---

Chapter One

---

It was ten minutes into the game against the Wimbourne Wasps, and the star Puddlemere Chaser, Joscelind Wadcock, who was also the team captain, made a spectacular pass to Ian O’Brian, who passed to Ginny Weasley, who scored the first goal of the match. The stands erupted into a deafening flurry of blue and gold.

The Wimbourne Wasps’ Kenny Glathorn was already halfway across the field, but was no match for Ian, who punched the Quaffle out of Glathorn’s grasp and seized it. He weaved between the Wimbourne Chasers, neatly dodged an angry Bludger, and was doing some very fancy flying, much to the delight of the fans.

Ginny, however, noticed that something was amiss. Instead of focusing on Ian, who was in possession of the Quaffle, the Wasps’ Beaters were tailing Joscelind, and the other Chasers were surrounding her. One of the Beaters clubbed a Bludger in the direction of Joscelind’s head. The other launched a Bludger to her stomach.

With a sinking feeling, Ginny realized that the Wasps were trying to get Joscelind out of the game. It was almost unanimously agreed by Quidditch fans everywhere that Joscelind was the best Chaser in all of England, and now the Wasps were trying to do in Puddlemere’s winning card. Without a second thought, Ginny dove straight for the Bludgers.

On the Wasps’ end of the field, Ian threw the Quaffle straight through the center hoop, and was shocked to the point of falling off his broom when he heard a cry of outrage from the Puddlemere stands. Dangling from his broom by only one hand, he desperately wondered what he did wrong, until he turned his head just in time to see two Bludgers smashing into Ginny’s shoulder, throwing her off her broom. The crowd went out of control.

---

Ginny opened her eyes and saw three blue and gold blobs hovering over her. She blinked, trying to focus the figures.

“How are you feeling?” came the concerned, yet sullen voice of Oliver Wood, the team Keeper.

Ginny groaned inwardly. From the tone of Oliver’s voice, it was clear that they had lost. “Fine,” she croaked.

“Oh, Ginny,” cried Joscelind. “You saved my life! I don’t know how to thank you.”

“It’s nothing. The Wasps weren’t going to kill you,” Ginny said modestly.

“No, but they would have killed my career. With an injury like that…” she trailed away.

“I’m injured?” Ginny asked incredulously, and indeed, she felt a sharp pain shoot through her right shoulder. “I’m injured!” she cried.

“Your shoulder was smashed. Sandwiched between the Bludgers,” Ian supplied helpfully, smashing his palms together for unnecessary emphasis. “Nothing too serious –”

“Nothing too serious?!” Joscelind exclaimed. “If Ginny had been a Muggle, she’d still be in the Operations Room!”

“Well, thank Merlin I’m not a Muggle. Where are the others?” Ginny asked, looking around for the rest of her teammates.

“At the party. In fact, now that you’re awake, we should be going too. Ta,” Ian said cheerfully.

“Wait. Party? We won?”

“No,” snapped Oliver.

“I was so shaken by what had happened, and the Wasps kept trying to do me in, and I wasn’t used to playing with the Reserve Chaser. I couldn’t function properly,” Joscelind explained sadly.

“But then, what’s the party for?”

Oliver and Joscelind glanced at each other uncomfortably before Joscelind finally said, “Well, Ginny… I’m really sorry, it’s all my fault, but the Healers said that you shouldn’t play until your shoulder is fully healed. They said it could take up to three months.”

“Three months?” Ginny gasped, utterly horrified.

“So we’re throwing the party for Rosalyn. Being promoted from Reserve and all. Don’t worry, though, Ginny,” Ian added comfortingly. “We all know you’re a better player than her. When you recover, you can petition your way back in. Now get some rest.” Ian waved merrily, and left. Joscelind hesitantly followed, and Oliver waved half-heartedly before dragging his sulking feet out the door.

Ginny was shell-shocked. It was the end of the world! The apocalypse! She, a veteran player who had been Puddlemere’s second-best Chaser since she was fresh out of Hogwarts, was indefinitely put on Reserve! Feeling rather sick, she closed her eyes and moaned, “Noooo!”

---

A few hours later, Ginny was awoken from her fitful sleep by a strange clinking noise. She opened her eyes to see the door swing open and admit Oliver Wood, his arms laden with bottles of Butterbeer. “You’re up,” he said, placing the bottles on her bedside table. “Butterbeer?”

Ginny nodded and sat up slowly, trying not to aggravate her injured shoulder. “Why aren’t you at the party?” she asked.

Oliver scowled. “Rosalyn Lancaster is not one of my favorite people,” he said moodily.

It was true. Rosalyn was adored by most of her male fans, but the people that actually knew her weren’t very fond of her. Oliver especially had a reason to dislike her. With his boyishly good looks, he was the face of Puddlemere United. He was featured on all the posters that weren’t of the entire team, and was the star of many media events. But Quidditch had more male fans than female, and the men would definitely prefer a blonde beauty to a burly Scotsman who their wives and girlfriends kept swooning over.

Rosalyn was the very image of a Quidditch player. In fact, she had started her Quidditch career as a model for Quidditch uniforms. Her lithe and athletic frame, naturally highlighted blonde hair, sun-kissed skin, and eyes the very color of the sky made her the ideal Quidditch representative. It only helped that her dazzling cloud-white smile rivaled the brightness of the sun. She turned heads, and she knew it. She was spoiled, stuck-up, and never backed down in an argument. Rosalyn was like a bad combination of Pansy Parkinson and Ginny Weasley herself.

“We’re on the same boat,” Oliver said, popping the cap off a bottle. “You’re the Reserve Chaser, and I’m the Reserve face.”

Ginny snorted. “At least your face isn’t broken. A Chaser with a messed-up shoulder. It’s fabulous.”

“Yeah. Fabulous.” He handed her a Butterbeer.

“A toast to the Puddlemere Reserves,” Ginny said.

“Cheers,” said Oliver in a voice that was about as cheerful as Snape singing the Funeral March.

---

“No, no, bloody no! You’re doing it all wrong!” Ginny bellowed from her unhappy position in the stands. “You’re throwing a Quaffle into a hoop, not an owl out of a window!”

Rosalyn paid her no attention. It wasn’t until the coach told her the same thing that she finally changed her throwing technique.

Ginny smashed her face into her hand and fumed. Three months was just too far away.

She was no Trelawney, but Ginny could see that Puddlemere’s future was at the bottom of a ditch – a ditch at the bottom of a very steep hill. Joscelind and Ian were having a hard time adjusting to Rosalyn as a Chaser. Well, Joscelind was having a hard time, until the English National Team whisked her away to train for the next year’s World Cup. This left Puddlemere United with an even bigger problem, because at the very same time that Joscelind left, the other Reserve Chaser left too, in order to pursue a career as a professional demon-charmer. No one asked questions about that.

With only two Chasers left and a game in less than a month, situations got so desperate that Coach Deverill released an announcement in the Daily Prophet. Much to Oliver’s dismay, the advertisement featured a pouting Rosalyn and the words, “I can’t play Quidditch without a fellow Chaser… Do you want to play with me?” And thus, the tryouts began.

Hundreds of people flocked to Puddlemere Stadium, and Oliver and the Reserve Keeper were working overtime, testing out the skills of each contestant. Some were fairly decent, while others were downright terrible. One teenage boy named Timothy Brightwell was none too bright; after Oliver blocked ten out of ten of his throws, he flew himself into the goal, knocking Oliver off his broom in the process. Oliver was furious. The coach was mildly impressed, but crossed Brightwell off the list before Oliver had an apoplexy.

After trying out close to three hundred people, Coach Deverill and Oliver, the new team captain, decided on the finalists. Katie Bell, the old Gryffindor Chaser, a quiet man named Arthur Donovan, and the small but spirited Carson Allen were admitted as the new Reserves. Oliver was commenting on Katie’s excellent offensive maneuver when a Quaffle flew right into his face.

“Some Keeper you are, Wood. I caught you right off guard,” said a familiar, drawling voice. “So, am I late for tryouts?”

Oliver stared dumbly at the man who had just tried to murder him with a Quaffle.

It was Draco Malfoy, back from the dead.

---

To say that the Puddlemere players were surprised would be quite an understatement. When Draco Malfoy walked onto the pitch, Rosalyn emitted a terrified squeal, and fainted dead away. Many fled for cover, while the Beaters defensively clutched their bats.

Finally, Coach Deverill, who remembered rumors of Malfoys generally being good at Quidditch, calmed the rest of the Puddlemere team down and sent them to the stands. From there, they watched their Keeper go one-on-one with a man who should have been catching Snitches in the afterworld, instead of throwing Quaffles in the mortal realm.

They were all whispering to each other about what could have happened to the Malfoy heir, then stopped and gasped collectively as Oliver did a particularly dangerous backflip to stop one of Draco’s merciless Quaffles. Wherever he had been for the past seven years (which obviously hadn’t been in his grave), he had apparently learned how to throw.

Ginny’s initial shock at seeing the blond-haired ferret alive and kicking – and throwing – had worn off enough for her to want to hex him back into the grave he belonged in. But the Healers had insisted that she not do unnecessary wand-waving, so she scowled and resorted to making a fist and groaning as a lightning-fast Quaffle blazed its way through the right hoop, barely grazing Oliver’s outstretched fingers. The whistle blew.

“Eight out of ten. Against Wood,” Coach Deverill muttered to himself, rubbing his chin in thought. “Not bad. Not bad at all.” Deverill turned to Oliver. “Let’s put everyone on the field and see which Reserve works best with the entire team.”

Ginny could only sulk and fervently wish that Draco Malfoy would fall off his broom. But from the way he easily flipped and looped through the air, there wasn’t much chance of that.

Ginny didn’t even know where to start thinking. As far as she was concerned, all of the Malfoys had been wiped from the surface of the Earth. She had seen Lucius die with her own eyes. He had tried to ambush her during the war, but Tonks had appeared, and in the resulting fight, had finished him off. Narcissa had been killed by Antonin Dolohov, fellow Death Eater. The vile man had wanted Narcissa to marry him after the death of Lucius, and when Narcissa rejected him, he had killed her. It had been all over the papers.

Now that she thought about it, Draco’s death had never actually been proven. There were no pictures, and the only witnesses to it were Lupin and Harry, who had claimed to have killed the youngest Malfoy himself. Either Harry had miserably failed, or lied. Ginny didn’t know which was worse. If Harry had lied, she couldn’t understand why he would have done so. Malfoy was his nemesis. Who wanted to keep their nemesis alive and throwing Quaffles for Puddlemere United? Or was this some kind of twisted revenge where Malfoy would be kept enticingly close to the Snitch, but not be in the position to grab it? She would never understand Harry. Perhaps that was why she had never rekindled her relationship with him. Now he was happily married to Hermione. Well, as happy as one could be when his redheaded best friend kept sticking pins into a cornhusk doll that he had affectionately named Parry Hotter.

Ginny had been in the middle of sticking an imaginary pin into an imaginary cornhusk doll christened Maco Dralfoy when the whistle blew.

“Excellent game!” Coach Deverill was yelling, enthusiastically clapping everyone’s shoulders until little Carson Allen took the blow and fell face-forward onto the pitch. “You four,” Deverill continued, gesturing at the new Reserves, “sit over there with Weasley while the rest of the team and I decide who we’re going to play with.”

Ginny’s look of horror at being anywhere even remotely close to the slimy Slytherin went completely unnoticed by the coach.

“Now remember, even if you don’t get picked, don’t despair, because as recent events show, our Reserves are very important to us.” Deverill ushered his team into the locker rooms, and the door banged shut.

Ginny thanked Merlin and all the other heavenly deities when Katie Bell came over to talk with her, and Draco stayed in the air, lazily floating on his broom, and doing a few occasional fancy loops. For one alarming moment, she could have sworn that Draco had just winked at her, but she passed it off as the light playing tricks with her eyes, and listened to what Katie was saying.

As Katie talked about her job at Gringotts, Ginny found herself glancing at Draco. He didn’t look a day over eighteen, when he was supposed to have been killed. A horrible thought occurred to Ginny. Maybe he was eighteen. Maybe he was an Inferius! Hadn’t Pansy Parkinson worshiped him? Maybe she somehow escaped Azkaban, and brought him back from the dead!

“I’m sorry!” Katie exclaimed, looking slightly panicked. “I didn’t know you hated Knuts so much!”

“What?”

“I didn’t know you hated Knuts so much.”

