Blue-Eyed Angel

Summary:

Thirteen years after the Dark Lord was vanquished, Draco Malfoy is out of Azkaban, wandless, practically destitute and physically afflicted from his trespasses against Voldemort. Who should chance by and save this shell of a man from the ice he has become, but a fiery redhead from his dark past.

Disclaimer:

I do not own the Harry Potter franchise or any character that originates from it.

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Blue-Eyed Angel

Chapter One

The days of Lord Voldemort were long past, though anything but forgotten. The scars left behind all across the Wizarding world from the battles were kept as reminders of once dark times and a promise for brighter future. In Diagon Alley, though the people hustled and bustled along in their own affairs, they could not help but glance at the ravaged buildings that stood as tribute and testament to those who had fought bravely, and died young, those many years before…all in the name of good and right.

The now incredibly famous Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, the Chosen One, the young wizard who had single-handedly defeated the Dark Lord at seventeen-years-old, was held in such high esteem that he was comparable to that of a living deity on earth. A sort of divine being of great power, wealth and prestige to be admired, hailed, honored, and even worshipped.

Potter's constant companions, the other two of the Three Musketeers, the fearless and virtuous Gryffindors, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger, were of course no less hailed and respected. Their aid in the downfall of the Dark Lord was recorded in the history books, documented in the Hall of Records in the Ministry of Magic, and they too were honored. Like Harry, they were recipients of the Order of Merlin, First Class, for their service and sacrifice in their stand against evil at the risk of their own lives in those dark days when they were oh-so-young.

Diagon Alley was crowded. It was the start of December and witches and wizards were out, bundled up in their warm cloaks and scarves, boots and hats, all on their merry way, buying gifts for their loved ones on a cold night.

Lights of sparkling fairies glittered in the windows of shops, festive decorations sang carols as people passed by, snow powdered the eaves and it was trampled firmly underfoot. The sky was black, the stars were out, and the sounds of so many happy people filled the crooked and narrow street, giving off an aura of contentment and slight urgency. A very important anniversary was near at hand. Not just the birth of Christ, but the death of an evil wizard.

Nearly thirteen years had passed since the Dark Lord had been overthrown, killed, destroyed, obliterated. Twelve years had passed since the now infamous Death Eater Trials had come to an end. Eleven years had passed since Hogwarts was officially reopened, and in the ten years since, the witches and wizards of Europe had lived in safety and with peace of mind.

Ding-dong, the wicked…wizard…was dead! The celebrations had lasted months.

Despite the time that had passed, Harry Potter still could not walk down the street without looks, without stares, without whispers, and without proclamations of gratitude.

It was something he had long ago come to terms with. Whether as a boy known as the Boy-Who-Lived, or a young man dubbed The Chosen One, or now as a man and The Great Hero…he had always been forced to endure the gawkers, the celebrity-crazed fans, the obsessed admirers, and the resentful people who had lost everything because of him.

Wrapped up warmly in his expensive yet tasteful black cloak and scarf of his prideful Gryffindor colors, Harry Potter moved through Diagon Alley amidst the snow and shoppers. He enjoyed the winter, and the cold, for the excuse to be covered and not look conspicuous. Polyjuice Potion was all well and nice when he wanted to get out for an hour or two in peace, but he could barely stomach the concoction, and to take on another's appearance seemed cowardly. He had done nothing wrong, why hide?

He had his mother's beautiful green eyes, his father's striking face and unruly yet thick dark hair. He was six feet tall, slender but strongly built, now that he was a man. He was thirty years old and handsome. He should not have to hide himself like the Elephant Man.

Yet he did.

Few would recognize him just in passing, but if one were to give him a solid look, recognition would streak across his or her face and Harry would continue on without a word, in hopes of being lost in the crowd before the news of his presence spread. With his hat pulled down to cover his hair and his famous scar, if no one looked right at his face, little commotion would follow in his wake, but not tonight.

“It's Harry Potter!” the eager whisper drifting from some feet past met his ears. Harry felt himself cringe at the thought of a small number of people's excited realization would become a scene of mass hysteria, all wishing to personally meet and thank the Great Harry Potter so close to the anniversary of his triumph over the Dark Lord.

He hated winter too, and that anniversary was the reason why.

Not taking a moment to consider his next action, Harry ducked into the closest building. He did not want to trap himself somewhere there was no back exit, and Apparating out of the scene would be terribly careless and rude, but he could not stay on the street.

Entering the very dark pub Harry pulled the collar of his cloak upright so that it blocked a good portion of this face from view, his hat's brim wide and sloping, hid the rest while his head was tilted down slightly.

“Oi, I'll be right with you, sir,” came a woman's voice, seeing Harry out of the corner of her eye as she tended to a recently emptied table. Clearly not having been recognized, Harry was able to relax slightly, thankful for the break in the otherwise constant tightness in his gut when he was out.

Harry Potter took a seat near the back, but not in the corner. Not only was that table occupied, it would make it harder to get away should he find it necessary. From the back, but more to the right, not too far from the bar, Harry could see all the way across the poorly lit pub to the front door. The windows were frosted over so that the people on the street were just distant shadows on the other side of the glass. Harry could see over the heads of everyone in the place, people minding their own drinks and their own company. To his left, very near to the bar, there was a door, a door that led out to the back. It was a last resort of course to flee, but it was something that was always on Harry's mind when he went out. It had become a part of his life, so much so that it was normal and he did not dwell on the fact that he could not stroll the streets anymore.

He was a celebrity. He had to deal with all that came with fame.

No good deed goes unpunished.

Harry knew those words. The moment they crossed his mind his stomach contracted like someone had hit him with a Slug-Vomiting Charm right in the gut. Those words had not been his originally, and he had not just thought of them now on accident. He had an inexplicable compulsion to look to his right, to the table in the corner, and stare.

A man sat alone with his back to Harry, but he seemed to be aware of Harry's perturbed stare and turned slowly in his seat to look right back at him. Turning however revealed he was not alone at all, but in fact accompanied by another, someone who had been blocked from view while he sat so hunched and small in the corner, hands in his lap, eyes on his untouched drink, and the look on his face obvious melancholy.

Draco Malfoy slowly raised his silver eyes from his drink, tilting his lowered head just a fraction of an inch, to lock eyes with Harry Potter around the man that had turned to reveal him.

His appearance was thin, undernourished even. His skin, once as fair and rich as cream, was now pale as milk and the dark circles under his eyes gave away that he lacked sleep and sunlight. His hair, once platinum blond and shining, at some point had just become white and it now hung long and straight, half covering his face, smooth yet slightly tangled looking. His pointed face would have been striking in its attractiveness, if it weren't for his eyes. Stunning they were, but the haunted weight they carried was enough to send chills and distract from their utter rarity and beauty.

The two men held the contest for a few long heartbeats, but then Harry's attention was ripped away, leaving him startled. The waitress who had greeted Harry upon arrival was now standing beside him. She had spoken to him and his startled reaction had in turn made her jump.

“Oi, I'm sorry, Mister. I did not mean to startle you,” she said, her right hand over her heart as she smiled, easing herself down as Harry relaxed, his eyes a little too wide behind his glasses, and his hand easing away from his wand under the table.

“Oh, I am sorry. I was just distracted,” he said, apologizing and nodding.

“What can I get `cha?” she asked, her youthful manner and speech charming, her body attractive. It was her utter obliviousness to Harry's fame that he found the most attractive of all at that moment.

“Just a Butterbeer to warm up, please,” he said, flashing a perfect smile.

“Right away, sir,” she said with a grin, scooping up the coins Harry offered her before rushing off.

Harry watched her go, fully aware that though she was clearly an adult, she was far too young for him, still taking the opportunity to ogle a little bum.

“Eyeing your young fans, Potter? Tisk-tisk. Disgraceful, that is,” came a male voice drifting over to Harry from the corner. Harry looked over with angry eyes to see Blaise Zabini turned in his chair so that his left arm was resting on the back of it (right arm likely free in case he needed to go for his wand) glaring over at Harry, looking both patronizing and self-assured. Draco sat at the table too, but he was silent and remained still, just as Harry had seen him moments before, only his eyes were back on his drink set before him. His shoulders were rolled so far forward it seemed as though he was trying to shrink down into himself.

“Zabini,” Harry said, voice calm despite the rage he felt bubbling deep within him, “you are out of Azkaban, I see,” he said this calmly, making a civil conversation of it rather than exchanging insults. He would let the Death Eater be petty and insulting. It would only make him look like the bigger person in the end to ignore it.

“Been out for a few days now. It didn't make the newspapers though. I guess no one wants to ruin everyone's perfect day by revealing that a dangerous Death Eater made probation after a decade served in that hellhole,” he said, being just as civil now but unable to speak without baring his teeth slightly. His appearance too was disheveled and worn. Stretched thin, waxy dark skin, and haunted. Azkaban did that to people.

“How is life on the outside treating you?” he asked, honestly not caring how the filthy son of a Muggle killer and Death Eater was doing.

“Well, the home welcoming was not exactly warm, but the Ministry has assigned me work. Standard procedure, so I hear for all probations from Azkaban,” he said flatly.

“So as to keep a careful eye on you,” Harry said. He was well aware of the mandate that stated that all released from Azkaban via probation would work for the Ministry of Magic until their probation was through. It had been proposed as a means of “reaching out” to the repentant-through-prosecution, to help them “reestablish” their lives once out of prison. Probation was meant to reintroduce them, and to help them adjust to life…but Harry knew the truth. The Ministry did not trust the Death Eaters, and rightfully so in Harry's opinion, and those they had been unable to sentence to death, and could not legally lock up for a lifetime, they had to find a means of dealing with. There was a whole generation of witches and wizards in Azkaban that had wound up in there because of their families. Those who had killed no one, had no evidence of having used an Unforgivable, yet had maintained their allegiance to their families while proclaiming their innocence.

Now a little more than a decade later, they were all reaching their probation and slowly, one by one, they were being let out.

Two now sat before him, and neither looked very happy to see him.

“Yes. Well, working for the Ministry,” Zabini began, “even as a lackey in some dark hellish cellar of that disgrace to the name `bureaucracy' isn't too bad,” he said, eyes harsh as ever, tone quickly slipping to show the same.

Harry felt outrage at the insult to his Ministry.

“Watch your mouth, Zabini,” Harry warned.

The pub was quiet now, all eyes turned to the quarrel. All eyes but Draco Malfoy's that is. He seemed oblivious to the scene except for the tightness in his shoulders.

“I don't recall you always being so chummy with the Ministry,” Zabini accused. “Oh, that's right; The Great Harry Potter is now a firm supporter of the corrupt Ministry. They give you a medal or two, an award or three, a nice cushy job, some more fame, and you suddenly absolve and love them?”

“Do not dare imply that my values and loyalties can be bought for any price, Zabini. I worked for years to clean up the Ministry and set things right,” Harry said fiercely before his voice died in his throat, Malfoy looking back up at him with his scorned eyes. Harry regretted his choice of wording now.

“Made everything better didn't you, Potter? Have to save the world every damn day don't you? Defeat the big baddy, reform the government, hand out recognition and awards, pardon those who deserve it…bang up job you did too,” he mocked as Harry stood suddenly, Zabini doing the same, both itching for an excuse now to draw their wands.

“Mister Potter, please, no!” the young waitress implored, near the table but not daring to come near enough to touch him, only reaching out to him.

“You have something you would like to say to my face, Death Eater?” Harry spat. “Say it to my face, say it.”

“Turn around and drop your trousers and I will,” Zabini came back with an insult, Harry's face burning with suppressed anger.

“Let's step outside then,” Harry proposed, making it clear his intentions without having touched his wand yet.

“Ladies first, Potter,” Zabini said harshly, holding his hands out as though offering the door to Harry.

Harry Potter defiantly turned his back on the Death Eaters and stepped out the back door, no one stopping him despite the sign that read “employees only” hanging from it. Zabini followed and a few seemed to want to stop him, but with Draco Malfoy bringing up the rear, his cold stare chasing back any courage the people in the pub had been gathering, they were allowed to disappear through the door unchallenged, leaving a buzz of gossip and wonderment in their wake.

“You want to start something, Zabini, just out of Azkaban?” Harry demanded, turning on Zabini once the door closed, locking them in a nearly closed off square yard, showing great self control having not drawn his wand at that point, in his opinion. Trash bins had been stacked against one stone wall, the other side being a tall wooden fence. The snow was thicker back there without the heavy foot traffic having packed it down and an extremely narrow alleyway was the only noticeable exit, leading to the busy street between the two old and squat buildings.

“You feel I have wronged you, Zabini?” Harry demanded.

“Me and how many others?” Zabini replied.

“Let them speak then,” Harry said, clearly implicating Draco then and glancing over at him.

“You honestly feel you are faultless?” Zabini snapped, while Draco stood with his back to the door, watching the scene with crossed arms.

“I'm not perfect, but I did everything in my power to…” Harry faltered.

“You think I am intimidated by you, Potter?” Zabini questioned.

“There any reason you shouldn't be?” Harry spat. He was not full of himself, but he was extremely world worn and confident.

“Oh, I know it is folly to mess with you, the Ministry's darling,” Zabini scoffed.

“I am no one's darling and I have earned my reputation. I brought down the Dark Lord at seventeen, that alone is evidence to the fact that I can handle myself,” Harry stated calmly.

“Still holding to that are you? Still reveling in your own grandeur? Tell me, do you recite you accomplishments to yourself every night before you sleep?”

“You calling me conceited?” Harry asked.

“Still pretending that you took down the Dark Lord all by yourself? That you stood up to him like a man and fought him one on one?” Zabini accused. “That he fell at your feet as you held your wand high like a bloodied sword after a fierce battle, to the applause of all those who witnessed your moment of triumph?” he spat, disgust apparent and obvious in his face.

“I have given apt credit. I never said I took down the most feared wizard of our time alone. Medals and awards were handed out, libraries were named after…” Harry continued.

“Oh, you can wipe that `my shit doesn't stink' attitude away right now, Potter!” Zabini suddenly shouted. He seemed to make a move for his jacket's inner breast pocket and Harry had his wand drawn but not yet pointed. He did not even realize he had gone for his wand until it was in his hand.

“You want to end up back in Azkaban, Zabini? One word from me, with all those witnesses in there,” Harry said, indicating the pub, “and I can have your probation revoked and you can finish up the last of your term behind bars,” he said.

Draco Malfoy, who had been silent and unmoving through the whole confrontation so far, looked over at Harry with angry eyes, his hair still hanging limply around him like a partially opened curtain, his dark robes faded from age, mended with care but disheveled in appearance. His Muggle jeans were torn at the knees and his heavily treaded boots scuffed and worn. Harry looked away, not able to look at Draco, knowing exactly what Draco was thinking right then.

Zabini suddenly made a move as if to stupidly go for his wand, and Harry's attention snapped back to the other wizard, jumping into action, defending himself.

Before Zabini could even draw and point his wand Harry sent a silent hex towards him, hitting him with a spell that seemed to punch him in the face, blood erupting from his nose as his head shot back in a snap.

While Zabini's eyes watered and his left hand shot up to his face to shield his now broken nose Harry used that opportunity to try and disarm him.

“Expelliarmus!" he shouted out loud even though that was not necessary anymore.

Nothing happened.

Harry glanced at his wand and back over to Zabini again to see Draco Malfoy tending to him, leaning Zabini's head back and directing him to pinch the bridge of his nose in hopes of slowing the bleeding.

“We do not have wands, Potter,” Malfoy said, sounding angry while looking over at him, hands still on Zabini's shoulders, steadying him. “The Ministry snapped them in half more than thirteen years ago and we are forbidden to replace them. You know that,” he said.

Harry felt sick.

He did know that.

What had he been thinking when he had attacked…defended himself…from Zabini? Did he honestly forget that he had been a part of the team that had set in place the laws to prevent the Death Eaters from ever having wands again? Did he really think that Zabini had actually found someone that would sell him a wand?

“What are you doing here, Malfoy?” Harry asked, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable, his guilt over a great many things magnified with the other man standing there.

“Having a drink with an old friend,” he said simply, looking back at Zabini as he fell to the snow, pulling his knees up so he could rest his elbows on them, trying to sniff back the blood that was oozing down his dark face.

“I'm sorry for this. I did not mean for…” he said, pausing and dropping his intended words to opt for different ones. “I will make this better,” he said, looking at the two men. They were two men that had nothing. No money, no wands, no respect, no lives. He had attacked an unarmed wizard. Not even a wizard really, but just a man.

“Haven't you done enough already?” Draco asked softly, looking at Harry with eyes so full of bitter resentment that Harry felt sick. Malfoy was not saying that what Harry had done since the war was good; he was not thanking Harry for things he had done; he was not blindly worshiping Harry like the rest of the wizarding world was.

He was reminding Harry of his darkest secret, the thing that brought Harry so much shame and guilt and the reason behind why seeing Draco in the pub so unexpectedly had unnerved him so.

He was reminding him of the one thing he had failed to set right, and the one life he had been unable to save as a result of it.

Harry looked right at the man he had failed so terribly more than thirteen years before and could not hold his gaze.

“I'm sorry,” he offered for the hundredth time as Draco stood Zabini up and turned him so that they were heading towards the narrow alley.

“For yourself maybe,” he said bitterly before turning away with still angry eyes and leading Zabini out of the fenced and walled in yard, leaving Harry Potter to stand there, miserable and shamed in all his grandeur.

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Draco Malfoy silently slinked into the Ministry of Magic's headquarters in London through the street entrance. He could not Apparate into the hall because he had no wand, he was forbidden to use the Floo Network even if his home was connected to it, and there was no one willing to allow him to Side-Along with him when they Apparated there.

Dialing the number after standing in the decrepit red phone booth just off the Muggle street, Draco waited patiently as his familiar ride down into the bowels of the Ministry began. The sun had not yet broken the horizon at that point, it was hardly dawn and the stars could still be seen. It was a terrible time to be awake, yet there he was, slowly descending at quarter past five, on his way to work.

The booth opened up to spill him out into the main hall of the Ministry, with magnificent mahogany-paneled walls and highly polished dark wood floors. The peacock-blue high ceiling gleamed with inlaid symbols that continually changed. He had entered into the Atrium where Apparating wizards appeared slowly here and there, a few emerging from the fireplaces along the left wall by Floo. It was early, and though there were a few coming in, Draco was missing the morning rush. That was why he was up at such a God-awful hour.

His hood pulled up over his head so that his face was shadowed, his hair tucked down the back of his cloak so as not to give him away, he made his way past the witch at the front desk. The fountain that had previously stood as the showpiece in the Grand Hall had been replaced some years before, due to all the damage it had sustained during the many battles in that final war.

Once occupied by statues of a golden wizard, a house-elf, a witch, goblin, and a centaur, now it was a glamorized depiction of the Great Harry Potter besting the Dark Lord who was crumpled face down at Harry's feet while partially submerged in the water. Harry's foot rested atop him, a silver shield of armor on his chest, his hair blown back from his face to make his scar focal, and his wand arm held high in triumph. Water shot up in a jet behind Harry's likeness, giving a dramatic backdrop for the centerpiece, or just maintaining that it was supposed to be a fountain. Draco raised his shaded eyes scornfully to the statue as he passed it, hating that piece of “art” more than just about anything he had ever hated in his life.

The Desk Witch in her peacock-blue Ministry robes did not look up or acknowledge Draco as he passed and made his way through the golden gates, but she did greet the two wizards that passed a few moments later, flashing a smile and happy wishes for a good day.

Draco slipped into one of the still empty Ministry lifts and rode it down as far as it would go. No one hopped on or interrupted his ride. It was too early for that. The Atrium was on the eighth level. His descent into the Ministry of Magic from the street had already taken him more than halfway towards his destination. While most witches and wizards took lifts up from the Atrium to reach their offices in levels two through seven (level one being where the Minister worked, few having the clearance to warrant such a visit,) Draco needed to go down, down past the Department of Mysteries on level nine where the Unspeakables worked, and down past the courtrooms on level ten which could only be reached by stairs.

It was like some cruel joke that he would have to pass those dreaded courtrooms every day. The Ministry was not without its sick sense of irony.

The lift stopped with a slightly unsettling screech of brakes and the golden caged doors opened onto a landing. Draco did not look around but immediately started walking. Torches provided dim light, making it seem even more like night, and he proceeded alone and silent for a long time. Eventually he passed a person on his way down, a wizard coming from the direction Draco was heading, probably from one of the courtrooms. Malfoy paused and pressed his back to the wall with his head down and in shadow of his hood to let him pass. Though the hallway was wide and roomy, he still moved aside for the wizard. Daring only an angry glance at the wizard's back, Draco was on his way again.

He took a long flight of stone stairs down, then another. It was growing increasingly damp the further down he went. By the time he was past the third set of poorly carved stairs there were actual streams, trickles, running down the walls. There were no longer hallways of wood and stone; it was like a tunnel in the bare earth.

The torches were fewer and farther between at that point, but his feet knew their way. He knew to skip over the cold puddle that pooled in a dark section of the hallway that was so much deeper than it ought to be, and he avoided some of the toppled rocks that had freed themselves from the clay walls.

With a groan of heavy old wood on rusted hinges, Draco pushed open the door on the right of the hallway. Inside was a room that seemed too large, tall, and deep for it to be called a “room” at all. The place was a cave, but carved out and squared off. The ceiling disappeared into shadow, bookshelves just as high stood in long rows. There was a pair of desks directly in front of him, sitting face to face, sharing a singular desk lamp with a green-glass lampshade. Paperwork was stacked impossibly high, old brittle quills littered the area, crumpled parchment was scattered in the general vicinity of the bin, and books lay battered and sad while waiting to be repaired or placed back onto their shelves.

The whole room smelled of parchment, earth, dampness, and of darkness. The darkness had a smell, a smell that was kind of like mold, but a little colder.

“Draco, my boy,” a man called, coming from behind a line of tall bookshelves to greet him.

“Good morning, Mr. Coderdale,” Draco said softly, walking further into the room. “You are here awfully early,” he commented, taking off his cloak at his desk and laying it across the back of his chair to reveal the same, tight, torn jeans and zip-up black hoodie that had seen better days. The elbows were worn out and patched with a very contrasting red and the front pocket was tearing off.

“Well, I could say the same about you, but you are actually running a little later than usual,” he noted while snapping a book closed with his one hand, drawing his very round glasses away from his very elderly face with the other.

Mr. Coderdale was so ancient looking it seemed to defy reason that he was still alive, let alone moving around and climbing up and down ladders like he did. His long beard and bushy eyebrows were snow-white and wispy, his head otherwise bald. His age spots looked like ink blotches on wrinkled parchment. His hands were long and thin, his body perpetually hunched from too many years spent nose-deep in books, and his walk was a bit of a limp, but he never let his age get him down. His deep grey robes billowed out around his feet as he walked, arms extended with glasses in one hand, the book in the other, seemingly offering a hug but really just being very welcoming.

He was a kind old man.

“Late for me, but still early on the clock,” Draco said, smiling slightly.

“Of course. How was your evening?” Mr. Coderdale asked, dropping his book on his desk causing a small flurry of papers to rise up before settling.

“Lackluster,” Draco said simply, pulling his chair out from his desk and flopping into his seat to now be shorter than his inbox. He really hated being shorter than his inbox.

“You get in fights with Harry Potter so often that it has become tedious, Malfoy?” he asked, a wise smile creeping across his face as he peered at Draco from over his mess of paperwork and books, placing his glasses back on his face slowly.

“You heard that did you?” he asked, a little surprised. Though he had guessed news would spread quickly enough that he had been seen in the company of Harry Potter and harsh words had been exchanged, it was barely eight hours after the fact and already Claudius Coderdale of the Ministry's Hall of Records knew about it.

Knowing that, Draco had little hope of having a decent week at that point.

“Well, I heard that there was a scuffle in a pub involving you, Mr. Potter, and another Death Eater.”

“Another Death Eater, implying that I was the first,” Draco retorted darkly.

“Draco, I know you are no Death Eater, but you spent ten years in Azkaban. Your trial was published all over the Daily Prophet and every other publication. I mean, The Quibbler was even reporting that you were a Death Eater for Merlin's sake, but only because a Wrackspurt nested in your ears and caused momentary madness,” he said and Draco managed to snort a laugh as Coderdale chuckled. “It is not outlandish to think that people will assume you're a `vicious, Dark Arts peddling, loyal Death Eater' to the now past Dark Lord and that you vowed vengeance on Harry Potter, the man that took everything from you, when you were in a harsh exchange of words with him so close to the anniversary of the end of the war,” he said

“Who's to say that I didn't vow vengeance on said Mr. Potter?” Draco grumbled, not feeling terribly vengeful at the moment, just really tired actually.

“Well, people still believe that you cursed Potter during that scene you made at the end of your trial…bad luck following him for years after,” Mr. Coderdale trailed off.

“Potter doesn't though, so there's no point in playing advantage to that rumor.” Draco pouted, wishing Harry Potter really did believe he had cursed him. He'd rather be feared than pitied.

“What happened last night, Draco?” Coderdale pressed much more sympathetically than before.

“Nothing,” he said, grabbing the top file and pulling it down to his desk, opening it with a focused determination to ignore Coderdale.

Coderdale looked down at Draco for a long moment and Draco knew he was being looked at, but he refused to look up. He stayed focused on his file, unfolding and placing his glasses on his face so that he could read, taking notes about what volumes of what transcripts he would need to pull for various people of various departments of the Ministry.

Coderdale eventually sighed and busied himself re-shelving volumes.

Draco looked up once Coderdale was away, taking his glasses off to chew on the right earpiece distractedly, his mind flashing through a memory involuntarily, forcing him to relive it for a moment.

“You promised me! No! Let go! You promised me, you lying bastards!” he screamed, kicking, yelling, and trying to shake off the hold the guards had on him. His light frame was literally picked up by a guard leaning back while his arms wrapped around Draco from behind. Draco kicked out at the guards that were trying to wrangle his feet.

“No! No! NO…” he shouted, his voice quivering at the last as he fought back frightened and frustrated tears, his voice actually cracking from his screams as he struggled.

“Come on…” the guard grunted, giving Draco a shake as he held on to him, the other having hold of Draco's one leg, his other still kicking.

“Get him out of here!” the Minister shouted, smacking his gavel over and over again, trying to speak over the commotion Draco was making and the people who were watching in shock.

“No! You promised me! You can't do this!” Draco shouted.

“Get him out!” the Minister's booming voice shouted over the heads of all those in the courtroom while Draco struggled still despite his small size.

“You can't do this! You bloody damned LIARS! You will get what's coming to you, I swear! No! No! Let me go! Do not send me there, PLEASE!” he screamed, begging at the last as the guards now had him, one hugging Draco from behind to his chest with Draco's arms pinned down, the other holding Draco's ankles tight, carrying him suspended between them. A third guard had his wand drawn and pointed right at Draco's chest, making it clear he would jinx him into submission if he struggled any further.

Unable to move, wands upon him, no one listening to him, Draco hung his head and wept as he was carried out of the room, the people witnessing the trial abuzz with what they had just seen:

A guilty verdict…

Draco Malfoy trying to struggle away from the guards…

Draco Malfoy breaking down and crying…

Draco Malfoy…proclaiming vengeance?

To whom? Harry Potter, undoubtedly, in the unified opinions of all those witness to the scene.

“No! No! Please, they promised me!” he screamed again, not once saying who “they” were, his words echoing down the corridor before the heavy door could slam shut and block out his screams from the witches and wizards now talking furiously at the conclusion of a Death Eater's trial, the first of many to follow over the next year.

Draco snapped out of his memories with his shouts and screams echoing in his head. He took a shuddering breath and let it out firmly, calming himself.

That was more than thirteen years ago, yet that night…that night was still so plain in everyone's memories, his being no exception.

The only difference was he was one of the select few that knew the truth behind the meaning of his words. Those that mattered knew, but none that knew thought it mattered enough to set things right, apparently.

“No good deed goes unpunished,” he muttered to himself bitterly like he had so many times before. He had used his Legilimency to remind Harry of that the night before. It was a magical and mental ability, but no wand was required when simply pressing a thought into another's wide-open mind.

Draco worked in the Hall of History, Documentation, and Records. His story was there, written out on the pages of many different volumes and transcripts, but it was always inaccurate. It was always wrong.

Draco Malfoy: Convicted Death Eater and Werewolf.

That was untrue.

The Death Eater part at least.

-->

Blue-Eyed Angel

Chapter Two

Narcissa Malfoy hurried between one Ministry Official and another, shouting, taking things from them and setting them down, just to turn her back and have the item picked up and carried off again.

“Stop this! You have no right! Get out of my home!” she shouted, her usual crisp and proper voice faulting around the edges, anger close to the surface, sadness and frustration already there.

“I'm sorry, Madam, but we have Ministry orders to search your home and remove anything we suspect relates to Dark Magic,” the wizard that stood vigilant over the scene said, unfolding a piece of parchment and offering it to Narcissa. Narcissa strode over to him in several long graceful steps, her ornately beaded silver dress clinking expensively as she approached. She snatched the parchment from him in a huff and looked it over while witches and wizards tossed the room, carrying things out.

“You have searched my home twice already! What do you hope to find this time?” she demanded, her pointed face hard with anger to mask her tears that threatened to come.

“Your husband, Lucius Malfoy, has just been sent to Azkaban, Madam. He broke into the Ministry under orders of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and attacked several young Hogwarts students. He bears the Dark Mark,” he said, as though that somehow explained what the Ministry hoped to find in the Malfoy home.

Narcissa sobbed at that point, unable to deny what her husband was, and upon being reminded where he was. Her home was being torn apart by people she knew from the Ministry, people she had once considered associates or even friends! Without a word, she hurried from the room, still weeping, lifting the front of her dress so as not to stumble, while wizards used their wands to overturn furniture and search the undersides with charms and spells in hopes of finding things concealed.

Draco stood on the stairs about halfway up, his back to the wall where he leaned his bum against the railing, arms crossed, face flushed in anger as he watched his home be invaded and torn apart for the third time in recent memory, by strangers and family “friends” alike. The sixteen-year-old wizard glared at the unwelcome guests in his house from overhead. He saw his mother hurry into the Grand Hall where the stairs stood and his face fell, arms loosening slightly. He could see and hear her weeping and it made his chest tight with guilt and pain. He hated seeing his mother cry.

Hurrying down the stairs, Draco joined his mother under the chandelier, hugging her slender body protectively.

“It's all right, Mother,” he comforted.

“They can't do this. They can't,” she sobbed into his shoulder, the Order of Decree crumpled in her perfectly manicured and delicately jeweled hand as she wrapped her arms around her son's shoulders.

“We cannot stop them,” he said, hating that. Hating that he could not ease his mother's pain, free his father from Azkaban, clear their family name, and protect and defend his home. He felt powerless, and that made him positively livid.

“Oh, your father would be at the Ministry now, raising hell if he were here. He would not allow this; he would not stand for it,” she said, unintentionally comparing Draco to his father like she often did, only making Draco all the more angry, angry that he could not be the man his father was no matter how much he wanted to be, or how hard he tried.

“Our name is no good anymore, Mother. We have no standing with the Ministry with that new Minister,” Draco said, trying to make it sound as if it weren't simply because he was inept that he couldn't smooth this over like his father had so many times before, with threats and with gold.

“Oh, God,” Narcissa cried. Draco just soothed her softly and rubbed her back, glaring over her shoulder at the wizards that had just entered the hall.

“Check the upstairs, starting with the boy's bedroom,” one called out to the others as they filed up the stairs. Draco's eyes narrowed and his chest tightened again in outraged violation.

Draco pulled away from his mother to look at her straight on.

“Mother, go lay down in Father's study,” he said.

“Draco,”

“Go, please, they are done in there. Just lay down before you give yourself a nose bleed from stressing,” Draco said, giving his mother's hands a squeeze before turning and following after the wizards on their way to his bedroom.

He took the stairs two at a time and caught up with the men just as they started on his room in the same fashion they had the rest. Draco appeared in his doorway in time to see his mattress flipped over onto the floor and his dresser drawers being pulled out, their contents carelessly thrown out.

“Excuse me!” Draco shouted, watching as his privacy was not only violated but as his belongings were so disrespected. “Excuse me, you can't...” he tried but the wizard closest to him produced a Ministry Order of Decree from somewhere in his robes, about to assure Draco they could.

“We have an Order…”

“Sod off, I'm not talking about that, I…HEY!” he shouted, distracted from the Ministry Official before him, as one of the wizards in the room took his wand to the pillows and split them open, tossing the downy feathers out and searching through them, clearly in hopes of finding something hidden. Draco turned to see his closet being pulled apart and his belongings tossed about. Two wizards, knowing Draco was watching them, each grabbed the sleeve of a shirt and pulled, ripping it down the middle. Draco turned again and saw the pictures on his walls being pulled down and checked over, their backings ripped away to expose their canvas backs, but nothing hidden.

Draco's bottom lip trembled and his hands clenched in rage. The wizards knew there was nothing to find in his bedroom; there was no need to be so destructive. They were just being cruel.

“Alright, alright, there is nothing to find here,” the wizard who had spoken to Draco already announced, stopping the fun. The wizards slowly filed out, mean, yet satisfied smiles on their faces at Draco's expense. The wizard in charge grabbed Draco's hand and slapped the Order of Decree in his palm and closed his fingers around it.

“Happy birthday,” he said with a harsh smile.

Draco glared at him with angry bitter tears brimming in his eyes at that last remark.

The wizard turned, and left to join the others as they tossed the rest of the upstairs.

Draco balled his fist around the parchment until his hand shook and his nails bit crescent marks into his palm. He threw the parchment away with an angry yell and faced his room.

It was a mess, more than a mess, it was a disaster.

Walking through the white feathers that littered the floor like a fresh snowfall, Draco approached his bed. The four-poster was pushed aside, the deep green curtains in tatters, the mattress on the floor slashed into ribbons, the pillows emptied, and the bedding torn away and thrown aside. Draco squatted down and dug through the feathers, looking for something.

Tossing aside an empty pillow, he found what he was searching for. Falling backwards onto his butt and scooting across the floor until his back was against the wall, he hugged it tight.

Draco was not going to cry. He was not. But this was not how he wanted to spend his sixteenth birthday.

In all actuality, he had turned sixteen on the fifth of June just three weeks before, but this was his first day home, and since he had first started attending Hogwarts, his first day home had always been his birthday celebration.

There would be no celebrating today.

Draco hugged what he had rescued from the ruined bedding. The battered, but well-loved bunny with button eyes that lived under his pillow and only came out when Draco needed comfort was there with him now, offering him much needed comfort.

It was not fair.

He hadn't done anything to deserve this.

Draco woke up from his restless sleep feeling stiff and very cold. He let out a sigh of breath that faintly clouded around his mouth; it was that cold in his room. Not even in his sleep was he safe from his memories. Not for a moment could he be at peace, it seemed.

Getting up and dressing slowly, he walked stiffly, readying himself for another day at the Ministry. He hated getting up so early, but felt he had no choice as he would rather get out of work early and spend his afternoons and evenings relaxing, as opposed to cooking dinner and going straight to bed. He had better things to do with his time.

Walking with a stiff limp, he brushed out his long hair, washed up, and left without eating. His stomach was unwell this morning. He locked up behind him after making sure that all the curtains were drawn and walked to the bus stop. He would ride the Muggle bus, with its Muggle passengers, all the way into London. He had no other alternative.

He missed having a wand …he missed magic, but he had learned to get along without it. Not by choice, but out of complete necessity.

He had never completed his schooling. He had not attended his seventh year (for obvious reasons), and his sixth year, well, he had been a little too distracted to fully benefit from any classes that year. With only a fifth year education, he really was a bit of a substandard wizard, but he was an excellent study, and working in the Hall of Records he had a lot of time bone up on all he had missed, and then some. He couldn't do any practical magic, but he knew more spells than most wizards his age, and he knew best how to apply them in any given situation.

Unfortunately, he would never get the chance to utilize such knowledge.

He had spent ten years in Azkaban and had been out for three. He would never be allowed a wand again.

Learning to travel without magic, learning to cook, to clean, to sew…it had taken some fortitude and resolve on his part, but he had picked it all up rather quickly. It was not just that stubborn Malfoy determination in him to excel in everything he attempted, but that he had had to. He had gone from a life where house-elves and servants catered to his every whim and need, while having magic as a back up, to having nothing, and no magic to fall back on.

This early in the morning, the bus was near deserted. The bus driver bid him a cheery good morning and Draco paid his fare without a word, but a single nod. Sitting in the back of the bus, he absentmindedly looked out the window while his forehead leaned against the glass. Oh, how his life had changed.

“Malfoy…Malfoy,” Coderdale said, trying to get Draco's attention. Draco looked up from his desk, blinking. He had been at work for two hours and the entire time he had been in a daze while filling out paperwork.

“Sorry?” Draco said, blinking to clear his mind. He had been overtaken by yet another memory, and without anything to actively distract him from it until Coderdale had yelled just then, he had been unable himself to pull out.

“I asked you a question,” Coderdale said, shaking his head.

“Forgive me, I…I was drifting. What did you ask?” Draco asked, while straightening his papers before him like it had a purpose, other than to ease his embarrassment.

“I asked you if you have the volumes on Gretchen the Ghastly. I need them and I couldn't find them shelved,” he said, looking worried about Draco but not letting that be heard in his voice.

“No…no, I don't have them,” Draco said distractedly at first, looking around his cluttered desk quickly.

“They are not on the list of checkouts; did you not shelve them properly?” Coderdale asked. Draco heaved a sigh.

“Probably not,” he answered, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“What's with you today, Draco? You are more of a flake than usual,” he said, letting his concern finally surface in his voice.

“I'm just tired. I have not been sleeping well,” he explained, remembering his dream, a dream that had just been a terrible memory.

“You been eating?”

“I don't think that is of any concern of yours,” Draco snapped.

“Draco, I worry.”

“And it is not necessary,” Draco said, cutting the man off while standing. “I'll seek out those volumes I misplaced,” he said, already turning and walking away, leaving Coderdale to worry by himself. He did not need the man's concern.

Prideful creatures, those Malfoys.

Draco drifted off into the towers of books, glass lanterns shelved periodically to provide soft light. As he walked, though his footsteps soft, echoes rose up around him. He limped into the section that contained texts on everything from Goblin Gold to Geisha Witches. Surely Gretchen the Ghastly was somewhere around there.

He found Gretel of Gadsdorf and Gunther the Terrible but no Gretchen.

“Bloody hell,” Draco said, holding a lantern up and turning in full circle to look around. Where had he put it?

Sighing loudly in irritation, he reached over and grabbed one of the sliding ladders that were attached on a track to the shelves. He pulled it over, hooked the lantern in the bend of his elbow, and started climbing stiffly. His joints screamed in protest, but he ignored the pain, or at least did not let it hinder him.

About halfway up, he stopped to hold the lantern out and read the titles of the books. What had he been doing while shelving the books? Surely if he could remember what he was thinking about, he would be able to backtrack his way to the section where he had misplaced them.

“Damn it,” Draco grumbled, preparing to climb down when a familiar name on the spine of a particularly massive volume caught his eyes.

Granger.

Of course she was in there, and of course she had her own volume. She was a renowned and “brilliant” witch. She had been a part of the Dark Lord's fall and had since built her career further with her work in the Ministry. She was a “clever” and “intelligent” Healer now.

Draco glared at the book. His tongue darting out to moisten his lips, he put his lantern down on the wide shelf and pulled the dusty text.

Turning around carefully on the vertical ladder so that he could sit partially on one of the rungs, Draco opened the book to a random page and was immediately presented with a picture of the book's namesake herself. She stood tall, bright, and waved. Draco narrowed his eyes at her and read the caption.

“Hermione Granger, Muggle-born, rose to fame early in life due to her contribution to the Order of Phoenix at the mere age of seventeen. One of her most notable achievements was the capture of the Death Eater, Draco Malfoy… (for more information on Malfoy see Dark, Deadly and Dangerous Death Eaters)…”

The book read on, but Draco snapped it shut with much suppressed anger causing a cloud of dust to billow. He re-shelved it with more force than was necessary.

“Slag,” he muttered bitterly, insulting her.

“Hello?” a man's voice distantly echoed. Draco looked away from the shelves, towards the direction of the voice.

“Hello?” the disembodied voice called again after a moment.

“Coderdale, where the bloody hell are you?” Draco muttered to himself, climbing back down towards the floor. He could hear the man calling, and he had expected Coderdale to be right there to offer assistance, but he appeared to be misplaced at the moment. Draco could only hope the ancient one had not wondered off and died in some dark corner of the library. It would be weeks before he found him and the smell would be terrible.

Draco pulled up his hood as he moved towards the front of the vast room, covering his long hair and tucking it out of sight. The man's calls could still be heard, closer than before, but still echoing from the high ceiling.

He paused at the end of the row and carefully leaned around the shelf, looking to see who it was that had wandered all the way down into his awful pit of a Ministry department.

A young wizard stood alone, looking around, a few paces from the desks. His hair was the color of old gold, smooth and long enough that it was nicely slicked back with oil. His robes were a charcoal grey and nice, though not too fancy. Simple business robes. A cornflower blue tie at his throat, polished shoes on his feet, he looked like just about any other wizard his age in the Ministry.

The man was looking away and called out, "Hello?" again, before glancing back to see Draco silently peeking out at him from about twenty feet away, looking timid.

“Oh, hello there,” the man said with a strong Irish accent. “I thought for a second that I was alone in here, but given the size of this place…wow…I figured I would linger and maybe give someone the chance to reach me,” he rambled, friendly, fresh, fake.

Draco said nothing. He simply stared at the man as he leaned around the shelves, his hood up so that his pale face was in dim shadow. His face was not hidden, but his identity was.

The man looked at Draco for a long moment before clearing his throat and shifting.

“I came looking for some volumes,” he announced. Draco said nothing. “Then again, I suppose everyone that comes down here is looking for volumes,” he said with a smile. Still, Draco said nothing. “I tried sending a note down this way, but owls are all backed up on the seventh floor, and no one can get any messages past until the mess is cleared up, so I had to come all the way down here to…” he said, drifting off to look right at Draco. “You really don't care do you?” he asked, abruptly dropping all pretenses, his voice suddenly so much less friendly and his shoulders so much less squared.

Draco just shook his head.

“I'm looking for some texts on Dark Magic. I had a list, but it's lost somewhere up on the seventh floor.”

“There are a lot of volumes here on the Dark Arts, but most are restricted,” Draco finally said, still partially hidden behind the shelf. Where the hell was Coderdale? He was the one that dealt directly with the people that wandered into the hall, not Draco.

“I have a note,” he said, holding up a finger as though requesting a moment, reaching deep into his robe's pocket and feeling around with his other hand. Draco watched him pull out his wand and then keep searching. Draco looked at the wand for a moment before the man spoke again, and drew Draco's attention away from the slender piece of wood.

“Aha, here it is,” he said, unfolding a piece of parchment and levitating it towards Draco. Draco watched the bit of parchment bob in front of him before plucking it out of the air reluctantly. Looking down at it while the man placed his wand away, Draco read.

“This says you are from the Department of International Magical Cooperation, the Office of Misinformation,” he said, looking back up at the man, pulling his reading glasses away from his faintly confused face.

“That I am.”

“Forgive me, but why would you need texts on the Dark Arts? You work with Muggles,” he said, knowing the extent of the man's job being that he helped wizards of other Departments of the Ministry understand Muggles when their cases overlapped Muggle jurisdiction, or needed Muggle Ministry cooperation.

“I cannot really talk about it. You can see there on the note that I have the signatures required…”

“You have this signed by the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement,” Draco commented, looking back down at the note.

“Is that a problem?”

“What are the Aurors doing with the Department that works with Muggles where they would then need such detailed volumes on Dark Magic?” Draco asked, studying the parchment with his glasses back in place. He found there was a list of volumes on the back, something the man had apparently not been aware of.

“Do you think it's forged? You can perform a Proboiaceo Charm to see that it's authentic,” he said. Draco looked back up at him.

“I cannot,” he said, looking angry rather than embarrassed.

“Oh, oh…sorry. I forgot. I was told just before coming down that the Ministry employs Squibs down here,” he said, looking as though he wanted to slap his hand over his forehead, but refraining.

“Yeah, something like that,” Draco grumbled.

“I'm sorry. I do assure you, the note is real, and I do have pressing matters I have to get back to, and it is such a long trek down here that…”

Draco just disappeared into the shelves again.

“Um, excuse me, hello?” the man asked, following after where Draco had disappeared to. He saw Draco walking towards the back, grabbing a lantern as he went. The man followed after him, as Draco knew he would, and he eventually caught up.

“Sorry, I didn't introduce myself. My name is Reamann Rossiter. You are?” he offered. Draco said nothing but kept walking. Reamann looked at him to answer, but after a moment started talking again.

“There are a lot of books here. How many are there?” he asked.

“A fair few,” Draco muttered. Did the man actually expect him to have any idea the exact number?

Reamann cracked his knuckles and swung his arms from side to side with a sigh, walking and looking around as they progressed down the row. He noticed Draco's limp, and chewed his tongue so as to not to inquire about it.

Draco eventually stopped and set his lantern down on a shelf. He made to climb up the ladder when Reamann reached out to stop him.

“I could do it, if you like,” he said and Draco just looked at him, already with a foot on the ladder. Reamann was not overly tall but he was taller than Draco, though that was not hard, as Draco was only five foot nine. Reamann was probably about six feet tall, but he clearly outweighed Draco by an arm and a leg, a testament more to how little Draco weighed rather than how much Reamann did. The man looked lean, sun kissed, and healthy, Draco looked pale and a tad too skinny.

“I noticed your limp and…” he said but Draco just started climbing while still looking at the man with fierce eyes. “Alright, that's fine too,” Reamann muttered to himself, feeling awkward.

Draco climbed about halfway up and started skimming the volumes, looking for the first one on the list after replacing his reading glasses. Not being quite the style statement for him as it was for Harry Potter, Draco's eyesight wasn't what it used to be not so long ago, and his rectangular black rimmed glasses were all he had to aid him. He was too damn young in his opinion for his eyesight to be going, but without magic he could not correct it.

Reamann remained below him, looking a little unsure of what to do with himself.

“So how long have you been working down here?” he asked, finally giving up on amusing himself with his glances around and restless shifting.

“Three years,” Draco said simply, pulling a volume from the shelves and setting it aside while looking for the next.

He may not have been a wealthy Malfoy for the past thirteen years, but he was still a Malfoy, and he had maintained his upper crust drawling accent.

“Three years? Wow. How does one end up with this job? In all honesty I did not even realize your job existed until today. I thought the courtrooms were the lowest level…but then, I suppose the Ministry needs a place of records and such, and what better place to have them but below the courtrooms?” he said. Draco said nothing. Reamann waited, but eventually moved on. “So, um, do you enjoy it down here?” he asked.

Draco let his head fall back so he could stare off at the dark ceiling for a moment, thinking to himself what a stupid question that had been, while rolling his eyes as though looking for some heavenly aid or intervention at that point. There was a reason why he did not interact with anyone that happened to find their way to the hall, and it wasn't just that he lacked social niceties. Draco chose to ignore the man further as he pulled another heavy volume.

“I suppose if you like books then it would be a nice job,” Reamann muttered, turning in place once. “You work alone down here?”

“No,” Draco said flatly.

“Really? Where are the others?” he asked.

“Dead in a corner somewhere, for sure,” Draco said in an unconcerned tone, tucking several volumes against his chest as he slowly climbed down and offered them to Reamann. Reamann took them and Draco immediately climbed back up to get more. It was quite the balancing act to carry texts -often large and heavy- up and down in his arms, but the ladders, flush and perfectly parallel to the shelves, were fixed with charms to prevent him from falling even if he tried.

Reamann didn't seem to know what to say to Draco's remark so he was quiet for a handful of minutes. Draco enjoyed the silence, but Reamann clearly didn't because he started talking again shortly.

“I'm relatively new,” he announced.

“Are you now,” Draco said distractedly, climbing up and a little further, readjusting his lamp to search more.

“Yeah, I'm not exactly straight out of Hogwarts or anything, but I haven't worked for the Ministry long. I'm Muggle-born you see, and my parents had their hearts set on me going to Medical School and becoming a doctor,” he explained. Draco made an indifferent noise of encouragement to show he was listening, although he really wasn't paying any attention. “Yeah, well, after nearly six years of that, I realized that I was just not meant to be a doctor.”

“Took you that long, huh?” Draco muttered.

“Well, it had been a growing feeling for a while and I finally just acted on it. I came to the Ministry, and with my knowledge of Muggles I was able to get a position with the Misinformation Office, specifically the Department of Muggle Relations,” he said, sounding proud.

“Well done,” Draco said flatly, shelving a book and looking for the more recent edition. He did not envy the wizards and witches that worked in the Department of Muggle Relations. They had to deal directly with Muggles that marveled at magic if they even knew about it, and wizards perplexed by Muggle ways. They were something like translators between the two worlds. It took a good sense of humor and a lot of patience; two things Draco lacked entirely.

“Thank you,” Reamann said, and Draco rolled his eyes again, the man clearly having thought Draco was being sincere. “Yeah, now with this case, and working with the Aurors? It's really exciting. I could get a major promotion,” he said, beaming again.

“Couldn't happen to a better bloke,” Draco muttered, hugging some massive volumes to his chest with his left arm while climbing down the latter.

“That all of them?” Reamann asked, taking the books Draco offered in his other arm, suddenly laden with so many heavy texts he looked like he would either drop them or fall over, or drop them and fall over.

“What case are you working on?” Draco asked, and Reamann shifted his weight, hoping to balance the books better in his arms.

“The attacks on Muggles in Manchester,” he said, before looking up at the realization of what he had just absentmindedly revealed. “You can't mention that!” he said, looking at Draco with panicked eyes. The man was obviously new, to have let slip his first big case to a stranger that had just happened to ask about it.

“So what the papers have been reporting is true then, there have been Muggle attacks. Wasn't it just last week that the Minister publicly denounced such rumors?” Draco asked with a smirk, glasses pushed down his nose slightly so he could see over them.

“You cannot say anything,” Reamann pleaded, shifting again, the corner of one of the books digging harshly into his left inner arm.

“Why would the Ministry be covering up such a thing?” Draco inquired.

“I can tell you I don't know, but I have been told not to say a word to anyone about this,” he said, as Draco turned and climbed back up the ladder. “Where are you going?” he asked, hoping there weren't more volumes. He wouldn't be able to carry anymore hefty volumes.

Draco glanced over the books quickly while holding up his lantern.

“Here,” he said, pulling a smaller volume and climbing back down.

“What's this?” Reamann asked.

“If someone is attacking Muggles -and using Dark Magic to do so- then this text could be of some use,” he offered, holding out the book.

“This was not on the list?”

“A lot of good volumes I think would help were not, and a lot of useless ones are,” Draco said with a smirk, before setting the book atop the rest with a pat and grabbing his lantern. “I'll check you out,” he said, implying Reamann should follow.

With Draco's increasing limp and Reamann 's heavy load, it was a slow progression back to the desks.

“Are you alright?” Reamann asked.

“Splendid,” Draco said dismissively as he sat with a grinding pain in his hips and knees, placing his glasses on his face once again as he started copying down the names of the volumes to be checked out. Reamann set the texts down on Coderdale's desk and looked down at Draco for a long moment, while Draco worked.

“You seem awfully familiar,” he finally said. Draco froze for a second, but otherwise gave no indication of the sudden dread he felt.

“Do I?” he asked, managing to sound bored rather than uneasy. Malfoys were accomplished in such deceits.

“Yes, I can't place your face though.”

“I can't say that we have met before, so you must be mistaken,” he said, being honest but not mentioning that Reamann probably recalled him from the papers, not from a personal encounter.

“No, no, I know I have seen your face before,” he said, looking more closely at Draco. Draco sighed and pulled his glasses off his face to look up at Reamann in annoyance.

“I do not like being stared at,” he said flatly. Reamann narrowed his eyes and considered Draco for a long moment before looking away. Few could hold a Malfoy glare for long.

“You never told me your name,” he said.

“It is of no never mind to you what my name is,” Draco said looking back down at the books, and writing “Dark, Deadly and Dangerous Death Eaters” down on the note with a hand clenched a little too tightly on his quill. “The Aurors really think Death Eaters are involved? They are all locked away in Azkaban or dead,” he said conversationally for once on his part.

“They have been letting them out for the last three years, don't you know?” Reamann asked.

“I did know that,” Draco mumbled.

“I don't think a Death Eater out on probation for three years or less is gonna start attacking Muggles for no apparent reason, but the Aurors want to look into it as a possibility,” he said, and Draco looked up at him.

“I wish you luck,” Draco said, smiling in a pleasant mask as he held out Reamann's list of checkouts to sign.

“Thank you.” Reamann nodded, whipping out his wand to shrink down the volumes so that they could fit in his pocket for easy transportation. Draco's eyes remained fixed on the magic before him before he blinked his mind clear and took a deep breath.

Reamann walked out with one last bid goodbye, and Draco nodded vaguely at him.

Who was attacking Muggles?

Surely, no Death Eaters…Lord Voldemort was dead; there would be no point. That, and no one in their right mind, however bigoted they were, would risk going back to Azkaban over some stupid Muggles.

Still, he needed to make a few calls.

Who else was out other than him?

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

Reamann Rossiter hiked up flight after flight of stairs on his way to the lifts and back up to the Department of Muggle Relations.

“Reamann, how are you?” Arthur Weasley called out, as Reamann nearly walked by him in the hallway, his mind a million miles away at the moment.

Arthur Weasley was aged, but still so friendly. He had become entirely bald but the fact that he was a redhead was not lost. His eyebrows were still red and the beard he had grown was mostly red with some white streaks running its length.

“Mr. Weasley, sir. It's good to see you down here. I'm a right bit exhausted with all that is happening and those flights of stairs I just took on, but I'm good,” he said, apologizing for nearly walking past him while so distracted.

“Reamann, how many times must I insist you call me Arthur?” he laughed.

“Every day, it seems. Sorry, sir,” he smiled.

“Will we be seeing you for dinner tonight? Molly is at home right now making some of her famous beef stew,” he said.

“Oh, I'm sorry, sir…Arthur…but I have so much reading to do that I really need to just work through the night,” he said, wishing he could drop everything for a spot of Mrs. Weasley's wondrous cooking.

“That is a real shame. My daughter will be most disappointed,” Arthur said with a slightly fallen face.

“I will make it up to her on one of my free evenings, I promise,” he assured.

“You busy now? I was about to take my lunch,” Arthur offered, revealing the reason why he was down there and not in his own department. “A little early I know, but dinner will be early, too.”

“No, I can't, I'm sorry. I just came from the Hall of Records and I have all these texts I need to start barreling though…”

“Molly won't like it if she hears you're not eating.”

“It's just lunch, and I'll be sure to get something a little later,” he promised with another smile.

“Alright, alright, off to work with you then. Send me an owl later on your progress, and if you can possibly make it to dinner.”

“Will do,” Reamann said with one last grin, while walking backwards on his way to his office.

Small, cramped, and bright, his office had a wonderful view of London…except for the fact that they were underground. The window was fake, just a clever spell.

“Oh dear…oh dear, oh dear…” he sighed, rounding his desk and collapsing into his chair. He put his elbows up on the desk and rested his face in his hands. Rubbing his face up and down vigorously for a moment, he then smoothed his hands over his slick hair while taking a deep breath.

“What am I gonna do?” he asked no one in particular. He loved the Weasleys, but they were treating him like he was already part of the family. He was dating their daughter, yes, but if Molly inquired one more time into when he was going to “pop the question” and, thus, when she can start expecting some more grandchildren, he was going to scream.

Looking across his desk his eyes fell on a picture frame. Inside was a photograph of him and Ginny, embracing and smiling, giggling and rocking, autumn leaves falling all around them. His picture self stole a quick kiss from Ginny, and she giggled and nudged him affectionately with her elbow while pulling on her scarf.

Reamann looked away.

“Knock-knock.”

Reamann looked up to see Harry Potter standing just outside his office.

“Harry,” he said, smiling, wiping away all his conflicted thoughts to be dealt with later.

“Hey, I was making my rounds and thought I missed you. Arthur assured me you were back. Where were you off to? It was awfully early to take lunch,” he said, stepping in.

“I went down to the Hall of Records. That mess on the seventh floor got everyone in a tizzy and I had to head down in person,” he explained, pulling out his miniaturized books and setting them on the desk before restoring them to actual size. Harry moved over to the desk and picked up the top book -the book Draco had picked out just for Reamann - and opened it.

“This is a lot of reading,” Harry commented, as though the fact were not painfully obvious to Reamann already.

“I know…I won't make it to dinner tonight.”

“Really? Molly will be disappointed,” Harry said.

“Her favorite son-in-law will be there, don't worry about her,” Reamann teased.

“Ex-son-in-law,” Harry corrected. “Unless you have forgotten that Ginny and I divorced,” he said with a smile.

“You what? I had no idea,” Reamann said with good-humoured sarcasm while absentmindedly opening one of his books. Harry was still loved by the Weasleys, even though he was no longer married to their daughter. He was, and always will be, a son to them. It was fortunate that his and Ginny's divorce was pretty amicable and they had remained friends.

“You sure you won't make it?” Harry asked, flipping through the book he had in his hands.

“Look at these books. I have to have a report written up by tomorrow morning,” he said, waving his hand over the pile.

“Hermione would be excited over the prospect of staying up all night reading these books and writing up a report. It would probably end up being three scrolls, too.”

“Well, we all know she is totally mental,” Reamann laughed.

“You know, I would disagree with you on principle, and her defense, but you have said nothing untrue,” Harry laughed. “You catching lunch?”

“No,” Reamann sighed.

“I'll bring you back something then,” Harry offered, smiling and walking towards the door, after tossing the book he held onto Reamann's desk.

“Thanks, mate, you're a real life saver.”

“Yeah, well, I would hate to think what Molly would do to me should I let you starve,” Harry teased, disappearing into the hallway. Reamann laughed softly to himself while looking down to his book. Harry was a good bloke and he was lucky to have him as a friend. Molly was a lovely woman too; it was unfair how much they teased each other at her expense.

His laughter immediately ceased, however, upon seeing a very familiar face glaring up at him from the pages of his book. Harsh silver eyes, pointed pale face, thin sharp lips, now topped off with platinum blond hair.

“What the…” he said to himself under his breath. “It couldn't be,” he said, not so sure.

He quickly looked down for the caption that went along with the picture.

“Among the Death Eaters tried in the year following the war's end, Draco Malfoy, a werewolf, was the first to be sentenced and, thusly, achieved the most notoriety. It is said that he cursed his captors before sentencing, the years following the likes of which Harry Potter have suffered misfortune. (To learn more about Harry Potter, read: The Greatest Wizard Who Ever Lived.)”

Reamann looked up at the picture -the picture of the man he had met down in the Hall of Records- with his eyes wide and just stared.

“He's a Death Eater?” he asked in disbelief after his brain was able to register it all.

“Rossiter,” came a sudden, very serious man's voice. Reamann snapped the book closed with a jump, and rested his elbow on top of it, his chin in his hand, trying to look innocent. “Rossiter, you get those books?” his boss bellowed. He was not an angry man; just a man whose voice always carried such authority that people got to work swiftly around him.

“Yes, sir,” he said quickly, holding his hands out, gesturing to display the volumes before him.

“Very good. I like that you got that done right away and didn't let that little mess on the seventh floor get in your way,” he said.

“Of course not, sir,” Reamann assured with a shit-smear grin.

“Alright. I look forward to your summary in the morning during the meeting with the Aurors,” he said, walking away already, not giving Reamann the chance to say anything more.

“Yes, sir…” he said quietly to himself, his boss already gone.

Looking down at the cover of the book, Dark, Deadly and Dangerous Death Eaters, Reamann swallowed hard.

Had he met Draco Malfoy down in the bowels of the Ministry of Magic?

-->

Blue-Eyed Angel

Chapter Three

Draco walked down the cobbled street of Diagon Alley. His joints were in agony today, and he knew it was the cold to blame. He hated that he needed to use a cane, and he preferred to think of it as a style statement, a status symbol. His father had walked with a cane that had contained his wand and had had a serpent's head with emerald eyes. Draco's cane was far less glamorous, while moreover lacking a wand, and was needed more for its intended purpose than anything; but no one needed to know that.

It was snowing and cold, but thankfully there was no wind. The snowflakes fluttered gently to the ground, or anything that met them on the way down. Draco was one of those things, as was everyone else on the street. He was wrapped up warm in his faded cloak, hood in place as always when in public, the snow building up on his shoulders.

Carolers sang and owls hooted as Draco Malfoy entered Flourish & Blotts to the jingling of a tiny bell. After having spent all day at work surrounded by books, it seemed silly to then go to a bookshop, but he had made arrangements to meet someone there.

Walking slowly while looking around, Draco sought out his cohort. It did not take long for him to find her; she did kind of stick out amongst the dark shelves.

“Mother,” Draco said, while smiling and moving as quickly as he could over to her, embracing her in a one-armed hug.

“Angel! Hello, darling,” she said, hugging him back. “How are you?”

“Awright,” he mumbled.

“You look awful,” she said, her face falling slightly while taking in her son's gaunt appearance.

“Mother, please,” Draco attempted, not really wanting to be babied by his mother, at least not in public.

“Come here, sit down,” she said, guiding him over to a table amongst the shelves where she pushed him down into a seat. “You are walking with your cane again.”

“It's just the cold, has me a bit ropey,” he said, trying to be dismissive.

“Oh, you would play down your own death if you could,” Narcissa said, fussing over her son. “Here,” she said, dropping her voice, “I brought you some Curatio Draught.” She pulled a vial out of her cloak and held it out.

“Mother, please!” Draco hissed, lowering his voice as well, and pushing her hand down onto the table to cover the vial with his hand atop of hers. “You can't be so indiscrete about these things,” he said, looking at her intently.

“Don't be silly. Just take it. It will do you some good,” she said, pushing their hands towards him.

“How am I to know it's not a Calming Draught you are slipping me again, Mother?” he asked, eyeing his mother, though a smirk was pulling across his face.

“Is it wrong for a mother to want her son not to be stressing himself ill?” Narcissa asked, placing her free hand over her heart in a very innocent and blameless way. Draco released his mother's hand with a sigh, falling backward against his chair.

“Just pass me the Curatio Draught,” he said, holding out his hand. Narcissa smiled and placed the small bottle in his palm. Draco uncapped it and downed a gulp of the foul potion without question. He trusted his mother not to poison him, though he could not trust her to give him exactly what she claimed. He was either going to be in a whole lot less pain, or be too calm to care about it or get mad at her for lying.

“I couldn't imagine what you needed so badly that you would owl me in the middle of the day, sweetheart. I was with Clarissa, and I was planning on seeing you later, wasn't I? I had to leave her with your cousin,” his mother continued on, as Draco sniffed at the vial he held in his hands and made a face. It smelled awful and tasted even worse.

“I needed to ask you…and not in front of Clarissa…” he said, taking another gulp, “what other Death Eaters,” he said, dropping his voice while saying that, “are out of Azkaban?” His mother's reaction to the question was the one he had expected: surprise and shock.

“Draco, why would you ask me this…?”

“I just need to know who is outside and free to, I don't know, do as they like,” he said.

“I don't think any of us after getting out of that God-awful place can do as we like, Draco,” Narcissa stated flatly, having spent three years in Azkaban herself. She had been “lucky” and Draco scoffed at that. Lucky would have been not having gone at all.

“True, I just want to know who has been let out,” he said. Narcissa looked at Draco for a moment, considering him carefully, her pale eyes searching his face to betray him, but it didn't. His thin and pointed face was as blank of a mask as any other time he was being careful. Looking away, she sighed. She hated that he felt he had to be careful around her.

“Well, I'm not sure, I would have to ask around, but we both know Blaise Zabini was just released,” she said, and Draco nodded. “Pansy Parkinson got out the same year you did,” she continued, and Draco grimaced. He had run into her more than once. “Vincent Crabbe was released, Merlin, eight months ago?” she said, thinking hard on that while trying to recall the exact amount of time. “And I believe there are a few others, but I'm not sure. None of the true Death Eaters are out. They have lifetime stints in Azkaban, or...”

“Or they're dead,” Draco finished for her, his voice deceptively indifferent, almost sounding harsh because of it. Narcissa nodded and sniffed, not about to allow herself to weep in public.

“Right,” she whispered. “Why do you ask?” she inquired, knowing her son had never wanted anything to do with Death Eaters before, and doubting he would have a sudden change of heart now, so many years later.

“No real reason. Just looking for some familiar faces is all,” he said with a shrug, taking another gulp from the vial and making a face. His complete ambiguousness gave him away entirely to his mother. Most wouldn't have known him well enough to recognize it, but his total blankness, his air of indifference, was not like him. Not when talking to her. She knew something was up.

She did not believe him when he said it was nothing, but she did not press the matter. She knew he would not tell her anything he did not want to, and pushing him never made him want to do anything.

“You be careful, Angel,” she warned warmly, reaching across the table and grabbing her son's hand firmly in hers. Draco smiled at her.

“Always.”

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

Reamann hurried down the steps of the Ministry two at a time and jogged down the corridor. “Lumos,” he whispered once it got darker. He avoided a cold puddle on the floor, but stumbled over some uneven ground. Hurrying, he retraced his way back to the Hall of Records deep below the Ministry of Magic.

Pushing open the great, heavy door, he entered the vast room to find an old man standing there, looking surprised to see he had a visitor, especially one that was so sweaty and short of breath.

“Can I help you, sir?” Coderdale asked, still unsure what to make of his guest.

“I'm…I'm looking for…Draco Malfoy,” he panted, “Nox”-ing his wand and tucking it away in the pocket of his robes.

“How do you know…?”

“Please, I need to speak with him,” Reamann said, sounding as polite as he could while stressing his urgency.

“I'm afraid he has already left for the day,” Coderdale said, frowning at the young wizard deeply.

“Already? But…” he said, smoothing his hair down with his hand. “This is important,” he said, taking a deep breath.

“You will have to come back tomorrow if you wish to speak to him,” Coderdale said, not feeling too helpful, and not really wanting to. Who was this man that was looking for Draco?

“Alright, yes. Alright. I can stop by tomorrow -early­­- to see him,” he said, his breath even again, his tone clearly annoyed.

Without a word, he turned around and headed back the long way up to the more hospitable parts of the Ministry.

Why had he run all the way down there to speak to Draco Malfoy?

Was it because he was a Death Eater?

If Draco Malfoy were behind the attacks he wouldn't have admitted it if asked bluntly, and if he knew who was, surely he wouldn't have turned them over just like that.

So why run?

To see if it was true: was it really Draco Malfoy?

Reamann got back to his office and packed. He would head home to read case files and all the books Draco had found for him. He would write up his report and try and get a nap in before dawn. He needed to see Draco Malfoy early before his meeting with the Aurors.

He was still, however, unsure of the importance of meeting with the Death Eater, he just knew he needed to.

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

Ginny Weasley was in Diagon Alley, doing a bit of early holiday shopping, enjoying the weather, and looking forward to supper at the Burrow where she would get to see a good portion of her family. She saw most of her family often, and those she couldn't, she kept in touch with, but it was a rare occasion that they all got together. Her family had always been large, but it had since grown even larger. It was difficult, and near impossible, to get everyone in the Burrow for Christmas. Family, wives, and grandchildren all fighting for space, it was a feat; never mind the food and preparation it entailed.

To try and make things easier on everyone, and her mother in particular, they had several smaller family dinners throughout December, so that everyone still got to see each other.

It was a bright Wednesday afternoon, and Ginny would have typically been working at that time of day, but she had the day off. Mandatory. She was getting too many hours in and the Ministry was not about to pay her overtime.

Ginny looked in the window of Flourish & Blotts and smiled. She still needed to shop for Hermione, and that girl could get a book every year for Christmas and still be happy. Entering to the jingle of the shop bell, she unwound her scarf from her neck and looked around, taking in the deep smell of parchment and leather.

She loved winter, and the smell of books was so pleasant, but she would never admit that last thought to anyone, except maybe Hermione, since she would be the only one who wouldn't give her a hard time about it. Parchment just had a dryness and crispness to its warm smell and she just could not imagine how one wouldn't enjoy it.

Walking in, she smiled as people passed, and nodded to those that greeted her. She was a bit of a celebrity, many were because of the war. Being the ex-Mrs. Harry Potter seemed to be her claim to fame, so many forgetting what she had done when she was only sixteen. She supposed being the former Mrs. Potter was better in the end as she was able to walk around more freely than Harry, Hermione, or Ron could. She still had her envious fans, but few had to stop her and shake her hand repeatedly, graciously thanking her for all she had done.

“You be careful, Angel.” A woman's voice drifted over to her in the quiet shop.

“Always,” a man answered. Ginny rounded a bookshelf in time to lay eyes on who had spoken. A woman and a man sat at one of the many tables scattered about between the shelves. The man drew his hand away from the woman and locked eyes with Ginny.

Recognition was instantaneous for them both and they became utterly still for a brief moment, their breath caught in their respective throats.

“Mr. Potter,” Voldemort laughed, assured in his victory, a smile pulling at his distorted features awkwardly, “watch, watch as all hope for the future dies…dies,” he whispered harshly into Harry's face as he leaned over Harry's shoulder. Harry was magically bound and unable to move, unable to help his friends as he watched them fall right into a trap.

“You deceitful BASTARD!” Harry spat, trying to wrench himself free, but unable to do so. Voldemort laughed because he knew it was not him that Harry was talking to.

Draco stood off to the right, hugging himself, watching the distant scene in the hollow below them and standing beside the trap he was about to spring upon the Dark Lord's order.

“I TRUSTED you! I thought you had changed; been a decent human being for once in your worthless, pathetic life! You made me believe you were fighting with us, and then you led me to think that you were fighting for yourself only, but certainly not for him…but you were! You were working for him all along!” he shouted and Draco's eyes darkened, chin drooping slightly.

“Ah, yes,” Voldemort said, speaking on behalf of Draco, “A decent human being...” he said, smiling. “Draco is no `human being' though, now is he?” Voldemort laughed, smacking Harry across the face lightly. Draco's head fell at Voldemort's words and he pressed his lips together.

“Draco, do it,” Voldemort commanded, his snake-like face grey and wet-looking, his slanted eyes burning red. His nose was but slits in the center of his face, by far above all else removing any discernible human quality from it.

Who was he to disparage Draco for not being human?

“Release me and fight me like a man, you coward!” Harry shouted, struggling, unable to break the binding curse that held him, but not for a lack of trying.

“A coward? Me, a coward? You are merely a boy and one I have no fear of. I could have killed you just now, but instead you live. You live only because I have allowed you to. Remember that, Potter, while you watch your friends die. Your death will be soon enough, but before that time I want you to understand that your continued existence, however brief, is because I allowed it,” Voldemort spat, spittle clinging to Harry's face from his hissing words.

“You're helping him,” Harry yelled at Draco as he focused intently on the task he had been set to. “You are helping him kill innocent people! You will stand by, and let him kill me, like you allowed Snape to kill Dumbledore?” Harry shouted, anger boiling his blood. Draco could not look up from his work, his eyes would betray him, and reveal his hurt at Harry's words.

“This is not what I wanted; I did not mean for things to happen like this, or for it to go this far…” Draco whispered into Harry's mind, using his hard earned Legilimency. Harry's eyes narrowed and he shot back every foul, harsh, and crude thing he could think of back at Malfoy. He was not successfully trained in Occlumency or Legilimency like Draco had been, but he knew Draco would get the message loud and clear.

Draco looked over at Harry with hollow eyes, and then focused once again on his task before Voldemort became aware of their exchange.

“Now, Draco, let's end this.” Voldemort laughed, opening his arms wide. “Mr. Potter, if you would be so kind as to direct your attention to your far left and the hollow below, you will see your pathetic little friends on their way to save you…visible despite their efforts, because of my spells,” he laughed.

A magical fog was seeping across the snowy ground below, allowing the people there to be seen from above, while being totally unaware of their exposure themselves. “Now, please observe my lovely little catapult Draco has so kindly set up for me,” Voldemort announced mockingly, his joy oozing from him in a way only a sociopath could manage. “Once they are within range, this will launch these devastating little balls,” Voldemort explained. “Such potent potion mixtures they contain, that upon impact, they will shatter and mix, and the effects will be somewhat…destructive,” he hissed. “Your friends will have moments of pure agony to ponder what has happened, before they die.” He laughed, high, cold, and harsh.

“Simple curses and spells won't work, oh no, your friends are clever enough to protect themselves from that, but they would not think, Potter, think to protect themselves from projectiles,” he cackled, and Harry felt his stomach drop out. It was true. Everyone was prepared to deflect charms, curses, and hexes, but no one had thought about physical objects.

Draco stood beside the small wooden contraption he had set up and hugged himself, unable to look at Harry, unable to look at the people approaching the castle below. He looked down at the ground to his left.

Voldemort swept over to Harry and wrapped himself around him again, his front to Harry's back, holding Harry's chin tightly in his grasp and forcing Harry to watch his friends.

“Watch with me, Harry. Watch with me as the last of the Order of Phoenix are destroyed, and all hope is lost,” he whispered into his ear, his breath cold against Harry's bruised face.

There were other Death Eaters there with them. Three to be exact. Theodore Nott, a Slytherin from Draco and Harry's year, stood vigilant over the scene. He was still stringy and thin, but imposing with the sword at his side, his hand resting on it gently, ready, waiting. Alecto, a squat and lumpy woman who Harry had first met in the initial assault on the Ministry of Magic back in his fifth year, and Yaxley, an enormous blond Death Eater.

“Watch, Harry,” Voldemort said, backing up from him to stand slightly to the right, so he was between the catapult and Harry, overlooking the scene below them all, the best view of anyone to watch the sight.

“They are in range now,” Alecto said, her voice firm. She was standing near the edge, leaning over it just slightly. Theodore and Yaxley were on the other side of the contraption, near Draco, ready and waiting, for anything.

“Do it, Draco,” Voldemort commanded and Draco squatted down.

“NO!” Harry shouted, wanting nothing more than to have his wand back in his hand. Then Voldemort would be at his mercy.

Draco released the switch on the catapult and it swept in a great arch, flinging the contents of its basket over the low-edged wall of the rooftop, towards the people below. Voldemort leaned forward, excited and waiting for the chaos to ensue. Draco stood slowly, watching too with baited breath, as the potions he himself had brewed for the Dark Lord now hurtled towards the people below.

“Watch…watch, Harry,” Voldemort recited over and over, excitement building for him as the people below froze upon seeing the tiny items descending on them. “Let them try and shoot them out of the air. Should the glass break for any reason and the contents mix…” he breathed, excited.

There was a flash and various shouts from below, Voldemort looking like he would drool on himself if made to wait any longer to see the devastation.

The flash faded and the people below were left squatting, hands over their heads protectively. There were no shouts of agony, no screams of terror. A gentle shower of flowers fell on them, drifting delicately in the cold air to fall atop the snow around them. Harry was left frozen, motionless in surprise. Voldemort's snake-like red eyes contracted into slits as he rounded on Draco.

“MALFOY!” he shouted, rage making his body literally quiver.

"Finite Incantatem!" Draco shouted, pointing his wand at Harry and releasing him from the binding spell. Harry stumbled backwards, now balancing on his own weight, and Voldemort turned his attention and went for his own wand. Draco did not hesitate.

"Harry!" he shouted, tossing him his wand, Harry's having been confiscated by Voldemort.

Harry caught Draco's wand in his right hand and turned it on Voldemort immediately, blocking the curse that had been sent at him as they began a familiar duel. He had no time to thank Draco, or even ponder what his actions had meant. Was Draco on his side, or was he still standing alone against the world? He couldn't spare the thought at the moment, as Voldemort had just sent another curse at him.

Draco turned upon sensing the movement at his back. Nott, Yaxley, and Alecto were there, bearing down on him slowly.

“Clever little Draco, brewing the wrong potion. All the good it did you, all you have managed to do so far is disarm yourself for us,” Nott said, sounding amused, though his eyes were harsh.

Draco narrowed his fierce silver ones at him, and stood tall and proud.

“Go, head them off before they can reach us, and warn the others,” Nott said to the two older Death Eaters at his back. They did not argue, they left the Dark Lord to his Harry Potter and Nott to his childhood friend. Draco backed up and Nott moved forward.

“Theodore,” he tried.

“You cast your lot in with them, Draco? You disappoint me,” Nott said, he and Draco both the eldest sons of Death Eaters.

“Clearly you do not see the foolery it is to remain faithful to a leader that would kill you just as soon as look at you,” Draco said, backing up more, very honestly unarmed at that moment. “He does not serve his people like a leader should; he controls them with violence and fear. No one serves an oppressive dictator willingly.”

“You think I serve the Dark Lord out of fear?” Nott laughed.

“There was a time I too thought my desire was to serve him…” Draco said, backing up still.

“A fool you were, a werewolf you are now. I can't say you have improved much…you're still as pathetic as ever,” Nott said harshly, drawing his sword slowly with a drawn-out hiss of metal on metal. Draco looked at his childhood friend, a boy he had as a guest countless times in his home, a boy who he had shared deep secrets and desires with, a boy that looked prepared to kill him and likely enjoy it.

“You do not know me, Nott, and I clearly never knew you,” he said, backing up still, though staying tall.

“Oh, stop sounding so bloody wounded, Draco. Honestly, it's pathetic!” Nott said, lunging at him. Draco dodged the sword and rolled so that he came to stand beside the wall. He did not think or hesitate, he grabbed one of the swords that hung there on the stone and used it to glance another lunge of Nott's away.

“I have always been the better fencer, Malfoy,” Nott said, standing straight and holding his sword up to his face vertically, in a salute.

“No better time to prove it then,” Draco retorted, saluting back before engaging in a very real sword fight.

While entertaining Nott at his home, they had fenced many times, always with tipped swords, always with masks and Kevlar. Now they were fencing for real, and Draco could not afford Nott to get the better of him. There would not be a “best-two-out-of-three” this time.

As the sounds of Harry and Voldemort's battle raged on, Draco was on the defensive. Nott attacked aggressively again and again, not allowing Draco the opportunity to counter. Distant sounds of fighting below met their ears and Draco knew that the Order had reached them, and it was only a matter of time before they got up to the rooftop. He wanted to dare a glance over at Harry to see how he was doing with his wand, but he could not afford to. Nott was on him and Draco had only just managed to dodge another close call.

“You cannot beat me, Draco,” Nott laughed, stopping to hold his arms out mockingly, allowing himself to be an open target for a moment. Draco narrowed his eyes.

“There is a lot you don't know about me, Nott,” Draco said calmly, picking himself up off the floor where Nott had knocked him.

“Oh, not this again…” he said, rolling his head and eyes. “It's true; I did not realize what a disgraceful and worthless failure you are,” he said, pointing his sword at Draco confidently.

“No,” Draco said, straightening. “I'm not right-handed,” he said, tossing his sword into his left hand and then suddenly going on the attack, forcing Nott to back up and defend himself for the first time in the entire duel.

The sounds from below were drawing closer and Draco had a distinct flashback to the night Dumbledore had died, the fighting slowly working its way up to him on that rooftop. Dumbledore had died only minutes after that…Draco did not let himself get distracted by such thoughts and memories at the moment, though. He could not afford to. The sounds and shouts from Harry's and Voldemort's duel was distraction enough, even without the random deflected curse and spell shooting past.

Draco lunged at Nott but was not successful. Nott rolled and turned and caught Draco's upper left arm, slicing it.

“Ahh!” Draco shouted in pain, fighting not to hold his wound, needing his hand free to fight.

“Give up, Draco.”

“I would rather die!” Draco shouted back at him, attacking once more.

He would not die groveling, he would not die after forfeiting, and he would not die a coward.

He was not pathetic!

There was a loud bang from below, causing a tremor to run through the castle and Draco was thrown off balance. Nott was too, but he was able to utilize it more to his advantage. As Draco stumbled backwards, Nott stumbled forwards, and used the opportunity to lunge his sword at Draco and run him through.

Draco's eyes grew wide as Nott sheathed his sword into him, and gasped as it pierced through the back of him.

Nott smiled in a satisfied way that did not suggest he had just killed his childhood friend.

Draco's mouth opened and closed a few times as though he was trying to speak or breathe. Nott tore the sword backwards out of him, and Draco finally let out a scream, falling to his knees and dropping his sword with a clatter.

“I told you, Draco, you cannot beat me,” he said, staring down at him. Draco took a deep shuddering breath and shook from head to toe as blood began to flow over his hands and onto his legs.

The door at Draco's back burst open with a bang and a shower of sparks. A red jet of hot light shot over Draco's head, hitting Nott square in the chest and sending him backwards, way backwards, so that the backs of his knees hit the low wall and sent him toppling over the edge, where he fell the long distance to the ground with a scream.

Draco was unable to look up, but he knew who had come to his rescue when she knelt before him.

“Draco!” she said, her fiery red hair falling around her as she leaned toward him, looking into his face, panic clear on hers.

“Weasley?” he managed, confused and slow, thinking past the pain.

“Oh, you're hurt…we have to get you out of here, where is Harry, oh God…” she said, looking over to see Harry still dueling Voldemort.

“No,” Draco said.

“What?”

“You cannot…touch my blood,” he said, leaning back away from her while clutching his stomach protectively, nearly causing himself to fall over backwards as to prevent her from coming in contact with his tainted blood.

“Draco,” she said, trying to reach for him, but he hit her hand away with what little force he could manage at the moment.

“Please, I would not punish you in this way for helping me. Please, stay back,” he gasped, finally falling over to curl up in a ball on the rooftop, lying in a pool of his own blood. Ginny knew what he was, and knew she could not touch him. What could she do?

Draco lay there, Ginny leaning over him while muttering the charms she had been taught for an emergency such as this, trying to slow his bleeding.

She had saved his life…but for how long would he cling to that life?

Draco and Ginny locked eyes and held the gaze for a long moment, both remembering that night from their own distinct point of view.

Ginny remembered the long trek to the castle through the snowy hollows while apart from the main group. She had seen the shower of flowers from a distance, while sneaking in a hidden entrance she had been shown a day earlier by Draco. She remembered dueling with the Death Eaters upon entering the dark and ghastly castle all by herself, before being joined by the others and escaping upstairs. She remembered murdering Nott.

She had rescued Draco, killed for him. They would always have some sort of bond because of that.

It was unspoken, but it was there.

“Draco?” Narcissa asked, looking between them.

“Hello, Draco,” Ginny said, sounding breathless, remembering what she had done to save him with a plunging tightness in her stomach. She chased those thoughts and feelings away the best she could, telling herself for the thousandth time since that night that she had done what she had to save lives, including her own.

She took in Draco's appearance now that she was no longer swallowed in her memories, but still gripped by guilt. He was thin and pale, made all the more ghostly by his dark clothing and surroundings, and he was tired looking. His white hair cascaded down his curved spine as he leaned over the table slightly in poor posture. He had surely not learned from his mother who sat perfectly upright across from him.

“Hello,” Draco muttered back, looking Ginny over quickly, seeing her for the first time since he had been forcibly removed from that rooftop by the Aurors and Hermione Granger.

Ginny had changed so much, but was still instantly recognizable. Her hair was, as always, long and fiery red. It flowed in gentle waves and layers over her shoulders and down her back. She had been an attractive girl with her rich honey-brown eyes, milky skin, a light dusting of freckles, and bright grin, but now…now she looked like a woman. She had grown up while he had been away and she had curves from what he could tell through her winter robes.

Draco blushed and looked away at the realization that he was checking her out, and wondering what she looked like when she wasn't bundled up against the cold.

He was not eyeing a Weasley. Better that it was the female Weasley he supposed, but not by much in his opinion. He was sure his mother shared that opinion.

“I did not realize you were out of Azkaban,” she said softly, not noticing his blush.

“Well, now you know,” he said, still not looking at her.

“How long have you been out?” she asked, still standing in the middle of the shelves, luckily in no one's way.

“Three years,” he said quietly.

“Oh, wow, I had no idea it had been that long,” she said.

“After ten years in Azkaban, three years out is not what I would call `long,'” he said, not meaning to snap at her but unable to override his natural defenses.

“Right,” she muttered, nodding. “Hello Mrs. Malfoy,” Ginny said, inclining her head towards the woman.

“Hello,” she said simply. She did feel she owed a lot to the young woman for saving her son's life, but she could not overlook the fact that she had married Harry Potter, the lying scum that had locked her baby away for a decade.

“Am, am I interrupting something?” she asked, noticing the potion vial that sat between them, Narcissa's hand not so subtly easing over it and drawing it off the table, disappearing into her robes.

“No, no,” Draco said, standing at that. “I was actually just excusing myself,” he said, leaning over the table to leave a kiss on his mother's cheek. “I will see you tonight at home,” he said and she nodded.

“Tonight,” she said.

Ginny looked away. Though she was witnessing nothing obscene, somehow seeing Draco and his mother together in such an honestly tender way made her feel uncomfortable, like their affection was something private no one should ever witness.

While looking away, her eyes landed on the shelf beside her and they immediately fell on a book she knew Hermione had mentioned while dropping “hints” of what she wanted for Christmas.

“Look at that,” she said, plucking the book off the shelf, surprised and pleased by the coincidence. “Well,” she said, looking back over at Draco as he leaned on his cane and straightened. “I'll just have this rung up and be on my way,” she said, happy for an excuse to leave, herself. “It was unexpected, but nice to see you, Draco,” she said, smiling at him.

“Yes, well, it is always nice to be seen,” he replied, returning an awkward and unsure smile.

