Unofficial Portkey Archive

Blue-Eyed Angel

Chapter Twenty-eight

Draco could hear them coming, but it was more than just footsteps, the hostility was almost an audible thing. The hall's door swung open as a result of that aggression and fury and banged against the wall loudly. Draco remained in his seat at the desk -though he did reach for his cane should he need to stand- as he watched Réamann stalk in with Sebastian close behind.

"You son-of-a-bitch," Réamann shouted but Sebastian grabbed his shoulder to stop Réamann from pulling back his balled fist any further. It looked like he was going to hit Draco, and though Sebastian didn't care about Draco's wellbeing, he needed Draco able to talk. Draco managed not to flinch, too badly.

"I'll handle this," Sebastian said smoothly, looking annoyed himself but the look he gave Draco was of pure amusement once Réamann was at his back.

"My-my, to what do I owe the pleasure?" Draco asked calmly as Coderdale drifted into view from the shelves like the white fluff of a dandelion seed he resembled.

"Everything alright?" he asked, looking tentative.

"It's fine, Coderdale, just go back to work," Draco assured with a kind smile over his shoulder at the old man before Réamann ripped his attention back.

"It's bloody hell not fine, Malfoy," he barked, Coderdale able to deduce from that that this was something to do with the Ginny situation and did return to his shelving.

"I can think of any number of things that you could be mad at me for at the moment, Rossiter, so I will now ignore you and look to Aurum here for explanation," Draco drawled, looking at Sebastian coolly.

"Nice shiners," Sebastian said firstly.

"Well, I have this thing for symmetry," Draco shrugged, waiting for Sebastian to explain the situation while Réamann practically foamed at the mouth in anger from over the man's shoulder.

"Réamann here came to me, claiming you broke into his office and stole a file."

"Is that so," Draco said lightly, looking over Sebastian's shoulder to smirk at Réamann.

"Don't try to deny it, you little shit. You took my keys, and the file that I had on you. It was in my office and it's now missing."

"It sounds to me like you are just disorganized and forgetful, losing shit, and now you are looking to blame it on me," he drawled.

"You showed up outside my office and my keys mysteriously disappeared sometime between then and me reaching into my pocket at the lifts. You bumped into me-"

"I recall you shoving me, actually," Draco corrected mockingly.

"And between the time I left my locked office and got back, you were gone, as was a file about you."

"That's motive and opportunity, isn't it," Draco drawled.

"And the witch across the hall says she saw you leave my office."

"Well, that certainly narrows it down," Draco said with an understanding shrug though still utterly unconcerned. Réamann looked ready to clobber Draco and Sebastian shifted a little to be more directly between them.

"Enough of this," Sebastian cut in, pulling out a little bottle barely as long or thick as his pinky. Draco looked at it, and Réamann moved around the man some to see what he had in his hands. There was now a desk between Draco and Réamann, and that was probably for the best.

"Drink this, Malfoy," Sebastian ordered.

"I have a low tolerance, really," he said eyeing the bottle with unease, not wanting to ingest whatever it was it contained. "I'm a total light-weight, I couldn't," he said, holding up his long thin hand.

"Enough with the wisecracks already, Malfoy, this is Veritaserum. It will tell us if you are guilty, or not."

"You mean innocent or not?"

"Just take it," Réamann barked, Draco glared at him, snatching the little bottle from Sebastian's outstretched hand. Draco looked at the man and Sebastian gave him a smirk and Draco knew this was a ruse. It wasn't really Veritaserum, Sebastian was top of his department but even he didn't have the kind of clearance to just tote around a vile of highly restricted and controlled potion in his front breast pocket, but Réamann didn't know that, and so he took a little sip, a drop really all that would be needed if the potion were true.

Draco handed the bottle back to Sebastian who corked it and pocketed it as Réamann breathed deeply as though to calm himself, seemingly pleased to finally get some real and straightforward answers from Draco.

"What is your name?" Sebastian asked, starting it off with the standard questions to make sure the concoction was working and effective and they had the right person to interrogate.

"Draconis Angelus Malfoy," he sighed. Sebastian smiled.

"Nice," he said and Draco pursed his lips at him. He didn't like people making fun of his name.

"Whose idea was it to start the affair?" Réamann demanded and Sebastian sighed loudly in an aggravated way, Réamann apparently taking advantage of Draco's supposed vulnerable state.

"Ginny's," Draco answered truthfully, though not because of the potion. He felt bad that he kept apparently blaming Ginny for it, but it was all very complicated, and Réamann's question had been rather straightforward…so he figured, since Ginny proposed the act, it would be her "idea." He would apologize to her later, any way he could.

"It's not working, he's still lying," Réamann accused and Draco pinched the bridge of his nose, not about to start shouting at Réamann…just yet.

"Oh, he is not. Your girlfriend cheated on you…just come to grips with that, but some other time," Sebastian said harshly, turning to Draco then.

"Did you break into Réamann Rossiter's office?"

"No," he answered blandly.

"He didn't have to break in, he had keys," Réamann snapped. "Ask a more specific question," he demanded with a frustrated roll of his hand and Sebastian glared at him, not liking being ordered around but complying with Réamann's stipulations.

"Did you filch a file from Réamann Rossiter's office?" he asked.

"No."

"Well then," Sebastian said lightly as though that were that.

"He's lying," Réamann accused.

"Under Veritaserum?" Draco drawled.

"You took my keys-"

"I did not. More likely your dumbarse lost them," Draco deflected. He had made sure to discard the keys on his way back, Réamann sure to find them as though he himself had simply dropped them. Surely he would feel like an arse in a few hours when his keys turned up just offices away from his in the hall, near a snarling potted plant if Draco remembered correctly.

Réamann looked between Draco and Sebastian a few times.

"You said Draco was covering things up," he said to Sebastian.

"There is a great lacking of evidence…well, even before you lost the file," he replied with a shrug.

"You said he could be the one behind the attacks!"

"He has airtight alibis for most of them," he said simply, Draco looking smug.

Réamann looked over at Draco.

"What are you up to?" he demanded, knowing that just the day before Draco was a wreck over all this and Sebastian was positive of Draco's involvement. Things were drastically different now and both men seemed far too self-satisfied.

Draco just gave him a smile that was not very friendly but extremely conceited. "Up to? My dear Rossiter, I am up to nothing," he said lightly.

"Except your girlfriend maybe," Sebastian interjected and Draco fought not to smile at Réamann's obvious hurt. He gave Sebastian a look of 'that was not necessary' which Réamann -of course- missed.

Réamann looked between the two and backed up.

"You two, you are both in on this…trying to pin it on each other at first, but now…now working together," he said, not making it a question. Draco wanted to gape at him, Réamann never before have showed he could be this perceptive, but keeping a very cool mask in place that made denying Réamann's accusation easy. Sebastian covered his surprise with what looked like amusement.

"I would never work with Malfoy," he scoffed, making Draco's name sound like a dirty thing.

"Likewise, when it comes to my feelings of working with Aurum," Draco drawled.

Réamann looked at them, knowing now he could not trust either of them. Sebastian had told him one thing, Draco another, and now they were seemingly teamed up. Something within him nagged at him, asking him if he had somehow caused this. Had he pushed Draco away so now he was sided with Sebastian? Réamann felt sick to his stomach. He didn't know who to trust, or what to believe, and he still had no idea what was going on with the case.