Ginny blinked, utterly perplexed. “But I don’t hate Knuts. They’re money. And I’m a Weasley. Of course I like Knuts.”

“But, well, when I asked you if you wanted to know how Knuts were made, you looked terrified.”

“Oh. No. Not at all. I thought –” I thought that Malfoy was an Inferius. That sounded crazy, even to her own ears. “I thought I saw a spider on your shoulder, but that was just the light.”

“Oh. Okay,” said Katie, and proceeded to explain how the little pieces of copper were charmed in a top-secret way so they could be set apart from counterfeits.

Another thought occurred to Ginny. Perhaps the Malfoys were so rich because one of their ancestors had worked at Gringotts and had stolen the top-secret counterfeit charm!

“I would love to tell you how the coins are charmed, but I can’t, because as soon as I try to divulge that information, I’ll get warts all over my face and the goblins will feed me to a manticore.”

“Oh.”

Ginny was spared from further talks of Gringotts by the locker room door banging open. Deverill looked rather pleased with himself, but most of the team members, Oliver especially, looked as if they had been coerced into a disagreeable agreement.

“Party at Wood’s house!” the Coach boomed. “To welcome our newest official Chaser, Draco Malfoy!”

Something was very wrong with the world, Ginny thought. A former Death Eater, being welcomed into England’s best Quidditch team – to replace her as Chaser. Something was very wrong indeed.

“Well, at least I don’t have to be playing with him,” Katie said with a shudder. “Did you know that I haven’t worn any jewelry since seventh year? Ginny? Ginny? Did you see another spider?”

---

“Going home?” Oliver asked Ginny, who was busily searching the floor for her purse.

“Yeah. The sooner I get away from him, the better. I swear to Merlin, he’s creeping me out.”

Indeed, he was. Once everyone had a glass of Firewhisky in them, most forgot that their newest recruit was the infamous Draco Malfoy, and treated him as they would any other Quidditch player. And Draco played along, acting as if he were almost normal, except that he kept looking at her and smirking in his own special way – the way that made Ginny want to slap the look off his ferrety face.

“I’d like to walk you home, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave my house with these guys over here,” Oliver said, jerking a disapproving thumb at the group of Quidditch players who appeared to have had many more glasses of Firewhisky than they could handle.

“I can go alone. Have you seen my purse?”

“Looking for this, Weasley?”

Ginny blanched. It was the same voice that had teased her for most of her childhood, and she thought it was best that she get away from it, lest she broke her knuckles on the pathetic pointy face that belonged to the voice. It really wouldn’t do to have her left knuckles broken when her right shoulder had barely been patched back together. Ginny gritted her teeth, plastered on a smile, and spun around to face the source of her current grief. “Yes. Thank you, fellow teammate,” she said as kindly as she could, and politely grabbed her purse. Then she turned back around, wiped the smile off her face, and fled.

To her complete and utter horror, Draco Malfoy followed, the awful smirk not once leaving his face. “Your face was really something,” he said as he ran to catch up with the flame-haired Chaser. “You looked like you ate a whole box of U-No-Poo. Did anyone ever tell you that you look cute when you’re constipated? Because anyone who told you that was lying.”

Draco Malfoy was talking to her. Draco Malfoy was talking to her. Draco bloody Malfoy was talking to her as if she were an old friend and not one of his many mortal enemies who could not comprehend in the slightest how he was alive and why he was talking to her. It was enough to make her head spin. With her shoulder the way it was, Ginny didn’t think it would be wise to Apparate, but the pain-in-her-freckled-bum was talking nonstop about her unbecoming facial features, so she whipped out her wand, spun on the spot, and interrupted Draco’s sentence with a loud pop of displaced air.

She rematerialized in the comfort of her Puddlemere flat, with a distinctly uncomfortable shoulder. “Great Merlin’s socks,” she hissed, grasping her injured shoulder, but that only hurt it more. “Fuck,” she swore, but that didn’t make her feel better either. She just hoped her mum wasn’t around with the dreaded bar of stinging nettle soap.

---

It was two in the morning when enthusiastic and boisterous knocking woke her up. The only person who dared to knock down her door at this time of hour was Oliver Wood, who, as the new captain, was probably trying to recruit the members for a training session – two hours after the end of a party involving Firewhisky. How typical of him.

“Look, Oliver, this really isn’t –” she stopped as she yanked open her door and came face-to-face with what looked like a ghost and was ten times creepier. She screamed.

“Merlin, Weasley!” yelled Ginny’s most unwelcome visitor, clapping his hands over his ears. “You should try out for the lead singer of the Bitchy Banshees group. I’m sure you’d get the position.”

Ginny screamed again, just to annoy him, and slammed the door in his face. Except that it didn’t slam.

“Are you having an enjoyable time crushing my foot in the doorjamb? Because I certainly am not.”

Ginny pushed on the door with all of her might, but it didn’t budge.

“You have a strange way of keeping yourself entertained, Weasley.”

The door started to push back.

“No wonder you don’t have many friends. Do you crush random body parts of theirs too? Merlin, I wouldn’t want to know which part of your boyfriend you’d try to crush – provided that you have one, of course, and it’s no surprise that you don’t. No. It’s better for my health to not know.”

Draco successfully pushed his way in the door, and closed it behind him, locking up properly. “Are those the only locks you have on your door? Why, Weasley, what if some evil bloke decided to break in and have his wicked way with you?” He expertly threw more locking charms at the door. “Or is that your master plan to murder those pockmarked carrots you call brothers? To give them a heart attack when they find out their baby sister lost her virginity before they did?”

Draco certainly seemed to have a lot to say. Ginny, on the other hand, couldn’t form a single coherent sentence, because her head was too occupied thinking about how a former Death Eater was in her flat, locking it up so no one else could get in, talking about wicked ways and virginity, and her wand was back in her bedroom, which was all the way across the sitting room.

Ginny furtively glanced at said sitting room, and began to formulate a plan. All she had to do was quickly move to the table, grab the breadbasket, and throw it in his face, effectively distracting him. She would then drop and roll under the safety of her kitchen table, then push that over so it would – hopefully – crush the intruder’s foot. She would then jump over the loveseat, dive under the coffee table, then somersault her way into her room, where her wand was. Excellent. The plan was set, and she took a step to her right, towards the breadbasket.

Then everything went wrong.

She was having difficulty picking up a Quaffle. She didn’t know how she was going to throw an entire breadbasket, stuffed to bursting with her mum’s famously rich and dense blueberry scones. If she wanted to pick it up with her left hand, she would have to turn in a way that would make it impossible for her to roll under the table without breaking her back. The plan was ruined.

Grabbing Draco’s wand wasn’t an option either, because it was now safely tucked into his robes, and there was no way on magical Earth that she was going to reach in there. “Ah, fuck it,” she said, and gave Draco a mighty shove.

Had Ginny shoved him with both hands, she may have sufficiently given him enough of a push to knock him clean off his feet. But her wretched right shoulder wasn’t cooperating, and Draco ended up losing his balance, which simultaneously caused him to reach out and grab whatever was nearest, which, to Ginny’s great misfortune, was her. The next thing she knew, Draco was on the floor, she was on the floor on top of him, and, due to her flailing, a dozen blueberry scones were also on the floor.

“Why, Weasley,” said Draco, sounding a bit constricted from Ginny’s weight across his chest, “if I had known that simply arriving at your door would have caused you to fall for me, I would have done it ages ago. Of course, I would have had to charm my nose off my face first, so I wouldn’t be forced to smell the filth of that lopsided birthday cake you called a home –”

“Stuff it, Malfoy,” Ginny spat, and jammed a blueberry scone into his mouth.

---

Ginny sat at her kitchen table, arms crossed and scowling menacingly. “Get out of my house, Malfoy, you miserable prat.”

“Nice place you have here,” he said in what could almost be considered a friendly tone. “Homely, messy, and positively reeking of blueberry scones. I like it.”

“What do you want, Malfoy?”

“Dinner.”

Ginny rolled her eyes and sighed in frustration. The insufferable boy – man, she corrected herself – hadn’t changed much. Actually, no, that was wrong. He had changed, several times.

He had first changed during her fifth year, his sixth. He had gone from being a snot-nosed bad boy to a terrified young man who had taken a step too far in the wrong direction. He changed again during the war, tearfully running into the arms of the Order, and had fought against the Death Eaters in three separate battles. The next time he tried to play hero, however, he was kidnapped. The next time anyone saw him, he had turned into something like his father – cold and cruel. Then, he died. Or at least, he was rumored to be.

And now he was back, and he had changed again, back into the snot-nosed brat he had been until he was sixteen. The way he was acting, it was as if the war had never happened at all.

“So, did you buy your way back into society?” Ginny finally asked the man rifling through her food cabinet.

“Don’t be daft, Weasley,” Draco replied conversationally. “My entire family were wanted Death Eaters. Do you really think the Ministry would have let me keep a Knut of the Malfoy funds? Yes, Weasley, I’m dirt poor. You can wipe that look off your face,” he added, without looking back at her.

Ginny rearranged her facial features into one that did not so resemble a suffocating goldfish.

“Aha! A green apple. Wonderful.” Draco took a large bite out of the fruit and strolled out of her kitchen. “Crisp, and tart, and just a bit sweet. You know, green apples are rather a lot like me –”

“Malfoy! Get the hell out of my house, you stinking rotten apple!”

“I can’t,” Draco explained with a casual shrug. “Where would I go?”

“You mean…”

“Yes. Ever since Malfoy Manor became the Museum of Modern War, I have become homeless.”

“So what you really mean to say is…”

“I’ll be staying right here. With you.” He grinned winningly before plopping onto her couch in the most un-Malfoyish fashion. “So, I’m in the mood for a hearty goulash. How about you?”

---

Growing up with Molly Weasley for a mother meant that it went against every one of Ginny’s beliefs to let anyone – anyone – go hungry. As a result, Ginny found herself standing in her kitchen at two-fifteen in the morning, stirring a pot of beef and chopped vegetables, for no one other than her greatest enemy that ever lived – or died, then lived again.

To her left, Draco was happily chopping carrots, though rather violently, as if they were all miniature Weasleys. Draco Malfoy was chopping carrots, and if it wasn’t for the stabbing pain of her constantly aching shoulder, Ginny would’ve thought that she was in some sort of bizarre dream.

“Mighty nice of you to make me food, Weasley. I’ll pay for your groceries the next time I get my paycheck.”

The newly impoverished Draco Malfoy was offering to pay for her groceries. It just wasn’t right. “All right!” she yelled, brandishing her spoon threateningly in his face. “What are you up to? What kind of scheme is this? Why are you in my house, why am I making you soup, and why are you being civil to me?”

Draco snatched away the spoon and put on a look of mock hurt. “Why shouldn’t I be civil to you, Weasley? My days of treating you as scum are over.” He almost looked sincere. “I’m as poor as you are. Poorer, actually, seeing as I don’t have a home. So, we’re equals now.”

“No, Malfoy, we’re not equals. I am so much better than you!”

“I know. That’s why you’re making me dinner, and letting me live in your flat.”

There was, Ginny decided, no point in arguing with something so preposterous. “Malfoy,” she began slowly, running her good hand through her scraggly red hair. “I am really confused right now. First of all, I don’t even know how you’re alive, or why you’ve suddenly decided to show up as a Quidditch player after years of being presumed dead, or why you’re here with me, of all people. Care to explain?”

“Sure. After dinner.”

---

“You mean to say,” Ginny said incredulously, slowly chewing through the story that she had just been presented with, “that you have no recollection of anything that happened after your third year?”

“Well, not exactly. I remember making those ‘Potter Stinks’ badges for the Tournament, which was in my fourth year, but that’s about it. Say, I never got a chance to find out. Who won? It can’t have been Potter.”

“It was Potter. No, I mean Harry.”

“Bloody hell. What was the Goblet of Fire thinking, letting that scar-headed dolt into the Tournament?”

Ginny was about to say that it was Voldemort’s evil doing, but thought better of it. Her mind was reeling. That explained Draco’s childish, almost carefree behavior. He didn’t remember the war. As far as he was concerned, he was simply a pampered boy who liked to make fun of Harry Potter and his friends. “So, where have you been these past seven years? What did you do?”

“Aunt Andy took me to live in a small wizarding community in the Swiss Alps. She said I had been injured in the war, hence the amnesia, and she was the only relative I had left.”

“Aunt Andy?”

