Author's Notes: Yes, the War is over. Yes, the "Dark Side" won. However, any assumptions about what that world would look like may not be wise as things are not always as they appear. I hope to elaborate on that later in the fic. Many thanks and much gratitude for all the lovely reviews readers left. Now, on with Chapter 2. I hope this doesn't disappoint. -fallenwitch
_________________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 2
It's None Of Your Goddamn Business
He knocked lightly on her open bedroom door before stepping in. She walked out of her sitting room and stared at him. "Merlin, Weasley, put that book down. Care to watch a Quidditch match today?"
"Quidditch?"
"Quidditch."
She nodded and rushed to get her cloak. "Take your time. We won't be leaving for another half an hour."
Had he finally managed to light a fire under her arse? It was about bloody time. She had been ensconced in his flat for over two months, slowly coming around, but he couldn't get her to do a damn thing with him unless he ordered her to. Screw that.
Half an hour later, he laughed when he saw her eyes go wide. She was waiting, cloak on, in the main sitting room when he strolled in.
"What?" When she continued to stare, he looked down at his Quidditch outfit. Was something hanging out? Nope. Everything was zipped up and buckled down tight. "Well?"
"I didn't realize you were still playing." His eyes narrowed, taking in her implicit message, which irritated the hell out of him.
"Why don't you tell me if you think I'm too old and slow for the game after you watch a match." When she didn't respond, he summoned his broom. Well, it had been a month or two since his last game. Hell, she was the one who had put a cramp on his outings in the first place. "Come on," he spat out. "Let's go."
Ginny rushed over and into his waiting arm, thrown casually over her shoulders, broom in hand. A moment later, he Disapparated them to the Quidditch field.
"Oi, Malfoy, where the bloody hell have you been? And who is that beautiful thing you've got with you?"
They swung around at the booming voice and saw a burly wizard with dark, curly hair swaggering toward them. Draco laughed and stepped forward to shake the other wizard's hand.
"Tom Fitzgerald this is Ginny Weasley."
"Ginny, is it? Pleased to meet you. So, you've come to watch Malfoy play, have you? Well, if you ever get tired of his nasty ways, give me a floo, would you?" Ginny stared at the wizard with a twinkle in his eye, giving him an awkward smile and taking a small step closer to Draco.
"Bugger off, Tom. She's not interested in a ruddy wizard like you." Ginny swung around again. This time she met the laughing face of a handsome young wizard with dark hair and familiar features.
Draco leaned over and shook this wizard's hand while slapping him on the shoulder. "Blaise, you remember Ginny Weasley from Hogwarts." The wizard raised an eyebrow at this, glancing back at Draco, who nodded.
"Yes, of course. Good to see you again, Ginny." Ginny smiled before Draco took her aside.
"Ginny, why don't you go sit in the stands? I'll meet up with you after the game." She nodded and left, walking across the field and into the stands, sitting alone.
"Merlin, Draco, how the hell did that happen? Ginny Weasley?"
"Sod off, Blaise. It's too long a bloody story to get into with you right now, not to mention the fact that it's none of your goddamn business."
"A Weasley?" Draco let out an exasperated snort.
"Look, Zabini, I'm not dating her or shagging her or even fondling her nor do I have any intention of doing any of those things with her so bugger off."
"Really?"
"Yes, really."
Blaise looked up into the stands at the Gryffindor sitting alone. Then he looked back at Draco. Not shagging her my arse, he thought, hoisting his broom over his shoulder and heading out to the middle of the field with the thirteen other players.
When Draco's gloved hand caught the Snitch three hours later, ending the game with a whistle and a win, Ginny jumped up clapping and waving. He looked over at her, in the middle of those empty stands, amazed at the sudden burst of life the game had thrown into her. Yes, a fire had been lit somewhere in her.