"Rossiter, I think we need to talk," Draco sighed, standing with much support from his cane, his chair pushed back as he rose slowly.

"No way, fuck you, Malfoy," Réamann growled.

"Should I leave you two to squabble then? I do have a job to do, and this case is rather pressing…oh, and being in your presence is revolting," Sebastian said, already making his way towards the door.

"Get out, you dingbat," Draco growled, playing along but not joking when he threw the insult towards the man. They might have been conspiring together, but they still hated each other's guts, a little gold and blackmail between them would not change that.

Sebastian made a rude hand gesture at Draco as he turned around and walked backwards for a few steps. He disappeared out the door to leave Draco and Réamann alone, facing each other from different sides of the desks, neither looking all that pleasant of mood.

"Fuck you, Malfoy. I am not going to talk with you-"

"Then why don't you try listening…for once?" Draco snapped, looking right at the other man.

Réamann seemed to growl a little. "How could you do this to me?"

"You are making this all out to be like some kind of personal attack on you, but believe me when I say…"

"No," Réamann snapped.

"Why not?" Draco demanded, annoyed.

"I can't trust a word that comes out of you."

"Not even with a truth serum in me?"

Réamann glared.

"Listen, I didn't intend on hurting you, and that was the last thing Ginny wanted," he said, having to continue to play it off like he was under the influence of Veritaserum. He would have to be completely honest, if not blunt, and though he would have been honest with the man in their discussion about Ginny without the little show Sebastian and him had just put on, but Draco would now have to answer any direct question Réamann posed him, no matter how personal, to maintain the ruse. Draco hated Sebastian for that. The bastard was enjoying this predicament he had just put him in.

"How could you two do this and think it wouldn't hurt?" Réamann shouted.

"We knew it would hurt, that's why we had -just before that picture was taken- decided to end things…so she could work things through with you and end it amicably so you two could still be chummy. We planned on dating properly, in a few months-"

"You told me as much already."

"And you didn't believe me," he grumbled.

"I don't understand you, Malfoy."

"Few do," he said quietly.

"Your honor code, your sense of loyalty, it's so confusing-"

"But it makes sense to me, which is all that truly matters."

"Explain it to me," Réamann demanded. Draco pressed his lips together, not wanting to answer, but compelled to by the web of lies he was trying to maintain. How ironic. His lies were forcing him to be utterly honest.

"I don't like lying, and cheating," he said, sitting back down with a flop and a sigh. He didn't want to say this, but Réamann deserved to know after what he had done to him he supposed, and it was for Ginny.

"Then how could you do this?"

"I keep asking myself that, and others that knew about it kept asking me that, and I just didn't have an answer," he admitted. "I hated it, it made me feel terrible, but I couldn't bring myself to end it, or turn down the idea in the first place, because I really do like Ginny."

"You care about Ginny?" Réamann asked.

"Yes," Draco confessed.

"She cares about you?" he asked, knowing Draco, a mind reader, would be able to answer that question honestly, knowing Draco would have looked into Ginny's feelings and thoughts to discover her true feelings towards him. What person wouldn't with that ability?

"Yes," Draco said after a long pause, feeling terrible to be the one to tell Réamann that.

Réamann took a deep breath, ran his hands through his hair to smooth it, turned in place, let his breath out, and repeated. Draco let Réamann work all that knowledge through, wrapping his mind around it, giving him time to settle. Réamann eventually did settle, settled on Draco's desk to sit there.

"You were right," he sighed, Draco blinking, waiting to give Réamann the chance to explain himself rather than just invading his thoughts. Réamann was emotionally upset and Draco knew better than to tap such a mind. The feelings of confusion and distress always bled over, to some degree or another.

"What do you mean?" he asked softly.

"Yesterday, you said I knew Ginny was cheating. You were right, I did," he confessed, his arms falling so that his elbows were resting on his knees, arms dangling between his legs in a hunched and defeated posture. "I knew she was not happy, and I wasn't happy either. I don't want to blame her family, because they were not the cause of it, they just compounded the problem already forming and made me…us, feel so…"

"Trapped?" Draco offered and Réamann looked up at him.

"Ginny talk to you about this?" he asked. Draco nodded.

"She explained to me how she felt trapped by her family and their pressures to wed you, talking in length about how she had felt the same in regards to Potter, and how miserably that had ended."

Réamann nodded. "She told me about all that happened between her and Harry. There is no, or very little, bad blood between them, but this is years later. It was quite messy in the beginning and ugly for years. You would think, knowing about all that, that I wouldn't have been caught up in the same mess, that I would have seen it happening and prevented it," Réamann sighed.

"Love makes fools of us all."

"I just, I knew we were not working, but I couldn't just end it because she hadn't done anything wrong. She had been perfect. I couldn't dump my girlfriend of three years, the woman I was living with, just because everything was too perfect and her family actually liked me," he sighed, running his frustrated hands though his hair again.

"Dear God," Draco muttered, tipping his head backwards to look up at the dark ceiling.

"What?"

"That is exactly what Ginny said to me about you. She said she couldn't dump you because you 'did nothing wrong' and she couldn't be upset that her family actually liked you. She was just intimidated by everything being too perfect."

"She said that?"

"Honestly, you two were on the same damn page but totally oblivious to it? You lived with this woman and didn't realize she was miserable?"

"Miserable? I think that is rather harsh, Malfoy. She was not miserable, just not happy-"

"Oh, she was miserable, Rossiter, and you were too, so cut the horseshit. I told Ginny that she needed to just talk to you about this, about how she felt, how I knew you felt, and things wouldn't have been the mess they are now," he said.

"You blaming this all on her? Malfoy, you were the one that agreed to-"

"I know, I know. I'm blaming all three of us. I'm not exempt from blame, I'm willing to own up to what I did, but you have to agree you let this happen," he said and Réamann blinked at him before letting his face fall into his hands again.

"Oh-God," he sighed. Draco, for some strange reason, wanted to be sympathetic. "I did let it happen, didn't I? Everything is such a mess and refused to notice, I refused to accept that Ginny and I were not meant to be...why?" he asked.

Draco knew a rhetorical question when he heard one, but he had an answer for this one, because it was a question he had asked himself time and time again. Something in his chest ached while saying it, but he knew his hard-earned wisdom would be of some comfort to Réamann now when it was no comfort at all to himself.

"Because you were hoping you were wrong. And every time something happened that told you it was all past its best, you ignored it. And every time something fell through and surprised you in a good way, you were won over, and you lost that argument with yourself that she's not for you," he said, looking down.

Réamann looked surprised and Draco could feel his eyes on him as he stared.

"I know how you feel," Draco said with a voice so hushed it was only the echo off the high ceiling and far walls that amplified it enough to be heard by Réamann. He was about to be all honest and kind to a man that was accusing him of a great deal many terrible things, the least of which was being a part of an affair. "My wife, before she died, cheated on me…a lot," he confessed, not looking at Réamann as he said this. "I was stuck in Azkaban, and she was off, seeing chaps, hooking up with random men, leaving our children with my mother so as to go off and do her own thing, sometimes being gone for a week at a time," he said.