“Andromeda Tonks, nee Black. I didn’t like her very much – after all, she did marry a Muggle – but I figured she was better than the war. When I wasn’t making fun of the boys from the village, I played Quidditch with them, and realized that I had natural talent as a Chaser. Maybe that’s why I never beat Potter to the Snitch. I was meant to be a Chaser, not a Seeker.”

“Why didn’t you come back after the war was over?”

“Why would I? Aunt Andy told me that I was a wanted Death Eater, too. I still have the Mark, you know. And besides, my parents were dead, my friends were dead, and Malfoy Manor and the family fortunes were taken by the Ministry. I thought that if I returned then, I would end up killing them all for ruining my life, so I just stayed in the Alps. It was peaceful. The war never quite affected Switzerland.”

“So why’d you come back now?”

“My Aunt died, and I didn’t want to stay there anymore. I knew my name was cleared, so I decided, why not?”

Ginny couldn’t decide if Draco’s expression should have been described as indifferent, or as sort of sad. She didn’t know if he was capable of the emotion.

“She was happy, during her last moments,” Draco continued, frowning slightly. “Said she could finally join her daughter and husband.”

A pang of sadness shot through Ginny. Tonks had once saved her life from Lucius Malfoy, but during the Final Battle, Tonks had lost her life at the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange.

“And do you know what else she told me?” he asked, looking directly into Ginny’s eyes. “She told me to keep my head down and go find a Weasley for help.” He snorted. “I didn’t, for the two or so months I’ve been back. Did keep my head down, though, because I suspected there were people who’d want to kill me for this.” Draco roughly pulled up his left sleeve to expose the hideous tattoo on his forearm. “Then I ran out of what little money Aunt Andy had given me, saw an ad in the paper looking for a Chaser, found out that a Weasley was on the team, and decided that it was fate leading me to a hearty bowl of homemade goulash.”

“Fate?” Ginny scoffed. “I thought Malfoys don’t believe in fate.”

“We didn’t. But that was when we had money to manipulate fate with. And it isn’t Malfoys anymore. It’s just Malfoy. Only one. Unless you want to use your famous Weasley fertility to help me out,” he said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

“No way, you bastard!” Ginny screeched, highly affronted.

Draco frowned seriously. “No. No child of mine will be a bastard. Would you like me to buy you a ring first? I’ll do that as soon as I get my paycheck.”

“Filthy bastard!” Ginny screamed again, pelting him with blueberry scones.

“To get my paycheck,” Draco yelled while ducking to avoid a flying scone, “I’ll need to practice Quidditch, and to practice Quidditch, I’ll need to get some sleep.”

Ginny watched in detached horror as Malfoy neatly dodged her scone and jogged into her bedroom. It took a moment for her to process the horrifying information, and another to respond. “Malfoy! Get your bloody arse out of my bed!”

---

To be continued...

---

---

Chapter Two

---

Ginny was – quite rudely, in her opinion – woken from her sleep by a pair of arms that seized her into a ferocious hug – so ferocious that there was a resounding crack from her shoulder. Though Ginny had taken a heavy dose of pain-relief potion, the pain was unbearable, and Ginny screamed into the bush that was obscuring her face.

Her long, piercing shriek drew enough people into her bedroom to form multiple Quidditch teams. Bright light flooded her room, blinding her eyes, and making her scream even louder.

“Her shoulder!” someone cried over the flurry of activity. “Her shoulder’s broken!”

“Oh!” exclaimed the voice, whose owner had caused Ginny to awaken in the most disturbing manner possible. The voice muttered a string of spells, and the pain in Ginny’s shoulder disappeared with the crunch of fusing bone. “Ginny!” the voice continued, wrapping her into another fierce hug, and nearly suffocating her with the brown bush that was shoved in her face.

“Hermione.”

“We were so worried about you! We heard that Malfoy was alive and stalking you!”

“Is that why a battalion of Aurors and reporters – reporters!” Ginny pulled the covers over her head in alarm. “Hermione! I’m a famous Quidditch star! I can’t be seen in this state, wearing pink pajamas that clash so horribly with my frizzy, frizzy hair!”

“Ginny,” said Hermione exasperatedly, “Malfoy is in your house! Sleeping on your couch! Why is he there?”

“Because I wouldn’t let him have my bed?”

“Ginny! Are you saying that you let him in your house? And you didn’t report him to the Aurors?”

“I thought I would do that at a slightly less ungodly hour. You know, a time when it isn’t bloody four in the morning?”

“Ginny!” yelled another voice, too familiar and too concerned for Ginny’s good.

“Oh, Merlin! Not her!”

“Oh, my baby! Did he hurt you, Ginny? Did he do anything to you?” Ginny found herself in another bone-crunching hug as Molly Weasley began to sob into her daughter’s aching shoulder.

“I’m fine, Mum. He destroyed my basket of blueberry scones, but I think I’ll live.”

“Destroyed? Oh, sweet mother of Merlin, Draco Malfoy is exhibiting violence in my daughter’s home!” Molly wailed.

“Mrs. Weasley,” came the calm voice of Oliver, “I would have to kindly ask you to stop aggravating my Chaser’s injured shoulder.”

“What? Oh, of course! How silly of me!” Molly released Ginny from the queen of all hugs, gazed down at her, and beamed. “I saw that broadcasted on the Tele-wiz. My little girl, all grown up and doing heroic deeds!” Suddenly, she was scowling and being menacing, with a hand on her hip. “And I’d like to remind you, young lady, to never, ever do that again! Saving your teammates is not worth giving your dear mum a heart attack!”

“Yes, Mrs. Weasley, I’ll make sure she never does that again,” Oliver said consolingly, and ushered the Weasley matriarch out of Ginny’s room. Ginny could have kissed him. He then turned to the Aurors, who were busily searching for incriminating evidence, and the reporters, who were either taking notes or pictures, and said loudly, “If your presence in my Chaser’s bedroom at four in the morning delays her recovery, and thus reduces Puddlemere’s chances of regaining one of their best Chasers, I will gladly introduce you to the Puddlemere lawyer.”

No one paid him much attention, except Hermione, who was menacing when she was being professional. “Mr. Wood, if your presence in what could very well be a crime scene hampers our search for incriminating evidence against Draco Malfoy, I will gladly bring you to the Ministry to be questioned about your true motives.”

“What are you implying?” Oliver was asking, but at that moment, the door burst open and Lavender Brown came tumbling in.

“Oh, good!” she squealed. “You’re all here! I heard from Ian – he’s my new boyfriend, by the way, my last one had such unrefined kissing techniques – that Draco Malfoy was back from the dead and playing for his team! What a sensational story this will make! So, Oliver Wood, is it true that Malfoy made the team by threatening to murder your family members if you didn’t let him join?”

“No. Listen, Lavender –”

“Hermione! Is it true that Harry didn’t kill Malfoy because Andromeda Tonks requested Remus Lupin to request Harry that he be allowed to live? And is it true that they faked his death so the reporters and Aurors wouldn’t go harassing him? And is it true that Harry only let him live under the condition that he be kept in the dungeon of a castle in the mountains of Romania that was guarded by dragons?” Lavender said all this very quickly.

“Er, Lavender –”

“Ginny! Is it true that Malfoy spent the last seven years fighting the dragons so that he could come see you again, because you were his secret true love?”

“What?”

“Answers! I need answers!” Lavender cried, waving her notepad frantically.

“I think,” said a new voice, “that the answers need to come from me.”

Lavender looked like she was going to asphyxiate from overwhelming joy. “Harry! Are you granting me permission to do an exclusive interview with you?”

---

Growing up with Molly Weasley for a mother meant that it went against every one of Ginny’s beliefs to let any visitor – even if they were unwelcome – leave without drinking a cup of tea first. As a result, Ginny found herself standing in her kitchen at four-fifteen in the morning, stirring several cups of chamomile tea, for no one other than the greatest nuisances of her life.

Lavender Brown was the Daily Prophet’s second-best reporter, coming right after Rita Skeeter herself. She had insurmountable amounts of talent in snooping, wheedling out information, and elaborating. In other words, she was a complete pest.

Hermione Potter, nee Granger, was a paranoid Auror who saw criminal tendencies in everyone except herself and her Auror-partner husband. After seeing too many Order members turn traitor during the war, she began accusing everyone of everything. Ginny herself was once accused of wanting to bludgeon Joscelind Wadcock to death with a broomstick. “You’re jealous, and you know it!” Hermione had declared. Hermione was also, unsurprisingly, the super-sleuth of Great Britain, and had not once come across a case that she could not solve. The only thing that Hermione couldn’t comprehend was why Ron Weasley was jealous of Harry, when he was the one who had broken up with her, saying she spent far too much time reviewing crime scene photos with Harry in the small, dark, photo-developing room, which was reminiscent of Hogwarts’ many broom closets, only with deep red, almost romantic lighting.

Harry Potter had once been the Prince Charming of Ginny’s life. But Ginny had been protected during the war, while Harry had been at the pinnacle of it. After it was all over, Ginny found that she was too different from the Savior of the wizarding world. And, she secretly thought, not very worthy of him. It had hurt at first, but now she was perfectly happy with just being friends. The only problem was that he was bloody annoying. He was never satisfied with just the Ministry-assigned cases, and went about solving crimes on his own, with Hermione. He had once called an emergency lockdown of Puddlemere Stadium during the middle of a match against Ireland, because he was positive that someone in the audience was trying to murder Ginny with a blunt axe. Of course, what had really transpired was that a young boy had been sketching pictures of his favorite Quidditch players, including Ginny, using a blunt pencil.

Then, there was Oliver Wood, who Ginny was feeling rather confused about these days. She liked him – a bit more than she would have liked – because he was a funny and charming gentleman who never failed to cheer her up when she was down. She also liked him because he reminded her of her favorite brother Charlie. But that was why she also hated him, because Charlie had been lost in the war along with Bill and her dad, and every time Oliver did something that reminded her of Charlie, she became sad. He also annoyed the hell out of her, waking her up at vampire-active hours to practice Quidditch – in the rain, in the snow, in the middle of a heat wave, during thunderstorms (though he never suggested that again after a rather unfriendly lightning bolt turned his broomstick to char dust), whenever.

Draco Malfoy was not even worth thinking of, because her list of grievances involving him would be enough to wallpaper all the Hogwarts classrooms.

The small group of people, who could get under Ginny’s skin like no other, were seated around her coffee table, while the rest of Harry’s army of Aurors were searching for Dark artifacts that Draco could have hidden in her flat in the two hours that he was there, and Lavender’s squadron of reporters and photographers were getting the insider’s look at a Quidditch star’s flat.

Unable to do anything about the ridiculously messy and embarrassing state of her flat, Ginny chose to ignore it. Instead, she set down fivecups of tea in front of her unwelcome guests, and settled herself into her couch, next to Oliver, and clutching a glass full of pain-relief potion.

Lavender took a sip of her tea, and transformed from a happy-go-lucky gossiper to a professional reporter. “Hello, everyone. I am Lavender Brown, from the Daily –”

“Cut the intro, Brown. We all know who you are,” Draco interjected. From the way he was sitting in Ginny’s plush armchair, with his feet propped up on her coffee table, he looked as if he owned the place.

“The guilty party has the right to remain silent! Anything you say can and will be used –”

“I am not guilty of anything, Granger, unless you’re planning on arresting me for the rather entertaining thoughts I’m having about you dying a rather gruesome death.”

“Potter,” Harry barked. “Her name is now Potter.”

Draco gasped theatrically. “Oh, no! My worst nightmare has come true! There will be bushy-haired, buck-toothed, scar-headed little freaks running around, with eyes as green as a fresh pickled toad!”

Ginny blushed at the deliberate reference to her first year, and hmphed indignantly.

Another indignant screech was heard from the bedroom, and Ginny flushed even more as she assumed that an unfortunate reporter had come across her underwear drawer – full of large, white cotton granny knickers, which would have the public laughing at her until she actually became someone’s grandmother.

“Just so you know,” Hermione pressed on, glaring at Draco, and completely oblivious to Ginny’s state of painful mortification, “it doesn’t matter that your name has been cleared for your activities during the war. You’re still on my list of potentially dangerous individuals. After all, who knows what kinds of heinous crimes you committed to those poor Swiss villagers?”

“I turned everyone I didn’t like into wheels of Swiss cheese, Potter,” Draco said sardonically. “And then I sold them to the Americans at unreasonably high prices.”

Hermione choked on her tea. “So that’s why the general population of Switzerland was decreasing!” she spluttered. “You insufferable –”

“How do you live with her, Potter?” Draco demanded.

