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Scarlet Woman
Part 10
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They always seem to find him, he thinks. Somehow, they know where he is, and they know they need to be punished, and, oh, how he punishes them. Just like the first, just like the second, just like all of them. He knows how to handle the whores, how to remove their evil taint in the air, in the ground, in the city. He learns, he practices, and he does his job. And he's so good at his job.
This one stumbled across him while he was sleeping. Just fell into his lap. And he knew. He could smell the booze and the sex on her and he knew she was another one. Now, though she's passed out, he's teaching her the lesson that they never learn.
He wipes blood from the blade, brings it down again and again, smiling all the time.
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Air rushing out of his lungs, Draco kept his eyes locked on Ginny's hair, a red beacon in the night. He was catching up, gaining ground he'd lost when she'd suddenly taken off. His fingers brushed against her arm, briefly, and then she turned the corner.
She stopped so quickly, Draco had to dodge to the side to avoid running her over. He looked at her, surprised at the whiteness of her face, the terror reflected in her eyes, and then he looked down the alley.
The darkened, crouching silhouette of a man was haloed by a street light. Though he couldn't see the man's face, the naked and bleeding body of a woman was highlighted in the night. The red stain spreading from the body and dripping from the man's hands made Draco gag.
"Oh my god." The words were whispered, but they seemed to echo in the alley, bouncing off the walls, ricocheting through the silent night. The man turned, light glinting dully off of a blood-stained knife.
"You've come."
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Ginny was frozen in place. She saw the man's lips move, knew he'd said something, but couldn't hear him over the rushing blood in her ears. She felt her body shaking in fear and disbelief, felt the tremors race up her back, down her arms, tremble through her soul.
She knew him.
Not just a passing knowledge, either. She had spent years with him, years learning how to survive on the streets. And here he was, her supposed guardian angel. A killer, a murderer, a madman.
"Wallace?" She wanted to shout it, but the words were a gentle whisper on the wind.
"Ah, Ginny. Virginia. My angel. You always know when to come to me, you always know that your dad knows best."
Ginny felt Draco's surprise, felt his confused glance on her skin, but she didn't dare break eye contact with the deranged man crouching in an innocent woman's blood.
"What are you doing, Wallace? Why are you…?" She stopped, took in a shuddering breath. "Why?"
"Oh, don't pretend. You know why. You knew why the first time, and the second time, and the third, and you know now. You know!" He stood, lurched forward, and straightened. Though he was an old man, and wasted from years of living on the streets, struggling for every meal, the anger and madness ran off of him in waves, making him into a child's worst nightmare. Anyone's worst nightmare.
Ginny took a step back. "I don't know, Wallace. Explain to me, please." The desperation in her voice wasn't faked.
He started to laugh, short rasping gasps that grated on Ginny's nerves. He looked down and shook his head, still laughing.
"Oh, Angel." He raised his head, grinning. "Oh, you stupid slut. You don't remember, do you? Of course not. You never remembered what your daddy told you. Never, ever listened to your father. Never." He stopped smiling, and turned his gaze towards Draco.
"It was all your fault, you know. You corrupted my baby, you demon, you bastard. If you had just left her alone," he slowly shook the knife at Draco, drops of blood splattering against the concrete,"this all would have been avoided." He took another step forward. "She would be at home, where she belongs. She'd be at home with her daddy, without your… taint in her, safe and sound and happy."
Ginny felt sick. She placed a hand over her stomach, trying to escape the feeling of dread and nausea fighting to escape. Wallace's gaze latched onto her hand, and his grip tightened on the knife.
"Did you do it again, you stupid slut? Did he get your pregnant again, like last time? Didn't you learn then, you whore? You bitch?" He was yelling now, moving closer to Ginny.
"I told you," he growled," not to go with him, didn't I? I told you not to talk to him, that he only wanted one thing. And you didn't listen, you never listened to your father, never listened to daddy."
Draco stepped in front of Ginny, pushing her behind him, making himself a human wall between her and the old man.
"She hasn't done anything. She's not your daughter." Draco said slowly.
Wallace looked at Draco, as though he'd suddenly appeared.
"Of course she's my daughter. Her name is Ginny; my daughter's name is Ginny. She's my daughter. And she has to learn her lesson, don't you, Ginny?" he smiled, reaching a hand towards the two. "You have to learn this time."
Ginny didn't move, couldn't move. It was as though she'd been cemented to the floor, become part of it. All she could do was stand, numb, behind Draco and watch.
Wallace frowned. "I said, you have to learn. Now, come here. Right now." His hand shook, then clenched. "You come here, Ginny. Listen to your father."
"No." She whispered, trembling. "No, I won't. And you're not my father."