"Re-really?" he asked, looking at Draco with a frowned brow.

"Veritaserum," Draco said irritably. Réamann nodded, withdrawing slightly.

"There were even doubts during Clarissa's pregnancy that the baby was mine," he confessed and Réamann stared, it obvious now that Draco was the father, but stunned that there had been a possibility that she could have been someone else's. "Thing is," he continued with a deep breath to sooth himself, "I knew she was doing it…just like you knew Ginny was being unfaithful…but I had more than just a feeling. My mother would tell me, I saw the signs that she had been with men on her body, and I know now, so many, many years later, that I knew all along because of my developing Legilimency but I refused to acknowledge it at the time, when it really mattered," he said, waiting for Réamann's reaction now that Réamann could see that they had both done much the same thing at one point. He had been twenty-two, Réamann was twenty-four. Maybe it had something to do with the age and first-time serious relationships. "She never really tried to hide it, like she wanted me to just throw her out and relieve her of her responsibility."

"Jesus," he breathed, closing his eyes and shaking his head. "And you still went along with this, after what your wife had done?"

Draco looked away. Now it wasn't just a generalized "icky" feeling he was feeling, it was guilt, and it was nasty.

"I don't understand that," Réamann said, sounding a little angry again.

"How much do you love Ginny?" Draco asked, still looking across the room.

"A lot," Réamann answered without question.

"No, you care for her, worry about her, wish for her the best, but how much do you love her?" he asked.

"I don't know," Réamann admitted then, not liking his own answer.

"I love Ginny," Draco said.

"How can you say that? You two have been fooling around since Christmas!" he fumed. "That's, like, less than two weeks!"

Draco just shrugged, unable to put to words how he felt. He just did.

"How does Ginny make you feel?" Réamann asked, still expecting Draco to only be able to answer truthfully.

Draco didn't consider his words then, he just spoke them.

"Safe," he said simply, then added on more. "Warm, accepted, special, loved," he said, realizing then he loved feeling loved, and that left him open to love right back. Ginny made him feel normal, included, he felt welcomed, accepted, and that was a very big deal to him.

Réamann didn't seem to know what to say to Draco's admission. He stood from the desk and paced for a moment.

"You love her?" he asked one more time. Draco just nodded. "You can have her," Réamann said, sounding bitter again.

"Réamann, don't get angry, come on, talk, but don't…"

"Shut it," he snapped. "I don't understand you, and you were right…again, I don't trust you. I don't trust you because I can't understand you. You say one thing and do another, you act one way but then apparently think differently. You say you hate things yet you do them? That doesn't make sense to me, and only leaves me to doubt all you have ever told me. You say you hated the Dark Lord, yet you served him. You say you have changed, but you lie all the time! How am I to believe you are still not holding to those ideals, how do I know you are not attacking the Muggles?"

"Because I couldn't have," Draco fumed.

"Then you are covering for someone."

"Réamann, honestly, if you are not going to believe me innocent, why act so surprised that I seem so underhanded? You practically bribed me to help you in the first place. Don't act so wounded if I bloody-well live up to your expectations," Draco growled, frustrated that Réamann was acting like he never trusted him and yet was still upset that Draco seemingly ended up as devious as he suspected him to be.

"No," he snapped. "You can have the tart," he said, meaning Ginny, "You can hold on to your little secrets. Like you said to me, as difficult as it is to uncover a secret, it's even harder to keep. You are an accomplished liar, I know that, I can see that, but you will make a mistake, and I will be there, to make sure that mistake brings you down," he growled, turning to walk out of the hall.

"Réamann," Draco called after him, Réamann not stopping. "Don't yell at Ginny about this, don't talk to her angry. You will only hurt her, and you will feel bad about that later," he warned.

"You just don't want me to tell her about how you figure into this case," Réamann accused now that he was at the door where he looked back.

"I would prefer if you didn't," Draco admitted.

"At least that is an honest answer, not something I have come to expect from you. But then again, I guess it's hard to be so manipulative when you can't lie," Réamann said harshly, leaving Draco to stand there. Draco fumed, furious that, one time in his life he was totally honest at great personal cost and he came across as more of a liar than ever, only because Réamann believed the potion was all that had enticed the truth out of him.

Draco held his breath, hands clenched into fists so tight his nails bit into his right palm and his cane bruised the palm of his left. His eyes narrowed involuntarily for a second and the lamp on his desk exploded, sending him into dimness.

-------------------

Shelving texts was usually something Draco could do to relax and almost enjoyed. It was tranquil, and forced him to focus on alphabetizing and numerical order, distracting him from whatever might be bothering him on any given day, but today, no matter how many times he read the spine of the volume in his hands, not a word, number, or serial stuck. Draco cursed and threw the text on the shelf anywhere, not caring at the moment, angry and frustrated and his shoulder hurting too much for him to remain perched halfway up the ladder for much longer.

Draco crept down slowly, fearing he would fall even though he knew there were charms in place to prevent that. He was just feeling so sore and weak it was difficult not to slip or have a knee give out awkwardly and unexpectedly.

Feet firmly on the ground again, leaning on his cane generously, Draco turned when he thought he heard something move. He looked around through his glasses, but saw nothing in the torchlight. He was about to sniff the air (since no one was looking) but another sound from his back caused him to turn again and look around with fast-moving eyes.

Was he hallucinating? Sure, he hadn't eaten in a while, but he was sure that couldn't be the cause of this, he had -stupidly- gone longer without eating before without an episode like this. Maybe the beatings compounded everything. Maybe he was going crazy…because he was most certainly not crazy already.

There was that sound again, like a scraping, coiling sound. It was coming from the shelves, this he knew now, looking right at the spot where it was originating. Limping slowly, Draco made his way over to the shelf and reached up with a tentative hand. It was not that he was scared, but he was most certainly cautious. There were some books that moved, talked, screamed. But there were also books that bludgeoned and bit, and if he had just stumbled across one, he wasn't sure pulling it would be such a great idea.

The gold lettering that once identified the book had long since worn away from its spine. All that was left to categorize it was a white sticker with a number on it for shelving purposes. Draco grabbed the heavy text and pulled it slowly, sliding it on the wooden shelf as he eyed it wearily, waiting for it to attack. It was almost clear of the shelf with not so much as a scream, so Draco relaxed, but that only left him open to gasp as a snake fell from the shelf after he lifted the book away.

"Jesus," he hissed, dropping the book with a loud slapping thud and taking a step back. After the initial surprise passed Draco took a deep breath through his nose and looked up at the ceiling, clearly annoyed as he held his breath for a moment.

"Just come out, Harry," he called, the black, red, and gold snake coiling on the floor still but feet from Draco.

"Was it that obvious?" he asked, stepping around the shelves some twenty feet down where he had been hidden.

"Well, you are the only Parselmouth in London, and the red and gold coloring is quite the giveaway," he said, looking right at Harry Potter as he neared. "Are you here to hit me too?"

"By the looks of it, I would be near to the last," he said, looking at Draco bruised face.

"Yeah, well, could you make it quick?" he said, inclining his head as though offering it to Harry but doing so in an entirely mocking way. "I have work to do, unlike you it seems. What exactly do you do at the Ministry again? You just seem to drift about from department to department throughout the day. Do you even have an office, or did you misplace it and are now searching for it?" Draco drawled.

