Trust



The great, carved wooden doors of Malfoy Manor swung open at her knock, and a small, dignified house-elf peered out at her. Ginny recognised her; it was Draco’s housekeeper, Libby.

“Mistress Weasley!” Libby exclaimed, her face lighting up with delight and relief. “You came.”

“Of course I did,” Ginny answered, smiling. She couldn’t help but like the plucky house-elf, who ruled the household with cringing subservience that disguised an iron hand. “You sent for me, didn’t you?”

A house-elf in Malfoy black and silver had shown up at her doorstep early this morning. He’d been most insistent, in his most servile manner, that she should drop everything she’d planned to do and come with him to the Manor.

“Master has been very troubled lately,” was all Libby would say. “We house elves have been worried.”

Not for the first time, Ginny wondered at the strange relationship Draco had with his house elves. They were unquestionably servants, and they bowed and scraped and cowered obsequiously, and yet they seemed to regard him with almost proprietary care. They had protected him from his stepfather, once, and he had never forgotten it.

“You think that I can help him?”

Libby fixed her with a knowing, albeit slightly bulging eye. Her wrinkled, folded face was inscrutable, her ears tilted slyly. “Master listens to you,” she said. “Trusts you.”

In the five years since his father’s death, Draco had walked a very fine line between the Ministry, the Death Eaters and the High Clan. His loyalties – shifting and uncertain – had been constantly questioned, his motives unclear and enigmatic. There seemed to be no real rhyme or reason to his choices, except that he had little love for anything beyond his own personal interests.

If she did not know him so well, if she did not understand – just a little – of how he thought and why he acted, she would be appalled by his actions. But she remembered that terrible night in the dungeons of Hogwarts, when, pushed to the corner, he had stood up to Theodore Nott and all his cronies, and had said enough. She remembered the weeks of impromptu lessons in what it meant to be Slytherin, and High Clan, and lost in a world with no absolutes.

And she remembered waking from pain and darkness, opening her eyes to see him peering down at her, his eyes openly worried…


**


...the south of France, the letter read. While there can be no certainty, I believe that this Mr. Montfort is indeed…

“Working again, Malfoy?”

Draco Malfoy jerked his attention away from the parchment scroll, his eyes drawn to the doorway to his study.

She stood there, the light from the corridor outside illuminating her blazing hair –

“Weasley,” he said faintly. “What are you doing here?”

“Your house elves were worried about you,” she answered, crossing the room towards him, confident of her welcome. “They think you are in danger of becoming a mad recluse.”

He submitted to her warm, affectionate hug. When she straightened again and perched herself on the arm of his heavy wooden chair, he said, “And so they sent you to drag me away?”

“Do you think I could?”

He looked into her dark eyes, so Gryffindor earnest, still with that quicksilver spark of curiosity and spirit that had led her to blackmail him into helping her, all those years ago. But she was no longer fourteen years old, scrawny and determined to prove herself to Potter and his friends. And he was no longer fifteen, angry at everyone and everything, desperate for strength and power.

“Yes,” he murmured, winding one of her copper-red curls around his finger. She flushed, her eyes darkening; they stared at each other, caught on the brink of a step he’d never take, not in the five long years of their very close acquaintance. They were, in their own strange way, the closest of confidantes; he was reluctant to introduce sex into the equation.

“My mother tells me you’ve got a job in the Minister’s office,” he said, releasing her hair, deliberately shifting the focus of the conversation.

She blinked, drawn back, and then frowned. “When are you finally going to trust me, Malfoy? It’s been five years. You must know I’ve no ulterior motives –”

“I do trust you, Weasley, more than anyone else in the world. It’s just…”

“Just what?” she snapped.

He looked into her great dark eyes, knowing that most of his secrets lay behind them, that she saw more of him than anyone else ever had. And still he couldn’t bring himself to commit himself fully, to believe that she would never, ever change, never turn on him, because no one had no other interests. He knew her as well as anyone could, and yet he feared, sometimes, that one day he would look into her eyes and see hidden secrets starting back at him.

He refused to answer, standing up and clearing away the mess of scrolls and reports that littered his heavy wooden desk, staring out the glass window at the blue sky beyond. When he turned back to her, the frustration and confusion were gone, replaced by laughing, teasing determination.

“You look stressed, Malfoy. How long since you’ve allowed yourself time off to relax?”

“Relax?” He raised a quizzical brow, playing along. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean,” she said, standing beside him and putting her hand on his sleeve, “when was the last time you put down your work and went outside, in the bright sunshine, to have a picnic?”

“It is a beautiful day,” he answered thoughtfully. “I suppose I could put off this incredibly boring paperwork for an hour or two.”

“The whole afternoon. Libby was most insistent.”

Despite himself, he laughed.


**


It was a beautiful day, just as he’d said. They sprawled under an old, spreading tree, a small, clear stream chuckling just a few metres away, and lunched on delicacies provided by Libby and her matchmaking cohorts. Draco, propped up on his elbow, his hair falling into his eyes, was in an expansive mood, talking freely and open to her questions.

The sun was warm, and they fell into a relaxed, comfortable silence after they’d finished their meal. Ginny, drowsy and a little flushed with wine, yawned delicately and closed her eyes, stretching out next to him, far closer than he normally allowed anyone.

If he watched over her as she slept, his eyes tender and protective, if he brushed his hand over her vibrant, copper hair and leaned down to press a kiss against her forehead, then she never knew it.


**


FIN