“Happily,” came the retort.

Lavender loudly cleared her throat. “I am Lavender Brown, from the Daily Prophet. I appreciate you sitting here with me today –”

“You mean tonight, you evil wench. You woke me from my beauty sleep.”

“– And I would just like to ask you all a few questions. First of all, Mr. Potter, is it true that you lied about killing Draco Malfoy, who participated in Death Eater activities during the Second War?”

“Obviously, seeing as I certainly am not the imprint of a departed soul.”

“Mr. Potter?” Lavender insisted.

“Er, yes.”

“Would you care to elaborate?”

“Er…”

“It’s all right, Potter,” Draco said in a mock comforting tone. “You can admit that you’ve secretly been worshiping me all those years, and couldn’t bring yourself to kill my holy self.”

“It was all Andromeda’s fault,” Harry snapped peevishly. “After losing her husband, her daughter, and both of her sisters in the war, Andromeda pleaded Remus to spare her only surviving relative, which was Malfoy over here. Andromeda was supposed to be his mother-in-law, and Remus couldn’t refuse her, so he came to talk to me. I saw what had happened in the North Tower, and Malfoy fought for our side –”

“I did what?” Draco interrupted. “I thought I was a Death Eater through and through!”

Harry snorted. “No. At heart, you were Dumbledore’s man through and through. That’s why you didn’t kill him.”

“Not killing him does not interpret to mean that I was ‘his man through and through’. I didn’t kill you. Am I your man through and through? Not in a million years. I’m my own man.”

“Which,” Hermione said tartly, “explains why you joined Voldemort’s crew of not-so-humble minions. Because you were, as you say, your own man.”

Draco scowled, and crossed his arms defensively. “Look. I don’t know why I joined, okay? My memory’s gone. Father always told me that he would be proud if I followed in his footsteps, but he also said that if I didn’t want to, he wouldn’t be disappointed, as long as I didn’t start fighting against the Dark Lord, because that would be plain stupid. And Mother said my skin was too perfect to mar with such unfashionable tattoos.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “If we’re done talking about the blinding beauty of your skin, Malfoy, can I return to my explanation?”

“One moment,” Lavender said, scribbling away furiously and muttering, “Inside the mind of a Death Eater’s mother: In an exclusive interview with Draco Malfoy, the Man-Who-Lived, he reveals that his mother, who was previously known to be a staunch supporter of He-Who-Was-Defeated, considered the Dark Mark as unfashionable. We here at the Daily Prophet must disagree. There is something decidedly sexy about a skull and a snake – two definitely macho tattoo images.” She looked up and beamed. “You may continue, Mr. Potter.”

Harry rolled his eyes again, so hard that Hermione looked at him in terror, hoping to Merlin that her husband’s beautiful green eyes wouldn’t get stuck that way. Harry’s eyeballs returned to their normal position, Hermione breathed a sigh of relief, and Harry continued, “Where was I? Ah, yes – and he fought for our side, so I believed that it was possible for him to be redeemed. I talked to Andromeda, who insisted that her nephew did nothing more than duel with a few Order members, and we took Malfoy and started retrieving his memories to verify her claims. Of course, Malfoy was an accomplished Occlumens, and he resisted. I got angry, and perhaps…” Harry faltered. “Er… I’m digging my own grave here, aren’t I?”

“It’s okay, Harry,” Hermione said soothingly. “The public will be angry enough with the fact that you lied to them about Malfoy’s death, and won’t have time to berate you on your lack of subtlety and patience when dealing with Occlumens.”

“Er, right… So maybe I tried a bit too hard – just a bit – to retrieve his memories, and we got them, all right, it’s just that Malfoy never got them back.”

“So it was you that wiped my memory? Bloody ingenious of you, Potter!” Draco roared.

Harry shrugged it off. “Andromeda preferred it that way, so he wouldn’t wake up in the night, screaming from his war memories. So we let her take him away, and her final request was that she didn’t want people to bang down her cottage door asking for interviews with Malfoy, and I, assuming that he would never come back, thought the easiest way would be to say that he died. I mean, even Lavender wouldn’t go around in the afterworld, asking dead people for interviews.”

“You have no idea, Harry,” Lavender said mysteriously, then was all business again. “So now that we know what happened to you, Mr. Malfoy, why did you decide to join Puddlemere United?”

“Why did Puddlemere United put out that wanted ad for Chasers?”

“Why did you answer the ad?”

“What else would you do with a wanted ad? Ask it a question?”

“Could you stop answering my questions with questions?”

“Could I?”

Lavender turned white with suppressed rage, and pursed her lips together. After a few tense moments, she took a deep breath and said, “Mr. Malfoy, please answer me with a complete sentence that is non-interrogative. Why did you break into Ginny Weasley’s flat at two in the morning?”

“I did not break in. I knocked, and Weasley opened the door.”

“I thought it was Oliver!” Ginny exclaimed.

“And it was at two in the morning,” Draco continued, “because I was talking to her at around midnight when she so politely Disapparated on me, and it took me two hours to locate her flat.”

“Why did you want to locate her flat?”

“Because a pauper understands a pauper, and I decided that if anyone would give me a warm and loving place to stay, it would be a Weasley.”

Ginny snorted tremendously at the word ‘loving’. She drained the last of her potion, and felt unpleasantly woozy.

“Why Ginny?”

“Yeah. Why me?”

“I do not think of the Burrow as habitable in the slightest, so it was a choice between the flats of various Weasley offspring. None of the males are famous for their cooking skills, so I settled on the female one. Besides, she was on Puddlemere United, and I needed a job anyway.”

“So that answers my first question,” Lavender muttered. “Miss Weasley, what are your thoughts on - Ahhhh!”

“What are my thoughts on screaming? Well, I think I scream well enough to try out for the Bitchy –” Hermione tsked disapprovingly at the word. “– Banshees group and make the lead singer,” Ginny replied, but Lavender was staring in horror at whatever was behind Ginny, and she followed Lavender’s line of vision. “Great Merlin’s socks.”

From under the couch emerged Auror Ernie Macmillan, clutching what was unmistakably a blunt axe.

“It’s a blunt axe,” he remarked, rather unnecessarily.

“I was right!” Harry exclaimed triumphantly. “Ginny, there really is an axe-murderer out to get you!”

All eyes turned to Draco. “What?” he asked, looking miffed. “I didn’t bring it here. It’s Weasley’s. Right?”

Ginny, who had gone paper-white, shook her head slowly and said, “No. It’s not mine.”

---

To be continued…

---

---

Chapter Three

---

“No. It’s not mine,” Ginny said, and those were the magic words that triggered a pandemonium of action.

The Aurors forgot their subtlety, and began rummaging through every inch of her flat. The photographers were going crazy, taking shot after shot of the dull metal weapon. Harry was yelling at Draco, who was rolling his eyes and dropping sarcastic remarks, and Hermione was either muttering spells over the axe, or barking out orders at her team of Aurors. Lavender was working on breaking the world record for fastest writer; her new exclusive article, ‘The Chaser of a Chaser’, was going to sell millions! She just knew it.

Ginny was feeling rather detached from all the activity. There was an evil-looking blunt axe in her flat, which had made its appearance within the same day as a former Death Eater, who had spent the last two hours under her roof. It was a miracle she wasn’t dead yet. Harry was terrifying in his state, his green eyes flashing dangerously with rage. Hermione was no longer Hermione, but a crime-solving machine. Though she was usually warm and friendly, when she was in her Auror-mode, she was cold and emotionless. Seeing her closest friends so dangerous and menacing made Ginny feel distinctly uncomfortable.

The Aurors, who were running around frantically, reminded Ginny of the war, during which she was normally surrounded by Order members in various states of panic. So many of them had been lost… The crowdedness of her flat also reminded her of the Burrow, and with a wave of sadness, Ginny remembered that it was no longer very crowded. Only her Mum, Fred, and George remained. Ron lived at Hogwarts, Percy lived in London, and they had all drifted apart. The rest… the rest had not made it through the war.

Oliver was gently patting her shoulder, in much the same way that Charlie used to when she was upset. Charlie had always been her favorite brother, and Oliver acted so much like him… Except that Charlie had usually smelled of burnt leather, but Oliver smelled like the wood of a broomstick handle, and the grass of a Quidditch pitch, and while the smell was comforting, it also reminded her that she really missed playing, but was stuck on bloody Reserve, while Draco sodding Malfoy was playing in her place. The vile little ferret was also sitting in her armchair, looking insufferable as always, probably wanting to murder her with that stupid axe – even after she made him soup, the miserable bastard – which was a very disturbing thought, and now her head hurt, and she was feeling woozy from too much potion, and her shoulder was still throbbing, and Oliver’s presence next to her was so steady and solid, and the next thing she knew, she was sobbing into her Quidditch Captain’s chest.

“It’s all right, Ginny,” Oliver murmured in his soft Scottish accent, stroking her hair. “No axe-murderer is going to get you when you have me, Harry, and Hermione around.”

That reminded her. She was always being protected. She had never even had the proper chance to fight during the war. Even Malfoy had fought for their side at one point, but she never had – she hadn’t been allowed to, because her parents and her brothers had all demonstrated more overprotection than should be legal; even Charlie had been against her fighting.

She didn’t need everyone’s protection. She could take care of herself! So there was an axe-murderer out to get her. So what? Most likely, said axe-murderer was the blond man sitting in her armchair. She’ll show him the side of Ginny Weasley that was never given the opportunity to show itself!

With an angry huff, Ginny flung herself off Oliver’s chest, growled at him for trying to play the overprotective-brother role, much to his confusion, and did what her brain – her severely sleep-deprived, overworked, addled on pain-relief potion brain – told her was the logical thing to do. “You!” she thundered at a slightly surprised Draco, pointing a freckly finger two inches from his face. She snatched the axe away from Hermione, who was testing it for fingerprints, lifted it high above her head, and swung it directly in the direction of Draco Malfoy’s pale, pointed, terror-stricken face.

---

“It’s the pain-relief potion,” Oliver was testifying to Head Auror Joseph Brand. “She smashed her shoulder, and she’s been taking large amounts of the potion. It’s affected her brain. She’s also received a lot of stress in a short amount of time. She’s not herself. And besides, she’s under the impression that Malfoy was trying to kill her first.”

Auror Brand nodded impatiently, jotting down a few notes. Celebrity cases. He hated them. He had better things to do, such as worry about the Russian Wizarding Mafia, whose activities were getting more suspicious every day. Celebrity cases, on the other hand, were rarely anything more than spite caused by jealousy leading to a crime, and were rather simple cases by nature, but the Ministry just had to have the Head Auror look into every case involving celebrities – including potion-addled Quidditch stars wielding blunt axes. The only thing that made this case even remotely interesting was the involvement of Draco Malfoy, who wasn’t dead, meaning that Harry Potter was due for a serious meeting with the Board of Aurors. Knowing Potter, he would probably get off with nothing more than a suspension, maybe a few months at the most. Celebrity Aurors. He hated them.

Hermione, another celebrity Auror, was biting her lip, engaged in an internal debate with herself.

Ginny is – well, she’s Ginny. She’s not a murderer, and you know it, Hermione.

Hermione Jane Granger-Potter! Are you letting your personal feelings affect your job? Weasley is a threat to society! You can’t let innocent victims die because you’re too soft to condemn your own friend!

But Ginny isn’t a threat to society! Analyzing her current situations, especially the pain-relief potion, it is safe to say that under Code 9124 of Magical Law and Reinforcement, Ginny should not be convicted of attempted murder because she didn’t know that she was trying to attempt murder.

Listen, Potter. Weasley said, “Die, Malfoy, die!” while swinging the axe in his face. If that doesn’t indicate that she was trying to kill him, what does?

She’s always hated Malfoy –

You’ve always hated Malfoy. Do you go around swinging blunt axes at him?

Well, no, but –

No buts, Potter! Are you an Auror or not?

But she wasn’t sane at the moment! A therapy or two at St. Mungo’s Psychiatric Ward –

Should have taken place last year, when she tried to beat Joscelind Wadcock to death with a broomstick!

No! She didn’t! That was you and your paranoia. It was quite embarrassing too, how everyone looked at me like I lost my mind, or something.

You’re getting soft, Potter. I’m disappointed in myself.

But Hermione –

Didn’t I say ‘no buts’? It doesn’t matter who the guilty party is! It doesn’t matter if it’s Harry –

HARRY WILL NEVER BE THE GUILTY PARTY!

