wilfred and Georges, had refused to stay on the land, and instead were making their fortunes in Quebec city. Tools, watches, toys. Those two could make them all. Percivale was also in the city, but did not deign to notice his "disgraceful" brothers. Percivale was one of the governor's soldiers, though his time was spent more in flattering the governor than in fighting.
And Ronald was off risking his life at the side of her future husband. She crossed herself rapidly at the thought. God keep them both safe from harm.
Anyway, they needed help in the upper field, and the obvious solution was for her to help out. She would show them that an education at the nunnery in Quebec city had not spoiled her for hard work. She was as strong as an ox.
Thus marshalling her plans, she nearly missed the noise behind the bushes. Nearly, but not quite. She stopped and listened. There it was again. Unmistakably a groan.
An Iroquois waiting to ambush an unsuspecting maiden? No, of course not. The Iroquois were never so unstealthlike. Without any more hesitation, she put down her basket and waded into the brush.
She had not far to go before she came on the originator of the noises. There was a small hollow among the bushes and there lay a man in tattered but fashionable clothes, a wide-brimmed black felt hat drawn over his face.
"Are you all right?" asked Ginevre. There was no answer. The man wasn't dead - she'd heard him groaning - but he now lay entirely still.
She pushed back the bushes further, knelt down beside him, and pulled back the hat.
Grey eyes met hers. A mass of silvery blond hair was revealed.
"Malfoy!" she hissed.
Jean 'le Dragon' de Malfoy was an old acquaintance of Ginevre's. She had hated him practically all her life. His father, Lucien de Malfoy, was old nobility, who had come to the colony some twenty years before as a military officer. His mother, Narcisse de Nigelle, belonged to the oldest family in New France. Jean, their only child, had inherited from these illustrious parents money, power, good looks, and treachery. He had got his nickname 'le Dragon' in school on account of his fiery rhetoric. Malfoy never lost a chance to declare his loathing for 'les sauvages.' He believed that every Indian should be exterminated. Naturally, he had become the sworn enemy of Henri Potère, and of all Henri's friends.
Lucien de Malfoy was now in prison, awaiting execution as a traitor, after an attempt to bring the Sieur Vol de Mort to power. His son was a wanted man, hunted across the colony for his part in the murder of the Intendant, M. Dumbledore.
And here he was, fallen into Ginevre's hands. How unfortunate for him.
"Well, Malfoy," she said, her eyes fixed on the bloodied bandage about his middle. "This is the end for you."
His grey eyes showed no sign of emotion as he replied, "Is it, Véslée? Are you going to finish me off right here, or will you let others get their hands dirty?"
"Do you think I'd miss the opportunity to see you publicly executed?"
"Seems a waste of rope to hang a dying man."
A thought suddenly came into Ginevre's mind. "Where is the Englishman Snape?" she asked.
"He left me here." Malfoy closed his eyes. "Ma chère Ginevre, I hate to disappoint you, but I don't think I'll live out the day."
She opened her mouth to scoff, but then took a closer look at his pinched, pale face, and realized he was speaking the truth.
This was a worrisome development. He had to live to face trial. He had to be made to give evidence about Snape and the other followers of Vol de Mort. The obvious solution would be to run now to the upper field and tell her father and brother of his presence. Yet, she hesitated.
Her family detested Malfoy. If she told them he was here, might they not kill him immediately, so that he might have no chance to escape his richly deserved death. The more she thought of it, the more convincing it seemed to her.
"Well, Véslée, what are you going to do?" asked Malfoy.
"I'm going to save your life, you louse. Not because I like you but because I want to see you in good health to be interrogated and hanged."
A shadow of a smirk crept across his face. "I suppose that's the best I can expect."
End Notes: Draco/Ginny is so much fun to write. So much tension in their chemistry. However, next chapter is not about them, but the trio, who will be learning native magic and secrets about Henri's past.