Author's Notes: Struggling with a bit of writer's block here. Sorry about that. I toyed with the idea of shelving the whole thing until my writing returns, but I thought I'd throw this one out there and see what readers think. If this chapter doesn't meet the grade (i.e. it sucks), let me know, and I'll hold off posting anything else until this semi-block clears. Otherwise, I might try and write my way through it. Don't worry. It's happened before, and that's how this fic was born. Thanks for reading and all the support you've given me. - fallenwitch
Chapter 9
Draco's Bad Day, His Very Bad Day
Draco groaned, pulled his pillow over his head, and refused to come out and play. No, he didn't sleep a wink. At least that's how it felt to him, but he must have fallen asleep at some point because he was irritated as hell when his alarm clock startled his slumbering consciousness. How did anyone expect him to sleep when the rock gnawing away at the pit of his stomach was actually his half-beating heart?
His heart. He rolled over, taking his pillow with him, and stared at the ceiling of his bedroom. Today was the day he made her his in the eyes of the law and of his Aunt and of Alexandar Levski. Today was the day he made her his in every way except for the way that mattered most.
He was no simpleton when it came to women. He was only a simpleton when it came to her. He had bedded and courted the most desirable witches in England. But she was different from the daughters of privilege he had known all his life. Were it not for that disaster in Bulgaria, he never would have granted her a second Malfoy look.
What the hell did it take to make a witch like her fall in love? It wasn't as simple as courting her and wooing her and spoiling her until she couldn't resist him. She had no material wants, only a few simple needs, which even the most modest of wizards could meet. She didn't give a damn about his wealth or his connections - political, business, or social. The only things she had ever been impressed by were his Quidditch skills and his broom, the one she handled when she thought he wasn't looking. What witch cared about those things?
Draco closed his eyes and indulged his half-beating heart with her, in all the ways he loved to think of her, including those sacred fantasies where she touched him and loved him in the way his body cried out to be loved by her. Sweet Salazar. Then he opened his eyes and watched as his external world came into sharp focus causing him to wince at the painful truth of their relationship. You could own a witch, but you couldn't order her to love you. Throwing his useless pillow halfway across the room, he rolled out of bed. He didn't want a bloody pillow. He wanted her, and he would take her in whatever form he could get her. Reluctant and horrified wasn't ideal, but it would do for now.
Forty-five minutes later, he was showered, dressed, and adjusting his dress robes. Double checking his pocket for their wedding rings, he looked in the mirror one last time and saw his own pale grey eyes looking back. He stared at those eyes. What did she see when she looked at him? He suspected she saw a privileged bastard of a Death Eater who owned her. What did he see? He saw a crazy, lovesick wizard. Crazy? Yes, crazy, because it was insanity of the highest order that was driving him to throw his Malfoy cloak of protection around her, endangering his life as well. Once they were married, he would bring her around. How? Hell, he'd figure that out later.
----- ----- -----
"Ginny?"
He knocked softly on her bedroom door, took a step back, and waited. He repeated this irritating sequence three times, each time knocking louder and longer. When she refused to open her door or acknowledge him, he tried the doorknob. It was unlocked.
"Ginny?"
The brazen mid-morning sun was pouring into her room at an alarming rate, damn near blinding him. As this excruciating assault waned and his sight returned, he saw her bed in its usual morning state of disarray with her bathrobe and nightgown tossed in the middle of the mess.
Where was she?
He glanced into her bathroom. He opened her sitting room door. He looked out onto her balcony. He checked their private dining room.
"Ginny?"
Peering into her empty closet, panic began filling his anxious lungs. He frantically scanned her closet, spying her wedding robes shoved against the back wall with a piece of parchment stabbed through the neck of the hanger. He tore the bloody thing off and began devouring her familiar handwriting. Somewhere in the middle of that fateful note, his heart dropped from the pit of his stomach to someplace much lower.
Gone.
She was gone.
She had taken her empty knapsack and hauled arse out of his life with no goodbye, only a terse warning not to follow her or try to find her. What the fuck? Since when he did take orders from his own piece of property?
Draco stormed out of her room, shouting orders faster than anyone, including Sam and Frank, could follow them. He had the Manor in a frenzy as every inch, inside and out, was searched for the awol witch and combed for evidence that might point to how she escaped and where she was headed.
Slamming closed the door to his bedroom, Draco ripped off his ridiculous wedding robes and dress boots, the ones that were suffocating him. Then he caught a glimpse of his wild reflection in the mirror. His miserable eyes were on fire. Fuck. Grabbing the nearest object, his dress boot, he threw it at the mirror and watched as his crazed reflection shattered into razor-sharp shards around his feet. A million crazed Dracos looked up at him. Double fuck.
"Reparo," he spat out, disgusted.
This arse backward magical maneuver allowed him to walk in his socks, unimpaled, across the floor and to his goddamn closet to get his other pair of boots and any robes but his wedding robes. On his way out, he slammed his closet door closed only to be jerked back by the hem of his robes caught in that closed door, nearly landing him on his elegant arse. Fine. He slammed the closet door open and walked out of his room, slamming that bloody door open as well. Then he pointed his wand and shouted an incantation, blasting open every door down two halls. Yes, he could blast open every door on every floor of the Manor, but that wouldn't bring her back nor would it ease the searing pain she had inflicted on his heart, the one that was now dragging against the bottom of his boots.