Okay, all right. Just – just keep your hair on. Merlin. So, it doesn’t matter if Professor McGonagall – is that better?

A bit.

Great. It doesn’t matter if Professor McGonagall is the guilty party. You are an Auror, and it’s your job to keep the world safe from raving lunatics and potential axe-murderers! If it isn’t for people like you, who would keep the children safe at night? If all the Aurors let their criminal friends get away, would anyone be safe in our world? It’s up to you to make a difference, Hermione Potter! Only you – and Harry – can save the world!

What a beautiful speech. I should have been a novelist; I’d move people to tears.

Oh, shut up, Potter. Now get out there and save the world! Got it?

“Got it!”

Auror Brand raised a graying eyebrow. “Got what, Potter?”

“Ginny Weasley should be taken in for standard-procedure criminal interrogating,” Hermione said firmly, her eyes sparkling with some sort of noble, heroic emotion.

“Hermione!” Oliver said in shock.

Hermione’s eyes were blazing with what could only be described as justice. “And Oliver Wood, too. It is highly possible that he was Weasley’s accomplice in numerous crimes!”

“What numerous crimes? Stealing Quaffles from the opposite team’s players?”

“Is that a confession, Mr. Wood?”

Auror Brand rolled his eyes and sighed. “Just go in for the interrogation, Mr. Wood. It’ll get Auror Potter off your back, and make the rest of your life much more enjoyable. Just pretend it’s an interview. I’ll get my secretary to fetch you a nice cup of tea and some blueberry scones.”

---

“Well,” said Oliver gruffly, after more than three hours of ridiculous, nonstop questioning. “That went well.” The sun was already beginning to rise, sending rays of soft gold light shining through the cracks in the blinds. He was late for practice. He couldn’t believe it! He, Oliver Wood, the Captain of the Puddlemere United team, was late for practice!

Ginny, who was given a pain-relief charm instead of a potion, was back to her senses, blushing furiously, and refusing to meet Draco’s gaze.

Draco, who had been this close to having his beautiful face slashed into halves, was glaring daggers at Ginny, enraged beyond words.

Hermione looked sheepish, and quietly looked over a case file regarding a flock of mad pigeons attacking Muggles in Suffolk.

Harry was currently being reprimanded for lying to the Board about Draco Malfoy’s death.

The Potters’ office reflected its inhabitants. Hermione’s side of the room was impeccably clean – so clean that it was almost sterile, and visitors almost never went to her side, out of fear of somehow tainting her space. Even now, Ginny, Oliver, and even Draco, who believed that cleanliness was a virtue, were sitting in chairs on Harry’s half of the room, which was much more welcoming. While Hermione’s desk was free of anything except for her desk lamp, a quill and ink pot, a small bowl of paper clips, and a framed photo of the Trio (which was measured with a ruler to be exactly three inches away from the edge of the desk), Harry’s was covered with various odds and ends. Not having color-coded folders to go with his equally nonexistent color-coded filing cabinet, Harry’s desk was covered with a dangerously high stack of case files, all out of order. In addition to that were several inky quills, old owl post, a bowl of lemon drops infested with ants, random pieces of parchment, a broken paperweight, too many picture frames to count, and hidden underneath an ancient case file was what looked suspiciously like a slice of cake from Ginny’s twenty-fourth birthday party – which took place more than a month ago.

There was complete silence in the room, except for the occasional rustle of papers as Hermione reviewed the details of the mad pigeons. Hermione wasn’t really reading the case file, of course. She was trying to figure out how to apologize for her paranoia. She had tried to incarcerate two old friends on the premises of attempting to murder an old enemy. What was wrong with her? It was the blasted war. There was no other explanation for how her usually trusting self had suddenly begun to think of everyone as potential criminals and traitors.

Just as Hermione was about to make a speech on the hardships of war affecting the human psyche, the door squeaked open – Hermione cringed. That door was going to be oiled the old-fashioned Muggle way immediately, as soon as her guests left – and Harry trudged in. “Almost lost my job,” he muttered, then looked apologetically at Hermione. “I’m on suspension for the rest of the year. They’ll send you a replacement partner – I heard it was a kid fresh out of Auror training,” he said disdainfully.

Hermione nodded morosely. She hated rookies. They were all full of brash impulse, and had no meticulous strategies or cunning plans – except the Slytherins, but she didn’t like them either. “It’s all right, Harry. I’m just so glad they didn’t fire you.” Harry gave her the ‘I am Harry Potter, Savior of the world, and nobody fires me’ wink. Hermione smiled, but the smile faded away as she turned to the rest of the people in her office. “Er, about me trying to accuse you…” She trailed away.

“She didn’t mean it. She was just way into her job,” Harry finished.

“I didn’t mean it either!” Ginny chimed in. “I was tired, and stressed, and scared, and confused, and had too much potion, and – and, ImsorryItriedtokillyouMalfoy.”

“What was that?” Draco snapped. “I don’t think I quite heard you, with you talking to the floor and all.”

“I’m sorry I tried to kill you.”

“Mmhmm. And?”

“And I’m sorry for thinking that you tried to kill me, when I saw quite clearly that you never brought an axe with you.”

“Mmhmm. And?”

“And you’re sorry for barging into my flat like that. You will pay for the food you ate, and leave as soon as possible.”

“Mmhmm – what? No, Weasley! For attempting to kick my bucket for me, I think you owe me a year’s worth of free food and lodging. After all, a Malfoy’s life is quite pricey.”

“Malfoy, you are making unreasonable demands!” Hermione declared, the fire back in her eyes. “You are dangerously close to being guilty of attempting to blackmail –”

“About the axe!” Harry cut in. “Ginny, it is highly possible that there is honestly and truly someone out to murder you. My team of Aurors haven’t been able to find any more evidence, but we advise you to take special care. If you want, I can find you a bodyguard, or even an Auror to –”

“Thanks for the concern, Harry, but I don’t need to be protected. I have a wand, and I have the dueling skills. I just want him out of my flat!”

“Oh, what a great way to show your remorse for trying to murder an innocent bystander, eh?”

“Actually, Ginny,” Harry began, looking rather uncomfortable with himself, “I think it might be better to have him around. Either that, or you go back to the Burrow.”

“I don’t want to endanger my family,” Ginny said shortly. “And you must be out of your mind to suggest that I live with Malfoy, of all people. I’d rather move in with Oliver.”

Oliver’s eyes lit up. “Really? That’ll be great! We can practice Quidditch all day and all night!”

“Er…” Did I really say that? I meant it as a figure of speech… Ginny was already feeling confused enough about her Quidditch Captain and best friend, and didn’t think it would be wise to actually live with him.

“And where, exactly, will I go?” Draco said sourly. “It was Aunt Andromeda’s death wish for a Weasley to help me out! You can never ignore a death wish!”

“A Weasley, Malfoy. Not Ginny Weasley, specifically,” Ginny pointed out, but without much enthusiasm. Maybe, if Malfoy lived with me, Oliver might get jeal – Ginny Weasley! Perish the thought!

“I thought I already explained my logic on why you were the Weasley, Weasley.”

“All right, everyone settle down!” Harry said in his authoritative voice. “Ginny, I really feel bad about leaving you alone. I’d like it best if you accepted help from the Aurors.”

“No.”

“Then return to the Burrow, where Fred and George can keep an eye on you. If not, staying with Oliver doesn’t seem like a bad idea, since you’re on the same team, and have the same schedule.”

“And I’m chopped, seasoned, and sautéed liver, am I?”

“Or you can uphold Andromeda’s death wish,” Harry mumbled grudgingly.

Ginny scowled, stubbornly glaring at Harry, who stubbornly met her gaze. It was green against brown, and it looked like Ginny was winning, until she broke away and said, “I don’t want to move. It’s too much hassle.”

“Ah. So my dear Auntie gets her death wish,” Draco said smugly.

“Shut it, Malfoy. Go live with my Mum. She’ll take one look at you, you’ll break her heart with how thin you are, and she’ll feed you until you burst.”

“What nonsense. Malfoys do not gain unsightly weight. Potter, I will be happy to keep your loser-worshiping sidekick’s little sister safe from vicious axe-murderers.”

“Can we just use her name?” Harry asked glumly. He still felt sorry to Ron. Though it was Ron who had ended things with Hermione – causing her to cry on Harry’s shoulder, causing Harry to feel not-so-platonic feelings for his sobbing best friend – he still felt a bit guilty about marrying Hermione. The Trio’s friendship had never quite been the same after that, though Ron pretended that nothing was wrong (except when sticking pins into his cornhusk doll named Parry Hotter).

“It’s settled then,” Draco declared with an air of finality. “Come on, Weasley, let’s go home. I’m bloody tired.”

Ginny looked like she was going to be sick.

---

In Ottery St. Catchpole, London, and Hogwarts, several flame-haired gentlemen jumped out of their seats in panic as they read the morning’s Daily Prophet. This edition was so full of sensationally shocking news that the editors had left out both the comics (to Fred, George, and Ron’s dismay) and the weather (to Percy’s dismay).

The first article was shocking to all of the Weasley brothers except Ron, who, along with Hermione, had known of the secret.

BREAKING NEWS

The Return of the Heir
By Lavender Brown

Draco Black Malfoy, Heir to the confiscated Malfoy fortunes, has returned from the dead as a Chaser for Puddlemere United. He shocked the Puddlemere team with his unannounced arrival, and shocked them even more when he displayed his Quidditch skills.

The young Malfoy had always shown a talent for the sport, rivaling none other than Harry Potter during their days at Hogwarts. Malfoy has played Seeker for five years at Hogwarts, but after his mysterious disappearance (more on that later), he now makes his big comeback as an excellent Chaser. “He made eight out of ten goals against Keeper Oliver Wood. That’s something only Joscelind Wadcock could ever do,” said Philbert Deverill, the Puddlemere Coach, cleverly complimenting three of his players with only one comment.

Many of you are probably wondering how the former Death Eater is alive, when Harry Potter told the world that he had killed Draco Malfoy. The truth is, Harry Potter lied. Now, before you go throwing rocks at the Man-Who-Lied, please remember that he is not only a skilled Auror who can hex you into a toadstool for throwing rocks at him, but is also the Savior of our world.

The real truth behind Malfoy was revealed to us, here at the Daily Prophet, by none other than Draco Malfoy himself, as well as Harry Potter. According to the two former enemies, the desperate pleading of Andromeda Tonks nee Black is what saved the young Malfoy’s life. Tonks had lost her Muggle husband, Auror daughter, and both of her Death Eater sisters during the war, and wanted to spare her last living relative. Potter granted her this wish, and claimed that Malfoy was dead to spare him from the harassing of reporters and Aurors. We reporters personally feel offense to that, because we do not harass anyone, but that is another story.

Another startling fact that was kept hidden from the public is that Malfoy’s memory has been modified. Extracting the memory of a resisting Occlumens can be very dangerous for said Occlumens, so please do not try this at home. After capturing Malfoy, who had turned against the Order to work for the Death Eaters once more, Potter indelicately attempted to retrieve Malfoy’s memories for Ministry purposes. As a result, the then-eighteen-year-old Malfoy was left with only the first thirteen-and-a-half years of his memories. In other words, he has no recollection of the war. This is good, not only for Malfoy’s mental health, but for ours too.

From the moment he lost his memory to the present, Malfoy has lived in an isolated Swiss wizarding village under the care of Andromeda Tonks. He is no longer the dangerous Death Eater Malfoy who has haunted our dreams. He is no more dangerous than a sarcastic thirteen-year-old goat herder. (Malfoy has apparently lived with goats in his backyard while in Switzerland.) Even though Malfoy is back, the Aurors (all of them, not just the Auror-Who-Fibbed) guarantee us that we can all sleep safely at night, except for those of us who have a chronic fear of thirteen-year-old goat herders.

The second article was much more disturbing.

The Chaser of Chasers
By Lavender Brown

Puddlemere United’s star Chaser, Ginny Weasley, is being chased by an unknown axe-murderer.

Her flat was raided early this morning by the Potters’ team of Aurors. A certain Daily Prophet reporter had been tipped off by her boyfriend that Draco Malfoy was back and stalking Ginny Weasley. When this reporter tipped off the Aurors, the Aurors invaded Weasley’s flat, only to find that Malfoy had only been after Weasley for a bowl of soup. What they found instead was the mysterious axe, which has been confirmed to not belong to Malfoy.

