23. The terrible doings of Draco Malfoy
April 1999
London, England.
"So all you have to do is press the button and the box will grow warm?" Ginny asked, smiling in wonder.
"Which planet are you from?" Mark said.
"A very archaic one, populated with wizards who think magic can get anything and everything done," Dean said, and he smiled, though his eyes remained serious.
"Of course…, wizards." Mark rolled his eyes. "Well, wizards or no, if you press this button, the microwave will turn on. You usually want to set a time and temperature so that you don't burn what you're cooking."
Ginny eyed the microwave curiously.
"I think I'll just stick to the stobe to heat the milk."
"Stove," Dean murmured, smirking.
"Stove, right," she corrected herself.
But when Mark had abandoned them and Dean busied himself looking for the powdered cocoa, she surreptitiously placed a cup of milk in the microwave, repeated what Mark had showed her, and watched gleefully as her cup slowly rotated, emitting a low zoom.
"Neat, isn't it?" Dean asked.
"It's brilliant! We should definitely learn how to use it."
"Well, isn't that exactly what you're doing?"
"It is, but… I mean… Everyone."
"You mean the high and mighty pure-blood community."
"Them too, yes."
Dean averted his gaze, his brow knitted in barely repressed anger. Reminders of the world he had been banished from never failed to make him livid. Ginny placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Why didn't you go away to some country where you can still do magic?" she asked softly.
"This is my country, Ginny. This is where my family is, and my friends, and though most of them are Muggles, they are dearer to me than magic. But I can never forget that a world is being closed off to me just because my blood isn't pure," he spat.
"They're dying out, you know," she interrupted, her voice sad and mechanic as she allowed her thoughts to wander off. Dean looked at her, surprised. "The Harpy Pox decimated quite a few suspected Death Eaters, and left others without a trace of magical power. What ravages Voldemort did to our lives-"Dean shuddered, "-the Harpy Pox and inbreeding are doing to magic."
"You mean that without us-?"
"Without Muggle-borns and half-bloods, the Wizarding community is bound to rot, along with its disgusting principles and laws."
Dean smiled bitterly.
"What a consolation."
"I'm sorry," Ginny said, apologizing for something she wasn't responsible for, but was doing nothing to prevent.
Dean was about to say something when the bell rang.
"I'll get it," Dean sighed loud enough for his roommates to hear, even though, at that point, he couldn't have said for sure if there was anyone else in the house. "Oh, and don't burn yourself with the chocolate. It's been heating for a while."
Ginny cursed under her breath, attempting to shut the microwave off as Dean exited the room, laughing. When the light of the Muggle contraption turned off, she pulled its door open, and managed to extract her mug of hot chocolate with unmarred satisfaction. There wafted from the rich liquid a sugary, comforting smell that reminded her of the hot chocolate her mum used to make. Ginny closed her eyes, humming a tune curiously similar to an old nursery rhyme she had always known, and not for the first time since she had begun living with Dean, she felt at peace.
They were swift, those moments, rapid and fleeting like the shimmer of a setting sun across a puddle of rain, but they had become common enough that Ginny had begun contemplating the possibility of remaining in London. The three peacefully elapsed weeks allowed her to believe that even all-powerful Draco Malfoy could not hunt her down in Muggle London.
I guess he isn't as invincible as he always seemed, she thought frequently, and though the thought was accompanied with relief, it never lacked a hint of regret. She would think back to their honeymoon, or Blaise and Shehzin's wedding, or that time where he had taken her for an afternoon in Venice after she had expressed her affection for carnival masks… She had allowed herself to imagine that he cared for her, even if a little bit, though through recent events she had come to realize that he had merely been doing his duty as her husband. Never one to eschew his obligations, he had gone from dedicated husband to relentless tormentor as soon as she had given him the chance, revealing, Ginny felt, the true nature of his character.
"Dean?" she called absently, lost in her thoughts.
When he didn't answer, she shrugged and made her way to the living room. She placed her mug of burning-she had checked, it was definitely burning-hot chocolate on the console, and then flopped down on the deep, cushiony armchair next to it. She closed her eyes, running her hands along the dome formed by her belly. There came a soft thump from within, and she smiled. A few minutes later it came again, shortly followed by a stronger, louder one.
"Looks like you woke up your brother," she murmured drowsily.
A faint smile crept on her lips, followed by a more profound sensation of calm and safety. And, as it sometimes happened to her, a sudden but certain thought took root in her mind. She stood up cautiously, walked up to the first floor where she shared the room with Muriel, and from a colorful hatbox that lurked below her bed she extracted the globe Dean had given her earlier that week. As soon as her skin came in contact with it, the orb's clear depths turned red, as they had when she had first touched it. Ginny sighed, but her resolve did not waver. She headed back downstairs where her hot cocoa still awaited her, sat in the sofa, and wondered how to see the memory.