Ginny nodded and walked off at a hurried pace towards the front to purchase her book, and without having it wrapped she bagged it and left.

Once outside, she took a deep breath of cold air and let it out slowly.

Guilt had been eating at her for years. Draco had saved her life, and she had saved his, but by ending someone else's. She knew he was innocent and shouldn't have been sent to Azkaban, but she had been unable to do anything about that. She, along with Harry, had been swept up and carried off in the chaos that had ensued upon the fall of the Dark Lord, and subsequently, the Aurors showing up with Hermione leading them. She had not known what had become of him until later…too late.

Seeing him out now, it felt like some sort of weight had been lifted off her chest that she had not actually realized was there. Her actions had not been in vain. She could breathe better knowing that some good had come of her efforts that dark night.

Ginny took another deep breath, and then another, her eyes closed, letting herself wind down from the encounter inside.

“Trying to inhale the snowflakes from the air, Weasley?” Draco asked, his voice suddenly behind her.

Ginny let out a yelp and turned around so suddenly that her scarf nearly fell off having not been properly wound around her neck yet.

“Malfoy!” she gasped. Draco was standing behind her, looking collected and at ease while leaning on his cane.

“You know, if you are not careful, you face will get stuck that way,” he said, smiling the way he always had back in school. It was that same self-assured smirk, edged with amusement, which he had always shown.

“What are you doing?” she asked, adjusting her scarf, her eyes still a little wide.

“Attempting to leave, but finding that difficult with you blocking the way,” he said smoothly, that bored but still slightly amused drawl that matched his smirk rolling out of him. It was almost as though thirteen years had never happened and they were in one of the corridors at Hogwarts, only this time his bullying was far less adolescent and harsh.

“Oh…oh,” she said, looking around and realizing she really was blocking the doorway, having barely taken two steps out of the shop before stopping.

“Thank you,” he said as Ginny moved aside to let him pass. Though his limp was considerably lessoned, he still leaned heavily on his cane as he walked.

“You alright?” she asked, before thinking better of it. Seeing someone limp and wondering if there was something wrong or anything she could do to help was habit. It was only after she said it that she remembered it was Draco Malfoy she was talking to.

“You concerned?” he asked, amusement more than just an undertone in his voice then.

“I'm sorry. I did not mean to be nosey. I just noticed the limp and I asked without thinking. You don't have to answer,” she said.

“A Weasley, not thinking…a novel concept,” he teased and she narrowed her eyes at him slightly, fighting not to put her hands on her hips and scowl in a Mrs. Weasley fashion. “I'm quite alright,” he said flatly, turning and walking down the snowy lane. Ginny watched him go slowly before looking around and groaning. He had just gone the direction she needed to go. Would he get the wrong impression if she followed after him? She certainly hoped not, because she was about to.

Ginny started after Draco, and given his slow walk she managed to catch up with him quickly.

“Following me now, Weasley?” he asked, not having to look over his shoulder to know she was at his back.

“No,” she said firmly, before easing back her defensive tone a bit. “I mean, no, I'm just heading towards the Owl Emporium,” she said, intending on getting one of her nephews a new owl since poor little Pigwidgeon had passed away.

“Are you now?” Draco asked, laughing.

“Is that funny?” she asked, quickening her pace so she was walking beside him.

“Funny, only that it happens to be where I myself am heading,” he said, not looking over at her.

“Oh.”

“You really did not know I was out?” he asked, continuing their awkward conversation from inside.

“No, no I had no idea.”

“You married Harry Potter and you were completely unaware that I was out? I have seen Harry about, he never mentioned me? I'm hurt,” Draco said, pretending to be upset.

“Actually, Harry and I are divorced,” Ginny said, getting Draco to look over at her finally. He had not known that, somehow. “And, well, I don't read those terrible gossip publications and such, so I can't say I have read anything about you,” she said, clearly not having heard of the “altercation” he had had with Harry two nights before.

“Well, all for the best I'm sure. Those stories tend to be nothing but rubbish and poppycock anyways,” he said, walking slowly towards the Owlery where he would buy some food and such for his own owl.

“What are you doing for the Holidays?” she asked as they walked.

“Why? Are you propositioning me?”

“No, just attempting civil conversation,” she said smoothly.

“Well,” Draco began in a sarcastically putout tone, “I'll be spending the Holidays at home,” he said simply.

“Malfoy Manor?” she asked. Draco laughed a flat-out open laugh that had an edge of cutting bitterness to it. She had never heard him laugh before, and though he sounded amused, he did not sound happy.

“No. My family's Estate and all our trusts were confiscated after the war as a sort of `retribution payment.' I meant `my home' as in where I am currently living,” he said.

“Oh,” she said.

Reaching the shop, they entered together but did not speak, acting like two customers who had just happened to enter at the same time. Ginny surveyed the owls while Draco nabbed a bag of owl pellets and some treats. Ginny did not mean to, but she could not help but look over at Draco as he paid, all in Sickles and Knuts, not a Galleon in sight. Draco seemed to notice her watching him and turned his head. She quickly busied herself looking at a Fishing owl, pretending to have never glanced over in the first place. Draco looked at her for a moment before thanking the keeper and taking his bag in his left hand, supporting himself on his cane with his right.

Turning, he limped past Ginny and lingered for a moment beside her, before leaving without a word.

What was he supposed to do? Say goodbye? Thank her? Invite her out for tea? Why? Because she had saved his life? She already knew he was thankful; she did not need him getting emotional over it. Malfoys did not do that sort of thing.

Making his way down the street, however, Draco's mind lingered on the stunning redhead.

He still owed her…and he hated being indebted to anyone.

-->

Blue Eyed Angel

Chapter Four

Draco was perched atop a ladder in the Hall of Records. A book was open across his knee as he sat there. He was feeling better than the day before; the potion his mother had given him was finally taking full effect and he was able to move about without a limp. That alone was enough to put him in a fairly decent mood.

His mood was quickly compromised though, thanks to the material he was reading. While shelving Dastardly Doers of Dark and Devious Deeds, and some old texts on some terribly Dimwitted and Delusional “Dragon Trainers,” he had come across a detestable and downright disgraceful text.

His “biography.”

Some sorry piece of garbage had written about what they thought his life had been, what his intentions were, what his beliefs were.

No one had interviewed him for the book, his mother had never spoken to anyone about him, and his father was in no state to talk to anyone. Other than them, there would be no reliable sources. Draco had the right to ponder if the book was even legal. He had not agreed to have a book written about him. It was a Ministry transcript, an “official record” so they claimed, so he supposed it wasn't a “book” and therefore not “illegal,” but that wouldn't be the first or last time the Ministry did something questionable, particularly when it came to him.

Legal or not, it didn't prevent the text from being terribly inaccurate and him being extremely irritated and insulted by it.

There were a few accredited sources; Draco noticed while reading through the acknowledgements, most of who had worked in the manor while he had grown up.

They painted, of course, a very unflattering picture of him.

Yes, he had been a spoiled little rich boy accustomed to getting whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, while prone to a temper tantrum or two. He had been taught to think of himself better than those that served him, and of Muggles, and of “Mudbloods,” but that hardly made him the bad person the book portrayed.

It made him a git, it made him a less than nice person, it made him hard to get along with…but it did not make him a bad person.

With narrowed eyes, he slowly ripped a page out of the book, folded the paper in his hands, and slipped it into his pocket.

“Hello?” a man called. Draco looked up from the book he was in the middle of defacing and looked off in the direction of the call. He knew the voice.

“Bugger,” he said as the man from yesterday came into view. Draco remained where he was high atop the ladder, watching the man approach, suspicious of what he was doing back there. If he needed more volumes than the ones he had gotten the day before he could have just sent a note down like everyone else. No one ever walked all the way down there by choice.

“Hey,” Reamann said. Draco remained silent. “I understand it's a little odd for me to be back here, but I was hoping you would be able to help me again,” he shouted up to Draco.

“You read through all those volumes already, and none helped you?” Draco asked, his tone bored, knowing the answer was obviously no, the man had not read through all seven massive volumes. No one, not even him, could read them so quickly and expect to get any benefit out of the material.

“No…” Reamann said slowly, “but that volume you picked out for me helped the most of any I looked through, and I was hoping you could point me in the right direction again,” he said, being honest then, making his lie that much more easy to believe. He had gone home and skimmed over the texts, and the only one that gave facts more clearly than first hand accounts of extremely biased material on how “evil” the Death Eaters were, was the book that had not been on his list at all, the one Draco had given him. He wasn't even sure Death Eaters had anything to do with the attacks and so the massive volumes had proven to be most unhelpful…for the case.

Draco heaved a sigh, making it clear he was not exactly jumping at the prospect of helping the man out.

“Please?” he asked.

Draco took a deep breath and held it, snapping his book closed and climbing down. He stepped down onto the floor and turned to find himself facing the man and feeling suddenly very small. Some days he really resented being only five foot nine.

“I really appreciate this,” Reamann said, holding his hand out in the small space between them like he wanted to shake on it. Draco looked at him, not wanting to shake the man's hand and making that obvious by the cold expression on his face.

He had not yet agreed to do anything.

Réamann's hand twitched slightly and Draco pulled his arm away quickly, sensing the man was going for it but unable to escape in time.

Reamann grabbed Draco firmly around the wrist, and yanked his sleeve back in one quick motion, exposing a tattoo on the back of his right forearm. It was a serpent-like dragon twining around a long sword that bore the Malfoy family crest. It was stark black against his nearly white skin, and distinctive.

“You are Draco Malfoy,” he said with a smile, as he reached up and pulled Draco's hood back to allow his hair to tumble freely, positively identifying him further than the tattoo alone had. Draco yanked his arm away and stepped back, replacing his sleeve while glaring. “I knew I recognized you from somewhere, but I had not been able to place your face, let alone think of your name…until I read those books last night,” he said, and Draco did not let up on his glare. He had had the feeling the man would have recognized him after reading the damned books, but he had not expected him to come back to see him because of it.

“I read in one that you had that tattoo, some Malfoy family thing. If I had grabbed the other arm and pushed that sleeve back, would I have seen the Dark Mark? The books never definitively say whether or not you had one,” he said, and Draco's glare managed to intensify.

“If you have come down here to make a side-show of me, then be done with your heckling over my fall from grace, and bugger off,” Draco said coldly.

“I'm not here to mock you,” Reamann said softly, easing up after seeing Draco's offense.

“This is not a petting zoo, either,” Draco said, rubbing his hand on his jeans compulsively, while forcing his sleeve down further to cover his hand.

“I really came down here looking for your help,” he said.

“Great job at going about that, I really want to help you now,” he said harshly.

“I'm sorry…”

“Sure you are.”

“I just hoped you would be able to aid me…I let my inquisitiveness get the best of me, I'm sorry.”

“I'm just a librarian,” he said flatly.

“But you seem to know a lot about what I'm looking into…”

“Do not dare insinuate that I would know anything about the Muggle attacks,” Draco warned.

“You're a convicted Death Eater…”

“Convicted is vastly different than guilty,” Draco seethed.

“Your father was convicted of torturing Muggles,” he said, trying to show his way of connecting Draco then to the Muggle attacks.

“My father was a good man and father, but he was guilty of torturing a great many things in his time: Muggles, wizards, small animals, sons.”

“Yes, but, you seem to know these books so well…” he attempted, not missing Draco's scornful words about his own father, and not sure if he was being serious or if it was some sick joke to try and make him feel even more uncomfortable. Something told him he wouldn't really like the answer either way.

“Do you seriously believe that accused Death Eaters straight out of Azkaban, without the presence of their Dark Lord, would attack Muggles at the risk of being sent back to that hellish place?”

“Well, no…”

“Why are you here if it is not to heckle me, or accuse me of attacking said Muggles?” Draco asked, stepping back a little more.

“You have knowledge of the Dark Arts,” he said.

“Did one of your books tell you that?”

“No, you did yesterday, when you offered me that text. Even if you had only just read books on the topic, as opposed to having practiced the Dark Arts yourself, you still have more knowledge than me, knowledge that I'm in desperate need of at the moment,” he said.

“What's your name again?” Draco asked, eyeing the man carefully.

“Reamann Rossiter,” he said.

“You said you were Muggle-born?” he asked, recalling the man's friendly, and thus, terribly irritating ramblings from the day before.

“Why does that matter?” Reamann asked, eyes darkening. Draco brushed him off.

“What incentive do I have in helping you?” he asked, showing then why it “mattered” and getting Reamann to glare at him.

“Stopping the attacks, and soon possible killings, of innocent Muggles is not enough?” Reamann asked. Draco turned away and started walking.

“Not incentive enough,” he said dully, his bored drawl in place. He might no longer dress like a selectively bred, rich, wizarding aristocrat, but he was what he was despite his monetary standing at the moment. He could still speak down to people in a way that only careful breeding could produce.

“Malfoy!” Reamann shouted in outrage at his back.

“I have stuck my neck out for people before…to do good, to help the innocent, to do the right thing…and it didn't turn out so good for me in the end,” he said, nearly shouting as he spun around to face Reamann from several feet away, his hair flaring out and then settling around him, covering his face like a partially parted curtain.

Reamann was taken aback. “When have you ever done the `right thing'?” he asked. Draco looked fed up.

“You have read the damn books about me, I won't be able to make you think different of me or better of me…and I don't intend to try, but I have never been a part of the torturing or killing of Muggles. That was not one of the charges brought up against me, so I do not understand why you are here now,” he growled, walking away again.

“Because I'm offering you a chance to do the right thing,” Reamann offered.

“My only concern now is myself, my family, and my livelihood,” Draco said, still walking away. He could recall so clearly a conversation almost identical to this one, shared between him and Harry Potter thirteen years earlier, and knowing the outcome of that agreement did not make him jump at an altruistic opportunity a second time.

“You weren't a Death Eater,” Reamann suddenly said, some distance between them now. Draco paused but didn't turn. “The texts all say you were, but no one could prove anything…right? You were sent away on Attempted Murder, Conspiracy to Commit Murder, Terrorist Acts, and were implicated, but not proven responsible in the still unsolved murders of several people. You were also accused of having used more than one Unforgivable, but there was no one to testify to the fact,” he said, and Draco turned slowly.

Draco could hear in the back of his mind, “Avada Kadavra!”

He shouted the curse, pointing his wand steady despite his nerves, green light flashing over his face as the man before him fell, leaving Draco panting and shaking slightly, with the guilt of the only option he had had left.

He had had no choice…

Draco shook his head to rid himself of the dizzying memory. His wand had been destroyed in that final battle, and with it, all evidence was lost of what spells he had cast. The only thing that saved him from a lifetime stint in Azkaban was the decree that no witch or wizard could be sentenced on a confession drawn out by Veritaserum alone. It was known by some that he had cast such spells, but without any evidence, (a wand to prove what he cast) they could only incarcerate him for intent.

“You say you never were a Death Eater?” Reamann asked.

“No, I was not,” Draco answered, his back still to the man while he stood rooted in his spot.

“Then prove it,” Reamann said firmly. “Help me help others.”

“I can't,” Draco sighed, looking back at Réamann.

“Why not?”

“Because no one would trust me to,” he said.

“I trust you.”

“You say as much, only because you have a meeting with a bunch of Aurors in a little over an hour and you didn't write up a report for them. You fell asleep reading up on me rather than the case at hand, and your arse is on the line. You don't trust me, you need me,” he said. Réamann's eyes widened.

“How do you know all that?” he asked.

“Your mind is wide open. You are a very trusting person, I'll admit that. You are willing to see the good in everybody, a commendable trait. Foolish, but commendable,” Draco said, looking right into Réamann's eyes.

“Occlumency?” he asked, sounding breathless and looking a little intimidated.

“Legilimency,” Draco corrected.

“I read that you had been taught Occlumency…”

“Occlumency is the defense to Legilimency,” he said.

“And that's…?”

“The extraction of thoughts, feelings, and memories from another person's mind, typically through eye contact,” Draco said, still lock-eyed with Reamann. Reamann looked away quickly.

“I did not realize you could do that without a wand.”

“It is an ancient craft that has more to do with the mind than magic,” Draco said flatly. Legilimency was one of the few things he could still do…something he used more often than he sometimes consciously realized…but he typically did not abuse it like he was now, and he most certainly did not reveal to anybody his ability to use it. But he found great joy in intimidating Reamann with it at the moment.

“You, you can read my mind?” he asked.

“Something like that,” Draco said, that not really being true, but unsure about how to otherwise explain it to someone who had not studied it and practiced for years like he had while sitting in a cell with nothing else to do but try and see into the minds of those around him, mostly Azkaban Guards.

“Help me,” he said again.

“Why?”

“Because you know it's the right thing to do.”

“No good deed goes unpunished,” Draco quipped.

“You can't seriously be this cynical.”

“Oh, I think I can be,” Draco laughed bitterly, walking away.

“What if I can get you out of here?” Reamann suddenly said, sounding a little desperate for Draco not to leave. Draco didn't. He actually froze and turned again.

“What?”

“What if I offered you a way out of this dark pit?”

“You do not have the authority to.”

“I know those that do.”

“They wouldn't do me any favors.”

“I would…if you help me,” he said.

Draco looked at him for a long time, a great space between them.

The silence was heavy, and thick, and Reamann was not sure if he should plead his case more or just wait for Draco to make a decision.

Draco finally spoke.

“What do you need to know about the Dark Arts…exactly?” he asked, a smile breaking across Réamann's face.

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

“You have no idea how much this means to me,” Reamann said as Draco sat at his cluttered desk, writing down quickly a summary for Reamann to present to the Aurors. With a little information about the case, Draco was able to get a fairly decent statement out by the time Reamann needed to leave.

“Yeah, well, don't mention it. And I'm serious about that. I don't need people thinking I'm some Muggle-sympathizing goodie-good,” he said, not looking up from his writing, his words a little detached like his thoughts were focused on other things.

“Wouldn't dream of tarnishing your reputation,” Reamann said, not sure why Draco liked his bad reputation so much if he resented being called a Death Eater.

He moved around the desk so he was on Draco's right and paced for a bit, then stopped to look at Draco's left forearm. He could not stop looking at his left arm. It was like he was drawn to it. Draco's sleeves were tight and they covered his arms completely. They were long enough that they actually reached down over his hands and so they were bunched at his skinny wrists. Reamann had not fully appreciated how thin Malfoy was just from looking at him until he had grabbed his wrist and felt his fingers overlap this thumb, his hand completely encircling it.

Curiosity getting the better of him, Reamann discreetly drew his wand and silently cast the incantation that would allow him to see past Draco's long sleeve.

He needed to see if it was really there.

Slowly, like frost being rubbed away from a windowpane, he exposed Draco's forearm as Draco reached in front of him to hold a book open, his attention down on the parchment he was writing on.

Trying not to react to what he saw in any manner that would give away what he had done, Reamann laid eyes on the Dark Mark staring back at him. It was not black like it had been pictured in the books. It was pink-ish white, like scars, like new scars. The Mark did not look healed. The outline of the skull; the jagged teeth; the serpent, all looked like raised and rough scars, only a faint dark discoloration remaining from the long faded stain. It looked almost sore, painful and raw.

There were some other scars, jagged but not part of the mark, but there was one that caught his eye and drew his attention to it. A scar clearly healed…white and old looking…not part of the Dark Mark either. It was long, thin, and vertical up Draco's inner forearm, starting at his inner wrist and ending to just overlap the Mark.

Réamann, with shock and fright at the sight of such a scar and the Dark Mark, attempted to reverse the spell before Draco's attention transferred back to the book where he would see what was happening, but then felt his heart stop for a second.

Draco shifted as though about to look back at the book and Reamann panicked, flicking his wand. Draco looked at him first, the movement catching his attention, noticing the wand now as Reamann swished it, but he immediately looked over to his desk area to see what he was casting a spell on. Draco saw the last of his sweatshirt's sleeve fill itself in and his head snapped back over at Reamann to glare.

“Something got you curious, Mr. Rossiter?” Draco seethed, looking over at him from over the tops of his glasses only intensifying the glare.

“I'm sorry…I didn't mean to…”

“If you wanted to see it, you could have asked,” he said, eyes cold with fury, voice strangely calm.

“Would you have really shown it to me?” he asked timidly.

“No,” Draco said flatly. “But you would have seemed so much less of an arsehole,” he said, snapping his book closed with his left hand without looking away from Réamann.

“I'm sorry, really. I really am thankful you are doing this for me,” he said, trying to get Draco to understand his sincerity.

“I'm not doing this for you, or the damn Muggles, or because it's the right thing to do…” he fumed, “I'm doing this for me,” he said firmly and Reamann felt some sort of sagging disappointment at Draco's admission, not able to fool himself into thinking Draco's motives were anything less than selfish at that point.

Draco stood from his desk, stacking volumes with redirected aggression, tossing his quill down and taking off his glasses. He snatched the piece of parchment he had been writing on and without waiting to see if the ink had dried he rolled it up and swung his right arm over to slap it against Réamann's chest.

“There,” he said simply, fiddling at his desk in a determined fashion, not wanting to look over at Reamann for fear of what he might say in his anger upon looking at the man.

“How…” Reamann started to say, his resolve to quench his curiosity faltering for a moment. “How did you get it?” he asked, speaking of the Mark. The books he had read did not definitively say whether or not he even had it, let alone how he had gotten it. He did not, however, want to know about the other scar he had seen. The obvious cause being something he did not want to think about.

Draco froze in his fussing.

He picked himself up off the ground where he had been thrown, but two hands -one on each shoulder- immediately pushed him back down so he was kneeling with his forehead nearly resting on the ground, his knees tucked under him.

“You failed, my young Malfoy,” Lord Voldemort said, standing before Draco as he was pressed down by two masked Death Eaters in their black robes.

“I'm sorry my Lord, I tried…”

“What did I tell you of the consequences should you fail me?” Voldemort asked smoothly, calmly, his spider-like hands clasped behind his back in the dim, cold, torch-lit stone room.

“Dumbledore is dead my Lord. Your task is completed,” Draco pleaded, not allowed to raise even his head to look at the Dark Lord before him.

“Clearly you misunderstood the purpose of the exercise I had laid before you, young Malfoy,” he snapped, Draco hunching his shoulders in fright, head still down.

“My Lord,”

“If I wanted Dumbledore dead I could have killed him myself, or had Snape do it from the start. Sending you in to do it was not just because I wanted it done…oh yes, I did want Albus Dumbledore dead…but it was a test. I needed to know your loyalties…”

“They are with you my Lord, they are with you…”

“SILENCE!” Voldemort hissed and Draco fell silent with a recoiled flinch. “I needed to know you were willing to do what I asked, no matter what it was. I needed to know you were willing to kill for me,” he said.

“I couldn't my Lord. I tried. I tried! I got the Death Eaters into the school, I had the Headmaster trapped…but I…”

“You buckled under the pressure,” he finished for Draco. “You were sloppy with your attempts all throughout the year, you dawdled and wasted precious time, and you couldn't even finish off an unarmed old man, by far the easiest part of the task I assigned you!” he shouted. “You are weak, like your mother is weak. You are not a killer, you are not a man, and you are not a faithful servant. You are a dog, a pathetic dog that cannot even do the simplest of tasks,” Voldemort berated and Draco sobbed, being called a “dog” because of his condition only twisting the metaphorical blade still in his wound.

“I tried. I tried…” he sobbed. “Please, don't kill my mother. Kill me, punish me, I have wronged you, shamed you, but please…”

“I have punished you once already,” he said. “I could give you to Greyback again…this time he would kill you,” he said and Draco started to shake uncontrollably. He feared Greyback so. The Dark Lord, of course, knew that. “But what good would that do me? With so many of mine in Azkaban again after that debacle last night at the school, that worthless father of yours already there still, and you incapable of following through on orders, I am seriously lacking in suitable followers at this time. To rid myself of you, your mother, and your father, would be cleansing, but a little counterproductive at this time with the Order so weakened by Dumbledore's death.”

Draco dared a glance up at the Dark Lord and was immediately kicked in the back of the head by one of the Death Eaters, his gaze forced down to the floor again with a splitting pain.

“I will make this up to you, please, my Lord,” Draco begged.

It was only the night after Dumbledore's death.

Snape had helped him escape the grounds of Hogwarts where he had then been able to Apparate away to safety…but safety from what? Lord Voldemort's all-seeing eye and reach was extensive, he could not hide from him or his wrath. He was furious upon learning that Draco had not killed Dumbledore himself. Draco had been tracked down and brought before Lord Voldemort within hours. He did not fear death as much as he feared any other alternative punishment the Dark Lord could dispense.

The Dark Lord was cruel as well as creative.

“Make this up to me?” Voldemort laughed.

“Please, I will do anything for you. Anything,” he said, fighting not to sob while he begged and assured.

“I can't help but feel that you serve me only to protect your mother, Draco, not because of loyalty,” he said. Draco flinched. “I cannot see into your mind. You learned your Occlumency well, but what are you trying to hide from me?” he asked, stepping close enough that Draco could see the hem of his black robes.

“Nothing, my Lord! I hide nothing from you, and I wish nothing more than to serve you,” he said, using his Occlumency to block out the memory of Dumbledore offering to help him, offering him a chance to fight for the “right” side, that had popped into his head at that moment. He kept the Dark Lord from seeing the brief moment before the Death Eaters had burst in on them…when he had actually, for a moment, maybe, considered the offer.

“To serve me?” The Dark Lord repeated with a nasty smile that exposed small narrow teeth.

“Yes.”

“You are seventeen now, Draco,” the Dark Lord said and Draco started to shake. It was mid-June, he had just recently turned seventeen.

“My Lord…”

“You are a man now in the wizarding world. You are willing to serve me, to pledge yourself, your service, your life to me?” he asked. Draco dared to look up at him and he was not struck or pushed down again that time.

What was he to do?

He could refuse, and Voldemort would just kill him on the spot, but then there would be no one to protect his mother.

Becoming a Death Eater almost guaranteed his death, at someone's hands, but he would be given more time…time to come up with a plan and a way of saving his mother and maybe even himself.

Draco kept these thoughts from the dark wizard before him and swallowed hard.

He knew the Mark could not be given to the unwilling…

“I pledge myself to you, my Lord,” Draco said, swallowing again, shaking and feeling as though he were going to faint, or vomit, or both…in no particular order.

“Say the words Draco, I know you know them,” Voldemort demanded.

“I pledge my heart, mind, and soul to the service and honor of you, my Lord. My wand, my will, my body is yours to command,” he said, having to force the words out, hoping tears would not come with them. “I pledge my undying and devoted service to you, my Lord. Your will is my will, your glory is my glory, your desires my own,” he said, tears falling down his cheeks at last.

“Say the words Draco,” Voldemort encouraged.

“I give myself to you. Ask what you will of me; demand what you must of me. My heart, my service, is yours,” he said, looking up at Lord Voldemort with eyes as sincere as he could manage with the tears still brimming in them and their tracks running down his cheeks.

“Very well, young Malfoy,” the Dark Lord said with a satisfied smile, as though getting exactly what he wanted all along.

Draco was looking at Voldemort before him and missed the Death Eaters coming at him until it was too late to react. He was grabbed, one hooking an arm under each of his armpits, lifting him up.

“Hey!” he shouted, another masked Death Eater coming up to his front and looping a rope around his thin left wrist like a noose and pulling it just as tight.

“Just relax, Draco; this will only be mildly agonizing,” the Dark Lord assured with an amused smile, as Draco was practically carried over to a low wooden chopping block, like one used for beheadings. Draco started to panic as he was carried over to it.

“Wait, no!” he shouted, struggling.

“We are not going to take your head,” came the familiar voice from behind the mask of the executioner in question, the Death Eater, Walden Macnair. Draco couldn't say that he was feeling all that reassured, and he was a little surprised. Macnair had been captured the night before…hadn't he?

Being thrown against the slab his head was not what was aligned and neck stretched, it was his arm. His left armpit was crammed into the edge of the block painfully as he was pinned down by the two Death Eaters at his back. The third that had spoken to him, Macnair, pulled the rope tight so that Draco's arm was fully extended and he was actually in fear of it being dislocated. A wooden dowel was jammed into his mouth, between his teeth, to give him something to bite down on, or gag him to prevent him from screaming, likely both.

The Dark Lord was unmoving so far, but now that Draco was situated, he approached. Draco's sense of dread was ever-increasing with each step the Dark Lord took and Draco felt his stomach clench as the he withdrew his wand from his inner robe pocket.

“I'll ask you only once to remain still,” he teased, the Death Eaters all around chuckling, all having endured the pain of the Mark themselves at some point.

“Please,” Draco tried to beg with his teeth clenched around the piece of wood as the Dark Lord's wand slowly pointed down at his arm, the tip mere inches from Draco's white and smooth inner arm, marred only by the ragged scaring from Greyback's attack almost exactly one year before.

“Don't scream,” he said mockingly, suddenly jabbing the wand tip into Draco's flesh.

Draco screamed.

When Voldemort started to draw the wand down, creating a searing red line of blood Draco's scream became a shriek. The Dark Lord did not try to silence him, but instead just focused on drawing out the skull, the snake, and the gaping mouth it was crawling from, all the while reciting the incantation in his head.

Draco screamed and shrieked at the pain, his whole body involuntarily jerking and fighting the hold the Death Eaters had on him, anything to try and make the pain stop. His left wrist was bloodied from the rope as he pulled at it, so desperate to free his arm.

Voldemort withdrew his wand and then whispered something, jabbing the tip in the direct center of the bloody mess he had made of Draco's arm.

Draco's scream was high, loud, and long as the hot searing pain gripped his arm, blackening the skin, forcing him to freeze for a moment, unable to struggle.

Letting go of him all at once the Death Eaters backed up to let Draco fall sideways to the floor, clutching his left wrist, wanting to hug his forearm to his chest but the pain being too great.

Voldemort watched with terrifying red eyes, clearly enjoying the pain he was inflicting.

Draco scurried onto his knees and one hand and scrambled out of the center of the room to rip the dowel from between his teeth and then vomit on the floor near the corner. None of the Death Eaters present tried to stop him, or said anything about it. They understood the amount of pain Draco had just endured in those brief moments.

“Congratulations, Draco,” the Dark Lord said, signaling somehow silently to the rest in the room to leave them. “You are now officially one of my followers. One of my Death Eaters,” he said, smiling, though not in a proud way. Something had him pleased though.

Draco was panting, trying to breathe past the pain, his stomach contorting because of it.

“You love your mother very much,” he said and Draco looked up at him, sweat making his face slick and shining. “And she loves you so very much,” he said.

“My Lord…”

“Know this, Draco…” he then went on to say darkly, “You ever fail me again, no matter how minor the task, I will kill her, and I will make you watch,” he said in a whisper that was almost vulgar in its intimacy. Draco looked up at his Dark Lord with wide fearful eyes, knowing Voldemort was being completely honest, one of the few times in his “life.” The Dark Lord did not understand love but as an exploitable thing, a weakness…like compassion.

His arm burned and Draco looked down at it as the Dark Lord left him alone in the dungeon. Draco saw, beneath the blood, the raised scars and utter blackness the Dark Mark left on his once pure skin.

“What am I gonna do now?” he asked, no one there to hear him. “What am I gonna do now?” he repeated, sobbing now while hugging his forearm to his chest, the realization hitting him right then that any hope of getting away from the Dark Lord, any hope of taking up on Dumbledore's offer, any hope at all, were now gone.

He wanted his mother right then.

“The Dark Lord gave it to me…when I was seventeen,” Draco said simply, answering Réamann's question, blinking away the vivid memory that had swept through his mind in only a moment's time.

“You really volunteered to become one of his Death Eaters?” Reamann asked sounding shocked.

“I was foolish and misguided,” Draco said, looking over at Reamann with darkened eyes.

Reamann swallowed.

“Leave now,” Draco said.

“I will make this up to you, I swear it,” he promised.

“I'm not honestly expecting you to come back,” Draco said, and Reamann looked hurt.

“Draco,” he tried, having meant it when he said he would trade a favor for a favor, but seeing Draco did not believe him hurt somehow.

“Just go,” Draco said firmly, his renowned temper flaring to the surface. Reamann did not linger. With Draco's report in hand he left the hall without as much as a glance back.

“Draco…” Coderdale said softly, coming from around the bookshelves at the sound of Draco's raised voice.

“It's nothing, Coderdale,” Draco said, flopping down at his desk. He opened a low drawer and reached in, pulling out a bottle before kicking the drawer closed with his foot and twisting the lid off, tossing it onto his desk top. He took a deep swig of the amber-colored hard liquor and sighed.

It was not a good idea to get completely pissed while at work, but he needed to be right then. He really did.

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

“An impressive report,” the head of the Auror Committee said, reading over the parchment Reamann had handed over to him upon arriving at the meeting. He had been nearly late, caught up on the sixth floor, but able to bypass the mess to make it just in the nick of time. The sixth floor was always a mess, but some days were worse than others.

“Thank you, sir,” he said.

“It shows an impressive knowledge of the Dark Arts,” another very old wizard wheezed, leaning over to see the parchment from his seat. Reamann was standing at the far end of a long table. He was alone while the committee sat at the head of the table, quite a distance away.

“I did the best I could manage given the time I was allowed,” he said, careful not to say too much, something he was not exactly accomplished at. He did not want to admit he hadn't written it, but did not want to outwardly lie either.

“I say, you could have passed the written to become an Auror, given the knowledge you display here,” praised another slightly younger, but still vastly old wizard with an approving grin.

“I doubt I would have passed the practical,” Reamann said bashfully. He was not sure what to make of the complements. Surely if it were Draco Malfoy standing in his place, and them looking over his notes and theories, they would have accused him of being a practitioner of the Dark Arts, and a Death Eater, possibly the one responsible… but certainly not a good candidate for an Auror.

“Ah yes, a difficult test it is, but important. Can't have wizards who can't properly cast a Qurisfodio Hex, or something,” he laughed. Reamann returned a soft laugh and a nod but then swallowed hard.

When did Aurors need to use a spell against someone that was like a jabbing spear?

“These attacks are extremely serious, and we hope to work hand in hand with the Muggle police force and the Muggle Ministry to stop these most egregious offenses,” one of the Aurors said.

“That means we will be working with the Department of Muggle Relations and we are so far very impressed with your candidacy. You have proven a strong knowledge of the situation, and your familiarity with Muggle ways will be invaluable in this,” each wizard said, taking turns commending Réamann.

The guilt was getting to him but he would not crack. He would not. He needed this job.

“Well, I have to admit, I had a little help,” he said, trying to smile, cracking under the pressure, cursing his honest ways.

“Really? Who? Ron Weasley?” they asked, knowing the closeness he had with the Weasley family and assuming maybe he had turned to Ron, an Auror himself, for help.

“No,” Reamann said vaguely.

“Then who?” the eldest Wizard asked, looking up from the parchment.

“A source of mine. I cannot reveal their identity at this time, but I think they will prove to be an invaluable informant,” he said.

“You trust this, this uh, informant?” the youngest asked, his hair a dark grey while all the rest were white or bald.

“Yes,” he said firmly. “Yes I do.” It was almost like he was trying to convince himself with that.

“Any significant information this informant gives you must be cleared by us through our channels.”

“I don't understand…”

“There is at least one witch or wizard out there attacking Muggles, Mr. Rossiter. How do we know this informant isn't the one going the attacking, or working with them?” he asked.

“He isn't,” he said, realizing he had revealed too much at that point. Closing his eyes tight for a second in dread, he tried to salvage the situation. “What I mean is, I trust my informant's general knowledge of the Dark Arts, but…if I feel, for any reason, they might know something about this case they shouldn't, I will bring them to you immediately.”

“And this informant, you have not told him about the case have you? Shared details?” the head Auror asked, eyeing Reamann in a way that reminded him of Draco down in the Hall of Records: deep and penetrating.

Was the Auror reading his mind right then? Would he know that he lied if he said no?

“I know better than to jeopardize this investigation,” Reamann said, looking away from the wizard, hoping his mind was safe from intrusion without the eye contact.

The Aurors considered him for a long moment.

“We will contact your department supervisor and let him know that you will be working on the case full time along with us until further notice,” he said and Reamann smiled wide.

“Thank you sirs. Thank you,” he said, nodding his head respectively to each of them, excited over finally getting fully assigned to the project.

“Of course, Mr. Rossiter.”

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

“A toast!” Ron said, holding up his bottle of rum. He had always been tall, now he was just massive. His freckles had not faded with time like Ginny's had and they left his face and arms a little red looking. His hair was choppy and a touch too long, but not in a way that was fashionable, in a way that suggested he just hadn't gotten a trim in a while. He had “filled out” more than anyone else had since Hogwarts, his arms strong and thick, shoulders wide, body strong and a little heavy.

“Yes, a toast to Réamann, for the promotion that is bound to come!” Harry added on happily, holding up his own drink.

“Come on, guys, stop. I got a good assignment with an awesome department,” he said inclining his head to Ron, the Auror of the group, “but it is far from any sort of promotion,” he laughed. They were in the Leaky Cauldron after work, happily drinking and conversing loudly. Tom was good enough to close off a section of the pub so that they could drink and talk in relative peace.

Ginny and Hermione made their way over to the table, talking between them excitedly before then raising their glasses as they joined the group.

“To good books and research in the Ministry!” Hermione toasted and everyone laughed at her predictability. She was still the same bushy-haired girl from Hogwarts, only now a woman. She could be so much prettier if she put more effort into the idea, but she stubbornly refused to fuss over such things, saying any man that could not see her for her mind because he was hindered by her shaggy hair, was not a man worth her time. Ginny agreed, but felt Hermione should get off her soapbox every now and then and pamper herself a little. All girls, not matter how accomplished or smart they were, liked feeling pretty and desirable. Hermione was too proud to acknowledge she had a vanity streak.

“To the opening of new doors and exciting opportunities and possibilities!” Ginny said with a grin, allowing Reamann to lean her into his side in a one armed hug.

“Cheers!” they all said together, downing their drinks. They sat with a collective, yet amused sigh and continued talking.

“I'm really, really excited for you Réamann,” Ginny said, leaning into him more.

“Couldn't have happened to a better chap,” Harry quipped.

“I heard the head Aurors talking after you left the department,” Ron said, taking a swig of his drink. “Really impressed by you they were. Why, I never heard them go on about someone like that before. The rookies get browbeat for years, then after that there is just this silent standard you have to meet. You just hope you are impressing them, as opposed to just doing well, because the only time they ever say anything is to berate you or point out your mistakes. To hear them talking about anyone in such a way…it was just amazing,” Ron said, face a little red from his drink, his hair clashing badly.

“Yeah, well, you know…” Reamann said looking down and blushing, but not from modesty. He had never thought that he would get so much recognition for a prepositional paper. He was glad he had Draco write it since, clearly, it was good and therefore should help the case and save lives, but he felt guilty for taking the credit, and a little stupid for having not read the report over completely himself before handing it in. He had run out of time before the meeting.

Would he be asked specific things about it?

Would they be disappointed in him if he couldn't give brilliant theories to their questions on the spot as they sprung them on him or would they get suspicious if he could not produce another phenomenal report?

“I have always said you were brilliant,” Ginny beamed. Reamann felt a little queasy.

“How about we talk about something else,” he said.

“Aw, we are embarrassing him,” Hermione giggled.

“He is just modest. And humble. All good qualities to have,” Harry laughed.

“Alright, alright…” he mumbled.

“You know who I ran into yesterday?” Ginny said, setting her beer down, ready to shift the conversation to ease her boyfriend's discomfort.

“Who?” Harry asked, Ron looking over and Hermione taking a sip of her drink.

“Draco Malfoy,” she said. Réamann, who had been taking a sip of his own drink, inhaled a tad of it and started coughing. Hermione set hers down too and whipped out her wand, charming Réamann's coughs away.

“You okay, chap?” Ron asked, looking over at Réamann.

“Oh yes, fine,” he croaked, blotting his chin with a napkin.

Talking about Draco Malfoy was not the change of topic he was looking for.

“Draco, huh?” Harry said, sipping his beer like he wasn't thrilled by the topic either.

“Yeah. Why didn't you tell me he was out of Azkaban?” she asked, looking around the table, but obviously talking to Harry.

“We thought you knew,” Hermione said.

“Yeah, he made the Daily Prophet a few years ago…first page,” Ron said. “There was a big stink about him making probation. He was supposed to serve a maximum of twenty, but was eligible for parole after ten. Honestly, no one thought he would ever get paroled, but he did,” he said.

“But why all the upset over him? Other people have gotten out since then, right? They all make the papers too?” Ginny asked, feeling terribly out of the loop now.

Trying so hard to ignore the fact that she was a mini-celebrity had caused her to be completely in the dark of all other things, apparently. Gossip about the “Death Eaters” had often been on the minds and tongues of those around her for years, and though she had always been curious, she had largely ignored what was whispered and muttered around her.

She felt silly for doing so now.

It wasn't her own fame she was hiding from, but guilt and shame.

She did not realize that was what she felt until after seeing Draco yesterday and having that lifted from her.

She had not realized she had closed herself off from that whole time in her life so as not to deal with it.

That wasn't fair since others, like Draco, did not have the luxury to just pretend none of it had happened.

He could not ignore the gossip and go about his life like nothing was, or ever had been, wrong.

Ginny was feeling guilty again.

“Well, no one else has gotten a real mention about their release…you know, just minor notes in the Prophet announcing their release,” Ron said.

“But why?” Ginny pressed. “Why did Draco cause such uproar?” She did not understand, why him of all of them?

“Well, none of the other prisoners were…you know, werewolves,” Ron said, swigging his drink again, becoming a little redder. “People seemed to think he was gonna get out and come after their children or something as vengeance, like the new-generation Greyback,” Ron explained. “The Ministry knows he used Unforgivables, but they couldn't prove it without his wand, so they couldn't keep him on that account, but still, everyone found out and fears him for it. Last I heard he was tucked away in some murky corner of the Ministry, poor as dirt and doing his best to be unnoticed.”

“A small blip on the radar, in Muggle terms,” Hermione added. “I haven't seen him since he got out,” she confessed, looking guilty herself. Ron mentioning Draco's struggles did not help her feel any better. “I tried contacting him, but I only got back a two-word reply that I will not repeat here,” she said, rolling her eyes just a touch at Draco's vulgarity.

“Yeah, I wonder what the little git is up to,” Ron said, obviously too drunk to remember at that point that he didn't really care what Draco Malfoy was up to.

“I need another drink,” Reamann said suddenly, excusing himself and standing like there was a bee on him. Ginny looked up at him as he moved past her and Harry was left beside her, (Reamann having been between them) looking just as puzzled. Ginny used the opportunity to scoot over to Harry in the booth and drop her voice to talk to him while Hermione and Ron chuckled at Réamann's exit.

“Harry,” she said, Harry looking over at her with very serious eyes, “why did you not tell me Draco Malfoy was out of Azkaban? You know I avoid the papers and all other publications like the plague, and I wouldn't have known otherwise,” she said.

“I didn't think it would matter…” Harry said dismissively.

“Wouldn't matter?” Ginny repeated in an outraged whisper. “Harry, he didn't deserve to go to Azkaban in the first place…”

“And thus, why I made sure he made probation,” Harry said flatly, like that was the end of the conversation. Ginny had been married to Harry for five years, she knew his tone, but she didn't put up with it anymore. He hated talking about the war and the events after it, but she wanted to discuss it. They were going to.

“You should have told me,” she said just as firmly.

“I didn't want you seeking him out,” he said.

“Why?” she demanded.

“Because.”

“That's not a reason, Harry,” Ginny whispered.

“Because, though I know he shouldn't have been sent there, that doesn't mean I trust him,” he said, never having told anyone about the last conversation he and Draco had shared in private before the final battle. Doing so would have gotten Draco locked away for life. “Malfoy has always been on his side and his side alone. He is one to hold a grudge, and I think ten years in Azkaban is a long time to let a grudge stew.”

“He isn't like that…”

“You think you know him?” Harry snapped, Ginny not knowing about the conversation either, the one where Harry got the very strong impression that Draco's ambitions were not all that dissimilar to those of the young Tom Riddle's he had once met back in his second year of Hogwarts. She did not like being reminded of that incident and he was not loyal to Draco in any way, but he felt he owed Draco enough to not divulge such details out of spite.

“A right bit better than you do, I should think,” she barked back just as harshly.

There was much left unsaid between them in regards to that last night before the final battle of the war.

Harry wouldn't talk about what he and Draco had spoken of those years ago, and Ginny refused to talk about what Harry had seen the night before the final battle in regards to Draco and her. Harry liked to bring that up in their rows, but they were not going to talk about that right now, not if Ginny had any say in the matter.

“Azkaban does things to people, Ginny,” Harry said, giving up on the argument, knowing he could not say all he needed to get Ginny to understand, knowing he would not win the argument, and not wanting to fight while out with their friends. “Some make it out able to deal with life, only those hollow eyes as evidence of their time there. But some can't handle it. Some go crazy. Draco had hollow eyes going into that place. I have seen him since he got out; I was there when he was released. I wouldn't say he is raving mad, but he is not right in the head, Ginny,” he said.

“How would you know?” Ginny asked angrily, having seen Draco herself now and feeling he was perfectly sane and relatively well-adjusted.

“He saw a lot of terrible things during the war…we all did, but Draco then got sent to that place with nothing to do but dwell on those terrible things, a place that makes you relive those terrible things over and over again. Few wouldn't go mad from that,” he said, again not mentioning anything he had sworn to keep to himself. Ginny wanted to think Draco was just some poor lost soul, he was not about to invalidate that by telling her that he was pretty sure Draco had been insane long before entering Azkaban.

Reamann returned with a round of drinks and Ron smiled greedily.

“Ron is completely pissed,” Hermione laughed as Ron took another drink.

“I am not!” Ron laughed, nearly sloshing his drink across the table in attempt to set it down.

Ginny and Harry's conversation had to stop there, and she scooted back over for Reamann to sit between them again. They would talk more later, if either of them was up for another throw down fight. At the moment, they would cool it. They were there for Réamann, it was his night and they would not ruin it by having a row.

“Well, a new topic then?” Reamann said, grabbing a drink for himself before Ron spilled them all.

“I think Ron is gonna need help getting home tonight,” Harry chuckled.

“Don't drink and Floo, that's what mum always used to say,” Ginny said a little dully, still angry, the whole table laughing at her joke, Ron joining in who then spilled his drink across the table with his elbow.

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

Author's Note:

There was a Pirates of the Caribbean reference in this chapter, even though I wrote the scene in question a year before I ever saw said movie. It is really just a coincidence that the scenes resemble each other, but I don't want anyone getting in a tizzy over it, so I acknowledge the similarity here and now.

-->

Blue-Eyed Angel

Chapter Five

It was unusually cold that early June night.

The street was quiet, unusually quiet, like something greater than the night itself had silenced the city.

Narcissa Malfoy, barely twenty years old, was wrapped in a headscarf trying to disguise her easily recognizable hair, while dressed in common Muggle clothing in hopes of blending in. Her red dress was knee-length and lightweight, offering no warmth on that cool night.

“Shh,” she soothed, looking around in panic, knowing the wailing of her newborn would compromise her to those she was trying so hard to hide from.

Her heart hammered in her chest, threatening to bruise her ribs. Her whole body ached from her never ceasing terrified tremors.

“Hush little one, please, please...” she begged the infant as she moved through the Muggle city.

Why was it so quiet?

Where were the people?

The Muggle traffic lights still shifted despite the absence of the vehicles.

Lights shone from inside businesses, but no people were inside.

She was in Frankfurt, a city in Hessen Germany, and it was a large city.

She had stuck to large cities for the safety large numbers of people offered. She wanted to get lost in the crowds, her tracks covered by the traffic, the ambiguity of Muggle cities offered exactly what she was looking for…but where were the people now?

The tall glass buildings loomed over her, but there wasn't a soul to be seen or heard anywhere.

“Please, God, no,” she breathed, knowing he had found her. He was the only one powerful enough to put to sleep an entire city as large as Frankfurt.

Narcissa held her son tight to her chest as she took off running, knowing that she was not alone on the street, despite what she had first assumed. Death Eaters were suddenly apparent, appearing as out of an illusion, having been there watching her the entire time she had believed she was being so careful.

Running as fast as her tired and sore body could, Narcissa fled the street in hopes of disappearing into the winding alleys and side streets. She hoped to get lost in the darkness, but knew he would find her.

He knew where she was every minute of every day.

There was no escaping his power over her.

There was no hiding anything from him.

Stepping out from a building as Narcissa passed, a Death Eater became evident in her eyes on the sidewalk, and she screamed, stopping dead in her tracks to stare at him, shaking.

“Narcissa, come with me. You are in enough trouble as it is. Give up before he kills you,” the man said. She knew the man as a friend, and he was helping him? He was helping him find her?

“No, Severus, I won't let him kill my son!” she cried.

“That cannot be helped now. You have guaranteed it, even only as punishment for your actions,” Severus Snape said sadly, sad because what he spoke was true, holding his gloved hand out to her.

Narcissa sobbed in hopeless despair.

She turned and ran from the man in the direction she had come, only to be startled backwards by a horrific black beast, loudly bursting forth from between the two buildings on her right. It reared back, feet from where it had appeared out of the illusion and she shrieked while stumbling.

It was a skeletal horse, its lipless mouth laid bare its gauntly teeth on a face that resembled a dragon. Red eyes rolled in wet, open sockets and bat-like wings spread from its bony back where a figure sat.

“Lord Voldemort,” she gasped, looking up at her Dark Lord atop the Thestral.

Narcissa did not wait for his response. She turned left and ran from him, her son silent for that moment as though knowing the danger he was amidst.

Panting as her lungs clenched in her struggle to breathe, her legs burning like acid, Narcissa did not slow. She refused to, and with good reason; Voldemort was catching up to her easily enough as he was on the back of his Thestral.

Riding up along side her, he reached down and grabbed at her but missed. She stumbled and that only gave him opportunity to grab at something else, something far more precious.

He used his magic to rip the baby from her arms as he passed. Narcissa screamed and tried grab at the long ends of the cloak her child was wrapped in, but Voldemort turned his Thestral and kicked her in the ribs, causing her to fall and clutch her side, now crumpled on the ground.

Slowly, Death Eaters started to appear in the street, little by little encircling the scene. They were like shadows; their white masks all that stood out in the dark so that it almost seemed at though they were bodiless, heads just floating in the air weightlessly.

“Narcissa, how you disappoint me so,” Voldemort said, certainly sounding disappointed, holding the once again wailing infant in his left arm while looking down at Narcissa as she gasped for breath and clutched her side. He was acting as though the baby was not even there screaming and crying.

“Please, my Lord, forgive me. Please…” she begged from the sidewalk.

“I always excused your tentativeness to my orders and desires due to your age, but oh how you surprised me, Narcissa, with this disgraceful turn. It's not fitting for a Pureblood to act this way. Look at you, dressed as a Muggle,” he said in disgust.

“My Lord, I meant no disrespect…you have to understand…”

“SILENCE!” he screamed, his words so harsh they practically cut at her, making Narcissa flinch while on the ground. The baby's crying doubled.

“One would think, that upon hearing of a prophecy that depicts the possible downfall of their Great Lord, a faithful supporter would do all in their power to prevent it,” he seethed.

“He's my son…he's my son…” Narcissa sobbed over and over again, rocking slightly as she sat herself up from the ground.

“A child born this July will rise against me. Do you understand that? I must do all in my power to prevent such…”

“My son was not born in July!” Narcissa cried, daring to cut the Dark Lord's words off. “Please, he came early; he is not the one of which the prophecy speaks. Please,” Narcissa begged.

She had been just recently eight months pregnant. Learning of the prophecy she feared the Dark Lord's actions. He did not even exempt the Pureblood child of two of his followers from the perceived threat the prophecy foretold.

The Dark Lord's paranoia was great, and his ruthlessness greater.

He would kill an innocent child, a newborn infant, without batting an eye.

How could she stand by and bear him doing that to her baby?

Narcissa had fled, knowing the Dark Lord's intentions, knowing he planned to kill her child.

She could not allow that.

She served her Lord faithfully, she was an obedient wife to a Death Eater and supporter of the Dark Lord's ideals…but she could not let him kill her child…her son.

She had taken off in the middle of the night while very pregnant, foolishly hoping beyond hope that she could hide from the Dark Lord.

Though his reach was great, his influence vast, she had slipped by him on several occasions, evading him for nearly two weeks, but the stress and the strain of travel had gotten to her. She delivered her son alone, in a pub on the outskirts of that damned Muggle city just the night prior, a month earlier than was expected.

She never wanted, or imagined, her son to be born in the back of some dirty Muggle establishment, wrapped in nothing but her cloak, tiny, hungry, and cold…but what choice did she have?

“Yes, this child of yours…his birth falls short of the prophecy. He is clearly not the one I am looking for, leaving only two other possibilities,” he said, looking over to two of his Death Eaters and without a word, sending them off to deal with the continued search for the other expecting families. He would not let this prophesied child elude him.

“Please, please don't hurt him. Please!” Narcissa begged, crying and pleading with the Dark lord to spare her son.

“This child, so new, so strange to you still…yet he means so much to you?”

“He is my son…” she sobbed, the Dark Lord not able to understand a mother's instant bond with her child, not able to understand how she could feel so strongly for the little stranger she had only met the night before.

He did not understand love, it was a mystery to him, something he saw as a weakness and an exploitable thing; something used to manipulate others.

“You are young still. You have time and opportunity to try again,” Voldemort said with a cruel smile. Narcissa fell forward so it looked as though she was bowing to the Dark Lord, her forehead to the backs of her hands, but then she just cried loudly, helplessly trapped.

“Killing this child because of the prophecy is no longer necessary, but the matter of your punishment is, however, still at hand,” he said, speaking calmly as though he were not talking about murdering an infant and possibly the mother, too. “Your utter lack of faith in me…tisk-tisk. I find it disturbing, Narcissa,” he said, his voice light despite the dark seriousness of his words. “All I ask of you, of anyone, is that you serve me, and what do you do? You desert me…you insult me…you embarrass me… you disrespect me. You force me to seek you out, wasting precious days of my time, using up my resources.”

“Please,” she begged.

“I can only see one fit punishment, and that is to remove from you what has brought about this disgraceful turn,” he said, drawing out his long wand from his robes and pointing it down at the baby that wailed in his outstretched arm, finally seeming to acknowledge it was even there despite its constant and frantic cries that had yet to cease since he had laid hands on it. He held the baby up awkwardly, like he had never held something like it before.

“No, PLEASE! Punish me, punish me for how I have wronged you, my Lord, but please…my son…please,” she begged, heavy tears flowing down her face rapidly as she crawled on the ground, hands clasped in front of her and held up to him.

“My Lord,” a Death Eater suddenly said, stepping forth but waiting for permission to speak more. Voldemort looked over at him and the Death Eater took a deep breath.

“Please, my Lord. Narcissa is young, and foolish. She deserves to be punished for what she has done, but please, sir, please leave the child,” he said.

“Ah yes, Lucius…” Voldemort said with a twisted smile, his wand still pointed at the infant. “You wish me to spare your child, your heir,” he said.

“My Lord, the child will one day be a faithful servant of yours, you know this. He is my heir and son,” he said calmly, careful not to look down at his young sobbing wife.

They had been married less than a year and though he had grown to feel great affection for her in that time, he did not love her yet.

Arranged marriages were like that; difficult at first.

Expecting a baby so soon had been what he thought would bring them together, not drive them so very, very far apart.

He had opted for Narcissa Black over her older sister Bellatrix simply because he had found Narcissa more attractive…but now he was feeling regret for having chosen a wife as young as her. She was but two years out of Hogwarts.

He had selected the youngest of the Black daughters because he had hoped that she, with her pale features, would complement his own and produce a fitting and fair son and heir. It was a terribly superficial thing to base your decision for your future wife over, he knew that, but both girls had been near-strangers to him and Bella just was not as attractive to him.

Narcissa's shame, however, was made his shame now that they were married, and he could not bear to look at her.

Her actions had brought dishonor and embarrassment to his family name.

“You would have me punish your wife? You do not stand before me in defense of her?” Voldemort asked, sounding amused. Lucius looked down at Narcissa for the first time through his cold and emotionless Death Eater's mask and then up at the Dark Lord again. He pitied her, and felt her pain, and longed for his tiny son he had yet to properly meet to be spaired, but that was not enough for him to forgive her for this scandal.

“She is foolish and needs to be reminded of her place,” he said flatly, already intent on punishing her himself for the embarrassment she had brought him in front of the other followers. Oh how they all must laugh at him because of his foolish wife. There were very few times when hitting a woman was acceptable. He was a gentleman that respected women, but Narcissa needed to be reminded what it meant to be a wife…and a servant of the Dark Lord.

“Lucius, please,” Narcissa begged.

“Silence!” Voldemort shouted again, Narcissa visibly recoiling.

“This child will serve me,” Voldemort said, now speaking to Lucius Malfoy again, his tone utterly calm in an instant.

“Yes, my Lord, he will.”

“That was not a question, Lucius,” Voldemort snapped. Lucius bowed slightly in his apology. “Your wife's tretchury has enseeded in me some doubts, however. As such, I need a little, how you say, insurance…a guarantee if you will…that it will be so. I can't have Narcissa doing something foolish again in regards to him, though, I doubt she will want to ever cross me again once I'm through with her,” he said.

“What will you have me do?” he asked, eager to prove at least his faithful and willingness to the Dark Lord.

“An Unbreakable Vow, done on your son's behalf,” Voldemort said simply, a smile pulling at his slit of a mouth again.

“My Lord?” Lucius asked.

“You will make an oath of loyalty on your son's behalf, on your son's head, that he will serve me.”

Lucius swallowed.

If his son should, for any reason, choose not to serve the Dark Lord, the vow would be then broken and he, Lucius, would die.

He could not allow that.

But he could not deny the Dark Lord his request.

He was in a very precarious position.

He would have to raise his son to believe all the Dark Lord believed, to desire the same the Dark Lord desired, so that he would be a faithful and unquestioning follower and servant of the Dark Lord.

If he failed in that, he would die.

“Do you not want to make the vow, Lucius? Do you not want your son, your heir, to serve me?” Voldemort asked, voice teasing despite the threat.

“My Lord, nothing would bring me greater honor than to have my son serve you,” Lucius assured, his voice smooth, falling to one knee before the man on the black beast. He would have raised his son to uphold such ideals that he himself supported regardless of this proposed vow, but now, now he really had to make sure his son believed. “But, my son, he has no name. We cannot make a vow over him without a name to speak,” he said.

Voldemort looked down at the crying infant in his left arm.

It was such a tiny creature, so fragile. He had a desire to crush it in his hand, just to see how delicate it really was. It cried; its arms curled up under its chin, its face red from so much fussing. It was so innocent…pure…untouched by the world. The baby…the boy…he could be anything, he was a blank slate.

He could kill it, him, and it would serve Narcissa right, but he felt something odd deep within his cold heart. For the first time in years he felt something, fleeting but powerful, stir deep within him. Voldemort felt a pang of compassion for the tiny soul he held in his hand. He had not known that was still possible with his own soul in so many pieces.

“Draco,” Voldemort said after a moment.

“My Lord?” Lucius asked.

“I wish for him to be named Draco,” he repeated, looking up at the sky, “after the constellation…my favorite constellation. The stars are so bright tonight,” he said, his voice distant.

The Death Eaters shifted with a murmur and Voldemort's attention was snapped back down to earth.

“It is my will that he be named Draco and my will is LAW,” he said, suddenly harsh and biting with his words, his Thestral shifting in fright of its master.

“Of course, my Lord. The name suits him, suits a Death Eater,” Lucius said, bowing with his right fist over his heart while still on his one knee, thankful that his son would live, even with such a name as Draco.

An Unbreakable Vow was made that night, and Narcissa was punished for many nights following. She would never cross the Dark Lord again.

She was able to keep her son. Though she hated that she had not been able to name him herself, a year later the Dark Lord was gone…and though that did not make her happy…she was finally able to call her son by the name of her choosing.

Though it was officially documented as his middle name, he would always be Angelus -Angel- to her.

Draco shot upright in bed with a gasp, his face slicked with sweat. His body was shaking as he tried to orient himself. He reached over and clicked on his bedside lamp. Its golden yellow light made his skin look the color of old parchment as his face shone.

“Shit,” he said, pulling his legs up while still under his covers as he buried his face in his hands and knees.

Still plagued by memories, it looked like they were not limited to merely his own.

He regretted now the day (for many different reasons) he had used his Legilimency to see into his mother's mind, to see her past and try to comprehend her loyalty to the Dark Lord. He had been seventeen and unable understand her continued servitude to the Dark Lord…after all he had done to the both of them, and Lucius.

Why would she serve someone as cruel and duplicitous as him?

He found out why, he then understood; once he saw that night.

She served him out of fear, not loyalty.

His mother was a Pureblood supremacist…still was, though she had toned it down some for the sake of appearances and getting by in this world after the war…but that attitude alone was not enough to ever make anyone want to serve an insane tyrant hell-bent on taking over the world by any means necessary.

He had taken that memory from his mother, and by doing so he had made it one of his own. Now it haunted him, like so many other of his memories did, chasing away sleep from him when his body so desperately ached for it.

Draco rolled onto his mattress that rested directly on the floor and stared at the base of his lamp that too sat on the floor, along with his round clock. His alarm clock was the kind that he had to wind every night and it ticked softly in the otherwise silent room. He found it soothing, that's why he had it.

Draco shivered at the memory that was not even his own to begin with.

Would his mother appreciate a call from him in the middle of the night?

She was not aware that he was conscious of the events of that night. How was he supposed to find comfort in her, while trying to comfort her at the same time for what he knew she had been through, without explanation of what the late night call was about in the first place?

Draco felt someone shift beside him and he felt a calm flow over him and his thoughts shifted to another female entirely.

Smiling softly to himself, he rolled over and planted a kiss on her forehead, stroking her curling blonde hair affectionately, calmness now chasing away his anxiety that had woken him.

He supposed he could wait and talk to his mother in the morning. He needed to turn off the light before he woke his young guest.

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

Draco entered the Ministry of Magic by the same means he did every day, but almost two hours later than usual.

He had had a rough night's sleep.

Upon entering the Atrium through the street entrance, and passing through the golden gates, he joined the masses of moving and jostling witches and wizards to the lifts. It was crowded and uncomfortable, and Draco was shoved into the back of the car while every inch of space was used to its full advantage as people packed in.

There was a reason why he came to work at five in the morning. Missing the experience of the morning rush was no loss in his opinion.

The lift ascended. Level Seven: Department of Magical Games and Sports, Level Six: Department of Magical Transport, Level Five: Department of International Magic Cooperation and where his little friend Reamann worked. Level Four: Department for the Regulation of and Control of Magical Creatures, Level Three: Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes.

Witches and wizards got on and off at every stop and Draco paid them no mind and was unmoving until they reached Level Two: Department of Magical Law Enforcement. That was his stop.

As people piled on, Draco pushed his way through and passed the golden lift gates. A few people that had also gotten off the lift looked at him for a long moment as he made his way past them. He was not of the department, and he did not have a visitor's badge, so they were curious.

They saw him heading off towards the Hit Wizards Department, and their unasked questions were answered.

He did not work there; he was a criminal.

The Magical Law Enforcement Department was the largest department in the Ministry. It was divided up into two major offices: the Auror Headquarters, which handled major crimes and the tracking of Dark Wizards, and the Hit Wizards, who handled criminals and minor incidents. One could take a wager on which of the two got the better funding.

Draco was on his way to the Hit Wizards Offices. He was a criminal on probation, and like Muggles, wizards too had probation officers…er…wizards.

He was on his way to see his now.

Draco passed through the busy halls, hood up, head down, hands deep in his pockets. His shoulders were bumped as he moved against traffic in the hallway. That was how it always was in the Ministry. It always felt like you were the only one going in a particular direction and everyone else was flowing against you.

Draco turned and walked down a slightly less-busy hallway, offices lining the walls on either side as purple paper airplanes containing messages to other Ministry workers flew overhead. They did not use owls much anymore. The droppings were a mess and the birds tended to fight or get confused. The mess on level seven from birds coming into the Ministry from elsewhere was evidence enough to that fact.

There was a bustling noise, a noise that only busy offices had. Shuffling papers, buzzing pagers, footsteps, low talking…it sounded productive, but all too often it was only wishful thinking that work was actually getting done.

On the left was the office he was looking for. It was small and divided in two by a semi-permanent wall so that the office could be shared. It was one step up from a cubical, one step below an actual office. On that floor, that's about the best anyone got; it was just too crowded.

Draco moved to the desk on the right of the wall and flopped down in the chair set before it. He slouched, with his knees apart, hands between his legs so that his forearms were resting on his inner thighs.

“Morning, Draco,” his probation witch said with a bright smile. She was far too pleasant to be working with criminals on a daily basis in Draco's opinion, but then again, he was one of those criminals.

“Good morning, Laura,” Draco said, not looking as though his morning was all that “good” but he was being polite, even if his tone suggested otherwise.

“I was worried you were going to miss our appointment,” she said, noting the time.

“The lifts were crowded and busy. I told you that this is a terrible time.”

“I am not about to come in at the butt-crack of dawn to accommodate you, Draco. Next time, come on time, or I will be forced to issue a warning,” she said, not looking like she wanted to, but was held to the requirements of her job.

Laura Madley was three years younger than Draco. He vaguely remembered her from Hogwarts. She had been sorted into Hufflepuff; that's all he remembered. She remembered him too, or remembered him like everyone else did: as a pompous git. She however did not seem to hold that against him. Her Hufflepuff ways seemed to draw out her helpful demeanor and forgiveness.

“Yes, ma'am,” Draco said softly, knowing he could not argue on the matter.

Laura opened up Draco's thick file and flipped through the pages until she reached the one she was looking for. She started filling out the same-old paper work, and Draco sat there, saying nothing, letting Ms. Madley do her job.

Her mousy blonde hair was cut in a pixie style with a curling lock against either side of her face, pasted to her cheek. Her hair as a whole looked rather immovable in its careful styling and Draco did not like it much, but it was not his place to say anything. He just happened to like his women with soft flowing hair. Long was preferred, but if he could run his fingers through it, it was acceptable.

The vision of long, red hair drifted into his thoughts. Its silken feeling known to him, as he had run his fingers through it before…years before…as he held her close to him and…

Draco shook his head. He was not going to think about that.

“I heard you had a run-in with Harry Potter the other night,” Laura said, not looking up from her desktop and paperwork, still writing. She was trying to make it sound conversational, but Draco knew it was not. It had everything to do with her job…

“Oh-no, please, don't lecture me…” Draco begged, letting his head fall back to rest on the back of the chair, his neck at an almost painful angle.

“You want to tell me about it?” she asked softly.

“Not really,” Draco answered honestly, looking up at the ceiling still.

“Draco,” she said in a tone that reminded him of his mother as she now looked at him.

“I just happened to be at a pub first where Potter chanced to stop in,” he said, lifting his head to close his eyes and pinch the bridge of his nose, a headache starting.

“That's not the story I heard.”

“Potter clobbered Blaise Zabini in the face with an Infligo Charm,” he said.

“Why would he do a thing like that?”

“Because he is a pretentious, self-righteous git,” he said harshly.

“Draco…” Laura sighed.

“He thought Blaise was going for his wand -or so he claimed afterwards- and thusly, felt the need to `defend' himself,” Draco answered harshly.

“Harry Potter would not think that, he was the one who helped pass the laws that prevent…”

“I'm only repeating what he told me,” Draco snapped.

“Well, the incident normally would be overlooked as just tabloid fodder, but I'm being asked to submit a report on the matter,” she said, looking apologetic.

“Do your job,” Draco said flatly, waving the fingers on his right hand at her dismissively.

“Draco, stop with the attitude. I'm not your enemy here.”

“Just my probation officer,” he said darkly.

“All the more reason you should treat me nice. I'm the one writing up the reports on you,” she said with a smile. Draco rolled his eyes. “So, you have not left the country?” she asked, looking back at her paperwork.

“No.”

“Purchased any magical items such as wands, potions, or amulets?”

“No.”

“Exercised any magic such as charms, hexes, or curses?”

“No.”

“Brewed any potions?”

“No.”

“Attempted to do any of the above?”

“No.”

“Asked anyone or had anyone do any of the above for you?” she asked.

“No,” he said just a dully as he had his other answers.

“You know, I'm supposed to be doing this after you have taken some Veritaserum.”

“I know…thank you,” he said, looking up at her with a soft face, a face he did not bare in front of many people. It made him look vulnerable, and he hated seeming vulnerable. In front of Laura it made him look sincere and appreciative, which he was, and he trusted her not to exploit moments like this.

“I trust you to be honest with me, Draco.”

“I appreciate your faith in me,” he said with a sigh, slouching more. He was lying to her, not mentioning to her that his mother had given him a potion.

“Have you been to the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures yet?” she asked.

“No, not yet…”

“Draco…”

“Next. That is next. I came to see you first,” he said, crossing his arms, looking and sounding a little huffy.

“I'm flattered.”

“Don't be, I'm just putting that off for as long as I can manage,” he scathed. She laughed.

“The Werewolf Support Services was put in place for people like you…”

“Yet it is run by the same wizards that are head of the Werewolf Capture Unit and Registry.”

“Well, yes…naturally.”

“That place is a malicious joke and a prison…punishment for those unfortunate enough to have contracted this disease, not a place for support.”

“They just want to keep an eye on you.”

“So I don't go beastie and gobble up some children?” he seethed.

“So you don't wind up at the wrong end of a nasty jinx one day because someone gets the impression that you are threatening them.”

“Would I ever do a thing like that?” Draco asked mockingly innocent.

“Draco, a year after you were probated, you got dragged in here on the accusation that you threatened a Ministry worker, saying you would bite him.”

“It was a figure of speech, and I told him to bite me,” he said in an exasperated tone like they had gone over this already a hundred times.

“Nevertheless, the man was so upset over the perceived threat that he came here, saying you were going to hurt his family.”

“And I thank you for clearing that up for me,” he said with an inclined head.

“Draco, you need to behave yourself, and you need to stop making people hate you and want to mistrust you.”

“I don't try to do anything…”

“Yes you do, because you like to be the victim, because it makes you feel justified in your bitterness and anger,” she said, and Draco huffed as he looked away. He wanted to disagree, but she wouldn't believe him if he did…because it would be a lie and they both knew it, which made him grumpy. “I really think you need counseling.”

“You mean a shrink,” he said flatly.

“You just need someone to talk to…”

“I have you.”

“I'm just your probation officer,” she said, stamping his sheet with a thump and then holding his paper out to him. “I just handle your case. As your caseworker, however, I suggest you find someone who can give you better guidance and support than me,” she said with a kind but sad smile. She really did worry about him.

“Yes, mother,” he said, taking the paper from her without a smile and walking out of the office.

Draco left the Hit Wizards Offices, on his way back to the lifts where he stood and waited amidst some queer looks. He managed not to fidget under their gaze while waiting for the lift to come.

Malfoys never fidget.

With a clattering and then a screech, the lift's gates eased open and Draco found himself face to face with his new friend Reamann.

“Draco,” he said, looking surprised to say the very least. Draco wanted to groan as the witches at his back gasped and started whispering to each other, passing him to dare a glance before jumping on the lift.

“Thank you for that. Next time, shout my name a little louder, so that way everyone in the general vicinity will hear,” he said, glaring as the lift left without him.

“I'm, I'm sorry. What are you doing up here?” Reamann asked, caught completely off guard by seeing Draco out of the Hall of Records.

“I could ask you the same. This isn't your department,” Draco quipped, reaching past Reamann to hit the button again and making it light up, now waiting again for the lift to come back.

“I asked first,” Reamann said, watching Draco.

“I'm here to talk to my Probation Witch. You?” he asked, crossing his arms.

“Getting some more information on the case,” he said, licking his lips nervously.

“Yeah? How's that coming along for you?” he asked, his tone bored and annoyed, and clearly uninterested.

“Good. Things seem to be going well. That report was excellent. I got a lot of good remarks on it,” he said, fidgeting. Draco knew the guy was restless to begin with -having spent an afternoon or two with him in the library, watching him pace and fuss and talk constantly- but he seemed downright nervous now.

“Congratulations,” Draco drawled.

“And I was thinking, I kind'a owe you now…so why don't I take you out to lunch or something,” he said.

“That wasn't the agreement,” Draco said with cool eyes.

“Yes, well, things are a little complicated now,” he said, smoothing his hair flat, out of what looked like nerves.

“Really?” Draco asked flatly.

“Let me take you out to lunch and I will explain it all to you,” he said.

Draco considered him for a brief moment. The lift would be back soon; he could not grill the twitchy Reamann for much longer.

“I have lunch at half noon,” he finally said. Reamann visibly relaxed.

“That's good. I can take my lunch then,” he said.

“Awright then.”

“Yeah…”

Reamann did not seem too excited, even though the lunch had been his idea.

Draco kind of had that effect on most people.

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

Draco was standing at the back of the lift again; it was less crowded, but no more comfortable than it had been an hour before. The morning rush had passed and now there was just the steady traffic between the offices that Draco was now a part of.

The lift descended slowly, past level three, stopping at level four. That was his stop.

“Excuse me,” he muttered, pushing past a witch that stood in his way as he jumped off the lift. He got some stares from those on the lift, possibly recognizing Draco Malfoy: the Werewolf, before the gates closed to his back, taking the lift and all its wide-eyed passengers with it.

Draco hated this.

He shuffled off in the direction of the Being Division Offices where the Werewolf Support Services were located. It was better than having to stop at the Beast Division where the Werewolf Capture Unit and Registry were located…but not by much.

Somehow, fifteen years after being infected, it still irked him that he was not considered a human being anymore. He was a beastie. He was not human, but many did not even think him a person anymore. It was kind of harsh.

It was one of the many things in life that made him grumpy.

Passing offices like he had on the level above, he made his way to his support officer, his wizard that offered “support” and kind words…and Wolfsbane.

It was a potion concocted to offer relief for a werewolf during the night of the full moon. It was no cure, and it only allowed for the werewolf to retain his or her mind after transforming while relieving some of the symptoms, but it was better than nothing and all that could really be offered for “support.” There was no “cure.”

The potion was so complicated that it had its own taskforce at the Ministry to prepare it.

“Morning, Draco,” his officer said, not standing from his desk.

“Morning,” he said softly.

Marcus Belby was his “Support Wizard.” Draco also knew him from Hogwarts, but Marcus was older than him and had been in Ravenclaw. He had been a member of Professor Slughorn's Slug Club. His Uncle Damocles, so it happened, had invented the Wolfsbane potion back in 1990. He was also related to Flavius Belby, the only Wizard to ever survive a Lethifold attack.

His whole family seemed to have a fascination…to the point of unhealthy obsession…with magical beasties. Seemingly, it was nothing short of pre-destiny that Marcus should end up working in an office that dealt with such beasties.

Draco sat there, as one of said beasties.

“How have you been feeling?” he asked.

“Right bit worse than death warmed over,” he said, sitting in the chair before the wizard's desk like he had an hour before in another office.

“Still dealing with the pains?” he asked.

“Every moment, of every day. Will I be issued a prescription for a potion that will help?” he asked, sounding as grumpy as he looked but still stubbornly hopeful.

“You know I can't do that…”

“It is not Dark Magic, it is not part of some evil plot to overthrow the Ministry…it's just me wanting some relief! A simple Doleolevo Potion would…”

“Draco, we go through this every week. I cannot give you anything without a Healer's consent.”

“But they won't give me anything!” he said exasperatedly. Him and Marcus did not share niceties with each other like he and Laura did. There was no polite conversation or smiles, it was right to business and right into Draco complaining.

“Then you clearly don't need it.”

“My family donated a substantial amount of money to build that damn hospital! I have a ward named after me for God's sake! The least they could do is fix me up with a potion that will sooth my pains,” he said, outrage readable, and honestly understandable. Marcus understood Draco's feelings but was also able to understand the reasons he was denied such things.

“Draco, you're a pill-popping addict to anything that makes you feel a little better for however short a time. They won't give you anything now, not without you dying on the table in front of them, and even then that's debatable,” he said. Draco pushed his hood back in his frustration, letting his hair tumble down out of the hood where it had been gathered to hang around him limply. He then let his face fall into his hands. He needed a potion, a pill, something to make him feel better, and no one would supply him and he had no means to go about it himself. He was too poor and lacking manipulative influence.

“Speaking of which, you seem to be moving about alright. Who supplied your fix?” he asked, knowing Draco too well.

“Don't,” he warned darkly, voice muffled by his hands.

“You know, your mother could face criminal charges if she were caught slipping you potions and such,” he said warningly.

“My mother, and this is not an admission, has nothing to do with it,” he said, looking very intently into Marcus' eyes.

“Very well, Draco,” he said with a sigh. He was not about to go out of his way to bust Draco for anything. That was what Draco's probation officer was for. “I have your Wolfsbane for the week, and your instructions for the coming moon,” he said, getting right to business.

He held out an envelope to Draco which he took and pocketed immediately. It gave details on where he was to report on the eve of the full moon. He would be under the Ministry's watch and care during his transformation, as always. Draco hated it, but honestly, even with the Wolfsbane helping him remain in control, he would find it difficult to explain the ruckus to his Muggle neighbors.

Draco then accepted the large flask of potion. It had a Ministry seal and emblem on it, making it official. Draco, if caught with any potion other than that, in any container other than that, would be looking at Azkaban again. They were that serious about it.

“Thank you,” Draco said, looping the strap attached to the large flask over his head so that it cut across his chest and hung at his side.

“You take care of yourself,” Marcus said softly.

“It's what I'm best at,” Draco said as he stood; signing his paperwork, glad to leave, even if that meant it was time to head down to the Hall and work.

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Author's Note:

Narcissa Black was born in 1955 according to the Black Family Tree JKR wrote up in 2006. I wrote this fic/scene, having not seen that previously, so her age does not follow canon. In this fic Narcissa was born in 1960, (her father having died in 1979 so that still manages to work out) making her 5 years younger than she is in the book series.

Also, there was some reference to Disney's The Hunchback of Norte Dame in the opening flashback scene as well as a borrowed line of dialog. It is not meant to influence the whole scene, just the one specific portion of it where something inarguably similar happens. It's what I get for listening to The Bells of Notre Dame while writing.

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Blue-Eyed Angel

Chapter Six

“Everyone thinks I wrote it, and if I were to fess up to the truth that I didn't, I would lose this opportunity,” Reamann said, talking of the summary Draco had written for him, while rubbing his face in frustration. Understandable, given his dilemma.

He and Draco sat in a London restaurant, Muggle no less, lunching amongst business suits and skirts. Briefcases littered the floor at their owners' feet, and the clanking of cutlery on dishware was steady as the low murmur of many low conversations lingered in the air.

The two of them looked more than slightly out of place, Reamann in his business robes, Draco in his jeans with the torn out knee and black sweatshirt. The hood was down at least, as he practically lounged in his seat, but his extremely long white hair was more eye catching than the conspicuous hood would have been.

“So you can't talk to them about getting me out of the Hall of Records in exchange for my help without first having to admit to them that I, of all people, helped you. But, you fear losing your position on the case if you do, so you want me to continue to help you, because you need me to help you, without credit or reward?” he asked, making sure his understanding was accurate.

“Yeah,” Reamann sighed, “that's about it.”

“How terribly dishonest and manipulative of you. Tell me, what house were you sorted into at Hogwarts?”

“Gryffindor,” he said quietly.

“Oh, noble Gryffindor,” he said as though “noble” were some sort of insult to be thrown in Reamann's face. “The guilt must be eating you up inside, either that, or you were sorted improperly,” he said with a smile, his perfectly straight white teeth exposed in a grin. His fingers were laced together with his chin resting on them, with his elbows on the table. It would have been cute, if his eyes did not look terribly unhappy.

“I feel awful about this, Draco, I really do, but you too would get in trouble for helping me.”

“Oh, so you are playing this off like you are doing me a favor by taking advantage of my graciousness, not like you are just covering your own arse?”

“I didn't mean it like that,” Reamann answered.

“Then tell me, what exactly did you mean by it? You want me to continue to help you, while you take all the credit and look clever, while I remain in that pit of a Ministry office?” Draco asked. He leaned forward a little, to be up in Reamann's personal space.

“I will make it up to you in the end, I swear. I just can't be exposed at the moment. I don't intend on taking all the credit in the end…”

“I have heard that one before,” Draco said, falling backwards to thump his back against his chair while taking a sip of his drink. He propped his feet up on the edge of their table and got some looks from those around him, but he seemed indifferent over everyone's silent objections to his manners.

“Please, Draco, I'm appealing to your sense of right and justice. Help me because you know it's the right thing to do.”

“Is it the `right thing to do,' to lie and deceive the Ministry for one's own personal gain?” he asked smoothly. “And here I thought I was being upstanding by not doing such things anymore,” he said with a mockingly enlightened tone and an innocent smile.

“Don't complicate a clever scheme with morality, Draco,” Reamann said with a glare. “We will all do well in the end. Muggles will be saved, you will get credit for your assistance and thusly, rewarded, and I…”

“And you will be hailed and promoted, and the history books will talk of your cleverness…while conveniently excluding me,” Draco finished for him flatly. “I have heard this all before. It bears a disturbing resemblance to a conversation I had with one Harry Potter some fourteen years ago. Frankly, I can say I learned my lesson a long time ago, the hard way, when it comes to helping anyone but myself,” he said.

“Draco,”

“No good Deed goes unpunished.”

“Draco, please.”

Draco took a deep breath and looked away, staring out the front window of the establishment from across the room for a long moment.

“I need more than just your word that I will get credit in the end,” he finally said, setting his drink down slowly. He folded his legs down off the table and placed his feet on the floor, while leaning on his elbows again, intently.

“Anything,” Reamann assured.

“How are you at potions?”

“I got an E on my OWLS and continued onto Advanced Level after that to get another E on my NEWTS,” he said, not quite sure where Draco's questioning would lead.

“I need you -in exchange for my continued assistance in this matter- to brew me potions…on a regular basis,” he said.

“What? I can't do that…” Reamann said, looking taken aback.

“Are you able to write another impressive report without my aid?” Draco asked with a smirk, his cold eyes somehow managing to look dark.

“It's illegal,” he said, feeling outraged at such a request.

“Oh, now who's cluttering up a clever scheme with morality?” Draco quipped. “Come on. The potions would be neither terrible nor nefarious. I just need some to ease pain.”

“Ease pain?” Reamann repeated as a question.

“Is that an echo I hear?” Draco retorted. “Yes,” he then said flatly, “the potions are not difficult nor time consuming but I cannot purchase potions ingredients, otherwise I would brew them myself.”

“So you will help me, if I help you with this,” Reamann said.

“You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours,” Draco answered, leaning back.

“You can't just do this because helping people brings you some sort of inner gratification?” Reamann sighed, hopeful to the last that he would be able to continue on with his deceit without breaking any laws.

“None in the least.” Draco smiled.

“I can't believe I'm doing this.”

“You're agreeing then?”

“How do I know you will maintain your end of the bargain?”

“How will I know you will maintain yours?”

“You are the convicted Death Eater and a Slytherin,” Reamann said flatly.

“And yet, of the two of us, I'm not the one who is deceiving the Ministry and taking advantage of a sick little werewolf,” he said complacently.

“Taking advantage?”

“There's that echo again,” Draco said, sounding bored. Draco was being a pain in the ass, and it was more than what would likely be considered “usual” even for him.

“I really don't think you are the type to be taken advantage of, Malfoy.”

“Shows how little you really know about me then,” Draco said, leaning forward to grab his drink. “We agree to help each other, for the greater good, and puppies and rainbows, and for Christmas and all that is good and fluffy in the world?” Draco drawled, holding up his drink in a sort of toast or proposition. Reamann looked at him for a long moment before sighing and grabbing his drink.

“I could end up in jail for this.”

“You and me both…but it's the right thing to do,” Draco mocked and Reamann smiled despite himself.

“Yeah, sure. Agreed,” he said, holding his drink up also. Draco threw back his drink while Reamann took only a respectable gulp.

“So,” Draco sighed, leaning back and tilting his chair so it was balanced on its back two legs, feet once again on the table as they waited for their order to be up.

“So,” Reamann said too.

“Where do we go from here?”

“I will need to get you a copy of the case file for you to look over.”

“You sure that's wise? You trusting a convicted Death Eater with materials connected to a case where other Death Eaters are being implicated?” Draco drawled.

“I honestly don't think this has anything to do with Death Eaters.”

“So you don't trust me, you simply think I'm not a part of this particular circumstance.”

Reamann sighed.

“I don't think you are secretly working for whoever it is that's doing this, and leading me on with false claims of innocence,” he said, eyeing Draco wearily.

“Read about that did you?” he asked, leaning his chair back and forth a little in a rocking motion.

“Yeah,” he said, knowing Draco had fooled both sides during the war, a spy for one, or the other, or both. Could Draco really blame him for having a little trouble trusting him? “In the end, whose side were you on?” he asked.

“I was on my side,” Draco said simply, honestly. Reamann sighed and ran his hand down the side of his face.

“Alright, fine. Be aloof,” he said, finishing his drink. Draco looked pleased with himself. After a long moment of silence between them Reamann felt a question escape him.

“How did you become a werewolf, Malfoy?”

Draco's eyes widened and he nearly toppled over backwards. His chair, which had been precariously balanced, had swayed with his surprise at the sudden bluntness of the question. Draco grabbed the edge of the table while curling his legs down to the floor again, steadying himself as several Muggles looked on.