Auror Harry Potter had once stopped a Puddlemere game because he suspected an axe-murderer was after Weasley (described in detail in the May 22 edition of the Daily Prophet). No evidence was found, but now, after almost four months of inactivity, the axe-murderer is back and ready to strike.

Weasley, who is currently on Reserve for her shoulder injury (described in detail in last Monday’s edition of the Daily Prophet – though we reporters are now beginning to wonder if those Bludgers had been charmed by the suspect), was shocked to find the axe under her couch. “It’s not mine,” she claimed in horror. Draco Malfoy has claimed that it was not his, either.

Aurors are currently running experiments on the axe.

Weasley and Malfoy have returned to Weasley’s flat – together. They have apparently started living together, making us, here at the Daily Prophet, wonder if there was – or is, or will be – something between the two young Chasers. With one being a Malfoy and the other being a Weasley, we reporters are waiting with bated breaths to see if a dramatic, forbidden romance will play out between the two.

There was more to the article – the part of how Ginny had mistaken Malfoy for the axe-murderer, and had tried to murder him – but at this point, all the Weasley brothers were out of their seats, and heading for Ginny’s. Only George stayed behind long enough to burn the paper before his mum saw it and had a heart attack.

---

It was strange, coming home with a companion. Ever since she joined Puddlemere, Ginny had lived alone in her flat. And now, the vilest person to disgrace the Earth with his presence was present in her home.

“Old Wood didn’t seem to be too happy about us skipping practice.”

“He’s just saying that. We’re in no condition to do anything.”

“Too true.”

They stood at the doorway for a moment, awkwardly looking at each other, wondering what to do next.

“Well then, good night.”

Draco Malfoy was saying a greeting – an actually pleasant greeting – to her. “You mean good morning,” Ginny blurted.

“Whatever. Pleasant dreams,” he said, then walked off towards the couch.

“You too,” Ginny replied, feeling like there was something very wrong with the world if Draco Malfoy was wishing her – or anyone else, for that matter – pleasant dreams. Of course, his idea of a pleasant dream probably involved insulting other people and hexing them into unrecognizable blobs of goo, but it was still the thought that counted – right?

Shaking her head at the bizarreness of it all, especially the part where she, for some unfathomable reason, didn’t shove Draco out the door, Ginny dragged her exhausted feet to her bedroom. After a ridiculous night of Malfoys, axes, and interrogations, Ginny wanted nothing more than to drown in the comfort of her bed. As soon as she settled down under her blissful covers, however, she found that her wish would not be granted.

“GINNY!” someone bellowed from the sitting room. It sounded like Percy.

“MALFOY?” another voice thundered. Ron.

“GINNY! MALFOY?” two voices. Undoubtedly Fred and George.

“No!” Ginny yelled, throwing herself out of bed, and ripping the door away from its frame. “No! Ginny Malfoy does not live here! Ginny Malfoy will never live here! In fact, Ginny Malfoy will never exist! So piss off!”

“No, Ginny, we will not piss off!” shouted Ron, using language that no Hogwarts Professor should. He shook the paper in his sister’s tired face. “What is the meaning of this?”

“Why is Malfoy in your flat?” Percy demanded, pointing hysterically at the blond man, who was laying down on Ginny’s couch as if nothing was wrong with the world. “I am in line to be the youngest Minister of Magic in centuries, and having my unmarried sister rooming with an unmarried man, especially a man who is a former Death Eater, is completely harmful to my name and image!”

“Well then,” Ginny spat, “should I go room with a married man? Maybe Harry, my good friend’s husband?”

Percy looked scandalized, as did her other brothers, especially Ron.

“Ginny!” Ron sounded almost desperate. “Why do you insist on living with Malfoy? Are you really in love with him?”

“Of course not!” Ginny raged. “If you want to know why I’m living with Malfoy, go ask Harry sodding Potter! Because he’s the one who set me up to this!” Blaming it all on Harry – definitely not the most responsible or moral thing to do, but she was so incredibly tired, her nerves were on edge, and putting up with her brothers wasn’t exactly what she wanted to do right now. Besides, he had suggested that she live with Draco – sort of, as a last resort.

“Harry?” the four redheaded men echoed.

“Yes, Harry,” sighed Ginny, too tired to scream. “He didn’t want me living alone because he thinks some axe-murderer is after me. And –” she continued, before any of her brothers could interrupt, “he didn’t want any of you being in danger either. So he made Malfoy come here, because his life is expendable.” Yes, she justified to herself, finally seeing the logic behind the madness. Malfoy is here for my safety, and his life really is expendable. We all thought he was dead anyway, right?

Malfoy huffed indignantly from his place on the couch.

“So that’s why I’m being forced to endure having that insufferable ferret live in my flat. I’m about as happy about it as you are – maybe less. I’ve been hounded by reporters and Aurors all night because of him. Can I please, please get some sleep now?”

Ginny sounded like a person ready to die, and her brothers, being the ever-understanding Weasleys, sympathized with her. “Of course, Ginny,” said George, patting her reassuringly on the shoulder. “We feel your pain. Sorry we barged in on you. We’ll leave.”

“And,” said Fred, “if he does anything – absolutely anything – to hurt you or bother you, you tell us.” He cracked his knuckles ominously, and Ginny thought she heard another snort from the couch.

“Er… Do try not to hurt my image. I’ll be Minister Weasley, not Minister Percy, so everything you do reflects on me.”

“Oh, you shouldn’t have said that, old Perce,” snickered Fred.

“You’re forgetting who else are Weasleys around here,” laughed George.

“Oh dear,” sighed Percy.

“Come now, dear brother. The future Minister needs escorting to his office.”

“Or to a dark corner of Knockturn Alley.”

“Or to the middle of a jungle in Brazil.”

“Or to an uninhabited island in the Pacific.”

The twins sniggered and Disapparated, towing their bespectacled brother along with them.

Ron lingered behind. “Be careful, Ginny,” he said, shooting a withering look at Draco, which was rather pointless, since the other man’s eyes were closed. “If he tries anything – looks at you the wrong way or says something disrespectful – I’ll kill him, and use him to teach my Defense class about Inferi,” Ron said darkly.

Ginny smiled weakly. “Thanks, Ron. He won’t do anything. Harry’ll make sure of it.”

“Harry,” he scoffed. “Right then. Bye, Gin.”

“Bye, Ron.”

He nodded grimly, threw Floo powder into the fireplace, and disappeared in a rush of emerald green flames and a shouted, “Hogwarts!”

“That was a lovely visit,” Draco murmured sleepily.

“Sod off, Malfoy.”

Ginny received no response. She looked over to the couch and saw Draco, peacefully asleep, looking for all the world like an innocent teenager. How deceiving looks could be.

---

To be continued…

---

---

Chapter Four

---

Living with Draco Malfoy was strange, certainly, but Ginny thought she could get used to it.

Living with Andromeda Tonks had taught him some manners, and some other things as well. Not only did Draco know how to cook and clean, he also knew how to knit. “Aunt Andy’s favorite pastime,” he had explained. “It snowed a lot in the Alps, and the other boys refused to play Quidditch in blizzards. I had nothing better to do, so I picked up some needles, and voila.”

Ginny was beginning to learn just how important a good family was. She thought that if Draco had been brought up by Andromeda from the very beginning, he would be an entirely different person. Even with the memory of being a Malfoy for thirteen years, the seven years he lived with Andromeda had managed to change him into an almost-tolerable person. He reminded Ginny of a meaner, snarkier version of Tonks.

Draco was also very childish. He acted not much older than the average teenager. While it was true that Andromeda had not been the greatest disciplinarian, Ginny suspected that it had more to do with his loss of memory. He didn’t have to wake up in the middle of the night, plagued by memories of people screaming for help, others dying, curses flying, and always being scared for your life and the lives of those you cared about. He didn’t have to deal with the ruins of the war. He didn’t have to rebuild the damaged buildings, didn’t have to search for missing family members, didn’t have to realize that so many of those you loved were no longer with you.

It almost made Ginny mad. While the rest of the world was trying to put back together their broken lives, Draco had lived a carefree life in the Alps, with the most stressful thing being that Andromeda made him clean up after himself. It certainly showed on his face. He still looked young and full of life. Everyone else looked much older than they really were, with a sort of world-weariness about them, which Draco did not have. Draco looked more youthful now than he did in his sixth year, when his hollow, gaunt face made him look like a corpse. It was as if his involvement in the war had been erased with his memories. It really was infuriating.

However, Ginny was not trying to fight her anger; she was instead trying to fight her laughter.

Presently, Draco was magically directing a duster to sweep the top of her bookshelf in the sitting room. “If my Aunt saw this…” he grumbled, and Ginny snickered to herself as she was reminded of how he had used to say ‘My Father this… My Father that…’. Now it was his Aunt.

“How,” Draco demanded exasperatedly, “do you live like this? Aunt Andy and I lived in a cottage in the mountains, with goats in the backyard. And we still managed to keep our living environment cleaner than this!” He growled in dismay as he peered at a stain on the carpet. “What is this? Did you raise a menagerie in here? Scourgify!”

It was all Ginny could do to keep herself from laughing. Her Healer had told her that among many other things, laughing was something that she should avoid if she wanted a speedy recovery. So, Ginny sat on her couch, drinking her morning coffee, doing her shoulder exercises, and desperately trying not to laugh at Draco’s antics.

“Ugh, Weasley!” he exclaimed, looking behind the bookshelf. “There’s a colony of dustbunnies back here!”

Ginny had to bite her tongue painfully to keep from laughing. Draco was just like Hermione when it came to cleanliness. The last time Hermione had come to her flat – to visit, and not to arrest her – she had been disgusted, and had spent her time cleaning, and complaining about Ginny’s collection of beggar’s velvet.

“Weasley, there is a spoon behind your bookshelf,” announced Draco, sounding highly put out. “Why is there a spoon behind your bookshelf?” Draco turned to face her, one hand on his hip, the other directing a duster, and resembling a tall, skinny, and blond version of Molly Weasley.

Ginny could take it no longer. She burst into peals of laughter that ached her shoulder, but she didn’t care.

“Laugh if you want, Weasley, but I think this is just stupid. There’s a spoon behind your bookshelf, like there was an axe under your couch. I think you just made a big deal out of nothing with that axe.”

Ginny immediately sobered. “Malfoy, that axe wasn’t mine! Why would I have an axe? So maybe it isn’t to the point where someone is trying to kill me, but it’s still not mine, and that’s creepy!”

“Well, then, I suppose that spoon isn’t yours either?”

“Sometimes I throw silverware at unwanted guests,” Ginny retorted, glaring pointedly at Draco.

“Yes,” he sighed, “dustbunnies are definitely unwanted guests. Scourgify!” A puff of dust exploded in Draco’s face, earning a wave of giggles from Ginny, and Draco swore colorfully. “When was the last time you cleaned this place, Weasley?” he thundered.

“Well, Malfoy, my Healer said no unnecessary wand-waving. But even before that, I was never a fan of even the lightest amount of duster-waving,” Ginny grinned cheekily, then strode over to her fireplace. “Practice starts in ten minutes. Care to join us? Or should I tell the coach that you were too occupied with cleaning my house?”

“Our house, Weasley,” Draco said sullenly, and Ginny couldn’t help but feel strange at those words. It almost sounded as if they were… family.

Ginny shook herself slightly. A week of living with Draco Malfoy, and it felt like he had been there forever. “You wish. As soon as you get your paycheck, I’m kicking you out of here,” she snapped, and disappeared into a rush of green flames.

She popped out of Coach Deverill’s fireplace, said her greetings, and went out to the pitch for another miserable training session spent sitting on the stands.

“Where’s your new roommate?” Oliver asked teasingly, flying over to sit next to her.

“Don’t call him that. I like to think of him as my ‘irritating piece of furniture’.”

“Ah. How convenient. I’d like a piece of furniture that does all my housework for me. But don’t you think Hermione would be against it? She might start F.L.U.: Furniture Liberation Union.”

Ginny snorted. “He doesn’t do all my housework. He complains and complains, telling me to clean, and when I don’t, he does it himself and makes things worse. Just this morning, he was cleaning the dustbunnies behind some bookshelf, and exploded dust all over my sitting room. I’ll probably wind up cleaning it when I get back home.”

“Or you could just leave him there and move in with me.”

“I don’t know, Oliver. I don’t want to inconvenience you. And besides, as soon as he gets his paycheck, I’m kicking him out.”