It sat in her lap, the red liquid inside it swirling too languidly for it to be blood, despite its rather tell-tale color. Ginny looked at it curiously, unsure whether to shake it, then looked for an inscription that might help her. However, the sphere's surface was unmarked, giving her no indication whatsoever as to how she could access the memory. She had decided to resort to her wand and was standing up to go fetch it when a flash of light blinded her.
"That night," came a voice, "Antonin and Rabastan dismantled the wards set about the house we attacked with some difficulty. I had never been on one of these excursions before, but I could tell, by their muttered curses and the annoyance the others exhibited, that none were used to such a resistance."
The wards placed around The Burrow vanish, leaving the asymmetrical house looking all the more fragile. Rabastan Lestrange nods, then places the mask on his face. Casually, as though they have all the time in the world, the Death Eaters stroll through the garden, ducking when one of the gnarled trees' branches stoops too low, eyeing their surroundings with caution but without fear.
"We understood that the Weasleys were not wizards to be trifled with, but the Dark Lord had promised us horrors beyond belief should we fail, so that we would have been more eager to die at the hands of some red-haired matron than to go back to Him and admit we hadn't done as ordered."
It's about an hour past midnight. The night is bright and clear like the cold, so that should one of the Weasleys cast a glance outside, he would see the shifting shadows and be warned of their attackers' arrival. Unfortunately, they are too busy watching amusedly as Fred and George unwrap their last presents. George's surprised exclamation upon opening his twin's gift is not loud enough to cover the loud crack that accompanies the door's splitting open following Elbert Lang's spell.
As was planned earlier that afternoon, the Death Eaters rush into the house. They have seen the floor plans of the scraggly little house. They know their way about. One group moves directly from the kitchen to the living room, while the others move to exit the kitchen by its backdoor in an attempt to cut off retreat to the staircase.
"You'd think that living in a house protected by the Fidelius Charm and being in the process of celebrating some birthday, they wouldn't have been carrying their wands."
Except they are carrying their wands, all of them. Bill is the first one to react when he hears the door to their house being forced open; he runs toward the staircase, knowing that Fleur went to bed immediately after her brothers-in-law blew their candles. Arthur, his face broken down from the realization that only Percy can be held accountable for the Death Eaters' presence here, casts a spell at the first hooded man to enter the living room, and a second, and a third spell when the previous ones do not find their mark.
"The one who ran for the stairs didn't utter a word as we cornered him. We didn't know what he was doing, then, and when we understood, in a way we didn't understand: why hadn't he called to warn her? To tell her to get away?"
Fred throws the set of ingredients Charlie smuggled back from Romania in the face of one Death Eater, who haughtily levitates it away, only to be hit by George's spell. Ron and Charlie have instinctively moved in front of their mother, who roars that she won't let those monsters get to her little boys, shoves both her sons away and throws a vicious curse past her husband's weakening form. Bill's cry of alarm remains stuck in his throat when he finds three Death Eaters blocking his way; by now Fleur will have heard the commotion, and fled, he thinks frantically, and calling her would only draw the men's attention to her existence.
"It took the three of us to get rid of the one with the scarred face. He managed to kill Alecto in the process, but in the end he, too, had to be disposed of. `One!' came a cry from the living room, shortly followed by my call of, `Two!'."
The living room, small and cramped, has become like a jungle of flailing limbs, swishing arms, and spells. One of the lamps crashes to the floor when Molly's body falls atop the table to one of the Death Eaters' cry of "Three!". Ron sees the thread of blood at the corner of his mother's mouth and launches himself at the culprit, surprising him with a series of inconsequential spells. Fire from the lamp laps at the curtains.
"By then we had killed three. They were about to get even."
Ron grabs the Death Eater by the shoulders and slams her against the wall, breaking her neck on the spot, then shoves her into the window that shatters like ice. Haggard, he leaves the woman's body impaled on the glass shards and turns to see Fred hit by an "Avada Kedavra". Screaming like a mad man- from grief or anger, none would ever know- George takes over, defending his brother's dead body as though he were still alive.
"That's when we saw her. She stood at the top of the stairs with her wand drawn, though it's amazing she could even see us given her enormous belly. She saw the Weasley's body crumpled at the bottom of the stairs, the one with the scars, and, given the look of murderous fury she gave us, we half expected her to fly down at us and claw our eyes out."