“Just spring a question like that on me? Bleeding Christ!” he said, settling in his chair again, and running his left hand through his hair to get it out of his face.

He needed a drink.

“I'm sorry,” Reamann said, having almost laughed at Draco's -what he assumed to be- uncharacteristic jump and twitch before seeing how genuinely upset he was over it. He supposed it was a sensitive subject and the question had been rather frank and unexpected. Ginny was always telling him that it was bad form to ask questions that just popped into his head without thinking, and that it came across as ill-mannered. “You don't have to tell me; that was rude…” he said, smoothing his own hair flat.

“Yeah, well,” Draco wheezed, nodding and wishing their food would come so he could order another bevvy. Reamann was paying after all.

He did not want to think about that night…

He groaned as he rolled over in his bed. Draco's bedroom was still in shambles and there were downy white feathers drifting across the floor in the warm summer air as it came through his open windows. He had managed to repair his bed, and some of the pillows, but the curtains still hung in tatters and his belongings were everywhere. It would take him hours to get everything back in order. And that was only his bedroom; there were 34 other rooms in the house.

He had lain down to rest for the night, refusing to cry even though his mother had left. He just hugged his bunny tight and prayed that in the morning he would wake to find himself in his Hogwarts bed, the past day having just been a bad dream. He would be preparing for his trip home on the Hogwarts Express, and looking forward to his birthday celebration.

His mother had left just after the Ministry Officials had. She said she needed to see her family, to deal with things, to contact some people…leaving Draco at the house alone, but for a handful of servants still employed, and the House-elves, the later of which not really fantastic for emotional support and the servents prefering (for the most part) to maintain a certain amount of professionality.

“Damn it all to hell,” he grumbled.

His bedside table was not only toppled over, but the glass and water pitcher that had always sat atop it were shattered on the floor. That meant he would have to get up and out of bed if he wanted something to drink.

Draco threw off his covers in a huff and reached for his robe out of habit, only to find the robe misplaced as well as the rack it was supposed to be hanging from.

“Damn it,” Draco muttered, looking around in the semi-darkness for his robe. It was no where in sight. Neither were his slippers.

Sighing angrily, Draco threw his arms up in the air and walked out of his room barefoot and robe-less. His mother would have been appalled, but she wasn't there to fret over his lack of propriety. He had nothing on but his silken green pajama trousers, and it was warm enough that it did not matter, although rather uncultured, in such a state of undress.

Walking down the hall, Draco had to make his way to the kitchens where he would find a glass. He kept an eye out for a House-elf to order about, but he hadn't seen one since the Ministry Wizards had left after the raid.

Draco was sure the little creatures were gathered somewhere in a collective and commune panic attack over the state of their beloved house. The mess in every room was extensive and the state of some things was irreversible. He was sure it was something close to an apocalypse for the tidy little creatures whose only sense of purpose was driven by their pride in strict up-keeping.

It was a long walk down to the kitchen. Lanterns burst to life as he walked past, and upon reaching the stone room, the lights there too flared to life to show yet more devastation.

“Bugger,” he grumbled, looking around. He stepped carefully over broken glass and upturned chairs. The Ministry had certainly gotten their point across.

The raid had been bullshit.

The real reason behind the incursion had been quite clear: intimidation. The Malfoy Patriarch was in Azkaban, and they should think twice before doing anything even remotely reprehensible at that point.

Draco was able to find an un-shattered glass and held it up to the broken faucet. It looked like someone had swung something at it and ruptured the seal on the pipe. A gentle stream shot out like a fountain and Draco slowly let his glass fill from that.

It was going to take effort -and money- to get the house right again, and he knew his mother expected it done by the time she got back.

Draco couldn't say he was excited at the prospect of taking charge and seeing it done.

He really hated the Ministry at that moment.

Draco took a long gulp from his glass and then a breath.

Yeah, he was pretty sure he hated the Ministry more than Harry Potter at that moment…but then, thinking on that, it was Harry Potter's fault that his father was in jail and thusly, the reason behind the raid in the first place.

Draco withdrew that first thought, he still hated Harry Potter more than anything else in the world. He hated Potter with every fiber of his being.

Taking a step, Draco hissed and cursed, lifting his foot and balancing carefully. Despite his carefulness, he still wound up with a piece of glass in his heel.

“Fan-bloody-tastic,” he said, plucking the bloodied shard of glass out of his foot and hopping a little to remain balanced. He tossed the shard away angrily, hopped over the mess on the floor, and limped back towards his bedroom.

Lanterns flared to life again as he passed; the warmness of the firelight complemented the warmness of the night perfectly. It sometimes got hot in the house because of all the fire (often cold in the winter because of the drafts) but right then it was perfect. It was a wonderful night.

There was a sudden crash and it interrupted Draco's disgruntled thoughts of how much he wanted to stomp on Potter's face.

He spun around to look in the direction of the sound, the crash coming from down stairs -where he had just come from- and he took a careful step back the way he had come.

“Hello?” he called, not sure who or what had made the sound. The House-elves were silent in all that they did by nature, the few remaining human servants were surely in bed at that late hour, and he doubted something downstairs would choose that exact moment in time to topple over on its own…though that was a very real possibility given the mess of things.

Draco walked back to the top of the stairs and leaned over the railing of the balcony that overlooked the grand entrance hall. The chandelier was directly in front of him now, rather than above.

He looked around with narrowed eyes, but heard nothing more, saw nothing move, and he was left feeling tired and drained from that moment of heart-pounding apprehension.

He sighed, too tired to investigate further.

Draco turned around to head to bed, only to come face to face with a very large, snarling beast. He didn't have a chance to do more than gasp in surprise, and drop his glass of water to the floor where it shattered at his feet, before being attacked.

Draco was shoved backwards, large clawed fingers digging into his upper left arm. He screamed as he hit the railing and kept falling backwards.

The thing did not have a good hold on him, its hands clearly not intended for grasping, and Draco found himself falling, falling from the balcony, the marble grand hall floor below him.

Luckily for Draco, a partially tipped over grandfather clock broke his fall…and nearly his back.

He landed on it, causing it to fall the rest of the way over and smash loudy on the floor, facedown, Draco atop of it. He was left dazed, stunned from the fall, without air in his lungs, and his vision blackened out.

“Urr,” he groaned in pain as it shot through his body, no longer numb from the impact, and hurting sharply. Whimpering, he rolled off the broken clock to expose red discoloration on his pale and naked back, the start of a very nasty bruise and undoubtedly some broken ribs underneath. He couldn't breathe, as if there were a belt strapped tight around his chest.

Draco crawled on his hands and knees for a moment, trying to get his head to stop spinning and his vision from fading in and out. He felt like he was going to be sick and he couldn't seem to catch a proper breath. He could hear a tremendous thump, a distant sound in his ringing ears, and he looked up to see the dark beast round on him again from only feet away. It had leapt from the balcony and landed with grace, grace Draco had landed without.

Scrambling to his feet in a sudden burst of adrenaline that seemed to numb his pain for a moment, Draco flung himself around an archway, leading into the sitting room. He climbed over upturned furniture as the beast was in fast pursuit. His body screamed in protest, and tripping slightly he bashed his knee painfully into the wooden frame of his ornate settee, but his brain could not properly register that right then. The pain was there, but all his mind was telling him was to “run…run away!”

“Get away!” Draco yelled, running around the couch to have something between him and the beast. The room was dark and he could barely see. Apparently the lanterns were broken in that room because the commotion hadn't awoken them.

The beast, a massive black shadow, tried rounding on Draco from the right and Draco moved to the left to keep the red velvet settee between them. He dared a glance over his shoulder towards the way he had come -where it was light- and in that moment, the beast attacked. Draco screamed and ducked as the thing overshot him slightly, missing him thanks to his fast Quidditch reflexes. Draco scurried on his hands and feet for a moment towards the other side of the room, away from the light but also the beast. There was a door there; he just had to reach it.

Draco slammed into the door and groped for the handle. He was panting for air; his heart hammering in his chest like it was going to explode.

His hand found and twisted the doorknob just as the beast slammed into his back. Draco went crashing through the door as it swung open, the side of his head hitting the marbled floor hard, the beast rolling over him and onto the floor in front of him. Draco, despite seeing white spots in his otherwise blacked out vision, turned to try and escape back into the sitting room, but the thing reached up and planted its claws deep into his back overtop his shoulder blades as he scurried on his hands and knees close to the ground. Draco screamed loud and long as he was dragged on his belly into the equally dark room by his hooked back, his own hands clawing at the smooth floor and doorjamb, trying to get away, trying not to get pulled into the room with that thing.

Draco felt himself get flipped over and he struck out with his left arm, hitting something very hard and solid, a snout maybe. Moments later he felt teeth clamp down onto his extended forearm and he screamed again as he was shaken by the thing, like it was trying to tear him apart. Its claws scraped at Draco's left side, cutting down over his collarbone in long raking gashes, ripping at his shoulder and ribs with what seemed like every intention to take his left arm.

“Draco?” a man shouted urgently over Draco's screams and the beast's roars and growls.

“Help me!” Draco screamed, still struggling, the thing releasing his left arm. Draco sagged to the floor, legs and body pinned beneath the beast, still in a puddle of his own blood, and thought maybe it was over, until he felt his left shoulder, nearly his neck, get bitten next.

Draco screamed louder than before, voice cracking as the beast lifted him up off the floor, blood oozing from its mouth as it bit down like a vise. It had attempted to go for a death-bite but had missed in the darkness.

“Draco? Where are you? Draco?” the man called in panic as Draco was released again with a gasp of pain, his eyes wide and unfocused. The beast reared back to look over at the man that entered the room, the tip of his wand alight causing the thing to shade its eyes with its forearm in a very human-like gesture, though the growl was as inhuman as possible.

“Oh dear God, DRACO!” the man shouted, throwing a spell without hesitation at the creature. The spell caused a loud booming noise that chased the beast away from Draco's body. It gave a roar and bared its bloody teeth before it turned and crashed through the dark windows, allowing moonlight to cast its shadow into the room then, the beast escaping onto the grounds with a long howl.

Draco was left laying there, a smeared puddle of his own blood coating the pale marble floor where he lay, twitching and gasping for air.

“Draco? Draco? Oh God...” he said, falling to his knees beside him, afraid to even reach out and touch him for fear of hurting him. He looked out the window and saw very plainly in the night sky the very full moon.

“Holy shit…” he said, and then, “Dear God, no.” Looking over Draco, his whole body shaking with dread and the helplessness he felt while at a loss of what to do to help his young master. “I have you,” he said, finally deciding to move him.

It was a long and slow trek back up to Draco's bedroom, carrying Draco's nearly limp and thankfully, relatively petite body up the stairs, but once there, Draco was coming down off his shock enough to talk.

“It hurts, it hurts…it hurts,” he whimpered over and over again, swallowing convulsively, shaking uncontrollably as though on the edge of a fit.

The man that had rescued him was Paul Nanette -affectionately referred to as “Butler Paul” by Draco- Draco's personal manservant. A sort of tutor, aide, father figure, and servant all in one, he was a man that had been a very large part of Draco's life since he had been small. Butler Paul was the acception to the rule that the servents of the house wanted little to do with him, and he had been awoken by the same crash Draco had heard, and was roused from bed at the commotion that quickly followed.

“No, no,” Draco moaned repeatedly, pushing Butler Paul's hands away with his right arm -the only arm that would work- as he tried to have a look at Draco's bleeding wounds.

“Draco, let me look. Please. There is blood everywhere, I need to see where you are hurt,” he said, his voice a forced calm, panic so near to the surface.

“What was it? What…what was it?” Draco asked breathlessly, face ghostly white, lips bloodless, eyes wide. Blood splattered his face, on his forehead a knot was developing where he had hit the floor, and his skin was starting to shine with sweat and deep bruises.

The lights were on, but askew as most of the lamps had been knocked over or on the floor.

Butler Paul looked out Draco's open window and again saw the full moon. He knew the answer but he could not bear to say it. He could not break it to Draco, not right then, not while Draco was struggling so hard just to live.

“I don't know…probably a dog, or, or something,” he said.

“A dog,” Draco gasped, “that was no dog…that was no fucking dog…there's no way a dog could even get in here,” Draco said, forcing his words out through his pain.

“Lay still, lay still!” Butler Paul said, holding Draco down as the boy sobbed and shook.

“What did I do? What…what did I do?” he started repeating, blood soaking through his bedding. Butler Paul's heart sank at Draco's barely coherent ramblings.

Draco had done nothing, he was sure of that.

The boy was barely sixteen and Butler Paul was no fool. He knew a werewolf would not just break into a home as guarded as the Malfoy Manor by accident or chance. That werewolf had to have been on the grounds before transforming to even have been capable of getting past the home's defensive spells and wards. It had come there with a purpose, sent there by someone. He had a good idea who, too.

He did not know why though, Draco had yet to meet him in person, but the Dark Lord had sent a werewolf to his home. He was willing to bet his life on it.

“Shit, I need the Healer up here,” he said, looking around. “Where are those damned House-elves?” he shouted, wanting to rub his forehead but finding his hands covered in blood. “Mickey! Mickey!” he shouted, hoping for the House-elf to come to his urgent calls. It took a moment but a House-elf appeared, looking tentative and anxious.

“Mickey is here, sir,” it said, wringing its bandaged hands together.

“Go, wake the Healer. Have him come here immediately!” he shouted.

“Yes sir, anything for young Master Draco, sir,” it said, disappearing from that spot with a pop.

“Draco, Draco? Look at me, stay awake,” he said.

“It hurts, it burns…” he sobbed, shaking, his left arm twitching at his side.

“I know. The Healer is on his way, just stay with me. Just stay with me,” he said, repeating that last phrase a dozen times while waiting for the Healer. He took that moment to also draw the curtains closed, lest Draco should glance out the window and see the moon.

The boy had had enough trauma for one night…best save possible grave news for another.

Draco snapped back to the present upon the arrival of his meal at the table. He had fallen silent and his eyes had drifted to be distant and hallow, and Réamann had not the heart (after the abrupt question he had posed) to try and engage him in some sort of conversation. Draco wished he had chosen that time to talk insesently, and saved him the tramatizing trip down memory lane.

e had fallen silent, eyes distant and Réamann had not the heart (after the question he had so abrubtly posed) to attempt and steal his attention back He and Reamann were silent while their food was served, Draco only mentioning his desperate need for another bevvy to the waitress quietly. Once they were alone again, Draco took a deep breath.

“The Dark Lord sent the werewolf Greyback to my home one night, the night I had gotten home from Hogwarts no less, right after finishing my fifth year. I had just turned sixteen,” he said softly, looking down at his fish and chips and finding he had no appetite. Reamann looked at Draco, having expected him not to say anything as he had been quiet for so long after he had asked the question in so blunt a manner.

“Why?” Reamann asked, trying to be sympathetic and encouraging while trying to quench his ferocious curiosity.

“The Dark Lord had to promise Greyback a lot to get him to serve him, in hopes of having the werewolves side with him for the battle and such. Greyback was not a Death Eater, but he served the Dark Lord,” he explained. “Well…you see, the Dark Lord was very angry that my father had failed him and gotten himself locked up in Azkaban, taking along with him several others. He blamed my father, because he had been in charge that night, but he could not punish my father by any of his typical methods while he was locked away, safe, as irony would have it. The Dark Lord decided he would punish my father the way Greyback favored, which was to go after the children of those that had wrong him in some perceived way,” he said dully, almost like he was not even talking about himself.

“You mean, you were attacked and infected as your father's punishment for failing the Dark Lord?” he asked in disbelief.

“Infected? He damn near killed me,” Draco said, eyes just a little wide as he looked at the table edge near Reamann's hands. “I had shattered ribs, a broken collarbone and arm, torn muscles and ligaments in my left arm when he just about ripped it off…I had horrendous gashes and wounds from his claws and teeth, a concussion, extensive bruising, a torn and bruised liver, and extreme blood loss. My Healer did all he could for me, but werewolf bites and scratches…if you want to call them scratches…cannot be healed by magic. You can't heal too much at once or you risk sending the person into shock, so I was left in agony for days as I was healed a little at a time. My Healer was able to mend my bones and repair my muscles enough in my arm so that I would regain full use of it in time, and he gave me Blood-Replenishing Potion so that I would not bleed to death. It restored the blood I had lost, and continued to lose, but he could do nothing for the wounds, and nothing for the…scarring,” he finished softly.

“Wow,” Reamann said, leaning back against his seat, away from his food. He did not know what to say to Draco other than, “That's really messed up.”

Draco just nodded while looking down at his food.

“I was not a Death Eater while at Hogwarts, regardless of what the texts may claim. I was a werewolf,” he said, dropping his voice.

None of the Muggles around were listening in, but incase their words carried, he did not want the word “werewolf” catching their ears. He pulled back his left sleeve with his arm palm down on the table to expose the back of his forearm. The scaring there was horrific, worse than it had been on the inside where the Dark Mark dominated. It really did look like a dog had chewed Draco up and spit him out.

Draco pulled his sleeve back down and chewed his bottom lip.

Would Reamann believe him now?

Would he trust him?

He doubted it.

People did not trust “Death Eaters,” and they rarely trusted werewolves.

“But, then, how did you keep that hidden? I mean, surely someone would have figured it out…” Reamann asked, still looking at Draco's arm that was covered again.

“Oh, someone did,” he said.

“Who?” Reamann asked, leaning forward, his food just as forgotten as Draco's for the moment.

“Dumbledore knew. The old codger knew from the moment I stepped into the school my sixth year what I was. He also knew I was working for the Dark Lord. He did not know what my assignment was, but he knew…he watched over me the whole year, suspecting me but never stopping me, even after students had gotten…hurt,” he said softly, feeling awkward and, a little guilty…maybe. “He even dragged me up into his office and offered me help a few times. Said he knew I was `sick' and that he could help me,” he said bitterly. Reamann said nothing in hopes Draco would continue on his own. “I did not need his help,” he said forcefully. “You familiar with the Room of Requirement?” he asked.

“Yeah…that's where you plotted to kill Dumbledore and fixed the cupboard, that being the way you snuck the Death Eaters in that night.”

“Good to know those texts got something right,” Draco grumbled. “Well, never mind that. I did not kill Dumbledore,” he said fiercely, “and the Room of Requirement is whatever one requires,” Draco said, looking to Reamann to make sense of that. Reamann's eyes lit up with the answer and he took a breath.

“You used the room, on the full moon. It became what you required, that being a safe place to transform where you wouldn't hurt anyone or yourself,” he said.

“Precisely,” Draco answered, pointing his finger at Reamann.

“Did you have Wolfsbane to help? You know, to make it easier…”

“No,” Draco said, flustered slightly, still frustrated so many years later that he had been unable to successfully brew the potion at the time. It really was a complicated potion.

“Wow,” he said.

“Yeah,” Draco mumbled, not sure what more could be said between them.

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Author's Note:

A line of dialog in this chapter is based off of a line of dialog from the movie DragonHeart, one of my all time favorite movies.

“Don't try and clutter up a clever scheme with morality.”

The whole sort of tone and some of the dialog in the flashback scene was loosely inspired by my favorite B-movie werewolf flick Gingersnaps. I had tried my scene a few different ways, but I feel the end result I have now is most realistic and best.

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Blue-Eyed Angel

Chapter Seven

“You're coming down to see me throughout your day, we're lunching privately together, and now you're sneaking me into your home after work? Be careful, Reamann, people might think we are secretly lovers,” Draco teased as he walked into Reamann's house. Reamann closed and locked his front door behind them.

“Don't flatter yourself, Malfoy, and we could have done this at your place,” Reamann grumbled as he turned from his door.

“No we couldn't have,” Draco said dismissively, looking around Reamann's living room with mild interest. “Nice pad,” he commented.

“We can't dawdle; I'll give you the grand tour some other time. My girlfriend will be home soon enough and we have a lot of work to get through before that,” he said.

“Girlfriend, huh? She pretty?” Draco asked, teasing still as he eyed Reamann slyly.

“I don't think that is any concern of yours.”

“We Malfoys are a good judge of aesthetic attractiveness, particularly when it comes to the opposite sex. Care for me to weigh in on the matter?” he offered with a devious smile that was sure to make any girl flush. There was a strong and striking man underneath Draco's worn and tired exterior and the glint in his eyes showed he was still a shadow of the young man he had been back in Hogwarts, before Azkaban robbed him of his youth.

“Stay away from my girlfriend,” Reamann warned.

“Afraid my devastatingly good looks and charm will lure her away should we chance meet?”

“You are not charming, you're conceited.”

“What would you know about charm? You couldn't charm the warts off a skinned toad,” Draco quipped. “I would have you know there is actually very little difference between charm and arrogance.”

“And of the two of us, which is the one with a girlfriend, Malfoy? Now here,” he said, holding out a relatively thin file to Draco. Draco just looked at it, then at Reamann. “This is the file on the case; it's magically preserved so I can't make copies, so don't mess up the original,” he warned. “I think it would be best that you read it over first, before anything else.”

“You have any peanut butter?” Draco asked, not taking the file from Reamann, just leaving Reamann to stand there with his arm extended and file presented.

“What?” he asked completely caught off guard by Draco's sudden and odd question.

“Do you have any peanut butter? I'm hungry,” he said, expanding on that a little more but still leaving little explanation.

“Oh,” Reamann said, dropping his arm to his side, no longer offering the file out to Malfoy.

“I think there is a jar out in the kitchen…I could go have a look,” he offered, trying to be helpful while still feeling Draco's request was more than a little odd.

“You go get changed like you want to,” Draco said, knowing exactly what Reamann was thinking and letting that fact be known between them. “I know my way around a kitchen,” he said, walking into the adjoining room where there was a tidy little kitchen. Draco flicked on the switch, knowing exactly where it was on the wall like he had been there before.

Reamann watched Draco open a drawer and pull out a spoon and then search for the peanut butter in the cupboards. Shaking his head with a shrug he did as Draco had suggested and what he himself wanted: he headed off to his bedroom to change out of his robes, dropping the file on the coffee table as he passed.

He hung his robes up to be worn again tomorrow, and dressed in comfortable black slacks and a red sweater. He quickly slicked his hair back with a comb with only a glance in the mirror before heading back out into his living room. There he found Draco curled up in one of his soft chairs, legs tucked up to his chest and feet to the side, file open atop his knees, a spoon full of peanut butter held in his mouth, both hands busy with the paperwork.

“Comfortable?” Reamann asked, noticing the jar of peanut butter sitting open on the coffee table.

“Mmhm,” Draco muttered indistinctly through his occupied mouth, looking over the paperwork with fast moving silver eyes behind black glasses.

Reamann sat on his couch and watched Draco as he withdrew the spoon from his mouth to hold in his right hand, a smooth lump of peanut butter still clinging to it, his mouth swallowing the sticky peanut butter slowly as he rolled his tongue around in his mouth behind his tightly closed lips.

“As you can see, there isn't much to work with at the moment. Now that I'm working on the case I will be going to the Muggles and getting their information while the Aurors review the attacks again from our side of things. Hopefully we will find some common ground and discover facts we don't know yet, thanks to better communication,” he explained as Draco absentmindedly put his spoon back in his mouth and continued to read.

“Mmhm,” he muttered again.

“You even listening to me?” he asked, eyeing Draco. Draco just shook his head, his mouth stuck with peanut butter and the spoon that held it.

Reamann sighed while leaning his back into the couch and let Draco read on. He supposed they could talk after he was done.

Draco read in silence, sucking on his spoon, eyes moving rapidly over the paper. Reamann could see great calculating intelligence behind Draco's eyes as he read the material, despite the otherwise ridiculous peanut butter. Draco's eyes were what was the most alive about him. They could sparkle with mischief, darken with understanding, and flicker with thought.

Reamann understood that being a werewolf was “degenerative,” and over time one would eventually succumb to it and die, but he had not fully appreciated that knowledge until he had met Draco; someone he knew to only be thirty years old. That meant Draco was only six years older than him.

It was a shame in his opinion that he had not known Draco in his prime, before his eyes were all that remained of his true self. If Draco were even half as good looking as he was intelligent, he would have made sure his girlfriend Ginny never came within a hundred paces of him.

“What is in Manchester?” Draco finally asked after swallowing his peanut butter.

“What?”

“All the attacks were in Manchester. What's in Manchester?” he asked, still looking at the file.

“Um, it's a metropolitan area, was the world's first industrialized city, and key in the Muggle Industrial Revolution. It's a center for arts and literature now…” he said, thinking of what he could.

“Is there anything that would attract a dark witch or wizard there and then entice them to want to attack the wee Muggles?” Draco asked, finally looking up from the file over his glasses that had slipped down the bridge of his nose slightly.

“If I knew, I wouldn't need you and this case would be solved now, wouldn't it?” Reamann sighed. Draco shrugged in a “fair enough” gesture.

“The city is the third largest conurbation in England and has a large populous of homosexuals,” Draco muttered and Reamann looked at him. “Hey, do not look at me like that with your back to the wall. I'm not a jobby jabber, that's not my scene,” he snapped defensively, glaring. “Manchester just happens to be commonly referred to as `Gaychester,' awright?” he said with narrowed eyes. Reamann held up his hands in a surrendering gesture, urging Draco to back down a little.

“I said nothing,” he laughed.

“There is great magical influence there.” Draco continued on, still glaring but looking at the helpless and innocent file now. “If these attacks were meant to go unnoticed the one or ones responsible certainly picked one of the worst places imaginable to carry on their deviously dark deeds.”

“You think someone is trying to get our attention?” Reamann asked, leaning forward to place his forearms on his knees, glad to finally hear what Draco had to say on the matter.

“Look at the five attacks. None of them were covered up, not even from the Muggle police. They were all on people with no hope of vanishing and it going unnoticed, and they were all attacked by different means…either by curse, or spell, or jinx, or artifact. There has been no connection found between the Muggles other than they were attacked by magical force and were held in high regard in their Muggle community,” he said, then looked down at the file and read from it aloud. “Maggie was always such a wonderful woman; I can't imagine why anyone would hurt her.” He flipped the page over and read more. “Mr. Otto was always so friendly even though he lived all alone. He always chatted with me over the hedge with a smile on his face and was so gracious,” he read, stopping and looking up and Reamann. “The interviews of the Muggle neighbors are worthless but for telling us that the ones attacked were clearly not the type to fall into bad company with a witch or wizard of any caliber, and were likely not asking for it or part of some underground Dark Arts scheme.”

“So, you're saying there is no pattern?” Reamann asked sounding a little disappointed. He had been sure if anyone could find one it would have been Draco.

“Look at who was attacked. We have an elderly man, a young woman, a mother of three, a gay male, and a single school teacher. The law of averages says there should be coincidences…same hair color, same job, same car dealer…something. The victims here all are so different with no discernable similarity to one another, that it seems like whoever did this went out of their way to make it so there would be no pattern,” he said while looking down at the file and sticking the spoon back in his mouth.

“So what do you think?” he asked, Draco swallowing hard again.

“I think this is just the beginning of something much bigger than just a few nasty attacks on some unsuspecting Muggles. No deaths so far, but given the increasing viciousness of the attacks…” he said trailing off.

“You think there will be a killing next?” Reamann asked.

“Expect your first crime scene on this case to be a murder,” Draco said darkly, looking up at him from the file.

Draco and Reamann spent the next hour reviewing the file, possible motives, and the means of each attack, (all while Draco helped himself to a few more spoonfuls of Reamann's peanut butter) but in the end coming to no satisfactory conclusions and not really being any closer to solving the case than they had that morning. Draco looked a little frustrated. He seemed putout by the fact that he could not come in and single-handedly solve the case with his brilliance.

At the sound of a key being inserted into the front door they looked up in unison from their rereading of the file.

“Shit,” Reamann hissed, standing. Draco looked at him while he continued to sit in the armchair, leaning over the file that was on the coffee table. “My girlfriend is home,” he said, walking over to the front door in hopes of heading her off.

“Don't act as though I'm some terribly reprehensible and shameful company or my feelings will be hurt, Reamann,” Draco drawled.

“Get out of here,” he hissed over his shoulder and Draco stood slowly with a roll of his eyes as he removed his glasses and pocketed them.

“Caught by his other, unsuspecting lover in the act…oh the fates are cruel,” Draco mocked, grabbing his crumpled cloak from the seat of his chair in no state of haste.

“Oh, hey, Reamann,” Ginny said, leaning in and kissing his cheek. “Why did you lock me out if you were home, baby?” she asked, pulling away to see Draco over Reamann's shoulder. Draco was frozen in place, staring at Ginny with wide eyes of surprise. He hadn't known Ginny Weasley was Reamann's girlfriend…how had he not known that?

“Draco?” she asked in just as measurable disbelief. Reamann turned and sighed.

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

Draco walked briskly down the cement front steps that lead to the sidewalk. Already on his way down the street, Ginny stepped outside while calling after him.

“Draco, Draco!” she called.

Draco said nothing, his hands deep in his pockets, acting like he hadn't heard her.

Ginny jogged down the street and grabbed his shoulder to try and stop him.

“Draco, wait up,” she said, turning him around.

“What is it, Weasley?” he asked in his usual unfriendly tone.

“There's no need to run off,” she said.

“Reamann made it clear he wanted me gone. I know when I'm not welcome and I don't inflict my company on those who don't appreciate it,” he grumbled.

“It's not like that, I'm sure,” she urged. “But, what were you doing here?” she asked, wondering what was going on that her boyfriend would not mention his association with Draco Malfoy to her when she had just been asking about Malfoy the night before.

“Just helping Mr. Rossiter with his case,” he said, rolling his shoulder out of Ginny's grip.

“You, you are his informant?” she asked and Draco blinked at her. “He mentioned he was working with some sort of `secret informant' on the case. I had no idea it was you.”

“Obviously,” he drawled

“Draco…” she said with a sigh.

“Is there something you want from me, Weasley, or am I free to go?” he drawled.

“Does one always have to want something from you when they try and talk to you, Draco?” she asked, hands on hips.

“That has been my experience, yes,” he answered coldly.

“I think we need to talk…” she said, ignoring his retort, not about to argue with him, not feeling it was her place.

“About what, Weasley? The weather…Quidditch stats for this new season…stock options…?” he scathed.

“About, you know…it,” she said, crossing her arms then, looking uncomfortable. She did not have to say what “it” was for Draco to know. It was obviously on his mind too whenever they were near each other. His unusually severe coldness and desire to get away at the moment was evidence enough to that. He was usually unflappable…unless Ginny was nearby.

“There is nothing to talk about, Weasley,” Draco said dismissively harsh, while turning to walk away.

“We kissed, Draco,” she said, saying it aloud only making it seem so much more significant and intense than it already was while bubbling in the pit of her stomach. Draco must have felt it too because he froze and visibly sighed, turning slowly to look back at her.

“That was thirteen years ago,” he sighed, looking at her, angry that she would announce it aloud for the whole world to overhear, even if they were alone on the street. He was a Malfoy, she was a Weasley; Malfoys and Weasleys do not kiss…yes, it had been the female Weasley he had snogged, but that only barely made it slightly more acceptable.

“Yet there is this awkwardness between us still, and don't tell me you don't feel it because I know you do,” she said, pointing at him in an intimidating fashion that would have made Molly Weasley proud.

The darkness was pressing down on them like a physical weight. The solidity of that feeling was only intensified by the dread of tomorrow. The impending fight, the people that would undoubtedly die…it was difficult to try and sleep with that hanging over one's head.

It was the night before that final battle, no one yet knowing what the outcome would be, no one knowing what would become of them, no one knowing who would live and who would die and by what means.

Ginny was kneeling on the cold frozen ground, folding out a blanket in front of her, going through the motions as though she were intending to sleep, but knowing that she would never be able to rest her body without first finding a way to ease her mind.

She flung the blanket out into the air with a snap and directed it towards the ground as it drifted down slowly. She was also trying very hard to distract herself from the boy that sat just three feet from her, very still and quiet, staring at her.

Draco's legs were pulled up to his chest and they were held there by his arms. He watched Ginny set out her bed, and eventually rested his chin atop his knees, his eyes still following her every movement.

“Draco,” she finally said softly, attempting to break their awkward silence and unable to deal with his eyes boring into her any longer.

“You honestly think you will get any sleep tonight, knowing what comes tomorrow?” he asked, his voice very throaty and deeper than usual. His voice always dropped when he whispered.

“There is no harm in at least trying,” she said, fussing with her bedding some more, as an excuse to not look at him. “I don't want to think about tomorrow,” she said, not wanting to talk about it any more than she wanted to think about it, but maybe speaking it out loud would help her mind relax. Maybe Draco would even offer some comforting words.

“We are all going to die tomorrow,” he said darkly, hugging his legs tighter. Ginny took a deep but shuddering breath. Those had not been the “comforting words” she had hoped for from him.

“You can't be thinking like that. You have to stay strong and mindful and positive. Otherwise you'll compromise your wit and you will be guaranteed to fail,” she said, Draco not being the only one she was trying to convince with her little motivational speech.

“I'm scared too,” he said, knowing she was trying to find comfort in him, tilting his head while his chin still rested on his knees. Ginny looked over at him at that most honest confession and stared.

“Draco…” she attempted.

She had been captured, along with Hermione, by the Death Eaters because of a trap Draco had led them into…but then he had turned around and saved her, Hermione getting away on her own.

Ginny had thought for a brief moment that he had turned to the other side again because of that trap…everyone else still believed him to be a double-crosser, even Hermione who now believed Ginny dead because of Draco's betrayal, having not seen him make another turn and help her. Ginny had to admit, Draco seemed to switch sides as frequently as a shuttlecock in a game of badminton, and that made him hard to trust and even harder to predict…but he had saved her life, she could not deny that.

Draco had risked everything including his life by almost exposing himself to the Dark Side as being a double agent to save her, and he had swept her away from the scene, which is how they found themselves together now…alone, in the cold, him staring at her with those inhuman silver eyes.

She was to return to the Order in the morning and reveal that she was in fact alive, when there was light and it was safe to travel. Now in the dark, however, it was so cold and they were camping together, both dreading the coming day.

“If this was to be your last night on earth, you were positively going to die tomorrow, would you be content with your life? Would you be able to pass on knowing you did all that you could, and have no regrets about anything?” he asked.

“Well,” she said, thinking about that for a moment, really considering her answer. “Yes. I believe I would,” she answered with a nod.

“I wish I could say the same,” he said darkly, looking away from her to stare off into the cold night air, their small self-burning and waterproof blue fire all that gave them light and warmth, the blue light giving Draco an almost silver glow about him, like illuminated ice, or a ghost. “If I were to die tomorrow there would be so much I would regret, so much I would leave unfinished, unsaid…”

“Draco…” she said, feeling her heart sink for him. She had been so ready to believe the worst in him like everyone else, and yet he had saved her. She did not know what to make of him, but knew he was so much more than he had ever let anyone know. She knew she was seeing something in him few had ever had the opportunity to see.

“I'm only telling you this so you understand what I have to do,” he said, looking right at her then, eyes instantly staring deep into hers.

“What…what is it you have to do?” she asked, swallowing forcibly as her stomach clenched and heart sped up, fearing him still, not convinced he was one-hundred-percent good guy. Was he going to hurt her?

Draco released his knees from his hug and rolled up onto them with the grace of a cat unfolding. On his hands and knees now he had closed the small space between them, only needing to stretch his neck out slowly to lean in.

Ginny's eyes widened as Draco planted a kiss on her lips. His were so soft, so unsure, like he was waiting for her to pull back and slap him or to say something, to reject him in some way. When she didn't, he pulled away, their lips only having brushed so tenderly for a moment. He stayed stretched out on his hands and knees, looking at her from inches away, considering her for a long moment in the cold light.

Her eyes were wide, her cheeks flushed pink, lips still slightly pouted.

Ginny did not say anything, she did not pull away or look angry, so Draco tilted his head slightly, leaning in to give her a proper kiss that time, gentle still like before but a passion there behind his nervousness.

Ginny's arms wound around Draco's neck and she pulled him close, sending him off balance to collapse on top of her as she fell backwards, him now pinning her to the half-made makeshift bed she had been fussing with only moments before as a means of distraction. Their passionate and deep kiss now successfully cleared her mind of worry and doubt for that blissful moment in a way the blankets never could have.

The kiss had that calming effect on him too as his hands roamed, making it a little more than just a kiss.

“There is nothing to be said or done about it,” Draco said, looking away, feeling angry, not at Ginny, and not at what she had brought up, but because he was embarrassed. He was angry because he felt uncomfortable and because he was blushing. “You have a boyfriend now, and I…well, I'm not the same person I was back then,” he muttered, shifting in his discomfort and hugging himself in a pouting and protective gesture as they stood in the middle of the snowy sidewalk.

“I don't understand,” she said while furrowing her brow at him. “The Draco Malfoy I saw that night was kind and gentle, misunderstood, and intelligent…he had nearly sacrificed everything and risked exposure and his own life to save me,” she said, getting Draco to look at her. “A little shy and very unsure of himself maybe…” she nearly whispered as she took a step closer, “you know, underneath that pompous and conceited façade you threw around to keep people away…there was an actual person, someone that felt remorse and was scared,” she said, Draco staring at her. “What has changed about you if you are not that same kind and insightful person?”

“Who says it was a `façade'?” he said, narrowing his eyes and closing himself off, using his anger as a shield as well as a wedge to drive her back and away from him. He had opened up to Ginny so much that night, he was feeling vulnerable and exposed at the moment. Feeling so insecure made him angry, which made him mean and harsh, which made him feel better but not in a satisfying way.

“I know you guard yourself…you are doing it right now. So few people would see it as a lie, Draco, but I know you are not as big of a git as you try to be because I saw something in you that night that you had never shown anyone before and maybe since,” she said, eyes soft and warm as she looked at him, seemingly unbothered by his harshness towards her so far.

“You don't know me, Weasley, and you never did. Do not mistake one night of fretful confession and foolish fraternization as a glimpse as to who I `secretly' am. I thought I was going to die; I was not myself.”

“Was that all it was to you, a `foolish fraternization'?” she demanded, her face finally flushing in anger. She had been open and honest with him that night and she had thought he had been too. She was being just as open now and he was using that as a means to attack her, to hurt her. She was outraged.

“It was just a kiss, Weasley. We both knew that could have been our very last night alive, period. We took advantage of that, each respectively. Don't mistake my actions as being anything less than opportunistic snogging,” he said harshly, something inside him hurting with those words, seeing the pain on Ginny's face only intensifying it.

“So then I guess I have had the wrong impression of you all these years. You saved my life because you felt you had to, not because you wanted to,” she said in a huff.

“Must have,” he said flatly, closed off and hiding behind his cold Malfoy mask.

“Goodnight then, Draco Malfoy,” she said firmly, turning and walking back towards her and Reamann's home. Draco looked after her for a long moment, watching her hair swish back and forth, looking almost as annoyed as her. He closed his eyes tight and groaned quietly to himself. He was not going to buckle, he was not going to buckle, he was not!

Ginny was almost to her front steps when he called to her almost against his will, buckling in a way that brought shame to all Malfoys before him.

“Ginny,” he called softly, her first name escaping his lips. Ginny turned to look at him, noting the use of her first name with as much surprise as him. She waited silently for him to say more and for a moment they just stood in silence. Draco opened and closed his mouth once and then took a deep breath. “Goodnight, Ginny,” he said softly.

Ginny gazed at him penetratingly for a long moment.

“Good night, Draco,” she said again, this time as softly as he had, all the harshness she had used on him drained away just like that as she looked into his apologetic and sad eyes.

Draco turned on his heels and quickly moved down the street, fighting not to blush and fighting not to break out into a run. Malfoys did not run away from girls…not even when said girls were chasing after them in mad lust like they had been known to do. Malfoys did not blush. Malfoys did not blush and run away from girls, while embarrassed.

Ginny was a Weasley, and she had a boyfriend. Not that he cared…but flirting with her was not acceptable, not by any means, not on any level.

Had he been flirting with her? Draco groaned. He had hadn't he? He had tried to be harsh but in the end couldn't do it. What was wrong with him? When did he ever struggle to be a git? It was practically genetically-encoded in him to be a prat. When did it ever bother him to be so harsh?

Was it because of the kiss?

No. It wasn't.

That had been thirteen years ago and just an innocent kiss.

A passionate- rolling around on the ground, deep and penetrating- desperate and unrestrained…innocent kiss.

Just an innocent kiss…

So why was he blushing?

“Shit,” Draco sighed, rubbing his face with his right hand while trying not to think of that night and what he and Ginny had almost done.

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

Working with Muggles had never been hard until Reamann was working as a wizard. Suddenly everything was so much more difficult to understand or make meaningful.

The crime scene was taped off and the security around it was tight. The newest attack had been, unfortunately, discovered by Muggles, meaning the Aurors had to work with the Metropolitan Police rather than the other way around. That meant it would be nearly impossible to get information without manipulating those in power, naturally with spells and charms.

Wizards knew Muggles existed, but Muggles (for the most part) did not know wizards existed, and there inlay the problem.

The reasons why Muggles would question a bunch of odd strangers intruding on their crime scenes were not difficult to grasp, but that just meant his job was most important and he was about to see if he would sink or float.

Reamann had a shiny little plastic identification tag clipped to the collar of his Muggle coat. It was supposed to grant him access to the crime scene. It was official; Muggle Ministry approved. Unfortunately, even the smallest of things when it came to wizards and witches working with Muggles, had to be cleared through the highest of channels on both ends. It was Scotland Yard that knew about wizards, and they kept that information on a need to know basis, so requests were slow to go through. The fact that he had the badge alone was progress.

Working with Muggles, while keeping the wizarding world secret, was more than just a little difficult.

Waiting at the line of tape while his ID was taken from him to be cleared with the Chief Constable in charge of the scene, Reamann caught a glimpse of Muggle news crews on the other side of the barricade he had already passed through. They had not been cleared to get as far as him, so as he waited to get more access, he watched them shout and hold out microphones and record what they could, all asking details about the case they knew no one would, or could answer.

This was not how Reamann wanted to spend his Saturday morning.

“Chief Constable says you are cleared but he wants to see you,” the deputy said, handing back the plastic badge he had taken from Reamann.

“Aright,” he said graciously, nodding and ducking under the tape as it was lifted up a bit for him. “Wondering what we would need a specialist for on a scene this fresh,” he said and Reamann's eyes shifted a little uncomfortably as he clipped his tag onto the coat's lapel.

Reamann walked right past the body, laid out on the ground, a sheet pulled over it to keep anyone from seeing it, particularly the new crews so desperate for a shot for the morning broadcast.

“Chief Constable,” the man said, presenting his superior with Reamann.

“Oh, excellent. Leave us,” the Constable said, waving his gloved hand dismissively. Reamann felt a little uncomfortable watching the other man dismissed like that, but managed a very professional smile once he was gone while extending his hand to the Constable.

“Let's get one thing straight,” the Constable said flatly, ignoring Reamann's hand. “I don't like it that you are here and I don't like having specialists forced into my scenes by the powers-that-be without any sort of explanation. I do not know why you are here, or who sent you, but you let me do my job and things will be just fine between us,” he said firmly, his aggression very apparent. Reamann let his hand drop and repressed a sigh.

“Sure,” he said while reaching into his messenger bag at his side and pulling out a full sized notebook and pen. “I need to talk to the first men on the scene, the woman that found the victim, and then I need to examine the body…”

“What exactly do you specialize in?” the Constable asked, cutting Reamann off. Reamann looked up from his notebook and frowned.

“I'm from SCD11,” he said.

“Intelligence?” the Constable asked, knowing the department.

“Yes sir.” Reamann nodded, clearing his throat nervously. “So, after I view the body and look over the secured scene, I need a summary written up,” he said, looking at the Constable with firm eyes, not letting his hopefulness show through that the man would do all he asked without much complaint or ball busting.

“Sure,” he said gruffly, “have a look at the body if you like. Never sleep again after seeing it though.” He lit a cigarette and took a long drag from it. Reamann looked at him, hugging his notebook to his chest and feeling uneasy.

“Alright,” he breathed, not to be called a coward for not having a look at the body right away, knowing he was being measured and scrutinized by the man who was watching him intently.

Turning around, Reamann looked at the sheet on the ground.

It couldn't be that bad, right?

Squatting down at the edge of the sheet and lifting it up Reamann's eyes widened and he had to quickly drop it and turn away before throwing up.

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

“I don't know what the hell I was thinking!” Reamann rambled on later that day. He had spent his entire morning at the crime scene and was now back at the Ministry, in the Hall of Records to be exact, pacing around in the dimly lit cavern.

“Not exactly the glamorous opportunity you had imagined?” Draco asked, atop a ladder, shelving massive volumes on the dusty shelves, sounding less than slightly uninterested in Reamann's minor meltdown. Reamann apparently did not normally work on Saturdays, but Draco did.

“Oh, God, the body. I…I have never seen something so terrible,” he said as Draco climbed down. He took the photographs Reamann offered him and flipped through them quickly like they weren't of a horribly disfigured corpse.

“You have lived a terribly sheltered life,” Draco said indifferently, handing the pictures back to Reamann over his shoulder as he walked away.

“You are not bothered by…by it?” he asked, unable to even look at them as he closed the large glossy photographs back in his folder.

“I told you there would be a killing next,” Draco said as though not understanding why Reamann was so upset or surprised.

“Gee, Malfoy, try not to sound so happy about it,” he said, a little annoyed at Draco's complete indifference and lack of sympathy. “And can you really blame me for wishing you would be wrong?” he asked, following after Draco.

“Malfoys are rarely wrong,” Draco stated in an unconcerned tone.

“Before this, the biggest case I had worked on was with the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts, some dodgy wizard selling Muggles pipe hoses that had a penchant for acting like snakes and attacking gardeners,” he muttered. “Nearly strangled one man…but I mostly worked on petty incidents that overlapped Muggle jurisdiction or when things needed to be cleared with the Muggle Ministry.”

“Do you know what did that?” Draco asked, referring to the photographs, tired of Reamann's incessant rambling already and hoping to get back on the case at hand.

“No, I think the Aurors will be figuring all that out won't they, I am just the middle man. I collect the evidence and present it in reports and work with the Muggles…” he started on one of his endless explanations again and Draco cut him off.

“It was a Pertorqueodole Hex,” he said. Reamann blinked at him.

“A what?” he asked.

“Honestly, if you knew a little Latin you would have a pretty decent idea,” Draco snapped, sounding annoyed at last. “Basically it is a disfiguring spell, extremely painful. It agonizingly distorts parts of the body and it is often lethal because if the internal damage it inflicts,” he said, sounding as calm as though he were talking about Cheering Charms.

“You knew that just from looking at the pictures?” Reamann asked, almost daring to look at the pictures again himself, to see what Draco had seen.

“Like I said, the one or ones doing this aren't exactly being subtle here. That is a very distinct Dark Spell and any Auror worth his wand would be able to tell you what killed that man the instant he looks at the photographs,” Draco said as he wrote something down on the paper work at his desk. He gathered up some more texts and headed back into the endless rows and towers of bookshelves, Reamann following at his heels like a yapping puppy.

“We have a week before the next attack to figure out who is responsible,” Draco said.

“A week? What?”

“Look at the file Reamann,” Draco sighed. “There have been six attacks in as many weeks. That is called a pattern, and it is the only one we have to work with at the moment. Again, this victim fits no logical sequential string, and now this one is dead, a major distinction from the first attacks. There was an attack last night, so be prepared for another one in about a week's time,” he said flatly. “That is, unless the death is some indication that they are stepping up the pace, in which case we could be looking at less than a week,” he said, thinking aloud to himself.

“I bet you would make a decent Auror,” Reamann commented, interrupting Draco's thoughts. Draco snorted a laugh at that.

“An Auror? Me? Don't be ridiculous,” he said dismissively.

“Why not? You seem clever enough.”

“And what would you have me do in a duel? Throw my shoe at them?” he asked.

“Well, yeah, I suppose being able to use magic is a key part of being an Auror…” he mumbled. “But I bet you could work in the department, not as a field Auror, but in the investigative division with the older Aurors that are retired from the field,” he said, folder still in hand.

“Not gonna happen. So get to work, you have a report due within the hour,” Draco said, climbing a ladder and completely dismissing him from their conversation. Reamann would have liked to argue more, but Draco was right about one thing, they were on a tight schedule. He needed to tell Draco all he could before writing up a report and organizing the facts from the scene in the file to be handed into the Aurors for review.

He could handle the organization, but Draco would write up the report after learning all the facts. That was, after all, why he put up with Malfoy.

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

“Checking my work for grammatical mistakes, Reamann?” Draco asked as Reamann read over Draco's newly finished report with hungry and furiously moving eyes.

“I need to see what you wrote, incase I am asked about it,” he muttered, looking over the parchment still.

“Well, be on your way. I'm taking my lunch and you are holding me up,” Draco said, handing some of his thick files of paperwork to Coderdale.

“Thank you, Draco,” Reamann said.

“No thanks are necessary. Potions are required though,” he said, his body aching again.

“I can have a draught for you tomorrow…”

“Sooner the better, now shove off. Don't want to be late now, Reamann,” Draco said, making a “shoo”ing motion with his hands.

“It's very kind of you, Draco to help that young man,” Coderdale said after Reamann had left, adding more files to the stack Draco had handed him.

“Kindness has nothing to do with it; I'm simply using him for my own personal gain.”

Coderdale shook his head with a smile. “You are just saying that, but I know deep down inside you are enjoying this.”

“Enjoying what?”

“Enjoying the opportunity to be clever and help people.”

“Well, I do enjoy showing off how clever I am,” Draco said, pulling his cloak on.

“It's not a bad thing to show compassion Draco. No one thinks less of you for it, or considers it as a weakness.”

“Empathy only leads to the inevitable feeling of helplessness when you realize you cannot help everyone, not even yourself,” Draco said, pulling his long hair out the back of his robe and pulling the robe straight on his shoulders.

“You are so jaded, Draco. You are far too young to have such a bleak outlook on life.”

“I'm wise beyond my years.” Draco smirked, heading out the door for his lunch.

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

“Harry saw us that night,” Ginny said, sitting across from Draco in the very same restaurant he and Reamann had dined in the day before. Their meals were before them and Draco was chewing a respectable bite of his turkey sandwich while Ginny shoved her roast beef and gravy around her plate. She had invited Draco out to lunch that morning, by note. Draco, expecting a list of texts and volumes needed from the Department of Magical Transport, had been surprised to see a personal message from Ginny on the purple paper airplane that had landed on his desk.

“Did he now?” Draco drawled, elbows propped up on the table, sandwich in hand. He had agreed to meet her by RSVP paper airplane, not sure why and not sure what the meeting would entail. So far it had been all pleasantries.

“He told me as much after, well, after everything. He had been so distant up until then; I thought it had to do with the war so I didn't press. I didn't realize he was upset over seeing you kissing me.”

“I recall you kissing me right back, Weasley,” he said, politely shielding his mouth with his hand as he not-so-politely spoke through a mouthful of sandwich. His mother would have gotten a nosebleed at such a show of poor manners, even in the company of a Weasley.

“Well, yes, Harry saw it that way too, I think that's what bothered him so. If you had simply kissed me, he wouldn't have thrown such a benny.”

“Is this why you asked me out to lunch? To talk about Potter? Ouch, my feelings. I thought you genuinely liked me. I told all my friends that this was a hot date,” Draco teased.

She smiled. “Oh, can the sarcasm, Draco, you know I only wanted to catch up.” She paused. “Did you really tell people that…?” she asked, a little worried.

“I lied,” he chuckled softly, “I don't have any friends.” Draco sounded amused as though the very idea was ridiculous. “I still owe you for saving my life, and letting you treat me to lunch is certainly no skin off my back.” He smiled oh-so-perfectly and Ginny shook her head, not minding that he was sticking her with the bill.

“So anyways,” he said, back to what Ginny had been talking about, “I thought you and Potter had broken it off months before that…night. What was his eppy about?” he asked, finding some dark satisfaction in knowing he had seriously irked Harry Potter without having tried, for once.

“We were…and really, it was none of his business what I did…but he still cared about me, and I know he had only ended our relationship after Dumbledore…” she froze and Draco sat very quietly. Ginny pressed on, careful what she said from then on. “He ended it to protect me, fully intending on being with my again after the war should everything happen according to plan and we both made it out on the other side,” she explained. “Seeing us together, me with you -you of all people- really jarred him it seems. He apparently thought I wanted nothing to do with him, was over him, and that I was with you-”

“Oh please, we were hardly `together,' we shared a bloody kiss,” Draco drawled, rolling his eyes. “If his pathetic ego is that easily wounded by something as insignificant as that, then he deserves his misery,” Draco said while shaking his head. “And what do you mean me `of all people'? Ouch, my feelings, Weasley,” he added on to the end, sounding indignant but Ginny knowing he was teasing her again. Pretty sure at least.

“I didn't mean it like that and you know it. I just meant it from Harry's point of view I couldn't have found a more, well, odious person -in his opinion- to kiss…but Harry is a wonderful guy,” she insisted in Harry's defense.

“ Such a wonderful guy that you divorced him?” Draco quipped.

“Draco, that's not nice,” she said firmly.

“Sorry,” he nodded, knowing he could get away with attacking Potter but not her, and since the divorce involved both of them, that was sort of off limits for his smarmy comments and sharp remarks.

“There were a lot of reasons why we got divorced,” she then confessed like she needed to talk to someone about this, someone that would maybe understand since her family and friends certainly hadn't. “Mostly the whole marriage had just been a mistake and it took us five years to swallow our respective prides and admit that,” she moped, forking at her food. “We care about each other, but we got married for all the wrong reasons.”

“Let me guess, the war was over, things were a mess, people were dead, and you two found comfort in each other. You got married because everyone else expected it,” he said and Ginny blinked at him.

“Yeah,” she said, amazed by Draco's total understanding of the situation with so little explenation on her part.

“Happened at the end of the first war too,” Draco said with a shrug and Ginny nodded, not quite losing her faith that Draco was more intuitive than he let on.

“Yeah, well, Harry and I tried to make it work for years, and it did, but he…I don't know, he's a jealous kind of boyfriend and after the war he was just so guarded and protective. Protective of himself, protective of his privacy, protective of anything he held close to him,” she sighed. “I couldn't even innocently glance at a guy walking by without him biting my head off over it and acting all accusatory. I never cheated on him but the way he went on about things he made me out to be the Whore of Babylon,” she said, looking very angry right then.

“Sorry,” Draco said, setting his half eaten sandwich down, feeling full.

“In the end of every row, every accusation, he always seemed to bring you up…” she said, thinking on that hard and Draco blinked at her.

“Me?” he asked. She nodded. “Oh, please don't tell me I had some backward hand in your divorce,” he said, fighting not to smile.

“Go ahead, laugh it up, I know you want to.”

“I would never laugh at another's misfortune…” he said resentfully but Ginny just eyed him with a very bored expression. “With the acceptation of Potter's pain that is,” Draco said, a smile breaking across his face. He tossed his head back and laughed, shaking it once looking back at Ginny. “He was really that upset that I stole a kiss from you?” he giggled with mirth.

“It was more than an innocent little kiss,” she said and Draco sobered a little, having spent the better half of the night before convincing himself that the kiss had been completely chaste and innocent when it really hadn't been.

“It's not like we shagged,” he said, looking very intently at his sandwich. In all actuality, they almost had.

“I know, I know.” Ginny said, pushing her hair back. “Harry and I were just not meant to be and he brought you up only because he was looking for an excuse to break it off at that point.”

“I have always been his favorite scapegoat,” he grumbled, a lot of humor draining out of his face then.

“He didn't use you as a scapegoat, Draco, the Ministry did,” Ginny said solemnly, no longer talking about her relationship right then and how Draco had figured into that.

“Harry could have prevented it,” he said bitterly.

“Harry was in no fit state to help anyone for months after the war. He did not know you were in Azkaban until months after you were sent there and Hermione told him. She felt awful leaning the truth at that point, having not known that you hand made another turn before the end, helping Harry defeat the Dark Lord. She saw you hurt on that rooftop with the Death Eaters but believed it was caused by a member of the Order, not Nott, still believing you had caused my death,” she explained, them both knowing she had run off from his side to help Harry, leaving Draco hurt and at the mercy of the Aurors and Hermione when they made it to the rooftop.

Draco looked grumpy.

Ginny looked guilt ridden

Draco did not blame Ginny, not in the least…she had saved his life and that was a lot…she been concerned over Harry once the Dark lord was gone, he couldn't expect her to have stayed with him with Harry in so much need at that moment.

He hated the Ministry, the Order, McGonagall, Granger, and Potter for having not come to his aid like he had promised.

He had been promised and assured that he would be forgiven his past trespasses for helping the Order, but when it had come to his trial everyone seemed to come down with a bout of amnesia and no one had helped him, not even Minerva McGonagall, a woman that had promised him so much.

“By the time Harry knew what had happened to you, and Hermione saw me alive and I told her what really happened, and Harry was told how no one else had jumped in to defend you in his absence, there was nothing he could do…so he went and started to reform the Ministry, to help others and prevent them from sharing your fate,” she explained.

“Saint Potter,” Draco grumbled. Harry had done it, done what he told him, Draco, he would never do: he used his influence over the Ministry to take control. He had not taken it as far as Draco himself would have, he did not become a new Minister, and New Lord, but Harry's “high ground” he liked peering down at him from was becoming more and more level with his by the second.

Draco did not care what Ginny said: Granger had handed him over to the Ministry and Harry along with the Order had abandoned him. He did not care if it was through their maliciousness or incompetence, it did not change what had happened to him. It was their fault.

“Well, he and I are still friends, Draco. I can tell you he feels guilty for not being able to help you.”

“Oh, I know he does,” Draco said while glaring at his sandwich for something to glare at. He liked to remind Harry Potter, and any other member of the Order, every chance he got, exactly what they had done. Legilimency had its uses, spreading guilty feelings around, pounding un-pleasantries into other's minds, and reminding them of inconvenient truths was just one of them.

He was not bitter…much.

“So do you believe that I cursed Potter at the conclusion of my horseshit trial and, thusly, why he had had such bad luck in the years following, too?” he asked, picking at his sandwich.

“No, I don't think so,” she said. “Harry has always had the sort of luck that was double-edged. For every good thing in his life there was a cutting edge of bad that came around and hit him in the back.”

Draco nodded, exhausted by the topic now. He did not want to spend his lunch talking about Potter of all people, or the war, or his perturbed and resentful feelings towards the Order. It was making him feel grumpy, even though being around Ginny -for some reason- made him feel kind of happy. A little bit. Not much. Not enough that he was willing to admit it, even to himself.

“So how does it feel to be an independent woman? Or, well, semi-independent. You're living with your boyfriend I see,” he said conversationally, moving on.

“Err, well…Reamann,” she said, her face suddenly looking a tad sour.

“Oh, oh, that's no good,” Draco said with a smile that showed he was just a little too pleased about something. “A bint is not supposed to have such a reaction to the mention of her inamorato,” he teased.

“No, you misunderstand. Reamann is so wonderful,” she said, realizing her reaction and seemingly horrified by it.

“Mmhm,” Draco said, looking at her like he was waiting for the “but.”

“But,” she said, only making Draco that much more satisfied. “My family likes him so much…”

“And that is a bad thing,” Draco said simply, knowing Ginny's explanation would follow.

“My family adored Harry too. From when Harry was practically eleven years old my mother has thought of him as a son. I cared about him, but I did not love him…not in that way, or not enough in that way…but I married him because that's what everyone else wanted.” She pushed at her now cold roast beef with her fork. “Now my family is in love with Reamann,” she said with an exasperated tone.

“And you feel like you are being pushed into marrying again, marrying Reamann, because your family expects and wants it?” he asked. Ginny looked at him for a long moment and then nodded. “That's really unfortunate,” he said, leaning back.

“It totally sucks,” she said with feeling, leaning back too.

“My family was like that too, with the whole trying to force marriage upon the disinclined,” he confessed as though offering some comfort. “Though we were never officially promised to each other, Pansy Parkinson and I were sort of raised into believing we would be together. I went along with it for a long time because I didn't know any better or anything different and I wasn't interested in anyone else. But in the end I realized that I felt nothing for her. She was just there, a part of my life but not special to me. It certainly didn't help that she had a face like a dropped pie,” he said with a smile, implying Pansy was less than attractive. “I realized I couldn't be with someone I did not love, and I ended it just like that. Pansy, my mother, her mother, they all acted like I had done some terrible unfairness and insult to Pansy, but I did not care. They got over it,” he said with a shrug.

“Just like that you were able to end it, and just like that your family got over it?” She sounded skeptical.

“Yup, mind you Pansy has not spoken to me since and her mother cursed my name on her deathbed,” Draco said casually.

“Oh God,” Ginny said, dropping her face into her hands.

“You care about Reamann though, so you said.”

“I do, I really do.”

Draco waited for his “but,” again.

“But,” she continued, “I'm not sure about marrying him. I had such a bad experience the first time; I don't want to make the same mistake, so I want to be more careful, take things slow.”

“But you are living with him. Would marriage be all that different?” he asked.

“Oh, it is so much different. Marriage does things to people. I can't explain it really, but when you are just dating someone, and living with them they act so much more casual. And you can cling to this idea that if it were to just not work one day, that you could pack up and leave, or kick him out, or take a break from each other. Marriage is permanent,” she said.

“Now that's not true, there's always divorce,” he joked.

“It just doesn't work that way,” she sighed. Draco let his shoulders fall. It seemed he couldn't even joke at the moment with her.

“So you like dating Reamann, but not the idea of marrying him?” he asked, hoping to sum up what she was saying that simply.

“Yeah,” she said with a nod.

“And this is not just you trying to sabotage a good thing because you are too insecure to handle it in case it was to fall apart on its own or even worse, work out perfectly?” he asked and Ginny looked at him.

“I wouldn't do that.”

“Sure you would, a lot of people do it. They are intimidated by the idea that something in their life going well. They wait for it to go wrong and when it doesn't they get more anxious, feeling that the longer it goes on the worse it will be when it all comes crashing down around their ears. They then sabotage what they have to try and preempt what they are sure is coming, but in reality they just can't handle the thought of anything being perfect,” he said. Ginny looked a little shocked.

“You believe that?” she asked.

“Oh sure, I do it all the time,” he said with a shrug and Ginny couldn't help but smile, even if it was a little bit of a sad one. “And you know, I was married once,” he confessed nonchalantly.

“What? Really?” she asked, surprised by that sudden confession.

“Mmhm,” he nodded.

“I take it you're not anymore,” she said and he shook his head. “Can I ask what happened?”

“Well, I was in Azkaban, she was not. We worked well that way, but honestly, if we had made it to the end of my term, we wouldn't have worked. I'm not an easy person to live with, so I'm told,” he said with a glance at her to show the amusement in his eyes before continuing, “and I'm not sure what we would have done with each other if we were constantly around one another as opposed to our visits that felt so special because they were limited and something to look forward to while we were apart.”

“Absence makes they heart grow fonder,” she said.

“Something like that,” he muttered.

“So you ended up getting divorced because you didn't want to see it end badly on its own? Sabotaging it?” she asked.

“Oh, no. I'm a widower,” he said simply and Ginny was left speechless and breathless for a moment.

“Oh,” she said, not sure what she could say without babbling on about how sorry she was.

“About the reaction I was expecting. And it's awright, Weasley, I'm not about to break down and start crying right here in front of you over it,” he assured. “We were only married for about two years.”

“When?”

“From September of my second year in Azkaban to March of my fifth. I was nineteen when we married and not yet twenty-two when she died.”

“You are still wearing your wedding band,” she noticed, actually paying attention to the simple ring on his left hand for the first time. Somehow she had completely overlooked it all this time.

“Yes, well,” he said, sounding a little uncomfortable all of a sudden and spinning the ring around his thin finger with his right hand. “I have not dated since getting out, so I never saw any need to take it off, and all that,” he mumbled and Ginny smiled sadly at him.

“You loved her,” she said, making it a simple statement.

“It was a difficult love; the worst kind.”

“What kind is that?”

“Unrequited love,” he sighed and Ginny's eyes only grew softer in sympathy. “I loved her so much more than she loved me, and that made her seriously uncomfortable,” he confessed, looking sad at last. He had hoped to just be blasé about the whole affair and make it out to just be some loving but tragic story, but somehow Ginny always managed to encourage the truth out of him. He wanted a topic change before he confessed too much about his disastrous marriage.

“I doubt that, who couldn't love a uy like you,” she tried to tease but he just looked more depressed as he stared at the table top. “I mean, she married you, right?”

“You married Harry Potter,” he said, looking directly at her then.

“Oh,” she mumbled.

“Anyway, enough about me. Let's talk more about you. What are you going to do with this Reamann of yours?” he asked, making a fast transition into another topic rather smoothly if he could say so himself.

“What do you think of Reamann?” she asked right back, glad to be off such a depressing subject, though not exactly thrilled with being back to her pathetic love life. It was depressing all on its own but for different reasons.

“I like his hair,” Draco said simply.

“Draco,” Ginny laughed, nudging him under the table with a friendly kick. “You work with him right? What is he like around you?”

“He talks too much,” Draco said and Ginny laughed while shaking her head.

“Come on, Draco, I'm serious.”

“Are you asking me to ogle my male partner? Because honestly, Weasley, I don't swing that way. I might be a little squirrelly at times, but even a Malfoy needs to draw the line somewhere.” He smirked.

“Are Weasleys on the other side of that line?” she asked.

“Naturally. Why would you ask, Weasley?” he teased, eyes heavy as he stared into her.

Ginny fought not to smile or blush, or do anything else that could be considered embarrassing or be misconstrued in some way.

Draco looked at her and did notice her blush ever so lightly.

He smiled at that and leaned his elbows on the table.

Ginny did not look up at him so he leaned over the table a bit.

Ginny still didn't look up.

He lifted his bum from his chair just a bit to lean completely across the table and then she finally looked up at him.

Her eyes gave away her surprise, but he was too close to see the rest of her reaction because he kissed her right then.

Ginny's eyes were wide for a moment after Draco's lips pressed against hers, but she then relaxed enough to lean into the kiss. He sat back down while she leaned forward, never breaking the simple kiss so that they were then sitting, equally leaning over the table to meet in the middle. Draco attempted to turn the kiss into something a little deeper by running his tongue along her bottom lip and Ginny then pulled away.

She took a shuddering breath, her eyes heavy lidded, but hands in the air and making a cutting motion in front of her chest.

“No, no, we can't do that,” she managed to say, her breath stolen by the kiss.

“Why not?” Draco asked while reaching up to hold her hand, not caring if the Muggle businessmen looked over at him to see them kiss. It was their own problem if they didn't have anyone to snog with over lunch.

“Because I'm with Reamann, and you are Reamann's partner…this is not right.”

“What if I was not Reamann's partner or you were not Reamann's girlfriend?” he asked.

“Reamann needs you.”

“Does he need you?” Draco asked and Ginny closed her mouth with a snap.

“He loves me,” she said after a moment.

“Do you love him?” he asked.

“That is not a fair question,” she snapped a little indignant at his audacity.

“I can't imagine why not. It's fair-ly simple. Do you love Reamann?” he asked again.

“Yes,” she said.

“Liar,” Draco smiled, tapping the side of his nose with his finger and knowing how she truly felt. Ginny flushed in embarrassment but covered it with anger.

“So what, you want me to break things off with Reamann, a man I have been dating for three years, to be with you, someone I don't even know?” she asked in a huff.

“I got the impression you were only looking for an excuse at this point. I don't mind being used as an excuse,” he said with a sly smile.

“I don't want to dump him.”

“But you don't want to marry him,” Draco pointed out.

“Is life so black and white that you have to be one or the other?”

“I don't know. Why don't you ask your family?” Draco quipped and Ginny blinked at him before dropping her face into her hands.

“Oh God, you're right. I'm miserable, and trapped.”

“Then dump him,” Draco said simply with a shrug. “I am not in any way saying you should date me or anything at that point, but just dump him if you are not happy, it seems like the most simple and logical thing to do.”

“I can't, I can't…it, it wouldn't be fair.”

“Fair?” Draco inquired, this being the second time Ginny had used that word.

“Reamann didn't do anything wrong. In fact, he has been perfect.”

“A man who's only crime is not that he loved none too wisely, but too well,” Draco said in a mock decree, his voice lowered in a serious tone.

“Draco, you're terrible,” Ginny said, kicking him under the table again, getting a smile out of Draco then, too. She appreciated that he could make her laugh, even when she didn't even feel like smiling.

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Author's Note:

I have never in my life had any desire to be a lump of peanut butter until this chapter. This is my Valentine's Day Update, I hope you liked!

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Blue-Eyed Angel

Chapter Eight

A week had passed since the last murder and everyone was on edge while waiting for the next that was sure to come. Reamann had managed to secure the case files from the Muggles on the first five attacks, so now the Aurors could review them and look for details and patterns they hadn't known before, while anxiously waiting, hoping to somehow solve the case before another Muggle was hurt…or worse.

But there had been no luck so far.

Now they all waited, knowing the attacks were not going to simply stop after six, and after a week everyone felt they were no longer waiting for an attack but for someone to discover it, no one holding out any hope that one had not happened on schedule.

Draco had reviewed the Muggle files time and time again, and he had sat with his fingers fisted in his hair, staring down at the papers for hours, frustrated to wit's end at the “Muggles' incompetence” and that he could not figure the case.

Every bird in the sky that caught Reamann's eye now caused his stomach to clench, a brief moment of him thinking it was an owl bringing him news of another attack and another terrible scene to report to.

He was on edge like everyone else, and he was at his girlfriend's family house that night in hopes of easing his mind and nerves with a Sunday family dinner. His nerves were anything but relaxed though thanks to the topic of choice.

“So, you gonna ask her to marry you or what?” Ron asked as he, Harry, and Reamann stood in the kitchen at the Burrow. The women, aka: Hermione and Ginny, were in the living room while everyone else was in the backyard where a fire pit was set up for the children to roast marshmallows that cold night. Ron, Reamann, and Harry were on dish duty after dinner, and taking the opportunity to talk without Mrs. Weasley there to bud in like she tended to do.

“Oh, I don't know,” Reamann muttered, flicking his wand at the sink as the dishes washed themselves.

“She is arse over teacup for you, mate,” Harry said, drinking his coffee.

“You really think so?”

“Don't you?” Ron asked. Ron was the tallest in the room. Reamann and Harry were both a respectable six foot even, but Ron was just over six foot four and had filled into a pair of strong shoulders. It was hard for most in the family to think of him as “massive” having known Hagrid, but he certainly was big and took up a lot of space.

“Well, she is sometimes really distant.”

“That's just women for you. They need their space one moment, claim you don't pay enough attention to them the next,” Ron said with a shrug.

“This coming from the bachelor among us,” Harry teased.

“Hey, I have chosen to put my career first thank you very much, Mr. twice-divorced-by-thirty,” Ron said down his nose but not in a harsh tone, bickering good naturedly over who was better qualified to give advice on women to Reamann.

“Right,” Harry and Reamann said, both rolling their eyes, clearly not believeing Ron simply did not want a bint of his own.

“How is the case going? I hear your first day was, well, rough,” Harry asked as Ron chuckled.

“Heard you puked on the body,” Ron sniggered. They had been unable to talk about such things over dinner itself.

“I did not. I puked near the body,” Reamann huffed indignantly while blushing. He had hardly made a good impression on the Constable at the scene, nearly “compromising the scene's integrity” and getting yelled at a lot while others on the scene that hadn't puked, guffawed quietly at him behind their hands. He hadn't been the only one that puked, however, so he was able to save face to a certain extent.

“I heard you couldn't get the Aurors on the scene,” Harry said, not of the department but very interested in the case nonetheless.

“No, I tried. Unfortunately, Scotland Yard was backed up, and there was no one on the scene that day I could talk with about getting a bunch of witches and wizards on the case,” he said with a sigh. “I had to man it all by myself. I've gotten the information from the other scenes since then, so hopefully by the time…” he paused for a second before dropping his voice in a defeated tone, “the next scene comes up, I will have the clearance I need and I can go back to what I'm good at: being the translator.”

“You think there will be another attack before you are able to make a break?” Harry asked, looking at Ron.

“Things look rather bleak. An attack a week for over a month and we still have nothing to work with. Now it's a week later,” he said, looking a bit downhearted himself. “I just got cleared to join the case given the increased pressure the Ministry is putting on the department for us to solve this,” he said, Reamann looking at him. “I'll have full access to all the scenes and evidence, and Reamann here will do all the talking so I don't have to deal with the ruddy Muggles,” he explained, slapping Reamann around the shoulder.

“You can enter any scene?” he asked. Ron nodded.

“You think it's Death Eaters behind it?” Harry asked.

“Could be,” Ron said. Reamann bit his tongue a little.

“Wouldn't surprise me if they were,” Harry said, taking a sip of his coffee, his eyes darkening behind his glasses.

“I can't see that as a possibility myself,” Reamann said, Harry and Ron looking over at him. “I mean, seems like a silly thing to risk everything on. Is attacking some Muggles really worth going back to Azkaban over?”

“They have nothing, so they have nothing to lose,” Ron said while Harry nodded in agreement, both the men having fought the Death Eaters, Reamann having been too young to be a part of the fighting so he seemed to lack a certain amount of fear…and prejudice.

“I think a life outside of Azkaban is a lot to lose,” Reamann muttered, flicking his wand at the sink, pocketing a hair he had pulled off of Ron's collar for safe keeping. He needed to talk to Draco.

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

Ginny and Hermione sat in the living room, talking casually. The fireplace was roaring and warm in the otherwise dark room. The men were in the kitchen and the rest of the family was in the back. It was girl time, and it was usually a fun experience filled with giggles and hand grabbing in excitement. Ginny wasn't so much in the mood for that today.

“So, tell me, you think Reamann will propose for Christmas?” she asked, Christmas being just nine days away. Ginny looked awkward.

“I'm not sure.”

“Oh, you must be excited,” she said with a girlish giggle that she dared never use in the vicinity of the boys lest she be taunted mercilessly.

“Oh, oh I am,” Ginny said in an only mildly convincing tone while nodding her head.

“Then why don't you look it?” Hermione asked, voice dropping a little, face sad. Ginny just shook her head then.

“It's nothing. Just, you know, the anniversary coming up, has me a bit down this year.”

“Why this year more than others?” Hermione asked softly, talking of the war.

Ginny shrugged.

“Come on, Gin. I know you better than this. You have always been good at talking about what's bothering you. What's got you so down and silent about it?” she pressed, holding her friend's hand.

“I had lunch with Draco Malfoy, last week,” she said almost suddenly and Hermione visibly recoiled in her shock. Ginny had not told anyone about her lunch with Draco the Saturday before, and really why would she? But she trusted Hermione.

“Did you now?” she asked, her tone not giving away her tension like her grip on Ginny's hand did. Ginny had not been lying when she had told Draco that Hermione felt terrible about the whole ordeal and him being sent to Azkaban.

“Yeah. I sent him a note at the Ministry from my office asking him to join me, and he actually did,” she said, having half expected Draco to RSVP her back with the same “two-worded reply” he had sent back to Hermione some years before when she had owled him to meet her.

“He actually agreed to meet you?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I guess you weren't the one that handed him off to the Aurors, so I guess he holds less of a grudge against you,” she said with a sad smile. She had a pound of guilt over the “Malfoy situation” just like Harry.

“He didn't mention you if that's what you're wondering…I brought you up but he seemed rather disinclined to talk much on the subject. Really, he was quite civil and courteous, and actually easy to talk to,” she said and Hermione stared at her like Ginny had just grown a second evil-head that resembled a slightly less unattractive Goyle. “Don't look at me like that,” Ginny laughed.

“No, no, it's just…you just had a mental moment where you mistakenly implied that Draco was a pleasant person to sit and chat with over lunch,” she said, eyes still wide and staring.

“I did say that, and I meant it because it's true. I mean, he's defensive and a bit of a stuck-up prat still, but he really is quite smart, and nice when he lets himself be. I think he just guards himself,” she said, glancing away, tired of watching Hermione gawp at her.

“You're serious,” she said, blinking a few times. “And you had a lunch date with him?”

“It was just a lunch, no date. It was just us catching up since I hadn't known he was out…that's all.”

“Catch up on what? You weren't exactly chums at Hogwarts.”

“We saved each other's lives during the war, `Mione. That creates a bond between two people, even if they choose not to acknowledge it. We talked a lot that night before the final battle when we were camped out together,” she said. What Ginny didn't mention was the passionate kiss they had shared on that cold December night they spent wrapped up in each other's arms in hopes of staying warm with only meager Warming Charms, their robes, and flimsy blanket to keep the bite of the cold at bay.

Harry had never mentioned what he had seen that night (that he had seen them kissing) to anyone but Ginny herself, it bothered him too much, and she wasn't about to spread the fact around that she had snogged Draco Malfoy. She could only imagine her mother's horror, and what Ron would do to Draco after tracking him down. She might have felt there was something redeemable within him that no one else saw, but everyone else in the world seemed to think very low of him.

She also didn't mention to Hermione that Draco had kissed her during their lunch date…their lunch…but a slight flush crept across her cheeks at the vivid memory of his lips on hers, his soft tongue against her bottom lip...

“You've never mentioned that part, you two talking before,” Hermione said, never having been able to ask Ginny about the time she had spent with Draco. Ginny had been very brief in her defense of Draco, telling her about how he had saved her life, hidden her for a night, and sent her off to return to the Order in the morning when it was “safe”…but Ginny had never mentioned them talking during that time they shared, Hermione has always assumed it was a heavily weighted and silent affair.

“I didn't want to think about it for a long time after the war, then I didn't want to talk about it, then I just sort'a forgot about it. Well, not really, but I filed it away in the part of my brain where I put everything I don't want to think about,” she said, knowing the sorts of memories buried in there were what her nightmares were made of. Her first year at Hogwarts with the Diary was deep in there, under all the fighting and death she had seen thirteen years ago.

“So, you had a pleasant lunch with Draco Malfoy, and everything else is well, so the only thing that's got you down is the time of year?” Hermione asked. Still sounding skeptical.

Ginny pressed her lips together and looked away, unable to come up with a better lie at that moment. She could not confess her lukewarm feelings for Reamann, and she could not mention her faintly warm feelings for Draco…what could she say except that the end of the war memories were haunting her particularly bad that year?

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

Reamann checked the address twice before he approached the door. He had the right place, but the state of it was so sad, so poor, it did not look like someone should be allowed to live there. It looked like it should be condemned and torn down before it hurt someone. He was in the middle of a rundown Muggle neighborhood in the East End of London, where some of the poorest districts in all of London resided. This was not what he imagined…but thinking on it, he was not terribly surprised either.

Shaking his head, Reamann knocked on the front door firmly, waiting quietly on the metal stairs that groaned ever so slightly if he stepped too far to the left. To his right was a second battered door, Draco's block tightly packed so there were two decrepit apartments in every space one normally would be in any other neighborhood. There was no answer right away, so Reamann looked up at the apartment above that belonged to the second door, and considered knocking again. He heard someone on the inside move, however, so he looked back down and took a step back, and moments later the door opened.

“Hello?” they asked, Reamann's eyes widening so that he could not respond immediately.

The boy's face was shockingly familiar. Reamann found himself looking right into Draco Malfoy's pale eyes and pointed features…but the hair was wrong, as was the age. The boy at the door could not have been more than ten or eleven years old.

His hair was a pale-blond mess of long, heavily-curled locks that hung down over his eyes and covered his ears and was probably past his chin when pulled straight.

Reamann had no idea who was before him, and he feared he had the wrong door, but the resemblance to Draco was unmistakable and so Reamann was at a loss.

“Um, hello,” Reamann finally managed, swallowing the lump in his throat that had formed while he had stared openmouthed for a moment at the boy. The boy continued to look at him with slightly confused and intensely suspicious eyes, waiting for him to say more without verbal encouragement. “I…I'm looking for Draco Malfoy. I work with him and I got his address…” he said, stammering off into a mumble as he stared at the boy before him. The boy had a strong gaze full of thought and consideration. It was so much like Draco's that Reamann wanted to cast some Disillusion Spells at the boy. It had to be a trick, had to be. Right?

There were footsteps from inside indicating that someone was coming up behind the boy and the boy finally spoke.

“Dad, you have company,” he called as he stepped backwards from the door. Draco appeared there behind the boy, and the boy disappeared around him while Draco's face froze in surprise and mortification, his eyes wide with astonishment and shock that rivaled Reamann's.

“Reamann, what…what are you doing here?” he managed, stepping out into the cold so that he could close the door behind him with a snap, his hands latched to the handle as he leaned his back against the door like he was barricading Reamann out, looking panicked.

“Dad?” Reamann managed while still staring at Draco. Draco's eyes remained wide. “Draco, you are a father?” he asked, in disbelief. The boy was clearly a Malfoy, the strong resemblance there, but Draco's son? That had not been an option that had crossed his mind. Little brother maybe, cousin, nephew…anything but a son.

“How did you know where I live?” Draco asked, disregarding Reamann's question, voice a little higher than usual.

“Your address is on file at the Ministry, I just had to ask for it,” he said, not intending on letting Draco ignore his question. “What the hell is going on?” he asked. Draco looked over his shoulder -though all he saw was the door at his back- and then back at Reamann.

“This really is not a good time,” he tried.

“Please, it's important that I talk to you,” Reamann pressed, wanting to tell Draco of the idea he had come up with after having spoken to Ron. He had come straight from the Burrow with much apology to everyone for his abrupt exit, saying it was Ministry business that had come up suddenly; no one prepared to argue with that. He had requested Draco's address as part of his “investigation into the Muggle attacks” days before, thinking it would be useful if he ever needed to send him an owl. He hadn't really planed on using the address to visit Draco, but he felt his plan needed a face to face explanation that couldn't wait until morning.

Draco looked torn as he continued to press himself backwards against the door and stare at Reamann.

“Daddy? Is everything alright?” a second voice, a young girl's voice, called out to them, drifting through the closed door so that it was slightly muffled. Draco's eyes remained locked with Reamann's, color draining out of his face -if that were even possible for someone so pale- so that he went from an embarrassed flush to a white look of horror.

“Draco?” Reamann asked, wanting an explanation.

“The house is a right mess at the moment and…”

“Draco,” he said flatly then, showing he was not buying into any of Draco's excuses. He wanted an exlanation, and he wanted a chance to explain why he was there. Draco took a deep breath and seemed to hold it.

“Yeah, sure, come in,” he said, sounding defeated, turning and opening the door and holding it for Reamann as he half hid behind it half leaned on it. Closing it after Reamann walked by, his face looked pained.

Reamann walked in to find himself in the living room, seeing that the flat was just as dilapidated on the inside as it appeared on the outside.

What was worse was the state of everything inside.

Battered and frayed furniture, and a ripped and stained carpet of a horrid burnt orange color, surrounded him on all sides. The place was not messy -there was no rubbish or clutter and the amount of downright filth was minimal; it mostly looked like permanent dingy stains- but everything just simply looked abused, shabby, ruined. It was as though someone had attempted to tidy up after a foul-tempered Manticore had had its way with the place.

The furnature was tattered: the couch beige and the armchair dark brown, and the walls sky-blue and cracked, a few claw marks raking pale plaster gashes into its fractured surface. It looked possitively horrid with the burnt orange -once probably shag- carpet, and olive green accents on the wood molding in the room, yet those colors had been so popular years ago. Years and years ago. The ceiling had a brown stain near the corner where a pot half-filled with slightly discolored water sat on the floor collecting the drips as they fell slowly. The whole place was dimly lighted by battered table lamps with yellow lampshades, and it was kind of chilly.

A small Christmas tree stood next to the closed-curtain windows to his right, in the corner that shared the wall with the front door. The tree was multicolored and blinking merrily in the rather despondent room. A ghost-faced Barn Owl sat on a stand next to it, swiveling its head and blinking at him in suspicion and curiosity.

Standing there near the middle of the room were two children. They looked close enough that they could have been twins, both so shockingly Malfoy that there was no mistaking their relation to Draco. The boy stood on the left, the girl on the right. The girl was a tad shorter than the boy, with the same, unruly, curling platinum hair, but hers was much longer, so long it must have reached past her lower back. The children both had that telltale Malfoy smirk, but her lips were clearly not Malfoy like the boy's were, and the freckles they both bore were something they couldn't have gotten from daddy. They were dressed much like Draco was, in clothing that looked like it had seen better days, but clothing that had been repaired and tended to with much attention so that it was acceptable.

Draco walked passed Reamann after closing the door while rubbing his arms from the cold, to stand behind the two children, placing a hand on each other their shoulders, looking painfully uncomfortable.

“Um, children, this is a colleague of mine from the Ministry, Reamann Rossiter,” he said, giving their shoulders a gentle squeeze as he pulled them together against him and they each bobbed their heads.

“Hello,” they chimed politely.

“Reamann, these are…my children,” Draco confessed, looking like it pained him something to admit that to the other man. “This is my son Michelangelo, he is eleven - well, twelve- and we call him Michael,” he said, seemingly fumbling over his son's age. “And this is my daughter Clarissa, she is eleven and we call her Claire,” he said, looking at Reamann as though waiting…waiting for his opinion, waiting for him to say something unkind.

“It's very nice to meet you. Um, your father has said nice things about you,” Reamann attempted, inclining his head toward each other the children in greeting, trying not to let his shock show through as he addressed the children with a friendly smile.

“I find that hard to believe,” Michelangelo said in a tone that was very confident and skeptical.

“Daddy never talks about us,” Clarissa said as though that fact was not something that bothered her in any way. Reamann just looked up at Draco.