"You know, Draco, if you want me to hit you, you are certainly giving me enough reason," Harry replied calmly, folding his arms across his chest and standing comfortably relaxed as Draco glared at him from over his glasses.

"You implying there wasn't reason enough to begin with?" Draco asked, the snake slowly nearing, on its way to rejoin its master.

"Well, I figured there are more than enough Weasleys to take care of that."

"Then why are you here?"

"I want to talk," he said.

"But not listen?"

"Why are you always so defensive?" Harry snapped, glaring too now finally.

"When have you given me a reason not to be?" Draco replied just as shortly.

"I have tried to make things right and all you have done is punish me-"

"Oh," Draco said turning away with a mock look of amusement on his face as he pulled his glasses away before glaring at Harry again. "Once again this is all about you. You, you, you. I'm miserable, so clearly I must be doing it to get back at you."

"I didn't say that, stop twisting everything I say to-"

"You are here about the Ginny situation, just say what you came here to say about the matter and get out," Draco barked, lifting his cane up to stomp it down hard against the floor, striking the little snake in the head and killing it. Its body coiled around as though unaware that it was dead yet, and Harry looked down at it with a frowning brow before glaring at Draco.

Draco looked unapologetic.

"I knew there was something going on between you and Ginny."

"I'm sure you did," Draco said sardonically.

"I saw you two, that night-"

"Potter, I'm already aware that you spied a little sight of Ginny and I thirteen years ago. I'm not sure how seeing two people kiss over a decade ago constitutes a continuing relationship at the present, but I'll have you know that I did not have sex with Ginny that night, and you punishing her for that for years afterwards is what drove her away."

"Don't tell me you didn't have sex with her, Draco, I know what I saw!" Harry snapped, not liking that Draco seemed to know some rather personal details about his and Ginny's relationship. It was not his fault Ginny and he had broken up, how dare Draco imply such a thing!

"And what you saw was me kissing Ginny!"

"That was more than kissing."

"A little more than just kissing, yes, but far less than sex, Potter. Are you upset that I grabbed her young breast through her jumper, or that you never had the balls to take it that far yourself first?"

"You son-of-a-"

"Well, now that we have that cleared up: I didn't have sex with Ginny, and you're an arsehole, are we through here?"

"You are sleeping with her now!" Harry shouted.

"At this very moment?" Draco drawled, quite clearly not having sex with anyone whilst standing there in front of Harry.

"No, I mean, you and her have been having sex-"

"Ginny and I have been dating. What that constitutes as far as a sexual relationship is concerned is none of your bloody business."

"You have been dating?" Harry repeated and Draco just narrowed his eyes. "Ginny has been dating Réamann."

"Awright, so she was dating both of us for a while, but she is not dating him anymore, and she is still with me-"

"You honestly think she would date someone like you?"

"Oh, please do elucidate that a little more. 'Someone like me' implying what? That I'm a lowly Death Eater, someone that can't be trusted, a werewolf, a Prisoner out of Azkaban? Tell me, Harry darling, what exactly is it that you think of me? Am I innocent, or not? You say you have been trying to pardon me, and clear my name, but then you say things like 'someone like you' with 'you' spoken in such a derogatory way that I can't help but feel that you still don't trust me and you are full of complete horseshit."

"Draco-"

"Answer the question, Potter."

"I just don't see what she sees in you," he attempted.

"Well, it's a good thing I'm not trying to date you then, huh?"

"Draco, you realize you are ruining Ginny's life?"

"Oh, her family is a little stropped at the moment. They will get over it; this is hardly the end of civilization as we know it-"

"No, Draco. Whether you like it or not, people have a negative opinion of you, and Ginny being with you is dragging her down."

"Ginny doesn't read the papers, she doesn't care…"

"She cares, that's why she doesn't read the papers! It's easier to ignore and pretend it's not happening if you don't read it!"

"Still, it's a bit of bad press. It will pass-"

"She could lose her job!" Harry cut off and Draco blinked at him.

"What are you-"

"You are a plague, Draco. You spoil everything around you. Ginny is strong, able to take care of herself, but the Ministry doesn't cast a kind light on you, and they won't like Ginny hooking up with you."

"Since when did they become the pleasure police? How is it any of their business who dates who?"

"Ginny is a darling of the Ministry, and you are a wart on their backside as far as they're concerned. They will do anything to keep you down, this I know, and if it means taking Ginny down too, they will do it," he said and Draco swallowed.

"What is it they have against me?" he shouted. "I am not the only Death Eater out of Azkaban, yet I am, by far, treated the worst!"

"I know," Harry sighed.

"What is their deal?"

"You already know."

Draco's hand clenched around his cane, knowing exactly what Harry meant.

"They can't prove a thing!"

"They know your intentions."

"Thanks to you!"

"I said nothing!"

"Then who else could have told them!"

"Draco, you trying to overthrow the Dark Lord and take his place might have been…momentary insanity on your part-"

"Don't pretend to stand here and act as though you don't still believe me insane, Potter," Draco warned but Harry talked on.

"But the Ministry knows of your intentions, even if they were simply fleeting, and they refuse to trust you."

"Then why let me out of Azkaban at all?" he demanded.

"Because I made it so."

"So I'm to thank you for that?"

"If you must."

"Fuck you, Potter."

"None of this will end well. Ginny deserves a better future than the one you could provide."

"I am more than capable-"

"You will never be free of the Ministry, and you will never be all that you wanted to be those years ago. You have to accept that, and you have to accept that you can't have what you want, not even Ginny."

"This is not some grandiose endeavor, Potter, I'm not out to make a name for myself, or rule the world…I'm only looking for a little stability in my life, a little happiness!"

"I don't see those things in your future," Harry said, though sounding rather apologetic and sad.

"And what of my children?"

"You don't have any children," Harry said patiently.

"Someday I might," Draco mumbled, looking to the side. It seemed silly, since they were about to make a grand debut soon enough, to not tell Harry right then that he actually did have children and use them to point out that none of this is fair to them, and what kind of message would he be conveying to them if he folded his hand and accept misery and refuse to even attempt a pursuit of happiness. But he hated the idea of Harry knowing so much about him. Harry was there to tell him how to live his life, he was not about to welcome in and let him see what his life really was. Never again. "I hear you are about to be a pa-pa, congrats…now you have someone else's life to ruin, maybe you will ease back on me," Draco scathed and Harry narrowed his eyes at him but did not rise to the bait. He had a point to drive home.

"Draco, I'll admit, you are in an unfair situation," he said and Draco humphed. "But why drag Ginny into it with you? If you must suffer, why share that suffering with someone you claim to care about?" he asked and Draco looked at him, unable to glare because of the guilt he was feeling suddenly.

"What would you have me do?" he asked softly, his anger still readable, but his eyes giving away his uncertainty.

"Do the right thing…don't ruin Ginny's life," Harry said, his own eyebrows frowning, him feeling more guilt than Draco would even realize.

-------------------

"After a long day of shit at the Ministry, it's nice to come out here and take out my frustrations on these lowly and pathetic people," Sebastian said, smiling gleefully as he looked around at the Muggles that surrounded and passed them, oblivious that they were in the presence of a serial killer and a manic werewolf.