As the chaos continued, Draco stood in the middle of her room. Where the hell would she go with a wand, a change of clothes, and a bit of food? The Burrow? What for? That trash heap was long ago razed and gone. Her family? He supposed she could seek them out, but really, how much help could they be to her six feet under? Friends? What friends? There was Granger, but she was no help, buried in some godforsaken Muggle cemetery.
Money. She had no money. It was forbidden by his Malfoy laws, and the Dark Lord had long ago seized any Gringotts vault her family might once have owned. How far could she get without a Knut to her name? Not very. Where would she surface to try to obtain a few Sickles?
That's when his eyes locked onto the two wooden jewelry cases he had given her the previous day. Flinging open both lids at once, he found the jewelry intact and untouched. He tapped all four pieces with his wand, checking for authenticity. How Gryffindor of her. Feel free to screw the Death Eater over but have the decency to leave his family jewels. Jewels. Shit. Her engagement ring.
Draco tore her room apart searching for the damn thing only to find it was gone. So that was her plan. She was going to finance her escape by pawning the ring he had given her. Merlin. She could live the better part of her life off of what she would get for the bloody thing.
Draco collapsed against the cold, hard wall and slammed his fist against it. Give a freedom-starved witch a wand, hand her your heart, and watch her flee your fucking Manor. Could he have made it any easier for her? Sure, he could have held the door open for her skiving freckled arse.
But this was only the beginning of his bad day, his very bad day.
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"Why didn't you tell me you stole her out from under Alexandar Levski's nose?" Bella hissed before Draco had the opportunity to place one elegant boot in the door of her office.
"What?"
"Alexandar Levski is accusing you of stealing the Weasley wench from his personal prison in Sofia. Did you?"
"Of course I didn't bloody well steal her. Why would I do something like that?" She was staring at him, questioning his sanity every inch of the way as he continued into her office. "No. Did you hear me? No, I didn't steal her. I obtained her in a bet over a game of Wizard Chess."
"For Salazar's sake, who was the wizard you won her from?"
"I don't know." He shrugged his shoulders and dropped into one of her uncomfortable chairs when she glared at him. "I was drunk. I couldn't tell you what he looked like. It could have been Levski himself for all I know."
She could shake her wand in his face and threaten and berate him all she pleased. It wouldn't change a thing. He was still tied to the awol witch in more than one unpleasant way.
"Let's go." Didn't he just sit down? Merlin. Get up. Sit down. Come here. Fetch, boy, fetch. Hauling his arse up again, Draco fell into step behind Bella. When she came to an abrupt halt a moment later, he almost ploughed into her, balancing on the tips of his boots to prevent himself from laying her flat. "And the next time you decide to take out a couple of Levski's people, clean up after yourself," she spat out before continuing on again.
Huh?
No, he didn't have time to respond because she was storming down the hall toward his Uncle's office. A minute later, he dropped his Malfoy arse into one of his Uncle's uncomfortable chairs. What the hell was going on? Had all the comfortable chairs in the wizarding universe disappeared or had his arse changed shape from all the stress?
As Rodolpus Lestrange spoke, bits and pieces of information fell into Draco's lap until he was leaning forward in his chair, attempting to pull together the ill-fitting pieces of her puzzle. No, he wasn't sure he wanted to know what the final picture looked like, but he was drawn so deep into it he had no choice. There was no blinking or looking away at this point.
After Ginny assassinated Nikolay Levski, the magical borders surrounding Bulgaria were closed, and she went into hiding. A powerful Bulgarian and member of the Order, Closimir Chervenko, sheltered her for over a year before her safe house was discovered and attacked. Closimir was killed, and Alexandar Levski took her prisoner. Levksi held Ginny captive for two years in his personal prison outside Sofia, until she was stolen during the last day of Draco's business trip to Bulgaria.
Prior to her escape, Levski's prison was labeled impenetrable. Whoever stole her managed to get through a complex series of wards, scores of Death Eating guards, an unbreachable cell, and a host of other undisclosed dangers. Not only did that take balls of an unbelievable dimension, it also took inside knowledge of the facility and a uniquely gifted witch or wizard.
Whoever stole her, then turned her over to Draco through the now infamous bet on that game of Wizard Chess. Groaning, Draco realized he didn't need to hear another goddamn word. He knew all he needed to know. If they would please excuse the Slytherin, he would go and blow off his head with a hex rather than live the rest of his life with this particular humiliation, thank you very much.
But he didn't leave. Instead he sat there, like the good Death Eater he had never been, and revealed the existence of the magical contract he signed, the one linking Ginny's survival to his. No, he didn't look at Bella. He didn't want to see it or hear it. Yes, all three of them were now attached at the hip. Draco to Ginny and Bella to Ginny through Draco. Now that Bella knew of this danger to Draco, she was bound to help protect him from it, and that meant protecting Ginny as well. Would any other family members like to sign up for possible death? Seats were still available.
Before Bella could speak or whip out her wand, Draco plunged ahead with the punch line of the joke he was now the butt of.
"She's gone. She escaped last night. I have no idea how she did it or where she went." What he did know was that she left him hanging with the most unbelievable noose around his neck that he had felt in quite awhile. Fuck. No, fucked. Utterly, totally fucked up the arse. No wonder there were no comfortable chairs left in the wizarding world.
"Call in the Romanians."
That was the last thing he heard his Uncle say before he stood and Apparated back to the Manor with his furious tail between his legs and Bella's raging eyes boring a hole into the place previously occupied by his half-beating heart.
Draco's very bad day just got worse.
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