“Children, could you runoff to the kitchen and have a start on supper? I will be in shortly to help, I just need to discuss boring Ministry business with Mr. Rossiter here for a few moments,” Draco said lovingly, giving his children another affectionate shoulder squeeze before giving them both a little push in the direction of the kitchen.

“Sure,” Michelangelo said as Clarissa ran off ahead to start dinner.

Draco and Reamann waited for a moment, until the sounds of the children getting pans and plates out could be heard coming from the kitchen. Clarissa also apparently started humming.

“Draco…”

“You have to excuse the mess and the state of this place,” he said quickly, sounding nervous more than ever with the children no longer in the room and Reamann's interrogation pending. He ran his fingers through his long hair as an excuse to fuss over something and sort of wrung the ends in his hands. “I work a lot of hours and I like to spend my evenings with the children rather than on chores. I'm not exactly high on the Ministry's payroll,” he said while letting out something like a breathy laugh that hinted at bitterness, “and so this is the best I…”

“Draco,” Reamann said firmly, not caring at the moment of the state of Draco's living and income. Draco was rambling, and that was not like him. He knew that much, even if he apparently knew even less about the man than he originally thought.

“Reamann-”

“You did not tell me you had children. How is it I was not somehow aware of this?” he asked, keeping his voice down in an urgent whisper.

“It really wasn't imperative to our work for you to know,” Draco retorted, now sounding defensive.

“Draco, we been working together for nearly two weeks and you never mentioned them, or a woman?” he asked and Draco just looked down. “I honestly, kind of got the impression by how you avoided the topic of relationships, that you were not in one, not with a woman at least,” he said and Draco blinked at him, caught between astonishment, embarrassment, and anger.

“You thought I was gay?” he asked, somehow not have picked up on this little detail even though he made habit of reading the people around him, never trusting anyone's motives. He supposed his attempts at ignoring Reamann's obnoxiousness, and his persistent mistrust, left Draco to be blindsided by this assumption of Reamann's.

Reamann shrugged uncomfortably, understanding his mistake now. He had gotten the impression that Draco just kept it private, and joked about being irresistible to women despite his tattered appearance, and got curiously flustered at being implicated as homosexual, all as a means of cover. He had clearly been wrong. Draco was never really keen on talking about himself, and came across as terribly private, but Reamann had been sure Draco would have mentioned children at the very least, even if he had been unwilling to discuss relationships.

“I am not gay, Reamann,” Draco fumed a little.

“I can see that,” he mumbled.

Draco glared.

“Well…the children in the other room didn't spring from your loins without the help of another -a woman obviously- that much is clear…” he said as though that in of itself was part of his apology, “so, uh…you in a relationship, or are you divorced?” he asked, wondering what else Draco was hiding. Maybe he was a married family man and he had been totally unaware of this. Maybe there was a woman in the other room he hadn't been introduced to yet.

“Widower,” Draco said fiercely, keeping his eyes locked with Reamann's and almost challenging him to break the eye contact first. Reamann looked a little green but didn't look away either so Draco elaborated, feeling Reamann had earned that much by not cowering like he had expected him to. “My wife died, eight years ago,” he said, somehow able to admit such a thing to Ginny casually, while practically spitting it in Reamann's face. He supposed it had a lot to do with Ginny not knowing about his children and not having barged in on him while at his home unexpectedly. That and she hadn't just admitted to thinking he was homosexual, and he liked her a right bit more than he did Reamann, particularly at that moment.

He turned his embarrassment into anger and protected himself with it. It was common procedure with him and any Malfoy.

“Oh,” Reamann said, that being all he could say. He was feeling like an arse. Draco always somehow made him feel like an arse. Whenever he thought he would be able to catch Draco being deceitful or dishonest, he always seemed to uncover instead some rather shamed or wounded secret that Draco would have much rather kept hidden for personal reasons, not because he was being particularly nefarious.

There was a very awkward silence between them.

Draco said nothing while Reamann wrapped his still numb with shock mind around what he had just learned of Draco, and what he had seen. Draco was not gay, (which was a mild relief) a father, and a widower. That was an astounding revelation to say the least, a total 180 of what he had thought Draco to be. He understood then why Draco was reluctant to work late and why he had refused to have him over to his place to review the case.

Seeing now though where Draco lived was like a jinx to the gut. Draco had once had everything, now he was living on means so clearly dismal that the Weasleys Draco had once tormented so fiercely for being “poor” now looked positively prosperous in comparison.

Reamann knew Draco was painfully aware of all that he was thinking, because he was back to looking terribly uncomfortable and wouldn't make eye contact again after flushing and looking away. Apparently his unease could overpower even his anger.

“This is awkward.”

“Look at it from my end,” Draco muttered. Reamann nodded, wishing he could enquire but feeling it was not his place.

There was a silence so heavy with things unsaid it was almost difficult to breath. Draco was dreading what was sure to come, and it eventually did, as was his luck.

“Draco…forgive me…but I just did this sum in my head, and if your wife died eight years ago, and your son is twelve, and the war is only on it's thirtieth anniversary…you would have to of met your wife while in Azkaban,” he said and Draco sighed.

“That's right,” he said, wishing Reamann had let this go, but knew he wouldn't have, knew he would try to delve deeper. That was his luck.

“How…”

“You are not going to let this go until I give you some kind of longwinded explanation of how she and I met, in ramblings befitting you, to satisfy that unquenchable curiosity of yours, are you?” he asked and Reamann flushed. “It is none of your damn business, and I don't talk of her. Just know that I met her when I was seventeen in Azkaban because she was on my block, a cell apart, and during a permitted excursion from our cells we managed a moment of privacy that resulted in us getting pregnant. While she finished her term before Michelangelo was born, I was left there to finish up my ten years,” he said.

“But what of your daughter?”

“What of her?”

“Where does she fit in then, if you were in Azkaban and your wife was not…and when did you actually marry her?”

Draco sighed and grumbled.

“She and I wed while I was incarcerated, when we discovered that one of our visitations just after Michael's birth had led to her getting pregnant again. She and I were only married for a short time, because she died when Claire was two and Michael three,” he explained and Reamann nodded, chewing on his bottom lip in a very uncomfortable way.

“You want to know who she was,” Draco said and Reamann just looked up at him and dared to shake his head. “You can't lie to me,” Draco said, shaking his head at that point, looking annoyed.

“Fine, alright, I'm curious as to whom she was, but you have to give me credit for not asking,” he snapped back a little irritably. Draco just smirked.

“You familiar with Christina McGucken?”

Reamann's eyes widened. “The witch who-”

“Killed werewolves?” Draco finished for him. “Yeah.”

“You married McGucken, a woman who kidnapped and tortured werewolves?” Reamann repeated, his voice raising some and Draco shushing him harshly.

“Quiet. My children do not know of their mother, and I would like to keep it that way if I can, thank you.”

“But, Draco, you're a werewolf.”

“I'm well aware of that,” Draco replied quite blandly.

“But…but…how could you get involved with a woman who had been locked away for, like, killing your people?”

“My people?” Draco chuckled. “What, am I part of a religion now or something?” Reamann felt awkward. “Yes, Reamann, she was imprisoned for harming werewolves, but who's to say she was guilty?”

“The courts.”

“Then by all accounts, I am guilty of all my crimes too,” Draco challenged and Reamann withdrew, not about to accuse Draco of being a murderous Death Eater by extension that he believed his wife to be guilty of her crimes.

“Then, then she was innocent?” Reamann asked, remembering reading about her, knowing she had done things comparable to Josef Mengele.

“She never harmed me,” Draco said with a shrug, not answering Reamann's question. “She took good care of our children,” he said, looking beyond Reamann, as though he could see through the wall to his children in the other room.

“Are they…”

“Are they what?”

“Like-”

“Like me?” Draco asked for him, his tone as unfriendly as Reamann had ever heard it. “Meaning, are they wolves?”

“Draco…I'm sorry. I don't mean to stand here and rifle through your life…I just stumbled across all this and am just trying to understand it. You have to admit this is a bit…shocking,” he said and Draco had to give him that much.

“Your reaction is polite -as you can manage- but it is exactly what I fear would be anyone's reaction, and thus why I prefer to keep his fatherhood on a need to know basis,” Draco sighed and Reamann nodded.

“I won't say a word, but would you humor me with some more answers?”

“You blackmailing me?” Draco huffed.

“Sure, we'll call it that if you like,” Reamann said, almost challenging Draco, and Draco backed down, almost physically assuming a submissive posture and looking down. His eyes looked suddenly very weary and sorrowful. “You said your wife took care of your children, implying it was more of an undertaking than a mother would typically assume,” Reamann tried to explain, so he felt less like a bully.

“Yes, both my children are werewolves, like me…because of me,” Draco mumbled, his tone drawling, but not due to arrogance, but defeat, and guilt? “I passed it on to them, unknowingly. Christina was familiar with werewolves, she studied them, understood them. She cared for Michael when he was born and was so sick, and did the same for Claire even though she was born stronger, healthier, because Wolfsbane had been administered to Christina throughout her Clarissa's pregnancy, rather than just at the end of Michael's.”

“Studied them? More like kidnapped and tortured them. Draco, I have read about her. She did terrible things to werewolves, tortured them with her `studies'…”

“Are you quite finished?” Draco snapped.

“Sorry,” Reamann muttered as he looked down and shuffled his feet a little. He supposed insulting or accusing Draco's wife of such things was rude, as well as insulting to Draco.

“The case was groundbreaking,” Draco admitted. “No one thought -no matter how `grotesque' the crimes- that someone would be convicted of cruelty to werewolves. The public then didn't think we were people, and today is not really any different,” Draco said bitterly, glaring at the carpet beyond Reamann's feet some.

“That, that is not true. Harry Potter has-”

“Harry Potter has made amends to laws and restrictions, so that in theory we wolves have more rights, but that is only so in paper, not practice. You can change laws, but you can't change public opinion. I had to work damn hard to keep my children while in Azkaban, I had to make deals and sacrifice a lot -including my dignity- to give them a decent life.”

“What would have happened to them?” Reamann swallowed, Draco's barking tones dripping so heavily with distain and hurt that it was stomach churning.

“Lycanthropy is not typically hereditary, but lucky me, I'm in that 24 percentile who can pass it on. Without the relief Wolfsbane offers, infants born with the syndrome never survived before, so there was never a real precedent for infant werewolves but older children who were attacked and infected young. Because of that, there was a real lack of procedure in treatment, and lack of understanding. Children due to be born with the condition would normally have been terminated, forcibly. Christina knew that, and had kept her condition a secret -even from me- until she was too far along to be administered an abortion. Still, they would have taken my children from me, but I gave up something very dear to me to save Michael's life, and I continue to sacrifice everything I have for them, so that they may have a normal life, and have things human children would have…like an education.”

“Can the Ministry, ethically, really force a woman to have an abortion?” Reamann asked, astounded, baffled, appalled.

“Werewolves are one step up from animals, but liked far less. Few think twice about neutering animals or putting down the unwanted. Werewolves are not treated any different, the same spin that it is for the “greater good” used as justification.”

“Merlin,” Reamann sighed. “But you kept them both,” he said, as though that was comfort, even though he dared not ask what it took for Draco to keep his children. “I see you sacrificed a lot, but what I can't understand still is that with all this hoopla over you having children, and the Ministry clearly being so firmly against it, how is it no one knows about it?”

“Oh, plenty `know' about it, just not the public. The Ministry seems humiliated by it, and few outside of those in charge of Azkaban, and those working in the Beast Division of the Ministry know. The idea of a story getting out that their newly applied security at the prison in the absence of the Dementors was so insufficient that two inmates were able to procreate, the fact that they were basically blackmailed and manipulated by my wife so that I could keep the children, the fact that both my wife and I had front-page reputations, was embarrassing. They on their own kept things quiet,” Draco explained. “It was hard getting Michelangelo accepted to Hogwarts, however, I had to manage that on my own and the Ministry wasn't exactly keen on the idea. No one really wants a werewolf attending school with their precious little babies, and there would be no way of keeping his condition a secret from the faculty, since they would have to look after and help him.”

“How did you manage?” Reamann asked, surprised. Few werewolves had ever attended Hogwarts. Though, then again, Draco had managed for a year by himself.

“Guilt is a powerful and manipulative tool if used correctly,” he said sounding detached. “I needed someone who had weight to throw around on my side. I wouldn't go to Potter for shit, but I was thrown into Azkaban after being promised a pardon from one Minerva McGonagall, who just so happens to be the current headmistress. She made it possible, and attending under his mother's more common surname, his true identity and condition only known by McGonagall, Michael is in his first year and currently home on Christmas break,” Draco explained, feeling a little proud of this, but also that he had said more than enough already this night.

“They look wonderful, Draco, they really do. Healthy and bright,” Reamann praised and Draco managed to look, if possible, more depressed at the complement. Reamann really did not want Draco to get all emotional at that point. He knew it was terribly selfish, but he just couldn't handle Draco getting emotional. He liked the pompous and detached Draco Malfoy he had come to mildly resent yet respect.

“It's not fair to them,” he said softly.

“Being a werewolf is never fair to anyone, but they have you to look after them, right?”

Draco said nothing.

“You have only been out of Azkaban for three years,” Reamann said and Draco didn't even bother to look back up at him. “If your wife died eight years ago, who…”

“My mother. She raised them, brought them to see me every other week, and is actually still their legal primary caregiver. She was really all that saved me. She took care of me, and my babies, and supported me, even with how disappointed she was with me at becoming a father to two illegitimate children so young, with a woman she didn't particularly like,” he said, the barest of smiles pulling at his lips, so subtle but not missed by Reamann.

“So they have you, and their grandmother looking out for them. Forgive me, but that seems rather formidable to me,” Reamann offered, Draco looking up at him though his head was still tilted down, and Reamann saw for the first time appreciation seep into those silver eyes.

“Dad,” Michelangelo called from the kitched.

“Come on, we cannot use the cooker without you out here with us,” Clarissa chimed, appearing in the doorway.

“Awright,” Draco said, rewarding his daughter with a kind smile, showing no signs of any of the dark emotions he had expressed to Reamann, a bright, warm, strong mask in place for his daughter. Reamann could sense the love and affection wafting off of Draco like a warm breeze, and it was almost infectious the bubbly joy the girl brought with her that filled Draco, and overflowed into Reamann.

“I…I should go…let you get to your…”

“Would you like to join us for supper?” Draco offered, no hint of bitterness, anger, or depression in his voice now. He was actually sounding friendly, for once. Reamann had to wonder if that last bit of praise and consolation had really had that big of a positive effect on Draco. He liked to think so, but still, he felt out of place, and awkward.

“I couldn't intrude any further than I already have, and I had…”

“Nonsense, we rarely have company,” Draco said, sounding amused while walking towards the kitchen, “the children will enjoy it. Besides, you had something important to tell me?” he asked, still walking, looking over his shoulder. Reamann blinked. The reason for his visit had been completely driven out of his mind by all he had learned about Draco.

“Oh, oh yes…” he mumbled, following after him.

The dinner was simple, chicken and rice and canned corn. Reamann, having come from the Burrow, was already rather full and thankful for that because it seemed like it was small portions all the way around as it was without him added to the mix.

Reamann mostly listened as the two children recapped their day to their father. Apparently Michelangelo had gotten home earlier that day, but since Draco had seemingly not been feeling well after coming back from the platform, he had not been up to going out into the cold again, so the children had spent some hours with their grandmother.

“The kids at the park started a snowball fight, and Nana joined in a little though she denied it all later,” Michelangelo said with a roll of his silver eyes, Draco smiling with a laugh.

“That sounds like my mother. Did you two win?” he asked, looking over at Clarissa with a good-natured leer.

“Of course we did,” she said with a grin, fork in hand.

“And why is that children?” Draco cued them to chime in.

“Because Malfoys never fail, never surrender,” the children said with much enthusiasm. Reamann laughed as Draco smiled.

“Quite right you are,” he said approvingly. Reamann meanwhile was trying to hide his laugh so as not to come across rude at the table.

“So, Michael,” he said after gaining control of himself, deciding to get to know these remarkable children a tad better while he had the opportunity. “I hear you are a first year at Hogwarts,” he said and Michelangelo beamed in a sophisticated way that caused Draco to smile down at the chicken he was cutting into respectable bite size pieces.

“I'm in Slytherin, like the rest of my family before me,” he said proudly, clearly pleased with himself that he had lived up to the Malfoy standard and lineage, even if he wasn't a “Malfoy” while at Hogwarts, not as far as anyone there was concerned at least.

“My cunning little Slytherin,” Draco said affectionately, Michelangelo looking positively radiant in his pride.

“I want to be in Slytherin, but Daddy teases me, saying I'll end up in Hufflepuff,” Clarissa said, making a face.

“Because you're so darn sweet,” Draco taunted and Clarissa stuck her tongue out, causing a chuckle in Draco before he said “mind your manners at the table,” discreetly to her.

“So you are eleven then, or twelve?” Reamann asked, looking back at the boy. Michelangelo looked over at his father and Draco snapped his attention from Clarissa.

“Oh, he's turning twelve actually. Clarissa is ten and a half months younger. Michelangelo would have liked to have started classes last year but his birthday is in late December and the cut-off is August 31st, so he had to wait. Clarissa had to as well. Even though she is eleven now, she couldn't start this year because her birthday is November 13th,” he explained. “But really, it was for the best. Easier to be a little older than everyone else than younger,” he said speaking from experience, being one of the youngest in his year.

“Yeah, so he says,” Michelangelo said with a roll of his eyes as he pushed his rice around on his plate in what looked like a moping way. Clarissa giggled and made a face at her brother from across the table.

“I also enjoyed him home for the extra year so we could continue to have quality time since I missed a lot the first ten years of his life,” Draco said through a clenched tooth smile and kicked Michelangelo under the table, and the boy smiled abashed and sat up straight where he had been slouching down like he was about to duck under the table and escape just moments before.

“Yeah, well, that was nice, too,” he said, making a face back at his sister. Draco reprimanded them both under his breath to demonstrate their good manners while a guest was present. Then he called them a pair of Boomslangs with a sigh.

Reamann actually enjoyed the dinner with the little family and Draco tucked the children off into the living room to watch the telly before bed while he cleaned up, giving Reamann the opportunity to talk business, that being the reason why he had come to Draco's home that night to begin with.

Draco cleared the table and stood at the sink, washing the dishes -by hand no less- listening to Reamann.

“I had a thought,” he said as he leaned against the counter. “The department is not breaking the case on the files alone, and since you can't make anything of the files yourself, I think getting you on the scene firsthand would be greatly beneficial. I mean, you can pick things out of photographs that I missed, that half the Aurors overlooked, just think of what you would notice if you were right there, full color and in person.”

“And how do you propose you would smuggle me onto a crime scene, confound every person that asks about the albino at your back?” Draco asked, having already thought of how much easier it would be for him to go to the scene, but knowing it to be an impossibility.

“No, no, with this,” he said, pulling out the hair he had taken from Ron. Even while singular and slender, it was still noticeably red.

“Please tell me that is not a Weasley hair, Reamann, because I can tell you right now the answer is no,” Draco said, looking over at Reamann with narrowed eyes, elbow-deep in soapy water.

“Ron Weasley has full access to the investigation and that includes the crime scenes,” Reamann explained.

“I would rather be a hairy, unwashed, manky troll than…oh, wait…” he said and Reamann sighed, letting his extended arm drop to his side.

“Really, Draco, I would prefer if you did not insult my friends, and this is a good idea!” he huffed.

“And what would you have me do when the real Ron Weasley shows up on the scene? I know there are about a dozen Weasley blokes, but I doubt I would be able to pass as one of his plentiful brothers to Ron himself. Even he isn't that thick,” he said.

“I could make sure Ron is buried in paperwork. And we'll have his pass, so even if he tried to barge onto the scene, he wouldn't have his clearance, you would,” he said.

“Fine, say that works; Polyjuice Potion takes over a month to prepare and is terribly complex. Not to mention it tastes awful.”

“The Ministry keeps a batch of it ready and on hand. It's on the floor with the “Unspeakables” but I know someone who knows someone who could get me some,” he said and Draco eyed him.

“You are serious about this, you wanker,” he said, pulling his hands from the sink and flicking them towards the floor to free them of suds and water.

“I think you would really help the case as more than just the guy I have write up my reports,” he said. Draco considered him for a long moment.

“Dad! Michael's hogging the zapper!” Clarissa shouted from the living room. “Ow! And he just hit me!” she tattletaled.

“I did not!” Michelangelo shouted almost immediately, the children fighting over the remote and the control of the television apparently.

“Awright you little Runespoors, do not make me come in there,” Draco called calmly, holding a finger up to Reamann as to excuse him for a moment as they stood there. “Michelangelo, you keep your hands to yourself and Clarissa, do not be a tattletale. Share the telly time or it's off to bed, the lot of you,” he reprimanded calmly.

There was a murmur of “yes sir” and much grumbling from the other room and Draco turned his attention back to Reamann.

“Is there any other option? Must I be…Weasley?” he asked, looking down at the hair still clutched in Reamann's fingertips.

“This is it,” he said, causing Draco's face to twist in disgust and make a small whiny noise.

“I can't believe I'm agreeing to this,” he muttered.

“You are?” Reamann asked, pleased and relieved.

“Just have the potion ready for the next scene. And make sure you have me in and out of there quickly. I don't want to spend more time than I have to as a Weasley,” he said in disgust, Reamann laughing.

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Warning: this chapter contains some dialog and descriptive factors from chapter twenty-four of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I do not own the rights to that copyrighted material and I do not claim creative license over that bit, though its perspective has been adapted.

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Blue-Eyed Angel

Chapter Nine

Reamann did not have a lot of time to get the needed favor from his friend for the Polyjuice Potion. Monday morning, after just talking to Draco the night before, a large black owl landed on his desk and hooted urgently at him. Reamann had only just earlier that morning sent a note to his friend in hopes of being cleared for the potion. He had had every intention of giving his friend more than a few hours notice, but it looked like fate had other plans. Reamann had been expecting the owl, yet it still hit him like a hex to the gut to read that he had to report to another scene immediately.

Quickly writing three notes, Reamann sent one to his superiors, one to his friend that would supply him with the Polyjuice telling him he needed it urgently, and one to Draco instructing him to take a long lunch because they were about to go to the newest scene.

Once the purple paper airplanes were sent he stood and closed his office door. He opened the cramped cupboard to his right and pulled out some Muggle clothing. He changed out of his robes and into a pair of slacks, a shirt, and a coat appropriate for Muggle dealings, in time to hear a rustling outside his door. He knew what it was and opened his door again to allow the little paper airplane to enter. It zoomed into the room and circled overhead, waiting for Reamann to pluck it out of the air.

It was from Draco.

How did Reamann know that Draco would be the quickest to respond?

He started to write back telling him not to come up but wait for him in the Atrium, but then froze. What was Draco to wear? His clothing, though Muggle attire, was hardly suitable for a crime scene and furthermore: would not fit Ron's much larger and broader frame.

“Shit,” he said, looking around as though hoping to find a solution laying somewhere around his office.

“Reamann?”

Reamann looked up, and speak of the devil, there was Ron Weasley, standing in the doorway.

“Hey there, you get the owl? It looks like a new scene, a nasty one too. I can't say I'm looking forward to it,” Ron said, his arms crossed over his massive chest.

“Oh, yes. I know what you mean,” Reamann replied distractedly, thinking fast. “Ron? Since you're here, could you have a look at this report? I'm not sure on this one part and I figure you -an Auror- would probably know what I should say since this paperwork will be going to your office,” he said, flattering Ron to distract him while carefully pulling his wand out of his pocket and using the desk to block Ron from seeing.

“Oh, sure, mate,” he beamed with a very noticeable swell of pride at the implication of his superior knowledge in the matter.

Reamann stepped back and allowed Ron to look down over the desk and the sea of paperwork before him. Ron's brow frowned as he focused on the papers just as a flash of light erupted over his shoulder. His eyes rolled backwards into his head and he slumped onto the desk. Draco chose just that moment to stroll in.

“Oi, you killed him,” he said sounding bored, looking neither upset nor bothered while closing the door wisely behind him.

“No I didn't, he is just asleep, or in a small coma,” Reamann said, looking guiltily down at Ron. He might have overdone the charm just a tad. There was a reason he worked with Muggles as opposed to another department where he would be using more practical magic.

“When you said your plan was to burry him in paperwork, I had thought you meant to keep him busy, not literally bury him in your paperwork,” Draco said, looking at Ron's limp and unconscious body as he lay across the desk, papers all about.

“Har-har,” Reamann fake laughed, clearly not amused. “We need his clothes,” he said and Draco held up his hands.

“Hey now, don't look at me; he's your mate, you undress him,” he said, shaking his head.

Reamann heaved a sigh but agreed. He left Ron in his knickers and undershirt, handing the rest of his clothing to Draco who promptly folded them neatly and tucked them under his arm, Ron's enormous shoes atop it all.

“Don't suppose my knickers will fit still once I become that oaf,” he said, the prospect of wearing Ron's clothing with no knickers on apparently not bringing him much elation.

“I'm sure Ron will really appreciate your tadger starkers in his trousers,” Reamann said with a laugh and Draco smirked.

“What have I told you about your unwelcome advances and talk about my tadger, Reamann?”

“Don't flatter yourself, Malfoy,” he said with a shake of his head, this sort of flirtyness being why he had thought Draco was gay to begin with. Draco glared.

“Stash the stiff and lets get a move on, I don't have a long lunch,” Draco said, choosing to ignore Reamann's insinuation that he did not find him attractive. Malfoys were devastatingly attractive, regardless of a person's gender and sexual orientation.

Reamann tucked Ron away in the corner of his office and did a simple charm to make him look like a potted plant. He didn't transfigure him, that was risky even for a more skilled witch or wizard, but he made an illusion float about him. Anyone who walked into the room would probably see through it, but anyone just passing by and looking in would overlook it, which was all he really needed.

Their potion arrived some ten minutes later by owl. The note attached urged discretion and Reamann knew he was going to have to send a hearty wine and cheese basket to his friend for Christmas for the favor which was conducted in great haste.

Draco -with his hood up- and Reamann made their way to the lifts and down to the Atrium without a hitch, but when Reamann made to head off towards the Apparition grid Draco froze.

“Reamann,” he called lightly, teasing sweetly.

“What?”

“Where do you think you're going?”

“We are on our way to the scene, right?”

“Fine by me, but how do you suppose I will be getting there? I can't Apparate,” he said, reminding Reamann of his current wandless state.

“Oh, yeah,” he said, having forgotten that for a moment. “You can Side-Along with me,” he offered and Draco made a face. “Don't look at me like that, we have no other choice and no time to try and find another way,” he said, waiting for Draco to walk up to him so they could head over to the Apparition grid together.

Reamann stepped up and pulled out his wand but Draco lingered back for a moment, eyeing Reamann wearily.

“Come on, we haven't got a lot of time here. I promise I won't Splinch you,” Reamann said. Draco glared but then stepped up. He stood beside Reamann and seemed reluctant to touch him for a moment, but then grabbed onto his arm and held tight without having to be told.

Reamann flicked his wand, and with a sound like a cracking whip, he Disapparated. Draco's eyes were closed tight at the sensation of being squeezed through a rubber hose and he waited for the pressure to let up so he could breathe again. His feet hitting the ground solidly jarred him but he did not fall, thankfully. He released Reamann immediately and took a deep breath.

“You alright?” Reamann asked.

“I haven't Apparated in thirteen years,” he said as though that were explanation enough for how he felt. Reamann understood and did not ask Draco again.

“I have the potion,” he said, opening the vial and placing in one of the hairs he had snatched off of Ron's head while back in his office. “All you need to do is change into his clothes and take it. We can head over to the scene from here once you are Ron, but keep the flask with you incase we are held up for more than an hour,” he said.

Draco glared at the flask Reamann was holding out to him but plucked it out of his hand, knowing he had agreed to this so he could not whine…much.

Reamann allowed Draco to excuse himself while he changed.

They had appeared in an Apparition point that was closest to the crime scene, but they were still blocks away and in an alley between two businesses. Draco moved all the way to the backend of the alley to hide amongst the snowy rubbish bins to change. Reamann waited near the entrance, out of sight from the Muggles but allowing Draco some privacy.

He did not envy Draco, it was freezing out. He offered to cast some warming spells so that changing would not be so terrible, but Draco had very simply told Reamann to go to hell. Draco did not seem to like people doing magic around him.

Draco had pulled his green t-shirt over his head exposing a thin and boney back as well as what looked like some horrific scars but Reamann had not allowed himself a proper look because he had turned around at that point.

Some minutes passed and Reamann wanted to ask if Draco was okay, but managed to restrain himself.

“I suppose I'm ready then,” Draco said, Ron's voice reaching Reamann's ears. Reamann turned to find Ronald Weasley standing there in the alley, Draco no where in sight, only his clothing neatly folded under Ron's arm as indication he had ever been there in the first place.

“Excellent,” Reamann said with a grin. Ron managed to scowl in a way he had never seen before. “Oh, don't do that, you will blow your cover with that distinctive Malfoy glare. You are a Weasley now, so try to act like one.”

“Forgive me. I'm not well practiced in looking like a brainless lout. I will try not to let my intelligence show through too much,” he drawled, suddenly making Ron sound cultured and snobby.

“Try not talking,” Reamann suggested, taking Draco's clothing and tucking it into his bag at his side before turning and walking out of the alley. “It would do us all some good,” he added and Draco kicked him in the bum as he walked behind him.

The address written on the note Reamann had received was not really necessary once they had Apparated in the near vicinity of the scene. The commotion and police cars driving by were easy enough to follow.

Draco was fumbling with his much larger hands as he tried to clip Ron's tag onto the robe's collar. Reamann noticed and wanted to offer to help, but he knew enough about Malfoy at that point to know to never offer to help him do anything. Draco always took it as though he were perceived as weak or incapable. He would go out of his way to do something on his own, even if it caused him pain or it took longer, just to spite whoever offered. Draco was just that prideful and stubborn. A Malfoy trait for sure, that was.

Draco would have to make due with Ministry Robes at the Muggle crime scene since that was what Ron had been wearing when visiting Reamann and was knocked out. Draco did not care, though Reamann looked a little distressed. Ron would be brought up on investigation in violation of procedure for wearing robes around Muggles. Reamann was feeling guilty and Draco could care less if he got odd stares. Ron would get in trouble, not him…the thought actually made him smile wickedly.

After much awkward struggling Draco managed to finally clip the tag.

He had found it in the pockets of the robes…along with Ron's wand.

He had held the wand for a log moment while back in the alley, thus what had held him up. It felt so right to hold it, the power radiating from it up his arm to vibrate somewhere deep within his core. It was a feeling he had once taken for granted and up until then had nearly forgotten.

He had decided to stick it in the wand pocket and try to ignore it if he could, but that distantly familiar weight in the pocket of his robes was difficult to ignore and touching the smooth wood was near impossible to resist.

They entered a park and could see across the sloping lawns through the sporadic trees where they needed to head. Yellow police tape was strung between the trees, the snow was trampled to the point where grass was peeking through in spots, and people moved around like bees in a hive only far less efficient and with less purpose. Police stood around, holding styrofoam cups of steaming coffee as they talked.

“They seem busy,” Draco commented as they passed two officers standing around, drinking coffee and chatting.

“There are always too many people on a scene, particularly murder scenes,” Reamann said knowledgably, walking a little ahead.

“Makes you wonder how much evidence is lost underfoot,” Draco said as he looked around the thoroughly trampled area.

“You two the specialists?” a black officer asked, walking up to them and not letting Reamann respond to or really ponder what Draco has said.

“Yes sir. I'm Special Agent Rossiter, and this is my partner: Special Agent Weasley,” Reamann said, Draco having already -begrudgingly- agreed to let Reamann do all the talking during their walk over.

“You're gonna want to see this,” he said, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb as he walked backwards. “We have already had the medical examiner come in but he's at a total loss as to what could have done this. It seemed pretty straightforward at first what killed the guy, until we found no evidence of any sort of tool being used. It was like the wounds just erupted out of him,” the man explained, shouting a little bit over the commotion around them of police radios, an occasional “woop woop” of a siren, and much talking. He turned then to hold the tape up for Reamann and Draco to duck under. “We will have to wait for an autopsy, but we were told to hold the body until you had a chance to look at it. I'm not sure what you intend to find, we are all a little confused by this one,” he said, sounding helpful to the last.

“Thank you,” Reamann nodded, pulling out his large notebook from his bag. “Your name is?”

“Deputy Stanton. I was told to help you out and tell you anything you need to know,” he said, seemingly finding some pride in the responsibility that had been left him.

“Excellent. Well, Stanton, who found the victim?”

“A pair of joggers,” he said, pointing over to two women sitting on the back of an ambulance, drinking coffee, looking a little green and frazzled but otherwise unhurt. “This is just off the jogging trail and they had seen the body amongst the snow. They thought he was just a pile of garbage at first, until they got close enough to see the blood,” he said, Reamann writing down every word spoken with a continually nodding head.

While Reamann did his job collecting statements, Draco did his, which was to look over the body and collect evidence.

He crouched down near the body, careful to keep his large feet in the already tracked snow and not mar the still undisturbed portion closest to the body. The sheet covering the man was bloody and stiff looking. In the cold, the blood had frozen bright rather than dried and darkened, and flipping the sheet off the body was difficult. It clung, frozen to the body in places, and bent stiff rather than folded loosely. Draco managed to get it off and away from the body to only come face to face with a man without a face.

Reamann looked over just then and had to place his hand over his mouth and look away.

Draco leaned in, somehow unbothered by the disfigured corpse, and examined the wounds. The face was slashed open so deeply that the bone of the skull could be seen glistening in the sunlight. The gashes were so fierce that the bone itself was cleaved. The nose was nearly ripped away so that the sinus cavity was visible, and the throat was cut through: a near decapitation.

The chest was just as badly slashed. It was cut from armpit to armpit, deep enough once again to cut into the bone, the sternum visible. The gut was spilled open to release what looked like gastric juices -now frozen in the cold- and bile, from the liver probably. The lowest gash spilled forth the intestine, looking like obscene pinkish-white balloons bubbling out of the open skin.

“Dear God,” Reamann muttered behind his hand. Deputy Stanton made a face too, having already seen the body but still, understandably, sickened by it.

“You say there were no tool marks?” Draco asked still looking over the body while addressing Stanton.

“Yes, well, none that we could recognize. The bone was obviously cut by something, but the flesh and tissue show no marks to indicate cutting or sawing. Like I said, the Medical Examiner said it's like the cuts came from the inside out.”

“A really sharp sword could cleave bone,” Draco offered.

“You think it was a sword, Ma-Weasley?” Reamann asked, poising his pen to write after nearly fumbling Draco's name.

“No, I do not,” he said, tilting his head to the side, still staring at the corpse while everyone else just tried to look away.

“What does he mean by that? What else could it have been?” Deputy Stanton asked, looking at Reamann, Reamann just shrugged.

Draco looked at the face where the blood had frozen into crystals all over the skin and reached up to touch it.

“Special Agent Weasley,” Deputy Stanton called, causing Draco to stop and look. Stanton held out a pair of rubber gloves and Draco blinked at him and then stood.

“Oh, yes, thank you,” he said, Reamann moving over to him to whisper hurriedly at him while Draco pulled on the gloves with a snap.

“What are you doing?” he hissed.

“Examining the body,” Draco replied flatly as though that were the obvious answer.

“You can't touch it!” he said, looking outraged and mortified.

“Sure I can, I'm a Special Agent called in on this case to try and determine the cause of death,” he said with a smirk that did not belong on Ron's face.

“Draco,” he hissed quietly.

“Has the body been photographed and its position marked and documented?' Draco called over to Deputy Stanton, still looking right at Reamann.

“Yes, we are just waiting on you to remove it,” he answered, Draco looked at Reamann with an “I told you so” smirk. He pulled out his glasses from Ron's pocket and managed to fit them onto Ron's much larger head with some strain.

“I can't watch you poke at the body, Malfoy,” he whispered harshly over at him.

“Then don't. Go get your statements from the joggers,” he said indifferently, squatting down and leaning over the body, now touching the frozen edge of the wounds and fingering the bone. Reamann was half turned away but still spoke to Draco.

“You have any idea what did that? If it wasn't a sword…”

“Sectumsempra,” he said with eyes still on the body.

“Are your serious?” Reamann asked, looking back but then regretting it as Draco prodded at the intestines that were sticking out. They were soft but partially frozen so they made a soft crinkling noise as Draco poked them. “Oh God,” Reamann muttered, looking away. Thankfully it was cold. The smell was annulled. If it had been summer, Reamann could only imagine how much more terrible the scene would have been.

“I could tell from the moment I saw the body what had caused it, but I needed to be positive,” he said.

“You seen a victim of Sectumsempra before?” he asked and Draco blinked.

He was standing in the sixth floor boy's bathroom at Hogwarts. It was one of two places he tended to hide recently, having just come from the other on the floor above, the Room of Requirement. It was dinner time but he had no appetite nor did he have any desire to be amongst his peers. He was not alone now however, that was why he came there, to that specific bathroom so often. Like so many times before, he came to that bathroom to talk to the one person who would listen, the one person he could confide in, the one person he could trust to not betray his secrets to anyone.

“Please tell me what's wrong,” Moaning Myrtle pleaded, hovering up in the air and sounding so genuinely concerned.

“I can't,” Draco said, fighting back the tears he knew were about to come.

“What is it that you are trying to do? Maybe I can help you,” she offered.

“I have to do this alone, I was told I could seek no aid in this,” he said, voice shaking as he made his last stand against the tears. He moved over to the sink to splash some water on his face, but the moment he leaned his hands on the grimy porcelain he felt the tears come, sliding down his face, his whole body trembling.

“Please, we have talked so many times before. You are such a wonderful boy, and you don't tease me because of my pimples. Please let me help you, for that.”

Draco just shook his head, sobbing finally.

“He would kill me…he would kill me if I told anyone what I have to do.”

“Who will kill you?”

Draco kept shaking his head, tears flowing down his cheeks. Myrtle floated over to one of the cubicles to sit atop the toilet and frown, looking at Draco, a boy whom she had spoken with many times that year and found so genuinely honest and sweet, at a loss for what to do for him.

“Don't,” she crooned. “Tell me what's wrong…I can help you…”

“You can't help me. No one can help me,” he said, his whole body shaking. “I can't do it…I can't…it won't work…and unless I do it soon…he says he'll kill me…” he cried. He swallowed hard in a gulp and a gasp for air before then looking up onto the cracked mirror that hung on the wall before him.

It was a moment of pure horror for him when he realized he and Myrtle were not alone in the bathroom while he sobbed. Harry Potter was in the doorway to his back, staring at him, a look of utter shock on his face.

Draco's heart froze in mortification.

How long had Potter been watching, how long had be been listening?

With a stomach so tight in knots he was sure he would puke, Draco spun around while drawing his wand with his right hand like his father always insisted. Harry moved and drew his own and Draco felt no guilt in sending a hex at him then. It missed as Harry threw himself out of the way, Draco's aim always compromised when dueling right-handed.

“Levicorpus!” Potter shouted as he flicked his wand. Draco was quick all on his own and blocked the jinx.

“No! No! Stop it!” Moaning Myrtle squealed as echoes from the fighting drown out her shrill panicked voice in the tiled room. “Stop! STOP!”

Exploding bins and tiles being blown off the walls filled the room with such noise someone was sure to hear it and come in. Sinks were busted and water flowed over Draco's feet across the floor towards Potter as they dueled and Myrtle shrieked.

Draco felt such mortified embarrassment right then that he did not think of his next action, he just remembered the words his father had taught him and gathered up all his anger and humiliation to make it work.

“Cruci-” he started to say, intent on making Potter pay for the humiliation he felt, but Potter was able to cast a spell that took so much less building, so much less personal effort. Potter cast a Dark Spell that Draco himself had not dared use.

“SECTUMSEMPRA!” he bellowed, voice reverberating off the walls as he knelt on the floor, waving his wand like he had no idea what he was doing.

Everything went red for a moment and there was no pain at first. Draco staggered backwards but collapsed with unsteady legs as his body quickly succumbed to shock and blood loss. His mind could not make sense at first, and then the pain hit, terrible and sharp. At some point he had lost his wand, and through the pain his foggy mind was wondering where it had gotten to, he needed to jinx the holy-hell out of Potter.

He raised his heavy arms to hold his chest that hurt so fiercely and everything just went dark around him, the sounds of Myrtle's shrill screams ringing in his ears.

“Murder! Murder!”

Opening his eyes again in what seemed like only seconds Draco found himself in the hospital ward, staring up at the ceiling.

“I have seen it used before; during the war,” Draco said softly, looking back at the body before him, trying not to remember that night and what Harry Potter had seen, or what he had almost done, or what Potter had done to him. Harry had never once come to see him in the hospital after that, and he had never apologized for nearly murdering him. He seriously doubted Potter even had any truly redeeming qualities.

Reamann strolled about the scene, taking statements and time frames and writing down notes on everything said, carefully averting his gaze from the body until Draco covered it again with the crisp sheet.

Draco was still looking about the scene with intense silver eyes when Reamann took a double take and felt his heart stop. Ron's red hair had a white streak in it that had never been there before and he was looking pounds thinner than he had moments before.

Reamann rushed over to Draco and hissed at him.

“Draco, the potion, your hour is up! Quick, before someone sees you,” he whispered, holding his notebook up to block their faces as they spoke. Draco was becoming more like himself rapidly.

Draco took a gulp from his flask and bent over in the bushes near the police tape, pretending to be ill, something no one on the scene would be surprised by. A moment later a perfectly fit looking Ron stood straight and adjusted his robes. Reamann gave him a stern look.

“Sorry, mate, I was distracted,” he said defensively and Reamann turned away, shaking his head.

The scene was crawling with Muggles, so it was hard to talk with Draco on the case without someone overhearing. They eventually had to wander away slightly, both pretending to drink coffee to discuss the case in any detail.

“So, the same person is behind this as the other attacks?” Reamann asked.

“We won't know for sure until we have them in custody and are able to review their wand to see what spells they have cast, and even with that, the one responsible has also used artifacts to curse the Muggles, which is far more difficult a thing to trace back to someone,” he said from experience, having used a cursed necklace himself before in attempt to anonymously curse and kill someone. He did not mention that though. It was just part of his vast knowledge as far as Reamann was concerned.

“Okay, so we can't prove this is the same person responsible, but do you believe it is? In your opinion?”

“Oh, undoubtedly, I just cannot figure out their angle yet. What is the point of all this? I mean, the man still had a wallet full of money for God's sake, so it wasn't even robbery, nor did they even attempt to disguise it as such,” he said and Reamann looked at Draco, wondering when Draco had the opportunity to go through the dead man's pockets. Why had no one noticed that? “They are not apparently taking anything from these people, these people have no tie to the magical community, and they have no interaction with witches or wizards in their daily lives. Their bodies don't seem to have been used for any sort of ritual, otherwise there would be a residual and lingering aura of ritual magic in the air or they wouldn't have left the bodies behind. It was only in these last two that the Muggles even died,” he said, sounding frustrated.

“I can't see any connection either if that makes you feel any better,” Reamann offered.

“Sorry, it doesn't,” Draco mumbled, take a sip of his very black coffee that was a touch too bitter, like the coffee had allowed to sit and brew for too long and was now stale.

Wrapping up at the crime scene was all up to Reamann. Draco stood aside while Reamann did his job, silently waiting to get out of there and back to the Ministry. Not only was he tired of being Ronald Weasley, but his lunch break was drawing close to two and a half hours now and he seriously could not afford the dock in pay that would result in the lost hours.

“God, Reamann, could you be any slower,” Draco huffed as they walked together away from the scene to a safe Apparition point.

“I have to do my job, Malfoy. I'm sorry if that inconveniences you,” Reamann said back, just as irritable. Spending two hours with a grotesque dead body and Muggles would do that to just about anybody.

“Just take me back to the Atrium where I can run off and hide in shame until this repulsive disguise fades away and I can salvage some of my dignity,” he mumbled, loafing around in Ron's much larger, heavier body.

“Don't take your frustration at not being able to make a break on this case out on me, or poor Ron,” Reamann reprimanded.

“Who says it's the case that's getting to me? I just detest resembling a troll for so long. It compromises my usual grace.”

“Sure, if by `grace' you mean `limp,'” Reamann quipped and Draco glared, fists balled as though ready to hit Reamann. Reamann grabbed a strong hold on Draco as he Disapparated right then, preventing Draco from actually taking a swing at him. They appeared together in the Atrium and Draco yanked his large Ron-arm out of Reamann's grasp, looking wounded.

“Look, I'm sorry, Draco, I shouldn't have said that remark about your…illness,” Reamann apologized. Draco still looked ready to break him in half, and in all honesty, Ron probably could manage given his size.

“Reamann, Ron, what a surprise to see you!” Ginny called from an Apparition point not but a few down the grid from them. She was grinning broadly and walking over to them.

Draco paled, making Ron's freckles stand out so much more, and Reamann shifted uncomfortably to try and head Ginny off.

“Gin, babe, how are you?” he asked, giving her a long and tight embrace. Draco did not know why, but he flushed in anger at that.

Why was he angry that Reamann was hugging his own girlfriend?

Was it because his girlfriend was Ginny and he liked Ginny?

Certainly not.

“I'm good. I just got in from my late lunch. I swung by your office to see if you would join me but was told by the Desk Witch that you had gone off on business…I did not realize Ron had gone with you. It wasn't another terrible scene I hope,” she said, her voice so full of concern and warmth it made Draco's stomach bubble slightly.

“Unfortunately,” Reamann muttered, trying to keep Ginny's attention away from her supposed brother. It did not work however because she tuned from Reamann then.

“Ron,” she said, holding out her arms as though expecting a hug. Draco was rooted in his spot, his heart thudding madly in his massive chest.

What if Ginny asked him something personal only Ron would be able to answer?

What if she tried to carry on a conversation she and Ron had shared before that he was unaware of?

His Legilimency was useful, but not limitless.

He would blow his cover.

He needed to get out of there.

Yet, she wanted to hug him, and he wanted to let her.

Ginny stepped up to him and wrapped her arms around his ribs in a firm hug. Draco held his arms up awkwardly for a moment, unsure of what to do at first but then settled on placing his hands on her back, keeping them well above her waist. Copping a feel, while supposedly her older brother, would likely traumatize her for life or blow his cover. Possibly both. He gave her a squeeze back to satisfy her, but all he knew was that he was going to have a very un-brotherly reaction to her body pressed up against his if she did not let go soon.

“I hope the scene wasn't too terrible. I know how much you hate blood and such,” she said warmly, backing away from her brother with a lingering touch on his arm in such an affectionate way. Draco felt heat rise up from where her hand lingered on his arm, her honest compassion so rich and foreign to him. He had seen it in her so many years ago, but he had somehow forgotten the kindness that could fill her deep brown eyes and make them so inviting and safe.

Draco blushed and Ginny seemed to take that as Ron flushing.

“Was it really that bad?” she asked, looking over at Reamann for the answer.

“It appears that this time the one responsible used Sectumsempra,” he said darkly. Ginny covered her mouth with her hand in a small gasp.

“That's terrible. What kind of a person would wield that awful curse against someone else?” she asked, sounding almost outraged. Draco had to fight not to speak the name that was on his mind. Ron, best mate of Harry Potter, would not accuse Harry of being guilty of such an “awful” thing, even though he was. He somehow doubted Ron would come to Draco's defense and point that out though.

“We don't know yet, sweetheart,” Reamann said, leaning down and kissing her cheek, “but the department and I are working on it as hard as we can. We will break this soon, you'll see,” he assured.

“Alright,” she nodded, smiling sadly.

“I will see you at home tonight,” he said with one final hug.

“Tonight,” she said, only halfheartedly returning the hug before turning to Draco/Ron. She looked him right in the eyes and seemed to consider him for a long moment before giving him one more drawn out hug.

“Don't let your eyes be so haunted, Ron. I know it's terrible, but you will figure this out. You're good at these sorts of things,” she comforted, while holding him. Draco said nothing at first but then managed to choke out a few words.

“Of course,”

“See you boys later,” she said, heading off towards the lifts, a slight bounce in her step as she moved quickly, her robes so dark a green they were almost black billowing out around her as she moved. Draco stared after her long enough for Reamann to say something.

“What's up with you?” he asked.

“What?” Draco asked, blinking and looking over at Reamann.

“You got funny as soon as Ginny showed up. What's up?” he asked and Draco flushed.

“Nothing, I was just nervous that she would ask me something only Ron would be able to answer and blow this,” he said.

“You are about to anyways with that white streak in your hair, Weasley,” he said, hands on his hips. Draco blinked and reached up to touch his hair to find Ron's sleeves becoming increasingly too long on him.

“Shite,” he muttered, turning and hurrying off the Apparition grid to hide over near one of the darker walls. Reamann followed to block Draco from view as he slowly shifted back to his own likeness. It was a good thing it was late so there were few in the Atrium, and the Desk Witch was too busy reading Witch Weekly to notice.

“I hadn't realized an hour had passed,” Draco muttered through his growing discomfort at the change as Reamann held his cloak wide open like a flasher, his back to the room so as to shield Draco.

“You have a terrible sense of time,” he commented.

“You are not the first to point that out to me. My mother always complained about my inability to be on time or judge the passing of time,” he muttered, standing awkwardly in Ron's far-too-large robes and holding the waist of his trousers so they would not fall around his ankles ridiculously. He was left feeling smaller than usual as a result, looking like a boy in his father's robes.

“You think you can manage a short walk to the loo to change?” Reamann asked, noticing too Draco's awkwardness in the sea of robes.

“Probably,” Draco muttered, trying to lift his feet but Ron's shoes sloshing around his smaller foot, threatening to either be left behind, or trip him, or both. “I can't lift the robes, hold up the trousers, and walk with these boats Ron calls shoes on my feet at the same time,” he grumbled, aggravated by his own small size.

He was not that small! Ron was just too large and bulky for his own good; like he had gotten into Skele-Gro Potion at some point since he had last seen him since the war.

“Then kick them off and carry them,” Reamann suggested, speaking of the shoes.

“And walk around without shoes on? Are you barbaric?” Draco asked in outrage, his mother's propriety showing through. No shoes in a public building? A disgraceful thought to say the least. One was never to move about without something on their feet, not even in the privacy of their own home. Slippers were always required at the very least.

“Then shuffle your feet, but we can't stand here all day, we are attracting attention,” Reamann said, letting his robe fall and expose Draco to anyone that cared to look.

Draco grumbled as he shuffled. He felt ridiculous and probably looked it too.

He reached the lavatories where he was able to secure a cubical and change back into his clothing Reamann had packed into his bag for him after having shrunk it down some to fit. Draco folded up Ron's clothing and slipped his own back on, suddenly feeling rather self-conscious about his stature.

Malfoys were not insecure creatures, but spending nearly three hours as a much larger man had put into sharp relief just how short/lightweight he really was.

Ron might have been unusually tall and broad, but having his clothing literally fall off him when changing out of it left Draco feeling substandard and small.

Stepping out, he handed Reamann the neatly folded clothing with the shoes on top but took a little longer to hand the wand back. Just holding the slender piece of wood in his hand made it buzz and vibrate with power.

“Sorry, mate, but Ron does need that back,” Reamann said with a sort of sad humor, like he could tell just how much Draco wanted to just stand there, holding the wand. Draco swallowed hard and gave the wand to Reamann quickly, as though unsure he would be able to do it at all if he didn't to it short and fast, like peeling off a Band-Aid.

Reamann looked at Draco for a moment and then the wand.

“That the first time you have held a wand since being sent to Azkaban?” he asked, the room empty but his voice low anyways. Draco just nodded silently, looking away. “Well, I won't say anything if you wanted, I don't know, to levitate something, or transfigure something, you know, just for old-times sake,” he offered. Draco looked at him shocked at first, then sad.

“No,” he said after a long moment.

“You're sure?”

“It would only make it harder to go day to day, having done magic again,” he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

Reamann looked sad.

“What is it like? I mean, is it hard to resist?” he asked.

“You ever smoke and then try to quit?” Draco asked. Reamann shook his head. “Well, I have, and it's like that, only infinitely worse. Magic is as natural to us as breathing. It's like not being allowed to ever take more than a shallow breath. You whole body just fights so hard to take a deep gasp after a while. It's painful and maddening,” he explained.

“It sounds terrible.”

“Magic is within us, the wands we use are only focusing tools to help us control and center it. A Muggle flicking a wand about could produce sparks at best, and that magic would come from whatever the wand contains, a Dragons Heartstring, a Unicorn Hair, a Phoenix feather, whatever,” he said, taking a deep breath. “We can do magic without wands, but it is broader, harder to control. You are Muggle born,” he said and Reamann nodded, “you remember the first time you accidentally did magic? When you were small and did not know about magic?”

“Yeah, I turned my teacher's hairpiece alive -or something like that- and it attacked him. The whole class thought it was a riot,” he said and Draco nodded.

“Without having an outlet for our magic to escape, it will find its own way, usually when we are scared, or angry, or upset. It builds up until it just erupts out of us unexpectedly.”

“That happens to you?” he asked and Draco nodded. “I never really thought about it like that,” he said.

“My cool and unflappable demeanor is not just because I'm that pretentious. Getting too angry or emotional will lead to things happening, things exploding,” he said, almost able to find the humor in his words. Reamann nodded. “The Accidental Magic Reversal Squad has gotten to know me pretty well over the last three years, having to come and smooth things over when magic accidentally happens around me,” he said, looking a little embarrassed. Reamann knew Draco lived in a Muggle neighborhood and could only imagine the troubles Draco would have inadvertently caused for the Ministry while there.

“You sure you don't want to cast a spell, release some of that pent up magical energy and frustration?” he offered, not quite holding out Ron's wand but sort of tipping it in Draco's direction, handle first.

“I wish I could, but the Ministry keeps careful tabs on me and my magical exertion. They would be able to tell that I cast a spell and I really don't want to wind up back in Azkaban, as nice of a vacationing spot as that is,” he sighed.

Draco took the lifts down as far as they would go and trekked back the long and familiar rout to the Hall of Records. He had promised to send Reamann his report by note as soon as he finished, Reamann off to dress and wake Ron, modify his memory, and then try and catch a quick lunch break, “starving” he had said in regards to how he felt. Draco, passing on the nosh, was not interested in eating, or socializing with Reamann any more.

He hated the fact that he was getting so comfortable around the man that he was opening up to him and letting Reamann see so much of the real him. He had revealed too much of himself to the other man and he was feeling vulnerable and exposed. Reamann knew about his illness, his children, his deceased wife, the dismal state of his living arrangements, and now the truth about not being unable to cast spells and how difficult a thing it was to live with. All he needed to do was share his ambitions and secret crush and they could be best mates.

Only problem was, it was becoming painfully apparent that Reamann's girlfriend was his “secret crush,” and the fact that him and Reamann were becoming close enough to possibly consider each other “friends” was disconcerting to Draco.

He did not have friends, and there was a reason behind that.

Friends become backstabbers or potential blackmailers. No good ever comes of it.

Draco walked into the Hall at a slightly quickened pace. He had to write up a report, and it looked like he would have to stay two hours late to make up for the time lost while on his “extended lunch break.” He would have to send an owl to his mother to tell her to hold onto his children for a little longer. He hated not being able to be home with them, especially since Michelangelo would only be home for a few very short weeks before he would be gone again. He had spent nine years of his son's life apart from him. He did not like that attending Hogwarts meant his son would not be home with him now that he was finally out. He did not know what he would do with himself come next year when Clarissa would be gone too.

He made a mental note to write to Minerva McGonagall. They needed to come to some sort of agreement, some soft of arraignment, so he could see his babies during the school year. After all, it was her fault he had been kept separate from them in the first place he thought bitterly. She owed him.

“Draco,” Coderdale called, seeing Draco nearly jog into the room. “I was wondering when you would be back. I had begun to think you had simply gone home,” he said, not alone at his desk and thusly causing Draco to freeze on the spot. Ginny stood beside Mr. Coderdale, holding a package, smiling while looking a little abashed. “Oh yes, well, Draco, while you were gone this lovely young woman stopped by. Only been here for about fifteen minutes,” he said, indicating Ginny beside him.

“Hello, Draco,” she said softly.

“Hello, Ginny,” he answered, possibly breathless. Had she taken his breath away? Surely the surprise of her being there had, but why couldn't he catch his breath as he looked at her standing there?

“I will let you children talk, I have some shelving to do because of your extended absence,” Coderdale said, speaking to Draco, his voice amused and obviously not bothered that he had to pick up the slack for the time Draco had been out.

“Thank you, Coderdale,” he managed after a moment; Coderdale almost disappeared around a bookshelf by that time.

“I heard you were on lunch but you had been gone a long time, so I figured I would just leave this here for you with a note…but I got to talking to Mr. Coderdale, and well, time passed by,” she said, plucking off and crumpling up a note she had tacked to the long, thin, and flat box she was holding.

“What's this, Weasley?” he asked, stepping up to her slowly and eyeing her for a long moment before finally accepting the gift.

“I was at Honey Dukes and saw these and thought of you. It was totally random that you popped up into my mind like that and it was a purely impulsive buy really, but I figured you wouldn't mind,” she said as Draco untied the purple and gold-trimmed ribbon and opened the white box, revealing sweets inside. “Sponge candy, dipped in dark chocolate. It's your favorite,” she said softly, waiting for his reaction.

“I'm aware of that, but not aware that you were too,” he said, looking back up at her, caught somewhere between great excitement and appreciation with his surprise, and defensive confusion.

“You told me,” she said and Draco did not have to ask, his eyes questioning enough for her to elaborate on that more. “That night we spent together…before the final battle,” she said, almost saying “the night we kissed” but that not being definitive enough anymore since they had now kissed more than once. “I assumed you weren't lying when you said you loved sponge candy,” she said with a smile. She was going to let him hold to what he had said the other night, that she could not believe all he had confessed to that night, and she did not know him, and it had all just been a misunderstanding.

They both knew that was a lie, but if it made him feel better, more secure, she would play along.

Draco knew exactly what she was doing, that she was only pretending to believe that he had not been honest that night to humor him, and he blushed. Damn her for making him blush so much, and damn him for having been so honest that night with her. How was he to know that he would actually survive to have to then later deal with the consequences of his sincerity?

“I can't believe you remembered that,” he said, almost feeling flattered, but then realizing he could recall everything Ginny had told him about herself too and feeling his face grow warm. Damn it.

“Like I said, I just saw them and thought of you. It's the Christmas season, so I figured a gift would be well warranted.”

“You shouldn't be buying me gifts, Weasley, when I still owe you for saving my life,” he said as he set the box down on the desk next to him, happy to be able to turn away so she would not see him finally smile at the gift.

“You saved my life first, Draco, so consider us even.”

“Yes, but my life is worth so much more than yours, Weasley,” he teased and she dropped her jaw in outrage.

“You prat,” she said, reaching up and pinching his upper arm.

“Ouch! Don't pinch. What are you, eight years old?” he asked while reaching up and pinching her arm back.

“Ow! You are such a prat,” she said while laughing, pinching him back, Draco unaware of the grin on his face as he tried to slap her hand away to prevent another pinch, them both laughing at that point.

“Give it up, Weasley,” he said, blocking yet another of her attempts. “Quidditch provided me with excellent reflexes.”

“Don't forget that I was a seeker for a short time too, Draco, and I recall beating you,” she laughed, coming round to manage a pinch.

“Ow! Hey, I was sick you wench,” he said, attempting to pinch her back but just grabbing both her wrists to prevent her from getting another in on him.

“Oh, like you would ever admit to personal weakness, even as an excuse for a poor performance,” she said, looking at him, cheeks flushed from laughter, long red hair tussled from their minor skirmish. “The most you would ever do is exploit an injury,”

“I happen to be very weak and vulnerable, and I would thank you to mind my delicate body,” he said, eyeing her with only a hint of tease in his voice as he smirked at her. “Damn woman, I bruise like a peach,” he whined, arms sore.

“That's what you get for being a prat,” she said, realizing then that he was still holding her arms, and they were so close.

Draco noticed too, but seemed enticed by it.

Taking a deep breath through his nose he pulled her into a hard kiss while holding her to him by her wrists.

Ginny managed to rip her arms out of his grasp but she didn't pull away. On the contrary, she reached around and laced her hands into his long hair at the back of his head, pressing that much harder against him. Their bodies suddenly flush, their breathing was hard as they kissed furiously with enough need to make it seem like they were trying to eat each other from the mouth down.

Draco spun Ginny around so her back was to the desks and pushed her down while blindly sweeping with his left arm to clear a space, knocking her into the lamp slightly, toppling over bottles of ink and a stack of books.

Neither cared nor even noticed the mess they were making as Draco pressed himself against her, pinning her to the desk. They broke the kiss to breathe but Draco did not stop in his kissing, kissing the corner of her mouth, across her cheek to her ear, and then down that sensitive line where her hair bordered her neck behind her ear, sending shivers through her body.

“Draco,” she managed, wrapping right leg around his slender waist, making him press against her in a way that made it painfully obvious how much they each wanted the other; his a much more obvious physical reaction.

“Ginny,” he breathed into her ear, his hands on the desk for support while hers fisted in the back of his sweatshirt.

“Draco?”

Draco and Ginny practically leapt out of their skin.

Mr. Coderdale was standing just beyond the desks having just come around the line of bookshelves to happen onto the scene.

“Oh, oh my goodness,” Ginny muttered, face burning red as Draco leaned up off her to plant his feet more firmly on the floor, pulling Ginny standing in that same motion so that they were still flush but now upright. With a step back, they were left standing there, faces burning red, clothing and hair ruffled.

“I'm, I'm sorry, I just heard a commotion, I didn't realize,” Mr. Coderdale stammered, looking embarrassed himself.

“I think I ought to go. I'll see you…talk to you…some other time, Draco…Malfoy…” Ginny stumbled over her words, looking horrified and blushing so badly her hair clashed. Draco was looking as pink as a sunburned albino as he nodded readily, silent, biting his bottom lip, hands deep in his pockets to try and disguise his body's very noticeable and thusly embarrassing excitement.

Ginny fled the room leaving Draco standing there with Coderdale, both not wanting to be the first to say anything. Coderdale broke the silence eventually though.

“Ginny Weasley,” he said, Draco refusing to look at him. “Isn't she dating your partner, Draco?” he asked, making it clear what he was inferring, that he was outraged at what he had walked in on.

Draco nodded and said nothing.

Ginny was Reamann's girlfriend.

Reamann was his partner.

Ginny was a Weasley.

What was he thinking?

He had no idea, but whatever it was, it was obvious she had been thinking the same thing.

Maybe they both had Wrackspurts buzzing around in their ears.

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Author's Note:

Alright, in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, page 217, when Harry becomes Goyle using the Polyjuice Potion, he doesn't need his glasses anymore. “Then he realized that his glasses were clouding his eyes because Goyle obviously didn't need them-”… but in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Bartemius Crouch Jr. uses Mad-Eye's magical glass eye and can see with it (though he was then lacking an eye otherwise.) I'm sure Draco, if he became Ron, would not need his glasses still, but because I wasn't sure at the time of writing this chapter, I wrote him using them. If that is not canon, sorry.

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Blue-Eyed Angel

Chapter Ten

Reamann, after pacing his office for twenty minutes and getting no reply from the notes he sent down to Draco, was fed up and decided to go down to see him. He had thought that Draco would have the report ready and waiting for him by the time he got back from his lunch, but thinking maybe he was expecting too much from him, had given Draco some extra time. He appreciated all that Draco did for him, but now with his report nearly due and his meeting pending, he really could not wait any longer.

He couldn't imagine what was taking Draco so long. Was it because he had actually gone to the scene that he had so much more to say in the report and summary, that it would take that much longer to write up?

Why didn't Draco just reply to one of his notes saying as much if that were the case?

He was not sure, but he was about to find out.

Reamann kept an eye open for any notes flying overhead as he made his way down, hoping maybe to intercept Draco's message on its way up before he got to the Hall, but there were none. A few were heading towards the Hall, but none in response.

It wasn't until he was opening the heavy door with its groaning hinges (notes passing in through the small carved opening in the wall above the door) did he hear the voices and the sounds of several people moving around from inside.

“Now, Mr. Malfoy, you really don't want us to lose our patience do you?” a man with a superior and condescending accent that could rival Draco's drawled. Reamann lingered in the doorway, taking in the scene before him.

Draco was standing just to the left of his desk, arms hugging himself tight in a vulnerably angry sort of way, lips pursed together in an irate yet upset way, like someone was doing something terribly and personally insulting to him.

There were four additional men in the room with him, and were the obvious cause of Draco's mood.

One stood at Draco's back looking imposing, two riffled through Draco's desk haphazardly, and standing to the right was the one that had evidently spoken. Mr. Coderdale stood at a distance beyond the desks, nearly amongst the shelves, looking conflicted and helpless as he too watched the scene before him.

When the door opened everyone's attention went to Reamann except Draco's whose head dropped and long hair draped across it.

“Who do we have here?” the man that had spoken before asked. Reamann vaguely recognized him. He was an Auror from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and he had seen him before a few times. He was slender built but tall, with solid black and shining hair. His goatee was purely villainous and his crisp black robes with the pinstripe vest made him look all the more intimidating.

“Ah, Mr. Rossiter, so good of you to join us,” he said, recognizing Reamann at last, still as condescending as before.

“Who are you?” he asked, trying not to sound confrontational as he let the door slowly close behind him.

“Sebastian Aurum,” he said, holding out his leather gloved hand to Reamann to shake. “The department send you down?” he asked, Reamann striding over closer to shake his outstretched hand once firmly. He then stepped back to look the man over again. He was pale, and angular, with a strong face that was only complemented by the mustache and goatee. His eyes were so dark they almost looked black from a distance but up close Reamann could see they were actually blue. He stood very proud, like he was happy about something. Reamann disliked him on sight.

“No,” he said, looking over at Draco but Draco still avoiding his gaze.

“I was just assigned to this case myself, so I suppose this makes us partners of sorts now,” he continued on crisply.

“What are you doing down here?” Reamann asked. Draco made very strong, purposeful eye contact through his hair for only a moment, telling Reamann to come to him without giving anything away with his body.

“Why, investigating the case, of course,” Sebastian said with a satisfied grin, like he knew something Reamann didn't.

“If you are looking for texts, I think you are going about it the wrong way,” Reamann commented, watching as Draco's things were looked through in a very disrespectful manner.

“No, no, I'm not here for texts. I'm investigating our first and only suspect.”

“Who, Malfoy?” Reamann asked in surprise and outrage, coming to stand very close to Draco without making it apparent that Draco had signaled him over.

“I do not know of any other way a hair of Draco Malfoy's would end up at a crime scene, unless he was there,” the man said with a self-satisfied smile.

“You found one of Dr-Malfoy's hairs at the scene?” Reamann asked, feeling his stomach drop. He was mentally cursing himself dizzy. Draco was in a whole lot of trouble, and it was his fault wasn't it. Obviously Draco had shed a hair while in Ron-form, but the hair had shifted back to being a Draco hair after an hour. They had found evidence to link Draco to the case only because Reamann had taken him there. Reamann couldn't admit to that though, not without getting them both in very serious trouble, and he felt sick to his stomach.

“Maybe someone planted it,” Draco scathed, lips sourly pursed together still. Reamann looked over at him and it took all of his self control not to gape at him. Draco wasn't ratting him out, not even to save himself? He was not explaining how the hair had gotten there, not that he had done it but that Reamann had been using him to write his reports and had used a Polyjuice Potion to sneak him onto the scene? Draco would still get in trouble in the end, either way, but he was not bringing him, Reamann, down with him? Reamann was unbelievably thankful, but surprised and shocked that Malfoy would not do all in his power to save his own skin or spread the blame around.

Draco was taking the fall for him?

Reamann felt sick again.

“Still harping on about such fallacies, Malfoy?”

“They are not fallacies, the Ministry did all in their power to ensure I was sent to Azkaban…”

“You were sent because you failed under the influence of Veritaserum to preserve your innocence,” he cut off with a harsh smile. “The Ministry did not set you up; you were asked very simple and straightforward questions and you were forced to tell the truth. It was only unfortunate for you that the truth was that you had tried to kill Dumbledore, and that you had worked for the Dark Lord, and that you had voluntarily joined his Death Eaters. You bear the Dark Mark and you have no one to blame but yourself, Malfoy, for why you wound up in Azkaban.” He then continued on darkly, “and know this: if I had been in charge of your sentencing, you would have not gotten that slap-on-the-wrist term,” he said, voice harsh, eyes hateful.

Draco looked sour. Reamann glanced over at him while standing close, and Draco slipped something down out of his sleeve into his hand where he then passed it to Reamann subtly. Reamann closed his hand around it slowly so as not to draw attention to the exchange and put his hand in his pocket immediately so he could feel around and try to determine what it was Draco have given him. It was a thickly folded piece of parchment. It must have been the report he had been writing, something terribly incriminating for both of them if it had been found. He had managed to hide it, and now Reamann had it. Draco made lingering eye contact again and Reamann understood.

“Malfoy didn't do this,” he said positively.

“Really? And you know this how?” Sebastian asked, looking amused as ever, but this time at Reamann's expense, like Reamann was a child who had just said something cute amongst the adults. “You are a translator our department is borrowing. You do not solve cases, you do not decipher clues, you work with Muggles,” he said, if possible, sounding even more condescending than before. “It is up to me and the rest of the Department of Aurors to determine Malfoy's innocence, using our evidence.”

“Sectumsempra was used, and Draco cannot cast magic,” he said fiercely, cutting Sebastian off. Draco was very wisely staying quiet and withdrawn from the conversation. He seemed embarrassed, but he was not about to jump to his own defense and give up Reamann, so Reamann had to repay him by coming to his defense any way he could.

“He could have used someone else's wand.”

“You know as well as I do the Ministry is keeping close watch on him. They would know if he cast a spell, regardless of whose wand he used,” Reamann said, grateful now that he and Draco had had their little talk in the bathroom. Draco still hated that he had been so honest with Reamann, but that was paying off surprisingly well for him. He was not about to turn over a new leaf nor had he learned any kind of “lesson” or anything, but it was a nice change from what he was normally used to.

He still dreaded the point when Reamann would use such information against him and stab him in the back. Draco had come to expect such things from all people.

“You think so do you?”

“I know so.”

“Then maybe you can explain to me how one of his pretty little hairs got on my scene?” he asked, still looking amused and only pissing Reamann off further. Draco had a way of making people feel like they were lower than him with his attitude despite how meager his standard of living was now, but this Sebastian had a way of making him feel stupid and Reamann really hated that. Draco at least waited for you to say something stupid before he made you feel dumb for it.

“I come down here often for texts and have spent time with Malfoy here. The hair could have been on me and I could have left it there,” he said, trying to come up with a believable lie off the top of his head, something he was not good at. Draco was, however, and the sideways look he gave him was some indication of how bad the lie had been.

“It was a white hair longer than my arm, not something that one would overlook easily when it's clinging to them,” he said, clearly not buying into the lie.

“Get some Veritaserum and ask him where he was in the timeframe of the attack. I can guarantee you he will answer something other than killing a Muggle in a park,” he said confidently. He was not sure what Draco had been up to when the attack had happened, but whatever it was, it was better than killing Muggles, for sure.

“I don't know, Draco has never been very good at maintaining his innocence under Veritaserum,” he mocked and Draco's eyes darkened in a hostile way. Sebastian laughed out loud at Draco's silent threat and looked over to the desk to see Draco's gift from Ginny.

“Oh,” he said, reaching down, “don't mind if I do,” he said with a smile, grabbing one of Draco's sweets, Draco's gaze only intensifying. “We will get to the bottom of this Malfoy. You were at that scene and I intend to find out why. Until then, watch yourself, because we will be watching you,” Sebastian warned, taking a bite of the sponge candy, signaling to the other wizards in the room to give up their search and leave with him. Draco watched them leave with arms still crossed.

“I really hate that man,” Draco muttered at last, his hair still hanging down in front of his face partially.

“You know him?” Reamann asked, looking back at the door that was already closed.

“He likes to think of himself as some Minister of Magic in the making and enjoys busting my balls. He fought damn hard to prevent my probation and he has been bitter ever since I got out. He has made it a point to hassle me whenever an opportunity presents itself,” he said, Coderdale joining them. “I wouldn't be surprised if that sod planted one my hairs at the scene. That's the kind of sleazy thing he would do.”

“But he didn't plant your hair there, it probably…” Reamann started but Draco shot him a glare to shut him up as Coderdale looked questioningly at both of them.

“Draco, what's going on?” Coderdale asked. Draco just tucked his hair behid his ear, moved over to his desk, and searched through the mess to find parchment and a damaged quill. He then moved around to Coderdale's desk for a surface to write on and an unbroken inkwell.

“Draco?” Reamann asked.

“I need to send an owl to my mother who is home right now with my children. The Ministry is undoubtedly either there, or on their way over there, to toss my place and I don't want my children home when that happens. I don't need them scared,” he said, sounding angry and rightfully so. He didn't mention that he didn't want Minisrty Wizards showing up at his pad and discovering his children. Few knew about them and he liked keeping it that way. He also wasn't really ready to deal with Reamann yet. Ginny had only been gone for an hour and he was still trying to get his mind in order.

“Is there anything I can do?” Reamann offered, Coderdale nodding readily, wishing to do the same. Draco just shook his head before calling for his ghost-faced Barn Owl to swoop down from somewhere out of the dark ceiling. Draco attached his letter to the owl and allowed it to rest on his forearm as he walked it over to the door and sent it on its way, up and out of the Ministry to find its way home.

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“I feel just awful,” Reamann said to Ginny later that night as they lay in bed. He could not sleep, and she was kept awake by her own guilt and his story. He told her about his afternoon and the Aurors suspecting Draco, but not how the hair really had ended up at the scene or how guilty he felt about the trouble Draco was in simply because he refused to rat him out to save himself.

Ginny had listened but did not tell Reamann about her afternoon with Draco.

She was left so conflicted over it that she could not even look Reamann in the eyes, and at a time when he so badly needed comfort from her.

“It's not fair, really. The Ministry still bullies him,” she said, angry.

“That Sebastian prat said that Draco had failed under Veritaserum. I read about that, and it seemed rather straightforward. How can he be innocent when he confessed to such things under the most powerful truth potion known?” he asked. Ginny crossed her arms tight across her chest, glaring at her knees that were covered by the blankets.

“You don't believe him innocent?” she accused.

“No, I mean, no I believe him innocent, I swear,” he assured, feeling conflicted because he honestly was not sure about Draco.

Ginny sighed as though letting out some of her anger so she could speak without biting Reamann's head off. She was not mad at him, she shouldn't snap at him.

“The Ministry wanted Draco to be guilty, and he could only answer their questions `yes' or `no' so they only asked him the things that would land him in Azkaban. Yes, he had tried to kill Dumbledore, but in the end he just couldn't do it and joined our side. Yes, he had gotten the Dark Mark, but not because he wanted to be a Death Eater. Yes, he served the Dark Lord, but because he was a double agent and needed to maintain appearances. They did not give him a chance to explain himself or his motives. They just took his answers and within twenty minutes of deliberating they found him guilty. He was sentenced three days later. No one is run through a trial and sentencing that quick unless people already have it set in their minds whether or not that person is guilty,” she said bitterly.

“What about appeals?” he asked.

“Denied every time. He had no one to defend him,” she said, sounding ready to cry at the last. She wished she had known what was happening; she wished she could have been there to defend him. She could have saved him, she should have saved him. After the war she had been whisked away to recover from all the hysteria. She and Harry had been off, secluded, able to deal with all that happened in private, only to find out later what had been happening back home, only after it was too late to help.

“That's just terrible,” Reamann said.

“And the Ministry, even after all that Harry has done to reform it for the better, still picks on Draco and the others that were sent away to Azkaban. It's not fair, and it's not right,” she said, wishing Hermione and Ron had known about Draco's final turn for good at the time.

Like she had told Draco during their lunch, Hermione would not have handed him over to the Aurors in the first place if she had known or would have, at the very least, been able to defend him in the trial. But, the only ones other than Harry or Ginny that knew the truth about Draco's final turn were the Death Eaters captured, and they certainly weren't about to help Draco out.

“I need to make this up to him, somehow,” Reamann said, Ginny only half listening, her mind miles away, thinking about Draco, that night they spent together so many years ago, and the kisses they had now shared. Kisses. Three kisses. Not just little kisses either, but full-blown snogging. What was she going to do?

What had she been thinking?

Why had she even bought him the sweets in the first place when she knew it would be taken the wrong way?

It was just an innocent gift…but why was she not so sure?

Why does he make her brain get all fuzzy whenever she is around him?

Why does he make her body prickly and tight with shivers running down her spine when he gets close?

Why does he keep kissing her, and why does she keep letting him?

She needed to talk to him, and this time she was not going to let herself get distracted by his lips, or his eyes, or his scent…

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It was the afternoon before the final battle, the morning after the full moon, and fighting was already ensuing. From daybreak the Order had fought the Death Eaters. Casualties on both sides were high, and morale was slipping, but still they raged on, neither to be the side that backed down first.

Draco stood by the Order, Hermione and Ginny to his back. Luna and Neville had been with them, but not anymore. Luna was dead, and Neville's state was unknown at that point.

“We can't beat them,” Hermione shouted, throwing hexes at the werewolves but accomplishing very little. Werewolves were too powerful a magical creature to be easily harmed while transformed. It was why the Dark Lord had called them to join his side and why he had forced their change to linger even after the moon has fallen from the sky with dawn. His powerful and ancient dark magic that seeped forth from his castle in the distance trapped the lesser wolves, the Order having not expected to have to deal with the wolves after daybreak and were now at a loss of what to do. The Giants were defeated, and the Dementors not yet unleashed, but the Death Eaters and Werewolves were still out in force and everyone was exhausted.

“There has to be a way,” Ginny called, sending her own hex around the tree to the Werewolf that was fast approaching. Draco had yet to send a spell at anyone, on either side.

“No ideas are coming to me, and they are coming up on us, fast,” Hermione said, panic setting in as the wolves neared. What would be worse, being torn apart by them, or simply mauled and left alive to then suffer the disease?

“Draco? Any ideas?” Ginny called. She waited for a response but got none. Looking over at him she saw Draco panting at the base of the tree, skin shining with sweat, hands balled into tight fists. He had looked ill since he had reappeared that morning, and he had managed to get progressively worse as the morning drew long and the afternoons sun cast high. As the sun now waned, drawing the shadows of the trees long, he looked ready to collapse.

“Draco?” Hermione asked, calling across the trees and distance between them.

“I'm awright,” he breathed, not sounding alright in the least.

“What's wrong?” Ginny asked, neither of the girls knowing of Draco's condition yet or how much of a struggle it had been for him to even shift back that morning, let alone what it took for him not to shift back right then with the Dark Lord's influence sweeping across the hollow.

“Nothing…nothing,” he panted. “Anyone who has survived has gone down that way, towards the creek. We don't have any other options, or time to debate it, so I would suggest going that way,” he said, swallowing hard the vomit that was burning at the back of his throat.

“Come on then,” Hermione said, grabbing Ginny's hand and pulling her along, past Draco, down towards the creek. Draco said it was safe, and it couldn't be any worse than being in the direct path of the wolves, so she took Draco's word for it.

Draco, some paces behind and looking unsteady, slid down the steep, snowy embankment towards the icy water. He was taking his time, and the reason why was apparent once the girls came around the bend.

“You son-of-a-!” Hermione screamed before she was silenced by a charm. Ginny let out a scream of her own before she too was gagged and tied up. Draco approached slowly, figurative tail between his legs as he passed the two struggling girls as they glared at him.

“Very good, Draco. Just two of the little ones, but excellent bait for Potter. His Mudblood best friend and his girlfriend,” the Death Eater before them praised, looking pleased as his partial mask would allow them to see. Draco sloshed through the ankle deep ice water hugging his arms and looking uncomfortable. Hermione was making angry sounds through the gag that was magically tied in place.

“Oh, oh, what? Is there something you would like to say to Mr. Malfoy, my dear?” the Death Eater teased, Draco panting at his back, looking ill.

The man, using Hermione's own wand, removed the gag only and she immediately went off on Draco.

“We trusted you! We believed you when you said you did not truly want to be a Death Eater! We listened to your sob-story and took pity on you, you bastard!” she screamed at him, Draco's eyes locking with her because he knew if he looked away it would be seen as a weakness, on both sides.

“You stupid little Mudblood. Don't you know?” the Death Eater laughed, grabbing Draco by the arm and shoving up his sleeve to reveal his Dark Mark and scars, “The Dark Mark can only be given to the willing. Draco got his mark after he turned seventeen. That was after he had failed in killing Dumbledore. You foolish girl,” he laughed, Draco standing there awkwardly with his bare arm being held out to Hermione and Ginny who now too was making angry sounds while she was still gagged. They could see the Mark and were thankfully too angry to acknowledge anything but that, not even the long vertical gash that ran up his forearm, barely healed.

“Take them up to the castle for our Lord to do with as he pleases. Take the boy with you. It looks like his control won't last much longer.”

Ginny was tossed over one Death Eater's shoulder, and Hermione was gagged once again and pushed along, her wand pointed at her back. They were led across the hollow and up a secret, or just well hidden, passage to the castle that stood dark and looming above them despite the cheery and bright winter sun of the late afternoon. Fighting could still be heard and the growling and howling of the werewolves only seemed to make Draco look dizzier.

“I think we are going to have to sedate the boy,” the Death Eater that was carrying Ginny said over his shoulder to the one at Hermione's back.

“Boy, if you start to shift on us we will jinx you into a coma. We don't want your disease,” he warned, Hermione looking over at Draco with shocked eyes. Draco had stopped climbing the stairs to lean against the stone wall and pant, his hair wet from sweat despite the cold.

“Keep moving, the Dark Lord is the only one that can stop his spell from affecting you,” the first Death Eater said, taking his hand off Ginny's back for a moment to grab Draco by the shoulder and turn him. With a rough push he encouraged him up the stairs, Ginny still kicking. Draco stumbled onto his hands and knees as he climbed after the shove but managed to right himself and ascend properly, slowly, his body weak.

The rooftop of the old castle was crumbling and covered in snow. There were signs that in the spring and summer moss covered a great deal of stone, but right then everything was harsh and grey, white snow clinging in spots, ice in others. Lord Voldemort stood near the roof's edge, looking over the scene in the hollow below, looking pleased. The fighting was in the woods, but he was able to see the flashes of spells and hear the distant shouting. He stood there, enjoying it like some enjoyed listening to the birds in the trees, and smiled. His smile was crooked and all wrong on his snake-like face.

“Ah, Mr. Malfoy, I see you have returned to me, unchanged and not with Potter, but two of his little friends. I can't say I'm proud, but I am pleased,” he said, folding his hands behind his back while turning to look at the two young women before him. Ginny and Hermione were gagged and struggling, scared now more than angry like before. Now, in the presence of the Dark Lord, they felt powerless and small.

“Please, my Lord…your spell…” Draco gasped, falling to his knees while holding his stomach, panting and wheezing. Voldemort looked amused.

“You surprise me, littlest of the Malfoys. I had honestly expected you remain in your shift, yet you fought it to change back and have not succumbed to it all this time? I am impressed, to say the least,” he said, looking down at Draco, Ginny and Hermione looking too, their shocked realization that Draco was most definitely a werewolf overriding their fear for the moment.

“Not a Lesser-wolf, are you?” he asked. Draco just sobbed, the pain becoming too great. He was a young wolf, but he had remarkably been able to successfully fight the change. Draco knew he was a Greater-wolf having faced Greyback already and been told as much, but he was still new. He did not have the skill and control Greyback had had…he had his stubborn Malfoy will, but that was not enough. He could not fight the change anymore.

“I suppose, since you returned to me with these two lovely gifts, I should reward you,” he smiled, pulling his right arm out from behind him to reveal his long wand. Voldemort pointed its tip at Draco and Draco felt his heart stop for a moment, not knowing if the Dark Lord would help him, or just kill him right on the spot. One could never tell with the Dark Lord what his intentions were.

Without muttering his incantation the Dark Lord eased the pressure Draco was feeling. Draco took a gasping breath of relief as he fought not to collapse, no longer feeling like he was on the painful verge of shifting.

“That better?” he asked in a babying voice.

“Yes, my Lord, thank you,” Draco said, practically groveling at Voldemort's feet, head down while still on his knees. The Dark Lord reached down and Draco, knowing what was expected of him, reached up and gripped the man's hand. Draco was pulled over to Voldemort's legs while he was still crouching where he was then encouraged to just sit as Voldemort stroked his hair, like Draco was a dog. The girls looked on and Draco looked away, not wanting to see what they were thinking; the looks on their faces.

The Dark Lord stroked Draco's head contently, smiling at his new captives.

“Didn't know Draco here was a wolf, did you?” he asked, Draco's eyes darkening as he sat there, practically clinging to the man's left leg, like the Dark Lord wanted.

Hermione and Ginny made some noises and Voldemort laughed, grabbing Draco's hair in a fist. Draco winced but made no sound.

“Your services are no longer needed at the moment, littlest of the Malfoys,” he said, releasing Draco's hair from his tight grip and petting it again, as though soothing the pain he had just caused.

Draco, crouching on his hands and knees, ready to scurry away, dared an apologetic glance at Hermione and Ginny before fleeing back the way they had come, down the stairs, the door closing behind him. He was thankful to have been dismissed by the Dark Lord. That meant he could leave, the Dark Lord sending a searing pain through his Dark Mark if he needed him again.