And that is indeed almost what Fleur does, except that one of the Death Eaters' spells wraps itself around her feet and makes her trip. Without so much as a whisper she tumbles down the flight of stairs, landing atop her husband with a lifeless but serene face, her neck and left leg tilted at an odd angle.
"I called, `Five!' just as I saw Antonin fall across the doorstep, but I was more preoccupied by the girl's death than by anything else. We hurried upstairs to find the last brother."
A nasty, feminine voice sends a "Sectusempra" in George's way. He slides slowly, almost unbelievingly, to the ground, resting across his father's body. The woman charms a knife from the kitchen and, with the slightly hysteric cackle that is Bellatrix and Bellatrix' alone, slits George's throat. "Six!" she calls triumphantly. Ron and Charlie, backed into different corners of the living room, are too busy defending their lives to notice that they are the last ones standing. On his left, Charlie feels the warmth of a rapidly growing fire. The Death Eater facing him senses his alarm, laughs, then shouts, "Petrolio!"(1). Charlie barely has time to register what awaits him; already he is ablaze and burning fast, though he manages to run the dagger his two-months girlfriend gave him through the Death Eater's retreating back as he shouts, "Seven!".
"It took four of us to take the last one down. They said he had been Harry Potter's best friend, and I had no difficulty believing it when I saw the damage he did."
Ron knows he has but a few minutes to live now that the spell hit him. He thinks that he was a fool to listen to Hermione's explaining anoxia's effects, because he now knows what to expect, and yet he feels oddly calm. Around him his family has succumbed, and for them as well he feels calm. He'd fallen on his knees and he now falls flat on the floor, sensation of his limbs progressively abandoning him. Fire engulfs his field of vision and he understands why the remaining Death Eaters were so prompt to leave. He thinks sadly about Percy, not even registering the fact that he betrayed them, and Ginny, about how distraught they will be. He can only hope she won't do anything silly, like she always does when people hurt the ones she love. And then he thinks about Hermione, and everything goes black.
"Needless to say, the Dark Lord was not happy when he learned that we had killed everyone before extracting information from them. We hadn't counted on Percival Weasley's not being present, though this became obvious when we learned that he had been their Secret Keeper. Our Lord was also delighted to hear of the girl's death. `Serves the little fool right,' he said, though we could never understand what made her, rather than the others, a little fool. In the end, I'm afraid that we were all fools, mere puppets, to Lord Voldemort-`as flies to wanton boys,' once said some Muggle poet. And flies aren't particularly well known for their out-of-the-ordinary life expectancy."
Ginny emerged from the memory feeling like it had been part of her all along. Something in the way her family had fought was so uniquely Weasley that she was unable to feel anything but appeased by the way they all found death that night. A shiver coursed through her at the thought of what they would have had to endure had the Death Eaters succeeded in capturing one or two of her brothers alive. She shuddered again as she recalled the half-open presents and almost entirely disappeared birthday cake on the living room's coffee table, if she remembered correctly, and she was certain she did as there was no way she would ever forget anything that happened that night, she had Flooed to her home less than an hour before it was attacked, on the stroke of midnight.
Her brothers had been delighted to learn that she was doing well for herself, and she could barely hide her relief upon seeing them all together, safe, and happy despite the dark times, celebrating the twins' birthday as though there wasn't a war raging on about them. They had kept the call brief so as to save some Floo powder, but the hint of tears in Molly's eyes had assured Ginny that it was enough; for a few minutes, the family had felt complete.
It was probably one of the moments we all felt safer and happier than we had in weeks, and then reality caught up with us, Ginny thought sadly, wiping the tears that dribbled naturally down her cheeks. She wasn't blind enough, however, to feel, as she had upon learning of The Burrow' destruction, as though her life were about to end, smothered in the flicker of an instant that it took for her entire family to be slaughtered. Her two boys made their presence too obvious, too often, for her to think of anything but them-of what life would be, watching them grow up, watching them learn, become adventurous toddlers, curious children, ill-tempered teens, and, finally, mature and kind men. In Ginny's mind they were- much like Harry Arthur- the proof that her loved ones lived on.
So Ginny dried her tears attentively, downed her now warm chocolate in a few gulps, and made for her room. She needed to send Hermione a letter to tell her what had happened, and reassure her. Moreover, she was extremely curious to see if the stamp and mailbox would be sufficient for Hermione to obtain it, for she couldn't bring herself to believe Dean that it was all it took for a letter to find its intended recipient.
"Dean?" she called, wondering where the young man had disappeared while she viewed the memory sphere (2).