He scowled, confused, then smiled.
"Then I'll come over there and teach you."
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Draco didn't see the man move. For an old hobo, he was quick. Suddenly, a hand reached for him, he felt a punch to the stomach, and warm blood started to ooze from underneath his shirt. He raised a hand to his shirt, felt the material stick to his hand, and then a hot pain lanced through his entire body. Draco fell to the ground, unable to move from the pain.
He looked up at Ginny, who stood in the middle of the alley, fear written all over her face. Not for herself, but for him.
"Draco?" She reached a hand towards him, and then was flung against the brick wall by Wallace.
Groaning, Draco tried to move towards the struggling pair, but blood loss or pain made it impossible.
Oh, God, no. Not now. Not when I've just found her. Somebody, help us. Please.
He slowly rolled onto his stomach, and then stopped breathing as the pain washed over him. He raised his eyes, darkness edging his vision, to where Ginny and the old man were wrestling in a pile of trash. There was no noise in the night, except for the rustling of garbage bags, and the occasional thunk of an empty can. Draco reached towards the pair, trying to move limbs that were suddenly too heavy for him. All he could do was watch, helpless, as he bled to death in an alley.
He couldn't tell who was winning, but because he couldn't tell who was losing, he felt some sense of hope. If Ginny were to win, she'd save him. She'd saved him before, he was sure, and now she'd do it again.
It seemed like hours were slipping away as he lay there. The night turned to day turned to night to day again and again, and still they fought. Still he bled. Still he died. He'd blink, and it would be another year, another lifetime later. And still they fought.
When Ginny finally reared up, a knife glinting in her hand, and came down one last time, he felt like he'd aged a hundred years in three minutes.
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She felt the blade slip into his dirty body, felt it tear through skin and muscle, glance off bone, and slide into softness. A confused look of pain rose into Wallace's eyes, and then the slow realization of what had happened.
"You… you stabbed me." He placed a hand on the wound, looked at his bloody hand, and then fell to the ground. Ginny dropped the knife, and clambered away. She stared at the blood on her hand, then furiously wiped it against her jeans, trying to get the red stain off of her. As she slowly gained control of her fear and disbelief, she heard her name whispered on the wind. Turning, she saw Draco, lying on the ground, blood spreading around him.
"Oh, god. No."
She stumbled towards him, reaching for magic she hadn't used in years, hoping against hope that he was still alive, still breathing, still there. Using skills she thought she'd never need again, she quickly assessed his condition, flipped him, and pressed her hands against his stomach. When he groaned in pain, she thought she'd die from happiness.
"You stay with me, Malfoy. You are not going to die, you hear me?" She felt tears running down her face and ignored them as she reached for what little magic she had left.
He laughed, feebly. "You only call me Malfoy when you're pissed." He gasped, coughed, then breathed, slowly. "I had to tell you something tonight, Ginny."
"Don't you dare tell me now." Her throat was tight. "You can tell me after I heal you. We have time." She felt his blood flowing through her fingers, felt it slowing. She couldn't tell through her tears if it was because he was healing, or because he was dying.
"I had," he coughed again. "God, that hurts. I was going to tell you everything tonight. Let you… let you know how I… how I feel about you." His breath shuddered, then rushed back in. "How I've always felt…"
"Don't." She could barely speak, could barely see. She was trying, damn it, to heal him, and she couldn't. It had been too long, she didn't have a wand, and she couldn't concentrate with the man she loved dying in her arms.
"I want to tell you something, Ginny." He breathed, slowly. Shallowly. "I… Right now." In, out. "Right now, I want to…" In, out. "To sleep…" In.
Out.
"Oh, god, Draco. You can't die on me. You can't."
Breathe, breathe, breathe. Oh, please, breathe.
In.
"You stay with me. You hear me? You are going to stay with me." She sobbed, reaching again for long-lost magic. "I can't lose you. Not now, not again."
Out.
"I love you, and I can't lose you like this. Not this way. Just a few minutes longer, Draco. Just… just stay with me." She closed her eyes, felt his blood on her hands, felt with a rush of joy the magic well up inside her, and spill out into his body. Light burnt through the lids of her eyes as she felt the broken body underneath her hands heal, slowly but surely.
When the light faded, she reveled in the slow, steady breaths moving in and out of Draco's chest.
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Police officers showed up two minutes later. Wallace was taken to a nearby hospital's secure ward, where he was treated for a stab wound. Ginny and Draco, after being cleared as uninjured by paramedics, were taken in for questioning.
Ginny told officers how she'd met Wallace when she'd first lived on the streets. She'd spent a year with him, learning how to survive. He'd told her one night about his daughter, a young woman named Ginny, and why he'd lost everything. His wife had died, leaving him and his daughter. And one night, she'd come home and told him she was pregnant. Though he'd asked her again and again, she'd never told him who the father was, only that he didn't want to have anything to do with the baby.