“Now,” Voldemort said, clearly speaking to Ginny and Hermione even though he was not even facing them. “What to do with you two.”

Hermione made an angry sound at him.

“A temper this one has, and this one,” he said, looking over to Ginny then. “Quite the spunky attitude I get from her, in those eyes there is such spirit,” he whispered teasingly. “Harry Potter cares for both of you, making you two excellent bait, but,” he said, looking mockingly sad, “I really don't need both of you,” he said, looking at the two of them, back and forth between them, like he was trying to decide something. “Which witch should I keep? The filthy little Mudblood, or the disgraceful Blood-Traitor?” he asked the three Death Eaters on the roof that were making encouraging and amused murmurs.

Hermione mumbled something into her gag and the Dark Lord smiled.

“Yes, dear?” he asked, flicking his wand to remove her gag in a puff of blackish smoke.

“You will not win this!” she shouted.

“Oh, but I already have,” he laughed. “Look, and listen, to the fighting below. Tell me who is winning.”

“You have not met Harry yet. Come face to face with him and you will fail!”

“You have such confidence in that boy?”

“As confident as you are scared,” she snapped back.

“Well, I now know which one I'm going to kill and send back to Mr. Potter in pieces,” Voldemort scathed, looking livid.

Hermione looked over at Ginny with a meaningful glance that Ginny only had enough time to register as being significant before there was a loud blast. The Dark Lord was taken by surprise by it, and the Death Eaters too. Ginny was thrown aside, the binding spells placed on her breaking and leaving her free as she lay there.

When the smoke cleared, Hermione had her wand back from the unconscious Death Eater that had bound them and she was sending hexes at Voldemort who was blocking them and sending them off in other directions.

“Filthy Mudblood!” he shouted. Ginny had forgotten the potions Draco had given them hours before while down in the woods, saying to only break the glass vials so that they mixed as a last resort. Ginny had gotten the impression that they were suicide potions, meant to take out themselves as well as those around them when they were left without any more options, but she had lost faith in them when Draco had handed them over to his Dark Lord. It looked like Hermione either recognized the concoctions, or had felt there was nothing to lose in trying them. Now she was free, and Ginny was too. Maybe they would actually manage to escape!

Ginny jumped to her feet and grabbed her wand from the Death Eater that Hermione had knocked out with the explosion. She hexed the Death Eater that was rushing her and he screamed as Bat-Bogeys attacked his face, keeping him from being able to grab her.

“Stop her!” Voldemort screamed, casting a harsh spell at Hermione that she only just managed to block.

The only other remaining Death Eater rushed Ginny and she tried to raise her wand to cast another spell but didn't have a chance. In the time it took her brain to think of a spell and have her wand poised, the man had crashed into her, knocking her off balance and nearly sending her wand out of her hand. Realizing how close she had come to losing her wand, Ginny gripped it tight like it was all that mattered in the world at that moment. Honestly, that was not far from the truth.

Staggering, she prevented herself from falling and she spun around while her hair flew in her face in a cold rush of winter wind from over the edge of the rooftop. She was disoriented enough to not block the red jet of harsh light that hit her in the chest. Ginny took it full on and it knocked her breath out like a Bludger to the ribs. Her whole body was picked up and thrown backwards. Her hip cracked against the low wall of the rooftop and she only just managed not to fall.

“Ahh!” she screamed, her hip taking the full force of the impact.

Ginny looked up, a stone from the wall she was leaning on shifting and falling, nearly sending her over the edge with it.

The Death Eater raised his wand to cast another spell and Ginny raised hers to counter it when the man just rushed her, the wall crumbling at Ginny's back and causing her to fall with only a little added shove from the man.

Ginny screamed, high and long as she felt herself falling, stones all around her as they plummeted towards the frozen hollow below. Her wand was still clutched tightly in her hand but she could not think of a spell to save her. Her mind was numb with fear as the snow and rock covered ground drew closer.

That was when she felt like someone had slugged her in the gut.

With an “umph!” she was suddenly no longer falling but coasting up away from the ground. Looking down there was an arm around her waist, looking over her shoulder Ginny saw whom that arm belonged to. A woman, a woman she did not know. They were on a broom, and they were flying away from the castle at breakneck speed.

“What…who are you,” she managed to shout over the whistling wind in their ears, her hair whipping back away from her face, the woman's attention forward with such concentration it almost looked like she was trying to ignore Ginny.

Ginny did not want to come across as ungrateful or anything since the woman had saved her life, but she had no idea who she was or where she was taking her.

The woman flew her broom over the trees, away from the castle and the hollow, to land some distance away. It was late afternoon by then and the sun was setting, it getting so dark so early those cold winter days.

Ginny was roughly released from the woman's grip as she slowed and leveled off near the ground. Ginny stumbled, running as she tried to prevent herself from falling, the woman gliding a few feet more before dismounting from her broom.

“Who…who are you?” Ginny asked again, hugging herself in the cold, her hand still tight around her wand, not feeling as though she could trust the woman for some reason.

The woman looked right at Ginny for a moment but said nothing. She drew a wand from inside her robes and Ginny immediately pointed hers, ready for anything. The woman paid her no mind and instead just cast a spell that made blue flames dance above the snow, instantly warm and burning bright.

Ginny lowered her wand as the woman busied herself, manifesting some supplies, like some bedding that had been shrunken down and tucked away in her pockets, and some food that she started to prepare over the fire. They were at the base of a large dark tree, near the edge of the woods, the castle still able to be seen in the distance. They must have been two or three miles away then, but the broom ride had been so quick. The trees had blurred past.

Ginny realized the woman wasn't going to answer her questions, and got the impression with how she had saved her life and was now preparing food for two, she wasn't going to hurt her. Was the woman one of the promised Aurors? She didn't recognize her, but she was in black robes and had a wand, and had helped her…that was the only conclusion she could come to. Ginny cleared away some of the standing snow from the ground with her wand so there was space to sit on the hard, frozen ground, dry now thanks to wonderful, wonderful, magic.

The woman, after some time, made a small groaning noise and set the tea kettle down. Ginny looked over at her with concern, wondering if she asked her if she was alright that a question would finally warrant an answer. The woman turned away and covered her face, something seemingly moving under her robes, like something shifting.

“Are you…are you okay?” Ginny finally asked after the woman fell to her knees and remained there for a moment, her breathing evening out at last, head out of view as it rested on the ground so that all Ginny could see was a black lump of robes from behind.

“I'm fine, Weasley.” Draco's voice came drifting from the robes, shocking Ginny silent and still. She could not move as Draco slowly pushed up from the ground and straightened, his blond hair hanging in his eyes slightly, robes a little askew on his frame. He took a deep breath and ran both his hands through his shoulder-length hair, pushing it back from his face to look instantly more put together and collected.

“Malfoy?” she shouted, suddenly pointing her wand at him, unable to decide what jinx or hex she wanted to use on him first.

“Now, Weasley, is that any way to treat the one who just saved your life?” he asked calmly, not pulling his wand to defend himself, not sounding angry. He stood there calmly, looking down Ginny's wand to her face.

“You two-timing son-of-a-bitch,” she snarled.

“I had to do what I had to do, Weasley, you must understand that.”

“You sold us out!”

“Because I had to, to maintain appearances,” he said, finally adding a little emotion to his bland voice. “The Dark Lord doesn't trust me because he thinks I'm weak and I have failed him in the past. He doesn't trust me because of my Occlumency. Because of that I have to constantly demonstrate my loyalties to him. I gave him you and Granger. He will trust me for a day longer, and that is all we need,” he said.

“You gave him me and Hermione so you can continue to be ambiguous in this war, and expect me to accept and be fine with that? I don't even know whose side you're on and now Hermione is stuck over there and…”

“She Disapparated away after you fell, Weasley,” Draco said calmly, having hidden to watch the whole scene unfold after being dismissed, jumping in to save Ginny when he realized she could not save herself. He knew Granger could handle herself as he flew off while disguised with Ginny. No one could Apparate to the castle, but they could Disapparate out, fortunate enough for Granger.

“She is not dead, nor is she hurt…physically, but she thinks you're dead. I'm sorry for that, and whatever pain that knowledge will bring her, but I cannot do anything about it. I took the Polyjuice Potion I had pre-mixed after being dismissed, in hopes that I would not be discovered double-crossing…him…while saving you two, not after just having won his momentary trust again. Granger took care of herself; do not be angry at me for saving your life. You two would have died out in those woods if I had not gotten you out of the path of those werewolves,” he said, finally sounding angry.

“Werewolves, like you,” she spat and Draco's expression fell. He suddenly no longer looked angry. He actually looked really wounded.

“Yes, Weasley, like me,” he said softly. “You would have ended up dead, or worse, ended up like me, if I had not gotten you out of there. So please, just eat your supper. It's going to be a cold night and a long day tomorrow,” he said, flopping down onto the ground Ginny had cleared and poking at the food levitating above the fire moodily.

Ginny looked at him for a long time before finally falling to her knees. She could not look away.

“I do not like being stared at,” he grumbled, hunching his shoulders slightly and refusing to look over at her.

“I had no idea you were a, a…”

“Werewolf?” he offered.

“When did this happen?” she asked as Draco poked at the food with his wand.

“It's a long story,” he mumbled.

“We have some time to kill, right?” she asked, suddenly feeling foul for how she had spoken to Draco moments before.

She still was not sure whose side he was on, but he had just saved her life. She owed him at least the opportunity to explain himself…right?

Draco looked over at her, really looking at her for the first time, eyes locking with her deep brown ones, the kindness and concern in them so genuine it made his closed-off heart warm just a little.

He had sat together with her in the cold snow before, while camping with the Order out in the woods, and she had seemingly extended him kindness then when no one else would, she simply thinking he was a Death Eater turned traitor…now she was looking at him, kindness and understanding in her eyes still, even though she knew he was a werewolf.

She was not rejecting him, or being cruel. She looked as though she was concerned and willing to listen.

Why?

No one was that kind…not to him…

Draco looked away, feeling a flush creep up his neck and cheeks.

He supposed telling her a little about himself would do no harm…he was going to die come tomorrow anyways.

Draco sat up from his bed, panting.

“Goddamn memories, let me be,” he muttered, rubbing his damp face. He had woken before the memory had progressed to a little later that evening where he and Ginny had kissed so passionately while still camping together, after they had talked for some hours, but just knowing that was where the memory had been leading was enough to make him groan a little.

Draco felt weight shift beside him and he looked down to smile and brush the hair away from the face of his young guest. He woke up many nights and mornings next to a beautiful young woman. Of course, this frequent guest was his daughter who often came to sleep in his bed with him in the middle of the night, but that was fine. He couldn't imagine waking up beside a more beautiful girl.

The image of waking up beside a young woman with fiery red hair spread across his pillows popped into his mind and Draco quickly shook his head to try and rid himself of such thoughts.

“No, no, no,” he scolded himself, eyes closed tight. It was a bad thing that he had such thoughts abut her. Bad, bad, bad.

“Daddy?” Clarissa mumbled from beside him. Draco stopped shaking his head to blink and look down at his daughter.

“Hmm?” he asked softly, smiling gently.

“You okay?” she asked voice soft and sleepy, her face droopy but the concern still readable.

“Yes, sweet pea, I'm awright,” he assured, being honest.

He was alright. He was plagued by memories all the time, it was something he was used to even if he still hated it, and there were worse things than having Ginny Weasley cross his mind now and then, he supposed.

Clarissa smiled at him and both shifted their attention when Draco's bedroom door opened. Michelangelo poked his head in, looking bashful while wrapped up in his navy-blue bed blanket still, the edge pulled up over his head like a hood as he hugged it closed around him, messy locks of his platinum hair poking out to cover his forehead.

“I can't sleep,” he mumbled.

Draco just smiled understandably and patted the mattress on his left for Michelangelo to join them. Clarissa scooted over so Draco could shift a little to the right and make room for his son on the narrow bed. They all snuggled down together, Clarissa lacing her fingers with Draco affectionately, Michelangelo too “grown up” and “manly” now for such an act of affection anymore but still snuggling close to his father's side for comfort.

The children were still upset over the Ministry tearing through the house, scaring them senseless and giving them the very strong impression that their daddy was going to be taken away and they would never see him again. The Ministry Wizards had done nothing to quash such feelings in the children and when Draco had gotten home he had some very strong words for the wizards there. The words had been strong enough for Narcissa to instruct her grandchildren to cover their ears as she hustled them out of the room quickly.

Clarissa's excuse to join him in bed had been “bad dreams,” and Michelangelo apparently “could not sleep.”

Draco let them maintain their pride, but still assured them it was alright to be afraid sometimes. He also assured them that he was not leaving them, or being sent away, that clearly being what had them both so worried that they would have bad dreams or be unable to sleep.

Draco gave Clarissa's hand and Michelangelo's shoulder a squeeze as he snuggled down to sleep, Ginny still on his mind despite his resolve to not think about her, their shared past, or what they had done that afternoon.

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Author's Note:

I just love the children, the kiddies, Draco's babies. I enjoy so much writing scenes where Draco and the children interact. It gets me all warm and fuzzy…almost as warm and fuzzy as getting reviews makes me feel.

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Blue-Eyed Angel

Chapter Eleven

“I'm not sick, Butler Paul!” Draco raised his voice in annoyance. His summer home from Hogwarts was not going as well as it typically did. First his father was thrown into Azkaban and his family publicly shamed and humiliated. Harry Potter then got the better of him yet again at the end of the school year, just rubbing salt in his open wounds all the while Potter had insulted his father! His birthday was ruined by Ministry Wizards tearing apart his home and chasing his mother off. And then, after all that, he was attacked in the middle of the night by some vicious animal. That had all happened barely a week into his summer and though some time had passed, and it was now near the end of July, it seemed like things couldn't get much worse, but Butler Paul was apparently trying.

“Draco, please, look at the state of yourself, you can barely walk,” Butler Paul pleaded, holding his hands out to Draco so that the boy would actually do what he was asked. Not something he excelled at.

“I'm sore and manky from being mauled by a dog, Butler Paul. I wouldn't expect much less,” Draco snapped, the whole room spinning around him every time he turned his head. He was going to make himself collapse if he didn't slow down, even though his pace already was sluggish and drawn out. Butler Paul wanted him in bed, but that was not about to happen.

“Yes, but after nearly a month? Draco, you are still as roughed up as you were the morning after the attack. Only now you look so ill…your skin is tinged green, like you have an infection…”

“I'm just stressed.”

“Draco, please, you have to listen to me. You are seriously ill.”

“I'm through discussing this,” Draco said, holding up his hand and turning away with as much dignity as he could muster while trying not to pass out from the movement.

“You were attacked on the full moon, Draco,” Butler Paul blurted out causing Draco to freeze. “Please, you need to go to Saint Mungo's, it's almost the next full moon and…”

“I do not like what you are insinuating, Butler Paul,” Draco fumed at the silver haired older man, already having warned Butler Paul days ago not to suggest such things.

“You must go to Saint Mungo's, Draco.”

“And have my mother find out that I got hurt and worry herself sick? I will do no such thing. I am fine. We have a Healer right here who can-”

“…not help you!” Butler Paul said firmly, daring to cut Draco off. “You are bandaged up something similar to that of a mummy! Look at yourself! Tell me, why can't the Healer take care of those wounds with a simple charm or even a potion? Why have you been getting sicker as the days go by?”

“Because our Healer is inept. We will get a new healer, a better healer, but I am not going to that hospital,” Draco said firmly.

“Why? Are you afraid they will tell you what you don't want to hear?”

“Don't,” Draco warned for a second time in that day's squabble, pointing at Butler Paul with a firm pale finger. Butler Paul was tall, slender, and elderly, but in a very fit way that would have you misjudge his age if you did not know better. He was normally well-kempt and collected, shoulder length silver-grey hair combed back away from his face, clean shaven and poised. But now his hair was a little disheveled, as was his clothing, and he had a hint of shadow on his face, like he hadn't even shaved that morning. Just that little scruff, compounded with his intense concern, seemed to age the man greatly. The lines of worry were deep in his face and his eyes looked tired.

“That you were attacked by a werewolf and are now sick,” he continued on despite Draco's interruption.

“I said don't!” Draco said, shoving Butler Paul backwards after rushing him in anger. All that movement, however, caused Draco's knees to give out under him in his dizziness and he collapsed to the floor to just sit there, sobbing, frustrated with his body's failure but too weak to do anything else.

“Draco, let me help you,” Butler Paul begged, taking a step forward after the shove Draco had given him, not taking it to heart.

“You said it was just a dog,” Draco sobbed.

“I wasn't sure, and I didn't want to upset you right in the middle of it all.”

“I'm not sick,” Draco said, almost sounding like he was pleading with someone, a higher power maybe, saying “please don't let me be sick.”

“I will take you to the hospital.”

“No,” Draco said firmly.

“Draco…”

“No! It wasn't a werewolf, I am not sick; I'm just weak still from the trauma. Damn blueblood and all that. I will not do anything to worry my mother. The house is back together finally and she sent an owl saying she would be home at the end of next week, before the end of the month,” he said, his mother having gone off for the three weeks to “deal with things” on her own. He could not really blame her for wanting to get away after her husband was sent to Azkaban, her friends shunning her, the Ministry hounding her…he just wished she had taken him with her. They needed each other.

“Draco, you will not be well by the end of next week,” he said, crouching beside Draco so he could talk to the boy and look him right in the face.

“I will be well enough.”

“Draco,”

“Leave me alone!” he snapped, pulling his arm out of Butler Paul's grasp and pushed himself up off the floor to stand wobbly. “And don't you dare send any sort of word to my mother about this, Butler Paul, I forbid it,” he said, like he did almost every day since the attack, doing all in his power to not let his mother in on what had happened to him while she was away. She was stressed and upset enough as it was. He did not want to add to that, or make her feel guilty for not having been home or taking him with her.

“Yes, sir,” Butler Paul said, bowing once curtly after he himself stood. He could not force his young master to accept what was happening, no matter how much he wanted to. Draco's wounds couldn't be healed by magic; it was a classic sign of wounds from a werewolf. He was getting sicker and sicker, losing weight and looking paler, that too with his increased temper, were signs of having contracted lycanthropy.

His boy was smart, he knew Draco understood all that was happening, he was just refusing to accept it. Denial, it was something Draco was really good at, and it was understandable for anyone to want to deny something like this, but now, with the full moon only days away, he could not humor his boy anymore. Draco needed help, and he was either going to agree to it, or it was going to be forced upon him. Draco had refused to try Wolfsbane in the weeks since the attack, so his symptoms were not eased, nor was his pain, and he would be very dangerous on the moon.

Butler Paul could not allow Draco to hurt anyone.

The guilt on both their parts would be immeasurable.

Draco braced against the wall with his hands as he walked.

He was not sick. He wasn't.

He was weak, and tired, and sore, but he was not sick, certainly not with what Butler Paul was claiming.

He would go to his father's office and write a notice of termination for the Healer…later. Right now all he wanted to do was lay down and sleep.

Sleep sounded really good right then.

If his Healer weren't such a lummox he would be well by now. Butler Paul had said he wouldn't be well by the time his mother got home. Draco agreed, though it was probably the first time in his life he wished he was wrong. His mother didn't need to deal with this. He didn't want to deal with it either, so he was going to go and lay down.

“Can Mickey get you anything, young Master?” the House-elf begged, bowing repeatedly as it walked backwards in front of Draco.

“Water,” Draco muttered, collapsing onto his bed, careful to place all his weight, as minor as that had become, on his right side, his side that wasn't as hurt. Holding out his left arm awkwardly Draco looked at the bloodied bandages.

Why wasn't he healing?

Even if his Healer was dead from the neck up and couldn't cast a spell to cure him, surely just over a month's time he would have managed to heal on his own. He should have had scabs, and scars, and closing cuts, but instead he had gaping wounds that still bled freely. He had to take a dose of Blood-Replenishing Potion every three hours to keep himself from passing out.

“Shit,” Draco hissed while unwrapping his left arm and tossing aside the used bandages. His arm looked terrible and felt worse. The bruising had left patches of his skin purple at first, but now they were gone, leaving only faint greenish marks and the wounds so raw and red beside them. He gripped one end of his fresh bandage in his teeth and then wound the other end around his arm with enough pressure to hurt just a little yet helped slow the slight but steady bleeding.

“Mickey has your water, young Master,” the house-elf announced appearing in the room with a tall glass of water in its small hands.

Draco just held out his right hand for the glass, not thanking the creature for its services. Mickey assured him he would be around to do anything his young Master asked of him and Draco just shooed him off with a wave of his hand.

Drinking his potion, then his water to rid himself of the taste, Draco fell backwards into his bedding, laying awkwardly on his right side mostly, nearly every inch of him sore. His chest and ribs on the left side were shredded, his left arm had been nearly torn apart, and his back had a series of deep punctures over his shoulder blades. Bones and deep muscle damage had been healed, but the rest…they lingered. There were very few options for him when it came to lying down because just about every position put pressure on one of his many wounds.

He still needed to change his other bandages, but he was so sleepy, he couldn't keep his eyes open. It was so difficult to wrap his chest, shoulder, and side with only one arm, every movement agonizing, but he refused help. It would take him over an hour to wrap himself up on his own, and he was just too tired at the moment. Surely the worst that would happen if he didn't change them would be that he would bleed through onto his bedding. At that moment, while his eyes burned for sleep, he did not care. He could afford new bedding.

Draco's eyes closed for but an instant, so it seemed, and he woke to the sound of urgent hooting. He took a deep sleepy breath but then regretted it. His chest and back screamed in pain as his ribs stretched and put tension on his wounds.

Swallowing hard, Draco felt feverish. He thought he was damp from sweating, which he was to an extent, but he realized the wetness he felt was not sweat when he raised his arm and saw that it was covered in blood. Panic gripping him, he sat up, but that caused his vision to blackout and pain to rip through his body resulting in him tipping over onto his right side, legs curled under him. His bedding felt so cool against his hot skin for a moment before it started to warm from his radiating heat.

Draco gasped a breath and pushed up off the mattress slowly that time, looking down at himself.

There was blood everywhere!

He had not just bled onto his bedding a little, he had soaked it through!

It looked like someone had been murdered in his bed.

The owl that had woken him hooted again urgently from atop his tall chest of drawers. Draco swallowed hard, reaching for his potion. He downed several hearty gulps, not caring about the taste as he shook in panic, his heart racing.

Was he going to die?

The tawny owl, tired of being ignored, fluttered down and landed on Draco's bed, avoiding the pool of blood Draco was in the middle of.

“Awright, awright, don't be so damn pushy,” Draco mumbled, removing the note attached to the owl's leg with trembling hands. The owl nipped at him and Draco cursed, shooing the bird away with his angry right hand.

“Goddamn pest,” he grumbled, his finger now hurting like the rest of him.

He looked at the note and saw that it was unmarked on the outside. It didn't even have his name on it, just smeared blood from him handling it.

Who had sent him an unmarked, unaddressed letter?

Opening it to find the answer, Draco pulled out an acid green piece of thick parchment and unfolded it. Inside he found sharp and harsh lettering written. He did not read it yet, he scanned it to see whom it could possibly be from and felt his heart freeze for a moment, going from pounding to near dead stop in an instant.

It was from Lord Voldemort.

Draco quickly read over the letter and felt his stomach clench over and over again.

The Dark Lord wanted to meet him. Him!

Why was the Dark Lord requesting an audience with him?

Something about a task the letter read.

Was the Dark Lord asking him to do something for him?

Draco felt sick, now for all new and completely different reasons than before.

He couldn't deny that he was more than a little afraid of the Dark Lord. He wished nothing more to serve him, to honor his family, to please his mother, to defend his father, but he was scared. He was very scared.

The letter said he should be in the Dark Lord's presence at nine o'clock sharp.

It was quarter till.

“Oh holy God,” Draco gasped, flinging himself out of bed and stumbling.

Keeping the Dark Lord waiting, even for a minute, was unwise. He knew this, and he had never even met the man before. It was just an obvious assumption.

“Draco? Draco, what on earth do you think you are doing? Is that blood? Draco?” Butler Paul called after Draco as Draco limped down the hall, dressed as freshly as he could in the five minutes he had taken to clean himself up. Draco had thrown himself in the shower to try and wash away some of the blood and had not replaced his bandages after having removed them. He just put clean clothes on, black to try and hide the bleeding, and a long cloak to keep himself covered because despite the warm summer air, he was shivering.

“Open the Floo Channel,” Draco said, not stopping, not turning, not explaining himself.

“Draco, are you crazy? Where do you think you are gong?”

“I have to go now or I will be late. Open the Floo Channel,” he repeated.

Butler Paul just looked at Draco's ghostly white face and set his jaw.

“The only place you are going is St. Mungo's.”

Draco spun on him -eyesight dimming but holding himself surprisingly steady- and pointed his wand at the man he loved like a second father.

“I will not ask you again. Open the Floo Channel so we are connected to the Network so that I may leave. If I am late I am dead. Do you understand that?” he said, voice quivering, his hand surprisingly steady.

“Draco, you look close to death already. You're killing yourself.”

“Better than dying at the hands of the Dark Lord,” he said, eyes darting back and forth as though unsure of what to look at as he continued to point his wand at his friend and mentor.

“Is he who you are going to meet?” Butler Paul asked, knowing Draco wanted nothing more than to be a Death Eater like his father. Draco said nothing, not having to. “Draco,”

“He requested me. I cannot refuse him. Please, help me; I do not know how to open the channels myself,” he said, the magic sealing them off from the Network complex, one reason being security, the second being that Draco used to sneak out against his parent's wishes.

Butler Paul sighed and looked at Draco for a moment. Draco looked like he was ready to collapse and die any moment, yet he would positively die if he did not honor the Dark Lord's request.

“I should come with you,” he said, Draco lowering his wand.

“The note instructed I come alone, by Floo,” he said, looking apologetic like he would like nothing more in the world than to not have to go meet the Dark Lord for the first time, alone.

“I will be standing right here, waiting for you to return,” he said firmly, striding over to the hearth and opening the silver grate that covered it. He pulled out his wand and muttered some spells to open the home to the Floo Network.

“Thank you,” Draco said, standing beside Butler Paul, his cloak closed tight and looking like a floor length cape, covering all but his head that looked so deathly pale with a shadow of green.

“You be careful,” he said, wanting to give his boy a hug but knowing what pain that would cause Draco.

Draco nodded faintly and moved into the fireplace. Throwing a handful of Floo Powder at his feet he shouted “Deathly Hallows” as an eruption of emerald flames at his feet whisked him away.

The sensation of spinning and high velocity was enough to make Draco think he was about to die. He kept his eyes closed tight and did not open them, not even after he spilled out onto a very hard cold floor. He screamed out in pain as he landed flat on his chest, his entire left side searing in agony from the impact.

“Cutting it a tad close, child,” a woman said, standing before him so that he was at her feet.

“Aunt Bella?” he gasped, recognizing his aunt's voice when he could not even see her, his eyesight not clearing and leaving him disoriented.

“Come, he is waiting for you and it's only moments before the clock chimes,” she said urgently, picking Draco up off the floor and practically dragging him out of the room, his feet barely lifting from the floor as she pulled him along quickly.

“Aunt Bella, what's going on? Why does he want to meet me?” he asked, vision darkening and lightening rapidly enough to create a swelling headache.

“I do not know. He does not explain himself to us. He wants to meet you and you should be honored by this. You are sixteen, not many sixteen-year-olds can say that have had a private audience with Lord Voldemort at his personal request,” she said, Draco flinching at the name.

“But I still don't understand, I thought he was angry with the whole family because of Father…and I'm just sixteen, what would he want with me?”

“I can't tell you what I don't know, but mind yourself, speak only when given permission, and do not look at him unless he grants you the honor,” she hissed in his ear before pushing him into the room and closing the door behind him without another word, locking herself out.

Draco's vision was swimming in and out, and it had been the whole walk, but he got the impression he was in some sort of castle, but older and draftier than Hogwarts was. He stumbled into the room to the sound of a chiming clock. It chimed nine times and then a heavy silence filled the room, Draco's breathing seeming impossibly loud then.

“Littlest of the Malfoys,” came a sharp and hissing voice from across the room. Draco fell to his knees because he could not stand any longer, but bowed his head to disguise it simply as him being respectful and groveling.

“My Lord,” he breathed, eyes closed tight as he nearly leaned his forehead on the stone floor, bent completely in half so that his kneeling legs were pressing against his sore chest, knees at his throat.

“You know, you surprise me…in a good way,” Voldemort said and Draco's eyes opened but he otherwise did not move. “I had honestly not expected you to live, but then…well, there is that stubborn Malfoy determination in you.”

Draco just closed his eyes again.

“When I heard you were still alive from your Aunt Bellatrix I was shocked, then pleased. She has been keeping an eye on you while that mother of yours is away?”

“Yes, sir…my Lord,” he said, his aunt having come by almost everyday to see him, never once having the same conversation he and Butler Paul seemed to have every other day. She seemed to agree too that it was best that his mother not know about what had happened.

“But she has not told you what is happening to you,” he said.

“Sir?” Draco inquired, not sure what the Dark Lord meant by that. His aunt had been wonderfully supportive, while giving him Occlumency lesions. Something he was excelling at apparently. What would she not tell him?

“She is quite angry with your father,” he said, saying something Draco already knew. “She is angry, you see, that you were hurt because he needed to be punished for his indiscretions, but dares not speak a word against me or my decisions.”

“My Lord, I do not understand,” Draco said, not looking up still. He had yet to ever lay eyes on the Dark Lord, and he could not lie to himself, he would like it to stay that way. He was far too sick. He would have liked to meet his Dark Lord under different circumstances. Not now, not like this.

“Your father's poor performance at the Ministry two months ago, being bested by a bunch of school children, captured by Ministry Wizards, and thrown into Azkaban while taking so many of my loyal followers with him because of his poor leadership skills, truly disappointed me. I was outraged, I was sickened,” he said and Draco listened, hanging on to every word he said, knowing the Dark Lord never spoke of things that were not significant.

“He needed to be punished, but he is locked up, ironically safe from harm at the moment in that prison. I must admit, my decision was rash and harsh, but you must understand, boy, my hurt,” he said, his voice hinting at some sort of emotion that was close to distress if it weren't so much more mocking. “He shamed me, and the rest of us. He needed to be taught a lesson,” he said. “Look at me, Draco,” he said after a moment, speaking so calmly.

Draco took a deep breath and raised his head while his eyes remained closed. Finally opening them he saw the Dark Lord before him. Voldemort was even more terrifying than he had imagined. Harry Potter had faced this creature…several times…and lived? Draco was glad he had agreed to Occlumency lessons. What would the Dark Lord have done if he had just seen those thoughts of his?

Voldemort's skin looked moist and soft, all the veins showing through like blue spider webs. His eyes were shinning and red, his nose gone leaving two snake-like slits in its place. His mouth was lipless, like a gash across his face. Bald, tall, and slender, he not only looked intimidating, but oozed a feeling of dread. Almost like a Dementor did.

Draco shivered.

“I'm sorry, boy, that you had to be so viciously harmed to teach your father a lesson, but it had to be done,” he said, looking down at Draco with what should have been sympathy and sounded like it, but was so false it was almost insulting. “When I sent Greyback to your house, I told him he could have any Malfoy he desired. He wanted so much to run into your mother. Oh how he has fancied her for years. But she had left earlier that afternoon, leaving only you,” he said wistfully. “I thought he would simply rape your mother, or kill you. I had no idea he would infect anyone,” he said and Draco stared up at him, his pale eyes wide as he panted, unable to catch a proper breath.

Infected?

Greyback?

No!

“My Lord,” Draco managed after a moment, hiding his inner horror from the Dark Lord.

“What better punishment though, really, is there for poor old Lucius? His precious heir, his only son, his pureblooded spoiled prince, a child he had once fought so hard to keep…now a werewolf. It is almost too delectably suited for words,” he bubbled and Draco felt dizzy. If he weren't already practically lying on the floor he would have tipped over.

Werewolf?

He felt like he was going to be sick.

“Of course, you have your uses still, so I am not angry with Greyback for having let you live,” he said, holding out his hand to indicate something to his right. Draco looked over and saw Greyback leaning against the wall, looking ragged and dirty, arms crossed over his chest. Draco's heart stopped and he wondered for a moment if it was going to start again. Greyback made a kissing motion at Draco before smirking to show sharp canine teeth and Draco's heart was suddenly hammering in his chest.

“You are scared of him,” Voldemort commented, smiling. “I can taste your fear, and so can he,” he said, Draco looking back at the Dark Lord, shaking. “You will be feeling substantially better after this first moon. Still sick of course, but not quite in this,” he paused as though thinking of a word he wanted, “dying sort of way. Wolfsbane would have helped you,” he said with a mean smile, commenting on Draco's deathly appearance. “You have only three nights until the full moon, boy, I suggest you make arrangements,” he said, turning in a sweeping motion to sit on a stone throne that stood in the center back of the large empty room, iron chandeliers hanging from the dark ceiling to burn dim candles and iron wall brackets with more candles being all that decorated the vastly empty room. There were chains that jiggled and moved in the corner, like something inviable was tethered there. The throne itself resembled some sort of great serpent, but Draco could not make it out in the dim light, or was it his vision that was so dim?

Draco was panting then, unable to get enough air.

Greyback…werewolf…infected…make arrangements…punishment, these things kept cycling through his mind over and over, none sinking in yet. It was a dog, it was a dog…that was all his brain kept saying. Butler Paul said it had been a dog…

“You alive, however, has its uses. I have need of you, and I believe you were saying to your aunt just how much you desired the chance to prove yourself loyal?” the Dark Lord continued, smiling wickedly down at Draco as Draco tried to make sense of everything he had just been told.

He wasn't even listening to the Dark Lord anymore. The purpose behind why he had even called before him -something about a task and proving himself- driven completely from his mind.

What was he going to do?

He was sick…he was a werewolf…

Oh God…

What would he tell his mother?

It didn't take the Dark Lord long to tell Draco what he wanted, and Draco was unable to fully comprehend all that he was told. The Dark Lord gave him his directions in writing, so there wouldn't be any confusion, the acid green paper blank to anyone who should try and read it but Draco.

Bellatrix helped Draco from the room, Draco incapable of standing on his own and that was not for a lack of trying on his part. Greyback seemed infinitely amused by the sight and Voldemort looked bored and a little annoyed with the weakness that Draco was displaying.

Draco was walked out of the chamber, practically carried by his aunt, but her allowing him to maintain the illusion that he was walking while in the presence of the Dark Lord. Once the door was closed behind them he sagged and Bellatrix let him sit on the floor.

“What did he say?” she asked, sounding excited, pleased, greedy, blood on her hands from helping Draco.

“I cannot say,” Draco whispered, little breath in his lungs.

“What do you mean you can't say?” she demanded.

“He said I could not tell anyone,” he said while managing to pull himself standing, using some chains that hung from the stone wall.

“Draco,” she scolded, putting her hands on her hips, having expected her only nephew to turn to her, to trust her.

Draco stood, weakly, and attempted a step. He did not fall. He was pleased. He started walking towards the long hallway he had been dragged down before, intent on finding his way back to the fireplace he had come in through. He wanted to go home.

“Draco, speak to me,” Bellatrix demanded. Draco just shook his head. She grabbed his arm and looked intently at him and he refused to look at her, knowing she wanted to look into his mind. He could keep her out, so long as she did not look him in the eyes.

Bellatrix Disapparated from that spot, taking Draco home. They appeared on the Apparition point of Draco's home and Draco pulled away. Butler Paul was standing across the room, by the fireplace still. He looked over and dropped his folded arms upon seeing Draco and Bellatrix.

“Draco,” he called, Draco stepping down off the slightly raised platform, stumbling slightly.

“Draco, what were you told?” Bellatrix asked again.

“Draco, what's going on? What did he want?” Butler Paul asked, less forcefully than Draco's aunt.

Draco turned to them, tears running down his cheeks.

“He said that…he said that he sent Greyback here…he said that I'm sick as punishment for my father failing him,” he cried, hiccupping slightly, not being told he could not speak of that part at least. He hadn't been able to properly break down while in front of the Dark Lord, and his mind had been foggy, reeling, and numb up until just then. Now his mind was spinning and the helplessness, no, hopelessness that he felt was overwhelming.

“Draco, I'm sorry,” Butler Paul said softly, wanting to hug the boy but knowing Draco would hurt as a result. He looked the boy over and his heart nearly stopped. There was blood splatter on the floor in a trail where Draco had already stepped. “Draco,” he whispered, looking down at the blood.

“You need my help, Draco,” Bellatrix pressed, not taking in Draco's appearance like Butler Paul had, even with Draco's blood on her hands and arm. “I can help you…whatever it is the Dark Lord has asked of you, I can help,” she assured.

“I have to do this alone,” Draco said, turning away. He was sick, he was scared, but he was still determined to do exactly what he had confessed to his aunt, his desire to prove to the Dark Lord that he was a faithful, loyal, powerful Death Eater. It had been a dream of his growing up to meet the Dark Lord. Like most kids that dreamed of meeting past Presidents, or Musicians -all long dead- Draco never thought his dream would come true and he had simply idolized the Dark Lord . Now that Voldemort was back from the dead, now that he had met him, he was going to prove to him that he was superior, and it would be the Dark Lord and him, just like he had always thought it should be.

“Draco, come with me, we need to get you to St. Mungo's,” Butler Paul urged and Draco turned and shouted at the same time Bellatrix did.

“No!” they both said.

“But, you're sick, you're dying,”

“I have to go, I…I have a lot to think through, and I don't have a lot of time…and I…” Draco muttered, rambling on as he turned away.

“You can't expect him to stay here, he needs proper Healers,” Butler Paul yelled at Bellatrix.

“There is no way we can take him to that Ministry run hospital. You want the whole WORLD finding out about this?”

“I can't help but feel you are more concerned with appearances that your nephew's health, or his life,” Butler Paul accused, pointing at the woman.

“He doesn't want his mother knowing and I agree that Narcissa finding out about this will be a disaster. We can help him here while hiding this. Really, what needs to be done is for him to tell me what the Dark Lord wanted so that I can help him!”

“You can't be serious! You care more about pleasing that damn Dark Lord than you do about seeing Draco healthy!”

Draco was walking away, shakily when Bellatrix grabbed his right wrist.

“Draco, we are both worried about you, Paul and I, and we can help you, but we can't unless you let us,” she said darkly.

“Leave me alone!” Draco shouted, pulling his arm away. He was feeling a little betrayed that his aunt had known what was going on with him but hadn't said anything. He wouldn't have listened or believed her, but why hadn't she tried to help him? Butler Paul had and Draco felt guilty for fighting the man on it so greatly (his pride being what kept him from accepting his help now) but his aunt had just let him get sicker and sicker, while hating his father…Draco was hurt.

“Draco,” Bellatrix attempted.

“No,” he tried to shout again but could only manage a firm tone. He turned away and swooned a little.

“Draco,” Butler Paul managed to gasp just as Draco collapsed onto the floor.

Draco woke up in an instant, but it wasn't an instant, he knew this because he was wrapped up in tight, clean bandages and lying in bed. He could hear angry voices out in the hall.

“He could have died,” Butler Paul hissed.

“It is not MY fault he took too much Blood-Replenishing Potion and nearly bled himself to death as a result,” Bellatrix snapped back at him. They were standing outside the room; Draco believed to still be asleep apparently.

“He needs to go see some Healers. We have two days now until the full moon and his mother will be back in a week-”

“She cannot be told of this! Draco doesn't want it and I know it to be unwise…It would break Narcissa's heart,” she said. Draco, back in the room, felt a tear slide down his cheek.

Being a werewolf would break his mother's heart.

He would break his mother's heart if he told her…told her what he was…he was a werewolf…a werewolf. He couldn't bear to do that; to hurt her… so he couldn't tell her, he wouldn't tell her.

Oh God, what was he going to do now?

Draco rolled over and groaned. He felt trapped and then realized that wasn't part of the dream, he really was, physically, trapped. Looking down he found each arm hugged by one of his children, their heads on his chest, sleeping soundly. Draco looked at each of them then let his head fall back into his pillow.

Getting up was going to be difficult if he didn't wake them.

“Hey, ankle-biters, Daddy needs to get up,” he said softly, wigging his shoulders to rouse them slightly. “Come on,” he urged, Michelangelo falling away first but Clarissa still clinging tight. Michelangelo just rolled over while wrapping himself up in his blanket so he could sleep on in a cocoon, but Clarissa whined and moaned as Draco tried to get her off his arm.

“Come on, sweet pea,” he encouraged, gently pulling at her little hands so he could sit up the rest of the way. Clarissa started whining with her eyes still closed, cheeks starting to flush pink in the telltale signs that she was about to start crying.

“Daddy is just going to work,” he assured, kissing her forehead but unable to stop her onset of tears. She was a daddy's girl to say the least, and not a morning person on top of that. She and Michelangelo were both terribly possessive and clingy towards him since he had gotten out of prison and they were able to hug and hold and touch each other for the first time, (not through cold bars) but Michelangelo was possessive more and Clarissa was clingy more. She didn't want to let go of him sometimes.

Draco sighed, knowing she wasn't going to stop crying once she started. He stood and scooped his daughter up in his arms with a groan and carried her out of the room with her clinging to his shoulder and side. She was eleven years old, and though still physically small, she was much too old to be carried around like a baby while crying. But he gave in to her, always. He couldn't deny it, he sometimes wanted to hug his babies and never let them go either.

He couldn't let her cry, so he carried her out of his room while she tucked her face into his neck and sobbed.

There was a reason why he left in the mornings without waking the children.

Draco set her down at the kitchen table where she sobbed a little, hiccupping mostly, and he comforted her for a moment while offering her a glass of water, assuring her over and over that he was not leaving her and only going to work, and that he loved her, and pleaded with her to stop crying. He got her to calm down considerably before walking into the living room, down the hall, to the bathroom where he washed up.

He could hear her pathetic sobs carry through the door in the quiet house and sighed.

All she had to do was cry and she could get him to do anything she wanted. Michelangelo was just as manipulative but cried a whole lot less. Unfortunately, he couldn't stay home from work, even if he wanted to. The full moon was the following night, and he would miss work then. They couldn't afford him to not go in three days in a single week. Missing the two, the day of and the day after the full moon, would be bad enough.

Freshened up, Draco walked out into the living room and saw through the doorway that Clarissa had slumped over at the little kitchen table and had fallen back asleep, eyes still puffy pink and nose red. He picked her back up and with a smile and laid her down on the couch, throwing the blanket she had dragged from the bedroom with them over her and tucked her in warmly. He kissed her cheek and went back to his bedroom to dress. Within ten minutes he was locking up the house behind him and heading to catch the bus. His mother, who lived just a few buildings over, would be by before the children even woke to make them breakfast and to watch them until he got home.

“Malfoy, you are later than usual,” Coderdale said as Draco rushed into the room, limping with his cane.

“Had a slow morning and the bus was held up,” he replied.

“That Rossiter chap was by already looking for you. He couldn't linger, however, from what I gathered, he left almost as soon as he got here.”

“Reamann was here? Dear God, it's not even five-thirty in the morning now. What time did he come in?” Draco said, freezing to stare at Coderdale.

“About five, just as I was coming in," Coderdale said, having taken to coming in early. The man functioned off of four hours of sleep, honestly. He had no family and Draco had the suspicion that he was his only “friend.” It was a lonely job, Draco the only one that worked down there on the early shift, Coderdale alone on the late…and Draco assumed Coderdale came in more for himself, so he would have someone to see and talk to each day, than he did for Draco. The man came in early, letting Draco do most of the work while he lingered mostly, and then worked the late shift after Draco went home. It was no wonder the man's paleness rivaled his own. The man lived underground.

“What did he need? Was it an emergency? He has my address,” Draco said, taking his faded cloak off and laying it across the back of his chair to then lean heavily on his cane. Carrying Clarissa had done him in for the day. She was small, but he was a day away from the moon.

“Apparently there was another attack and he wanted you to come along. When he realized you weren't in yet he just left, rushing off to the scene I guess.”

“There was another attack?” Draco repeated, shocked.

“He couldn't tell me anything, he had not been to the scene yet, but he had been called out of bed and everything. He looked stressed and was dressed haphazardly.”

“But that, that doesn't fit,” Draco said, looking at Coderdale to see into the old man's mind and see what he had seen that morning in regards to Reamann. “There was an attack yesterday. The pattern clearly indicates that we shouldn't expect another attack for at least six days,” he said feeling frazzled, seeing into Coderdale's mind and understanding what he had meant when he had said Reamann had looked disheveled and tired like he had just rolled out of bed.

“I'm sorry that I can't tell you more, Draco,” Coderdale said sadly, seeing how stressed Draco suddenly looked. “So that was how your hair got on the scene yesterday,” he said and Draco looked at him, “you went there with Reamann?”

“Yeah, Sebastian is not going to like that.”

“He would prefer that you were the one behind it.”

“Yeah, so he can bust my balls.” Draco sighed. “Well shit,” he said, running his hand through his hair and then pulling a fist full of the ends down by his hips. “There goes any hope of having a halfway decent day,” he said, collapsing into his chair.

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

Reamann had been on the scene since five-thirty that morning and he wanted nothing more than to leave, but this case seemed to require so much more of him and his services.

The victim was carted away babbling incoherently, eyes rolling around in his head wildly, head bobbing around as he rocked back and forth, or attempted to with the straps holding him down.

Reamann supposed that the only thing that made up for there being two attacks in as many days was that the second victim had not died, though honestly, in the state the man was left in, it might have been merciful to have killed him. Was that why the one responsible had left him alive? To be cruel?

“Shit,” Reamann said, rubbing his face. Their only pattern to work with was ruined. Now they honestly had no clue, not even when to expect to find the next victim. He was not even humoring the idea of preempting the next attack. They were definitely several steps behind the aggressor and quickly falling behind.

Reamann could not even dwell.

There were Muggles and wizards on the scene that needed someone in the middle to defuse the situation. This was the first scene with so many witches and wizards present, and they seemed bothered enough by the Muggles to want to confound all of them and send them away. Reamann was there to remind them that they could not do that. It sort of turned him into the “bad guy” in the situation, neither side too happy to have to deal with him, let alone listen to him.

The only upside to having so many witches and wizards on the scene was that he would likely not have to write a report, so many being there to not have to summarize it to the department, which made not being able to get a hold of Malfoy that morning okay…but he still wished he could have brought him again. He had a feeling however Draco would have turned him down, not wanting to risk connecting himself to another crime scene.

“Rossiter,” a woman called over to him. Reamann hurried over to the witch.

“Yes?”

“Can you please do something about all these Muggles? They are asking impossible questions and I can't honestly deal with them much longer,” she said, looking ready to pull handfuls of her own silky black hair out.

“I can't and you know that. I will have a word with the Constable, see if I can't get his people to back down a little, but I can't tell them to stop doing their jobs anymore than I can you,” he sighed.

“Just keep the damn Muggles away from me and there won't be any need to call in the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad out here,”

“It would be an accident, you jinxing the little Muggles?” he said, almost able to smile.

“Of course it would,” she said with an innocent yet fierce bat of her eyelashes.

Reamann shook his head and sighed. It had been a long morning and it looked like it would be a long afternoon.

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

Author's Note:

Page 488 of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, a man who was bitten by a werewolf that was sharing a St. Mungo's room with Author Weasley, was described as “ looking green and sickly,” and that there were still “two weeks till full moon.” It is my assumption then that in the JKR world you are sick from the time you are bitten until your first shift. I took some liberties then, by reading between the lines. I took a stance that the wounds caused by a werewolf cannot be healed because Author was in that room because his wounds from Nagini could not be healed by magic and thusly why they had to use Muggle stitches to try and hold the wound close while supplying him with Blood-Replenishing Potion as he continuously blead. The Woman that shared the room with him was bitten by “something” but wouldn't tell the Healers what, and thus why they were struggling to heal her, and then there was the werewolf who had "no cure".

I simply assumed they all shared the room because they all had un-healable injuries. Like everyone in a Burn Ward has some kind of burn.

I believe that the man in the hospital was a little healthier than Draco (though clearly depressed) after only two weeks, where as Draco was a little more than three weeks from his attack, because I assumed that the hospital would be supplying him with Wolfsbane as part of his “treatment,” something Draco stubbornly refused to try while denying he was sick or that it was a werewolf that had attacked him. Draco is very sick in the flashback because he was refusing treatment, and rest, and he was bleeding freely a LOT, and thus his body was just broke-down and exhausted. I believe that was all canon, but I did rely on outside werewolf lore too.

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Blue-Eyed Angel

Chapter Twelve

“Where's Malfoy?” Reamann asked, looking around the Hall of Records. It was early morning, but not that early. Draco should have been in by then.

“I'm sorry, Draco isn't in today,” Coderdale said, softly folding a book closed and looking over at the man who had just rushed into the hall.

“Today? Now? But this is really important,” he said, smoothing down his hair compulsively.

“I'm sure if Draco could reach up into the heavens and influence the phase of the moon, he would, but not for your convenience, Mr. Rossiter,” Coderdale said smoothly, though some harshness was there in his words.

“The full moon is not until this evening,” he said in frustrated helplessness. He had been caught up all day yesterday and all night with the case, unable to get a hold of Draco at any point in that time. He had counted on being able to talk to him today. Now he was not even in!

“Clearly you have very little understanding of his condition if you think that he would be up to being out and about the day of the moon. Stress gets to him, and you have put him under more than usual,” Coderdale said, sounding more than a touch angry now. “Do not bother him today, or tomorrow. Do not Floo him, do not send him an owl, do not go to him for anything on this dreadful case,” he ordered.

“But,”

“You do your job for once and let Draco be,” Coderdale said firmly, looking at Reamann with harsh grey eyes. Draco was his friend and he did not like it when people made him sick, or rather, sicker than usual. He had to admit that he was a little protective of Draco, he had come to think of him almost like a son, and he had a feeling Draco only mildly resented it, some part of him appreciative of and longing for a doting father figure.

Reamann took a deep breath and sighed.

“Yes sir,” he said softly, leaving the hall with only a subdued “thank you” to Coderdale for his trouble.

He wanted to talk to Draco, he needed to talk to Draco, but maybe he was relying too much on him. Maybe he was expecting too much from him. He had not even realized how much he asked of Draco and how much he demanded of him, until he was suddenly not there to turn to. He felt bad for it, but that didn't change the fact that he really did need to talk to him.

“Shit,” Reamann muttered, walking up the stairs with angry shuffling feet.

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

“Reamann, you need to relax,” Ginny urged while she stood in his office just a few hours later, trying to persuade him to go out to lunch with her.

“How can I relax? My most trusted and needed informant is unavailable for two days, at least, not to mention the fact that I couldn't get in touch with him yesterday, and we just had a major development in the case. We have a Muggle tortured to babbling insanity being sedated at St. Mungo's and we are no closer, if quite possibly farther, from solving this!” he said, gripping his smoothly slicked back hair so that it stuck out between his fingers.

“Reamann, I know this is not going well, and it's terrible what is happening…I can't imagine how the Ministry is keeping all this quiet still…but you can't drive yourself bonkers over it. It's not healthy and it's accomplishing nothing,” she said, remaining so calm and level-headed.

“I just, I just can't go out and enjoy a lunch right now, Gin, not with that poor man in St. Mungo's…I, I have to try and find who did that to him. I can't go off and-”

“Appreciate life?” Ginny finished for him. She could tell he was upset, his stutter showing through a little, but she needed him to understand that getting this worked up would only make the case that much worse to endure. “Reamann, you shouldn't feel guilty because you have a good life. You should enjoy it, so that it is not wasted on you when so many others have it so much harder. You do them wrong to be ungrateful for what you have,” she said and Reamann sighed.

“I just don't have an appetite at the moment. I swear, I'll come home tonight and we will have dinner together and I won't mention the case. Just let me work now, so I can have it all done by then,” he said, smoothing his hair flat again with repetitive motions.

Ginny nodded.

“I figured you would blow me off; I already owled Hermione to meet me. I told her I would likely be coming alone,” she said, turning away.

“Ginny, don't be like this,” he called after her as she left his office.

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

“God, sometimes I find him so infuriating,” Ginny said later, sitting across from Hermione in a little restaurant in London, blocks from department store Purge and Dowse Ltd. that acted as the false front for St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries where Hermione worked. She was actually the head Healer on the very case Reamann was working on, caring for the Muggles that had survived so far. She was dealing with the case firsthand and one wouldn't be able to tell by how calm and collected she was at the moment while Ginny had her breakdown.

“He's a guy, he's young, and he's stressed. You have to admit, this case has everyone a bit off; just look at Ron,” Hermione said, sympathetically, Ron having been stressing over the case ever since he had been brought up before the Head of the Aurors on “breach of protocol.” He could not even remember clearly the scene he had been at, and was convinced he had gone mental for a brief moment, possibly at the shock of the scene. He knew better than to wear robes to a scene, but luckily it was his first warning.

“I understand he is stressed,” Ginny said, talking about Reamann again, “but, it's just…damn…I don't know. I don't feel like he appreciates what he has.”

“You being one of those things?” Hermione inquired knowingly.

“No…well, a little. He blew me off today, but I understand the entire department is uptight and he really couldn't come out, but I mean…” she sighed, unable to put into words how she felt. She didn't question that Reamann loved her, but there was just something so distant about him and that was only compounded by other things. “It's just sometimes I get the feeling that he sees his life as difficult. His life! I mean, he has a fairly comfortable and easy life and he didn't even know about the wizarding world when the Dark Lord returned, he was a Muggle-born first year when Dumbledore…” she froze and then continued on, not completing that specific thought or sentence. “I mean, I know he was scared like the rest of the wizarding world at that time, but honestly, he did not understand who the Dark Lord was, or why everyone was so afraid, he saw none of the fighting, the war having had little effect on him! He knows what I had gone through, yet he talks to me of all people about how tough he has it at times, and sometimes I just can't stand to hear it,” she said, pulling on her long hair a little.

“I can see how that can get annoying,” Hermione said as smoothly as ever.

“I mean, sure, I would let Draco rant on about tough times all he likes and listen, but Reamann is just…” she said, realizing too late what she was saying and stopping, eyes wide.

“Draco?” Hermione pressed, eyeing Ginny. “You two are on a first name basis now?” she enquired, setting her coffee cup down and folding her arms one on top of the other on the table.

“No, I…all I was saying is that, compared to some, Reamann doesn't have it so bad…”

“No,” Hermione said, shaking her head slowly. “You meant compared to Draco, Reamann doesn't have it so bad. You are not insulted by Reamann because you had a rough time in the war or since, you are insulted on Draco's behalf,” she said, Ginny letting her face fall into her hands while propping her elbows up on the table.

“Hermione,” she attempted to plead but Hermione pressed on.

“What has been going on between you and Malfoy, Gin? You two had lunch, now you are getting annoyed at your boyfriend because you feel he is disrespecting Malfoy, Malfoy of all people.”

“It's not what you think,” she said.

“What is it that I think, Ginny?” Hermione pushed, trying to force Ginny to say it.

“There is nothing going on between me and Draco Malfoy, Hermione, I swear. I just had lunch with him, one time, and we talked a bit. It was nice.”

“See, that's where you have me, Gin. You just said it was `nice.' Draco Malfoy is not nice. He is not sweet, and he is not pleasant,” she said, furrowing her brow in something caught between slight anger, and pity.

“How do you know?” Ginny snapped.

“Well, how do you?” Hermione retorted, causing Ginny's mouth to fall open.

“Oh God,” she said, putting her hands over her eyes again.

“Gin, what is going on?” Hermione pressed on firmly now, not easing up, Ginny on the verge of telling all.

“You can't say anything to anyone,” Ginny started, Hermione agreeing readily, knowing any story starting with an oath to never tell another soul was a story worth hearing.

“Sure thing, Ginny.”

“You have to understand, Draco is a great deal many things, and I don't pretend or claim to know or understand him…he is possibly more complex than even Harry,” she said and Hermione snorted at that, skeptical, to say the least. “But I think I'm one of the only people out there that can honestly say I have seen more than one side of him, more than just that pretentious act he is always fronting,” she said and Hermione tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at her.

“A front is it?”

“Don't get me wrong, he is a snob, and he is a chauvinistic bigot, and he is a bully, but that is not all that he is,” she said, patting her hands on the table nervously. “I think he does that, the bullying and what not, to keep people away.”

“Well, I should hope he is more three-dimensional than that, but I always figured he was just a mama's boy and a brat on the other side of things,” she said, looking to Ginny to see if she was wrong. “I'm not so sure about the keeping people away part though. He always seemed to be looking for new and meaner ways to get more attention while in Hogwarts.”

“No…well yes, there is that, but you see, Draco is really good at, I don't know, compartmentalizing himself? His whole life really,” she said, thinking hard about how to word what she felt so strongly. He had tried to explain this about himself to her thirteen years ago, and even he had struggled with the words. “I have seen it, his control he has over himself and his emotions. He can so effectively close himself off at his choosing it's astounding and a little unnerving. I have seen him shut down his pity, or his compassion, or his kindness, or whatever the situation calls for, so that he can get by and do what he must. He closes himself off; I think to prevent him from being hurt. He comes across somewhat unflappable, and really he is, all that control key to mastering and becoming a Legilimens,” she said, Hermione nodding slowly and saying nothing, already understanding the art of Occlumency and Legilimency and the kind of people that exceled at it. They both knew Draco was quite skilled in said abilities, rumored (or hyped) to rival Dumbledore now, that being one of the major reasons why Draco was so hard to trust.

Ginny took a deep breath.

“Draco is a great deal many things, like I said, but he only lets people see a few of those things, and they tend to be the bad. I have seen him when he is being, I don't know, himself? More of himself?” she attempted, not even sure how to explain that and put to words.

“Is it an act?” Hermione suggested, referring to what Draco had supposedly shown Ginny and no one else. She saw it as so much easier for Draco to have put on a show for Ginny than for him to have fooled everyone else for years.

“Why are you so unwilling to believe that Draco is a real human being, Hermione? Why does it have to be an act? I know you feel guilty about helping send him away to Azkaban and so turning him into some arsehole that is only half a person at best helps you sleep at night, but can you at least humor the idea that he has an emotional range greater than that of a teaspoon, for my sake?” she snapped. Hermione looked shocked and hurt at first, but then her face fell, unable to deny Ginny's accusations.

“I'm sorry, Gin, I'm not being fair to you…or him,” she said slowly, almost not wanting to include Draco in her apology. Ginny's cheeks were still slightly flushed from her anger. “It's not an act, not the part you saw. He closes himself off from everyone…but why? To not be hurt seems hard to believe, who would hurt him if he was actually nice? I know most everyone back at Hogwarts wanted nothing more than to jinx his pasty arse because of how horribly he treated everyone around him,” she said, trying to proceed while being supportive so Ginny would stop glaring at her.

Ginny thought on that for a moment and Hermione giving her an inquisitive look.

"He had told me, years ago on that night he and I spent talking before the final battle, something about being 'under socialized' as a child by his parents keeping him sheltered and alone in their manor, his only friends being a select few approved children of other Death Eater families that were basically ordered to be his friends," she said, feeling that same swell of pity for Draco she had all those years ago. Hermione's eyes softened slightly. "Draco confessed to me that he had been ill equipped in knowing how to interact with other children and people in general upon entering Hogwarts and thus why he had been so mean and why he had clung so tightly to his clique of Slytherin students that he had known and run with for years. Really, he had actually been terribly insecure and lonely while in Hogwarts, something I never would have imagined given how cocky and bold he always seemed to come across," she said. Ginny had simply believed him when he had told her all that, that he withdrew from others, felt awkwardly distant and unapproachable, but she had not asked why he felt he had to push, why he felt he couldn't have made friends. She assumed it had something to do with the ideals his parents has instilled in him: that there were no others in the school worth of his friendship.

“That's terrible,”

“It doesn't excuse his cruelty, but…” she said, letting the thought dangle there between them.

Hermione didn't say anything, and for a long time neither did Ginny.

Ginny then swallowed hard.

“Hermione, I need to tell you something,” she said, taking a deep breath, knowing Hermione would not understand how she felt only knowing half the story, what little she had told her just now.

She told Hermione about the afternoon Draco had “betrayed” them and then saved her life. She told her -in great detail- about that day, what she and Draco had said to each other, and explained everything. She attempted to put in plain words all she knew about Draco because of that night, and hoped Hermione would believe her and not think of her as simply delusional and that she had baught into some “act” or “lie” on Draco's part. Hermione listened intently, but then Ginny got to the part of the tale where Draco and she had kissed, she froze.

Could she tell Hermione about that?

She was her best friend, and she had already confessed to so much already, why did she feel uneasy about confessing this to her?

Did she fear her reaction would be the same as Harry's, the only person who knew, because he had seen it?

“Hermione,” she said slowly.

“Ginny?”

“If I told you that, that night, Draco Malfoy kissed me, what would you do?” she asked, not making eye contact, face burning from her blush.

Hermione stared.

“I would ask if you were joking, but I get the feeling you are not. Ginny, please tell me Draco Malfoy didn't kiss you those years ago,” she said, her coffee forgotten while still in her hands and halfway to her mouth.

“Not just that night, but on our lunch together, and when I visited him in the Hall of Records two days ago,” she said quietly, looking down at the table, at her spoon, at her shoe, anywhere but the woman sitting across from her who was staring at her open mouthed. She had not told Hermione about visiting Draco the other day, or giving him a gift, she hadn't gotten that far in her little story. Now she knew though.

“Ginny,” she gasped.

“You promised you wouldn't tell anyonecly,” Ginny reminded her.

“Oh, I know I did, but I never said I wouldn't go ballistic over this. Merlin!” she gasped, her exclamation getting a few Muggles to look their way for a moment. “You are serious; Draco Malfoy has kissed you three times, two in the last week?”

Ginny just nodded, not wanting to even say “yes.”

“Oh my,” Hermione said, leaning away from the table until her back thumped against her chair.

“That's not all,” Ginny continued and Hermione froze. “I kissed him back…fiercely,” she admitted, biting her bottom lip then.

Half the restaurant looked over at them then at Hermione's exclamation of “WHAT?”

“'Mione, please,” Ginny hissed, looking around at the room and the Muggles that were staring at them.

“You're joking…you're lying…please tell me this is some twisted prank you are playing on me,” she pleaded with Ginny. Ginny just dared a glance up at her. “Oh Merlin have mercy,” she said, turning away, unable to make eye contact with Ginny then.

“I don't know what to do,” she said.

“I think avoiding Draco Malfoy would be your best and smartest plan.”

“But,”

“But what?”

“But I don't want to avoid him,” Ginny confessed.

“Ginny, what are you saying?”

“I'm saying,” she said, starting slowly so as to consider her words carefully. “I genuinely enjoy Draco's company. Reamann has been wearing on me for a while now, and the family has been pressuring us together while I have wanted nothing more than to take a break and find myself.”

“Wait, wait, wait, so you are having warm, fuzzy feelings for Draco Malfoy, and you are talking about breaking up with Reamann? Ginny, what the hell is going on with you? I thought you were happy. I'm your best friend and if someone had asked me an hour ago if you were happy and content with your life I would have said `yes, absolutely'! How is it that I did not know at least about your feelings in regards to Reamann?” she asked, sounding hurt and even a little insulted.

“I just closed myself off to the whole situation. I didn't want to deal with it, so I just didn't. But while I was busy not dealing with it, things progressed to the point where I can't just drop everything and end it now,” she said, gripping the roots of her hair.

“Ginny-”

“Please, don't lecture me,” Ginny cut her off.

“I don't mean to, nor do I really want to, but you have just admitted to not wanting to be with Reamann. That's just astounding to me. Maybe all you need is a break from him to collect yourself before you are able to continue on, but these…feelings…you have for Malfoy. You sure they are not just your “bad-boy” partiality, which all us girls have in us, acting up?” she asked.

“You saying, I'm only attracted to Draco because I'm looking for an excuse to not be with Reamann and because Draco has this tough persona about him that appeals to the adolescent girl in me? Because if you are I don't feel like you have paid attention to anything I have yet said,” she snapped. Hermione balled her hands up into fists in frustration but then relaxed them.

“Ginny, let's not make a row of this. Let's think and talk this through,” she said calmly. “You want to take a break from Reamann but can't, you have feelings for…Draco Malfoy…but can't act on them because you are with Reamann,” she said and Ginny nodded.

“That about sums it up,” she said sadly.

“So what are you going to do, because honestly, you seem to be in a pickle with no real way of not ending up miserable.”

“Thank you, Hermione,” Ginny said flatly.

“Gin, I think you should talk to Reamann about all this.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because he won't listen, he never does. He is too engrossed in his own perceived hardships and problems to give a hoot about mine.”

“Ginny,”

“Hermione?” she said, suddenly sounding timid upon coming to a realization and a decision.

“Yes?”

“I need to ask you to help me do something, something major, something that goes against all reason and moral principles and will positively infuriate my family should they ever find out, never mind the tabloids should they get wind of this,” she said. Hermione nodded, not sure what she was even agreeing to yet, but knowing that being Ginny's best friend basically meant she would have to be there for her, regardless.

“Hermione, I need help cheating on Reamann,” she said, looking directly into her friend's eyes, “with Draco Malfoy.”

Hermione looked pale.

“You're serious.”

“I know it is a terrible, thing to consider, let alone do: to cheat on someone…but I'm not sure what I want from Reaman anymore, or how I feel about him. I'm not sure if all I really want is a fling, or if I'm actually looking for an all new and serious relationship in Draco…I'm not sure how I feel about Draco, or what he means to me, or even how he truly feels about me…I just don't know,” she said, gripping her hair again, “But I see something in Draco that I don't see in Reamann and I think it is something Draco doesn't allow many to see. I think that means something. Maybe he is just looking for a hookup himself, maybe he thinks I'm someone worthy of seeing all of him…more of him…maybe I'm crazy and reading way too far into him, I don't know! But I have to try and find out,” she said, fierce at that last.

“So what, you are going to have me help you come up with excuses as to why you can't be places so you can run off and snog Draco Malfoy? You want me to lie to Reamann and your family about where you are and what you are doing while you are shagging him?” she asked, voice becoming more and more outraged and thusly louder as she went on.

“That would be nice,” Ginny said in a very small voice.

Hermione looked like she was beyond words at that point and just sat there, face flushed and jaw clenched.

“Hermione, I don't mean for you to do anything that would get you in hot water with the family, but I really hoped to have your support in this, while I attempt to find myself,” Ginny said, attempting to plead her case again after a moment.

“Support in what, support in hurting Reamann, a decent and sweet man? Help you hook up with Draco Malfoy, a Death Eater and a werewolf and…”

“You know Hermione, for someone who claims such open-mindedness while shunning Draco as a bigot, you have quite a few prejudices in you,” Ginny snapped. “Since when do you care if someone is a werewolf? It's fine until one wants to date someone you care about? And you know better than most that Draco was not a Death Eater, not really, that being why he makes you feel so guilty. You are just being cruel, and I expected better from you.”

“Ginny, no, no, I'm sorry. I did not mean it like that. I just…oh hell,” she said, looking away and collecting herself. “I don't trust him,” she said and Ginny waited for her to explain herself. Hermione felt like she owed Lupin an apology all of a sudden over the werewolf thing. “He has always been ambiguous, and a more than a little shady. Azkaban does things to people, none of which are good.”

“Harry said something along those lines,” Ginny muttered, recalling hers and Harry's conversation on Draco Malfoy a week before.

“I have seen Draco in St. Mungo's. He goes there every once in a while begging for potions but never goes there for the full moon, I think he is kept up exclusively at the Ministry for that. He's like an addict, Gin. I understand that he is in pain, many werewolves have to put up with that, but he abuses painkillers, and alcohol, and a number of potions to deal with that and had to be barred from receiving anymore potions from Healers,” she said, practically pleading with Ginny to understand what she was trying to say. She did not even mention Draco's temper or poor test results when it came to his mental evaluation and stability; the last was confidential under patient-Healer law.

“I understand he has issues, we all do because of the war, and Harry and Ron aren't exactly poster children for sobriety,” she said bitterly, remembering one of the things that drove her and Harry apart. “I'm willing to give Draco a chance when the world is not. I think he deserves that much,” she said, crossing her arms.

Hermione seemed to almost growl before breathing deeply and calming herself all over again.

“So this is what you want to do,” she said, holding out some last hope that Ginny would come to her senses.

“Yes,” Ginny said firmly.

“You know I'll support you no matter what you do, and that I love you, and that you are my best friend,” she said and Ginny nodded, leaning forward across the table to clutch Hermione's hand in hers warmly.

“I know,” she said softly.

“I really need to talk to Draco myself. I mean, you can still do whatever you want, you are a grown woman, but I want to see him, see what he is like and see if you are right about him. I can understand and accept that I have had the wrong perception of him for years, but you can't deny that there is a meanness in him. It was all that he let show for a long time, but it was not an act,” she said, remembering painfully all his bullying, as juvenile as it was.

“I know,” Ginny sighed, knowing Draco was far from Price Charming, but hoping that she could somehow lure out the better half of him, as to hopefully create a balance so that his meanness and cruelty were not so dominating. That was every woman's foolish ambition when it came to dating.

“When do you intend to start this love affair? Next week, next month?” Hermione asked, sounding a little sour about the whole idea still. Surely Ginny didn't intend to start fooling around on her boyfriend of three years the week before Christmas.

“I was thinking about inviting him to the Annual Remembrance Ball on Christmas Eve,” she said and flinched as Hermione choked.

“What?” she gasped.

“He has just as much right to be there as the rest of us, even if he is not one of the people being honored. He should be. And it's open invitation to anyone that works at the Ministry.”

“Ginny, they would not let him come,” Hermione said, dabbing her chin with her napkin. The ball was in five days. Ginny intended on jumping right into things, so soon?

“They can't deny him, and if they try I can talk to Harry. Harry wouldn't be able to turn Draco away, and no one would fight Harry, on anything,” she said, knowing the sort of influence Harry Potter, The-Boy-Who-Lived, the Chosen One, the Great Hero, had.

“You would manipulate Harry with his guilt to get your way?”

“Only as a last resort,” Ginny assured, having twisted Harry's guilt around on him to win more than one row in the past.

“Wouldn't bringing Draco as your date be sort of conspicuous if you are trying to keep your affair secret?” Hermione asked.

“I wasn't going to have him as my date,” Ginny said, explaining her idea. “Reamann works with him; I'll get Reamann keen on the idea of having Draco come along with us and have him suggest it to Draco after having already discussed it with Draco myself. That way Draco being there would seem like Reamann's idea. Draco and I can't snog while there or anything, but I don't really want to, I would just really enjoy the chance to dress him up in something nice and watch him strut about,” she said and Hermione laughed. For the first time since they had sat down to eat together she managed to laugh. It was genuine and seemed to almost calm her. Ginny felt some tension leave her body at the sound.

“Oh Gin, you always had a thing for Draco when he strutted,” she laughed.

“He had a cute bum,” she pouted, blushing at the reminder that she had once had a passing fancy for Draco Malfoy back in Hogwarts, like most of the girls (and probably some of the guys) did. Draco had been a pompous git and a bully, but no one could deny that he was handsome and charismatic to the point where it was unfair. There were even rumors that he had Veela blood in him, but Hermione debunked that to any that would listen, explaining that Veela were only girls, and that she was not positive but she was pretty sure that he would have had very little Veela blood in him to have been born a boy, too little to then have had any significant effect on anyone.

The rumor was worth a chuckle though since Veela magic only worked on men.

“I bet he still does,” Hermione smirked, her too having been able to appreciate how good looking Draco had been, even if she had hated him. It was almost that much more infuriating that he had been so mean to her and so good looking, because as much as she wanted to hate him for it, a small, shameful part of her couldn't hate him because he was so cute. It was that same appalling part of her that had crushed on Lockhart.

“I'll find out, and then let you know,” Ginny teased, Hermione playfully kicking her under the table and them both laughing.

They really were best friends no matter what.

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

Reamann knew Draco would be unable to talk to him that night, but Ginny wasn't talking and he was driving himself bonkers while sitting around their flat, her giving him something only slightly warmer than the cold-shoulder.

It was already past sundown so he couldn't really “bother” Draco with his problems and stress him out anymore than he already was. He knew it was stupid, but he couldn't just sit at home and wait, while things were so uncomfortable with Ginny; so he wrote down what he wanted to say to Draco and went all the way down to the Ministry to drop it off. Draco would read the letter in the morning and get back to him, and Reamann would feel like he had at least accomplished something that night. Other then piss off his girlfriend exponentially that is, or so it would seem. Ginny still seemed putout by his snub over lunch and their dinner together had gone rather halfhearted.

Taking the lifts to Level Four, the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, after Apparating into the Atrium, he headed in the direction of the Penitentiary

Or that was what people commonly called it.

The Werewolf Capture Unit had registered dozens of wolves in the area and they kept strict tabs on them all. Full moons for those registered were spent with the Ministry or St. Mungo's. Though they were all supplied with Wolfsbane so they were relatively harmless, they were not allowed to stay locked up in the privacy of their own homes. It was all precautionary, so the Ministry claimed. Letting werewolves linger in human neighborhoods, Muggle or magical, was a risk the Ministry was not about to take, and Reamann couldn't really blame them.

Reamann knew Draco was here. He was one of the most widely known werewolves alive still in England, and a favorite for the Ministry's constant bullying (according to Ginny.) Draco was never kept anywhere but the Ministry.

He made his way down corridor after corridor, growing more anxious as he went. He had this feeling like he shouldn't be there. The Ministry always had that feel late at night, but somehow being on that floor where live werewolves were being penned made it all the more intimidating. The corridor was silent but he was sure he kept hearing things. Fur rustling? The patter of paws? Surely he was just being paranoid.

Pushing open the door slowly Reamann peeked in at first. That led to him freezing and staring with only his head in the room.

The room was hot, and stuffy, making it hard to breathe. It smelled like straw, and fur. The room, as he called it, was long and narrow, too long and narrow to be a room really but to wide to be a hallway either. Black iron-bar cages lined the walls on either side like a prison. There were two painted lines on the floor, running the length of the room and were a little more than an arm's length from either wall of cages.

A sign was posted with glowing red lettering and it read, “DO NOT CROSS THE RED LINE! Loss of limb and/or humanity probable.”

Reamann was not distracted by the room itself or the grim warning on the sign; he was caught off guard by the wolves. There were more than a few dozen of them…there were fifty, sixty, maybe more!

He had had no idea how many werewolves were in London, and these were just the ones that reported that month to the Ministry as opposed to the Penitentiary in St. Mungo's, or the ones that were not even registered.

“Wow,” he said, blinking and stepping into the room to allow the door to close behind him, giving him one last waft of cool fresh air as it slammed closed.

He walked past the cages slowly, staying well in the middle of the red lines, looking at each of the werewolves as they looked right back at him. There were mostly one to a cage, but some were paired up. The cages were small and the wolves looked bored, many were sleeping, and they seemed to come in every color. Everything from black to gray, silver to brown, there were even golden and red colored wolves.

Reamann had never seen real werewolves before, only the terrible and frightening depictions of them in his schoolbooks. These wolves, however, were not rearing up and roaring at him, they were not snarling and drooling and clawing and ripping. They were not looking at him like they wanted nothing more than to eat him. They just sat there silently, watching him as he watched them. They all had such intense and human eyes. Reamann was unnerved by the intelligence in their gaze. They were still human on the inside, thinking, feeling, understanding.

“Can I help you?” a wizard behind the desk in the back asked as Reamann neared. He was short, and so fat he resembled an egg.

“Yes, I was cleared to come down here,” he said, sort of indicating the badge on his cloak that he had received from the Desk Witch up by the gates in the Atrium as he fumbled with his pockets, looking for his note. “I have a letter I need to leave for one of your…um…guests, and I was told I could leave it with you, and he would get it in the morning,” he said, pulling out said letter finally and handing it to the man while shoving his wand back in his pocket.

“Oh yes, Malfoy,” he said, nodding while looking at the note and writing something down. “Pretty thing he is,” he said conversationally. “We don't get many people down here on the full moon. Some requests come in every month but we typically turn them down since they tend to just be gawkers, all wanting to see the pretty wolves. We are not running a petting zoo here.”

“Yeah,” Reamann said, only half listening. He had looked to his right and saw that the room continued. The man was not at the end of the long narrow room but just at a back corner. There was a right turn and another long hallway-like extension lined with cages. If he walked down to the end, would it really be the end or would it turn right again and continue on?

Were all the cages full?

How many werewolves were there?

Most of the wolves he could see were dark, a few golden ones mixed in, but mostly a dingy color of fur met his eyes. What caught his eye through all that was white; pure, soft, and shining.

Not even realizing it, Reamann walked slowly towards the cage that was about halfway down the hallway and on the right to stand toe to the red line, staring into the cage, the only cage he had seen with not one, not two, but three wolves in it. They were all white and the two smaller wolves just sat there, looking at him with those so-human and very pale blue eyes. The third was much larger than them and was curled up at the bottom of the cage with its head tucked under so that the top of it was actually resting on the floor between its curled paws, apparently sleeping.

Reamann looked at the two young ones and the one sleeping and knew he had found the Malfoys. Draco, along with Clarissa and Michelangelo it seemed.

Leaning forward a little, one of the smaller wolves - Reamann was not sure which one was which- made a yipping sound and Draco's silver-blue eye snapped open. Draco rolled his one visible eye up at Reamann without otherwise moving, looking very much like a dragon awoken from his slumber.

Reamann swallowed hard and looked from Draco to the children, then back. Draco uncurled himself very slowly so he could raise his head while still lying there, and he just stared at Reamann.

Even though his face was a wolf's, Reamann could somehow tell Draco was not happy to see him.

Reamann then made the mistake of putting his toe over the painted red line.

Draco was suddenly standing on all fours. Reamann had not even caught a hint of movement before it happened, Draco was just swiftly up and rushing the bars. His head was jerked backwards in a painful looking snap by a thick leather collar that tethered him back with a heavy chain, but Draco pawed through the bars, almost reaching past the red line, snarling and growling. He was practically choking himself while swiping at Reamann and Reamann leapt back. The werewolves around seemed to move away to the far sides of their cages, either scared or just uneasy with all the commotion Draco was making.

“I would stay back from that one,” the fat man said, waddling over. He must have been only been four feet tall.

Reamann had backed up well far from the line and Draco was now pacing the length of his cage with much contained energy, chain dragging across the floor loudly, a harsh glare locked on Reamann.

“Tear your arm right off if you go near his pups, that one will,” the man said with a smile.

“He takes Wolfsbane though,” Reamann said, shocked breathless by Draco's reaction to seeing him.

“Oh, aye, he does. They all do here. But they are not human, Mr. Rossiter. Some are quirkier than others, and some better behaved, but they are all still very wild on the full moon. Draco here is a little spunky and very protective of the pups is all, that's why we cage them together. Makes quite a fuss when he can't be with them and they just sit and whine.”

Reamann didn't know what to say. He looked at Draco's long and lean wolf form and tried to catch a proper breath, heart still pounding in his chest.

Draco's legs were longer than a real wolf's, hind legs bent more, giving Reamann the impression they were a little longer than the front. His hind legs looked like he could manage to stand upright and actually balance on them while still also able to stand, walk, and run on all fours. His snout was longer and thinner than a real wolf's, and his neck was longer with a very full ruff, not quite like a lion's mane, but still fuller than an actual wolf's. It offset Draco's leanness vastly.

The children looked somewhat more like true wolves but for their eyes and long snouts, but that was possibly just because of their size and the fact that they were sitting so calmly, ears perked. While Draco looked larger, about the size of a man, the “pups” looked just larger than real wolves. They had the same elongated dimensions and limbs as the other werewolves, and thusly stood taller than an actual wolf would.

Reamann could not look at them or Draco and understand how anyone would ever mistake them for true wolves. They clearly resembled them, but something about them was distinctly abnormal, wrong.

Draco sat down, glaring, swishing his long, fluffy white tail in what looked like annoyance.

“Why is he looking at me like that?” Reamann asked.

“He recognizes you,” the man said wisely. Reamann looked over at him for the explanation. “I have known Draco for almost four years now and still know very little about his personal life. He is a terribly private individual,” he said, not using the word “person” when talking about Draco. “I don't think he appreciates you being here, seeing him like this when you know him from the other part of his life, or us being near the pups, so why don't we leave him be,” the man said, pulling what looked like some raw meat out of a sack at his side and tossed it into the cage where the “pups” immediately pounced on it.

Reamann wanted to ask about that as he allowed himself to be lead away but the man saved him the trouble.

“Transforming takes a lot out of them. You have to feed them otherwise they get mean,” he explained. “Typically I can cross the red line, give the wolf some meat and they will just sit on the other side of the cage until I back off. Kind'a timid many are,” he said. “But as you saw with Draco, he rushes the bars. That's why he's tethered when most aren't and I've got to feed them like that.”

Reamann just nodded; they were now back at the desk where the man sat.

“Why? Is that just one of his, well, `quirks?'” he asked, daring a look back at the cage that was almost obscured from view, only flashes of white able to be seen.

“You don't know much about werewolves do you?” he asked.

“Not really,” he answered sheepishly.

“Would you like a quick lesson?” he offered, looking up at him while opening an inkwell.

“Sure,” Reamann was happy that the man was being so understanding.

“Draco is a Greater-wolf meaning he is quite powerful, more so than most here since they are generally Lesser-wolves,” he said and then explained. “Lesser-wolves are just your typical werewolves. Greater-wolves are like, supercharged, powerful, and really mean. Draco was infected by Greyback, a Greater-wolf himself, so Draco would have undoubtedly been a powerful Lesser-wolf because of that, but then he too inherently became a Greater-wolf.”

“How do you know a Greater from a Lesser? I mean, do they look different or something?” Reamann asked, looking at the wolves around them and noticing they looked no different than Draco but for color, size, and weight.

“No, no, it's all about the amount of power they have, magical resistance, and their temperament. Greater-wolves, moreover, are the only ones that can pass on the condition hereditarily,” he explained and Reamann nodded, soaking up the knowledge he was being offered.

“Wow.”

“All the Greater-wolves are kept here in the Ministry rather than at Mungo's.”

“Why?”

“Privacy,” he said with a shrug. “Many of them have children or families and don't want a bunch of Healers knowing about them. Here it's only me,” he said.

Reamann understood that.

Draco did not let the fact that he had children be known by many. He supposed dragging them with him to St. Mungo's on the full moon to shift would sort of give up their secret.

“Sad though, since it's the Greater-wolves that are often in the most pain and would really benefit from the additional care of a Healer. I'm not sure if it's nature's way of balancing out their power by making them so much weaker otherwise, or if it's because they fight so much harder against the disease to not be overcome and dominated by it, but I know that only the Greater-wolves that embrace their beast, and thusly become very inhuman as a result, are the ones that seem to suffer less. Only problem is, then they can't really pass for human anymore. Greyback embraced his disease, and I'm sure you have heard the stories about him,” he said and Reamann nodded, knowing the stories.

“I have,” he said, remembering the news articles about the werewolf during the war and sort of being adopted into the Weasley family and knowing Bill Weasley, he had a good idea of what Greyback was like.

“I wouldn't really talk to Draco about any of this. I don't think he would appreciate it. I'll give him your note and if you're lucky he won't remember you having come down here to see him.”

“I had no idea there were so many,” he said, looking around again.

“Yes, well, during the war, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named used werewolves didn't he?” the man said, looking at Reamann to understand.

“These are all people infected from the war?” Reamann asked in disbelief.

“Most of `em,” the man said looking around at them too. “There are so many because a single werewolf can make hundreds of Lesser-wolves. All it takes is a single bite or a scratch. Greyback had made it his mission in life it seems to infect as many people as possible, and had raised children he had infected to hate and resent humans. Releasing them on the public, a lot of people were killed, but many more survived to then live with the result. It's really unfortunate. Most were just people caught up between the fighting, not really a part of the war. Quite a few were Muggles at the time. A rather harsh introduction to the magical world, being infected with lycanthropy,” he said sadly.

“I'll bet,” Reamann said, looking at the sad eyes of the wolves in the cages. How could there be so many yet have no one standing up for their rights? How could there be so many people trying to hide there illness from others so as to not lose their jobs and friends, and not have someone take notice and flat out say it is wrong? It was an illness, and not one they got through any fault of their own. How could people discriminate over that?

“I'll be sure to give Mr. Malfoy that note of yours,” the man said, holding out a clipboard with some parchment on it for Reamann to sign.

“Oh, oh yes. Thank you,” he said, signing his name quickly. “Thank you,” he said again, handing the quill back to the man.

“No problem,” he said with a smile that made his fat face look like a stuffed-cheeked chipmunk.

“I didn't catch your name,” he said, suddenly realizing he had not been introduced properly.

“Sapiens, Brevis Sapiens,” he said, holding out his hand.

“Reamann Rossiter,” he said, shaking the man's pudgy hand. The man already knew his name, it being on his tag and on the sheet he had to just signed, but still, courtesy demanded that he introduce himself properly.

“It was nice meeting you. I do not get many people cleared to come down here.”

“Well, I can't really say I'll have much excuse to ever come back again, but we seem to have a mutual friend, so I'm sure we will hear about each other again,” Reamann said, smiling.

“I'll be sure to get Malfoy your letter in the morning, once he is fed and dressed and not in the typical bad mood he is in the morning after,” the man said with a smile of his own, his looking a little sad, however.