"I do understand the draw of picking on those smaller than you," Draco replied dryly, having been a bully while in school, and having had a bad day himself, "though I do tend to refrain nowadays, since those smaller than me are generally but children, and their mothers swat me with their purses when I bully their tots," Draco said sardonically, arms crossed as he leaned against a light pole. They were in Manchester, and it was late afternoon. Draco would have liked to be home right now, but he was with Sebastian. A wonderful way to finish an otherwise horrid day.

"You know, you are kinda funny," Sebastian said with a smile, still surveying the people as they passed.

"I have my moments."

"Well, I suppose you would like to know what's going on?" he offered, not skilled in Legilimency like Draco but able to pick up quite easily how irritated Draco was, regardless. Draco said nothing, just leaned, and Sebastian explained, filling Draco in without prompting.

"Goblins are notorious for hording gold and other valuables," he said.

"Thus the reason behind why they have gone to war so many times amongst themselves and why they run Gringott. Tell me something I don't know," Draco drawled.

"There was a thirteenth century Goblin Lord with a sizable fortune who was so paranoid that his treasure would be pilfered that he hid it away, successfully concealing it so well that even he forgot where it was."

"And I assume that is the gold you are looking for?" Draco said smoothly, Sebastian looking over at him.

"Right."

"If the Goblin Lord that hid it forgot where it was, how do you intend on finding it, so many centuries later? If his objective was to keep others from finding it, I'm sure he didn't leave much along the lines of documentation of his intentions," Draco asked, voice bland and indifferent.

"Nifflers."

"You're kidding me," Draco said sounding unimpressed.

"I'm quite serious. I have, over the past few years, narrowed down the area where the treasure must be located."

"Where do you think it is?"

"Wiltshire."

Draco looked surprised. "Wiltshire?" he repeated.

"Yes. And with the help of Nifflers I have been searching."

"But Nifflers are attracted to anything shiny. You are as likely to find buried bottle caps in an old forgotten waste dump as likely to find a buried mountain of gold," Draco said, recovering nicely. "How do you know it is even buried loose? It could be in big dull trunks, or a cave where the Nifflers can't dig and thus get to if," Draco said.

"Don't you think I have thought of as much?" Sebastian snapped, the conversation about Goblin Gold and Nifflers seemingly out of place on the Muggle sidewalk. "I am using more than just the Nifflers. Though they are highly trained by Goblins to find treasure, they are still just dumb little beasts. I have been using spells, and locating charms."

"This is why it is taking you longer than you anticipated," Draco said, coming to that conclusion with a mean smile and narrowed eyes.

"You have a better idea? I would have a listen. As it is I have no idea what use you will be, you can't do magic, and by the look of you, you won't be much use in digging," Sebastian snapped.

"Well, it just so happens that I do know a lot about the Wiltshire region and I could quite possibly narrow down your search area by a considerable amount if you were to share with me your details, and ask really nicely," he teased. "Nifflers and your charms could help from there," he said with a satisfied smile. And no one at Hogwarts felt History of Magic was a class that had any practical uses. He loved History, and it was likely about to make him a very rich man.

"And you are some kind of authority on the area?" Sebastian fumed.

"Well, it just so happens that I am," Draco said smugly, his silver eyes glinting while surrounded by such dark bruising. "My family home was, well is, in Wiltshire, and the area is a prevalently magically place."

Sebastian looked at him for a long moment before turning away. Draco knew he was thinking it through, weighing the possibilities, taking their timeframe into account, wondering how much gold he would have to give to Draco for his efforts.

Draco just stood there, body bruised and throbbing, but more than that, he was shaking and he couldn't stop. He was thinking, maybe he should have had a little something to eat that morning as his legs gave out under him and he ended up sitting on the ground. Sebastian, oblivious, or at the very lest unsympathetic, towards Draco's stiffness and quivering thus far, turned upon seeing Draco in his peripheral vision go down.

"Hey, what's the matter with you?" he demanded, looking down at Draco as he sat there, looking a little embarrassed.

"I'm not feeling well," he said simply.

"So you decided to plop yourself down in the middle of the sidewalk?"

"I had no deciding choice in the matter," he said bashfully, shaking, though that was partially due to the cold.

"You just going to sit there, in the middle of the sidewalk then?"

"I'm not sure I could get up, even if I wanted to," Draco confessed. Now sitting, he was positive his legs wouldn't support his weight, as minor as it had recently become. He knew this was all because he hadn't eaten, and he was feeling like a real arse about it.

"Should I, well, do something?" Sebastian asked, not sure what to do but sure Draco couldn't just sit there on the sidewalk like that, Muggles that were passing by were staring.

"Call…for someone?" Draco offered as he kind of tipped a little, feeling dizzy as his eyes drifted shut. He knew he probably should, maybe, go to the hospital.

Sebastian cursed as he reached down and caught Draco's unconscious shoulders before he could slump over completely onto the sidewalk. He had noticed Draco looking fretfully ill and abused, but he had had no idea it would come to this.

"Damn it," he growled, not wanting to baby-sit the scrawny werewolf.

--------------------

Ginny was sitting in Draco's apartment looking fretful and anxious, sitting by his phone, ready to answer it the instant it should ring, staring at the door as if willing Draco to walk through it any second. She had gotten a phone call from Sebastian Aurum, of all people, telling her that Draco had collapsed. Ginny had been at home, calling off of work yet again for a "personal sick day" because she just wasn't ready to face her department yet. Before the call she had been going around hers and Réamann's apartment, sobbing here and there at the realization that things were over between them and what that meant. They couldn't live together anymore, so who would move out?

She figured she would move out since she was the one that had…cheated.

But where would she go?

Could she move in with Draco? His apartment was so tiny.

She could get her own apartment, something closer to Draco?

He lived in a foul part of London.

What if she invited him to live with her, in a bigger apartment, somewhere nicer?

They had been dating for two weeks, how could she ask him leave his home and co-inhabit with her?

Because they needed each other's shelter from the fallout of their lives around them.

Still, that could quite possibly add fuel to the fire if they were to move in together. What would the headlines say?

She didn't care what the headlines said, but she was concerned about Michelangelo. That boy, that young man, how would he take to going off to school and coming home to not have his home anymore but be somewhere else, sharing a home with his father's girlfriend that he didn't seem to approve of in the first place?

It seemed it would be unfair to even consider uprooting the little family until Michelangelo was home for the summer so he could be a part of it, so he would possibly resent it less.

She doubted, however, that Michelangelo would do anything but resent and hate the idea. Did he know about the Witch Weekly article? If Hogwarts now was anything like it was when she attended, every girl third year and above read Witch Weekly. Surely Michelangelo would have heard the gossip, even if the students there didn't know to connect him to the Malfoy family.

Would Michelangelo be upset? He seemed awfully protective of his father.

Ginny was at a loss at what to do over so many things.

She hadn't spoken to her parents yet…she was still putting that off. She had planned on going to see them tonight, but with that phone call about Draco…

Ginny gripped the roots of her hair so that her palms were on her forehead and sobbed. She sobbed a few times before she broke into loud tears. She had a box of tissues on her right, a pile of spent ones on her left. She had gone into fits of tears all afternoon, since hearing about Draco but learning nothing more in all that time since and thus giving her plenty of time to come up with worst case sonorous in her mind.