When Wallace told the story, she'd run away the next day. What Ginny thought, now, was that he'd killed his daughter, a long time ago.
"He said she knew the first time. That she had to learn her lesson. I think he taught it to her."
Officer's recovered the murder weapon from the scene. It matched the coroner's description of the knife used in all of the Angel murders, and had traces of the first victim's blood on the handle. The police congratulated Draco and Ginny on finding a killer, but all they wanted was to go home and sleep.
When they stumbled into the apartment at three in the morning, Draco's first action was to quietly take off his bloody shirt, sit down on the couch, and rest his head in his hands. Ginny sat down next to him, leaned into his side, and just breathed.
"I wanted to tell you I love you." He lifted his head, and turned to face her. Gently, he reached for her, and cradled her face in his hands. "I love you, Virginia. I've loved you since I last saw you. I tried to forget, tried to pretend that nothing had happened between us, that I'd made it into something it wasn't. And then I saw you, and I remembered, and I couldn't let you go a second time. I love you."
He let his gaze wander over her face, took in every beloved detail. The tiny freckles dusting her nose, the clear blue of her eyes, the fiery red of her hair. Then he leaned in and kissed her as if she would break. They parted, leaning their heads against each other, still breathing the same air.
"I love you, too." She looked into his eyes and smiled. She raised a hand to his face, stroked it gently, lovingly, and then smacked him.
"Don't you ever do that to me again, you understand?" She stood, angrily, and started pacing. "I thought you were going to die. I thought I was going to lose you, and I never want to feel that way again. If you do anything that… stupid…"
He stopped her tirade by grabbing her, pulling her to his chest, and kissing the life out of her. Smiling against her mouth, he started to laugh.
"God, Ginny. Never change, love." Laughing, he kissed her again. Still smiling, he took a step back. "Are you going to open that painting?"
"I'd forgotten about it, to be honest. But if you want me to, I'll go get it." At his enthusiastic nod, she walked over to the living room table, where the painting still lay. Ginny picked it up, and started to tear off the thick, brown paper wrapped carefully around the canvas. When it was finally open, she looked at the painting, then at Draco, confused.
"It's a ring."
Draco grinned, wide and happy. "Yes."
Ginny was puzzled. "I'm not sure I understand." She looked at it again, tilted the painting to the side, and then looked back at him. "It's just a ring."
He laughed, loud and long. "Oh, you're bloody brilliant, Gin. Absolutely bloody brilliant. I'm giving you a ring. Will you marry me?"
She looked up from the painting, startled. "Marry you?"
He was still grinning. "Yes, marry me. Do I have to say please?"
A bewildered and joyful grin spread across her face. She felt as though her heart would burst from the joy of it all.
"Of course I'll marry you." She laughed. "Of course."
They kissed, and spent the rest of the night forgetting about death and hate, and learning about life and love.
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And that, folks, is a wrap. Thank you for sticking with me for the past two years, for dealing with super slow updates, and long breaks of nothing. Thank you for telling me to stick with it, even though I sometimes didn't want to. You have all made this story worthwhile, and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing.
Thanks and lots of fudge to my great beta, Sarah. I can't believe it's been two years since you sent me an e-mail asking about being a beta. You've been a great friend and editor, and I don't know how to express how much I've appreciated being your friend these past two years. You're just great.
If there are any questions about the story, feel free to e-mail me at bundije@earlham.edu and I'll be more than happy to answer them for you.
As for my continuing career as a fanfiction writer, I think I need to explain my standing a bit better. I don't want to be JKR. I just don't want to play with her characters anymore. If you want to see some of my own characters instead, I'm currently writing and drawing a comic called Tirenos, which you can find out about at my deviantart page. It should be coming out sometime 2006.
Fanfiction.net:
Thanks to Pussin Boots, arrestingseraph, Scoopy, kate, Emerald Eyes 72, and mell8.
Portkey.org:
Thanks to Peanut, Anonymous, shell75, DracoObsessed17, jchaser, jenny83, monagy3, swimchick1614, tomlover, imystiqi88, HPfan, irish_slytherin, hearts_desire, and harry n hermione.
Scarlet received a recorded 379 hits and 168 reviews on fanfiction.net, and 20,547 hits and 149 reviews on portkey.org, for a combined total of 20,962 hits and 317 reviews. Thank you for all of the support, and your continued interest in this little fanfiction. I really appreciated it.
Once more, I have to say thank you to everyone who has ever commented. You guys are wonderful.
Goodbye and thank you.
paranoid
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