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

Author's Note:

Werewolves are described by JKR as looking very similar to “true wolves” but are distinguishable physically by several small characteristics like their eyes, the length and shape of their snout, and their tails which are said to be “tufted.” I took some liberties then on size, weight, and proportion since JKR does not get into any detail, which I think is a real shame. I go against canon with the fact that I said the werewolves in my fic are definitely NOT “true wolves” and how Reamann “could not look at [them] and understand how anyone would ever mistake them for true wolves. They clearly resembled them, but something about them was distinctly abnormal, wrong.”

I gave them longer limbs than a “true wolf” and they have very full ruffs, something comparative to a lion's mane. The reason for this is because I believe that werewolves fight each other a lot and like the reason behind a male lion's mane, the thick ruff on the werewolf's neck and throat would protect them. The long limbs were my idea as a means of explaining how they can stand upright, how they are so much larger than a natural wolf, (without making them bulky) and how they are so fast. I made them thinner than a wolf would be, but with large ribcages…so in the end my werewolves look like furry greyhounds on steroids and fluffy tails.

http://www.elfpack.com/stuff/Werewolf_Draco.jpg

This link is of a drawing I did of Draco as a werewolf as I describe in this chapter. Please look at it. :)

The “Greater” and “Lesser-wolf” bit is something I actually barrowed from my own online books, Leave Me Here to Bleed and Leave Me Here to Die, so I naturally have permission to use it, but I'm still citing myself as a reference. XD

Draco and the pups are white. Isn't that just darling?

-->

Blue-Eyed Angel

Chapter Thirteen

Narcissa moved about Draco's apartment Thursday morning, tending to the children there. She considered Draco one of “the children,” because he would forever be her baby, no matter how many babies he had himself. Dressed like a Muggle, in black slacks and a cropped but fitted jacket, she still somehow managed to look cultured and sophisticated with her long sliver hair pulled up into a twist, her posture so straight even in her relaxed state that she could have balanced a stack of books on her head as she moved and they wouldn't have teetered. She looed good, as she should since she was only just turning fifty and she took damn good care of herself.

It was near noon and she was preparing lunch. Michelangelo wanted cheesy macaroni and Clarissa wanted a jam sandwich with no crust. Draco wanted none of that. He wouldn't eat. Narcissa tried tempting him with his favorite: peanut butter at the very least, and he had not refused, he had simply ignored her. He was lying in bed while the children were actually up. They were taking it easy and watching some television with a frequent reminder from their grandmother for “a little less noise,” because she knew how much Draco wanted to sleep.

With the kids halfheartedly trying to push each other off the couch with their feet as they sat foot to foot on the couch, each sharing an end of the same blanket, there was a knock at the door.

“Who on earth…?” Narcissa asked, wiping her delicate hands on a kitchen rag while walking out into the living room to answer the door.

“Stop that, you two,” she said over her shoulder, Michelangelo pulling on the blanket so it covered his sister less for no reason other than to annoy her and get her to start whining.

Narcissa opened the front door cautiously so she could lean around it and not allow anyone to see in. She had no idea who was at the door, and call her paranoid but she did not trust anyone that showed up there unexpectedly to have good intentions.

Reamann stood on the front steps, looking awkward yet hopeful.

“Hello, are you Draco's mother?” he asked, trying to be polite and keep the surprise out of his voice at her youthful appearance and obvious resemblance to Draco. Damn she looked good if she was his mother, and damn if he were wrong and she took offence to him implying that she was old enough to have mothered him. Women were so sensitive like that about their age.

“Who are you?” she asked, not answering him his question.

“Reamann Rossiter, I work with Draco at the Ministry, or rather, he helps me out at the Ministry on a case I'm working…but anyways, I have been over before, met his children and all, and I know he is sick so I have a potion for him to help him feel a little bit better. I wanted to talk…”

“Come in,” she said, leaning out of the doorway to disappear behind it and allow Reamann in. Reamann, caught off guard by her sudden and ready invitation, closed his mouth slowly and stepped in.

“Thank you,” he said as she closed the door behind him after he was barely inside.

“He is in his bedroom, first room on the right down the hall there,” she said, pointing to a dark hallway at the far end of the living room, across from the front door.

“Um, thank you,” he said, still uneasy. Draco's mother didn't look like an overly trusting woman, but the moment he said he would offer to help Draco feel better she invited him in and was now pushing him to see her son. He supposed he couldn't blame her, but honestly, he was dreading seeing Draco enough that he would have liked to be stalled for a moment longer.

“Hello, Reamann,” Clarissa said, smiling up at him, kicking her brother hard under their shared blanket as she pulled it under her chin.

“Mr. Rossiter,” Michelangelo said through his teeth, his shin hurting now.

“Hello you two, how are you feeling?” he asked, noting that they looked worn out and a little paler than he remembered them, but otherwise pretty perky.

“As good as could be expected,” Clarissa said, snuggling down but smiling. Michelangelo said nothing as he tried to pull the blanket away from her. It was honestly large enough for them to share, they were just being difficult.

“You look, good,” he said, honest but still a little amazed.

“Try not to sound so surprised,” Michelangelo said blandly.

“Michael, be kind,” Narcissa warned before turning to Reamann. “Children are remarkably resilient. They bounce back so much better than,” she said, abruptly stopping there to sigh. “They are tough,” she said, patting Michelangelo on the head and putting the war of the blanket to an end with a leer in their direction.

Reamann understood what Narcissa had almost said. The children were fairing better than Draco was, most likely far better by measure of how heavy her sigh had been.

“I would have brought more of this draught if I had thought of you two possibly needing it,” he said, leaning over to rest his hands on his knees while talking to them, hoping to build up the nerve to go see Draco by talking to his children a little. He really did like the kids; they were really quite intriguing and sweet.

“We are doing okay. Dad's really the one that needs it,” Michelangelo said, looking up at Reamann with eyes of complete understanding of the situation which made Reamann 's posture of leaning over and smiling almost condescending.

“He usually this bad?” Reamann asked, hoping, in some dark, twisted, selfish way, that to be the case, if only to ease his own guilt for having put Draco under more stress than usual. Thinking that, Reamann felt rather disgusted with himself.

“He hasn't been this bad in a while,” Clarissa piped in, pulling the blanket up then to cover her mouth, her pale and delicately frowning eyebrows creasing in the middle with her concern as her mass of long curling hair spilled out all-around her while she leaned against the couch arm.

Reamann straightened, his stomach almost too tight to allow it. Narcissa was at his side when he turned.

“When you go in there,” she said softly as though to exclude the children from the conversation at that point, “could you possibly get him to eat something? He worries me when he doesn't eat,” she said, the sincere concern on her face so honest it seeped over onto him.

“I will,” he promised, knowing that the time was up and he had to go see Draco now.

Draco's closed bedroom door was the first on the right, barely into the hallway so it would have been hard to miss with the living room but feet to his right. There was another door a little further down on the left that was open and looked like a bathroom and then another on the very end that he could only guess what probably where the children slept. Standing in front of the door Reamann looked to his right, into the living room, and sighed.

“Alright,” he whispered to himself, looking at the door.

Should he knock or just enter?

If Draco was not feeling well he did not want to cause a headache or something with knocking, but Draco also seemed like the kind of person that would demand a knock before someone entered.

Reamann settled for tapping him knuckles softly on the wood as he opened the door.

“Draco?” he asked softly, leaning in around the door. He saw and took in Draco's bedroom immediately. There was one window on the wall opposite him that was tall and narrow and blocked off with heavy drapes. Directly below the window was a mattress on the floor. There was a lamp and clock on Reamann 's right along with an old, almost antique looking wardrobe and a guitar leaning against the wall in the corner. On the left was a battered dresser against that wall opposite the wardrobe. The floor was clean, and wooden, only a small rug on the left side of the bed to offer some defense against the cold of the floor. The room was very small, narrow so that really, the only space was at the foot of the bed where the door swung, and the narrow space on either side of the mattress, narrower on the side with the wardrobe.

There was a lump under the blankets on the bed. That was all that indicated that Draco was there. He did not answer.

“Hey, Draco,” Reamann said, closing the door behind him and standing there in the awkward silence of the room.

“Please tell me that I imagined…that I dreamed, that you had come to visit me last night while at the Ministry,” Draco mumbled from under his blankets.

Reamann's uncomfortable silence spoke volumes.

“Damn it, Reamann,” Draco growled, muffled only a touch by the bedding.

“I just had to do something, I was going crazy. I intended on just dropping off the letter and leaving. It was only by accidental chance that I saw you at all, but I'm still very sorry,” he said while moving over to the left of the bed so he was no longer standing by the door. Draco rolled over with a groan like he was in pain. He looked right at him and Reamann couldn't hold his gaze. Draco's eyes were red and dry looking, almost like he had been crying but something more like he was just exhausted and in pain. His throat was bruised, like someone had choked him. It didn't take Reamann but a second to realize that was probably from last night, and it had been Draco himself that had caused the bruises, when he had nearly choked himself with his collar.

Reamann felt guilt at that. Draco wouldn't have had those bruises if he had not gone there.

“You came here today to ease your own guilt, but to also ask if I had read your note,” he said and Reamann's mouth opened, ready to deny that last. “Save it, Reamann,” he said, not needing to hold up his hand to effectively cut Reamann off. It was near impossible to lie to Draco sometimes, with Draco ready and capable of looking into his mind. “I understand that the case had a major turn for the worse, but that does not excuse what you did. This is now the third time you have disregarded my right to and desire for privacy so as to feed your own curiosity and ease your discomfort at the expense of my own.”

“Draco, I'm sorry that I keep offending you like this. I just find you very interesting and want to learn more, but you are so…”

“No, you don't trust me, and you are curious about the stories. You want to see if they are true,” he said, cutting Reamann off.

“Draco, I trust you. I have said it before that I trust you,”

“And you lied,” Draco said, rolling over with obvious pain at the effort but his desire to not look at Reamann at the moment overpowering even that.

Reamann had to look away. He did not like that that Draco appeared to be so thin that he could see his spine, and he be damned if Draco did not seriously look like he was dying. It seemed Draco was too immersed in his own suffering to mind the fact that he had presented his boney back to Reamann and just took some deep breaths. Reamann flinched as he caught a glimpse of Draco's ribs expanding just under the skin, and Draco spoke.

“Please answer me this, Reamann,” he said as though forcing his words through his teeth and past his pain, “What did you really accomplish by going there last night? Was your own ease of mind really worth it, at the expense of my pride and privacy?”

“Draco, I did not mean,”

“I don't think this is working out, Reamann,” he said suddenly.

“Draco, what do you mean?”

“Sebastian has been assigned to the case now; you do not need me.”

“I don't want to work with him, he's a bigger prat than you could ever be, and you and I have been working since the beginning on this.”

“Sebastian is very smart; you won't need to use me anymore with him on the case,”

“Draco, I'm not using you-”

“Just get out,” Draco said firmly, still presenting his back to Reamann.

“Draco, we had a deal. You help me, I help you,” he said and Draco huffed a little, curling up a little more, making the bones just that much more prominent and painfully obvious, forcing Reamann to swallow. “Draco, you need this potion,” he said, holding out the vial he had brought over for Draco. “Don't tell me you don't. Your mother is worried sick in the other room. She wants you to eat something, and honestly, I think it would do you some good to-”

“I said get out,” Draco said, his voice so low in a growl that it was actually hoarse. It was clear his throat obviously hurt. “Get out of my house, get out of my life. I was doing fine without you, and I will continue to be fine without you,” he said, his voice firm despite the despair prevalent in it.

Reamann now had the impression that Draco had shown him his back on purpose, with intent on making him feel uncomfortable and awkward, to chase him out. It had worked if that was the case. He seriously wanted to just run from the scene and he felt guilty looking down at how sick Draco was.

Damn him.

Reamann set the little bottle down on top of Draco's dresser without a word and closed the door behind him as he left. Draco did not get up right away for the potion. He laid there for a long while, thankful that presenting his back had successfully hidden his tears from the other man.

“Did he say what he wanted to eat?” Narcissa asked as Reamann walked towards the front door, prepared to let himself out without saying anything to anyone. The hopefulness in Narcissa's voice was enough to make his stomach churn. He couldn't leave just yet.

“I'm sorry,” he said, turning slowly. Narcissa looked at him, brow frowning, eyes sadly hopeful still. “I realize now that my presence is not only inappropriate, but not appreciated. I did not mean to hurt your son like I have, and I hope you can forgive me. I don't expect him to,” he said, turning around to let himself out.

Narcissa was left standing there, hurting, unsure of what to do to help her baby in the other room.

“Nana? What's wrong?” Clarissa asked from behind her.

“Come on you two, let's get you cleaned up and dressed to visit your uncle Lupin and see how he is feeling,” she said, sniffing back her tears, readying the children to visit her niece so that Draco could have some peace.

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

Ginny checked her note, checked the address in the building, and then checked her note again. She had the right place. She had Apparated to a safe point from the Ministry and had walked nearly half a mile to get there. Now she was standing on the sidewalk in front of Draco's home and had lost her nerve. She was not having second thoughts, but she was suddenly feeling a little insecure.

What if she asked him out and he said no?

Would he really say no?

He seemed interested enough earlier in the week, when he had thrown her down on his desk and nearly ravished her...though, she had been more than willing to allow him to ravish her.

She would have to explain to him her ideas, thoughts, and feelings on the matter and he might not want to. He might like the idea of her cheating, he might not want to be the “other man” in her life, and really, could she blame him?

Unfolding and then refolding her note over and over again she stood there in the cold, snow built up in little mounds at the sides of the sidewalk and Ginny had a distinct mental image of Draco outside, in hat, scarf, and gloves, manually shoveling the walk.

Why did that make her smile?

It was not funny that he could not use magic.

But then why did her heart flutter warmly whenever she thought of him doing the simplest and most humble of things? Surely there were witches and wizards that opted to actually wash their own clothing, or sweep their own floors. Magic was a connivance, not an excuse to be lazy. Right?

She was a poor example of that. She owned only one broom, and it was not the sweeping kind.

“Hello, Ms. Weasley,” Narcissa Malfoy said, suddenly beside her.

Ginny jumped a little and placed her empty hand over her heart, squishing down her puffy scarf.

“Oh, Mrs. Malfoy, you startled me,” she said, letting out a puff of breath.

“That is plain to see, dear,” she said in a very cold and rolling tone that made Ginny feel subordinate. Draco could talk very much like that, and she wondered if it was a learned or hereditary quality. She did not like Narcissa making her feel inferior, and took a deep breath, knowing that was just how Narcissa was and not to take it personal, or to heart because that would likely only satisfy the woman.

“I, I came to see Draco,” Ginny announced, standing outside with the woman, realizing she would likely have to get an invitation from her to come in.

“I'm sorry. My son is not going to be having all this company today. He needs his rest,” Narcissa said, turning to walk up the steps, leaving Ginny to stand there.

“Please, I have to talk to him, it's important,” she said.

“No,” Narcissa said, not even going as far to say “come another time,” and thus giving Ginny the impression that the woman was turning her away because she was a Weasley. That made her hot with anger.

“I'm his girlfriend and I demand to see him,” she huffed, the words coming out before she even thought of what she was saying. Once they were out in the air Ginny wanted to hiccup and swallow them before they reached Narcissa, but she could not. Narcissa turned from the door where she had been about to unlock it to stare.

“Excuse me?” she said, caught somewhere between indignant outrage at being addressed with such disrespect, and shock from Ginny's declaration.

“Please, I need to see him,” she said.

“My son would not date a…he would not date you,” Narcissa said firmly.

“You clearly don't know him as well as you had thought then,” Ginny said, feeling sick to her stomach. This could end very badly. She did not want to get in a fight with Draco's mother over being Draco's girlfriend before she even had the chance to talk to Draco and ask him out.

“I know all there is to know about my son, we have no secrets from each other, he and I,” she said firmly, looking now angry and insulted.

“Did he tell you about the lunch date we had last week?” she asked, holding onto that one truth in all that she said and putting all her ferocity behind it. They had gone on a date, and she could be under any truth potion of any potency and admit to that much. The truth gave her the courage to stand tall before the tall, willowy, pale mother before her. Draco's mother was almost a polar opposite of her own mother.

Narcissa looked flushed and angry.

“Wait here,” she said curtly, turning and unlocking the door.

She let herself in and slammed the door behind her.

Ginny was not sure if the woman was just going to lock herself inside after telling her to wait and never come back out, or what. Ginny had a feeling the woman, as despicable as she thought her to be, was better than that. She still had half a mind to storm up the rickety looking metal stairs and pound on the door. She resisted, but it took effort.

Ginny stood outside, waiting, waiting, waiting. She was ready to let herself in after five minutes, unlocking the door with a charm and barging in, but Narcissa opened the door with a very sour look on her face that robbed her of her natural beauty.

“My son said to let his…girlfriend…in,” she said, looking like it pained her something to say that. Ginny smiled triumphantly in a way that was mean because of its friendly innocence. She wanted to taunt and stick her tongue out in an “I told you so,” manner, but resisted. She was not ten anymore, and Narcissa was not one of her brothers.

“Thank you,” she said, allowing Narcissa to close the front door. She took off her coat, and scarf, and hat, and Narcissa gathered them up and disappeared into the kitchen with them without a word. Ginny was left standing in the lowly living room, not sure where to go but knowing not to ask Narcissa. Beyond the woman being completely unwilling to be helpful, Draco's girlfriend should know her way around his apartment.

Ginny walked across the orange carpet of the living room and tried to make it seem like it was not the first time she had seen it, all while under the watchful eye of a small barn owl. She supposed she would have another opportunity to look at it and take in its state, right then she had to play the part, the part of Draco's concerned girlfriend come to see him.

She saw a door on the right immediately after stepping into the hallway and considered it for a long moment. Was it his? She could not guess and be wrong, his mother was eavesdropping.

Looking over her shoulder carefully she saw a bathroom to her back left and another door that was closed and on her left at the end of the hall.

“Shit,” she said, balling her hands into fists. She had a feeling to try the other door first and make it seem like she had just gone to use the bathroom if she happened to be wrong, but she took a gamble and knocked on the door while opening it.

“Draco?” she asked.

Leaning in she saw him sitting up in bed, blankets over his lap. He had a wholly green jumper on and looked terribly ill. He normally looked good in green, but the jumper only made his face look all the more thin and his color all the more lacking.

“Hello there,” he said, looking up at her, his hair long and tangled looking over his right shoulder like he had just pulled it out of his collar. Despite how deplorable his health seemed, he looked pretty welcoming.

“I, I just came here to…”

“Well come in, sit down,” he said, an edge of command to his words. Ginny wanted to fight that, not liking being ordered about but seeing the sense in not standing in the half-open doorway with Draco's mother trying to listen in from the other room.

Ginny stepped in the rest of the way and turned to close the door while looking through the gap, seeing Narcissa in the living room, pretending to tidy up the already neat and organized place while listening in.

“My mother said my `girlfriend' was here to see me,” he said and Ginny's face blushed brightly while her back was still to him.

“About that, I'm sorry. I couldn't think of anything else to say that would get her to let me in,”

“Or anything that could possibly make her madder,” he said. Ginny got the impression he was angry with her, but when she peeked over her shoulder she saw amusement on his face.

“It just sort of came out,” she said, turning to face him now.

“I'm flattered then,” he said with a smirk. “She did not give me your name, she simply said my `girlfriend' and I had to take a guess who on earth would make such a claim,” he said with his arms crossed over his chest.

“And you guessed me,” she said, not making it a question.

“Well, since you are the only woman I have recently snogged, I did not have a long list to choose from. I also noted my mother's outrage and knew it couldn't all stem from simply not being told I was, supposedly, seeing someone. You being a Weasley and the ex-Mrs. Potter seemed to compensate for that nicely,” he said with amusement.

“I'm sorry if I have caused some trouble between you and your mother,” she said, feeling guilty now, again.

“She will get over it. She has wanted me to date for years but has been unsuccessful in persuading me. I suppose she can complain all she likes about who I apparently picked, but not that I haven't finally done what she has wanted for so long,” he said wish a shrug that seemed to cause him some amount of pain. It was subtle and well hidden, but Ginny had been looking him in the eyes, and while his face had remained largely unchanged, a tension appeared around his lips and eyes that gave away his soreness at the simple movement.

“You really haven't dated?” she asked, a little shocked. Draco had said as much on their lunch date, but she had thought he meant serious relationships, not all dating in general.

“Surprised?” he asked.

“Well, I mean, I just thought…you know…after getting out of Azkaban you would want to, well, see some women and stuff,” she said, not wanting to flat out say that she had expected him to get out of Azkaban like some randy animal, ready to shag any woman in his path, but she certainly had expected him to have seen someone in the three years he had been out.

“Well, it is hard to get a date when you are Draco Malfoy: Death Eater and Werewolf, and I could only imagine the disaster a blind-date would be, if I had friends to set one up for me that is. I rather not inflict myself on others, and I have other responsibilities in my life that take precedence over my somewhat lacking romantic-life, making it somewhat easier to push aside,” he said, sounding comfortable with that but Ginny getting the feeling he was hiding how he truly felt about the matter from her. Surely it hurt him to be unable to meet women because he was a werewolf and a “Death Eater” and a prisoner out of Azkaban.

“Oh,” she said, not sure what to say.

“Well, I assumed you had a legitimate reason for coming here and giving my mother a coronary,” he said with a smile, clearly happy to see her, and possibly hoping she had come just to see how he was.

“Well, I would like to say I came here just to see how you were feeling, but that's not true. I came here for another reason,” she said slowly, Draco's face not falling but something in his eyes shifting. How could no one but her see how much he guarded himself? If one knew what to look for he was obvious and his emotion apparent. He was disappointed that she had come there for reasons other than to just see him.

“And what would that be?” he asked coolly.

“I needed to ask you something,” she said, Draco's eyes closing off like a door shutting. It hurt her to see that.

“You are here to ask something of me?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“I see,” he said, bitter at the last, thinking of Reamann and how he had come only to ease his own mind and ask more of him.

“I wanted to ask you,” she said, starting slowly, looking away, “If you wanted to, you know, um,” she said, words failing her at that point, her stomach in knots.

What was with her?

She had asked a guy out before.

Her mother may have thought it improper for her, a girl, to ask a guy out, but Ginny considered herself a modern witch and woman and she did not hold tight to the traditions of the past. Women could ask men out…so why was she tongue-tied?

“No, I don't know, Weasley,” Draco said smoothly.

Ginny cleared her throat. Draco addressing her by her last name enough to pull her out of her slump and continue on.

“Well, you said you didn't have a girlfriend just now, so I guess I'm kind of free to ask you…I mean, to enquire if you're interested in any way…of, well,” she mumbled.

“Why, Weasley, are you asking me out?” Draco asked, the surprise honest in his voice, but his tone able to recover enough to be mocking.

“I realize it's crazy, and sudden, and if you are not interested I fully understand…”

“No,” he said and Ginny looked at him, that not being an answer but him just trying to stop her rambling. “It's not that, I'm just a little stunned. Are you not with Reamann?” he asked and Ginny flushed.

“Well, okay, yes, but hear me out…” she said, moving over to his bed and sitting on the mattress, at the foot so there was still as much space between them as possible.

Draco's expression looked like he just could not wait to hear the explanation for this.

“Yes, I'm with Reamann, but you know from our…um…lunch date, that things between him and I are not too glamorous at the moment,”

“So you are dumping him to see me,” Draco asked, knowing that was not the answer.

“Not exactly,” she said, feeling uncomfortable. “I can't break things off with Reamann,”

“I know this, we talked about it in length already,” Draco said.

“And I can only imagine how well it would go over with, well, everyone should I start dating you,” she mumbled.

“Draco Malfoy: Death Eater and Werewolf,” he stated simply and Ginny felt awkward. Draco was as laidback as ever, but she knew he was bothered.

“But I can't continue to be with Reamann and just be miserable,” she said and Draco nodded slowly. “I understand this is a terrible thing to ask of someone, but, well, I was hoping, you know, we could discreetly…you know,”

“Weasley, are you asking me to help you cheat on your boyfriend of three years, who happens to be my partner, less than a week before Christmas?” he asked, looking at her up and down like he had never really seen her before in true light.

“Well, when you lump it all together like that it's gonna sound bad,” she flushed, tucking her hair behind her ear nervously.

“No, it's not that I think it's terrible… it really, really is mind you…I'm just surprised. What happened to that noble honest streak in all Gryffindors?” he asked, sounding mocking again.

”We tend to be rule breakers,” she said with a blush.

“I can see that,” he said, smiling, feeling the same was true about Slytherins. Really, the two houses were not that different in the end, Slytherin was just better, not that he was biased or anything.

“I just really like being around you, and I really thought we had a connection that night, back before the final battle,” she said, looking anywhere but at his face at that moment. Draco shifted a little too in what looked like obvious discomfort.

“Well, I'm not sure how well this would all work out,” he said softly. Ginny looked up at him. “There is a level of discomfort here between us, you see” he said and she gave him a look, him using her words against her now. “Don't deny it, you feel it too or you would not be flushing and shifting, and avoiding my gaze,” he said, pointing at her like she was about to accuse him of just making up excuses. “I'll admit, awright, I had been honest with you that night,” he said, painfully clearing his throat before continuing. “I honestly did not expect to live and had given up on everything, ready to just go out with wands blazing, but, thanks to you…” he said, not finishing the thought but just shrugging stiffly.

“Are you ungrateful?” she asked, getting the sense he felt that he had failed in his plan, plan to die a hero rather than live to be shamed as a traitor. Something told her he felt shame, but not because of others' opinions of him, but in that he had failed in something.

“No, no. I appreciate it. Nearly died and would have without you,” he said, lightly, almost raising the mood a bit, “but now I have to live with the fact that you know all my little secrets,” he said, leering at her, hissing that last word.

“You make it sound like letting someone in and see the real you is a bad thing,” she said, leaning back to take him in fully though it was not necessary with the distance already between them.

“I don't trust people,” he said flatly.

“You don't trust me?”

“I have put myself in a position with my carelessness that I have to, now don't I?”

“You think I would blackmail you or something, knowing what I know?”

“You saying you wouldn't?”

“What do you have that I could want?” she asked, not meaning to imply that he was so meager that he had nothing she would want, but the idea of blackmailing him was just that ridiculous to her.

“Other than my hot body?” he teased and she playfully leaned over to slap his leg.

“Prat!” she laughed. She knew he was making a joke at his own expense, knowing full-well that he was not looking all that glamorous at the moment in his oversized jumper with the moth-hole near the collar and his tangled wasit-length white hair. She thought he was adorable however, even with the black and purple bruises blotting the skin of his throat and neck. Maybe it was that deep seeded mothering instinct in her she had inherited from her mother, but she just wanted to scoop Draco up and baby him, take care of him.

“You really feel so disinclined to go out with me that you would only do so through blackmail or the threat of it at least?” she asked.

“Well, you are a Weasley,” he simply stated and she bared her teeth in a playful growl. He had said before that Weasleys crossed the line when it came to the limits of whom he would date, but then, he didn't really date at all.

“You kissed a Weasley, and I didn't blackmail you into that.”

“Just one more piece of blackmail worthy material you have on me, Weasley,” he said, leaning in a little.

“Are you agreeing to this, Malfoy?”

“Do I have a choice, Weasley?” he asked, still implying that she was blackmailing him.

“No, I guess you don't. You better be ready to spend a lot of afternoons and evenings with me because I'm going to blackmail you until we are exhausted and weak in the knees,” she said, leaning in so their noses brushed. Draco liked what she was implying, and rubbed the tip of his nose against hers. Most people would call it an Eskimo kiss, but to him, or any werewolf, it was nuzzling, and he liked it.

“You manipulative woman, you would have made a fine Slytherin,” he said, sliding his nose over her cheek to speack softly into her ear.

“And you showed quite a bit of courage befitting a Gryffindor those years ago,” she said and he breathed and laugh while their faces were so close together and pulled away so their nosed were just barely touching again. Ginny leaned forward the rest of the way to kiss him then, and he pressed right back, deepening the kiss and her allowing it when his tongue slipped out to trace across her bottom lip.

They kissed for a moment, each leaning over the gap between them, but when Ginny shifted to move closer he broke the kiss and looked away.

“No,” he said, “I'm not feeling well,” he confessed, shifting and not hiding the pain in his face that time.

“Do you have something for it?” she asked, looking at him and feeling her heart pull. Hermione had said he was not allowed potions. Would Muggle painkillers help any?

“On my dresser. I was about to take it when you showed up,” he said, looking at the little potion bottle that was so close and yet so far away. His jumper had been under the covers by his knees, him having taken it off and on all morning as he went from hot to cold rapidly. He was still hot, but he had thrown the warm jumper on so that Ginny would not see him like Reamann had. He did not want her seeing him. He was self-conscious enough about how he looked to put his discomfort aside. He was supposed to be strong and confident…but he wasn't. His Malfoy ancestors would be shamed.

“I'll get it for you,” she said, him not having to ask or even hint that he would like her to get it. She made it an offer. Draco would have refused on principle, so as not to look weak and helpless, but she was already striding over in those few steps to the dresser and he had to admit, it was a nice chance to check out her bum, a bum he had just agreed to date, and it was nice to be babied by someone who was not his mother.

Speaking of which, his mother was just outside there door, frozen in the hallway, prepared to act as though she were on her way to the bathroom if she were to be discovered. She was trying to listen in, but Ginny and he had talked too softly for her to have been able to hear much of anything.

“Mother, a little privacy please. Ginny I will not be doing anything inappropriate, I assure you, but this is quite rude,” he whispered into her head. She huffed a little and moved on to the bathroom to close the door firmly, even though she had not needed to go there in the first place. Draco knew then she had not heard anything, otherwise her thoughts would have been angry, not indignant.

Ginny sat beside him this time, close enough to be warm and affectionate without being too forward or leading to a misunderstanding of her intentions. She had missed the whole exchange between Draco and his mother.

Draco allowed her to sit close, and suppressed a smile.

Okay, so he had just, sort of, agreed to date the Weasley girl. Girl no more, a woman really. Something told him he should be screaming at himself for this, but it was surprisingly quiet in his head. There was no inner conflict, no “Malfoys don't do this, or that,” just a content peace he had never realized he had been lacking.

Now that his voices were not arguing over the fact that he liked her and him denying it, there seemed to be nothing but ease there.

He knew he had had a serious crush on the girl in his sixth year, even if he had denied it for months back then, and he had made a move once that night so long ago it seemed…but he had not realized it had lived on all these years, through his marriage, and jail time, and children.

Draco felt his stomach drop out.

His children! Oh shit.

“Draco, is everything alright?” Ginny asked, looking at Draco's suddenly horrified face, him having yet to take the potion she had fetched him. She was tempted to ask him how he had gotten it since he wasn't supposed to have any, but she didn't want to know, especially if he had acquired it through some illegal means. It was easier to ignore when she didn't know the truth.

“Oh, oh, it's nothing. Just dreading the taste,” she said, holding the vial up a little to indicate what he meant.

What was he going to do?

He had just agreed to date a woman that did not realize he was a father of two!

She knew he had been married, but he had not mentioned that in the three years he had been married he had had two kiddies.

Draco took a long gulp of the potion with a tip back of his head like it was a shot glass, scrunching his eyes closed at the foul taste.

The children were not home at the moment, but if they had been, would she have still asked, or would she have turned away?

There were more than just the reasons he had detailed to Ginny as to why he did not date. Most women that could deal with his past, and his personality, and disorders, did not want the extra baggage of a man with two children already. The few that wouldn't care, would mind that he was a Death Eater baring the Dark Mark and a werewolf with some serious issues with a lot of things. He just could not win.

He had to tell her, but sitting there, her so close, he feared she would reject him, and he liked having her there.

He would tell her later.

He wanted to enjoy this, having someone, however brief a time.

Let him have a girlfriend for a night. It was nice.

Draco leaned over and kissed to corner of Ginny's mouth. She smiled and turned a little to kiss him on the lips but he kept the kisses light and chaste. He did not need to share with her how foul the potion was. The taste wouldn't have been so bad, it the texture had not been so grainy. It was enough together to make him consider the pain as a better alternative. Almost.

Ginny carefully wrapped her arms around Draco so that she hung on his shoulders and arms a little, careful not to put too much weight on him, his hair tickling her cheek.

Draco surpassed a happy giggle. Malfoys did not giggle. But he had never gotten snuggles and such from his wife. They had sort of been separated by space, and bars, for the extent of their relationship, and his only other girlfriend, Pansy, had been affectionate, but he had not felt anything for her, so their embraces had felt sort of hollow and empty. Numb. He liked this, and he did not want it to end. He tilted his head a little so that it was leaning atop of hers so he could nuzzle her hair a little and she giggled for them both. He was grateful.

“I want you to come to the Remembrance Ball,” she said suddenly, Draco becoming utterly still in her arms.

“What?” he asked.

“I know, it's strange to ask, but I really think you should go,”

“Um, Weasley, darling,” he said, still calling her by her last name but adding “darling” to keep things light, “There is a reason as to why I was not invited to my Hogwarts ten year reunion,” he said, looking down at her and her pulling away enough and leaning less so that they were looking right at each other.

“Draco, I know there are people out there that think of you as, well, a bad guy,”

“The majority, actually,” he corrected for her.

“But you have a right to be there. You should have been one of the people honored, and it is open to all that work at the Ministry, so you cannot be denied.”

“Even if I were to go, and somehow manage to get in, I think most would be insulted and infuriated by my presence. Being unarmed in a room of grudge-bearing witches and wizards is not my idea of a good time,” he said.

“I would be there,” she said.

“Reamann so dimwitted that he would not catch on to his bint bringing another date to the ball?” he asked.

“No, see, I will talk to Reamann, I will have him talk to you, and invite you, so he will think it was his idea that you are there. He and I would be on your side at least,” she said.

“I'm not so sure about that,” he said, Ginny looking at him questioningly. Draco went into a brief explanation of the “fight” he had just been in with Reamann and why he was angry at Reamann in the first place.

“Oh, Draco, you have to forgive Reamann. He really has a problem with asking the first questions that come to mind without thinking and realizing it comes across as rude and nosey. He is just incurably curious. He means well,” she said.

“That doesn't make it any better, or make me feel any less violated,” Draco grumbled, picking at the edge of the little bottle where there was a knot in the cord that held the cork.

“Give him another chance. He needs you,” she said.

“I know he does,” Draco said, sounding defeated and mildly depressed. Ginny wrapped her arms around him and kissed the side of his nose.

“Come with me to the ball,” she pleaded.

“Oh, don't do that,” he wined.

“Please,” she begged, pouting and batting her eyelashes.

“No, no…with the eyes, and the pouting, damn you! My mother does this to me. You damned, manipulative women,” he said, almost mentioning his daughter just then but catching himself. Ginny didn't need to know just yet that his daughter had him wrapped around her little finger with the slightest of pouts.

How was it that he was such a softy when it came to women? No means no. He kept telling himself that, but he already felt himself cave in.

“Please,” he pressed, pouting her bottom lip out as far as it would go in a silly pout that he just had no defenses against.

“I have nothing to wear,” he said, sighing at his defeat, Ginny smiling.

“If I found you something, you would go?” she asked, sounding excited.

“I am a glutton for punishment,” he said, glancing over at her out of the corner of his eyes. She grinned broadly, rewarding him with that smile he had fallen in love with back at Hogwarts.

Oh how long he had waited to be the cause of such a grin. He had seen it from a distance, but had never been its lucky recipient.

Before he did something truly embarrassing like grin back at her stupidly in a moment that would be so damn fluffy and mushy for him to stomach with his tummy full of nasty potion, he swooped in for a kiss. Turning carefully despite his pain he kissed her, and she kissed him. She fell backwards onto the bed, and he followed, not breaking the kiss, but straining his bruised neck because he had to move slower.

He laid himself partially on top of her as they kissed and she had to make a conscious effort not to grab him too roughly, as roughly as she wanted to. She did not want to hurt him.

Their kissing peeked at nearly ravenous, and settled to being repetitive pecks on the lips as he laid there on her, looking down, his hair draping down on the right side like a curtain it so often resembled.

“Thank you,” he said, Ginny caught of guard between two kisses with him saying that.

“For what?” she asked.

“For saving my life,” he said.

“Draco, we have been over this before…you saved mine first, we are even,” she said, already having tried to explain this to him.

“There is more than one way to save a man's life,” he said, giving her another, lingering, kiss.

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Author's Note:

There you go, D+G action! Official, and fluffy, and oh so delish.

Reamann got yelled at, which was what you all had been wanting, Ginny and Draco have finally hooked up, which you all wanted, and you got to see Narcissa be a mummy, and the kids again. Yay for this chapter! Was it relatively angst free? So Draco is apparently a little thin, but I find that smexy. :)

REVIEW! IT'S GOOD KARMA

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Blue-Eyed Angel

Chapter Fourteen

Draco stood in the room with Harry Potter at his feet: disarmed, bleeding, and helpless, Draco's wand pointed down at him. To Draco's back was a Death Eater, Macnair.

“Prat,” Harry spat at Draco, surprisingly calm given the situation. Draco was not calm. On the outside he looked it, relatively, but on the inside he was in the midst of a full-on panicked episode.

“Do it, Malfoy. Do it,” Macnair encouraged, wounded and disarmed himself -literally- at that moment. His right arm was gone, but none-too-cleanly, thanks to Harry. Draco had been there to overtake the boy-who-lived in all the distraction and now Harry was at his mercy.

“Would your precious Dark Lord really want you to kill me? I thought he wanted to have the pleasure,” Harry spat, glaring at Draco, able to see the weakness in Draco's eyes and trying to exploit it at that moment. He had seen how poorly Draco had performed under pressure on the rooftop of the Astronomy Tower; he did not honestly feel Draco was the real threat to him in that room. He worried about Macnair getting Draco's wand from him. Harry saw his own wand on the floor, against the far wall where Draco had banished it with the disarming spell.

Harry tired to “Accio” it silently, but silent spells were hard enough even with a wand.

This was the first time Harry Potter had come face to face with Draco Malfoy since that night. It was now December and Draco seemed as uncertain as ever and very ill. His hair was grown out to his shoulders, and was far less sleek and shiny than it used to be. Draco was also very thin looking, like Lupin often looked, with the sunken-in cheeks and dark circles under his fair eyes. The war had not been kind to him it seemed while he was on the run from the Ministry.

“Do it,” Macnair said, growling, Draco looking between the two as each spoke to him.

“You're not a killer, Draco,” Harry said and Draco's attention reeled over to him. His eyes widened and he looked at Harry as though haunted.

“What did you say?” he whispered.

“Let's go, Malfoy,” Macnair shouted.

“No!” Draco said, snapping over his shoulder at the man, “No, what did you just say!” Draco demanded, pointing his wand at Harry firmly despite how his insides quivered.

“You are not a killer,” Harry repeated. Draco looked at him for a long moment, making very purposeful eye contact and Harry knew he was a Legilimens as well as an Occlumens, and opened himself up more -more than he probably needed to- to remind Draco of that night Dumbledore had died, making it known to Draco that he had been there, that he had seen Draco's wand lower slightly at Dumbledore's offer. He would have said more out loud, but not with Macnair there with them…he could not do that to Draco, he was sure Draco had suffered enough at the hands of the Dark Lord already for having failed in his task that summer.

“Stun him and let's GO,” Macnair ordered, Draco looking over at him helpless at that point, torn. Harry's plan was working, Draco had looked into his mind and was now uncertain and hesitating, faltering around the edges.

“Draco, you considered his offer, even for just a moment, that night,” Harry reminded him, careful not to say too much, using Draco's name, trying to appeal to Draco's need to cling to someone, Macnair certainly scaring him enough that he could possibly turn to him, Harry, for shelter. “I saw you struggle with your task throughout the year and that night, I saw the effect his words had had on you,” he said and Draco looked away, feeling exposed, feeling vulnerable and naked, atop of conflicted and unsure.

“Shut up, Potter! Draco, silence him,” Macnair said.

“You know this is wrong, Draco-”

“Kill him-”

“You can't do it-”

“NOW!”

“DRACO!”

Draco closed his eyes and balled his hands into fists on either side of his head, still clutching his wand, Harry and Macnair both yelling at him, him trapped in the middle and unsure what to do. He wanted to run away, he wanted to flee and be no part of this. He couldn't though. What could he do?

Draco, without opening his eyes, pointed his wand and sent a curse. It was a full body-bind.

The flash of light passed and Harry was left kneeling…Macnair tipped over.

Harry was counting on Draco to attack Macnair, but he was still mildly surprised that he had actually done it. He made to stand and Draco rounded on him, pointing his wand at Harry and Harry froze.

“Draco-”

“Shut up,” he snarled, eyes a little wild. “You were there that night?”

“You know I was, you saw it, you saw my memories,” he said calmly. “I know Voldemort,” -Draco flinched- “threatened you, and your family. I know you were doing only what you had to, to protect them,” he said and Draco looked away.

“Who have you told of that night?” he demanded.

“No one,” he said, lying of course while at the tip of a wand, the one wheedling it none-too-sound-of-mind at the moment. He had told Ron and Hermione.

“You are lying,” Draco glared back at him, wand still pointed, and Harry sighed. He supposed lying to someone who could basically read his mind was a little futile and unwise. He really wished he hadn't blown Snape off with the Occlumency lessions at that point.

“If you know that, then you know I told no one of any significance to you, of your secret,” he said calmly, trying to talk Draco down so he would lower his wand.

Draco had a nasty crescent bruise around the outer edge of his left eye and a split but healing bottom lip. Harry himself was bruised, nose bleeding still. They all looked a little worse for wear. With every day there being more fighting, running, falling, jumping; there were just too many little minor injuries to heal.

“What secret?” Draco spat.

“That you are not a killer, that you are not a true Death Eater,” he said,

“Shut up!” Draco shouted, looking over at Macnair. He was unconscious from the fall hitting his head, but still, Harry should not say such things, such lies! “I have been serving the Dark Lord faithfully for months! I have endured his trials and passed his tests!”

“You have, and I don't doubt that you hate Muggle-borns and `Half-bloods', but I saw you consider Dumbledore's offer. That's why you are here now, talking to me rather than cursing me. I know it's true, Draco. You are only here because you are being forced into this, with threats, with intimidation. You did not choose this any more than I chose to be `the-boy-who-lived,'” he said and Draco looked ready to curse him at that point.

“You know nothing about me, Potter. NOTHING! I chose to serve the Dark Lord, it is what I wanted! I got desperate, and I buckled under the pressure that night, but I'm stronger now. I will do whatever it takes, whatever is asked of me!”

“Then why did you curse Macnair and not me?” Harry quipped and Draco's eyes widened just a touch.

“Shut up!” he shouted, his logic failing him.

“Draco, I know you are a good person, somewhere deep, deep down. It's probably a part of you that you have suppressed and locked away because you were raised to believe that it is a weakness to let it be known that you care about others, that you have compassion, but Draco, I see it in you.”

“What do you want from me? I'm not you, or one of your great Gryffindor crusaders.”

“You could be,” he said, not meaning Draco could be him, but a “crusader” for good.

“You offering to protect me now? Dumbledore tried, but he could not even protect himself, and you are disarmed and helpless as he was…how are you to protect me?”

“I would try.”

“What do you want from me?” Draco demanded again.

“In offering you help, do I have to want something from you, in return? Other than for you to maybe lower your wand?” Harry said, trying to calm Draco like a man on the edge. Draco looked at his wand as though he was surprised it was still in his hand let alone pointing at Harry. He lowered it slowly to hold it at his side.

“Nothing in the world is free and no one offers anything without expecting something in return. Everyone wants something in this world, everyone wants something from me it seems,” he said.

“I don't think that's true, Draco,” he said calmly, “but, how about a little honesty from you? That a lot to ask if I must? I'm sure you are not as bad and as merciless and cruel as you try to be, but I am not truly sure what side you are on.”

“Don't be condescending, Potter,” Draco warned.

“Explain to me what happened that night. How could I have misjudged you for so many years?” he said and Draco swallowed hard. Still looking torn, edging anger. That anger spilled over quickly.

“I'm a coward, is that what you want to hear, Potter? I'm a bloody coward!” Draco snapped, pointing his wand back at Harry and Harry holding his breath. “I have never had to do a thing all on my own and I have always had someone at my back. I'm sure when you are in a sticky spot you would like someone at your back too.”

“I have been in sticky spots, and I would have liked to have my friends with me, but it always seems that, in the end, I have to stand alone against something terrible.”

“Well, forgive ME for my first stand going so wrong. I couldn't act alone, I had to linger there until the Death Eaters could join me, but in the end I couldn't do it even with them there. I'm sure you are so disappointed, like everyone else, that I couldn't manage to kill Dumbledore,” he seethed, his eyes looking harsh, or on the verge of tears.

“Draco, it is no shame to not be able to kill. Most would see that as a redeeming quality,” he said and Draco scoffed at that.

“What do you want from me, Potter?” he asked again, hiding his eyes from the other boy with his pale hair so he wouldn't see the weakness in them his emotion gave, knowing that had been a weakness Dumbledore had explaited on that roof top.

“The truth,” he said firmly, feeling courageous despite the wand pointed at him. “For once in your life speak for yourself, about your own feelings, not tainted by what others have told you to say or do, or because it's what is expected of you. Tell me what you really want.”

“I don't know what I want,” he said, sounding closer to tears now, lost and small sounding. “I have never gotten what I wanted. I mean, not when it comes to my life. I grew up offered every material thing I could ever want, but I had no control over the outcome of my life. I don't know what I want, because I have never before been in a position to think for myself, all by myself.”

“What did you want all those years, while people were telling you what to say, where to go, and how to dress? Surely you resented it. What did you want then?”

“Honestly?” Draco said, daring a glance over at Harry again, his wand only vaguely pointing in the direction of the other wizard at that point. “I wanted to be you,” he confessed and Harry blinked.

“What?” he managed. That was not the answer he had expected in the least.

“Harry Potter who could do no wrong, so perfect, so untouchable. Adored and admired by everyone, for what? Because your mother cast a clever charm before she…died?” he asked, bitterness coming through in his voice now to hide his embarrassment. “Oh how I resented you all those years at Hogwarts. You, who time after TIME broke school rules with minimal, if any, punishment, you who was the favorite of Dumbledore and the other teachers, you who was always on the lips of every gossiping student, you who made the Prophet time and time again. You, a poorer student than I by far, but who got all the glory for luck and circumstance while I worked my arse off to get little if any recognition! The only name I could make for myself was the boy that hated YOU!” he said and Harry looked taken aback. He had no idea any of this. He had figured Draco had hated him for all sorts of reasons, but because he was jealous? He had only humored that idea for a short time year and years ago. Draco's persistent loathing of him he figured to have deeper roots than just envy.

“I extended to you my friendship when we were young, at the start of our first year, and you turned me away, humiliated me!” he said and Harry felt his stomach irk. It was more than just envy, Draco felt rejected, he was scorned. “I then spent the rest of the year being showed up by you over and over again! You on the Quidditch team, getting me detention because of YOUR rule breaking, winning the House Cup for Gryffindor because of yet more rule breaking! And then that damned Mudblood Granger, showing me up in every class. Oh how my father loved to berate me for being second in the class to a Muggle-born!”

“Draco-”

“What do I want, Potter? To, for one time in my LIFE, be appreciated for what I am capable of, not only recognized because I'm one of the few people not willing to bend over and kiss your arse!" he shouted, his wand pointing at Harry firmly again and Harry was sure he was about to be cursed.

“You are capable of more than this, this, servitude of the Dark Lord,” Harry attempted.

“You'd have me serve the Order of Phoenix instead? That'd be so much better?” Draco retorted and Harry sighed, trying a different angle now.

“You are a talented wizard, Malfoy, a good student,” he said.

“Glad someone acknowledges that now,” he said bitterly.

“You made Prefect-”

“So did Weasley,” he scoffed.

“You could use those skills you have for good,” Harry offered, not losing a beat when Draco shot him down. Draco was an Occlumens and Legilimens, that was very rare. And though clearly new at it still, Draco was very talented, he could be so useful, and very powerful, if only he would stop clinging to his failing ambitions and to do the right thing, for once.

“Good and evil is all relative, Potter. It's how you look at things that makes it bad or good.”

“Surely you can't see what you are a part of now as good,” Harry argued.

“It is familiar, and safe…something I have known my whole life and can hold to. It's one of the few things I have left.”

“I can offer you more.”

“Still pushing that offer?” Draco spat.

“It never left the table, not since Dumbledore placed it before you those months ago. He saw something in you, and I trust his judgment.”

“He also trusted Snape,” Draco said, cutting Harry deeply with that remark. Harry had to be silent for a moment to regain himself. He hadn't seen Snape since that night, but Draco had. Draco didn't trust that man, and couldn't understand why Dumbledore or the Dark Lord had or did. If Draco was uncertain, Snape was utterly ambiguous.

“Draco, you are hurt, and frustrated, and scared. I see that, I know that now. But things won't be any better for you if you stick with the Dark Lord. Look at the outcome? Say the Dark Lord falls. Then where would you be? Executed by Aurors as you flee? Sent to Azkaban for the rest of your life? Say the Dark Lord wins, what would you be? A scared and oppressed follower, no slave, forever terrified of displeasing him and facing his wrath and punishments?” he said and Draco whitened.

What did Harry know of the Dark Lord's punishments?

“You don't know…you…” Draco said, looking around, anywhere but at Harry. “I can't do this. I can't help you,” he said.

“Why?”

“He will know, he will kill my mother, he…”

“I will find a way, with the help of the Order, to protect her. She is not a Death Eater?”

“No,” Draco said firmly.

“Are you?” Harry asked, looking at Draco's left arm.

Draco groaned in a helpless manner and fell to his knees. He knelt there feet from Harry, face to face but looking away. He pulled up his sleeve to reveal the Dark Mark. Harry took a deep breath.

“I thought it was the Mark you had showed the shop keeper over the summer in Knockturn Alley,” he said softly.

“What?” Draco said, blinking.

“Over the summer before our sixth year, when we met in Diagon Alley and you had flipped out in the robe shop, we…Hermione, Ron, and I…saw you sneak off to Knockturn Alley alone and we followed. You showed a shop keeper there something on your left arm while threatening him. We didn't see what it was, but I told Ron and Hermione that it had to have been the Dark Mark, but they wouldn't believe me,” he explained.

“Well, they were right to disagree, because you were wrong,” Draco said, letting his arms fall between his kneeling legs, wand held so loosely in his left hand.

“What?”

“I did not get the Mark until after my seventeenth birthday, after the whole mess on the Astronomy Tower. What I showed Mr. Borgin in Borgin & Burkes were scars, not a Dark Mark,” he said, turning his arm over to reveal the horrific werewolf scars there, feeling worn out and empty at that point.

“Scars?” Harry asked, not fully understanding while staring at Draco's arm, the scars there.

“You didn't hear, or remember by chance, the name I dropped while showing him my arm?” Draco asked, still looking down.

Harry thought for a moment, and it then hit him.

“Greyback,” he gasped. Draco made no reaction what-so-ever; he just knelt there, staring at the floor to Harry's right, looking outright depressed. “Draco, you're a werewolf?” Harry exclaimed, not exactly making it a question.

“I don't think even the Order could help me now,” Draco said, still staring at that spot on the floor.

“How…when did this happen?”

“Earlier that summer, the night I had gotten home from Hogwarts actually. It was the Dark Lord punishing my father, because you sent him to Azkaban,” Draco said, glaring finally at Harry and Harry gulping.

“Draco, I, I had no intention of…I did not know that…” he said, trying not to look at Draco's wand so as to maybe draw attention to it.

“You can't help me, nor can the Order. The werewolves have sided with the Dark Lord, and they are all that I have,” he said.

“No, not all the werewolves have. We, the Order, have Lupin and some others that have followed him,” Harry urged.

“Lupin, Remus Lupin, our old, sickly Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher will protect me?” he said, obviously lacking faith in the man. He had seen him since the summer, preaching to the wolves in the underground about the promises the Order of the Phoenix was offering. Draco had paid the man no mind and had carefully avoided him for months.

Harry stood slowly, preparing for Draco to try and stop him, but he didn't. He stood before Draco and looked down.

“Draco,” he said, holding out his hand in a reversal of the second time they had met. “I know this is not exactly an extension of friendship, but come with me, join the Order. It is a better option than what you have now. At least it is an option, one you can choose to take, one that actually has a possibility at a happy outcome,” he said. Draco looked up at him. “I can't promise you much, but I can promise you a chance…a chance to do the right thing, for once in your life…even if it is just to help yourself.”

Draco looked up at Harry for a very long, drawn-out moment. Draco stood, ever-so-slowly, never breaking eye contact. Harry's hand was still extended between them and Draco glared. Harry did not flinch or look away, knowing this was a test and Draco's next actions hinged completely on his firm resolve, on his firm gaze. Draco raised his right hand, his wand in his left still, and he very slowly reached out to Harry.

They gripped hands in a very firm but very brief shake, both holding very serious and slightly mistrustful glares.

“I want to be free of him, by any means necessary…even if that means dying. There are fates worse than death, even if he doesn't believe so,” he said, speaking of the Dark Lord.

“I will try to not get you killed,” Harry assured.

Draco woke with a gasp to find himself alone in his bed. Ginny was not there with him.

Had she been part of the dream? Well, what he had just woken to had not actually been a dream, just another terrible memory.

He rarely dreamed anymore.

Mostly he remembered.

It was an unfortunate side-effect of being a Legilimens.

Rolling over with a groan he saw a long red hair on his pillow. He picked it up in his fingertips and smiled.

She hadn't been a dream, and that realization came with a wash of relief.

That was enough to get him to forget his terrible memory that had woken him and actually smile.

He tried moving a little bit more and he was stiff, but there was less pain.

Thinking that was good he attempted to stand. He got to his feet and swayed. To stop from falling he took a few quick steps which left him beside his dresser.

That wasn't as easy as he would have liked it, but he managed.

Standing there, feeling sluggish and quivering like his blood sugar was low, he cursed when his knees gave out suddenly. He braced himself on his dresser, but his knees hit the front of it hard, causing the bottles, picture frames, and hairbrush to rattle and him to curse again at the pain.

The potion Reamann had made him certainly had helped, as had the nap, but he was still weak. A potion meant for healing could not help that.

Draco, having just thought of Reamann, groaned. Would he have to apologize to the other man? He hated apologizing, to anyone, but especially when he had been perfectly justified in his anger. He had to make nice though, because he was now apparently dating the same woman as Reamann.

That seemed a little awkward. He could only imagine how much fun going to work was going to be.

That made him think. Ginny lived with Reamann, how did she plan on getting away to see him? Sure Reamann would be busy with the case, but that would also mean so would he. When would they have time to do, well, anything?

He decided to leave all that to Ginny. She was the one that wanted to cheat on the guy, so he would let her hammer out the details. He had far too much on his plate already.

There was a ball in less than four days that he would apparently be attending.

Had he really agreed to that?

He was such a softy, it was pathetic.

Walking slowly, stiffly, with much aid from his cane, feeling chilled now and wrapping his free arm around him to pull his wooly jumper closer, he left his room to walk straight into the living room. His mother was there, sipping coffee and reading a book. It must have been early evening, how long had he been asleep?

“Mum?” he said softly. Narcissa looked up from her book while still curled up in the squishy and slightly lumpy chair with the afghan across her lap.

“Oh, Angel, baby, you're up finally,” she said, marking her page and closing her book as she stood. “Are you hungry? I'll make you something,” she offered, walking over to him, feeling his forehead for a moment and then sliding her hand down to cup his cheek and chin.

“Where did Ginny go?” he asked softly, smiling faintly at his mother's predictable fussiness.

Narcissa's face remained remarkably unchanged but she scrunched her nose up a bit, like there was a bad smell directly below it. “Oh, Mother, don't do that,” he said, putting his hand over hers that held his face. “Please. Where did she go?”

“She was here for nearly two hours after you fell asleep but then had to leave. She didn't like leaving without telling you, but she didn't want to wake you, and I wanted you to sleep,” she said, trying not to make a disgusted face as she spoke curtly about her son's girlfriend.

Draco felt a little embarrassed for having fallen asleep with Ginny there, but they had curled up together and she had been so warm and comfy, and he had been so achy and tired. He had rested his cheek on her soft breasts and closed his eyes in his contentment and not realized he had drifted to sleep until he had woken hours later.

“Please don't be angry, Mother,” he said, tilting his head towards her hand a little while holding it there with his own. “I was going to tell you about Ginny, I swear,” he said, not about to tell his mother that Ginny had lied to her about being his girlfriend and then asked him out. She did not need any more reason to hate her, and she would have been affronted by the idea that a woman had asked him out. She would have ranted on about how improper that was, and what a hussy, a tramp, a tart, Ginny must have been. The fact that Ginny was still dating another man was something he would keep quiet as well, lest he wanted his mother to go to Azkaban for killing her.

“When were you going to tell me? When there was another grandbaby on the way?” she snapped.

“Oh, Mother, that is not fair, or nice,” he said, pouting a little and dropping his hand away.

“I'm sorry, Angel, I didn't mean to hurt you and bring that up in such a way, but she is a Weasley! Of all women…I'm glad you are finally dating, I think that it is important for you not to shut yourself off from the rest of the world like you have been, but honestly, her? Why her?” she asked.

“She was there for me during those final days of the war, when everything fell apart for me,” he said and his mother knew what he was talking about, her heart aching just a bit at the memory. “Ginny and I spent a night together-”

“Draco!” his mother gasped.

“I did not mean to imply that I slept with her, well, I did,” he said and his mother turned around and then back around to face him again, looking breathlessly outraged. “I did not mean sleep with, as in sex, Mother. We spent the night before the final battle together, talking, I swear! Nothing inappropriate happened, I assure you. We shared a kiss I'll admit, and we slept huddled up to fight off the cold,” he said, trying to ease his mother down from the verge of the nosebleed she was about to give herself.

“Draco, honestly, you had me worried there for a moment,” she said, her hand over her heart.

“You raised me better than that,” he said, trying to commend her and lighten her mood.

“Not well enough,” she said, fanning herself. Draco's face fell.

“You love Michael and Claire,” he said, pouting and letting the hurt he was feeling show on his face.

“Oh, I did not mean that. I'm sorry. This whole situation with the Weasley girl-”

“Ginny,” Draco cut in,

“…has got me rather flustered,” she said. She typically did not bring up the “circumstances” of how she became a grandmother with Draco, and tried not to use them against him in such a way, but Draco knew she was still terribly affronted by the idea and disappointed in him for what had happened. He knew she loved his children, he just could not help but feel she loved him just a little less because of his actions. He was still being punished for it, even if his mother did not realize, or acknowledge, it.

“Ginny doesn't have a problem with my past, she doesn't think I'm some evil, loathsome Death Eater, and she has known I'm a werewolf from all the way back then. She is fine with that,” he assured.

“And what does she think of your babies?” she asked and Draco flushed. “I had a feeling you haven't told her,” she said.

“I'm working up to that,” he said.

“You better make it soon, Michael will be off, back to Hogwarts, come January first.”

“I know,” he said, biting his bottom lip.

“What would you like me to make you to eat?” she said, pushing food on him again.

“I'm not really hungry…”

“You must be,” she said but was then interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Who could that be?” he asked.

“It's too early for the children to be returned,” she said, frowning at the wall clock.

Draco timidly stepped backwards, back into his bedroom to peek around the corner. Visitors for him tended to be bad news. He was having a relatively good day, surprisingly better than he expected thanks to Ginny, he did not want that ruined by some Ministry Official showing up to hassle him.

Narcissa strode over to the door and answered it, blocking whoever was there from Draco's view and theirs of him at the same time.

“Hello, Mrs. Malfoy. Is Draco home?” she asked and Draco froze. A woman? A woman that wasn't Ginny? Who was at his door?

His mother's prolonged silence was enough to really get him wondering.

“This is totally inappropriate of you, how dare you,” his mother finally said, going off and Draco sighing. He would have to defuse the situation.

He crept out from his room and across the living room to stand behind his mother, only just a touch taller than her. He placed his hand on her shoulder and whispered into her mind to calm down. He then looked over her shoulder to see Hermione Granger standing on the front steps, looking rather cool headed despite the harassment his mother had just started dishing out.

“Granger?” has asked, surprised. Did everyone now know where he lived?

“Hello, Draco,” she said, trying to be civil and friendly.

“What are you doing here?” he questioned, not feeling quite the same warmth himself as she was presenting and letting it be heard in his voice.

“I'm Ginny's best friend and I wanted to talk to you about, well, some things,” she said, not wanting to say much in front of Mrs. Malfoy.

Draco swallowed hard, not wanting too much to be said in front of his mother either.

“Right, I suppose you would,” he said, holding onto his mother's shoulder with his one hand as he stepped back and urged her to follow. “Come in,” he said, really wishing he could just slam the door on the Mudblood's face.

“Thank you,” she said, knowing that she was not really welcome but not about to show any discomfort. She had learned long ago that nothing annoyed the people that hated her more than her being nice in return.

“Um, why don't we talk in the bedroom, for a little bit of privacy,” he suggested, turning to his mother. “I'll only be a few moments,” he said, kissing her cheek to ease her down further. She looked ready to claw Hermione's eyes out, and though he really wouldn't have minded it, he really did not think the poor carpet needed any more stains any more than their permanent records did.

Draco glanced over at Hermione to follow him and he stalked off to his bedroom, trying not to lean on his cane too heavily with Granger watching him. Narcissa caught Hermione's upper right arm and held her there in a tight grasp for a moment.

“Listen to me, Mud-uh-Granger. I don't like you, and you know damn well why,” she said, actually cursing, showing how angry she really was. “You have expressed before your desire to `make things right,'” she said and Hermione just looked at her. “A start would be going in that room and convincing my son to eat something,” she said. Hermione blinked at her, and the odd request, and was tempted to ask if she were being serious, but the tightness to which Narcissa was holding onto her was indication enough that she was not.

“Alright,” she said, nodding.

Narcissa released her and stepped backwards just as Draco peeked out to see what was taking Hermione so long. Hermione followed Draco into his bedroom and closed the door behind her.

“Thank you for seeing me,” she said.

“Oh, it's my pleasure,” he said sarcastically.

“Okay, if there is going to be this sort of hostility between us, I think we have other things to talk about before we get to you and Ginny,” she said, pointing to him and then herself.

“You have five minutes, Granger, and not a moment longer,” he said, holding up his left hand with his fingers spread to show five. “Say what you came here to say,” he finished, then folding his arms up to his chest and leaning against his dresser. He tried to make it seem relaxed and confident, but in reality it was because he was sure he would fall over otherwise and he did not want to sit because that would call for him offering Granger a seat, and he didn't want the Mudblood on his bed.

Hermione took a deep breath but complied. Her relationship with Draco was not what ultimately mattered so she pressed on.

“Ginny confessed to me yesterday that she had this crazy desire to start seeing you,” she began.

“I know, she was by already, around noon, and we talked.”

“Yes, well, I know that. I wouldn't have come if I had thought she hadn't already talked to you,” she said. “You agreed, agreed to what she proposed,” she said, not making it a question but him answering anyways.

“Yes, I did.”

“You understand that this is mental? She is with another man,” she said, hoping she could have come there and talked some sense into Draco at the very least. She wasn't about to try and break this up for Ginny, that was not something best friends did, but to get Ginny and Draco both to think clearly and to come the their sense on their own was her goal.

“I'm aware of that, we discussed it already, and I work with Reamann.”

“How could you do this to him if you work with him?” she asked.

“I'm doing nothing. If you have some moral indignation about all this, talk to Ginny,” he said smoothly.

“But Reamann is your friend.”

“He sure as hell is not,” Draco said resentfully. “I may work with the chap, but we are in no way mates.”

“But-”

“Look, Granger, talk to Ginny about your troubles over this. If you fear that I won't treat her right, do not worry there, my mother and father raised me to be a gentleman towards women.”

“Really,” she said, not having to say “what about me?”

“Mudbloods don't count,” he sneered.

“You are such an arsehole,” she spat.

“Takes one to know one,” he quipped.

“What are you, ten?” she retorted.

“And yet still so much better in Arithmancy.”

“Yeah? Well, you're short.”

“Slag,” he pouted.

“I didn't come here to trade insults,” she said.

“No, you came here to satisfy or quash that persistent nagging in the back of your head that keeps telling you that I'm evil and can't be trusted and that I will hurt Ginny in some elaborate plot to somehow punish you for ruining my life. I must say, that is terribly narcissistic of you to think such a thing. I would expect such a `the world revolves around me' attitude from Potter, the boy-who-lived-to-be-self-righteous, but not from you, Mudblood,” he said, calling her “Mudblood” again, as he had several times already, trying to upset her.

“It's rude to read another's thoughts without asking, Malfoy,” she flushed.

“It's rude to visit unannounced,” he quipped.

“I don't want Ginny to get hurt, but honestly, that will be what happens if anyone were to find out you two were seeing each other.”

“Thus why she is still dating Reamann. He is our cover,” he said.

“Don't be thinking you will be her primary relationship and that Reamann is just a front,” she said and Draco glared. “She is dating him, she is seeing you on the side. You are her fling,” she said. Draco buried his hurt at Hermione's blunt words with anger.

“Since you are no part of this relationship, I do not think you have any say on what happens in it.”

“Don't tell me you are seriously trying to make Ginny a real girlfriend, Malfoy,” she said. Draco looked at her, looked at her face, and then looked way with a scoff and an air of indignity.

“Of course not,” he said, pompous as he ever was back at Hogwarts. Hermione couldn't see through it. “This is just a fling, but one too nice to pass up,” he said, still hurting from the idea that was what it was to Ginny. What was she getting at then when she talked about making a connection all those years ago? Darn he felt a little foolish.

“Well, so long as you understand that,” she said, sighing. Ginny was a grown woman and could do as she pleased, but there were far better guys to have flings with than Draco Malfoy, men with far less emotional baggage.

“You may leave now,” he said, making a shooing motion with his hands at her.

“Your mother wanted me to tell you to eat something,” she said and Draco froze for a second and then looked angry.

“Get out, Granger,” he warned.

“She is apparently worried, and honestly, if you were any thinner you wouldn't exist,” she said, able to see through the obscuring bagging pants and jumper. It did not give him bulk; it actually made him seem smaller with all that material hanging off of him.

“I said get out. Get out, get out, get out,” he said, shooing the whole time.

Hermione opened the door and allowed Draco to shoo her all the way to the front door.

“Malfoy,” she said, turning to face him while on the front steps, him standing in the door way.

“I would say this was a pleasure, but that would be a lie,” he said, interrupting her before slamming the door in her face. Hermione stood there for a second, balling her hands up into fists. She wanted to call him a prat, among other things, but she really could not blame him for his bitterness. Well, she understood his bitterness at least, not really wanting to excuse his rudeness for the rest of their lives.

There would come a point when he really had to deal with things and attempt to get over it, just so as to move on with his life.

Draco turned away from the door to see his mother standing in the doorway to the kitchen area on his left, looking hopeful, and sighed.

“Mum, would you make me a peanut butter sandwich…please?” he asked, putting on his pouting, helpless, “I need my mummy to take care of me,” voice that she just loved to cater to.

“Of course I will,” she said, smiling and turning into the kitchen to get right on that.

Draco looked after her and sighed.

He hated that he worried her so much.

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Authoer's Note:

Draco's conflicted nature is really brought forefront in the flashback.

I mentioned Snape in this chapter. No, I haven't forgotten about him.

-->

Blue-Eyed Angel

Chapter Fifteen

Draco dreaded going to work that morning more than any other day he could recently recall, and it was not just because it was a Friday. Oh how he wanted nothing more than to stay home, curl up on the couch with the children, and watch the telly all day, but that was not an option. He had taken two days off for the full moon and now he was expected back at work.

It wasn't the “work” part that got him down, or the day of the week, or the fact that he had to visit his probation officer and “Support Wizard”; it was the having to talk to Reamann.

No Malfoy ever admitted they were wrong, or apologized.

The worst part was: he hadn't been wrong!

He hadn't been unjustified in telling Reamann to basically go to hell.

He would have to make nice though, and that was not something he was particularly practiced or good at.

Rolling out of his warm bed with a groan due to his stiffness, and shivering in the cold of his bedroom he dressed in the dark. A pair of blue-jeans, green t-shirt, and his sweatshirt, as always, was what he threw on. No need for light when his wardrobe was so simple.

It seemed like no time at all that he was in the Ministry. It was early, before sunrise, Reamann wouldn't be in yet, and he couldn't see his mandated caretakers, so he made his way down towards the Hall of Records. He would get some work in as a means of distraction before he had to swallow his pride and ask Reamann to take him back.

Draco groaned at the very thought of it.

It was for Ginny.

He kept telling himself that, over and over.

It was for Ginny.

Above that, he had other problems at hand.

He had a lot to confess to Ginny (even though he really didn't want to) before they attempted to take their “relationship” any further, even if he was just some fling to her.

He couldn't hide them from her, but he didn't want to introduce Ginny to his children. Ginny could handle it…maybe…but he did not want his children to become attached to a woman, a woman that was just a fling, and then have to deal with her not being around anymore.

That was not fair to them.

“Draco,” Coderdale said while taking off his own cloak.

“Morning,” Draco said, letting his tired frustration be heard.

“I didn't expect you in until later, since it's Friday. How are you feeling?”

“Better than usual,” Draco said, throwing his cloak over the back of his chair and flopping down.

“So helping that Mr. Rossiter out has paid off?” Coderdale asked, sitting down across from Draco in their bubble of shared light, speaking of the potion Reamann had undoubtedly made for Draco that had him up and functioning. Draco was usually little better than a zombie, and about just as friendly, the first day back to work after the full moon.

“Suppose so,” Draco said, not happy about being reminded of Reamann after he had just so recently driven the man from his thoughts.

“You just be careful. That Sebastian was nosing about yesterday, wanting to know who Mr. Rossiter's “informant” was. If he figures you, or finds out Rossiter is supplying you with magical potions, you two will both be in a whole lot of hot water.”

“I know,” Draco said, having forgotten for a moment that Reamann had confessed to the Aurors that he had an informant. He could not understand why Reamann had been unable to take all the credit for himself and look all the more valuable and smart while keeping the secret. He supposed Reamann was too Gryffindor for him to expect the man to be so deceitful. Gryffindors certainly had their faults.

The first few hours of work went by at a steady pace, faster than usual because Draco was dreading having to go see Reamann. If he were looking forward to going home, the hours would have dragged on.

Draco left at eight to see his probation officer, Laura, and lied right to her face, again.

He felt guilty about it and could not imagine why. Lying rarely made him feel guilty, but Laura trusted him, she didn't bust his balls, make him use truth potions, treat him like a criminal…he hated abusing that trust…but he couldn't admit to her that he was getting a steady supply of potions.

After that Draco had to check in with his Support Wizard, Marcus. Draco did not have to put on much of an act for the man. Lying to Laura had put him in a foul mood that was only intensified by the visit to the fourth floor, and though he had taken a potion the day before, he still felt like shit. He did not have to fake a limp. The potion might have been strong enough to relieve his general aches and pains on a typical day, but not the agony of the second day after the full moon.

By ten o'clock Draco was back in the Hall and fidgeting. Malfoys did not fidget and Coderdale knew this, so he inquired.

“Draco? Are you alright?” he asked.

“Fine,” Draco said, right knee bouncing still.

“You do not look it,” Coderdale said, looking down over his glasses at the much younger man across from him.

Draco took a deep huffing breath and then cursed softly. He dove down over the arm of his chair, opened his left-hand-side drawer of his desk, and reached into the very back behind some ink-wells and spare parchment. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and drew one out with his lips as he sat up though still hunched over. Coderdale looked at him firmly.

“What?” Draco asked, the cigarette bobbing from his lips precariously in a fashion only well practiced smokers could manage.

“You said you quit,” Coderdale said.

“I did,” Draco replied, the cigarette still in his mouth. Coderdale's expression only hardened and Draco groaned, plucking the cigarette from his lips and crumpling it in his first. He tossed the ruined cigarette onto the desk top and slumped his head and shoulders, leaning forward until he was resting his forehead on his desk.

“What's wrong, Draco?” Coderdale asked, softly, fatherly.

“I want a fag,” he whined.

“They will kill you,” Coderdale said, knowing that was not really what had Draco so upset.

“I'm afflicted with any number of things that will kill me long before smoking would,” he pouting, voice muffled slightly by the desktop. He had a life expectancy of a ripe and cheery age of about sixty, if he was extremely lucky. Some died before forty and Draco knew that was just about his luck.

“What's wrong, Draco?” Coderdale asked again, expecting the truth this time.

Draco took a deep breath while rolling his head to the side so that his cheek was on his desk now, and went into a longwinded explanation into what exactly was going on at the moment with Reamann and him, only at the very end muttering quickly and softly the bit about him and Ginny seeing each other, hoping, but not counting on, Coderdale missing it.

“Draco…” Coderdale said, outrage, shock, disbelief all fighting for dominance in his tone and expression.

“I have to go upstairs, soon…now…and talk to Reamann, to get him to take me back and allow me to work on this case again, and I don't know how to do that,” Draco said, voice a little small.

“Draco…” Coderdale repeated, words failing him.

“Coderdale…” Draco said flatly, sitting up now.

“Draco-”

“Coderdale-”

“Alright, alright,” Coderdale said, stopping Draco from repeating his name in annoyance by stopping his own repeating of Draco's in shock. “I had always thought you were better than this.”

“Ouch, Coderdale, very ouch,” Draco said, using his thumbnail to pick at some spilled wax on his desktop, not wanting to look at the older man. Coderdale was one of the few people that actually did have a high opinion of him, and it bothered him to not live up to that.

“I never thought you, of all people, would consciously take part in such a disgraceful relationship,” he said.

“You sound like my mother.”

“She not happy about this either?”

“She doesn't like Ginny…she doesn't know about Reamann.”

“Draco-”

“Coderdale-”

“Alright, alright,” he said again, not about to start that again, “but this is madness.”

“I really like her.”

“Don't do this to yourself, Draco,” Coderdale said sadly and Draco looked up at him. “Don't be in this kind of relationship if you really like the woman,” he warned.

“Why would I be in a relationship with someone I didn't like?” he asked, not following.

“No, I mean, you like her.”

“I just said as much.”

“You are her other man,” he said, and Draco's eyes darkened. “You will end up liking her so much more than she likes you and you will end up hurting again.”

“I really hate it when you use my marriage against me like this; it's something I would expect from my mother…not from you.”

“I thought you would have learned from that…that, bad experience.”

“I was young and foolish.”

“It seems that all that has changed is your age.”

“That's not…”

“She lied right to your face and led you on while in you were in Azkaban. How could you have hurt and hated to learn that so much, and then be a part of a relationship such as this?”

“Coderdale…”

“Draco…”

“Damn it,” Draco said, pulling on his hair, tired of all the back-and-forth between them. “It is just a fling. I know that, I can handle it, I won't get attached this time since I know how Ginny feels about this and I know she can do better than me if she wanted a real relationship,” he said and Coderdale gave him a sad but frustrated look, hating that Draco would belittle himself in such a way, something he did just a little too often. It was a residual effect his wife had left him with as near as he could tell. Coderdale had never met the woman, but hated her for that and all she had done to Draco to make him feel and see himself in such a way, and hated it that Draco could not manage to hate the woman, even though he more than anyone had enough reason to. “But the problem of talking to Reamann still remains.”

Coderdale took a deep breath.

“It's your life, you do with it as you like,” he sighed. “I just would have thought you would have had more consideration for your children…this is no more fair to them than it is to you, and they are not choosing this,” he said and Draco's chin dropped a little.

“I am still working on that aspect of it. I don't want them upset or hurt,” he said, feeling a little queasy. Coderdale looked away.

“Well, as far as Reamann Rossiter is concerned, he was really the one in the wrong as far as what you quarreled about yesterday, but you snapping at him did not help. You need to swallow that temper of yours, and your pride, and I think you both need to apologize and move on.”

“I'm no good at apologizing,” Draco said, though that was already known between the both of them.

“Well, you better learn. Practice…all the way up to his department, it's a long enough walk,” he said, standing at that point and walking towards the mass of shelves with his handful of notes, about to go pull some texts. He did not really want to deal with the mess Draco was making for himself at the moment.

Why did Draco have to sabotage everything in his life this way? Sometimes he really did feel Draco was a glutton for punishment. He wasn't sure Draco would know what to do with himself if he were ever just simply happy.

Draco sat there and stared at his old, slightly crunched, pack of cigarettes for a long moment. With a sigh he stood and rubbed his eyes.

It was going to be a long walk.

By the time Draco was getting off the lift on the fifth floor he had thought of exactly what he was going to say, but making his way to Reamann's office and standing before his door, his mind became a total blank.

Shit.

He was going to knock, but Sebastian Aurum's voice from the interior of the room stopped him.

Shit, shit.

Caught in the open, Draco cursed under his breath a few more times.

Sebastian already had reason enough to suspect him because of the hair he had left at one scene, and if he was looking for Reamann's informant, Reamann had basically given him up already having said he had sought him, Draco, out for some assistance on the case already. It wouldn't be hard to connect the dots. If all Sebastian was looking for was proof, Draco showing up outside Reamann's office seemed evidence enough.

Draco did not want to be dragged in front of a bunch of angry, old Aurors and interrogated and threatened and intimidated.

Looking around, he ducked into a nearby office across the hall from Reamann's. The witch in there looked surprised.

“Excuse me?” she said, standing from her desk slowly.

Draco peeked around the edge of his hood slightly with one silver eye and held a finger up to his lips in a “shh” gesture. The witch's brow furrowed as she sat back down, staring at the stranger in her office. Sebastian's voice was suddenly louder, Reamann's office door opening and spilling his words out into the hall for them to overhear.

“I will expect better organization on your part from now on, Mr. Rossiter, and I do not repeat myself, so take notes if you must,” he said, condescending and authoritative as ever.

The witch whose office Draco was intruding on seemed to understand now why Draco was hiding, and said nothing, watching from her seat as Sebastian walked past, Reamann having yet to say anything since the door had opened.

Once Draco felt it was safe he gave a nod to the witch at her desk, which she returned, and he crept across the hall to Reamann's open office door. He stepped in but Reamann did not seem to notice. His head was down; hair gripped firmly in his hands as he apparently read something before him, or simply stared at the desk top.

Draco closed the door behind him so that he was holding the handle still behind his back and waited. Reamann looked up at the sound of the latch and froze.

“Hello,” Draco said softly.

“What are you doing here?” Reamann asked, sounding surprised, his hair sticking up ridiculously from his fingers mussing it up. The oil that had kept it slick and smooth, now kept it stuck up and messy.

“Sebastian giving you a hard time?” he asked, avoiding Reamann's question, delaying his apology.

“He was just here, laying the rules for working the case along with him, you know, since he is my partner and everything,” he said, sounding bitter.

“I'm sorry,” Draco said, just blurting it out. No pretenses, none of the witty, smarmy, patronizing remarks he had planned to make, not remaining cool and sophisticated. He just said it, and then flushed a little. Damn it.

“What?”

“I did not mean to chase you out yesterday, I have a temper…if you had somehow not known,” he said, refusing to look at Reamann, the whole scene embarrassing and hard enough for him already. He did not like admitting he had any faults. Malfoys did not have faults, they just has personality quirks that tended to hurt other people's feelings. “I was not feeling well and used you as an outlet for my frustration.”

“You had every right to be angry, I was abusing your, um, kindness,” he said and Draco blinked at him. He looked at Reamann for a long moment before his shoulders shook in a held-in laugh.

“Kindness,” he managed, trying to not laugh.

“Draco-”

“No, no, I just…wow,” he finally laughed. “I never would have imagined someone ever saying that to me. Taking advantage of my kindness…doesn't that paint a pretty picture of me,” he chuckled.

“I didn't mean it in a bad way, I just…I feel awful for having treated you so badly.”

“Nothing I'm not accustomed to and have come to expect,” he said with a shrug. “I am only helping you out for my own selfish gain, but the laugh was nice,” he said, holding up his hand to stop Reamann from saying anything. “Hush,” he said, Reamann a talker, and one that would get going and never stop. “We have both been very, let's say, unprofessional about this case so far. You're too preoccupied with me to give the case your full attention, me more concerned with getting my potions than solving this mess…I think we both need to reevaluate this all and start fresh,” he said.

“Draco-”

“Don't get me wrong, I still don't give a hoot about the wee-Muggles, and I still want my potions…have any with you?” he said, sounding a little desperate but then shaking his head and getting back on track. “But I will do my best to do what I can.”

“Sebastian is being difficult.”

“It's what he's best at,” Draco said, mockingly yet so serious. He was good at being smarmy, and it felt better than feeling embarrassed. He would stick with smarmy.

“I don't know how long I can keep turning to you for help without him figuring something.”

“Leave that to me, I'm the sneaky Slytherin of the two of us, and I have, well, hidden my dealings from other's in the past,” he said, having spent the war convincing both sides that he was sincerely and exclusively serving them. It had been quite a feat that had nearly cost him his life.

He impressed even himself sometimes.

There was silence for a long moment.

“You know, I finally remember you,” Reamann said and Draco blinked at him, missing a key part of Reamann's thought.

“Care to expand on that a little?”

“I'm younger than you, but we went to Hogwarts at the same time. I was a first year Gryffindor in your sixth year,” he said and Draco blinked.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, I didn't have much of a memory of you because you were in a different house and so much older than me. You never seemed to be around either. I can only remember seeing you a handful of times in the Great Hall at meals and such. Your hair made you stick out some, and people talked about you,” he said.

“Well, when you're popular,” he said airily. Reamann just looked at him, expecting a real answer to his unasked question. “I was a little, well, preoccupied that year.”

“Yeah, I read,” he said.

“This little confession have a purpose?” Draco asked, himself being one of his least favorite topics of conversation.

“Well, I mean, I guess it's my round-about way of getting back on the topic of you not being a Death Eater-”

“You're just going to pound that out as often as you can in hopes of finally believing it, aren't you,” Draco said but Reamann talked over him.

“And you really have a right to go to the Remembrance Ball,” he said and Draco blinked.

Ginny had talked to him about that already? Damn, she worked fast.

He did not have to act all that surprised that Reamann had just invited him to the ball because he was honestly caught off guard…but he would act, and play hard to get. He would rather enjoy watching Reamann beg him to come.

“What?” he asked, easily sounding surprised and a little defensive.

“I was talking to Ginny last night about the ball and you came up. She thinks quite highly of you, you saved her life in the war?” he asked.

“It was a mutual life-saving-thing,” he said offhandedly and Reamann looked at him questioningly. “You know, it's a rush…once you start, you find yourself doing it again and again, like an adrenaline junkie,” he said with a shrug, being mocking.

“Well, yes, well, she told me about it, a little…should I thank you?”

“If you must,” Draco said simply.

“Would inviting you to the ball be a good start to thanking you?”

“Putting me in a position where I will be surrounded by people who hate and mistrust me, where I will be ostracized and ridiculed, is your idea of thanking me?” Draco asked, not sure if he was playing hard to get or just being impossible. He had already agreed, he couldn't build too strong a case against Reamann's offer or Ginny would be sad.

“Well, yeah, I mean, that's true,” Reamann said, slightly crest fallen. Draco sighed, folding his arms up and leaning his upper back against the door.

“Well, since you're twisting my arm over this,” he said with a bored tone, Reamann looking up at him. “I suppose I could make an appearance, you know, just to royally piss off the attendees and irk the Ministry something fierce,” he said, making it all out to be his desire to be a thorn in the Ministry's side. Really, it partially was.

“Really? You would go?” he asked.

“I don't get out much,” he said, shrugging, looking up at the ceiling.

“You have something to wear?”

“It is a formal occasion, right?” he asked.

“Yeah,”

“I'll find something,” he said, not sure how he was going to go about that but that being none of Reamann's concern.

Draco left Reamann to his work, receiving from him a hefty file-folder from the newest scene. He would have a lot of reading to do that night, and that made him grumpy. He wanted to spend his night with the kiddies, not on the case, as adorable as the case was.

Draco's mood remained cantankerous until he entered the Hall of Records and saw Coderdale entertaining Ginny again.

He froze for a second, then blinked, then moved to allow the door to close properly after it hit his shoulder.

“Draco,” Ginny said, smiling, her eyes becoming luminous with joy just at seeing him. Draco had to admit, his tummy made a similarly warm fluttering sensation upon seeing her, but he was good at keeping emotion off his face, and muted from his eyes. His eyes were his only true weakness, windows into his soul or some rubbish like that.

“Ginny,” he said, recovering from his surprise. Ginny was sitting at his desk, her long green robes open to reveal a black pencil skirt, white blouse, and one of those silly, little, lacy ties that women sometimes wore to the office that was supposed to be like a female version of a man's necktie but failed miserably at being serious and equivalent.

She looked nice though, her hair pulled back into a careless but probably highly styled bun. He kept forgetting that Ginny worked at the Ministry.

Coderdale was sitting at his own desk, looking pleasant. One would not have known of his objections to Draco and Ginny's relationship by looking at him.

“I came down to see you, I'm on my lunch, and I found that I had missed you. I did not have to wait long though,” she explained with a smile as Draco neared. He leaned to place his file on the desk, but she seemed to get the impression that he leaned to give her a kiss, so she ended up kissing him, in front of Coderdale, and though Draco enjoyed kissing Ginny any chance he got, he was feeling dreadfully uncomfortable with the man watching him in the act.

Draco pulled away first, making sure to smile, trying not to let his unease show. He buried that all under a cool, smug mask.

“I'm glad you stopped in,” he said, that being true, for the most part. God he loved looking at her, the realization of “this is mine” immeasurably pleasing his greedy, spoiled inner child, but still, he was a little tentative. She didn't feel the same. Right?