“Easier said than done. But you won’t inconvenience me. If it ever gets to be too much to have him around, you’re welcome at my place anytime.”

“Thanks, Oliver,” Ginny said gratefully.

Oliver soared away on his broomstick, and Ginny looked after him. Oliver was her constant. The war had changed almost everyone she knew, but Oliver had always been the Oliver she had known since she was a little girl. She had first met him when she was seven. The first year Charlie became the Gryffindor Captain, Oliver had been admitted as the Keeper, and had treated Charlie as an idol. Charlie had invited Oliver to come by during the summer and play Quidditch with the Weasleys, and after befriending the twins, became a good family friend.

Now, he was a better friend to her than anyone else could ever hope to be. Oliver was simple in a complex world, and just being with him made Ginny feel better during times when her head was about to explode. He saw everything in terms of Quidditch, and had even treated the war like a giant game of Quidditch. “Curses are like Bludgers – you avoid them. Your own hexes are the Quaffles, and the Death Eaters are the goals. You throw the Quaffle at the goal. Quite simple, really,” he had said about his battle experience.

Oliver’s skill on a broomstick had put him among the Order members to participate in the air raids against the Death Eaters, and each time, Oliver had come back unscathed and undisturbed. Ginny knew the only reason Oliver hadn’t been disturbed by the war was because he had been too far up in the sky to see all the blood and the grotesque, pained expressions of the fallen, and too far up to smell the rotten corpses. He honestly seemed to believe the war was a violent game of Quidditch, and had been as excited about the battles as he was about Quidditch games. While Ginny was mildly frustrated by his naivety regarding the war, she was extremely thankful that he wasn’t affected like the rest of the depressed, war-era generation, and even more thankful that he hadn’t gone the way of his Quidditch hero, Charlie, who had died fighting for the Order.

Charlie. Charlie had always been her favorite brother. By the time Ginny was old enough to know who Bill was, he was rarely at home, and Charlie had taken over the role of eldest brother. When the twins played a mean prank on her, it was Charlie who came to the rescue. When Percy was being a prat, it was Charlie who told him off. When she got into fights with Ron, Charlie played mediator. Charlie had always been there for her, but what she liked best about him was that he didn’t just protect her, but taught her how to fend for herself. Charlie was the one who had taught her the Bat-Bogey Hex, and for that, she was eternally grateful. Charlie had also taught her Quidditch, and she felt that without him, she would never have become a star Chaser.

But Oliver was equally responsible for her success in her Quidditch career. After Charlie left for Romania, Oliver was the one who had helped her practice and improve her skills. He used his influence to get her on the Puddlemere team without spending years as a Reserve, like most other players had to. Even after she joined the team, Oliver continued giving her private training sessions, and pushed her to be the best that she could be.

Also, Oliver had idolized Charlie for so long that he had inadvertently picked up many of Charlie’s habits and personality quirks, and made them his own. It was unnerving, and sometimes Oliver reminded her so much of Charlie that it made her sad. Ginny sometimes wondered if she was replacing Charlie with Oliver in her mind. But the differences – the Scottish accent, Oliver’s warm brown eyes in comparison to Charlie’s blue ones, his soft brown hair, and the smile that was uniquely his own – was enough to make Ginny feel distinctly un-sisterly thoughts about him. Which she crushed. Immediately. Because Oliver would not be on the very long list of the men whose hearts she had ended up stomping on.

Ginny didn’t know why, but she had never lasted very long in any of her relationships. Michael Corner and Dean Thomas had been childish flings who she had dumped without much emotion. Harry had been – well, Harry was a completely different case, but what mattered was that she had been the one who finalized that their relationship would never be rekindled. Then came the post-war boyfriends, some of whose names she couldn’t even remember. According to Ron, the most overprotective of her brothers, she had had sixteen boyfriends in the seven years following the war. Her list began with Neville Longbottom, who she had dumped for Seamus Finnigan, to Winston Tilman, who she had recently dumped because of a spat over a blueberry scone. Now that she thought about it, there were quite a few axe-murderer suspects. There were eighteen men, not including Harry, who she had carelessly dumped. Now it was possible that one – or more – of them were out to get her. Oops.

A whistle blew, and Ginny snapped out of her thoughts to realize that practice had started. The official team was playing the Reserve team as usual, and Ginny was amused to see that Rosalyn Lancaster was focused more on Draco than the game.

Draco, Ginny decided, was good. He flew with the grace and the speed of a Seeker, with the clever maneuvers of a Chaser. Ginny could see that Draco was trying to play well with the other two Chasers (never mind that Rosalyn kept looking at Draco’s bum instead of the Quaffle), but he was still a Quaffle-hog. His scoring techniques were excellent, he was very skilled and creative at stealing the Quaffle, and he received well, but passing was not his forte.

“Malfoy! You’re passing, not trying to knock the other Chasers off their broom! That’s what we have Beaters and Bludgers for!” Ginny yelled.

“And I can see that you’re an excellent passer too, Weasley, with that shoulder of yours!”

Ginny furiously began doing her shoulder exercises, and screamed, “I have more experience than you as a team player! Listen to my advice!”

“She’s right, Malfoy!” Coach Deverill agreed. “Your passing is a bit dangerous!”

Malfoy passed with great speed. No one would want to intercept a Quaffle thrown like that, but not many of his fellow Chasers would want to receive it either. When he passed with less speed, he couldn’t seem to target the Chaser he wanted to pass to, and the opposing team intercepted. Ginny suspected that he was doing that on purpose, so the others would just let him keep the Quaffle at all times.

An hour later, Ginny had yelled herself hoarse, and Draco appeared to be doing slightly better with his passes. Just as Ginny was about to criticize his lack of grace in passing (“You look like an angry toddler lobbing eggs at the wall!”), the Seeker and the Reserve Seeker, David Yeller and Lance Connor, both started to dive at an amazing speed. After an intense moment, David shot forward with an extra burst of speed, and snatched the Golden Snitch out of the air.

The whistle blew. “And the official team wins!” Coach Deverill clapped merrily and said, “Lunch break! Then we’ll meet here again for one more game!”

---

Ginny was sitting outside Cape Café, a friendly seafood restaurant in Diagon Alley. The sun was shining, the bright yellow umbrella was providing just enough shade, and the linguine with clams she was eating was nothing short of exquisite. She was sitting at a table with Oliver, Katie, and Ian, and would have enjoyed herself if it wasn’t for someone behind her throwing clamshells over his shoulder and onto her plate.

“Stop it, Malfoy!” she hissed, though the effect was rather lost because of her mouthful of pasta. Another clamshell whizzed through the air and landed in her wine glass, spraying her with the burgundy liquid. “Malfoy!” she snapped, louder this time.

“Yes?” came his smooth reply.

“Stop throwing clamshells at me!”

“I am not throwing clamshells at you.”

Ginny blew out a puff of air. “Then what are you doing?”

“Trying to see how many clamshells I can get into your wineglass while not looking at it. It’s like this – the clamshells are Quaffles, and your wineglass is the goal.”

Oliver looked like he was trying to suppress a grin, and that irked Ginny even more. Though her Healer said no unnecessary wand-waving, Ginny didn’t care. She whipped out her wand with a flourish, and vanished all the clamshells in the area.

“Temper, Weasley,” came Draco’s amused drawl. “Your shoulder will never heal at this rate. If a Quidditch player can’t play Quidditch, how will you afford to live?”

Ginny realized with a sinking feeling that he was right, but refused to think of her financial problems. She managed to go without a single thought of money for the rest of lunch, and the rest of practice, until she went home and found a pile of bills that needed to be paid.

“Oh, bugger,” she said with feeling.

Quidditch players didn’t get paid anywhere near as much as they should be. After all, Quidditch brought families together, established friendships, kept Sundays quiet because everyone was at home watching matches on the Tele-wiz (*), and was a universal stress-reliever for the common folk – and none of this would be possible if it weren’t for the Quidditch players. But after the war, the Ministry had never quite recovered from its financial crisis (which Percy was busily trying to fix), and because Quidditch players got paid by the Ministry, they were in a spot of trouble as well. If Puddlemere won the European Championships, their wages would go up, but with the recent Chaser-crisis, winning was a bit too much to hope for.

Ginny flipped through her bills and scowled at the one from the landlord. If her irritating piece of furniture would pay just half of her rooming bill, she could save fifty Galleons a month.

If her irritating piece of furniture would take showers just half as long, she could save some patience. “Malfoy!” she yelled, banging on the bathroom door. “Come out!”

He did, with dripping wet hair, and wearing nothing more than a towel around his waist. Any other woman would have been rendered speechless at the sight of his glistening, thin-yet-muscled body. But Ginny, having the distorted eye of someone who had grown up believing that everything Malfoy was vile, only saw awfully pale skin covering a lanky frame – which was nothing unusual when you went swimming every summer with tan-resistant beanpoles like Ron. “Go make dinner, Malfoy. Nothing with clamshells.”

Draco watched with some annoyance as Ginny brushed past him without so much as a glance. Not that it mattered.

He threw on some clothes, went to the kitchen, and pulled out some vegetables to chop. A small part of him protested at doing House Elf work, but the larger part of him, which had come to accept the fact that the Malfoys were no longer what they used to be, caused him to grit his teeth and silently chop.

When Ginny finished with her shower, she wordlessly helped Draco cook dinner, and as they cooked together, Draco couldn’t help but wonder if this was what being married – really married – felt like. His family hadn’t lived the way most normal people did. His mother probably never knew how to make mashed potatoes, and his father probably never knew what the kitchen even looked like. The only time he saw them together was during dinner, or at formal events. The rest of the time, his father did his business, his mother met with the other rich Pureblood wives, and he was left to his studies and friends. Draco had thought that everyone – including the Weasleys and the Muggles – lived that way. The other mothers may have done their own cooking and cleaning, but he hadn’t known that families actually spent time together until he started living with the Swiss villagers and realized what a family really was.

Before he knew it, dinner was ready, and he was eating his shepherd’s pie while seated across the table from Ginny.

Draco had seen three types of women in his life: the sophisticated, elegant, and proud ones like his mother; the flirty, ditzy, and cheerful ones that he knew from Hogwarts; and the sweet, friendly, and humble ones of the Swiss village.

Ginny, who was currently chomping her food as if it had done her a great wrong, fell into a new category: mean, crazy, and slightly scary. Draco wondered what her problem was. He had cleaned up the dust explosion from earlier that morning, so it couldn’t be that. Was she still upset about the clamshell incident? But he had made her dinner, for Merlin’s sake! He hadn’t even asked her to help – she just did, all by herself, and now she was having a silent temper tantrum.

Draco glanced at Ginny with a critical eye. When out in public, Ginny was a popular, outgoing, energetic sort of person. Her bright brown eyes suggested mischief, her vivid red hair showed off her equally vivid personality, and her loud voice demanded that she be the center of attention. She was also quite fashionable, and naturally attracted the gazes of men. At home, however, Ginny was a completely different story. Her short, towel-dried hair was frizzing to the point of resembling Hermione Potter’s patented bird-nest style, and under the Muggle light globe – ball? bulb? or was it oblate spheroid? – that she used in her kitchen, her hair was a lurid shade of neon carrot. Her freckles stood out garishly on her freshly-scrubbed face, and her oversized Puddlemere United T-shirt and sweatpants did nothing for her figure, which she seemed determined to hide from him.

Overall, Draco liked the at-home Ginny much more than the center-of-attention Ginny – which made absolutely no sense. He snorted.

“I don’t know what you’re finding funny, Malfoy,” Ginny said, her voice dripping icicles, “but I’m definitely not amused.”

Of course you wouldn’t be, thought Draco, and said, “A bird would mistake your hair for its nest, Weasley, provided, of course, than it didn’t fly away in horror from the blindingly neon color.”

Draco could hear her teeth grind.

“I must ask, does it glow in the dark?”

“Fifty Galleons, plus groceries!” Ginny barked.

“Excuse me?” Draco asked, genuinely confused.

“From the moment you get your first paycheck, you will start paying me fifty Galleons a month for rooming, and pay for all the groceries, unless you cook, in which case I’ll pay for them, but your food better be good.”

“Are you saying that my food isn’t good?” Draco asked incredulously, gesturing at his shepherd’s pie, which was quite fabulous, thank you very much.

“It’s edible. That’s why it hasn’t been thrown in your face… yet.”

“And you’re also saying that I can live with you?”

“As long as you pay.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Ginny almost choked in disbelief. “You mean you thought I’d let you invade my personal space for free?”