She cried over her situation, she cried over hurting Réamann, she cried over being at a loss over what to do about Michelangelo, or where she would live, or her parents and family, or how she would face going to work again, and she cried about Draco.

Ginny ripped a tissue out of the box and blew her nose. She threw the tissue down beside her and pulled another to blot under her eyes. The sound of a key being inserted into the door ripped her attention away from her task and she stared. Draco limped in with his head down, but Ginny gasping upon his entry caused him to look up in surprise. He hadn't expected anyone to be home.

"Draco!" she nearly bawled but only managed a gasp with all her breath trapped in her lungs. Draco looked at her as he closed the door behind him, still a little surprised, not saying a word as he shut out the cold.

Ginny flung herself up off the couch and rushed over to him. She made to throw her arms around him but he flinched and held his free hand up as he backed up a step, nearly bumping into the door.

"Please, no hugs," he managed, his face pained, showing it was not that he did not want hugs from her, but that it would hurt too much.

"You look awful, what happened? Come here, sit down," she fussed, grabbing Draco by his delicate wrist and pulling him along with her to then push him down on the couch. Draco sat with a sigh, like sitting was exactly what he wanted at the moment but it hurt, and Ginny flopped down beside him, waiting eagerly for him to explain to her what had happened.

Draco said nothing, he just set down his heavy plastic bag on the floor beside him…more like dropped it to the floor beside him…with a thump and unbuttoned his coat. He closed his bruised eyes for a moment after that and tipped his head back to rest on the back of the couch, Ginny then able to see a new bruise on his face clearly.

"Draco, what happened?" Ginny finally asked again.

Draco opened his eyes and pointed at his bruised jaw. "Charley," he said, then pointing to his chest over his heart, "Fred," he said, then pointing to his ribs on his right side. "George." He pointed to his left side. "Bill." He indicated some area on his back, over his shoulder, "Percy." He then gestured to his backside some. "Arthur," he said, sighing at last and sinking down into the couch cushions.

"Oh my God!" Ginny gasped, looking at Draco who looked so thoroughly abused. "They jumped you?"

"No, no, not all at once," he assured, his blackened eyes still closed. "But, it has been a long day," he said. It had been a lovely day…up until Ginny's male relations decided to pummel him in attempts of defending their little sister's tarnished honor. Charley's little love-tap to the jaw had been terrible and Draco had thought it couldn't get worse than Ron's clobber from the night before, but somehow, each brother managed to up the last, or maybe his pain tolerance dropped dramatically with each new bruise and cracked rib. Even her father had gotten a nice boot on his butt, and though Draco knew he deserved it, he had thought Author, at least, would have refrained from hitting him and simply yelled. That, more than anything, show just how angry her family was at the moment.

There wasn't a part of him left that didn't hurt, and the hospital had given him some lovely pain pills already. This was him on Codeine, he feared the very thought of what he would feel like without the drugs.

"This is why Sebastian took you to the hospital? He said you collapsed."

"He called you?" Draco asked, surprised but now understanding why Ginny was there, waiting for him puffy-eyed.

"I was a little surprised, but when he said you had fainted and collapsed I stopped caring about why he, of all people, would be the one to take you to the hospital."

"He just happened to be the one with me when it…happened. Just harassing me, as always," Draco lied casually, not telling Ginny the real reason he and Sebastian had been together on that Muggle sidewalk in Manchester. "I'm awright," he assured.

"How can you say that? My family could have killed you!" she exclaimed.

"Their little love-taps were not what sent me to the hospital, though, I'm sure it helped and it did raise some difficult to dodge questions amongst the Muggle nurses there as to how I had gotten in this state," he sighed.

"You went to a Muggle hospital?" she asked. Draco nodded. "Why?"

"St. Mungo's doesn't like me much, and I didn't want to deal with whatever wizarding press that would surely swarm when news of my hospitalization broke. Sebastian didn't want to be seen with me either," he said.

"What about you being a werewolf, surely the Muggles wouldn't know to take precautions while handling your blood or…"

"The Muggles think I have AIDS…it explains why I'm sick and forces them to take extra safety measures when handling my blood and such," he explained, the disease being the official cover for any werewolf that should ever find themselves under Muggle care.

"Why were you hospitalized if it wasn't from this?" Ginny asked, indicating the three bruises she could see on Draco's face, fearing what lie below his baggy sweatshirt and open coat.

Draco said nothing.

"Draco."

"How much is a stone?" he asked.

"What?"

"They said I weighed a certain amount of stones. How much is a stone?" he asked.

"About fourteen pounds," she said. Draco took a deep breath.

"Shit," he said.

"Why?" Ginny asked, looking at him intently.

"They said I weigh about eight stones," he said.

"Draco-"

"They determined I was underweight."

"No shit," she gaped at him. "You are roughly 112 pounds? Sure, yeah, you are not that tall, but that is way too skinny! Way, way, way too skinny!" she fussed, understandably.

"They said I should weigh no less than ten or ten and a half stones, so that would be about…140 or 147 pounds?" he asked timidly, Ginny reacting much like he had expected she would.

"I weighed eights stones when I was a fourth year, Draco, and I was skinny," she gaped. "This is why you collapsed then?"

"They told me I should try eating more, because my 'levels' were all far too low, things like potassium, and blood sugar, and iron, and all this other shit that I wasn't really paying attention to…and they said my heart rate and blood pressure was so low, that I was 'this close' to heart failure," he mumbled, using air quotes again, unable to understand yet how he had let things get as far as that without realizing something was seriously wrong.

"Draco," Ginny said, ready to cry now.

"I'm sorry," he sighed, holding out his right arm despite the pain to welcome her into a leaning hug. "I didn't eat when you told me to, I'm sorry. I will eat more, I just forget."

"I can't imagine how someone can forget to eat."

"I told you that I don't get hungry…"

"But still…I told you to eat!"

"I know, I'm sorry. I am still dealing with the whole wanting to eat people thing, and it is difficult, but the hospital gave me some drinks," he said, as though offering that in hopes of appeasing her.

"Drinks?"

Draco indicated the bag that was on the floor by kicking it with his foot.

"Some sort of chocolate drink-shake-thing…they said I should drink them and I will put on some weight…that and eating, they were seriously pushing the idea," he said, smiling a little, trying to show some humor so as to get Ginny to stop looking so upset.

"Jesus, Draco," she sighed.

"I'm sorry that I worried you, I am sorry that I let myself get so sick, and that I have been hurting myself, meaning to or not…but could we possibly keep this quiet from my mother and Clarissa? They worry so much as it is."

"I think they are justified their worrying," Ginny argued.

"I know, I know, I'm sorry," he said again. "It's a real shame too." He yawned. "Because I really do love food," he said, leaning into her a bit more so that she was now supporting his weight as he snuggled into her. "Roast duck with a delicate mince sauce…" he trailed off, kind of muttering some foods he liked, smiling, eyes closed.

"Would you like me to make you something to eat right now?" she asked, reaching around to stroke his hair.

"I would say no, but you would make me something to eat anyways," he yawned.