----- ----- -----
Was she dead? Draco looked at the pathetic, emaciated form lying motionless on the cold, tile floor of the hotel bathroom. He knelt down, wand at the ready, and touched the side of her face, draped in freshly washed crimson hair. She startled and drew the towel closer to her body.
"Get up. Let's go," he barked, one hand firmly on her arm. "Do you speak any English?" Apparently not. Pulling her into the bedroom, he shoved a pile of his clothes into her arms. No, he had no intention of turning his back on the hag for a moment, not when it was his precious life on the line.
And so he stood there while she dropped the towel and, with shaking hands, pulled on one oversized piece of clothing at a time, until she was drowning in one of his fine wizarding robes. Draco stood there, staring at her bent head and her slumping shoulders.
He reached under her chin with one elegant hand and tipped her face up toward the light. His other hand brushed aside her tangled mess of red hair as his silver greys scanned her face and her downcast eyes. It took him several minutes to decipher her identity, but there was something so familiar about her that he couldn't take his eyes off the witch.
"Weasley?" Her glazed eyes looked up and locked briefly with his without the slightly evidence of recognition. "Good lord, what the hell have they done to you?"
Draco glanced around the room and summoned his overnight bag before throwing on his cloak. "Come on. Let's get the hell out of this place." He threw his arms around her unsteady figure, drew her to him, and gratefully placed both their hands on the brass portkey, transporting the pair out of the inhospitable foreign soil.
As soon as their collective feet hit the floor of his flat, Draco began shouting orders faster than his house elves could follow them. All the while, he had his arm around her, escorting her to the dining room. She was emaciated and so weak she could barely stand. Was this what they thought it took to keep her under control? What the hell ever happened to a stiff set of wards?
Was starvation considered an unnatural cause of death? Draco wondered this as he watched her consume the enormous bowl of steaming hot stew and several slices of bread. He refilled her cup of pumpkin juice twice. A half an hour later, she stopped eating and looked up with wide eyes. When she began gagging, Draco yelled for his house elf who appeared and, just in time, conjured a large bucket by Ginny's side. She leaned over and began retching until everything that she had eaten turned topside again.
Another elf was cleaning her up and offering her a cup of tea to settle her stomach. She shook her head, held her abdomen, and laid down on the dining room floor, too ill to move. Draco picked up her featherweight figure and deposited it in the guest bedroom next to his.
"Well?" Draco asked an hour later, glowering down Healer Topman's throat.
"She's quite ill."
"I bloody well know that. She's starving. Why can't she hold down her food?"
"Mr. Malfoy, there's something called a Refeeding Syndrome." When he began a detailed explanation of that, Draco listened attentively, realizing he had inadvertently made the witch ill by feeding her too much too fast.
"What do we need to do to fix her?"
"We can `fix' her Refeeding Syndrome, but I can't guarantee you that she'll live."
"What?" Hell, he'd only had her for a few hours. She couldn't die on him now. Was that why they had hoisted her off on him? So she could die and take him with her instead of the bastard who had been holding her for the past two years?
Healer Topman laid out a strict refeeding schedule, going from limited clear liquids to solids over a period of weeks. She was to take half a dozen potions around the clock to boost her strength and her immune system. She was chronically malnourished and on the brink of death. Even if she recovered, he cautioned, there was no guarantee she would ever be the same.
Draco didn't give a damn. He couldn't say that he cared for her much the first time around. He just needed her alive. As long as her arse was alive so was his.
----- ----- ----- ----- -----
"Well?"
Ginny looked up after giving the house elf her cloak.
"Well what?" she asked.
"Don't give me that "well what" crap. Am I too old and slow for the game or not?" He watched as she tilted her head to the side and looked at him thoughtfully for a moment or two.
Then she shook her head. "No, I don't think so."
"Is that it?" he yelled at her retreating figure. She stopped, turned around, and looked at him.
"When's your next game?"
________________________________________________________________________________
Author's Notes: Thanks for reading. Hope to see you at the posting of Chapter 3 in about a week.
-->