Distantly, she recalled that the bell had rung as she was trying to use the microwave, so she went to check if perhaps he was still with the visitor. She was startled, upon entering the kitchen, to find that the temperature had considerably diminished, though the windows weren't open. She progressed to the corridor leading to the entryway, and though it was dark, she could tell, from the rays of auburn light cast here and there, that the door was slightly ajar. Through the opening filtered a sharp, bitterly cold breeze, and Ginny moved to close the door when she saw what kept it from opening completely: curled up between the wall and the door, apparently unconscious, was Dean.
"Holy shit," she hissed, unknowingly employing one of Muriel's preferred expressions.
She hurried to his side and bit back another curse when she managed to get a good look at him. His eyes were closed by large, red bruises; his swollen lips remained half-open to reveal bloodied teeth; the entire skin of his face, and- she supposed- the rest of his body, was of this dark, ugly purple that appears after blows were delivered. Ginny ran her hands along his body, her eyes closed, remembering with ease what she had been taught back at Durmstrang. She probed his body for broken bones, and was relieved to find none.
Then, utterly unconscious of her situation as she failed to wonder why Dean was in such a lamentable state, Ginny started alleviating the pain his body irradiated by draining it out of him. A few instants later, she felt him stir. She carried on, breathing more freely as his moments began to become more coordinated and she saw his puffy eyes try to open.
"Ginny?" he asked, softly, her name distorted by his deformed lips.
"Shhhh," she whispered. "Stay calm, I'll-"
"No," Dean said, grabbing her arms as he tried to sit up. "Go,"-he coughed, and droplets of blood trickled down his chin-"go."
"But-"
"Go. He's after you," he managed to croak, and fear pooled into Ginny's stomach as she began to realize what was happening. "Go," he repeated, and pushed her feebly away.
Only then did Ginny realize that she was in about as much danger as Dean himself, if not more. She stood up as lithely as her bulk allowed her, listening avidly for a noise that would betray the intruder's presence. When none came, walking as quickly as she could while remaining silent, Ginny crossed the kitchen and the living room. The penumbra established by dusk filled the house with prune and copper shadows, and the young woman could only hope that they would dissimulate her as efficiently as they appeared to be concealing the intruder.
On the first floor, she found her room bathed in darkness, but she knew it by heart. Hurriedly, she reached for the drawers where she kept money, clothes, and the "Guide to Muggle London" she had purchased, shrunk to fit in a baby's fist. She shoved the penny-sized container in her pocket.
"It figures that you would favor blonde rather than the vulgar Weasley red, but brown? I always knew you were a commoner."
Ginny didn't even turn to see who had spoken, nor where he was: she ran for the door. It slammed shut right before she could reach it, and she heard the faint click of a lock, even though she was certain there was no such thing on this door. She whirled around, facing the corner from which had risen the frigidly grave voice of her husband.
"Did Thomas buy you these clothes, or can only your pitiful taste be blamed for the acquisition of that Muggle dress?" he drawled on, and a shiver of anxiety slid down her spine. Draco Malfoy never lowered himself to proffer banalities, and she did not understand the almost gleeful and definitely deceptive incongruity of his words.
"What did you do to him?" she murmured.
Outside, the street's lampposts suddenly turned on, and a ray of white light shot through the bedroom, revealing Draco's figure seated in a chair. Of his face, only the bottom was illuminated, and his lips twisted into a satisfied, predatory grin.
"Nothing that he didn't deserve."
"How dare you-" she snapped, forgetting yet again where she was and who she was speaking to as a spark of Gryffindor audacity surged through her.
Draco raised his hand slightly, in warning.
"Nothing you are not responsible for," he added, the smile gone from his mouth, grim lines etched into his face.
Ginny glanced about her cautiously, mentally cursing herself for not wearing her wand with her at all times; she couldn't remember where she had left it.
"Looking for this?" Draco asked, pulling her wand from the folds of his robes. "I think I will be keeping it for a while. I can't imagine that you would mind, though, seeing how eager you are to live as a Muggle," he spat. "Now, sit down."
Not feeling mutinous in the very least, but too overwhelmed by Draco's presence and the consequences she was likely to face, Ginny didn't obey.
"Ginevra," he said, softly, as though he were speaking to a child, "I said sit down."
So she did, chilled to the bone by fear, the regret and tenderness she had interlaced with memories of him washed away in an instant. The bed sagged slightly under her weight.
"Now, now, you won't be comfortable there, at the edge of the bed. Come closer," he ordered kindly.
Ginny inched toward Draco, and, with his hand, he motioned very delicately for her to come closer, and closer, and closer, until she sat directly in front of him, feeling like she was going to fall over from sheer terror. With the lamppost's light streaming through the window and right into her face, she couldn't see him very well, and squinted a little bit. In an instant, he had gotten up and grabbed her by the chin, bringing her face barely a centimeter away from his as he loomed above her.