“You were just up seeing Reamann?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“How do you slip up there and back without anyone questioning you?” she asked.

“Fringe benefit to being a Legilimens, I can prevent straying minds from paying attention to me,” he said. “It doesn't work if someone actively seeks me out, but it stops the passing glance and the recognition that would follow.”

“That's handy.”

“That's tricky,” he said simply. Technically, Legilimens are supposed to use discretion and follow a code of ethics when it came to using their abilities, and though they are not specifically regulated by the Ministry, misuse of the skill can land one in Azkaban for a short stint. Draco did not see it as “unethical” to chase people away from him using his abilities in Occlumency and Legilimency, but if anyone were to complain about some of the other things he did, like tormenting Potter every chance he got, he might be brought up before the Ministry's board of Ethical Use of Magic.

“Reamann talk to you about the ball then?”

“Yes, and aren't we eager? I did not even have to demonstrate my award-worthy acting skills; I was legitimately caught off guard.”

“Well, we have to make plans fast. It's already Friday, the ball in on Christmas Eve, and this Tuesday is Christmas day,” she said, sounding a little stressed, only the weekend left to finalize all her plans. “I talked to Reamann last night, about the fallout you two had had, and urged him to apologize to you, and then convince you to come to the ball,”

“Well, I went and apologized,” he said and Ginny blinked at him like she did not believe her ears.

“It's true,” Coderdale added, noting Ginny's response.

“You, you apologized? You?” she said and Draco was caught between amusement and indignation.

“Yes, I am capable of such a thing, believe it or not.”

“Wow,” she said, not even apologizing for her shocked reaction.

“You're hurting my feelings, Weasley,” he huffed.

“I just did not think you would do that, I mean, Reamann was the one that had been insensitive,” she said.

“Well, I feared he would just avoid me after I snapped at him.”

“Draco has a bit of a temper,” Coderdale interjected.

“So I went and spoke to him,” Draco finished.

“I'm so proud of you,” she said with a grin.

“Yeah? Well, if you're impressed by that, wait until I tell you I tied my shoes this morning, all by myself!” he said mocking her and Ginny putting her hands on her hips as she sat there at his desk.

“Prat.”

“You know you love me for it,” he said, making a shooing motion to get her to vacate his seat. She stood, but before he could make to sit she grabbed his arm and pulled him towards the shelves, away from Coderdale.

“Weasley,” he said, being tugged along for a moment as she led him deep into the dark cavern of the room. “Weasley darling,” he said again before he was pulled around Ginny and pushed up against the shelves. “Ouch, that hurt,” he complained, his back hitting one of the shelves particularly hard. “I don't have a lot of padding,” he whined but Ginny pressed her lips against his to silence his irate complaints.

Draco had half a mind to push her back and tell her he was still on the clock, but that half of his mind went a little numb as Ginny pressed her body against his in a way that made his body a little…excited.

Seemingly getting the reaction from him she wanted, without breaking the kiss Ginny reached down to unbutton Draco's jeans. She got the button with ease and was on the zipper before he could reach down and stop her. He turned his head away to break the kiss and held her wrists down so that they were no longer pressing against his bulging trousers.

“Ginny.”

“Draco?” she asked, looking confused.

“As enticing an offer as this is, I can't,” he said and Ginny frowned.

“What? Why?”

“It is no offense to you, but the location…” he said, tilting his head, looking suddenly uncomfortable.

“You worried about Mr. Coderdale? We could move farther back, this place is like a maze, and I'm sure he wouldn't seek us out having a fairly good idea what we would be…”

“No, no, well, it is that to some extent, but no…I just,” he said, pausing, his cheeks suddenly pink. Damn it.

“What?”

“I rather not say…let's just take a rain check on this and-”

“No, no, tell me, what's wrong?” she asked, stepping back to give him some breathing room, his hands still around her wrists, his pants still undone slightly.

Draco was quiet for a long moment.

“I would just, for the first time we, uh, you know…I would like a little more romance. A bed would be nice,” he said.

“You want to do something romantic?” she asked, not having thought Draco would want their fling to start so formal. Wasn't having a secret love affair about going off and doing things one would not normally do, like shag at work, while on the clock? The excitement was what made it worth the risk.

“You not into romance? I'm not talking about candles and rose peddles and such…unless that's what you would like…but a bed, a bed would definitely be nice.”

“Oh, well, yes, I guess that would be nice, but beds are hard to come by in the times we are free to, um, spend time together. I live with Reamann, I can't spend the night with you, Reamann would notice,” she said.

Draco looked uncomfortable.

“A bed would really mean that much to you?” she asked.

“Well,” he said, clearing his throat with his fist in front of his mouth, having let go of her wrists by then. “Would it help my side of the case, or hurt it, to admit to you that I have never had sex in a bed?” he muttered, looking very flushed and very uncomfortable.

“What?” Ginny asked in total disbelief.

“I did not fool around at Hogwarts…I know about those rumors, Pansy started them but they were complete codswallop,” he said with firm and righteous annoyance. “I was in Azkaban for the extent of my marriage and I had only two opportunities to, well, be with my wife, and neither time was in a bed,” he said, softer at the last.

“Wait, you were serious yesterday? Totally serious…not pulling my leg, or omitting minor instances…you never dated after getting out of Azkaban?

“Never,” he muttered.

“Surely you had to have had sex since then,” she said and he shook his head silently. “You have not had sex since…since your wife? That's what, eight years?” Ginny asked, managing to be even more astonished than before.

“Almost twelve, actually,” he said, refusing to look at her. He would not admit that he knew the exact number of days, hours, and minutes since he had last had sex.

“Holy shit,” she said.

“You know, you really know how to make a guy feel good about himself,” he scoffed, flushing now rather than blushing.

“Oh, oh I'm sorry,” she said, leaning towards him and wrapping her arms up around his neck in a hug. “I didn't mean to make you feel bad.”

“I'm sure you didn't,” he said, resting his hands on her lower back and patting them a little as though to sooth her.

“But, why?” she asked, pulling back and Draco blinked.

“Why what?” he asked.

“Why did you not at least have sex since getting out of that place?”

“Are you signifying some sort of surprise that I did not mindlessly hook-up with random women, or worse a prostitute, after being granted probation?” he asked. Ginny looked a little abashed. “Do you really think that low of me just because I would agree to your little fling?”

“No, I didn't mean…” she said, flushing at him calling it a fling, “it's just, most guys…”

“I'm not most guys…and even if I had the money for hired company of the pleasurable persuasion, my mother raised me better than that,” he said, nose up a little.

“Does this mean no sex?” she asked timidly.

“No! Oh-God no,” he assured, looking at her with wide eyes, practically shouting at first. “Just give me a bed and it's on,” he said with enough passion to get Ginny to throw her head back and laugh.

“Oh, you're precious,” she laughed, pressed up against him again, hard enough to get him to grunt a little.

“Weasley, darling, since there won't be any sex between us at this moment in time, do you think you could give me a little air before I lose my resolve, or more embarrassingly, my bodily control,” he said, forcing the words to be calm through his teeth. Ginny just pressed a little harder at just the right angle.

“How good is your resolve, and control?” she asked, face inches from his.

“Not that good,” he wheezed, grabbing her upper arms and forcing her to take a step back, the distance helping, but the problem still present.

“I could take care of that, um, little problem for you, if you like.”

“We already agreed on waiting,” he said.

“I wasn't talking about intercourse,” she said with a mischievous smile. Draco blinked at her and the answer dawned on him and he blushed. Damn it. She saw it too and her grin only widened. Damn it, damn it.

“You've never had one before, have you?”

“I should most certainly say not,” he said, trying to hold himself proper, looking affronted by the very notion or suggestion.

“I have respect for your mother in her conviction in raising herself a good son, but you are far too prude for your own good.”

“Being prudish is a bad thing now?”

“When you're fifteen? No…but when you're thirty? Definitely yes,” she said, kissing him before he could object to her teasing him on his propriety anymore.

He was a little grumpy, and more than a little embarrassed, which did not combine well with his discomfort. He jumped a little when he felt her hand slip down the front of his jeans. Ginny pulled away from their lip lock with a sort of bedroom laugh and placed the side of her face against his so she could whisper in his ear her assurances that it was not as bad as he was making it out to be.

Draco did not like how patronizing she was being, and he did his best to relax, but he felt very exposed doing something like this out in the open. Sure they were two of three people in that hall at the moment and Coderdale was smart enough to keep himself busy at his desk until he saw them reemerge from the shelves…but still…there was wide-open space and tall book shelves in all directions. Standing there with his pants open seemed more than just a little indecent. His heart was racing, like he had just sprinted, and that made his body down below throb, or was it Ginny's touch that did that?

Ginny's thumb hooked into the waistband of his knickers and he felt just the briefest of graces of her skin against his lower abdomen. A shudder ran through his body and now, no matter how embarrassed he was, he could not tell her to stop, wanting so much for her to make that happen again.

Ginny turned her hand to slip down between his body and his clothing and he let out a very soft groan again and she smiled into his ear.

“I would make a wager that you are quiet in bed,” she said and he did not know what to say to that. “I bet I can entice some sound out of you,” she said, cupping his groin just hard enough to make him stand up on his toes just a little and grunt.

“Damn you, woman, stop being such a tease. It hurts my Slytherin pride to see a Gryffindor act more devious and more manipulative than I,” he whined.

“Don't worry, I'll strip you of this last innocence and I think we will be on a more level playing field. I never considered myself an overly experienced woman with only having a handful of sexual partners in my life…I had actually expected to learn a great deal from you in this little affair, but I guess a nun would feel slutty compared to you,” she teased.

“Hey, I'll have you know that I am down right naughty…just been distant from the singles scene for the last, well, twelve years,” he said, Ginny's hand on him and making it difficult to form coherent, let alone witty, thoughts or statements.

Any hope of saying anything more, clever or otherwise, was lost when she kneeled before him suddenly. He was caught by surprise by that, her standing against him, cheek to cheek, and then suddenly vanishing below his belt, but having himself pulled out from his pants overshadowed even that surprise.

As Ginny went down on him, Draco just fought to maintain control. He was sure climaxing quickly was not the best way to go about impressing a girl, but damn it, he had years of pent up sexual frustrations that he alone had been unable to fully slake. His body was aroused and throbbing with a tightness that was almost new to him. He had been aroused before, but this was hardly comparable to things that he had done while alone in the shower.

Draco had enough conscious thought to wonder what to do with himself, more specifically, his hands. Did he just stand there unmoving while she did things? She wanted him to make sounds, and that was not about to happen, well…he let out a low groan before swallowing hard.

Ginny seemed to notice his uncertainty and looked up at him with only her eyes, reaching up to hold his right hand for a moment before directing it to rest on her shoulder. He did not need any further direction from there, he just held her shoulders, his back to the book shelves, and did his best to enjoy himself, which wasn't difficult.

Draco let his head tip back onto one of the shelves and moaned then, a little louder than he had allowed himself to before. His hips wanted to move up to meet her as she stroked and handled, sucked and licked, and she encouraged it a little, allowing him to move slightly. The pleasure she derived from knowing she could make him buckle with a flick of her tongue or the twist of her grip satisfied her and made her feel powerful. She handled him, pumping her hand over his length quickly between the times she took him into her mouth, touching all his sensitive areas and rolling them in her hands, enticing small muted sounds from him.

In no time at all, Draco felt it coming and he was not sure if he should warn Ginny. He had heard somewhere that that was vastly appreciated, and so managed her name with a moan.

“Ginny, um, yeah,” he said, panting as she continued to pump away on him, stimulating just his tip with her mouth and tongue in a way he had never envisioned possible. She seemed to know how to stroke him better than he did himself. He was not complaining, but it was a little intimidating.

Ginny looked up at him, only her hands on him now as she rolled him in her grasp. She smiled and stood, holding him tight between them, still stroking him quickly, pumping to grant him that climax he was already edging. Draco tilted his head back again and she kissed at his throat and the underside of his chin where there was the slightest hint of scruff, like he had missed it while shaving but the hair too fair to see.

With a shuddering breath Draco released himself and Ginny smiled while her lips remained pressed against his neck. She bit her bottom lip while grinning, taking in the scent of his hair, it very satisfying to bring him to climax, she only would have liked him to cut loose a little bit more. She supposed she still had some time to break him of his charming prudishness.

“There, now that wasn't so bad, was it?” she teased, making it sound like she was his doctor and she had just given him a vaccination.

“Don't be patronizing, woman,” he breathed, panting a little, head still leaning on the shelf. “Sorry about the…mess,” he said as a slightly timid afterthought, lifting his head to stand properly now, looking down at his still exposed and slick manhood grasped, but lightly, in Ginny's hand still.

“It comes with the territory. Thanks for the heads up,” she said, withdrawing her wand and casually flicking away the sticky evidence of their little deed from her hand and him. “You impressed me,” she confessed and Draco blinked at her.

“In what way?” he asked, sure that was his line, he having done very little. His heart was still pounding from her.

“I had refrained from commenting, not sure if it would be in good taste,” she explained. Sure, what she had done in general was not in good taste, but that was not the point. “I wasn't sure remarking that I was nicely surprised by your, let's say, stature…would have made the situation more awkward for you,” she said and he blinked, her leaning in to kiss his neck again.

Draco blushed.

“Well, thank you,” he said, not sure exactly how to respond to that without sounding arrogant, or was cocky better used in a situation such as this? As a guy, however, he did like coming across as impressive and it only made his confidence swell to hear he had impressed her.

“Would it please you further to know that you are better hung than Harry?” she asked softly, her nose brushing his earlobe.

Draco craned his neck down to look at her then, still pink cheeked but interested now despite his propriety.

“Really?”

“Yup,” she said with a grin.

Draco felt a swell of pride that only a man could know and fully understand.

“How about Reamann?” he asked and Ginny laughed. “I don't know, it's hard to compare without them side by side.”

“Not gonna happen,” Draco said flatly and Ginny laughed again.

“No, I did not mean to imply…no…I'm just saying, you are a really thin person, so it's a little deceptive in your favor just by contrast, but you are definitely bigger than Harry, and possibly Reamann, I would definitely say you are thicker, but Reamann is quite respectable all on his own, so you should still feel proud.”

“Oh, I always have, but a little more now than before,” he said with a smirk.

Bigger than Potter? Oh, life was good.

“I feel a little cheated though,” he said and Ginny looked at him. “As amazing as you were and it felt, you have seen my naughty-bits, and I have seen nothing of yours,” he pouted, poking out his bottom lip slightly. Ginny grinned mischievously. She stepped back a few paces while she unbuttoned her blouse. Draco watched her and by the time she was three steps back she was able to open her shirt and unclasp the front of her bra to expose her breasts to him -like a flasher- briefly. Her nipples became instantly hard as her cheeks became instantly flushed, and she closed her shirt quickly with a girlish giggle.

“Very nice,” he teased while approving completely. Ginny had very nice, full but still relatively perky, breasts. She was not a willowy woman, not like the women in his family, she had full round breasts, and hips, and a bum that swayed when she walked. Just thinking about that body, and how much he wanted to put his hands on it, threatened to make his exposed manhood hard again.

Ginny clasped her bra and was buttoning up her shirt as she stepped forward, Draco smiling at her. Draco realized he was still just hanging out there, and tried to tuck himself away with Ginny standing right close again. He wanted to turn his back while doing so because she was watching him in a way that would have gotten her punched in the face if she were in a public toilet with him, and she were another man, of course. He supposed she had seen it, up close and personal, so there was no harm in her watching.

Nudity was not a bad thing; it was very, very natural.

“You know, Pansy offered this once, well, more than once,” he said once finished, indicating vaguely his now closed trousers, and Ginny looked at him, interested to hear how that had obviously not worked out. “But, you know, with a face like hers, I honestly would consider it with a Red Cap before I would with her, maybe a garbage disposal,” he said and Ginny threw her head back and laughed openly at Pansy's expense. Draco really was quite harsh to that poor girl…woman.

“You are terrible,” she laughed and he just leaned his head in to nip at her bottom lip playfully once, then twice, pulling on her lip slightly the second time.

Ginny kissed him, and for a second he was upset by that considering where her mouth had just been, but then, that was not only insulting to her, but himself. He knew where he had been, he was clean, and it had clearly caused her no harm. He found his hands sliding down her back and she did not stop him. He paused at her lower back as they kissed and then just went for it, sliding his hands over her smooth posterior until he reached its fullest point and gave both sides a firm squeeze. Ginny approved apparently by how she moaned into his mouth, and he enjoyed himself, wrapping his right arm around her lower back while patting her bum with his other hand.

“Okay, so when are we going to see each other? I want to see you before the ball,” she said, right up against him again, but in a completely different way than before. Before had been all sexual and teasing, now it was just her looking for comfort and affection in his closeness. He enjoyed that. He had enjoyed the first as well, but this was just so nice. He had been a sex object before; it was comforting to know he had other uses. Too bad he was just a fling, and no, he was not bitter.

“I have to work tomorrow, and I'm busy all afternoon and evening after that, but what about Sunday? Will you come out with me Sunday?” he asked.

“Come out with you where? We can't really be seen together anywhere,” she said.

“I want that to remain a surprise. But could you? Would you be able to clear your schedule so that we could spend Sunday together?”

“I, I don't know, I mean, it would be hard such short notice to get the whole day.”

“I could make it worth your while,” he said, reaching up and holding her face with his right hand, grabbing her ear gently and rubbing her earlobe between his thumb and finger, his knuckle against that spot behind her ear where her hairline ended that was so sensitive. Her knees became weak and she felt a shudder run through her body.

“I could work something out with Hermione, as a cover story,” she said and Draco smiled.

“Excellent,” he said. “And make sure you dress warmly,” he advised, his hand surprising him by being back on her bum again.

Draco and Ginny reemerged from the shelves, hand in hand, and Coderdale refused to look up at them. Draco knew the man believed they had just gone off and had sex, and he was not about to admit otherwise. He had convinced Ginny to linger with him in the shelves for a while for the sake of appearances. He did not want to vanish and come back in twenty minutes fully dressed. It would make him look bad. It was a guy thing.

“I'll see you around…definitely on Sunday,” she said, leaning up to kiss him. Draco liked that she was shorter than him; it made him feel good about himself. She was quite good at making him feel good about himself, and he enjoyed it.

“I look forward to it,” he said softly, speaking with his lips against hers, making little smacking kisses with their noses squished together.

He knew Coderdale was now the one who was uncomfortable, and Draco reveled in that. He made a show of kissing Ginny because it made him feel better. Being a smarmy arsehole felt so much better than feeling guilty and embarrassed.

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Author's Note:

This chapter was basically my response to all those fics that have made Draco out to be some over-sexed, sex-god, narcissist, womanizing, Satyr. (Nymphomaniac is a woman obsessed with sexual pleasure, the male equivalent is a Satyr. I can't tell you how many people get that wrong.) As much as I love a good, self-assured and arrogant Draco, and as much as I sometimes enjoy a good (as in well-written) smutty fic, I honestly think Draco's mother would have raised him better than that, and I always pictured Lucius to be rather scrupulous. Sorry.

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Blue-Eyed Angel

Chapter Sixteen

Draco sat in his living room that night with Clarissa and Michelangelo when the telephone rang and distracted him from his reading.

“Claire, turn down the telly,” he said over his shoulder, her complying with a nod and quick action. She was on the couch, Draco on the floor in front of her. She used the zapper to turn the movie volume down so that Draco could reach over and grab the phone from its cradle on the floor. His hair was…styled…thanks to Clarissa, and she went back to her craft as soon as Draco was sitting upright again and had the receiver to his ear.

“Malfoy,” he said simply.

“You did not tell me you have a telephone.” It was Reamann. Draco sighed and switched to his right ear so he could cradle the phone in his shoulder and sit more comfortably.

“It is part of my utility package if I wanted cable. I do not use it much,” he said, forgetting himself sometimes that he had a Muggle phone, the television a requirement to keep the kiddies happy. Opening the file he balanced it on his knees again.

“I was wondering if you had a chance to read the file over yet.”

“Ouch, don’t tug,” Draco hissed to Clarissa softly, hand over the mouthpiece for a moment. “Yes, I have it right here actually,” he said now to Reamann, looking over the file like he had been for the last hour as the children watched their movie.

Michelangelo was in the chair that was slightly ahead and to Draco’s left, bored with the movie he had not wanted to watch in the first place. He had gotten control of the entertainment the night before, and it was now Clarissa’s turn. That meant they were watching Annie, and to keep Michelangelo from giving her a hard time about singing along, Draco had joined her and sung too. Oh what being a father had done to him.

“Well?” he said, expectantly.

“You expect me to discuss this with you over the phone and offer you my summary?” Draco asked, Michelangelo looking over at him in curiosity.

“Humor me, I need to have a better clue than I do now if I’m to go in tomorrow and work with Sebastian. I dealt with him already today, I can’t deal with that man talking down to me again,” he said.

“Get enough of that from me, huh?” Draco asked, being difficult.

“He’s new to the case and I already get the impression that he knows what’s going on better than I do,” he said, the frustration in his voice carrying over the phone quite plainly.

“He’s a clever one,” Draco said wistfully, flipping through the folder.

“Draco.”

“Just relax and give me a minute,” he said shortly and Michelangelo smirked, enjoying overhearing his father reprimanding another adult. “We know it was the Cruciatus Curse used,” he said and Reamann just made an indistinct noise of agreement and encouragement. “This whole scene is reminiscent of the tortures back in the original war well over two decades ago. It is almost like someone is trying to pin this on the Death Eaters.”

“Pin it on the Death Eaters…no Death Eater a part of this?” Reamann asked and Draco sighed, closing the folder and straightening his left leg out in front of him while gripping the phone, his right leg trapped up against his chest by the coffee table.

“Reamann, there are no Death Eaters still left from that original war. They are all either dead or still in Azkaban. The only supposed Death Eaters out and about today are second generation and family members, none of which took part in any of the grotesque grievances of the first war,” he said simply, Michelangelo looking on, interested in his father’s words.

“You’re positive about that?” Reamann asked and Draco pulled the phone away from his ear to glare at it.

“Sod off,” Draco said, slamming the phone down to hang up on Reamann. Michelangelo smirked and Clarissa covered her mouth and giggled.

“Don’t repeat Daddy’s foul language,” he warned and they both nodded, Michelangelo with a sort of rolling eyes that gave Draco the impression that he already made practice of repeating a lot of the things he had heard him say when he lost his temper. He would be bothered by that a little more, if he hadn’t had a dirty mouth at twelve as well. So long as Michelangelo didn’t cut loose in front of him, or worse, his mother, he would not fret it much.

Draco put the file aside, refusing to look at it anymore because Reamann was a dingbat, and sat there, watching the movie as Clarissa braided an awkward piece of his long hair and used a sparkling pink clip to tack it up and work on another piece.

The phone rang and Draco ignored it.

It rang a dozen times and he did not pick it up.

It could ring all night and he wouldn’t answer it.

Unfortunately the same was not true for Michelangelo.

He leaned over the arm of the squishy and abused brown chair and walked on his hands so that his body was suspended over the ground, his feet still in the chair, and grabbed the receiver. His quickly backtracked his way back into the chair in reverse and held the phone up.

“Malfoy residence,” he said sweetly into the phone.

“Michael?” Reamann asked.

“This is, whom may I ask is calling?” he asked, knowing exactly who it was, and smiling at the glare his father was giving him. It wouldn’t have been so funny if it weren’t for the hair.

“This is Reamann Rossiter, I was over for supper the other night and came to visit yesterday? I work with your father and I had just called…”

“Right, right, right, I remember,” he said, cutting Reamann off in one of his longwinded explanations. “May I please have the nature of this call?”

“I need to speak to your father.”

“He a bit busy at the moment.”

“What is he doing?”

“Weeping,” Michelangelo said and Reamann was quiet for a moment.

“Weeping?”

“I am not weeping, give me the phone,” Draco said, leaning up to snatch it from Michelangelo. Michelangelo squatted up on the chair though and attempted to keep it out of reach.

“Oh, right, weeping. It’s really quite awful, what did you say to upset him so? I have never seen him like this,” he said, standing and hopping down off the chair while talking, the effect not ruined because Reamann could not see his grinning face. Running the long way around the coffee table, dragging the phone along with him by its long cord, Michelangelo tried to evade his father.

“Michael, put your father on the phone.”

“Give me the phone you little Hinkypunk,” Draco warned, running after him. Michelangelo ran out of cord and the base that sat on the floor could reach no further on its cord that plugged to the wall.

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, honestly,” he said, Draco almost on him. He grinned and tossed Clarissa the receiver as Draco grabbed him around the middle. Clarissa was standing on the couch and bent at the knees slightly to catch the phone low. She put it to her ear and talked very calmly into it, her sweet voice chiming.

“Hello Mr. Rossiter, it’s so nice to hear from you again,” she said.

“Awright you two, enough of this,” Draco said and Michelangelo attempted to keep him from reaching the couch.

“You caused quite a reaction in my father, and he said a naughty word. I hope you are proud of yourself, causing a man to curse in front of children,” she said, leaning back in a last-ditch attempt to keep the phone from her father.

“Give…me…that,” he said through his teeth due to his effort, reaching for her, holding Michelangelo around the middle, upside down so that his bent legs were in the air as he laughed, in his other arm.

Clarissa was grabbed around the ankle and her feet were pulled out from under her. She giggled as she landed on her bum with a plop and a bounce on the couch cushions. Draco tossed Michelangelo next to her so he was still arse in the air and laughing. Draco smacked him in the face with a pillow as he panted and got the phone from Clarissa.

“Reamann…Reamann, are you there?” he asked, trying to balance himself, his file now spilled out across the floor where the papers had spread out from being trampled.

“Draco, is that you?” Reamann asked.

“Yes,” Draco said, trying to wipe away a chunk of his “beautifully” styled hair from his eyes, “Yes,” he managed, tripping over the phone cord and stumbling slightly, it pulled tight and long while wrapped around the table and strung across the space between it and the couch like a trip-cord.

“I did not mean to insult you just then,” he said, still unsure of all he had just heard happen on the other end of the line.

“Your insensitivity never ceases to amaze me,” Draco said, signaling with just his finger for the children to get ready for bed. He snapped and then pointed to each of them firmly and then in the direction of the hallway.

“It’s a hard-knock life, for us,” Clarissa started singing loudly as she jumped off the couch, Michelangelo joining in just to be disruptive while his father was on the phone. Draco glared at them and pointed more to get them to leave the room, the whole time Reamann was talking on and on into the phone about how he did not mean to be insensitive.

“Instead’a treated…”

“We get tricked!” Michelangelo replied.

“Instead’a kisses…”

“We get kicked!”

“It’s a hard-knock life!” they sang together on the top of their lungs so that they would still be heard loud and clear from down the hall.

“Sorry, sorry,” Draco said, hand over his free ear to block out the sound of his children being a pain in his arse. “Listen, Reamann, don’t mention it. But I have to go now. I will have a report ready for you by the time you come into work tomorrow. Don’t bother coming by, it’s not worth the walk. I’ll just send it up in the middle of some texts so no one will be suspicious, awright?” he said, not giving Reamann a chance to say anything, because if he did, he would never shut up. “Awright, night,” he said, hanging up the phone.

He stood there for a moment, his papers a mess on the floor, the movie still playing on the telly though nearly muted, and his hair “styled” and hanging in his face a little.

“Awright you little Horklumps,” Draco called, marching himself down the hall, the sound of his children’s laughing meeting him all the way from their bedroom. He was not angry, he was actually smiling as he mockingly pushed up his sleeves, ready to rough his children up by picking them up, flipping them upside down, and dropping them onto their beds as they laughed and wrestled with him.

They had only meant to cheer him up, and they had. Reamann’s potion gave him the energy to do this, and he supposed he should take advantage of it and make the best of it while the potions lasted.

He doubted he would be getting many potions from the man once Reamann found out about him and Ginny.

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

Saturday at the Ministry passed rather uneventfully.

Draco sent up to Reamann his summary of the scene, Reamann apparently, thankfully, taking Draco’s advice and not coming down to see him.

The case was complex, and Draco honestly had no idea what to expect next. There was no pattern, and the cases no longer followed a reliable timeframe so they did not even know when to expect the next attack. What was seriously lacking was a motive. It was almost like the attacks had no purpose, that they were there just to keep them busy, or because someone really enjoyed harming others.

Not wanting to dwell on the case and drive himself mental, Draco got a lot of shelving done, a lot of backed up organizing, and even managed to tidy up his desk area some, it still not being properly set right after the Ministry bullies-er-Guards had had their way with it.

The highlight of the workday came in the form of a note from Ginny at around two in the afternoon, her cute bubbly lettering expressing her excitement about spending the following day with him, explaining her lunch with Hermione and their plans for how they would cover up her time spent with Draco.

Apparently the plan was to have some kind of “girls’ day out” or something.

Hermione would pretend to spend the day with Ginny; doing whatever “girly things” women did in a day’s time. While Ginny and Draco would be off doing…things…Hermione would buy some stuff and take notes on what Ginny supposedly did and saw, so she would have a cover story for all who would ask.

Draco was sure Hermione was just looking for an excuse to take notes on something. That woman seriously needed a hobby other than being a know-it-all nerd with bad hair. Could having incurably bad hair be a hobby?

Draco was excited over spending his day with Ginny, and he could not deny it. He wrote back in his own long and elegant script expressing this, only not nearly as giddy as he felt. He kept it cool and suave. This was a fling to her; no sense in acting like it was anything more than that by being overly sentimental.

Somehow, that thought bummed him just a little.

Otherwise, his day was looking up, but Coderdale managed to bring him down a bit, more than the truth about his relationship did.

He was not exactly giving Draco the “cold-shoulder,” but he had simply lost a certain sparkle in his ancient eyes and kept all conversations between them extremely brief and work oriented.

Draco did his best to not let Coderdale’s frigidity get to him.

Coderdale needed to deal.

He had said so himself: Draco was an adult and allowed to live his life however he wanted.

So why was he not talking to him, and why had he taken his fags away? He needed those!

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

It was Michelangelo’s birthday.

He was twelve…twelve.

Draco groaned at the thought.

He was much too young to have a twelve year old. God, Michelangelo was a year away from being a…gasp…teenager.

Draco actually learned that he was the first of his year to become a parent, though that had hardly surprised him given how young he had been when Michelangelo was born. But still, to learn he had also overshot the two years that had graduated ahead of him, he felt a little awkward. No wonder his mother had pitched a fit.

Draco got off work on time to head home and spend the late afternoon, evening, and night with the family. It was a small affair, his family being small, there only being the four Malfoys left and the Blacks even more limited then that at that point, but there was ice-cream cake…chocolate and vanilla layers…and some presents. Draco did not believe in combining Michelangelo’s birthday with Christmas just because they were so close together. It belittled the special-ness of Michelangelo’s day and he was sure Jesus wouldn’t appreciate it either.

Michelangelo and Clarissa were special to him, his whole world really, and they were grateful for all they had. Most children would complain over getting only a few small gifts, mostly clothing, but his did not. They were humble and thankful, and Draco had a lot to thank his mother for in regards to that. She had raised them for him for a long time. Christina had dumped the children onto his mother (once his mother was out) while going off to do her own thing, while he sat in prison. His mother hated her for that. In all honesty, Draco had a suspicion at first that it had been his mother that had killed her.

Never mind all that, Narcissa was like a mother to them, and doted upon them as best she could. She was the one that had brought the cake.

What would Ginny do to their dynamic? Their little family? The children were too young to properly remember their true mother, Draco did not like talking about her, and his mother certainly would never mention her, certainly not in a kind word.

If he introduced them, the children, to the idea of Ginny, would they take it well?

Yes, Ginny was a fling, but he had never dated before. His children needed to get used to the idea that there could quite possibly be a woman in his life, and Ginny could be a steppingstone for a more serious relationship, right? He could bring her around a little bit, test the waters with them; see if they could welcome a woman into their home. Maybe things would go well with the children, Ginny and him would move on, and he could bring home a more proper girlfriend.

Draco’s heart sagged a little then despite the excitement in the room and the noisemakers popping and spewing glitter and streamers.

“Michael, don’t point that at your sister when you pull the string, it’s dangerous,” Narcissa scolded.

Why did the thought of Ginny just being a steppingstone in his reentry into the dating scene make him so sad? Why did the idea that she was not a proper girlfriend make him sadder?

Was it because he really liked her?

Was Coderdale right about him hurting himself with this?

No, certainly not.

But some part of him did not believe that, and curled up sadly inside of him to become a dull weight in his stomach.

“Dad, cheers!” Clarissa shouted, popping her own party favor over his head and showering him with its magical contents, everyone laughing, Draco smiling through the streamers that now draped from him and over his face.

“I suppose I have your aunt Nymphadora to thank for these,” he laughed, grabbing Clarissa, pulling her onto his lap, and tickling her.

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

Ginny Apparated to the safe point nearest Draco’s home and walked down the snowy sidewalk. It was early; the sun was bright and reflecting off the snow harshly.

Draco stood on his front steps, waiting for her, bundled up warmly.

“Draco,” she said with a smile, holding up her arms as she moved towards him, embracing him at the bottom of the steps and giving him a thorough kiss.

“Morning,” he said, smiling down at her once they broke apart.

“Why did you wait outside? It’s freezing,” she said, shivering as though to emphasize her point. Draco did not say it was because he did not want to invite her in and have her discover his children.

“My mother is over, and I figured our departure would go smoother if we avoided a scene,” he said and she nodded.

“I suppose so.”

“Are you up for a drive?” he asked, pulling away to walk towards the street where an old, red Mini Cooper sat. He was wearing black fingerless gloves and he twirled a set of car keys around his long middle finger of his left hand before then grasping them in his palm.

“You can drive? You have a car?” she asked, standing there, rooted in her spot in surprise while Draco Malfoy: Pureblood Prince of Slytherin walked around the little Muggle car to look at her over it.

“Yes I can drive, but no, I do not have a car. This is my mother’s car. Do you really think I’m a Mini Cooper driving sort’a chap?” he laughed and she looked at him. “Come on, I’m a licensed driver so don’t fuss.”

Ginny nodded, and climbed down into the car. It was more spacious than it looked from the outside, but not due to magic, just clever Muggle engineering. She had that familiar fuzzy feeling in regards to Draco she got whenever he did something terribly normal. The idea of him learning to drive, getting his picture taken for a Muggle license, it was all too funny for her to bear. She managed though to only smile while he wasn’t looking.

“The drive is not terrible, Sunday traffic should be easier too,” he said.

“Where are we going?”

“We have to travel west, to Wilts,” he answered.

“We are going to Wiltshire?” she asked in disbelief.

“That we are,” he said simply.

“Why?”

“It’s a surprise,” he said through a smirk.

He started the car, drew his seatbelt down across him, and pulled out from the curb. Ginny followed suit with the seatbelt and looked over at Draco, not sure exactly what to say right then.

Using the term “fling” made her think “sex” and that had not been her whole intention when it came to Draco, but she had possibly given him that idea Friday. She loved the idea of going on a date, like they were apparently doing now, but they were still practically strangers. They fancied each other, they shared a past, they connected on some level…but they didn’t know a lot about each other still. That made things awkward, for her at least.

“If there is something you would like to know about me, Weasley darling, you could just ask. The worst that could happen is I just refuse to answer,” he said simply, an edge of amusement to his voice that filled the otherwise very quiet compartment. It made Ginny jump.

“I don’t…”

“Please, don’t try and lie to me, t’won’t work,” he said, signaling and changing lanes. “If you feel we know so little about each other, just start asking away. I’ll answer you your questions if it will put your mind at ease so you can enjoy our day once we arrive.”

“You were reading my thoughts, weren’t you?”

“It’s habitual,” he shrugged.

“It’s rude,” she quipped back, sounding a little testy.

“Ah, now there is that fire in you I loved so much those years ago,” he said with a smile, glancing over at her through the corner of his eye.

“How much did you like me those years ago?” she asked.

“You need to be a little more specific over what years you are talking about, Weasley darling,”

“The timeframe not obvious enough for you?” she asked and he smiled, looking over at him then. She had meant the night they had kissed and those days preceding the final battle, he obviously had feelings for her that extended far before those cold nights if he was unsure of when she was talking about.

“I just inadvertently admitted too much now, didn’t I?” he laughed.

“You liked me before the war?”

“A little,” he said dismissively.

“How much is ‘a little’?” she asked.

“I would occasionally imagine you starkers,” he teased and she blushed, reaching over and pinching his arm though it was not as harsh as usual thanks to her gloves and his coat.

“You’re making fun of me,” she accused.

“No, I’m not,” he laughed, “I swear, I am not. You really came into your own after your fourth year,” he said.

“You liked me since your fifth?”

“No, well, not all that year. I was with Pansy and that was the first year I really felt, I don’t know, more at home in my skin and more willing to explore…things. Unfortunately, the problem right there was what I just said, I was with Pansy. The time in my life when I really would have enjoyed exploring the opposite sex some and I was attached to her.”

“Come on, Draco, she wasn’t that bad.”

“Her face could have been fixed with a few spells, or a pillowcase with eyeholes cut out, but her personality was tremendously wearing. Short stints she was fine, even enjoyable, but she was so possessive, and clingy. She was also rather dumb, or rather, did not have a mind for anything I found remotely interesting, so unless we sat together, spewing our mindless bigoted dribble and harsh ties about our fellow students, we hadn’t much to talk about at all.”

“So, you started liking me, of all people?” she asked.

“Well, I think that is a little strong of an assumption. It wasn’t like you were a beckon of light that shone whenever we were in the same room together. I just happened to admire a few girls from afar, and you were one of them, a favorite, I’ll give you that much,” he said, looking over at her.

“Really, I did not know this, or that it had extended as far back as Hogwarts,” she said, blushing. The most sought-after boy in school after Cedric’s death had fancied her…her? She felt butterflies even though the pressures of social existence and acceptance in Hogwarts were long past.

“Well, you were Potter’s girl, everyone knew that, even when you two were not an official couple. Honestly, I think you two, possibly that dimwitted…sorry…brother of yours, were the last to realize you two were a couple. The rest of us knew,” he said and she laughed, forgiving Draco for slipping up and insulting her brother, just so long as she didn’t have to make a habit of it.

“Yeah, well, I admired you a bit too,” she admitted, batting her eyelashes at him.

“Did you now,” he asked, not sounding terribly surprised and her flaring up at how pretentious he was, that being oddly attractive about him while managing to be utterly annoying.

“Well, the entire female populous of Hogwarts did really,” she said.

“Some of the faculty too, so was rumored,” he said with a grin that was so reminiscent of him back in those days it was enough to make some adolescent part of her deep inside flutter with her girlish crush. He had had the best smile in school, if only he had used it more often, and not when he was being a prat.

That little part of her on the inside was squealing in excitement: she had him! She finally had the unreachable, untouchable Draco Malfoy! Maybe Hermione was right, and she was drawn to his “bad-boy” image, but could anyone really blame her? He was cute and cunning while charmingly conceited and charismatic.

“I have to admit, you were nice to look at,” she said.

“Were, as in past tense, as in, I no longer am?” he asked, not looking over at her. Ginny’s smile faltered. She had not meant to imply that. She looked him over, really looked him over, and felt he was really actually bothered by that and was not just teasing.

“No, no, I enjoy looking at you, I’m looking at you right now aren’t I?” she asked, trying to regain the mood they had had going. They were doing so well, their trip had been fun so far…she did not want it to stop. Apparently Draco did not either.

“Sorry, was I defensive? I did not mean to be,” he said bashfully. “Keep talking about how pretty I am and how much you longed for me in Hogwarts, I liked hearing about that,” he said and she laughed, looking out her window and then back at him.

“God, you are such a prat. I can’t tell if you are joking or being serious because you sound so sincere.”

“Oh, I’m being quite serious. You keep calling me a prat, yet I don’t get the feeling you are even using it for its intended purpose of being hurtful. Is that your pet name for me, Weasley? It’s very clever…so fitting and accurate a descriptor of me and one you can let slip in public and not leave people wondering,” he teased.

“God, you are so full of yourself, you are impossible to insult aren’t you,” she laughed.

“I would only be insulted if you started calling me ‘snuggle-bear’ or something along those lines and equally as embarrassing,” he said and Ginny could not stop laughing.

“Snuggle-bear?”

“It was the first thing that popped into my mind, shut up,” he said defensively while pouting cutely and staring intently at the road ahead.

“No, no…I like it. Or hunny-bunny,” she said,

“Oh, God, no…I forbid this, woman. You make no mention of these names to anyone or so help me God,” he said and she just laughed.

“Okay, okay,” she said before smirking mischievously, “…Schnookums,” she tagged on and Draco groaned.

“Stop this, you horrible woman. I will call you Red, don’t think I won’t,” he warned.

“Ugh, God,” she said in disgust, that being her least favorite epithet people used in regards to her. She was not “baby” or “doll” or “sweet thing” to guys that would hit on her. No, those were all belittling and insulting, but she was always, always, “red,” and she hated it. Draco knew this, thus why he had threatened to use it against her.

They had recovered nicely. The atmosphere in the car was light and pleasant again, both laughing, but Ginny more than him. He seemed to prefer to keep his laughs quiet and sophisticated. Respectable and polite. Ginny felt she really needed to break him of all this culturing his mother had done to him.

“Now, speaking of your crush on me back in Hogwarts once again, how often did you imagine me starkers? Once a week? Twice a week? Every night with your wand set on vibrate, Ow!” he said, gripping his arm after she pinched him again. “No pinching, God, you are worse than a child,” he said, swinging his left hand at her, not daring to take his eyes off the road at that moment and his aim thusly compromised. He playfully slapped at her as she blocked him every time, him finally managing a hit on her leg.

“You are such a prat. Prat, prat, prat, and I mean that!”

“You are only upset because you can’t deny it, notice that you did not try,” he said and she rolled her eyes at him.

“Whatever, you’ll think what you will anyways, no matter what I say.”

“So, I crushed on you a little, and you crushed on me a little, what would have happened if we, say, met in an empty corridor, late at night? Me doing my Prefect or better yet, Inquisitorial Squad, rounds and duties, you out past curfew,” he said and she blushed.

“Draco-”

“Come on, use your imagination.”

“If you made a pass at me I would have hexed you,” she said.

“Ah, so you are into the kinky-rough stuff. Awright, I’m game…you hex me, I hex you, I choose the Ventosus Spell, it’s known to blow people’s clothing off if used just the right way.”

Ginny tilted her head back against the headrest and laughed.

“Fine, so you have blown my robes off, now I’m in my knickers and furiously hexing you with Furnunculus Spell, then what?”

“Ouch,” Draco said, having a smile at the mental image of Ginny in her knickers and imagining just what kind she would wear. Pastel pink cotton would have been fitting. Or purple, he liked purple. “Well, while all oozing with my hairy boils? Probably not much. You are no fun,” he pouted.

“Alright, alright. Lets try it this way…we, by some mistake, book the Quidditch Pitch at the same time,” she said.

“Awright,” he agreed.

“We are both already dressed and psyched up for a personal practice, but meet each other on the pitch.”

“Awright,” he said.

“What happens next?”

“I call you a Blood-Traitor and tell you to get the bloody hell off my pitch before I damage one of you four brain cells you share between your family, or would that be Galleons?” he said.

“Ouch, Malfoy.”

“Hey, you asked,” he said defensively.

“There was really no way we would have ever hooked up in Hogwarts, is there?”

“I really don’t see it, no,” he said, sounding a little disappointed somehow.

“Well, okay, so you fancied me, I fancied you. When did it stop being a passing fancy and become you wanting to kiss me?” she asked and he blushed.

“Oh, that,” he said.

“Yes, that,” she teased.

“Awright, I said I would answer your questions,” he said with a sigh. “To be honest, it was a growing thing…you approaching me that first night I showed up with Harry to the Order’s camp with my, well, tail between my legs, you offering to help me when I was hurt, fighting along side me against the Giants…” he said, looking very attentively at the road. “I did not realize it though…or maybe just ‘refused to acknowledge’ is more accurate…until, well, just before I kissed you. I don’t mean to be harsh or belittle it in any way what we did, but I really did think I was going to die. I had given up on everything, and did not care anymore. I really did think that was my last night. That was all that gave me the courage to do what I did. I felt I had nothing to lose and just went for it,” he said, looking very intently on the road before him.

“My-my,” she said, smiling at him.

“Oh, shut up, you kissed me right back,” he retorted in an accusing manner.

“I did,” she said, agreeing easily.

“Why did you let me kiss you?” he asked, softly now.

“Why?” she asked and Draco just glanced over at her. “Because, well, I felt that it could very well be our last night, and I had day-dreamed about kissing you before, and having it actually happen was, well, something far too good to pass up.”

“So you did it because it was fulfilling some girlish fantasy, not because you really had feelings for…”

“No, no, I did not say that. Goodness, you are defensive,” she said and he flushed. “I never would have thought Draco Malfoy, the most boisterous and pompous boy in Hogwarts was so insecure,” she said, almost a little annoyed that she could not say one thing without him taking it wrong and her having to explain herself and assure him otherwise. He was like a woman, she was half expecting him to ask her if she thought he was fat when he obviously isn’t, and for him to get mad at her regardless of her answer.

Draco just grumbled under his breath. Had he been reading her active thoughts when she had compared him to an unappeasable woman? He had been looking at her. She almost hoped so, if that meant he would ease down some on the defensive he always seemed to coast on.

“I liked you, but a major part of me was confused at that time. I honestly did not know what I wanted. All the fighting, all the death, all the pain…your kiss was a release from all that, and a needed one. You made me feel safe when nothing else around me could.”

“I’m touched,” he said softly, though there was a dryness there, he not as keen on the idea that she had simply used him to comfort herself as the idea that she had secretly fancied him for years. Both were apparently true, but he’d rather think he were irresistible, not convenient.

“Why didn’t we have sex that night?” she asked and Draco twitched a little.

“Excuse me?”

“We were so close, you there on top of me, hands groping me through my robes and shirt, we could have done it right there, blamed it on passion and the heat of the moment later -”

“Heat of the moment? It was freezing out,” he interrupted but Ginny talked over him.

“-if we felt we had to, but you pulled away. I remember you pulling away and looking pained, but not from any sort of physical affliction. What had happened?” she asked.

Draco’s profile looked uncomfortable.

“My mother raised me better…”

“Oh, now, I know that’s true, but I know that’s not the reason. You were not thinking of your mum out there, while with me, in that position,” she said with utter confidence and certainty, cutting him off.

Draco sighed.

“I did not want to...I did not know at the time…” he seemed to be uncertain about his words. Ginny said nothing, giving him space to collect his thoughts. “I was…am a werewolf, and you knew that so that wasn’t my problem, but…I did not know…I mean, I was not sure if I would get you sick if we…” he said, still stumbling over his words, something that seemed so unlike him.

“You were afraid you would infect me, through sex? Is that possible?”

“Blood to blood contact will,” he said. He clearly needing to discuss this with her now, it was a pretty relevant issue. “I was not sure if my other…fluids…would infect you, or could carry the illness…I thought I would be dead by the next evening, but you could have lived, and that would have been a very shitty thing to do to you, die and leave you with lycanthropy, or even leave you pregnant, because of a moment of ‘passion,’” he said.

“I understand your fear, but pregnant? Come on, Draco, on our first and only time?”

“It’s possible,” he said dismissively, not wanting to linger on that point too long while fighting not to think about Michelangelo…or Clarissa. “I think we really need to talk about this though, if we are going to have a sexual relationship,” he said.

“Talk about pregnancy?” she asked,

“No…well, yes, okay, but in the prevention of it,” he said, looking over at her, hoping she agreed there. She apparently did.

“Can you really get me sick, just by having sex with me?” she asked.

“Ah, well, that’s a complex question. I would say no, but there is a tiny, microscopic, nearly nonexistent, possibility that something could happen that would make it possible,” he said uncomfortably.

“You said blood to blood contact?”

“Yes, that is basically the only way of contaminating another while not in wolf-form. I don’t get the vibe from you that you are into bestiality, so I don’t think we need to talk about cautions while having sex when I’m not in a human form, right?” he said and she flushed and slapped his arm. Draco was able to smile, despite the seriousness of what he was about to say. “Every part of me carries the illness, hair, skin, saliva, et cetera, but nothing but my blood is infectious when I’m just a man.”

“But being bitten or scratched by a werewolf is how you get infected, so I thought.”

“We are contagious in beast form. In that form the condition extends to all…fluids, like saliva, and other things, like hair and nails.”

“What if you bit or scratched me as is? My brother Bill got tainted…”

“Oh yes, William Weasley,” he said, nodding. “He was tainted, not infected, which is different,” he said.

“How did Bill get sick if Greyback had not been a wolf when he attacked him? What is it to be tainted, not infected?” she asked. Draco licked his lips.

“I’m not infectious in the state I am now, and terribly infections in the wolf state…so the state in-between, that is: if I were to be partially shifted, I would be able to partially infect you, or in other words, taint you,” he explained. “To be tainted is just to have some of the characteristics or habits, without having the shift, or being contagious yourself.” Ginny nodded. “Greyback was capable of partially shifting, and that was his state when he attacked your brother,” he said.

“Can you partially shift?” she asked.

“Why?” he asked, suddenly very defensive again.

“I need to know.”

“You worried I could hurt you?”

“I’m curious,” she said, part of it being, yes, she was a little nervous about him possibly, accidentally, making her sick. She did not have a problem with werewolves, really, she just really did not want to be one.

“Greyback was a Greater-wolf, making him very strong and powerful,” he said. Ginny looked at him. “I am a Greater-wolf myself, but I have not …embraced…my illness like Greyback had. As a result, my potential is not met.”

“But can you?”

Draco looked over at her, very serious.

“Yes,” he admitted and then pressed on. “But I have control. Though I have the illness and it extends to every part of me, I can’t harm you or anyone with my teeth and nails as they are now,” he said, holding out his thin left hand to her so she could see his short manicured nails. “You only have to fear my blood. If I get a paper cut, I’ll warn you,” he said, trying to make light of the situation. Ginny almost smiled.

There was silence in the car for a long moment.

“If this makes you uneasy, we don’t have to continue,” he offered and Ginny looked over at him.

“What?”

“If me being a werewolf is just too much for you to handle, then we don’t have to do this,” he said, his voice calm and indifferent, his insides pained at his words.

“No, no, I mean, it is something I need to understand and take precautions for, but I…I don’t see why we can’t keep going…”

“You’re scared of me,” he said simply.

“Damn it, stay out of my head,” she said fiercely.

“I did not have to read your feelings to know, you are wringing your hands and refusing to look at me,” he said calmly and Ginny cursed.

“It is just a very new thing. I mean, I have nothing against werewolves, I happen to be friends with a few.”

“Lupin?”

“Yeah, he is one,” she said and Draco nodded.

“I just, I have never dated one, or had sex with one before, and I did not realize I would have to…worry.”

“You shouldn’t worry too much, or be so anxious,” he reassured. “My ‘Support Wizard’ at the Ministry assured me that, if I wanted to be as careful as possible…given that I’m a Greater-wolf and thusly my contagiousness is proportionately higher, though very, very slight still…and if my partner were uneasy, I would only have to wear a condom. He assured me that just about guarded against any mishap, and would protect against pregnancy at the same time,” he said.

“So, you’ll wear rubbers and all is set?” she asked.

“Um, yes, I suppose,” he said, feeling like he should say more, but not wanting to scare her anymore than she already was.

Really, the chances of her getting in any way sick (tainted or otherwise) was very slim…but he felt that he really should make sure Ginny understood that there was a very, very, very small chance still, that even with precautions like condoms, something bad could happen. Nothing was ever one-hundred percent…well, except abstinence, but he was sure he was just being overly paranoid.

He had a condom in his back pocket.

Would they use it that day?

He was not sure, but he had it with him just in case.

He did not care how badly he wanted her; he would not have unprotected sex with Ginny. The chances of him getting her sick were microscopic, but the chances of him getting her pregnant seemed high with his track record so far and her family’s reputation. Most of her brothers had paired off and started their own litters. In one generation the family had grown exponentially. Draco himself was two for two, and that was a record he would willingly let die.

“So you stopped that night, for my sake?” she asked, leaning her head back to look at him with heavy-lidded eyes.

“I liked you too much to hurt you.”

“That’s really touching that, in the middle of it all, you would still think of me first,” she said, reaching up with her right hand to stroke the side of his face. She ran the back of her knuckle over his high cheekbone and down his shadowed and slightly sunken-in cheek.

“I think you are making a bigger deal of it than it was,” he said, blushing, eyes on the road.

“I never would have tagged you as the modest type either,” she said with a soft smile, tucking his hair behind his ear for him, letting her hand drop a little to just play with his long ends by his hip.

“I’m just full of surprises apparently,” he said, watching the road so Ginny missed his smile while she played with his hair.

There was quiet for a long moment, and Ginny finally spoke up,

“What was your wife like?” she asked. Draco did not react badly, but his lack of a reaction gave Ginny the feeling that he had closed himself off so she would not see his reaction.

“Why do you ask?”

“Well, you offered to answer my questions, and you only mentioned that you had been married before, and that you had loved her more than she had loved you, but nothing more. No name, no details. You know Harry, and about my marriage, but I don’t know anything about your wife, or your marriage,” she said.

“There isn’t much to say on the matter,” he said.

“Well, okay, I can understand that it hurts to talk about the relationship itself, but how about, what did she look like? What was her name?” she asked, voice soft as she leaned on her seat, twisted to face him partially, stroking his hair softly. She didn’t want to be like Reamann and jabbing her curiosity into Draco’s still healing wounds, but there wasn’t a woman out there that wasn’t curious about her man’s past flames and how she could quite possibly stack up. Draco had obviously loved his wife, probably still did since he wore his wedding band to this day, and Ginny was not jealous…much, but she knew there was some amount of competition there for Draco’s heart. Once you have loved someone, a piece of your heart always will love them, and Ginny wondered how much of Draco’s heart she had to work with.

“Her name was Christina,” he said simply.

“Christina? It’s a pretty name,” she said, waiting to see if Draco would offer a last name, but he didn’t. “What did she look like?” she then went on to ask.

“She was freakishly tall,” he said and Ginny managed to not laugh too hard at that.

“Really?”

“She was taller than me at least, so that did make her rather tall for a woman.”

“How tall are you?” she asked. Draco was quiet. “Draco?”

“About five-foot-nine,” he mumbled.

“That’s not bad, no really, it isn’t,” she assured. Draco did not look convinced. “Well, what else did she look like? She was tall…”

“Honestly?” he said and she waited. “She looked a lot like you,” he said and Ginny leaned away from her seat and stopped petting his hair. “Green eyes though,” he said, looking over deeply into her brown ones for a moment before watching the road again. “She was scottish, nice thick accent. Her hair was red, like yours is, but curlier, very curly,” he said, thinking of the curls both his children had inherited from her. “She had warm skin, like you,” he said, reaching over to place his hand on her cheek while glancing over at her. Ginny tilted her head into his palm so it rested in it. “She had a lot of freckles when she was young for sure and still had them on her shoulders. She was pretty, but she was also older than me,” he confessed.

“How much older?”

“Sixteen years,” he said and Ginny’s eyes widened as his hand dropped away from her face to hold the wheel again.

“Wow,” she said, that being all she could manage. Age difference becomes less of a big deal over time, once both are matured adults, but she knew Draco had been young when he had married, widower by twenty-two. A wife sixteen years older when he was not even twenty yet was rather…unusual.

“I think I was attracted to her so strongly at first because, honestly, she reminded me of you,” he confessed, not mentioning how scared he was of her upon their first meeting and introduction. Ginny didn’t know what to say to that. “You have a better personality though…but she was very smart, smart enough to make me feel dumb sometimes.”

“I find that hard to imagine.”

“Which part? That I can be intimidated or that there are people smarter than I?”

“Both.”

“I’m flattered, Weasley,” he smiled.

“You’re insufferable,” she said, not able to insult him yet again.

“You’re putting up with me,” he pointed out.

“Well, alright, so your wife reminded you of me. Is that a good or bad thing in regards to our relationship?”

“I don’t follow,” he said, her thoughts and feelings conflicting. Her feelings were warm, and fuzzy, and loving, but her thoughts were insecure and intimidated. It made her hard to read and he had to stop trying lest he confuse himself.

“Will I invoke bad memories because of some shared resemblance?” she asked.

“Oh, well, no, I don’t think so. Just don’t break my heart, awright?” he said, very clearly teasing at that point, but some part of him being very serious about that.

“I will try,” she said, smiling over at him. “You know, I think I started to date Reamann because he reminded me of you a little,” she confessed and Draco looked over at her.

“Oh, I fail to see the resemblance,” he said flatly.

“No, you two are very different, but you two have a lot of the same nervous habits. The way Reamann fusses with his hair, it reminds me of you,” she said just as Draco ran his fingers through his hair, to push it out of his face and eyes. He realized that was what she was talking about and looked over at her.

“You are dating Reamann because you fancy his hair?” he asked.

“It makes up for the fact that he sometimes talks too much and is a little tactless, but he really is a sweetheart,” she said and Draco laughed at that. Ginny felt Reamann’s hair made up for the fact that he was damned annoying and inconsiderate. It was very funny to him…it gave him hope at least. Maybe his hair would save him from being truly unendurable.

“I think you are a sweetheart too, if you would only let people see it more.”

“I think that is just wishful thinking on your part, Weasley darling,” he said and she leaned against her seat.

“We’ll see,” she said, confident in being right.

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Author’s Note:

I did a little cliche crushing in this chapter, sorry if I shot down your favorite D+G cliche.

My fic is trying to stick to canon as much as possible, I’m going for an alternate ending sort of deal as though DH never happened, so in Draco and Ginny’s conversation in the car -of course- they would have to dismiss the idea that they would ever have hooked-up at Hogwarts.

Michelangelo turned 12 in this chapter, on Dec. 22^nd. Yes, it might be odd to you that Draco was singing along to Annie with his daughter, but anyone who has actually had kids would be able to back me up on this: once you are a parent suddenly you are constantly referring to yourself in third person as “mummy” or “daddy”, you are singing along with Disney movies and know all the names of the different Wiggles, and you catch yourself calling your stomach a “tummy” while conversing with other adults. It happens, even to Draco Malfoys. :)

Blue-Eyed Angel

Chapter Seventeen

Draco pulled over to the side of the road and parked. Ginny looked around, and was confused. They were in the middle of a road, in the middle of nowhere, trees on one side, snowy sloping hills on the other.

“Draco?” she asked.

“You dressed warmly like I advised, right?” he asked, unbuckling himself.

“Where are we?”

“Wiltshire,” he said simply.

“I know that, but where in Wiltshire?” she asked.

“If I told you, I would have to kill you,” he said with a smirk, opening his door. He climbed out and Ginny unfastened herself, Draco appeared on the outside of her door and opened it for her like the well pedigreed gentleman he was.

“Thank you,” she said with a smile. He offered her a hand, which she needed to get up out of the dinky car.

Draco pulled her up so they were right up against each other and he smiled.

“Mind a walk?” he asked.

“My legs are cramped up,” she said.

“We will walk slowly then,” he said, grabbing her by the hand and leading her towards the trees. She had imagined for a moment that maybe Draco had intended on sledding, the snowy hills looking positively ideal for such a thing, but he headed off towards the trees. She wanted to ask, but he wouldn't tell even if she did, so she saved her breath.

“Wiltshire is a very culturally significant and magically prominent area,” he explained, leading Ginny by the hand carefully though the trees. “It's one of the ceremonial counties of England, and two-thirds of the ground here is chalk.”

“Chalk?”

“The chalk underlies large areas of Southern England from the Dorset Downs in the west to Dover in the east. Ever hear of the Cherhill White Horse, or the Westbury White Horse?” he asked.

“No.”

“They are two of several white horses, carved into the hillsides throughout Wiltshire. They are white because the ground is chalk,” he explained, sounding almost like a tour guide.

“Oh,” she said.

“This whole area is ripe with magical history. Stonehenge, Avebury, Woodhenge, Old Sarum, Wardour Castle, Silbury Hill, The West Kennet Long Barrow…” he said, clearly ticking off in his mind all that he knew of the area. Ginny had to admit, she knew of some of it, but not of its significance. Draco seemed very interested in it however, his fascination and even pride when it came to the area something she tended to only hear when Hermione spoke of things she had read in some lengthy old text, or something Harry had learned about some thing Quidditch related.

It was cute to hear Draco go on about something he enjoyed. History, who'd have thought?

“Where are we now, exactly? Tell me,” she demanded while smiling.

“Bentley Wood,” he answered.

“What's here?”

“Butterflies for the most part…in the spring and summer. Noteworthy are the Purple Emperor, White Admiral, and Pearl-bordered Fritillary,” he said knowledgably, not looking back at her, guiding them along through the trees hand-in-hand.

“It's the middle of winter, you couldn't have brought me here to look at butterflies,” she said and Draco laughed.

“Come summer, I'll bring you here to see them, if you like. I enjoyed them as a boy, but don't mention that to anyone or I will harm you,” he said firmly, smiling though Ginny could not see it.

“As a boy? Draco, are you taking me to Malfoy Manor?” she asked, shocked, almost stopping but Draco pulling her along in their steady slow-paced trek.

“I want you to see my world,” he said, stopping to stand tall while looking back at her. Ginny looked at him for a long moment and then nodded.

She was about to see Malfoy Manor? The manor was well hidden, and vastly guarded. The protections around the home were the things of legend.

Draco guided them, clearly knowing where they were going, and he stopped in the middle of the trees, looking back at her again.

“Ready?” he asked.

“For what?” she asked.

Draco didn't say anything, he just held his hand up like he was reaching for something, and pulled. The scene of trees before them rippled slightly and split apart like he was drawing a tall stage curtain apart. He held it open and on the other side, through the gap, Ginny could see some sloping lawns, clearly not woods like they had just been passing through, and a tall, dark, stone wall.

Ginny's face was of amazement, and anticipation, and shock. Draco's was confident and pleased, satisfied with Ginny's reaction apparently. He made a sweeping motion with his hand for her to enter and she approached.

“Is it safe?” she asked.

“Most of the wards were taken down after the house was removed from my family's possession. The only ones that remain are the ones they, the Ministry, could not figure out how to remove, and the ones that,” he indicated the illusion he was rupturing at the moment, “keep it hidden from Muggles,” he said. “I can get you past the ancient family wards, simply because I'm a Malfoy, so just stick close, awright?”

“Why do I have a feeling we are not supposed to be here?” she asked, looking up at him before looking through the gap in the illusion again.

“We are trespassing on Ministry property,” he said with a bitter smile. “Now come on, there is much I would like to show you,” he said, urging her through again with his hand.

Ginny crept through, turning and ducking and arching her back, trying not to touch whatever illusion was there, trying to fit through the gap Draco had created. Draco just smiled and ducked in carelessly. He let go of the air and it fell back into place. Ginny could not see where it was, it just looked like an edge of trees.

They walked only for a moment before coming to the stone wall. Draco smiled at her.

“Can you climb? It is a wee-bit slippery,” he warned.

“There is no way around?” she asked.

“The wall borders and encloses the entirety of the property, and the gate is locked. Wards used to make this wall impenetrable and impassable, but that guard has long since been revoked, so we need to but scale it. This is the roughest and lowest portion of the wall, that's why I took you this way. I figured it would be the best place to attempt to get over.”

“Have you done this before?” she asked, looking at the wall that was covered in bare vines, ice, and clustered snow.

“As a youth, I snuck in and out of my home from time to time, most of the wards allowing a Malfoy to pass, for Apparition purposes of course,” he said with a mischievous smirk. He might have been raised by his mother and father to be proper and respectable, but he had been, by no means, an angel, despite what his middle name suggested.

Draco, looking at the wall, was conflicted. Should he go first to check and assure safe footing, or go up right behind Ginny, to catch her should she slip? The wall was only about thirteen feet high, nothing too terrible, but the wall was “rough” because it was a little crumbly, and he was worried Ginny could get hurt.

Ginny volunteered to go first, fearless and a woman with a sense of adventure. She played Quidditch, she dueled dark wizards, she had six older brothers; she was not intimidated by walls. Draco followed after her, wishing he could enjoy his view of her bum better if she weren't wearing such a long thick set of winter robes. She did slip at one point and he stopped her from falling more than a few steps by reaching up and placing his hand firmly on that lovely posterior of hers.

Once on the wall, they needed to get down, which was actually easier for some reason. Draco went first that time, and only bothered to get halfway down before just dropping. Ginny followed suit and he didn't catch her in his arms, but when she landed she stumbled into him and he just held her close for a minute, preventing her fall.

“There, it has been an adventure already,” he said with a smile.

Draco grabbed her by the hand again and pulled her off towards a long, narrow, building that looked like a dilapidated shell. It was not the manor, so what was it?

“These were our stables,” he said, looking at the hollow building mournfully. They did not stop, but Draco turned his head all the way around to look at them as they passed, trying to keep them in his view for as long as possible. Ginny could tell he must have missed his horses.

They trekked across the sloping laws, following the trees.

“I'm taking you the long way around. I want you to see the front first, it's far more impressive seeing the front,” he said and Ginny nodded, sure she would be impressed regardless. She had wanted to see the manor for half her life. Her father had seen it, while conducting raids, but he had refused to give any sort of detail to any of them (the kids) about what he saw. Just muttered on about what a waste of money the place was, overly lavish apparently. Ginny wondered what it looked like now.

It was very cold and Ginny was freezing. Draco held her hand tight, but his was just as cold as hers in his black fingerless gloves so it offered little additional warmth.

“Ready?” he asked, looking back at her, seemingly excited himself. Ginny nodded, smiling in anticipation. Draco led her around what was apparently a final bend and a tall building came into view.

Draco had been right, as impressive as any other angle the home might have been, the front was just breathtaking.

It was grey stone, all cut to be rectangular and fit together, no two stones the same color, each varying in either a dark or pale shade. It must have been at least three stories high, judging by the windows. The roof was tall and sloping slate.

There was a path that split to encircle a now dry and snow-covered fountain at least a story high. The walkway led to the front where steps rose up to large, double hung doors set into the stone with a wooden frame. The wood was old, and of a greenish color.

A large, angled turret was to the right of the door, standing taller than the rest of the home like a watchtower. The series of wings the house was composed of could be seen from the outside, and dark windowpanes, set in lead and much taller than they were wide, stood amongst the stone to sparkle in the sunlight.

The home was all angles, all stone, and looked very firm. Black-iron lamps clung to the stone and stood at the base of the steps.

“Wow,” she managed.

“See the empty vines?” he said, indicating the dark vines that had crept over much of the front. “In the spring and summer they bring much needed color to the house. In the autumn the leaves become bright-red, like cherry red, and it's quite breathtaking. All around us would be the gardens, but the winter robs this place of its true beauty,” he said, looking around.

“It is still beautiful,” she said, looking around, trying to imagine the gardens. She bet they were beautiful gardens, the Malfoys settling for nothing less.

“The butterflies are what make it perfect. With the fountain gushing and creating a tranquil atmosphere…” he said, practically sighing in contentment at the thought. “I am bringing you back here to see them, so you can see the gardens and the butterflies,” he said with certainty then and she smiled. The gardens had most certainly gone wild in the decade-plus no one had been tending to them, but the flowers and bushes and trees would all still there, probably more beautiful when not meticulously manicured to perfection. Draco always appreciated wild, unruly nature as opposed to well kempt grounds with topiaries and rows.

“I would like that,” Ginny said softly, squeezing Draco's hand. Would they still be together come spring, let alone summer? This was a fling, not a long-term relationship. Why did she have to remind herself, convince herself, of that again and again?

“Come on, let's get out of the cold.”

“You mean, we are going inside?” she asked, stopping and Draco getting ahead of her a little.

“Naturally,” he said, looking back.

“Won't we get in trouble?” she asked.

“Just keep your wand away and I think we will be safe. They won't know we were here unless you cast a spell and get their attention,” Draco said, speaking of the Ministry. Ginny nodded, and followed, but was still apprehensive.

Draco led the way up the snowy stairs and stood in front of his doors for the first time in over thirteen years.

Ginny came to stand behind him, and peeking over his shoulder she saw an engraving in the stone above the door.

“Nos exspectata putus of cruor quod digredior of pectus pectoris,” he said, reading that Latin easily. “We welcome the pure of blood and devious of heart,” he said, giving Ginny the translation.

“Your family is not particular, now is it?” she said, looking up at the lettering where snow had collected.

“We know what we are, and know what we like,” he said simply, unbothered, putting his left hand up on the door and the right on the handle.

“You don't expect it to just be open, do you?” she asked.

“No Malfoy can ever be shut out of this home, I assure you,” he said, the door opening with a long low groan on its ancient hinges that had clearly gone unused for a little too long for their own good.

Ginny was surprised but leaned closer.

“You would think the Ministry would have better security on this place,” she said, Draco having not stepped in yet, an old musty smell of unused air wafting out to greet them.

“The Ministry could not overpower the spells long ago cast on this building by my ancestors. Anyone else that would find their way here and try to enter would surely set off some sort of alarm, but not me,” he said.

“What about me?” Ginny asked, looking towards the dark unknown inside the door. Draco held his hand out to her.

“Just hold onto my hand, it will be awright,” he assured, confident. Ginny didn't want to say that she did not trust him, but she was nervous.

“I work in the Hall of Records. That allows me a lot of time to read up on things. I know what defenses have been put up around my home, and I know what ones still stand. Nos exspectata putus of cruor quod digredior of pectus pectoris. That is more than just an engraving, it is a spell. Now come with me,” he said, still holding his hand out to her and wiggling his fingers playfully from under his overly long sleeves. Ginny placed hers in his and he led her inside.

It was so bright outside that inside everything seemed impossibly dark.

The door groaned closed behind them and sent them into something that seemed like complete darkness for the first few moments before her eyes adjusted, the room coming into sight. It was dim, but she could make out all that was around her, winter light cutting in through the narrow windows to leave gashes of light across the floor, wafting dust in the air caught in their beams.

“Hmm, it looks like the chandelier fell,” he said, indicating the large crystal and iron chandelier on the floor looking broken, its chain thrown carelessly to the side. It was draped in a single small sheet that barely covered a third of it, cobwebs encasing what was still exposed.

Ginny looked to it as it sat in the center of what looked like a grand entry hall, and then saw beyond it wide stairs on the left that were gently curved to half cradle the room. At the top of those stairs was an overhanging balcony on the second floor that revealed the grand hall's ceiling to be at least two stories high, another floor above still, more stairs somewhere else in the house obviously.

“Wow,” she said, her voice echoing off the nearly empty walls.

“Tapestries used to hang here,” Draco said, indicating one wall with his arm held out. The walls were carved, wood paneling half-way up, and white plaster the rest. A gold molding separated the painted ceiling from the wall. Ginny could not quite make it out in the dark, through the dirt that had settled over it, but it looked like the ceiling had clouds decorating it, with something flying amongst them.

“The ceiling was painted by my great-uncle Acacius. He had a thing for Aethonon, winged horses,” he explained. “Over there were some grumpy paintings that always yelled at me for running, and down that way you would find the kitchens,” he said, Ginny looking around.

“Wow.”

“I guess I don't have to ask you if you are impressed.”

“I bet this place was truly beautiful in its prime,” she said.

“It was,” he said, looking around, taking a deep breath of the stale air as though finally feeling home.

“Young Master?” a small voice called. Draco and Ginny turned. A house-elf stood, peeking around a doorway, wide-eyed and teary.

“Mickey?” Draco asked, recognizing his personal house-elf, even after so many years.

“Young Master has returned to us!” Mickey shouted, throwing himself around the doorway to charge at Draco and leap on him. Draco was gripped around the knees and Ginny reached out to grab his shoulders to prevent him from falling as his legs were clamped together. Movement in her peripheral vision caused Ginny to turn and she gasped at the House-elves that came crawling out of the woodwork it seemed to greet their long-estranged master. There must have been fifteen or twenty of them, all clustering around Draco. Ginny backed up to leave Draco standing there near the fallen chandelier, looking at her with pleading eyes for help as little arms reach up to pat him and hug him and grip him.

Ginny managed not to laugh, but it was a feat.

“Hello, um, all,” he said, not sure he could address them all by name still, or the proper ones by their correct name. There seemed to be a few more than he remembered, meaning they must have procreated in the years he had been gone.

“Master, you have come home!”

“I am visiting for a moment.”

“We have looked after and cared for the house for you, Master. Some evil nasty Ministry Half-bloods tried coming in here and removing our…your great family's belongings, but we did not let them. No sir. We set traps and they learned not to put their filthy Mudblood hands on your positions,” the oldest of the elves said with strong conviction and vigor while shaking his bony fist.

“Oh, oh that's good,” Draco said awkwardly, looking over at Ginny apologetically. He doubted he was making a great impression on her at the moment with all the bigoted and supremacist talk. He supposed seeing amusement on her face was better than outrage, but not much.

“When did the chandelier fall?” he asked, still precariously balanced amidst the sea of groping elves.

“Seven years ago, Master. We all punished ourselves for a whole month, sir. We tried to raise it again ourselves, but the Ministry kept showing up every time we used too much magic. They threatened us with clothing if we messed with things,” Mickey said, the elves collectively shivering at the thought of clothing.

“It's alright, I can see that you have all done well to keep this place in tiptop shape,” he said and the elves practically cried at being praised for their efforts.

“Oh thank you, Master, thank you,” they sobbed, groping at him more.

“May I have some space?” he asked, fearing he would fall, taking some of the little creatures with him.

“Of course, whatever you like. How may we be of service?” a female one -so Ginny assumed- asked, bowing low, the others all muttering just about the same thing, bowing and looking at him longingly.

“Is there any way we could get some light…?” he started to ask and the elves scrambled. They each leapt for a lamp, or a candle, or a lantern, and with a small spark they each set them ablaze. In just a few seconds the grand hall was glowing in the golden color of soft firelight.

“Won't the Ministry get tipped off by the magic?” Ginny asked, walking over to Draco to stand close, the house drafty.

“Who is she?” Mickey asked, looking over at Ginny with slightly narrowed tennis-ball sized eyes like only then realizing she was even there. The other House-elves looked just as mistrustful. They were very protective of their master.

Draco reached down to hold Ginny's hand in his.

“This is Ginny, she is my…” he said looking at her, silently asking if he could call her his girlfriend or not.

“I'm Draco's girlfriend,” she said, nodding down to all the elves.

“You did not set off our traps,” another elf said, looking her up and down.

“She is a Pureblood,” Draco assured.

“Red hair? A Weasley no doubt,” another said, his tone none-too-friendly or pleased.

“You will treat her with the same respect as you would any other Master in this house,” he said firmly and the elves all groveled at his feet.

“Of course, whatever Young Master wishes,” they said.

“What about the fires though?” Ginny asked.

“They allow us a few simple necessities. Fire to keep warm in the winter and a few other comforts…they will not come, but I fear there is little else we can do for you, Master, when it comes to magic,” one particularly knobby elf said, throwing himself down at Draco's feet.

“It's awright. Ginny and I would just like a look around,” he said.

The elves sprung up and ran off. Ginny looked at Draco questioningly.

“They are to serve but remained unseen unless requested. They are off to hide, out of sight from us but ever watchful, waiting for us to need something.”

“You mean they are, like, watching us right now?” she asked, looking around but seeing nothing.

“Yes,” he said, smiling and pulling her close she he could reach around and rest his hand on her hip.

“You can understand now why I never supported that Mudbl…sorry, Granger's little “spew” campaign? House-elves live to serve. It quite literally pains them to not have a master.”

“But Dobby seemed so happy to be free, wasn't he one of yours?” she asked.

“Oh, Dobby…yes, well, he was Mickey's brother and my father's personal House-elf. My father had a temper,” Draco said, a little aloof, Ginny just accepting the answer for what it was and not inquiring further.

“Let me show you around,” he said, leading her off.

Draco walked Ginny through the house, pointing all sorts of interesting little things out, reminiscing in nostalgic memories and entertaining her with tales of the wiles of his seemingly quite insane family. She supposed Draco, as apparently unbalanced as he was, and as mental as everyone around her kept telling her he was, compared to what she was hearing about his family, Draco was positively sound.

She was surprised to see most of the furniture still in the house, the upholstery draped in white sheets.

Apparently the Malfoys were not only a little possessive of their belongings, but a little paranoid about people taking them. According to Draco, nothing belonging to the family could be forcibly removed from the house. Only through a Malfoy's personal and willing consent could things be carried out. Ginny supposed that certainly helped prevent burglary, but it must have really irked the Ministry something fierce to discover that they could not sell off all the worth of the Malfoy estate piece by piece, and with no one able to afford it as a package, it sat there, unused.

Strolling through the drawing room, the dinning room, a sitting room, a smoking room, a living room, an entertaining room, a second, much grander dinning room, and an Apparition hall, Draco brought her to another set of stairs. They climbed the red carpeted stairs to spill out onto the second floor. Draco did not take her into, but he pointed out each bedroom as they passed on their way down the long hallway.

“My great-great-aunt Eudocia hung herself in that room,” he sad, pointing to a room as they passed. Ginny though she caught a glimpse of a shadowy figure hanging in front of the window, but when she looked properly she saw nothing.

“I would take you up to the tower, but a nasty Ghoul resides up there and it always frightened me as a child. Theodore…” he said before stopping. Ginny looked at him and Draco seemed to collect himself and continue on. “He and I would, as boys, see who could climb the most stairs before getting too scared and running back down. I got close, but he claimed to have touched the door once. I think he was lying,” he said and Ginny squeezed his hand tight.

“We have a Ghoul in the attic at my parent's house, the Burrow,” she said.

“Really?”

“Yeah, not really scary, but it bangs on the pipes loudly sometimes, usually only at night when I guess it feels it is too quiet,” she said, squeezing his hand again, enjoying this opportunity to see into his “world” as he had called it.

They rounded a corner on the left and Draco's spirits seemed to rise slightly from the gloom that had settled after mentioning his dead childhood friend, a friend she, Ginny, had actually killed.

“My bedroom is on the right, this way,” he said, releasing her hand to jog down the hallway. “Don't run,” he teased, calling over his shoulder to her as he jogged, seemingly making reference to a common telling from his childhood. He reached a closed door and held the knob, waiting for Ginny to catch up. He was building the excitement and honestly, she was wound up enough all on her own without him smirking at her and lingering there.

“Well, come on then,” she said, waving her hands at the door. Draco smiled and pushed open the door.

They stepped in and Draco looked around. Ginny did the same, taking in all she could while Draco seemed to be caught in some nostalgic bliss.

“Wow.” This came from Draco that time. Ginny looked over at him.

Draco moved in a sort of double step over to his closet and threw it open wide with both arms. Dust clouded in the air but he paid it no mind. He started shifting through the hung garments there excitedly, looking for something.

“Draco?”

“Looking for something to wear to the ball,” he said, explaining himself without having to be asked.

“You're going take something from here? Is that wise?”

“Borrow, I'm going to borrow something from here, and I wouldn't be too worried. The Ministry really is quite distracted at the moment with that case and their pretty little ball so that I don't think they will fuss too greatly over a missing pair of Dress Robes, even if they do realize they are missing, which I can assure you, they won't,” he said confidently.

“Will any of that still fit?” she asked and Draco, as he looked in the closet still, placed his hands on his narrow hips in a fashion that made Ginny smile.

“No, I suppose not,” he said, looking over at her, weighing less than he did then, but, thankfully, a little taller. “Come on, we'll come back here,” he said, grabbing her hand and pulling her along to run with him down the hall the way they had come but passing the turn and going down a section they had not yet explored together.

He ran into a room through an already open, double-wide door and swung Ginny onto the huge canopy bed as she laughed as he rounded to the wardrobe to look through it.

“This is the Master Bedroom,” he said.

“This where your parents slept?” Ginny asked, practically engulfed in the squishy, dusty bedding.

“Yup. I was conceived there, in that bed, if that makes you feel icky,” he said, narrowing his eyes over his shoulder at her and saying “icky” in a very juvenile way.

“Gross, parents don't have sex, it's all a lie to sicken and scare us into not wanting to do it ourselves,” Ginny laughed, looking around the massive bed. It must have been larger than a king-size, but then again, she had not seen many king-sized beds in her life, it was just unnecessarily large.

“Oh, I agree,” Draco said, riffling through the closet in there like he had the other room before proclaiming “ah-ha!” and pulling out something that was in a garment bag.

“What?”

“This was my fathers,” he said, holding out the bag that kept the garment concealed from Ginny.

“Will that fit you?” she asked.

“A little long and it will need to be taken in, but I'm handy with a needle, believe it or not,” he said with a smile.

“Excellent,” Ginny said with a grin of her own, sitting up to wrap her arms around her knees. She had been excited about the ball already, but now with Draco going, she couldn't wait.

“Come on,” Draco said, grabbing her hand and pulling her up from the bed.

“Draco, must we run everywhere?” she laughed as she was pulled along, back down the hall.

“Yes, we must. My terribly spoiled inner child has been denied this for too long to pass up the opportunity,” he said, a very honest smile on his face. He drew her into the room and threw her down on his bed in much the same fashion he had his parents' but this time tipping onto it after her, letting himself fall atop of her. Ginny giggled and kissed him, and he let go of the garment bag to let it lie beside them and held her face in his hands.

They carried on for a moment, kissing, groping, grinding, but Ginny finally broke away to make a face.

“There is something on the bed,” she said.

“Dust,” he said, still kissing at her throat and neck with such need. He had found himself in a bed, how convenient. As he rhythmically rubbed himself against Ginny, he was thankful he had stashed the condom in his pocket, he was going to need it. Twelve years was a long time.

“No, the material is hard and stiff, like something dried here,” she said, unable to sit up enough with Draco on her to see exactly what it was.

“I'm more concerned with something else that is hard and stiff at the moment, Weasley darling,” he grunted, kissing around her neck and gripping her right breast firmly.

Ginny carried on for a minute, kissing him, but then broke apart again to “yuck” at the feeling under her hand. Draco pushed away, confused, a little irritated that she was pulling away again, and looked down and to the left to what Ginny was talking about. His face seemed to pale and he drew her up and away from that section of the bed. Ginny was then able to look down and see the bedding that was stained and hard. It was a deep brownish-black color, but she knew what it was. It was blood.

“Draco?” she asked, looking at him as he ran his fingers over the edge of the large, decade old stain.

It was bitter cold by day, and now that the sun had set, it was deathly frigid. They did not call it the “Deathly Hallows” for nothing. One could freeze to death in mere moments if they did not mind themselves closely.

Draco sat apart from the group, none making an effort to talk to him, he only being able to stay there because of Harry's insistence.

No one would argue with Harry over it, he would not explain himself, and no one would talk to Draco, so there was this looming feeling of mistrust and wonderment. They each assumed what they wanted and would not gossip with Draco so near so as to overhear them. Too bad they did not realize he could read their thoughts.

Harry had appeared that afternoon with a timid looking Draco Malfoy in tow. They, the Order, had thought he was a captive, a prisoner to torture information out of, (a few had jumped at the opportunity and the honor of doing so) but Harry had guaranteed them that Draco was there to help.

Draco had not spoken a word.

He sat, huddled up over his own bundle of blue flames, shivering in the snowy cold, the wind whistling through the bare trees, chilling everyone to the bone but no one more than Draco. He was unhealthily willowy at that moment and apart from the group who had set up warming charms. As they ate what little provisions they had, Draco remained stubbornly separate. The group had quite plainly shunned him from his arrival on, but his own pride would not allow him to gather himself and join the group for supper.

Ginny kept glancing over at him, often enough to get Harry and Ron who sat with her to notice. She would not tell them why, but she decided to go over to Draco and offer him some food. Ron tried to talk some sense into her, and Harry could not understand her compassion for him since she had not seen what he had of Draco, but did not stop her. He pitied Draco, but felt a slight flair of jealousy as Ginny doted upon him. It was ridiculous to be jealous of Draco when it came to Ginny. It was. He was just protective of her.

Tiptoeing through the snow and underbrush, her wooly blanket wrapped around her, a bowl of cream of chicken held carefully, Ginny hopped over to him. Draco looked up, his cheeks pink from the cold, and stared.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hello,” he said slowly, unsure of what to expect from the female Weasley.

“I thought you could use some supper,” she said, offering him the steaming bowl. Draco looked at her for a long moment and then the bowl. “I didn't poison it,” she assured him as he looked from the bowl then to her, still having not taken it, or having said a word on the matter.

Draco looked back at the bowl and took it slowly without a word of thanks and Ginny waited for a moment, expecting him to verbalize some gratitude. When he just sat the bowl down in his hands on his lap and stared at it, refusing to look at her, she turned away, feeling silly for having expected a “thank you” from him.

“You can stay…if you like,” he said suddenly, his voice soft, almost timid. Ginny turned back a little to look at him and Draco was looking at her, soup in his lap, face a little unsure. “I understand if you would rather go back over there where it is warm, but,” -he looked back at his soup- “you are the first person to extend any kindness to me since I showed up,” he said, sounding small and a little depressed. Ginny saw that in him and was shocked.

Draco Malfoy was depressed?

She was still astounded that he would come to them offering help.

Harry had assured her, assured everyone, Draco was sincere without going into any great detail, but she had found it hard to believe until just now.

Who was Draco Malfoy, really?