"Yeah," she agreed.

Draco kind of fell asleep while Ginny whipped him up something to eat. She was tempted to let him sleep, but she knew that, as much as he needed some sleep, he needed some food more.

Draco ate the toasted cheese sandwich Ginny offered him without complaint, though it did take him a while to polish off the two halves, and Ginny gave him a tall glass of milk to wash it down with, which seemed to take him even longer to finish. In the end he didn't look as much satisfied as uncomfortable and tired, but Ginny knew he would get used to eating again.

She snuggled with him, touching him, holding him, trying to make this all feel real after fearing she could lose him, but Draco seemed distant, detached. He was sitting right there with her and yet his mind was a million miles away as he stroked her hair.

"Draco, what is it?" she asked softly.

"Hmm?" he responded through his lips, blinking and looking down at her as though he had missed what she asked.

"What are you thinking about that has your eyes so distant and sad? I hate it when your eyes get like that," she said.

"I didn't realize…I'm just…just thinking about the future, your future, my future, our future…" he said, looking away again, no longer stroking her hair.

"You can't be thinking too many happy thoughts if your face looks so solemn," she said with big brown eyes looking up at Draco under her delicately frowned brow and waves of soft red hair tossed across her forehead.

"I just, I can't help but feel that you would be…better off…if we didn't-"

"Draco, don't you dare start talking that way," Ginny cut him off, knowing exactly what he was thinking and what he was about to say and unwilling to hear it.

"Ginny, I have made a complete mess of things and look at me, I can't even take care of myself…how do you expect me to take care of you?"

"I don't need to be taken care of, Draco. I'm not helpless," Ginny said firmly, not angry, not yet, but upset that Draco was having this conversation with her.

"I know, I know you do not need me to be some great protector, and I love that about you. Your independence and self-assurance, and your skill and intelligence, you are just so wonderful…in all honestly, I don't deserve you."

"Don't talk like that. It irritates me when you say shit like that, that you are not good enough, that you don't deserve this or that, that you are mangy or whatever. It's ridiculous and I have told you as much before!"

"I can't help how I feel, and honestly, I wouldn't expect you to understand, you don't know what I have been through," Draco snapped, angry but because he was embarrassed and he was on the defensive.

"I would if you'd just tell me!"

"I…I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because you seem to have a high opinion of me despite what you already know of me and of what you see, and I don't want to spoil that."

"The truth would spoil that?" she asked, skeptical. Draco just looked at her sadly. "Draco, what is going on? What brought this about? You were, just last night, all for this…willing to stick this out, saying everyone finding out was not the end of the world, offering to meet with my parents, volunteering to speak with Réamann. Why are you pushing me away now?"

"I'm not; I'm not pushing you away."

"Yes you are. You are sabotaging this."

"What?"

"Like you said to me that time we had lunch, you said you do it all the time, that you purposefully ruin the good things that happen to you because it scares you that something is going right because you don't trust people to not be leading you on or wanting something. You admitted that you fear it ending badly on its own should it truly be something good, so you preempt that by causing it to end prematurely, because you can't bare the disappointment and letdown," she said and Draco looked down at his lap sadly. "I am not manipulating you to get something from you, Draco, and I am not leading you on just to make a fool of you," she assured. "And, sure things are not going great now, but why end it on this low-note? We can stick it out and make this work and it can be right."

"Ginny, no, it's not like that," Draco sighed, shaking his head, unable to tell her the truth, that he loved her so much, too much. This wasn't him just being mistrustful, or insecure…for once. This was something else, something more.

"Then what is it like?"

"I…It has nothing to do with Réamann, or your family, or anyone saying anything…I love you, you know this, and that's why I can't do this to you, I can't inflict myself on you."

"Inflict? Draco, why do you do this to yourself? You are not a disease, you are not a punishment. I like having you around, even at your low points. Honestly though, I don't know where this intolerable hatred of yourself comes from," she said, sounding sad, looking at Draco's comfortless and bruised face as he looked down at his lap.

"You wouldn't understand…" he whispered.

"Try me," she said, almost like a challenge but so soft and earnestly, that it was more like a plea.

"I lost everything in the war," he said softly, Ginny looking at his profile as he spoke, unwilling to look at her. "I lost my father, my aunt, my mentor Snape, my fatherly figure Paul, my closest friends, my home, my gold, my dignity, my humanity…my identity.," he said, Ginny watching with slightly parted lips as a tear slid down Draco's cheek. "I was a rich, aristocratic Pureblood before the war, after the war, I wasn't even human anymore…I didn't know who I was then…I had drawn all my self-worth from what others' opinions were of me, my blood status, and my economic standing. With all that gone, so went my confidence and all I knew myself as. I was lost…I…I didn't have anywhere to turn and no one to blame but myself. My father died because of me, Butler Paul was killed to punish me, Snape died trying to protect me…I couldn't save my aunt, or my friends, I…" he said, sobbing just a little.

"I lost everything, and yet, on that rooftop, at that moment, I realized that I could still do the right thing, even though I would gain nothing from it but pride for having made the right choice once in my life rather than the easy one. I thought I would, if I lived, gain respectability from those that thought so little of me. I thought I would earn some reverence, for the first time in my life rather than trying to draw it from something I was born into or given and provided with. I thought I could prove to everyone that I was not what I was raised to be, but who I was born to be. I sacrificed everything and I was punished for it. Potter abandoned me, I was thrown into Azkaban where I was beaten and staved and raped…" he swallowed hard. "I couldn't see or communicate with my mother, I didn't know for almost a year after the war if she was even alive!" he cried. "I remember just sitting in my tiny dark cell for days, weeks, months, with no one to hate but myself. I hated Potter, I hated Granger, I hated McGonagall, I hated the Ministry, but the hatred I felt for them, even to this day, could not compare to that which I felt for myself," he confessed, another tear sliding down his cheek. "As much as they had let me down, I was my own greatest disappointment," he said and Ginny made to try and grab his hand, but stopped mid motion, Draco continuing.

"I found solace in the arms of my wife when I first landed there, but physical love left me feeling empty and used. It was a needy kind of love from my end and it drove her away…"

"Draco…"

"I tried to kill myself," he then admitted, not letting Ginny interrupt him as he confessed to all, right now, rather bluntly, rather abruptly. Was he trying to scare her away? Maybe. Was he testing her to see if she could love him, all of him? Maybe. Maybe all he needed was to tell someone, someone that would honestly care, someone who would listen and not run off to a paper and print the story, someone who wouldn't use this as a means of mocking him later, someone he loved. "When I turned on the Dark Lord to join the Order, an Unbreakable Vow my father had made with the Dark Lord over my head at birth was broken. I wasn't a faithful servant like my father had promised I would be, and he died as a result. I killed my own father," he confessed and Ginny stared, now understanding, now seeing why Draco never spoke of his father to her before. "I killed him, and learning of the Vow, and seeing the pain I had caused my mother, I tried to kill myself," he said, pulling his coat off and his sweatshirt sleeve up so Ginny could see the scar on his arm. She had seen it before, she had roamed his entire naked body before, but she had never asked. He had a lot of scars.