Only then could she see his eyes, and regretted her temporary blindness. They were burning with an anger so ravaging that his irises were of a pale, platinum gray, nearing the white of metal when it has been heated in the forge. Ginny tried to pull her head back but he held her firmly in place.
"If you ever run from me again, you deceitful, conniving little witch, I will have you watch as I smash Harry Arthur into a wall before his mother's eyes, then kindly ask Crabbe and Goyle to have their way with the Mudblood before killing her as well," Draco enunciated. "Then I will have Longbottom skinned alive, Lovegood raped and eviscerated, and Thomas… Thomas…" Draco smiled slowly, creepily. "Well, I don't know yet," he admitted candidly, "but revenge is a dish best served cold, don't you think?"
Ginny nearly fainted with the understanding of what her friends risked because of her, though if she had been able to exert any objectivity at this point, she might have admitted to fearing for her own existence as well. The fact that Draco hadn't mentioned what he would do to her did nothing to assuage her alarm. And though the sight of them filled her with apprehension, Ginny couldn't bring herself to tear her eyes from Draco's, bright like silver from seething anger; his fingers, locked firmly around her chin, further prevented her from gazing away. She swallowed nervously.
Lost in the contemplation of Ginny's frightened eyes, Draco inadvertently relaxed. There was no explaining the relief he felt finding her here, safe, unchanged down to the last freckle on her cheeks, other than by comparing it to the satisfaction he had experienced as he beat Dean Thomas to a pulp; it was blissful. In a gesture that would have been almost tender had the context been different, Draco ran his thumb across Ginny's lower lip, marveling at how plump it was under his skin, at how much he had missed capturing her yielding lips in his, at how much he wanted to do it now. He felt her lip tremble. He had the grace to realize it was from sheer fright rather than desire. He got a hold of himself.
"You are going to come home with me," he said softly. At that point "a freezing cell with no light, food once a week, and water every two days" sounded more alluring than "home", but Ginny tactfully refrained from either commenting or reacting. "You are going to act as you did before all of this happened, as the woman Draco Malfoy married should behave. You will bare my sons. You will raise them. And every day that comes you will pray that I forget who you are, what you did, and where your friends live."
There was nothing that Ginny could have said, nor anything that she wanted to say, at that point. She knew she was tied to this man by chains stronger than those that bind a slave to his master.
"Am I understood?" he asked, loosening his grip on her face so as to allow her some movement.
Slowly she nodded, looking away. Slipping a finger under her chin again to make her face him, Draco looked straight into her eyes.
"Yes?" he asked.
"Yes," Ginny croaked, voice painfully finding its way out of her throat.
"Impeccable," he said coldly, and rose.
He offered her a hand to help her stand, and she did not have the impudence to refuse it. He enfolded her in her arms- purely for the sake of Apparating them both safely to Malfoy Manor, of course- when a thought struck Ginny. And, despite her instinct of preservation, she was imprudent enough to give it due attention.
"What about Dean?" she asked in a voice she wished didn't sound so squeaky.
She felt Draco's arms tense around her and would have kicked herself, but she had been around Harry, Hermione, and Ron long enough to know that when Gryffindor bravery kicked in there was no ignoring it.
"Who?" Draco demanded, eyeing her intently, a significative and rather ferocious grin on his lips.
Ginny swallowed, hoped that Dean would forgive her, and buried her head in Draco's shoulder to avoid his glare. He smirked, feeling at peace with himself despite what he had inflicted to all those remotely close to Ginevra: he had the well-founded certitude that there was nowhere she would go now to escape him. With the soothing knowledge that she was his and his alone, he Apparated the two of them away.
(1) This comes from my knowledge of French (though I'm sure it is probably derived from Latin, or maybe Greek, what with "petr" meaning stone and "olio" meaning oil). "Petrole" is pretty much oil (the kind we use to burn, not to cook).
(2) Memory spheres are part of the game of Final Fantasy X, I believe. I decided that a Death Eater on the run wouldn't bother with a Pensieve, but that a memory sphere seemed like a fairly decent way to make a confession.
A/N: I'm not sure that in such a situation credit should be given, because I never know to which extent influences should be noted. I wrote the scene between Draco and Ginny willing to create an atmosphere similar to the one in Gladiator, when Commodus ensures that Lucilla will obey him by menacing her son. There was a way the darkness played around his face, a coldness and cruelty that also contained a hint of desperation, of need, that chilled me. I hope that I have done it justice.
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