Ginny turned back around and hopped and tiptoed back to where Draco sat. Ron and Harry looked taken aback by this and Ron looked ready to go over there and start punching Draco in the face, but Harry pulled his arm, Hermione joining them to quietly gossip about why Harry had invited Draco in the first place now that Ginny was not amidst them. They would forever be the Gryffindor trio and when Harry would not confide in anyone, he would share with them. Ginny often felt excluded from this, shunned, left out, and she glared at their backs for a moment before turning her attention back to Draco.

Well, if that was how they were going to be…

Draco scooted over slightly so Ginny could join him on his log so she would have a dry spot to sit, the ground ankle-deep in freezing snow. There was a wide tree at his back that he had been using to break the wind some, but now scooted over he could not lean on it or hide behind it. He shivered and Ginny pointed her wand to his little blue flames, adding a few of her own to mingle with his and grow a little larger and a little warmer. Draco smiled and she offered him a bit of her blanket.

“No,” he said.

“Come-on, it's nothing, just to keep warm,” she said, not wanting to hold the blanket open for too long and making that clear in her tone.

Draco sighed and made it out to be some great unpleasantness for him to lean over and let her wrap half of her oversized blanket around his shoulder.

“Thank you, Weasley,” he said, now sitting side by side with her in the same blanket but as far apart as he could manage as his soup quickly cooled on his lap.

“Lovely night isn't it?” she joked.

“Oh yes, like a Christmas card,” he said, just as sarcastically.

“Speaking of Christmas, what have you written to and asked Saint Nick for?” she asked.

“Don't you think we are a little old to be humoring that idea still?” he asked, looking over at her through narrowed eyes, carefully hiding his amusement and his gratitude towards her for the effort she was putting into being light and friendly despite the cold and their past. She had no reason to like him, or even be nice to him, so why was she there?

“We are never too old to make wishes,” she said simply, wisely. Draco managed a small smile at that.

“An end to all this would be the best gift of all,” he said, stirring his soup with his spoon.

“But a lot to ask for,” she said sadly. “Have you been naughty or nice this year?” she asked, trying to be light, and he looked at her.

“I have had my moments,” he said vaguely, and she looked a little sadder.

“You should eat that before it turns into a block of ice. With your spoon sticking out you would have to eat it like a popsicle,” she said lightheartedly.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” he asked suddenly, looking over at her for a very serious answer. Ginny licked her lips and refused to look at him, staring into the fire instead.

“Because you came here saying you wanted to help…and I don't think any of us really know you,” she explained slowly. “You were a foul bigoted git in school, but, we don't know you, not really. We don't know you well enough to know either way…to know if you are going to help us, or if you have other motives…but I believe in giving everyone a chance,” she said, finally looking over at him.

“Very…gracious…of you,” he said.

“You don't sound like you would have done the same thing if our positions were switched,” she said as Draco ate a spoonful of his soup.

“I don't trust people, or their motives,” he said simply between two mouthfuls of soup. He would eat dignified, even though he was starving and would have just tipped the bowl to his lips and gulped the soup down if he had thought no one was watching.

“You don't trust me?” she said, it both a question and a statement.

“I can't imagine why anyone would trust me,” he retorted, sounding depressed again, obviously making light once again of his confusion as to why she would be over there in the first place.

An owl hooted and swooped down between the trees and ended their conversation and short moment of bonding abruptly. They didn't know it yet, but this was the first of many opportunities to share their thoughts and feelings before the end of the war.

“What's the owl doing here? It could compromise our position!” one wizard shouted from the group. Draco and Ginny looked away from each other as the large eagle owl landed in the tree above them and then dropped down into the snow, hopping and greeting Draco.

“MALFOY!”

“What's going on?” some asked.

The group was standing, shouting; ready to move over to Draco who was removing the letter from his owl.

“Draco?” Ginny asked, looking over at him, pulling the blanket closed tight around her after Draco had flung it away from himself.

Draco opened the letter with shaking hands and read it. He said nothing and Ginny could not see what was written.

“Who is it from,” one of the Order shouted over to Draco, everyone ready to believe it was a nefarious note about some evil plan Draco was a part of.

“It is from my mother,” Draco said softly, though everyone could hear him. As he read the note over again quickly his stomach clenched.

“What does it say?” people from over in the group demanded.

“Something has happened,” he said, everyone looking at him intently as he stood quickly. “Something has happened to my father…I…I have to go.”

“Go? You can't go, not after learning of our location!”

The present members of the Order all looked ready to jump Malfoy but Harry chased them back with a glance and moved over to Ginny and Draco himself.

“Draco? What's going on,” he asked, firm yet showing his understanding and sympathy. He did not want Draco feeling he did not trust him like the rest of the group, not after Draco had seemingly opened up to him.

“I have to go. My mother needs me. Something has happened to my father but she did not say what,” Draco said, sounding a little panicked. He had decided to help the Order and just hours later something happened to one of his parents? It was the Dark Lord, it had to be. Draco felt sick.

“You can't go, not tonight,” Harry said but Draco was already pulling out his wand. Draco drawing his wand got the whole group some feet back to do the same; them all ready to curse Draco should he move. He saw this but paid them no mind.

“I have to go to my mother, Potter,” he said, flicking his wand and Disapparating away right then. Spells where cast just as he disappeared, hitting the trees that stood behind where he had been, causing sparks.

Ginny yelped and Harry sighed.

Draco appeared in his home, his house's wards allowing a Malfoy through. He stepped down from the Apparition point and looked around. His body and skin burned from the sudden warmth, making his face flush and his ears red. His mother was standing not far, clearly waiting for him to arrive.

“Mother,” he said, moving over to her with his arms held out. She accepted him into a hug but immediately started weeping.

“Angel.”

“Mother, Mother, please, what is it? What has happened to Father?” he asked, sounding as strong as he could so as to show his support for her, but wanting to know so desperately what had happened to his daddy. The note had not said but it had strongly implied it was something bad. It was the Dark Lord, the Dark Lord must have known he had turned traitor. How could he have thought he could hide this from the Dark Lord? The Dark Lord knew all, saw all.

“The Azkaban Guards Flooed me this afternoon,” she sobbed.

“Why? What has happened?” he asked, dreading the answer already.

“Your father, oh god, Lucius…he has…he has died,” she said, crying out loud in a way that Draco had never seen or heard before. She would weep, she would sob if she was really upset, but he had never seen her lose her decorum like this before and cry so openly.

The news of his father's death hit Draco like a Full Body-Bind.

His father was dead?

No, he couldn't be.

“Dead?” he managed, the word getting caught in his throat so he could not say another. His mother just sobbed on. It took him a full minute to collect himself enough to speak again. “How?” he asked, not understanding. His father had been in his mid-forties and healthy. Other than being in Azkaban, he was in quite fit shape. What could have possibly happened? Of his parents, his father he was least worried about. He had hidden his mother for months, but that had only brought the Dark Lord's wrath down upon Butler Paul and made him doubt Draco's loyalty. His mother was home again, and if the Dark Lord were to punish him, certainly his mother would have been the easier target.

“He, he, passed away, in his cell this afternoon, suddenly,” she said, sobbing and clutching Draco tight, too tight, she was hurting him.

“Mother, Mother, please, relax, let go of me, please,” he said, pulling her away from him to force her to look at him. “Sit down, come on, sit with me,” he said, a part of him on the inside crying just as hard, if not harder than her, over this news.

One part of him was crying for his daddy, another part was crying over his mummy's anguish, and another part of him was angry.

What had happened?

He kept that angrier part close to the surface so he could support his mother, and find out from her what had happened.

He sat her down on the chesterfield and gripped her hands tight in his as he squatted down before her.

“Mother, what happened? How did he just die?” he asked.

“The guards said it looked like a heart attack, that he just clutched his chest, and screamed, and collapsed. They could not resuscitate him with any spells,” she sobbed, Draco releasing her hands to allow her to blot her blotchy wet face with her handkerchief, her careful makeup ruined long before. “We have no family history of heart disease!” she wailed, covering her face with her hands and handkerchief.

“Did someone do this?” he asked, his anger flaring in him to override his sadness. He would see to it whomever responsible for his father's death, his father's murderer, met a just end. He didn't care if it was the Dark Lord, he would avenge his father. Surely the Dark Lord himself didn't appear in Azkaban to kill his father, someone else must have done it. Draco needed to know who.

Narcissa only cried harder.

"You know who did this don't you? Tell me, tell me who. I will kill them for you, Mother, I'll kill them," he said, conviction strong in his voice.

He meant it.

He had never killed anyone in his life, a lot of his problems in his current situation stemmed from that actually, but he would do it, for his father's honor, for his mother so he would not suffer to see tears in her eyes.

"Angel," she wept.

"Yes?"

"What have you done?" she asked and Draco blinked at her.

"What?"

"What have you done?" she repeated, a little anger surfacing.

"I do not understand, Mother."

"Lucius should not have died,"

"I know, but what happened?"

"When you were born, the Dark Lord made an Unbreakable Vow with your father that you would be a servant of his," she said and Draco looked at her, unaware of this.

"What?"

“Even though the Dark Lord had apparently died a year later, your father still raised you to the ideals the Dark Lord had held true. If you should be anything but a supporter of the Dark Lord, your father would die,” she said, looking at Draco firmly and Draco paling, unable to swallow the lump in his throat as his stomach tied itself in knots.

"Mother, I," he said, still squatting down before her, looking up into her face.

"Draco, what have you done?" she asked again, voice so low it was hoarse while she used his actual name for the first time that night.

"I…I did not know of this vow, I…” he said, his mind reeling, unable to grasp all he had just been presented with.

His father was dead.

It was his fault?

No, it couldn't be.

He hadn't known.

How could he have known? No one had ever told him…

Surely there was some other cause to blame, some other explanation.

It couldn't have been his fault!

But, his daddy was dead...

“I did not know,” he said, tears leaking from his eyes now.

“You have turned your back on the Dark Lord? Angel, what has gotten into you? For Merlin's sake, this is not how we raised you!” Narcissa scolded, Draco flinching and falling backwards onto his butt to sit on the floor, unable to catch a proper breath or keep his balance.

“I didn't…I can't…” he said, breathing again now, but his breaths coming in huffing waves like it did when he cried.

“Angel-”

“I can't serve him, I can't…he…he,” he said, crying finally, rocking slightly. His whole world, or what little he had left of it, was tumbling down all around him and he didn't know what to do, how to handle it, so he did all he could: he cried.

“Angel, baby, he is all our family has now! He will look after us, he will make it so we will not be shunned like we are now,” Narcissa urged, her own tears still sliding down her face.

“How can you support him? You do not serve him. How can you expect so much from me?” he demanded tearfully.

“Angel-”

“No, no, I want you to tell me why. Why are you not a Death Eater? Why have you never done more than turn your nose up at anyone not a Pureblood while discourteous towards Muggles and just about everyone else!”

“Angel, you wouldn't understand,” she said, shaking her head and looking down. Draco reached up and grabbed her chin, looking into her eyes. He used his still new Legilimency to enter her mind and see her memories, the one he wanted to see near to the surface, it being what came to mind with the question he had posed.

It was at this time he had seen the memory of the night he had been born, and how his mother had fled, and the Dark Lord had found her and nearly killed him as a newborn.

Draco learned of the reason he had such a name and why his mother preferred to call him by his middle, and that she followed the Dark Lord out of fear, not loyalty, thus why the Dark Lord thought the same of him so much and why he had to constantly prove himself. He saw his father fight to save him and the vow that had been made.

Draco pulled back, tears running down his cheeks with all the emotion that had come with the memory. He was not skilled enough yet to only take the memory and block out all of the feelings that coincided with it.

One would think, with what his mother had gone through, that she would understand why he couldn't follow. But she blamed him…in her desperate and depressed sense of loss and anguish; she blamed him for his father's death. Draco sobbed, sitting on the floor before his mother, knowing she felt it was his fault Lucius was dead.

“I cannot serve him, Mother, I cannot,” he cried.

“Angel.”

“He got me sick, Mother,” he nearly shouted, Narcissa tilting her head a little.

“What?”

“The summer Father was taken away, the Dark Lord was so furious…he sent Greyback after me, as punishment for Father's failure,” he said, eyes streaming with tears.

“What are you saying?” she asked, breathless.

“I'm sick, I have been since the night I got back from Hogwarts between my fifth and sixth year…that night had been the full moon.”

“No, no, that's not possible,” she said, looking down at her baby. “Please, Angel, tell me this is not true,” she begged.

“The house was a mess and you had left. I was here alone with the servants. I was only able to hide what had happened because you had gone away. Butler Paul helped me, as did Aunt Bella. I was so sick at first…I recovered only in time for you to come home. You commented on how ill I was, remember?”

“Angel, no,” she cried.

“I'm sorry…I could not tell you…I could not tell you that I, your baby, am a…werewolf,” he said, finally saying it. Narcissa held her handkerchief and hands over her mouth, tearful eyes wide.

Draco looked away, crying.

“You understand now why I can't serve him? He is not looking out for us and our best interest. He has lied to us, manipulated us. He would have killed me; it was only a fluke that I had lived at all.”

“Angel,” she said, slipping onto the floor so that she was kneeling in front of Draco.

They cried together for a long time, holding each other.

They cried over their husband and father, they cried about Draco's condition, they cried about their hopeless situation.

Narcissa cried herself to sleep in Draco's arms and he gathered her up after pushing up his sleeves, eyes red-rimmed and shining from his spent tears. He laid her on the chesterfield and straightened. He looked down at her for a long time, sadness overwhelming him to the point where his chest…his heart…literally ached from it like a physical manifestation of his anguish. He had no more tears to cry, and he did not feel any better from crying, he just felt hollowed out and empty…not numb though, there was too much pain there for him to be numb.

Draco gave his mother a kiss on the forehead, and a kiss on the cheek, and held her hand for a long moment before retreating to his bedroom, giving strict orders to Mickey that he should not be disturbed for any reason.

Draco closed himself up in his room and stood in the middle of it for a long time. His vacant eyes just stared off into nothing as he stood motionless.

He was lost, caught between so many emotions. He had always compartmentalized his life, but now that just left him with a hundred different parts of himself, each aching and looking for comfort where none was to be found.

Not exactly coming to a decision but simply following some predominant thought in his mind, he moved over to his bedside table and opened the drawer. He drew out a long dagger that was sheathed in its leather holster, meant to attach to a belt. He looked at its gem-encrusted handle that resembled a coiling serpent, tilting it in his fingertips to watch it sparkle. It had been in his family for generations, and it had been the last thing he had gotten from his father before he had been sent to Azkaban, no…before he died.

Draco's insides hurt at that thought.

Still staring at the emerald and platinum dagger, Draco turned slightly to sit on the edge of his bed. He drew the dagger slowly, revealing its shining blade, perfectly preserved for hundreds of years, no signs of tarnish, no nicks or impurities to mar its surface.

It was such a beautiful dagger.

Draco held it out to admire it, and without giving it a though, he dragged it against his inner left arm where the Dark Mark was exposed, little pressure needed to break the skin, it sharp enough to cut deep with just one pass.

The pain was not instant; in fact, it took so long to come that Draco thought maybe he had imagined he had done it. He was almost relieved that he hadn't done it, until it started to burn and he realized it was reality.

Blood spilled out of the wound and down his extended arm to drip from his elbow onto his lap. He gasped at the pain, and tears formed in his eyes, but not as a result of the physical pain.

What had he done?

He wanted to die.

Most every part of him wanted to die, but there was still a part of him that was separate, that was scared, and that was panicking at the sight of all the blood.

Taking a deep breath to calm that part of him, Draco rolled onto his bed so he was laying flat on his back, properly on mattress so his head was on the pillows. He let his arms rest at his sides, his left hip growing wet and warm from the blood that was quickly spreading and soaking into the bedding.

He closed his eyes and reached up under his pillow to pull out his bunny without having to look for it. His father had died alone. No one should ever die alone. Draco held Leak, his little bunny with the felt-antlers, in his right hand, hugging it to his chest one-armed, ready to just let himself drift off into sleep, into death, his heart still aching from loss, and guilt. He wouldn't be alone with Leak there. That offered some amount of comfort for that still panicking portion of his slowly dimming mind.

Would his mother survive losing him too?

He wished there were a way to make sure she would be alright after he was gone…maybe he would become a ghost. Malfoys seemed to have a knack for that, there were several in the house.

As though summoned by that very thought, one drifted into his room.

“I sense death in this room,” his great-great-great-aunt Venustas said, looking around. She caught sight of her young relation, rapidly slipping away from the living and gasped.

“Oh, good lord,” she said, jetting out of the room in much haste to find help.

Draco was disoriented and barely conscious when someone lifted him up off his bed a few minutes later after bursting into the room.

“Draco, my boy, stay with me…don't do this, think of you mother, oh god, stay awake,” he said.

Draco was unsure of what exactly was happening, his vision dark and the man's voice distant, but he was sure he himself was talking and telling Butler Paul that everything was alright. He was sure he was explaining to the old, blind man, all the reasons why he needed to close his eyes and sleep a little bit longer, but Butler Paul did not seem to be assured.

Draco felt himself rest on something hard and he was on the floor now. He took a deep breath and let it out, but another did not follow. One last part of him was screaming, panicked almost as much as Butler Paul at that, but most of him was relaxed, willing, relieved.

He felt something run down his throat and his body wanted to gag, but could not. The substance was awful and made his insides burn. Not his stomach, but his bones and then quickly his veins. Someone's lips were on his and air was blown into his mouth and into his lungs. Then someone leaned down on his chest and pumped on it with enough pressure to bruise ribs. His veins burned, burned so much he wanted to move but his body wouldn't, it was too heavy.

His chest was pumped a dozen times and then he was breathed into again. Draco wanted to tell the one responsible to stop, to leave him alone, but his mind was only half there, and it was clearly not attached to his body anymore.

“Come on, Draco, don't do this, don't do this,” Butler Paul begged as he did the chest compressions, his third eye, a glass one that allowed him to see since being viciously blinded by the Dark Lord, glinting while his ruined eyes desired nothing more than to tear up if they still could. He breathed down into Draco again and Draco's body fought that a little. It wanted to breathe on its own, but could not manage.

Draco felt more of that foul liquid get dumped down his throat and he managed to choke that time.

“Good boy, good boy,” Butler Paul kept repeating, trying to encourage Draco to breathe by pressing onto his chest a little. If Draco did not manage on his own he would start the CPR again.

Draco's body shuddered but seemed confused as to what it was supposed to do. His heart hurt…it wasn't beating, but his lungs were working, or trying to. He felt Butler Paul's lips on his again, his breath being blown into Draco's lungs and Draco's ribs were compressed again.

Another man spoke and Butler Paul apparently backed off.

Draco was left laying there feeling ready to go to sleep finally, despite the burning he felt, when a sudden electricity shot through him causing his back to arch up off the floor. Draco felt his heart jump and he collapsed to the floor, barely conscious mind screaming about what the hell had just happened.

He was dead; did they not have any respect for that?

He was still thinking, so he supposed he wasn't dead yet…but he was mostly dead…couldn't they just let him finish what he had started?

Draco felt that shock run through him again and his eyes opened in reaction, a flash of his Healer pointing a wand down at his chest registering in his mind before everything went black again.

His heart leapt but then stopped. It was quiet for a long moment, but then, it beat once. A moment later it beat again, and then again, and a steady but very slow pace.

Damn it.

Draco felt someone rubbing his chest up and down affectionately, encouragingly.

“Good boy, Draco, good boy,” he said, over and over as someone else lifted his left arm, messing with it in some fashion his mind did not have the effort to bother and try to understand at the moment.

His life had been saved by a Blood-Replenishing Potion and some stubbornness on old, blind, Butler Paul's part.

Draco cursed the man as he lay there, only half there still, so tired and body aching.

Why couldn't anyone just let him do what he wanted?

Draco blinked back tears and Ginny hugged him from behind, spreading her legs so that they could wrap around him slightly with her knees pulled up. Draco sobbed softly and she did not ask what was wrong, or even speak for a long time. She was not sure she wanted to know why there was a massive bloodstain on his bed, and given Draco's reaction, she had enough sense to know it bought back a bad memory for him.

Draco could not tell her about that night. It was a difficult thing to have to try and explain to someone, painful enough to simply remember, and that was without all the shame.

He did not want to tell Ginny that he had tried to kill himself, or that he had killed his own father by helping the Order. She had seen the scar years before, when it wasn't even a scar yet, but he doubted it had registered in her mind as she was understandably more shocked by the Dark Mark beneath it. What would she say if she saw the scar now? Would she know what it meant and how he would have obviously gotten it?

Could he hide it?

He wanted to hide it.

Draco just sat there and cried, and let Ginny hold him because, as much as his pride demanded that he stop crying like a big pathetic baby and push her away, he could not bring himself to do it.

Sometimes his persistent flashbacks were just too overwhelming, even for “unflappable” him.

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

Ginny walked the drafty halls of the Malfoy Manor alone, swiveling her head around like an owl as she passed through each hallway, looking around at all there was to see.

Draco seemed to want some space, so she had allowed that.

She did not let him meander far, making sure every time he wandered down some corridor she was not long behind, because she feared getting lost, but she kept her distance.

The hallway she was in now had mirrors of all shapes and sizes hung. She watched her reflection leap from one to another and become fractionalized between several. She stumbled across a few that seemed to be more than just looking glasses, one revealing her as nothing but a bare-boned skeleton, and one inverted so her reflection was upside-down.

She rounded a corner to find Draco about halfway down, standing silently, a stuffed bunny still in hand that he had rescued from the bedroom floor while crying, now looking up at a painting on the wall whose sheet had fallen away partially at some point. It was only as Ginny neared that she saw who the portrait was of.

“Draco?” she asked softly, not touching him as she came up along side him but still some space between them. A strapping and younger Draco stared down his nose at them both. “Draco?” she repeated, looking at his hollow eyes as he looked up at the painting.

“I was quite…handsome once,” he muttered.

“What?”

“Before I got sick,” he said, indicating the painting of him, undoubtedly when he had been about fifteen, before he had been attacked by Greyback. “I used to be so handsome. The girls at Hogwarts swooned, even though I was a self-righteous git and a prat to them all,” he said, looking utterly depressed, a depression that had first emerged back in his bedroom and had since set in. Somehow the topic of conversation they had shared in the car on the way over had gone from lighthearted and teasing then, to downright depressing with Draco staring up at the painting of his former self now.

“Draco, you are still handsome now. Why are you saying this?” she asked softly, studying his profile.

“Now? Now I have wasted away. I'm not what I used to be. I'm scrawny, and sickly, and going blind. My hair is wonky, my body is lanky, my skin looks tired and cold…” he said, looking up at his strapping young self as though he were about to cry. “I was dapper once, now I'm just a mangy looking old werewolf,” he said, eyes finally falling away from his old likeness. He did not have to say what he wanted to next, that it was no mystery to him why he had never dated after getting out of Azkaban. He had played it off like his reputation proceeded him, but Ginny could tell he had, over time, some how twisted that to be some harsh judgment other's made on his appearance as it slowly wasted away over the years.

That was a little heartbreaking.

“No,” Ginny said firmly, grabbing his shoulders and spinning him around to face her. She was not about to listen to this. Draco Malfoy was not allowed to be this depressed. There was something terribly unbalanced in the world if Draco Malfoy was incapable of being a confident prat. She knew he was more than that, but she didn't want what else there was to know about him to just be a ball of self-pitying despair.

She wanted a part of him to be that git she loved to hate back in Hogwarts, and that other part of him to be a sensitive but real person. She had thought she had seen that before in him…but apparently there was another part of him still, a large part of him that was terribly disheartened and insecure.

“Draco, you are not old, and you most certainly are not `mangy' looking, not by any means,” she insisted, Draco looking down and not at her. He seemed embarrassed now. She took a deep breath and decided to try and tackle this from a different angle. Draco was still clearly upset from whatever ghost of his past he had encountered in his bedroom, and it had left him vulnerable for this little breakdown he was having now. She understood that, and she knew he was not fishing for complements, so she needed to not assure him that he looked perfect now. That would only make him uncomfortable and sort of be a lie.

She would make him all better, if she could, the only way she could think how.

“You have looked better,” she started off honestly, “but not in any way that can't be remedied,” she assured, smiling softly while still gripping his shoulders tight. “We could trim your hair. A nice crisp new hairstyle to brighten you up,” she offered, speaking softly, brushing his long hair away from his face as he still refused to look at her. “It would really open up your face as well as your personality to not have it to hide behind,” she said, tucking the one side behind his left ear to be out of the way.

“A healthy dose of sun would do you some good, but for a quick fix I could warm up your skin with a kiss of sun using a tanning charm. Just enough to give you some color,” she said, brushing the backs of her knuckles across his left cheek affectionately. “And I will make sure you eat heartily, to put some meat on you. Just those few little adjustments and you will be just as strapping if not more so than you were then,” she said, indicating the painting that gave her a dignified yet outraged “humph.”

“I think I'm a lost cause,” he mumbled.

“Nonsense. You are just depressed,” she said and he dared a timid glance up at her. He felt he was hardly making a good impression on her…

“Give me a chance. A little effort and you will have to beat the women off of you with that cane of yours,” she smiled, wrapping her arms around his shoulders loosely while leaning back so their lower bodies flush but their upper were separate.

“You couldn't do anything for my height could you?” Draco asked with a weak smile, eyes glinting slightly with a hint of his old, teasing self.

“I happen to like you just the height you are,” she said promptly. “We could give you some Skele-Gro and hope you only grow a few inches and not an extra arm or something, but you would probably end up looking like ol' Hagrid if anything,” she teased and was so happy to see a smile break across his face.

“I suppose being a tad on the short side is better than looking like that brute,” he said, wrapping his arms around her lower waist and holding her there, their shoulders still a distance apart.

“It's good to see you smile…you should do it more often…it makes you look years younger you know.”

“Does it now,” he asked softly, smiling just a little.

“I like seeing you smile,” she said and he did, for her.

Ginny let him hug her, and she hugged him.

Maybe Hermione had been right and this was more than she had asked for and could handle…but she couldn't turn him away, not now, not after she had been invited into his little world, as gloomy as that seemed to be at times. She couldn't reject him for it.

Maybe all he needed was a little counseling…a little therapy, but if she were to refuse him she would be no better than everyone else. She would be no better than the world that had turned its back on him.

She didn't know anyone from the war that was perfectly well adjusted. Honestly, Harry was a complete mess, and he hadn't spent ten years in Azkaban dwelling like Draco had, on top of being so sick.

A realization swept over her with such clear understanding now, with him holding her, her holding him, it made her eyes open. It was him, compartmentalizing himself, so that people could not know him, get close to him, understand him, then hurt him. While in his arms Ginny knew that Draco was somehow using his Occlumency to help her see this, understand him. He had opened himself up a little to her. It was the most significant thing he had said or done yet. He wanted her to understand him, not pity him.

She was shocked by that because he was actually turning to her for comfort.

She knew no one ever got to see how miserable Draco really was, he would never allow that. He and Harry were a lot alike in that aspect: both so private, neither willing to allow others to see their weakness. That was why she felt so honored that Draco had let her see him cry, that he had confessed his insecurity to her, and that he was now being so honest without a word spoken. Harry had never done that. He had just turned to the bottle for comfort, instead of her.

Draco was always so confident and cool when she wasn't somehow managing to draw out his insecurities; she doubted anyone even saw him to be any different than he had been in Hogwarts.

He stood alone against the world, and that must have been a very lonely place to be.

Ginny realized, with a little shock to her gut, that she could not let him continue on alone.

Was she making this out to be more than what she intended? Was she trying to make this into more than just a fling?

She wanted to say no, but she would have been lying to herself.

No pun intended, but Draco was like a little lost puppy with a limp that needed care, love, and affection. How could she refuse that?

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Author's Note:

Sorry about the sudden turn for ANGST! It was pretty fluffy up until the flashback. I liked writing about the house, and I spent hours doing research on the area and of old English Manors to write it. The House-elves were fun and I liked Draco's reaction to seeing them again/ their reaction to seeing him. This look into “Draco's World” was fun, and I hope for it to not be the last.

Poor Draco needs a hug.

Yes, some of you don't like his “bunny” but I do. It is actually a Jackalope, since it has felt antlers, and I love him. He is a character in this story, whether you like it or not. :P

Review, pweeeeeeze.

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Blue-Eyed Angel

Chapter Eighteen

Reamann had spent all of Sunday at the Ministry working, reviewing files, meeting with Aurors, “translating” Muggle statements, and visiting St. Mungo's trying to talk to the most recent victim. That was no use, it was all no good. The man was insane and content to try and catch the “pretty colored balloons” in the room that weren't really there.

He felt guilty about spending the day at work, a day he normally had off, but Ginny had found ways of amusing herself. She and Hermione had gone out in the chaos for some last-minute Christmas shopping and a “girls' day out.” He wouldn't be caught dead near a department store the day before Christmas Eve, but what could he say? Girls were mental.

Ginny had come home excited, but seemingly very distant. She had snuggled with him the whole night so he assumed she was no longer mad at him, for whatever reason she had been mad at him in the first place, but she hadn't gone into any great detail about what she had done with Hermione. She seemed to just want to cuddle and sleep.

She was gone now, off with Hermione and “the wives” to a salon. They were getting their hair and make-up done for the ball. Hermione joked that it would really take them the whole eight hours to get her hair presentable, and Ginny had talked for hours about what colors she should wear that wouldn't clash with her hair and what style she should try that would “flatter her hips”.

Things were so much simpler for the men.

“Do these dress robes make me look fat?” Ron asked, holding his arms out, as Harry, Neville, Reamann, and Fred all laughed. They were in the back of Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions, away from the rest of the customers. There were fringe benefits to being “celebrities”, they were taken aside and allowed to do things in private rather than deal with the hustle and bustle of the common witch and wizard. Reamann got a free ride whenever with the group, his only claim to fame being that he was dating Ginny. He had to admit, he had saved the copy of Witch Weekly that had run a story on him a few years back, about “Ex-Mrs. Potter's Hot New Man,” and he saw his name pop up every now and then in the gossip columns, but he was a far cry from any of the other men he was with in that dressing room.

“You're fat, Ron, those robes can do nothing for that,” George mocked, looking rather dapper in his robes. In their thirties, Fred and George could not resist dressing alike. Some twins did their damnedest to be individuals, but Fred and George wanted to be “Fred and George” or “the twins” forever it seemed. Drove their wives nuts.

“This ball is a welcome break from the mess we have been dealing with this past month,” Reamann said, everyone agreeing.

“I hate to ask how things are going,” Neville said, tugging at his own robes, trying to get them to lay nice while looking at himself in the mirror, him being the fattest one there by far, but unbothered by it. He was round, and balding, but happily married with an exceedingly attractive wife and a few young tots of his own.

“Yeah, well, I would say it's just going bad, as opposed to positively dreadful, but none of you have to work with Sebastian Aurum,” Reamann sighed and the group gave a collective groan of sympathy for him.

“That is one right-foul git if I ever saw one,” Fred said, using George as his mirror to examine how he looked in his dress robes.

“He's been wheedling his way up through the departments, his eye on the Minister's office for years,” Harry said.

“He's not a bad bloke though, right?” Reamann asked, looking to all the men around him.

“Just insufferable,” Neville said, turning and limping over to them a little. “He came to the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes a year or so back, acting as though he ran the place just because a small case of his overlapped our jurisdiction,” he said, not looking pleased.

“I wouldn't say he is a `bad-guy' but I also wouldn't say he is a `good person'. He seems too much like someone that would do anything to get to the top,” Harry said, looking in the mirror and not too happy with his blue robes. He would have preferred green, if they had had any still. Apparently Christmas season put green and red dress robes in short supply, even for Harry Potter.

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

Orla Quirke…now Longbottom: Neville's wife, chatted up Angelina Johnson…now Weasley: Fred's wife, while they sat side by side and got their hair done. Ginny and Hermione were together, talking quietly while under magical “hair relaxing” dyers.

“You have yet to give me any sort of details,” Hermione said, hers and Ginny's magazines ignored and forgotten on their laps as they twisted to face each other in their seats.

“I really wouldn't know where to begin,” Ginny said awkwardly.

“Well, start with what it was like, come on,” she said, and Ginny blushed.

“We didn't have sex.”

“You didn't?” Hermione said, looking surprised.

“No.”

“Why not? You were gone from morning until night. I had run out of things to do,” she said, not understanding how they could manage a whole day and not do what seemed so obvious their relationship had meant to entail.

“Well, we went for a drive-”

“You don't drive-”

“He drove-”

“He can drive?”

“If you are going to interrogate me like this through the whole story it's going to take hours and I'd rather not bother,” she said and Hermione held up her hands in a silent withdraw. “We drove to Wiltshire,” she said and Hermione gasped.

“He took you to Malfoy Manor?” she asked and Ginny blinked at her.

“How did you guess that…?”

“Well, everyone knows the old manor is hidden over there…I couldn't imagine him taking you to see anything else there in the middle of the winter,” she said and Ginny just shrugged that off. She had been surprised by their destination, no wonder that had amused Draco so much.

“Well, yes, I saw his home, and met his House-elves.”

“House-elves?” Hermione asked, still retaining a soft spot for the little creatures.

“Yeah, you wouldn't have liked'em though; they talked like any other blood supremacist wizard and liked serving.”

“I'm sure they only like slavery because they don't know any other kind of life,” Hermione said stubbornly.

“Yeah, well, they have served no one for fourteen years, if the idea was going to warm up to them, I think it would have by now,” she said and Hermione “humph”ed at that. Hermione had not seen the little elves' reaction to seeing their master; she would not understand what great of a need it apparently was for them to serve. “It was rather enjoyable. We got to talk a lot, and got to know each other…learned some interesting things about each other.”

“Like what?” Hermione pressed; interested in this part more than the rest so far, even the elves.

“Well, I learned that he is actually terribly insecure and defensive, not to mention prude, but I think his mum did a lot of that to him,” she said and Hermione patted the back of her hand.

“The first thing you got to do with a man is get rid of all the crap his mother did to him,” she said and Ginny laughed, because she agreed.

“Well, we talked about why we liked each other and how that all possibly started,” she said and Hermione nodded.

“How did it start?”

“You know, admiring from afar, passing fancy, that sort of thing.”

“When did it become whatever it is now?”

“I think it was the night before the final battle.”

“That's when he kissed you?”

“Yeah.”

“This is all just mental,” she said with a sigh.

“Hey, you are supposed to be supportive here.”

“I'm trying to be, but that doesn't mean I can't maintain my opinion on the matter.”

“I think he's charming,” Ginny said defensively.

“I think you would alone in that.”

“I don't care,” Ginny said stubbornly.

“You still going through with this, this, taking Draco to the ball?” she asked, dropping her voice as Orla and Angelina passed.

“He already has a nice set of dress robes,” she said, not sure what they looked like but sure that if they had belonged to Draco's father, they were damn spiffy.

“Really? I was under the impression that he would not have been able to afford anything terribly fancy, certainly having difficulty getting his hands on something so late. The boys' last fittings are today and the selection was seriously limited three weeks ago.”

“He nicked them from the manor during our visit; they were his father's.”

“He took things from the manor?” Hermione asked, looking slightly mortified.

“He was joking to me, saying he was going to bring his House-elf Mickey back with us to live with him and look after his place. He even teasingly offered me one as a Christmas gift, but I didn't see him smuggling any magical creatures back with us. Just the robes…and some weird little stuffed bunny with little felt antlers, a jackalope I guess, he wouldn't talk about. On the drive back, he even denied it existed for a while and tried to convince me that I was mental and that it wasn't sitting on his lap,” she said, laughing at the memory of her calling him a prat and pinching him again.

“A bunny you say?” Hermione said with a smirk as though she was containing a laugh.

“Definitely something his mum did to him,” Ginny laughed, their conversation having to end there as they were gathered up by the beautician witch and taken to have their hair styled.

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

“Dad, why can't we go?” Clarissa whined as she leaned over the arm of the couch, Draco sitting there, making adjustments to his dress robes and easily thwarting his daughter's attempts to guilt him into taking her along at every turn. He was well practiced at this, and could remain firm, just so long as she didn't start crying.

“Do you work for the Ministry of Magic?” he asked smoothly, not looking up from his task.

“No,” she pouted.

“Then you can't go,” he said and she huffed.

“You have never gone before, why are you suddenly interested this year?” Michelangelo asked, talking to his father like an adult while his sister, less than a year younger, baby-talked her daddy, as always.

“Mr. Rossiter invited me to go because I have been working on the case with him so much lately and wanted to show some gratitude. I would have said no, but the opportunity to be a pain in the Ministry's side while doing nothing technically wrong, is too good an opportunity to pass up.”

“But it's Christmas Eve,” Clarissa sulked.

“I'm here now aren't I?”

“Yeah, working on your stupid robes.”

“Hey, be mad at me, but don't take it out on the robes,” Draco said in mock-seriousness, holding his one hand out over the robes in his lap as though protecting and shielding their feelings.

“We still on for Christmas though, right? Not blowing us off for that?” Michelangelo asked, sounding bitter.

“Oh, now that's not fair,” Draco said with his own pout then. “Am I not allowed to have a life outside of work and you two?” he asked.

“No,” they said in unison and Draco's eyebrows rose in surprise as he looked between them.

“Come on now.”

“We want you home with us, not out at this stupid ball,” Clarissa moped, leaning over the couch arm again. She thought the idea of a ball was romantic, like in Cinderella, until she was informed that she would not be going. Then it was suddenly the “stupidest thing of all time”.

“What will you two do when I start dating?” he asked, and they both made a face.

“You don't date,” Clarissa said, sticking her tongue out and scrunching her nose up in a grossed-out expression.

“You never have before,” Michelangelo said, making much the same scrunched face (something they learned from their grandmother) but just hugging his knees to his chest as he sat in the squishy brown chair. “And `when' you start, as in you are already planning to?”

“Well, I'm allowed to consider it, aren't I?”

“No,” Clarissa said firmly.

“You serious about that?” Michelangelo asked.

“What would you two do if I brought a woman over?” he asked, curious.

“Put a horned toad in her teacup,” Clarissa said with an excited smile.

“Oh no you would not,” Draco warned, looking at her firmly, already having expressed his firm dislike of the little creatures in the past and always forcing Clarissa to get rid of them when she brought one home. He suspected his cousin was the one supplying her.

“You really would bring a lady into the house?” Michelangelo asked.

“It's not that uncommon for single parents to date you know. It's been a life time, yours actually, since I have had someone. Don't I deserve someone?”

“You have us,” Clarissa said, climbing over the couch arm to hug her daddy's right arm, talking in her baby-talk.

“You should do what makes you happy,” Michelangelo said, sounding bitter and none-too-keen on the idea of his father dating.

Draco did not feel this was a promising start to introducing Ginny, or any woman for that matter, to the children.

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

Ginny stood alone. She had arrived with Reamann to the Remembrance Ball, greeted everyone, gushed with the girls over how fabulous they looked like she had not seen them hours before partially done-up, and was now waiting out in the hallway, everyone else having gone in.

Reamann had showed up as Ginny's date, greeted everyone, and had left Ginny to go pick up Draco. Draco was getting ready on his own and the plan was that Reamann would Apparate directly into Draco's home and bring him back to the Ministry by Side-along. It shouldn't have taken more than a handful of minutes, but Reamann had been gone for nearly ten and Ginny couldn't imagine what was taking them.

What was the holdup?

She could imagine Narcissa giving them a hard time, she not being particularly fond of the Ministry of Magic…and she could imagine Draco was a high-maintenance kind of chap with impeccable standards that would take a little longer to get ready than most…but this waiting was driving her mental.

Was it because she was nervous?

She was certainly excited, but she kept running her hands over her dress robes to make sure they were lying properly, and fussed over her hair far too much. It had spells in place that would last well past midnight that would prevent any mussing, yet she still kept reaching up to touch it, like the curls might fall down any second.

Her back was to the hallway as she faced the doors. Inside everyone could be seen, already socializing and having a good time. She turned when she heard footsteps from behind her in the echoing hall.

Ginny was caught with her mouth hanging open.

Draco stepped up, looking like a vision of what he once was so many years ago…like the portrait she had seen of him in his old home.

His shiny hair was gone, away from his face, slicked back and short, in a style like the one Reamann currently sported, drawing attention to his perfect and high cheekbones. A few extra pounds would have helped his pointed face become striking for more of the right reasons, but he looked far from bad. His eyes sparkled with the knowledge that he looked good and the smirk he wore was reminiscent of him back in Hogwarts when so many thought he was “the-shit” and he new it.

He was clothed in the dress robes he had taken from his home, and he had managed to tailor them to fit just perfectly. The robes were absolutely black in color, and his fair skin looked milky and radiant beside it, not “cold and sickly” like he had complained just the day before. He looked very healthy actually, even the typical dark circles from under his eyes gone.

The outer robe he wore was double-breasted and formfitting from neck to waist, making his body look long and thin...not that it wasn't already. Two rows of black buttons lined the middle of his chest, starting at his throat and ending at his waist. The collar was high, and stiff, closing around this throat and making his neck look long and elegant.

The bottom of his robes fit looser and hung to the floor so that while he was standing it almost appeared that he was in a floor length gown, but when moving it billowed out from the waist where the buttons ended to gap and reveal black trousers with a black satin stripe down the outer edge and highly polished black shoes.

“Wow, Draco, you look,” Ginny said, breathless as Draco approched, trying to think of a word that sutibly descibed him. Dapper, chic, suave, classy, dashing, debonair…? She just could not settle on one. Draco smiled at her, seemingly awair of the list of words she was cycling through mentaly, and then whispered into her mind so as to exclude Reamann from their conversation.

“You are going to make me blush, Weasley,” he said, getting her to blush then.

Draco grabbed her hand, leaning down while bringing her knuckles to his lips, planting upon them a soft kiss, his eyes locked with hers the whole time.

“You look absolutely stunning, Ginny, I love you in green,” he said aloud with a soft voice lower than usual because he was nearly whispering and her blushed doubled, a shiver running up her arm from his touch to shoot down her spine and make her tight in places that were private.

She could see while he was leaning down where all his hair had gone. He had not cut it, and a part of her was relieved. It was pulled back in a loose French braid and it fell down his back like a silken rope to be tied off at the end with a piece of black cord near his bum.

“You look amazing,” she finally said as he straightened.

“I know,” he smirked and she smiled wide. He was full of the potion Reamann had supplied him with and feeling good, which made him arrogant, which managed to be sexy.

Ginny wanted to pull that smirking prat into a kiss to silence him before he encouraged any more complements out of her that he would overly and thoroughly enjoy too much, but Reamann was there with them. He had entered with Draco but Ginny only just then registering him properly. Draco's entrance had been quite overpowering. A flock of Diricawl could have gone running by, bursting into clouds of feathers and making a ruckus, and she would have missed it entirely. Reamann looked respectable in his own dress robes of a cobalt blue color, but he just could not compete with Malfoy, and Ginny had a feeling he knew this.

“Ginny, you look lovely,” he said, Draco stepping back and allowing Reamann to sweep in and plant a kiss on Ginny. It infuriated Draco to have to watch, but he kept his face a cool and pleasant mask. He wasn't Ginny's boyfriend at the moment, Reamann was. He would probably invoke suspicion if he started punching Reamann in the face right then, and more than probably upsetting Ginny greatly, he would likely not be invited into the ball. He had not spent forty minutes on his hair to be turned away at the door.

“Thank you, Reamann, you look quite fashionable yourself,” she said, having already seen him and complementing him, but feeling his ego needed a little soothing with Draco there. She smiled, though not in the way Draco had made her smile. It pleased Draco to see and made it worth the effort…and displeasing his children…to see that.

Ginny was in a deep green gown that seemed to shift color slightly given what angle Draco looked at her. It was either a deep blue-green, or a pale spring-green, and every shade in between. It complemented her red hair so nicely that was shining smoothly in perfectly styled curls piled up on her head. A few hung down at varying lengths and two framed her face. Silver wire could be seen wrapped around the back of her head, to cage the curls in a sort of muted cone. He would have liked her better without curls, but they were a different kind of curl his wife had had, far more tame and fake, not wild and unruly, so he supposed he could overlook it.

The dress was strapless so she had a matching shawl thrown over her arms. The bodice was tight, and looked like it restricted her breathing, but it gave her quite the hourglass figure that Draco found hard to rip his eyes away from. The skin of her arms, collarbones, breasts, neck, and her hair, shimmered with what looked like a dusting of some very fine, glittery body powder. It made her, along with her dress, radiant.

Reamann offered Ginny his arm and Draco sort of lingered off to the side.

“Ready?” she asked, looking over at him.

“I don't think I will have as warm of a welcoming in there as I did out here,” he said, looking to the doormen that stood vigilant over the scene inside the hall as they waited to check guests upon arriving. There was, understandably, high security at a function like this.

“Don't worry, they won't turn you away, we'll make sure of that,” Reamann assured.

“I fear being accepted and having to endure the scene in there more, I think,” he said, not positive, but pretty damn sure that no one inside would be happy to see him.

Ginny gripped his hand, just a quick, reassuring squeeze, and walked with Reamann towards the hall. Draco lingered, shifted, and then followed after.

It was time to see if he still had enough Malfoy in him to make this work.

“Ah, Ginny, we noticed you waiting outside and were wondering when you would finally come in,” one of the wizards manning the door said with a warm smile, the other greeting Reamann.

“I was just waiting for the last of our party to arrive,” she said, smiling back. The wizard's attention redirected to Draco and his smile wilted.

“Malfoy?”

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

“I think there is a problem with the doorman,” Neville said, holding a wineglass in his good hand, Orla on his bad arm.

Harry looked over to see what Neville was talking about and saw there was some sort of congestion at the door.

“Someone trying to crash?” Ron asked with a squat glass of rum in his hand.

“It's an open invite, I can't imagine,” Harry said, already striding over towards the doors, prepared to smooth over whatever problem there was for the sake of saving the evening and keeping things positive.

“I can't imagine what the problem is. I work for the Ministry, this ball is open to any who do, so I should logically be allowed to attend.”

Harry froze upon recognizing the disembodied voice.

Pushing through the small gathering of people at the large doors he stood before Draco Malfoy and furrowed his brow.

“Malfoy?” he asked.

“That's right,” he said, smiling mischievously.

They made very direct eye contact for a moment and Draco caught a glimpse of what Harry thought of when he first laid eyes on him. He saw an event from Harry's perspective, and that meshed with his own memories of that time, giving him a very interesting and omniscient view of things.

Fleeing the scene that had almost ended disastrously, Harry met up with Draco, far from any prying eyes or eager ears. It was snowy, it was cold, and it was bright.

Harry was behind Draco and gave him a firm shove with his hands in the center of Draco's back. Draco stumbled forward but then regained his footing quickly in the snow, turning on Harry smoothly, his long, loose hair falling in his eyes as he glared.

“What the hell is up? What happened back there?” Harry demanded.

“You couldn't keep your mouth shut for one moment could you, Potter? Had to let your bigheaded inner Gryffindor take over,” Draco spat back. Their charade had been working, the Death Eaters had believed Draco was sided with them while Harry and several of the Order tried to infiltrate, only able to get as far as they had because Draco had fed them information about how to get past the Giants (without fighting) that stood guard. It had been working until Harry had apparently lost faith in Draco and tried to be virtuous and take-charge, ruining Draco's carefully thought-out and structured plan.

“You were going along with them, I was worried that…”

“You really don't understand what it means to play a double-agent do you, Potter,” he said scathingly.

“It was damn convincing that you would kill…”

“No SHIT it was convincing! But it's not YOU I'm trying to fool, it's everyone else! The Dark Lord is far more experienced in Occlumency than I! I have to keep him out of my mind while playing up to his expectations, otherwise this wouldn't work!” Draco shouted back at him, frustrated and angry. He had barely been able to salvage the situation, and he was still unsure if his cover as a mole was blown or not. Harry didn't seem to grasp the precariousness of the situation or how he had nearly compromised it all and them both with his stunt. Harry did not seem to realize that his actions could lead to him, Draco, getting killed…slowly, and painfully.

“I had to do what I thought I had to.”

“Goddamn Gryffindor.”

“Corrupt Slytherin,” Harry spat back. “You think you're clever? I want to know whose side you are on! You say you are fooling the other side with your `esteemed acting skills,' but I can't help but get this strong impression that their side is not the ONLY side you're fooling.”

“You don't trust me,” Draco said, not even making it a question. After all he had confessed to Harry that had led him to bring Draco back to the Order's camp over a week before, he still did not trust him? That irked Draco something nasty.

“I have seen you grovel in submission and lie so easily, just to nosh your own aspirations! You have manipulated EVERYONE around me, everyone thinking something different of you. What would you have me think given all that? I don't know when it is you are acting and when you are being honest, or as honest as you ever get! I don't believe you are telling me the truth any more than you are telling it to anyone else!”

“Life is not that black and white, Potter. There is no good and bad, truth or lies, there are shades between, a LOT of grey,” Draco growled.

“A lie is a lie, Malfoy, I don't care what kind of spin you try and put on it to convince yourself otherwise.”

“I wouldn't expect you to understand.”

“Draco, tell me exactly what is going on with you. Just flat out say it again if you must, I just find it hard to believe, you being such an accomplished liar and actor,” he said.

“You have never trusted me,” he accused.

“I was willing to try.”

“And I have been doing all that you asked, at great personal peril, and you seem utterly unappreciative!”

“Because I don't KNOW if the peril you face is from us or them, it all depending on whose side you are on and what side you are fooling,” Harry said firmly, glaring at Draco.

Draco was quiet for just a pause and took a deep breath as though to release some tension. Harry just didn't understand.

“A lot has happened in these last few days, Potter.”

“I know,” Harry said, nodding, ready to be understanding.

“No, you DON'T,” he snapped. Harry had no idea all that had happened to him in the last week, that he had lost his father, that he had…nearly given up.

“Then tell me,” Harry said smoothly.

Draco was quiet again for a long moment, thinking about all he could tell Harry, choking back tears long before they could surface on his face.

“I don't want to be with the Order anymore,” he finally said and Harry leaned back a little, looking at Draco's very serious face.

“What are you saying?” he asked, swallowing hard at what Draco might say.

“No one has ever deserted the Death Eaters and lived to tell about it. Igor Karkaroff made it a whole year before he was murdered. Regulus Black? Barely two DAYS! I have made it a week. How long do you think I can manage to-”

“The Order will protect you, you have to put your trust in them…” Harry attempted before Draco cut him off.

“Put my trust in THEM when they don't even trust ME?” Draco snapped and Harry recoiled a little.

“Nothing is the same anymore for any of us,” he said, thinking of his father and poor old Butler Paul.

“I know it isn't,” Harry said softly.

“You never knew me, so I wouldn't expect you to understand, but something about me has changed. It is something I can't quite explain myself…but something is just…” -he paused- “not the same,” he said, talking softly now.

He was healing, physically, slowly, his mother so upset that she had not allowed the Healer to fully mend his wound. Draco appreciated that now; the pain there of his slowly healing wound as a reminder that he had been weak and that he could not be weak anymore. Suicide was the coward's way out, and he was not a coward…not anymore…not since he had been forced to watch…Butler Paul now gone.

Draco had felt something break inside him having been made to watch that, watch something so terrible. He had fallen to his knees, unable to fight anymore, unable to blink, unable to breathe, just staring at the scene before him. Lord Voldemort had made him watch, wanting to break him, and he had, but not in the way he had anticipated, not in the way he had counted on. Draco knew now, as a result of the Dark Lord's most recent cruelty, that he could not be weak anymore. It was costing him too many people he loved and cared about. He had his mother left, she was all he had in the world now. He had her to worry about still.

He had blamed himself for his father's death, but Butler Paul's life was on the Dark Lord, it was his fault, it was his fault his father was dead too. Draco knew this now, and that gave him the strength he needed now to do what he was about to do, say what he was about to say.

“Draco-”

“I'm THROUGH with this, Potter. I am through with being bullied, and intimidated, and promised things. I'm tired of playing by the rules that the one I'm standing against doesn't even hold to,” he said firmly, making a chopping motion with his left hand, ending his train of thought there, using his hand to physically shake the mental images that plagued him. “I'm through with living a life controlled by others, and my only purpose being to please someone else, some sort of despicable, disposable, dismissible servant. I want to please myself, live for MYSELF…to trust my instincts and do what I feel is right.”

“I, I understand that, I really do, Draco, but…” Harry tried to argue.

“If I'm not some oppressed supporter of the Dark Lord, I'm some blind follower of the Order. I have gone from fearing and trying to impress one tyrant, to another. I realized some days ago that I have no more options now than I did then. I'm still stuck in the middle of this mess that I did not even start and was no part of.”

“We are ALL trapped in the middle of this Draco! And the Order is not a tyran-”

“Please spare me, Potter!” Draco snapped, narrowing his eyes, looking angry again. “It's time that I try to do the impossible, to do something that I have been raised and taught to never attempt in my life. I'm going to do things MY way,” he said, holding himself tall and firm as his words. He had been raised to believe all the Dark Lord believed, because of some vow. He had been taught to shun any personal opinions or feelings that contradicted such teachings, and he had done so without question. He felt stupid and gullible, and blind because of that. He didn't even know who he was…but he intended to find out.

“So what is it you want to do then Draco? What is it? You don't want to support the Dark Lord, you don't want to be a part of the Order, what's left? You can't flee and hide from all this. The Dark Lord WILL find you,” Harry said fiercely while trying to understand this new Draco.

Harry didn't try and fool himself into believing he knew Draco well before, but something in him had changed, he could tell, and it scared him just a little.

“I'm through with being oppressed, through with being told there are limits to what I can do. I know I can't do everything, but how can I know what I AM capable of until I try?” he said and Harry looked at him, a little worried about what he was hearing. “I have lived too long afraid, too long fearing the disappointment of one person or another and suffering the punishments of my failures because NO ONE can possibly live up to their high demands. Living up to everyone else's expectations of me has worn me down and burned me out. I have to stand now,” he said.

Harry swallowed.

“You don't want to destroy the Dark Lord, you want to overthrow him,” he said, looking at Draco's fierce eyes with shock. What was Draco saying?

Draco seemed to think on Harry's words, like in his own mind he hadn't quite summed it up like that before, but he apparently liked the sound of that.

“He is no greater than I or any wizard really, and he is weak. He whittled himself down already for us with all his damn Horcruxes and fears death more than anything. He is talented, and intelligent, but he is nothing you or I couldn't be. All that sets him apart and makes him so frightening is the fact that he is willing to do anything, whatever it takes,” he said, his eyes on that fine edge of urging Harry to understand, and crazed madness.

“Malfoy, you can't be serious,” Harry said.

“Think on it, Potter. You are greater than him…THAT is why he fears you. The Ministry already holds you at such high regard and esteem, they would rollover and play dead if you were to show any desire to become a leader. You are no more powerful than I, but I am cunning, and able and willing to do what you are not…” he said and Harry paled. “Together, we could do what no other could.”

“Are you making me an offer, Malfoy?”

Draco just looked at him intently.

“I admit that we are talented beyond our years, but are you listening to yourself? You are having delusions of grandeur, Malfoy! This is mental!”

“Join me in this, Potter,” Draco said calmly, ignoring Harry's words, holding out his hand to him like he had back in their first year, when he had extended Harry his friendship, and some days ago when Harry had extended Draco his `trust.' “There would be no limit to what we could do once the Dark Lord is gone. Together we would be unrestricted, unlimited, unstoppable; the greatest team since the Founders of Hogwarts,” he said.

Harry had turned Draco away those years ago with his offer of friendship, but Draco could see in Harry's eyes that he was considering what he had said, truly mulling around his words.

Harry could not deny what Draco had told him as being true. Yes, they were powerful, and if they managed to vanquish the Dark Lord, little could stop them from ruling over the wizarding world…the Ministry would let him, and Draco was crafty enough to wheedle his way up to the top, he had no doubt about that.

“The people would be looking to a leader after the Dark Lord is gone, and if we were to work together,” Harry said slowly, still thinking.

The Ministry was a joke at the moment. He did not want to be the Ministry's “golden boy” because he did not stand for all they did…but what if he could take over, set things right? He was not sure he could trust anyone else to do it, the last two Ministers of Magic greatly disappointing him.

“If we stood together, there would be no fight we could not win, no desire we would not see a reality! They would never bring us down,” Draco urged.

Harry looked at Draco and considered his words, what he was offering.

Something about what he was saying seemed different than the typical malevolent plot to take over the world to Harry. There was no maniacal laughing on Draco's part; there was just this dark bitterness there, like Draco felt that it was this or nothing else. That sort of one-track mind was never a good sign when it came to one's personal mental stability and reliability.

Harry wished he could get Draco to understand that the Order was the best option for him, that they would see it all right in the end.

“We would be unstoppable,” Harry said, looking down at Draco's hand, Draco's face smiling in a way that sealed it for him.

Draco knew what the Dark Lord was doing was wrong, and that was a good start, but Draco was hurt, beaten like a dog by anyone and everyone that held themselves to be higher than him, and he had finally snapped and would not take it anymore.

Unfortunately, Draco was now insane.

Harry had heard words like his before, seen his very attitude before. When he was twelve and had met the sixteen-year-old Tom Riddle Horcrux.

Draco sounded like the young Voldemort.

That was enough to snap him out of his consideration of Draco's offer and feel guilt and shame for having just briefly been seduced himself by the idea. He wanted to set the Ministry right, but he couldn't stand by Draco in this, he couldn't do it by the means Draco was proposing.

“But I can't,” he said, stepping back though there had already been a space between them. He remembered back to his first year at Hogwarts, when he had met Voldemort for the first time. He had told Harry that together they could do extraordinary things…together they would be unstoppable. Somehow, Draco's words now struck too similar a cord for Harry to bite.

“What?” Draco said, not getting the answer he had expected and looking a little surprised, a little hurt, and a little angry. Harry could see Draco's mind working through his eyes and it looked like he was closing himself off rapidly in a way that unnerved Harry vastly. The way Draco's mind worked unnerved him vastly.

“Call it me being a Gryffindor and you a Slytherin, but this is not RIGHT,” Harry said, shaking his head.

“Potter-”

“I cannot become what I have been fighting so hard against all these years. How can YOU want to be what has oppressed you, your family, for so long? You sound like Voldemort, like Greyback, like any other misguided Dark Wizard!”

“So you are to stand against me,” Draco said darkly, not even acknowledging Harry's accusations and statements.

“You are no better than him if you were to take his place.”

“I had thought that this would appeal to you, Potter…that you would UNDERSTAND. What better way to prevent another `Dark Lord' from ever surfacing and trying to take control than to already have a leader in place, a REAL leader, not some sorry excuse for a Minister that the people elected based on false promises and assurances in some joke of a popularity contest. Someone that the world would fear just enough to follow, but not so much that the people could not appreciate all that would be done for them?”

“It's not right,” he said.

“Like your precious Ministry has done nothing but `right,' Potter? This world is a mess, and simply killing the Dark Lord with not amend that.”

“There are other ways…”

“You are lying to yourself if you believe that. The Ministry will never be all that we could be.”

“You would pursue this then,” Harry said, realizing that Draco was not being swayed; he was holding strong to his ideals, his delusions, even if he, Harry, would not be joining him in it.

Draco just tilted his chin down a fraction, not quite a nod, but his eyes saying enough while wind whipped his shoulder-length hair around in his face.

“I can't say that I'm not mildly disappointed in you, yet somehow not surprised by this,” Harry said, knowing that Draco was not on the side of the Order, making him an enemy at that point. They both might have been after the Dark Lord, but they had very different reasons now.

Draco stepped back, turned, and walked for a moment; he turned back to Harry in a swirl of robes and pointed at him steadily.

“If I'm to fly solo on this, Potter,” he shouted back, “at least I know that I'm flying FREE, not a part of someone else's plans, someone else's desires, someone ELSE'S dream! You do not understand what that means, what that means to me! You have never been in the position I am in, or had things expected of you that I have had. You have had your troubles, but they are VASTLY different and incomparable to my own. You lost your family as an infant, I have lost mine right before my eyes!” he said.

“Draco,” Harry pleaded, in one last attempt to help Draco see the insanity of his words. “You have had it harder than I ever gave you credit for in the past, and I'm sorry, but this, this is MADNESS,” he said and Draco laughed bitterly. Potter had no idea, no idea just what he had been through, all that helping him and serving the Order of the Phoenix had cost him.

“I will match you, Potter, and the Dark Lord, at the very LEAST in infamy if not renown! They will talk about how I not only defied the Dark Lord, and the Ministry, but the Order and the great Harry Potter as well!” he said, pointing at Harry again.

Harry had to admit, looking into Draco's eyes so full of hurt and conviction, that he was more than a little afraid of him, maybe more than he was of the Dark Lord.

He feared what the Dark Lord would do, but he feared more what Draco might do. The Dark Lord was predictable, he knew what he wanted, and he made that known to all. Not knowing exactly what to expect from Draco was…alarming.

“Nobody in ALL the world, no witch or wizard that is now or ever was, will ever bring me down again!” Draco shouted, voice nearly cracking, his face angry but eyes wounded and almost lost despite his obvious conviction in his words.

Harry stared, and could not help but think of their school motto: “Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus,” which meant “Never tickle a sleeping Dragon.” It made him think of Draco, and for more than just that his name was in it. He felt that was what had happened. All these years Draco had been “sleeping.” This Draco he saw before him, whatever fire was lit in him now, had been dormant, and he had been “tickled” in just the right way, abused just one too many times, and it had awakened him.

“Draco.”

“Nobody is going to oppress or stop me, Potter, NOBODY,” he said, turning away at that point and stalking off.

He did not attack Harry, and Harry did not attack him. Harry should have drawn his wand to stop Draco now, while he had the chance, but he could not. Draco had offered him no violence…not yet anyways.

Harry was left there, still unsure what he could expect from the other wizard.

He was not sure he liked this new Draco much. The old had been unkind, the next had been piteous, but this last was just…terrifying.

He could not count on him helping the Order, but would he fight against them? He certainly wouldn't fight for the Dark Lord…

But would he stand alone? Him against the whole world?

“What are you doing here?” Harry asked, trying hard not to think of that time.

“Well, as I just got through explaining to this lout here, I feel it is fairly obvious the purpose of my being dressed and present; I am here to attend the ball,” Draco replied, holding himself very tall, and full of self-satisfaction. He looked right at Harry, knowing exactly what Harry thought of when he first laid eyes on him, and felt indignation that, of all the times they had spoken, all the situations they had been in and shared, that was what he thought of first. It was a little insulting and he felt like it belittled all he had done for Harry. Ginny invoked memories of the final battle and her saving his life. Harry did not think of him saving his life by betraying the Dark Lord in that final turn and throwing him his wand, disarming himself so that Harry could inevitably defeat the dark wizard…he thought instead of a far less flattering time. Draco was mildly hurt but somehow not surprised either.

“You want to attend the ball?” Harry asked, surprised.

“You do catch on fast,” Draco drawled, Ginny jumping in and cutting him off before Draco started insulting Harry as harshly as he had the doorman.

“Reamann invited him. Can you please make this mess go away so we can enjoy the evening?” she asked, pleading to Harry's sense of fairness and diplomacy.

Harry looked at Draco, who had certainly done himself up nice for the ball, and to Reamann who was looking a little meek with discomfort at being fingered as the one to blame for the whole mess, and sighed.

“Alright,” he said, looking over at the wizards as Ginny's face broke into a smile.

“Just let him in,” he said.

“Harry?” the wizard asked.

“He won't start anything, will you?” Harry said, that more of a warning than a question directed at Draco.

“Certainly not,” Draco said crisply, smirking and getting Harry to glare at him for a moment.

“Just let him in,” he said, turning and walking away at that point so as not to allow anyone to argue with him, not that they would anyways.

“Harry, Harry,” Ginny called softly, running up behind him to grab his arm. “Thank you,” she said.

“Why did you bring him here?” he asked suddenly, no pretenses there.

“He has every right to be here, he deserves to be here,” she said firmly.

“I can't help but feel this sudden interest you have developed for him will cause troubles for you and Reamann,” Harry said darkly and Ginny narrowed her eyes at him.

“Don't you dare,” she warned.

“Was it you, or Reamann that invited him?”

“Reamann,” Ginny said firmly.

“He didn't mention it to me.”

“Because he was worried, and justifiably so it seems, that you would object and he didn't want everyone to get upset over something that really is nothing.”

“Draco and you…it's nothing.”

“Don't start this again,” Ginny warned, not wanting to get into this particular row with Harry again, not at the Remembrance Ball, not on Christmas Eve, not ever again.

“Well, then you shouldn't have fucked him then!” Harry hissed and Ginny looked taken aback, placing her hand over her heart before her rage set in.

“Draco and I have never had sex, Harry.”

“That was not the way things seemed when I saw you two that night,” Harry said, talking about “that night” again.

“That was a kiss, and you know it.”

“A kiss? Ginny, you and I had kissed before, and that was done vertically. Even heavy snogging between you and me had not gone as far as that,” he spat, the mental image of Draco atop of Ginny, kissing and groping so passionately forever burned into his mind. “It looked like you two were having sex through your clothing,” he seethed.

“We did not have sex! Is that what has bothered you all these years? You thought we had?”

“What reason did I have to think otherwise?”

“Reason being that I am more respectable than that?” she said, not admitting to Harry that she would have probably had sex with Draco if he had continued. That was not the point; Harry was being unreasonable.

“So, you're sticking to the story that you never shagged him?”

“It is not a story, Harry; I never had sex with him! It was just a kiss…it was just kissing!”

“Does Reamann know about you and Draco kissing?”

“No, and don't you dare tell him! Not that it is any big deal, but it is none of his damn business what I did thirteen years ago. I think you need to get over it, get over the past, and get over yourself,” she said, fighting the urge to slap Harry across the face right then before she stormed off. A few people looked over at her and at Harry, as she walked away, ready to gossip about what the row could have possibly been about.

So that was it. Harry thought that, after he had seen her and Draco on the ground, kissing, that they had had sex. That was why he had been so upset. She supposed that made sense…more sense to be upset over sex than kissing that is…but the whole thing was ludicrous from the start!

He made it sound like she and Draco were still in the throws of passion, and it angered Ginny to no end that she couldn't deny that. Harry thought she still had feelings for Draco, that she had feelings for him in the first place, and damn him, he was right.

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

“You look upset, Ginny,” Reamann said, wrapping his arms around Ginny in a gentle hug after she joined him and Draco.

“I just got through talking, no, fighting with Harry,” she said and Reamann looked pained and fought not to glance at Draco, assuming the man to be the reason behind the fight but thinking it had to do with Draco being at the ball, not some past history they all shared that he was unaware of.

“I'm sorry,” Draco said softly.

“No, it is not your fault, you did nothing wrong. Harry is just being a pigheaded troll,” she grumbled and Draco smiled.

“Let me get you something to drink,” Reamann offered.

“Something sweet?” she asked, and he kissed her forehead.

“Sure thing,” he said, making his way over to the refreshments, leaving Draco alone with Ginny.

“The fight was about me,” he said, not making it a question. Ginny nodded. “Anything new, or just the same old Harry-the-self-righteous-prat not liking or trusting me,” he asked. He certainly didn't sound bitter…much.

“Harry thinks we've had sex,” she said, crossing her arms in a huff as she glared at Harry who was across the room and talking to her brother.

“What? He suspects we are seeing each other?” Draco asked, a little surprised, a little panicked, and a little impressed that Harry was so intuitive.

“No, no, he thinks we had sex that night,” she said and Draco blinked at her.

“The night before the final battle?” he asked. It seemed her and Harry had already dubbed the night she and Draco had kissed as “that night” and Draco was just becoming familiar with that, so a little explanation was needed.

“He saw us, remember? He had left the Order's camp to go look for me, not wanting to believe Hermione when she said I had -must have- died when I went over the edge, when you had turned traitor on us. I guess he had not known you were with Hermione and me that day and had flipped out upon learning that. I guess he never really had trusted you,” she said and Draco cleared his throat uncomfortably, having just been reminded at the door by Harry of the scene that had unfolded the day before that. He supposed he had given Harry just reason not to trust him at that point…

“He stumbled on us together and, honestly, I really think I broke his heart…” she said, sounding depressed. Draco, who was standing right up next to Ginny, facing the floor, just brushed his knuckles across her hip, unable to show any sort of comforting affection in public. “He saw us, snogging like mad, and he turned away…left. I guess he assumed you and I…did it that night,” she said with a sigh, dropping her arms so she could put her hand at her side. While standing so close her full gown's green skirt and his dress robes blocked from view her gripping his hand.

“I knew he had seen us kiss, he had told me as much and he had brought it up in arguments in the past, but I had not realized until just now that what bothered him so was that he thought you had betrayed us all, faked my death, and then had your way with me off in secret. I guess that moment, that night, when he saw us, me not dead and you…yeah…he thought I had turned traitor too. After that, once he realized you and I hadn't betrayed the Order at all,” she said and he shifted uncomfortably, “he just believed I had rejected him to have you that one night.”

“Well, I am an offer pretty hard to pass up,” he smirked and Ginny fought not to pinch him. “So, Potter thinks we shagged and is wounded over it,” he said, hoping to sum it all up.

“Yeah,” she said softly.

“Excellent,” he said with a smile over in Harry's direction and Ginny looked up at him.

“Draco.”

“I think we need to amend this little problem,” he said, turning to her after releasing her hand so his back was to the dance floor now.

“I don't think you talking to Harry will really help. He will believe what he will, he is stubborn like that and once he has made up his mind and believes something is true no one can sway him, no matter how much evidence you throw at him,” she said, sounding tired.

“No, no, not that, though I know that to be true,” he said and she blinked up at him. “Potter seems to believe we had sex, but we haven't. This is a problem we need to address and amend. I'm thinking until we are dizzy and weak in the knees and unable to amend any more,” he smirked and Ginny's mouth parted in shock before converting into an open-mouthed grin.

“You are terrible,” she laughed.

“And horny, you game?”

“We can't…”

“Have other plans tonight? With Reamann possibly?” he asked, a little bitter.

“Draco,” she said, frowning up at him. “There is no way on Christmas Eve I could possibly…”

“Hey you two,” Reamann said, showing up again suddenly and stopping their conversation there. “Couldn't possibly do what?” he asked, having only caught the very end of their conversation, looking between them, a drink in each hand.

“Find a last minute gift,” Draco said, and Reamann handed Ginny the drink he had fetched for her.

“Sorry mate, I would have gotten you something, but I only have two hands and I didn't know what kind of drink you prefer,” he said.

“I can manage on my own,” Draco said dismissively, stalking off in a graceful strut to leave Ginny with her boyfriend. Was he grumpy? Not terribly…maybe a little, he blamed Potter. He couldn't help but be jealous of Reamann, however, and thus pout a little.

Draco knew he was invoking stares, and glares, and it made him feel a little uncomfortable to hear his name whispered about as he passed, but some part of him, the Malfoy part, was reveling in the attention. No attention was bad attention, that was something he had learned from a young age and probably why he had been such a snot and troublemaker.

Draco paraded across the hall in a confident swagger. The Ministry hall was done up for the occasion, Christmas lights that appeared to be real live pixies in glass orbs hung from the high ceiling that was a mass of hanging and illuminated ice sculptures like carved stalactite. Snow fell above them but seemed to vanish just before it could reach far enough down to actually touch anything. Gold and silver metallic streamers and ribbon hung from the walls and gathered in massive bows some six feet across between every tall window, the glass dark. Live music played, a string quartette.

Reaching the refreshment table Draco ordered himself a scotch on the rocks, glancing across his shoulder at a young witch to his left. She was looking at him, and he looked her up and down with only his eyes and graced her with a smile that made her visibly swoon just a touch. He gave her a wink before accepting his drink with a “cheers” and meandered off again, surveying the crowd.

“Malfoy,” a man growled at his back.

“Yes, Satan?” Draco inquired, not turning.

“Very cute, Malfoy,” Sebastian said from behind Draco still, Draco turning to face him with a very animated look of surprise.

“I'm sorry, you sounded like someone else I know,” he said, a polite smile in place.

“What are you doing here, Malfoy?”

“Enjoying the atmosphere.”

“You enjoy being the focal point of a sea of glares?”

“Among many other things. I also enjoy the smell of laundry detergent and doing tax reports. My mother always said I had a head for numbers…”

“Enough with the wisecracks, Malfoy.”

“I have every right to be here,” Draco said coolly, dropping the sarcasm.

“Really? What gave you the impression that you would be welcome to a ball where those that died in the war and served the Ministry faithfully are honored, Death Eater?”

“The fact that I was invited,” he said casually, taking a sip of his drink.

“Who would invite you?” he said.

“Oh, come now, Sebastian, there are tens of people that love and adore me,” he said, mocking himself at that point but able to smile at it. He felt he was funny, at least.

“Don't be starting anything, Malfoy, or you will have more than just a glare to worry about when it comes to me,” he warned, already walking away.

“What happened to us, Sebastian? We used to be such friends,” he called after him is false distress, holding his arms out at his sides and causing some people to look and start talking behind their hands and drinks.

Sebastian looked flustered.

Oh yeah, he thought with a satisfied smile, turning back around to strut the floor again.

Malfoy was back.

“Reamann, what is wrong with you?” Draco demanded upon coming up to Ginny and Reamann again.

“What?” he asked, confused and unsure of the question.

“You have this lovely date and you have not yet danced with her,” he said, getting a relieved smile out of Ginny who had thought Draco's outrage had been over something serious.

“Oh, no, Reamann just is not a dancing kind of man,” she said, holding onto his arm tightly, reassuringly.

“I am,” Draco said, holding his thin hand out to Ginny. “Mind, Reamann?” Draco asked, looking only out of the corner of his eye at the other man.

“Oh, um, no, no, you two may have a dance, you would enjoy that, wouldn't you Gin?” he asked, looking over and down at her on his arm.

“Good, because I would have taken her away even if you objected,” Draco teased, looking at Ginny now, smirking, looking just like himself years ago. She remembered him at the Yule Ball. She had gone with Neville, and Draco had gone with Pansy Parkinson. She had to admit, she had stolen a glance or two at him. He had looked very nice in his black velvet robes. He had the same kind of high collar as he had then. It must have been a favorite style of his, a flattering one to say the least.

A little taller, and a little thinner now, he otherwise looked like he did back then, confident and self-assured, no doubt in his mind that she would be unable to deny him. She had half a mind to turn him down, but she, for some dark reason, liked his poise and self-assurance. He seemed to lack, or only bear a shadow of, it most of the time and this was refreshing from what she had seen of him the day before. It felt like the real him, even if it was not, or not entirely him. There was more to him than this, but she liked this part of him.

Ginny took his hand and she saw his eyes narrow, like he had known what she was thinking, that she would have refused him just to spite him, and she gave him a little smirk. She had already warned him to stay out of her mind if he did not like what he saw.

Draco led her by the hand to the floor. Eyes followed them, Draco Malfoy being the talk of the night, everyone having an opinion on him being there, most of outraged indignation.

Ginny felt a little anxious with everyone looking at her.

She avoided the papers, and tried to stay out of the limelight, not wanting to be the celebrity everyone one seemed to try and make her…but it looked like she would make the morning paper. Dancing with Death Eaters at the Remembrance Ball…her mother was going to have a fit.

“You know how to waltz?” he asked, holding her right hand in his left, his right on her waist, her left on his shoulder.

“I learned for the Yule Ball, but I haven't had much practice since or opportunity,” she admitted.

“Well, that will work fine, just follow my lead then,” he said, the music playing, his feet suddenly moving. Ginny lagged for a moment, her feet just shuffling to keep up with him as they moved across the dance floor. She caught up and tried to match his feet and the tempo of the music. After only a moment she was with him, gliding smoothly. He smiled at her.

“Quick,” he complemented.

“Arrogant,” she responded.

“Too true,” he said, Ginny once again unable to insult or offend him. He smiled down at her, surprising her by placing both his hands on her waist and lifting her up and turning around. He placed her back on the floor gently and resumed the waltz.

“Draco,” she said, not having expected him to be able to lift her, not having expected the lift at all.

“I am stronger than I look,” he said, smirking, knowing what she was thinking, knowing she was self-conscious about her weight a little, and how she felt he was a little too slender to have been able to lift her so easily. He did not take offense to that, rather reveled in his ability to impress her.

They waltzed, turning around and around on the floor while moving in a large circle. Others were dancing too, but not many. It seemed most just wanted to stand, stare, and gab about Draco Malfoy and Ginny Weasley dancing. At least Draco was a good dancer; they could not rip him apart over that.

Draco did not mind the attention. He was having a good time. Ginny looked like she was too, but some part of her was hung up, he could feel it.

“Relax,” he said.

“I am relaxed.”

“You are not,” he laughed softly.

“Yes I am.”

“Do not worry what they say. You do not read the papers, remember? Enjoy yourself, forget them,” he said, scooping her into a lift again and turning.

“How does it not bother you?” she asked as they moved.

“What they say about me, you mean?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“It does…sometimes…but worrying and fretting never solved anything, and it only leads to misery. You can't change how people think, or public opinion, but nothing causes the people that hate you so much discontent as to see you unbothered and happy,” he said, smirking.

Ginny laughed, finally relaxed.

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

“Harry, you're glaring,” Neville pointed out. “Ron, your stabbing your dinner…” Neville said, sounding a little more worried.

“What does he think he is doing?” Ron growled.

“What does she think she is doing?” Harry fumed.

Hermione was standing a little apart from the boys, looking over at Ginny and Draco as they created a scene. If this was Ginny's idea of being subtle and quiet about her relationship, then Hermione felt she needed to sit her down with a dictionary and explain to her the definition of the word.

She caught sight of Reamann, and though he did not look terribly upset, he looked a little uncomfortable as he watched them.

“Hey Reamann,” Hermione said, coming to stand beside him.

“Hello `Mione,” he said, still watching them.

“How is your Eve so far?” she asked.

“I can't dance like that,” he said, just saying what he was thinking and expressing how he felt quite simply and honestly. He was intimidated by Draco, and Hermione felt for him. It was always hard for a chap to be showed up by another man when it comes to impressing his lady. Hermione hadn't the heart, or right, to tell him the truth on the matter though. Hermione looked over at Draco and Ginny and then sighed.

“Draco is a socialite by nature and was bred for the singular purpose of making good impressions at revelries. Do not be intimidated, it's genetic as far as he is concerned and no one can compete with that.”

“It is nice to see him happy, or at least content…looking,” he said, Ginny and Draco ending their waltz for him to bow and her to curtsey respectfully. There were some muted claps, most passing it off as their praise for the live music, not the dancers they had been watching.

“Glad you invited him then?” she asked, unsure how happy he would be if he knew the real reason Draco was there.

“Yeah…I am,” he said, striding over to Draco and Ginny with a smile on his face.

“Good show, chap, good show! Now I really can't attempt a dance with Ginny, after that I would be more than substandard, I would be an embarrassment,” he said, praising Draco.

“Oh, you are being far too modest, Reamann. Ginny is a fine dancer, and if you wouldn't mind her leading, I'm sure you would catch on right quick,” Draco said, in a god's honest good mood right then, able to smile at the man, Ginny's boyfriend, even if just slightly so as to remain reserved.

Ginny looked radiant in her happiness and goodwill.

“I'm glad you could come,” Reamann said.

“It is nice to be out.”

“It's nearly Christmas,” Reamann said, looking at the tall clock on the wall high above them where gold and silver streamers cascaded down.

“That it is,” Draco said, holding his new drink up in a `cheers'. “I must be gone by midnight, or the spell will be broken and my ride will become a pumpkin again,” he said and Ginny laughed, fighting not to hold his hand so grabbing Reamann's instead.

“What are you doing for Christmas day?” Reamann asked as Draco took a sip.

“Spending the day with my family,” he said simply, not wanting to discuss that, not with Ginny there with them. Reamann knew about the kids, but Ginny did not, unless Reamann had told her, in which case he would feel the need to thank the man for saving him the trouble, and apologize to him after having punched him really hard in the face.

“What are you doing that night?” he asked.

“Just about the same,” Draco said, a little suspicious now.

“How about you join us, Ginny and I that is, for a late Christmas Dinner at the Burrow? The morning is all for family, but the evening is for the friends,” he said and Ginny and Draco both looked surprised and uncomfortable.

“I don't think so.”

“I'm not sure that's such a good idea, Honey,” Ginny said at the same time Draco was talking, them both muttering.

“Come on, the Burrow will be loaded with food, no need to worry,” he said.

“Worry only that Harry, Ron, and several other rather large, strapping males will be in attendance who do not like me much,” Draco said, taking another hearty gulp of his drink at the thought.

“They will behave, it's Christmas,” Reamann urged.

“I think it would be a good chance to maybe clear up some misunderstandings.” This coming from Ginny, looking at Reamann, and then over to Draco.

“You can't be serious.”

“Well, it's only a suggestion,” she said, shrugging, Draco not believing his ears. He would have gone into great detail about how they were both mental, but there was a commotion right then and Reamann was summoned.

“Reamann, we have to go,” Sebastian said, sounding authoritative and brash as ever.

“What? Now? What happened?” he asked.

“There was another attack.”

“It's Christmas Eve,” Ginny said, looking shocked.

“Come along Reamann,” Sebastian said, ignoring Ginny, looking at his “partner” as though bothered by the very idea that he was a necessity.

He then turned to Draco and Draco stood strong under his gaze.

“Shouldn't you be slinking off too?” he asked.

“Excuse me?” Draco asked crisply, drink in hand and nose pointing up slightly.

“You are Reamann's informant, aren't you?”

“Am I?” he retorted.

“I'm sure that's how your hair got on the scene, he snuck you in somehow.”

“I'm relieved to learn that you believe that to be the explanation of how my hair got there, rather than you still suspecting me as the one responsible, I will sleep better tonight,” he drawled. “But I'm sure I haven't any idea what you are talking about, Sebastian darling. You plagued with Wrackspurts? I hear they are quite bad this time of year,” he drawled, getting Ginny to snort a laugh which she then tried to disguise as a sneeze and Sebastian looked a little flustered, annoyed that he had been unable to shake Draco even a little.

“Where were you this afternoon, Malfoy?” Sebastian asked coldly, clearly meaning to implicate Draco then in this newest attack.

“At home, washing my hair,” Draco replied, just as frigidly but smiling innocently.

Sebastian and Draco shared a fierce glare for a prolonged moment before Sebastian broke it (few being able to hold a Malfoy glare) and snapped at Reamann to come with him. Several Aurors, including Ron, were leaving the ball at that point.

“This is awful,” Ginny said, that being the collective though of the room around them, so Draco gathered.

“This is aggravating,” he said, speaking of a great deal many things, including: him not being able to crack the case yet, Sebastian suspecting him of being Reamann's informant, him just being implicated in the newest attack, and on top of all that…the slough of paperwork he would undoubtedly have to read through and report on.

“Poor Reamann, he is probably going to be out all night,” she said, looking in the direction of where they had disappeared to.

Draco was silent beside her for a moment, and then they seemed to have a joint thought and looked at each other.

Ginny hurried over to Hermione and told her she was not feeling well and would be “heading home,” and since Reamann had been Draco's “ride” she would be dropping him off on the way.

Hermione got the message loud and clear, and she would pass Ginny's story on for her friend…but was not happy as she watched her friend hurry off to take advantage of the opportunity to have the night alone, or not alone, but with different company.

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Author's Note:

OMG, this was a long chapter, as they have been for a while. Harry is a jerk in this chapter, as always. His stubbornness is canon. The flashback was important (even if it seemed a little out of place) and I realize some of you might be a little confused as to why I put it in right there. I did it because 1) I am running out of time to tell that half of the story, 2) it shows Draco's mental-state, (now and at the time of the war) the stress he was under, and why Harry didn't trust him on the rooftop during the `Final Battle' flashback in Chapter 03. and 3) it shows why Draco HATES Harry so much still to this day. Of ANY thought or memory Harry could have had at that moment upon looking at Draco, he chose that one, a very unflattering one of Draco, and that seriously hurt Draco to learn that.

We saw a LITTLE glimpse into how the children feel about Daddy!Draco dating. Sounds promising, doesn't it? *snickers*

I hope you all enjoyed the sweet sweet Draco and Ginny action. More to come, I assure you. I bumped the rating up on this fic, if you did not notice. It was R and is now NC-17, thanks to Chapter 15 and, well, upcoming chapters. :) Reamann's name is STILL not working, and that REALLY pisses me off.

I hope you all review! If you feel the need to tell me to “update soon” or “update quickly” that's alright, but please say more than just that because I can already easily assume you all want me to update again someday.

I needs me some feedback, I have been having a TERRIBLE week!!

Also, if anyone would like to hear some of my arguments as to why I think Draco is a Werewolf, check out my reviews from chapter 17. I responded to one review with a lengthy (and I mean LENGTHY) little explanation. I hope you all look at it!

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Credits:

I used dialog from a scene from the movie “Ace Ventura, Pet Detective” because that movie cracks me up and when I wrote the scene it just fit so nicely. It was a last minute addition, the scene would have survived without it, but I would not have. It was just too perfect.

“Ventura,”

“Yes, Satan?...Oh, I'm sorry sir! You sounded like somebody else...”

“Never mind the wisecracks, Ventura…”

Then there is a very obvious reference to the song “Defying Gravity” from the musical Wicked in the flashback, mostly near the end of it with the line “if I'm flying solo, at least I'm flying free.” I wrote basically the whole scene, minus the ending, without having ever heard the song, then my sister bought the CD and I was like, “wow, I like this song,” and realized that it corresponded with my scene near perfectly. Funny how things like that happen. I call it fate, or irritating coincidences that make me feel far less creative and original. Whatever the case, I still have never seen/read/or listened to the whole musical/book. Just that song, so any other similarities are purely coincidental.

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