"I failed….obviously…" he said, sounding suddenly hollow. "But I felt like I had failed prior to that…the reason I joined the Order in the first place was to protect the ones I cared about. I joined because the Dark Lord had blinded my friend Butler Paul, simply because he didn't trust my willingness to serve him. I had served faithfully for months up until that point and still he punished me. I had endured so much, but after Paul, I couldn't keep doing it…it was all for nothing what I was sacrificing since those I cared about were still getting hurt! Paul was like a father to me, he had raised me since I was four. He was my first friend and he cared deeply for me. He served me even when I was a brat; he took care of me even when I was ungrateful. He was apologizing to me as he was blinded by Death Eaters as I was forced to watch. The Dark Lord questioned my sincerity in serving him and wanted to give me more of a reason to want to please him, but he actually drove me away at that point, his plan backfiring because Paul hadn't deserved that, I hadn't deserved that. I saw no hope for me or those I cared about while sticking with the Dark Lord, so I risked all I had left to be with the Order, hoping they would reward my loyalties. I served the Order, I did, even though no one truly trusted me…until I lost too much," he said and Ginny blinked.

"I just couldn't take it anymore. If I served the Dark Lord I would be killed, if I didn't serve him I would be killed, and either way those I loved were getting hurt! I was damned if I did, damned if I didn't. When Butler Paul was eventually executed, I turned my back on everyone then, on the Order, on the Dark Lord…I was playing both sides, but for my own gain, for my own ambitions. I had every intention of letting Harry take down the Dark Lord and then best Harry while he was weak so as to take the Dark Lord's place," he said with a quivering breath and Ginny stared. "I was so tired, so tired of being pushed down, kicked and beaten and told my worth was only what energy they saved by not killing me. I couldn't take it anymore, and I made a rash decision. I know now I was wrong, I know now that I was delirious and it never would have worked…but there isn't a day that goes by, a moment that passes, that I don't wish -even if just fleetingly- that I had succeeded. Every time I sit with an unpaid bill wondering what I can do this month to scrape by, every time I'm cursed and spat at on the street, every time my children complain that their clothing doesn't fit anymore or that they are cold, I wish I had been strong enough, strong enough to have succeeded."

"Draco," Ginny said, staring at him still, a tear threatening to spill from her own eye then. "You were strong. You made it through, through SO much, and in the end you did the hardest thing of all, you did the right thing. That took courage, and self-sacrifice, that took strength," she said, crying herself too then as Draco looked over at her meekly. "I understand your desire to want to fight back, to push back against those that put you down, to stomp on those that had oppressed you for years…I don't fault or think less of you for your ambition since that is a big part of who you are," she said but Draco could feel her horror at his words. She had not known all he had done and intended and he shocked her. Draco felt disgust with himself at that point, and Ginny could see it in his eyes. "But you did the right thing in the end, and you were unfairly punished for it, but that's no reason to hurt yourself, or hate yourself," she said softly, tears in her eyes, wishing for him to sense her sincerity.

"I have hated myself for a long time, Potter for longer, my father probably the longest," he said, his voice barely a whisper.

"You ever consider not hating people?" Ginny asked delicately, knowing how much it cost Draco to be so open with her. This was a big step for them, despite how depressing and terrible this felt. He telling her this was momentous. She knew he loved his father, she could tell, but she also knew there was something greatly unresolved between the two of them.

"I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I didn't hate so much."

"Love?" she offered, looking deep into his damp eyes.

"That sounds scary. I like hate, it's warm, and safe, and familiar," he said, looking down again.

"So is love, if you find it with the right person," she said, leaning in to kiss away the tear that had slid halfway down his cheek to cling there. It was cool by then and salty against her lips.

"Ginny, I love you so very much," he said, turning so her lips were caught by his. He held her face in his cold hands and kept his eyes closed as he leaned his forehead against hers. "But I can't take you down with me."

"Why are you pushing me away?" she said again, leaning back but face still held by him, brow frowning and bottom lip trembling as she was about to start crying again.

"I can't do this to you."

"What? What can't you do? What are you doing?"

"Ginny, I can't tell you."

"You are doing something bad again, aren't you?"

"I can't say."

"What are you doing, Draco, tell me," she demanded.

"Gin…

"You are trying to hide it from me."

"I couldn't live with myself if I hurt you."

"Draco."

"Please, you have to understand, I do not wish to hurt you, not ever, but I have to hurt you a little now, so as to stop from hurting you more later…"

"Draco, you are acting like Harry, pushing me away to protect me. I don't need your protection," she said forcefully.

"I know, I know. But…I can't make you a part of this, not if it were to go badly. I wouldn't drag you down with me, ruin what you still have," he said.

"What are you talking about?" she asked, softly that time, and Draco just shook his head, releasing her face to turn away. "This all has to do with the Ministry case…Réamann said you were covering up for someone, that you were a part of it," she said and Draco looked at her.

"He has talked to you?"

"He did, briefly, but I wouldn't give him a fair listen, however, because he was clearly very angry."

"I have not attacked any Muggles," he assured.

"But you are a part of all of it?" she demanded.

"I do not expect you to understand, but know that I have to do this."

"Do what? Draco, tell me what is going on!"

"If this all works out we can be together, but if things go badly, which they have a very strong possibility of doing so, I would not drag your name through the mud any more than I already have."

"Draco, you haven't…"

"I have."

"Don't do this Draco, whatever you will get out of it; it's not worth the risk!"

"I have nothing to lose," he said.

"What about your life out of Azkaban, your mother, your children? What about me?" she demanded.

"No one will let me have you, Gin. I love you, all of you," he said, meaning his mother and children too, "and I am doing this for you, and them, and me…but I can't do it with you, because I love you and I couldn't bare the thought of seeing disappointment in your beautiful eyes."

"Draco,"

"We agreed that taking a break to deal with Réamann and our families would be best, before all this mess. We should stick to that plan."

"No, Draco…"

"It really is what would be best. This isn't the end, just a pause, just a pause, Gin. We can be together again, and after all this we can run off and be together, hiding from the world if we must, but free,"

"Free? Draco, you are in serious trouble, aren't you…"

"Please," he begged, leaning in to kiss her, holding the sides of her face again. He wanted to hold her close, kiss her fiercely, make love to her one last time, but his weak and pathetic body just would not allow that. "Please. Just trust me, you being the only person that does," he said, able to twist that around and make Ginny almost moan with guilt. She could not refuse him now or it would look like she didn't trust him and she could not crush him like that, not after all he had just confessed to her. "Take care of Clarissa for me, and be here for my mother and Michelangelo," he said.

"Draco…"

"I am entrusting them, my whole world, to you. Take care of them for me," he said, kissing her then, not allowing her to answer, to possibly say no.

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Author's Note:

Draco surprised me with this chapter. Nice that he finally opened up to Ginny completely, but it was a touch depressing. I'm proud of him though, and this is without all the therapy I put him through in the sequel. :D

Yeah, Draco is 110lbs.

I quoted from the movie The Holiday. Between the original chapter, and this rewrite, I saw said movie, and I liked it. The quote I used worked so well with my existing plot about cheating. I was floored, however, by Jude Law's character Gram: a British widower with two small children, starting to date again for the first time since his wife's death. DAMN IT!!!! Well, at least that's where the similarities between him and Draco end, if that weren't enough, right? >_<;