“No, Weasley. Why, as in why are you letting me live with you?”

“Because Harry –”

“And don’t say because Potter said so, because I know you can hex him to Hell and back.”

“Because I know what it’s like to be poor,” Ginny replied quietly, after a moment. “And I know how especially awful it is to be homeless, because during the war, the Burrow burned down. It’s rebuilt now, of course, but it was still just terrible to be without a home. It’s not that I pity you, Malfoy,” she added hastily, “I just understand, that’s all.”

And Draco understood as well, and shot her a lopsided grin before he returned to his meal, thinking that maybe ‘mean’ shouldn’t be used to describe Ginny, though ‘crazy’ and ‘slightly scary’ were still fair game.

---

After hours of tossing and turning, and several times of waking up with a crick in his back, Draco considered transfiguring the couch into something more comfortable, but transfiguring had never been his forte. He had been good at potions, but didn’t know how that could help him make the couch any more comfortable.

Draco Malfoy, he thought to himself. How have you gone from being Slytherin Prince to being Ginny Weasley’s House Elf? Life was unfair. At least the House Elves got their own quarters. He got a couch, which was very hard, very lumpy, and very Gryffindor red. Draco sat up and smirked. With a wave of his wand, the couch was Slytherin green. Ah, much better, he thought as he settled down, ready to sleep.

But sleep didn’t come.

Lowering himself to a Weasley was hard. He tried to pretend it wasn’t, tried to convince himself that he was having an enjoyable time by getting on the youngest Weasley’s nerves, and while it was fun to rile up Ginny, it was ridiculously difficult to admit that he was at her level.

He had spent eighteen years as a proper Malfoy, and he remembered the first thirteen of it. He didn’t know what he was like during the five years that were lost to his memory, and honestly didn’t want to know. Even from the little details his Aunt had sometimes accidentally slipped (she never spoke of the war) he had managed to deduce that a Death Eater was not what he wanted to be. While he thought it was incredibly cool that he had once inspired fear in everyone he met, he wondered if he could do it all again, if given another chance. He most likely couldn’t, and wouldn’t. After all, according to Potter, he did switch sides during the war.

The only thing his Aunt had told him about his missing past was that he had become a Death Eater to save his parents, and Draco had been surprised to learn that he could be self-sacrificing. At the time, his mind, reduced to thirteen years of age, could not understand why he would give up his freedom to save his parents, when, quite honestly, he had enough money to live three long lifetimes without them. He understood his own reasons much later, after falling in love with a girl from the Swiss village (which caused the girl to freak out and promptly marry her next-door neighbor, though Draco chose to believe that the boy had forced her into marriage by threatening that he would kill Draco, who was her true love).

So he wasn’t evil. He blamed it on his mother’s family – Andromeda Tonks and her favorite cousin, Sirius Black, had both been disowned for their lack of evilness. Draco knew he was a man of talk and not action, and couldn’t kill a Muggle even if he was being laughed at. But not being evil was an entirely different story from not having the Malfoy pride, which he did have, in an amount large enough to flood the Hogwarts dungeons. And like it had been excruciatingly painful when his Aunt first made him clean up after himself, it was excruciatingly painful to beg a Weasley for food and lodging – even if he would be paying for it.

He had disliked the Weasleys even more than he had disliked Harry Potter, though probably not as much as he had despised the Mudblood Granger, who was now another Potter. He had hated the Weasleys for everything they didn’t have, and now, he had less than they did. Life was bloody ironic. The worst part of it was that after everything he had done to her family, Ginny Weasley had accepted him, and now he couldn’t even hate her because he was supposed to be thankful. And Malfoys were never thankful for anything, but apparently, this Malfoy was – a lot.

As Draco was trying to sort out his thoughts, a strange, barely audible noise reached his ears. It was like the soft rustling of wings, but it could also be something else – something much more dangerous, like the taking down of wards. Draco felt the fine hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Draco cast the Disillusionment Charm on himself, blending into the couch, and sat up.

Suddenly, there was movement by the window, and Draco pointed his wand at it. The curtains were slowly being opened, and Draco felt a jolt of fear – or was it excitement? – run down his spine. It was a cloudy night, and the moon wasn’t out to begin with. It was the perfect night to commit a crime.

There was nothing at the window at all, but Draco wasn’t put into Slytherin for nothing. Disillusionment Charms did not save its wearer from creating shadows, and the outside of Ginny’s flat was just a bit lighter than it was inside – enough to cast a very faint human-shaped shadow across the floor.

Had Draco been asleep, he would never have known that anything was happening. Draco had to listen very, very carefully to hear the slight rustle of the intruder’s movements, and the shadow on the floor was only barely visible.

The intruder was breaking in through the window, which was clever, thought Draco, since the Aurors would be focused on trying to track Apparition trails, which was difficult and time-consuming, and most wouldn’t expect anyone to break into a witch’s flat – five stories up – using Muggle means.

The window opened fully, and Draco saw a slight depression in the carpet where the intruder stepped. The window closed again, silent as ever, and Draco promised himself that if he remained alive after all this, he would curse those windows until their squeak could wake the dead.

The intruder slowly made his – or her; the best goat-thieves in Switzerland were usually women – way towards Ginny’s bedroom, and Draco gripped his wand, ready to strike. Except that his wand went soaring out of his hand, towards the intruder, and Draco realized that he couldn’t move. The intruder had paralyzed him! But how did he – or she – know he was here? Ah, Draco thought. The Daily Prophet. Curse that paper to Hell.

The intruder’s feet continued to travel in the direction of Ginny’s bedroom, from what Draco could see of the depressions in the carpet. He only had mere moments to react. Draco focused all of his magical power into his right hand, and silently summoned his wand. Based on the intruder’s definitely feminine gasp, she wasn’t expecting wandless magic out of him.

Wandless magic, another mysterious part of his missing memory, and though he didn’t know what evil things he might have used it for in the past, he was certainly thankful to have that particular skill now.

The wand was back in Draco’s hand, and he immediately took off the Body-Bind Curse, leaping away from the couch just in time to avoid a jet of red light. If the intruder was using visible spells instead of stealthy ones, she must have been effectively distracted by the flaw in her plan. It was just too bad for her that Draco was very experienced at being the flaw in other people’s plans.

Draco shot his own Body-Bind Curse at the intruder, and was pleased to hear the loud thump of a falling body. He shot to his feet, removed the Disillusionment Charm from the woman, and gasped audibly. One gloved hand was clutching tightly onto a blunt axe. This intruder was no thief; she was a murderer. And she had come to murder Ginny Weasley.

---

To be continued…

---

---

Chapter Five

---

Draco stared at the blunt axe for a few horrified moments before snapping to his senses. Had Draco been a Gryffindor, he would have attacked the murderer himself. But Draco wasn’t a Gryffindor, and was instead a reasonable, logical-minded Slytherin. So, like any sensible Slytherin would do, he tied up the would-be murderer with magical ropes, sent another Stunning Spell, followed by one more Body-Bind Curse, then snatched away her wand. He didn’t care if someone called him the next Hermione Potter; he wasn’t taking chances with a crazy axe-murderer. It was definitely better to be safe than sorry.

Breathing heavily, he tried to calm down and think the happiest thought that he could. Once the image of a Swiss Christmas filled with presents, hot chocolate, and snowball fights was clear in his mind, he fired his Patronus with a message for Aurors Potter and Potter.

---

Harry and Hermione Potter were not people who scared easily. They had fought and defeated the worst of the Death Eaters, hordes of Dementors and other foul creatures, and above all, the feared Dark Lord himself. However, nothing could have prepared them for the giant, ghostly occamy (*) that floated gently at the foot of their bed, at one in the morning, using what was unmistakably Draco Malfoy’s drawling voice to calmly recite something about axe-murderers breaking in through windows.

Harry thought he was suffering from a bizarre nightmare. He thought Draco had morphed into a winged basilisk and was now going to kill him, apparently not by looking at him, but by… using his ingenious mind and his fabulously cunning skills to catch an axe-murderer? “What the hell?” he asked aloud, earning an automatic punch in the stomach from Hermione for his language.

It took a moment for Hermione to shake the shock and sleep out of her head, and realize that the great winged snake with Draco’s voice was, in fact, his Patronus bearing a message.

“– And I’ve tied her up, so come and get her. You can thank me later,” the message finished.

“That – that thing wasn’t a basilisk?”

“No, Harry.”

“Malfoy’s caught the axe-murderer?” Harry asked bewilderedly.

“Apparently. I think I should go now, Harry. You can let go of my arm,” Hermione said kindly.

Harry released Hermione’s arm, which he had been clutching in fear, and said, “I’m going with you. I don’t care if I’m suspended – I’m loads better than that Whizby kid you call a partner.”

“Philby, Harry. His name is Philby.”

“I’m doing him a favor. Belby needs his beauty sleep,” he insisted stubbornly.

Hermione rolled her eyes. Auror Brand would not be happy about this.

---

For the second time that week, Ginny was woken from her sleep by a pair of arms crushing her to certain death. The pair of arms was accompanied by, once again, a frizzy brown bush.

“Hermione.”

“Oh, Ginny, we almost lost you!” Hermione cried. “You will never believe it! Malfoy was trying to make the couch more comfortable – you should see it, it really is an awful shade of green now – when he heard someone take the wards down – I don’t know how he knew that sound; he must have subconsciously realized it from his Death Eater days. And then he saw someone come in through the window, and the intruder hexed him, but he did some wandless magic – can you believe that? That takes skill; even I’m a long way from mastering it – and tied up the intruder, and he notified me and Harry with his Patronus – did you see his Patronus? I never thought he could have one; he was such a miserable boy. It was creepy, yes, but it was rather beautiful. It was an occamy, and here I was thinking that Malfoy’s Patronus would be something more along the lines of a dung beetle – and now Harry’s out there with Herby, er, I mean Philby, and Joscelind Wadcock, who was the axe-murderer trying to kill you – England’s going to be in an uproar if she gets kicked off the Quidditch team, not that I care much about Quidditch – and I just had to come here and see you, because I’m just so glad that you’re alive!” Hermione gushed, then took a huge gulp of air.

The only thing that Ginny managed to pick up from Hermione’s rushed explanation was, Malfoy… tied up… Joscelind Wadcock… the axe-murderer.

“Joscelind? Joscelind tried to murder me?”

“Shh!” Hermione hissed, frantically waving her arms around. “The reporters don’t know yet! Joscelind might not even be guilty; someone could have Imperiused her, by the looks of it. Harry and Colby – oh, Merlin! – Philby are trying to figure out what’s going on, and they don’t want England to lose their best Chaser!” Hermione sniffed indignantly. “Men. They take Quidditch more seriously than national security.”

“I’ve got to see Jos –”

“Don’t even think about it, Ginny! The Aurors have everything under control. I’ll go and wrap things up, and you will stay put in your bed.” Hermione bustled out the door, and shut it firmly behind her. Which really was unfortunate for Ginny, because someone stepped out of her closet, and locked the door with a wave of a wand, which Ginny saw was her own. Hermione – or anyone else, for that matter – wouldn’t be coming to her rescue anytime soon.

---

“How’s Ginny doing?” Harry asked, pausing from his investigation.

“She’s a bit distressed about Joscelind being the prime suspect, but other than that, she’s fine.”

Hermione Potter had never been more wrong in her entire life.

“Great. Hermione, take a look at this. It is the Imperius Curse. Wadcock’s eyes go from being completely unfocused to murderously glaring, and her answers to my questions are strange. Listen,” Harry cleared his throat and addressed Joscelind, who was tied to Ginny’s kitchen chair. “Miss Wadcock, what are you doing in Ginny’s flat?”

“I told you I was here for supper!”

“But it’s past midnight.”

“I had a sudden craving for Ginny’s homemade stew.”

Harry made a disbelieving face. “Well then,” he continued, “what are you doing with that axe?”

“I was going to chop some firewood for Ginny.”

“See?” Harry turned to Hermione. “She was going to chop firewood for Ginny. Whoever put Wadcock under that curse obviously didn’t think of a good cover story.”

“So she’s still under the curse?” asked Hermione, leaning in to examine Joscelind’s eye movement.

“Yeah. Seeing as she can’t throw it off, it’ll stay on until we take it off for her, or she completes her assignment. I think you and Shelby should take her in to Headquarters. Maybe you can find out what Wadcock last saw before she went under.”

“Definitely. We need all the clues we can get.”

“But don’t get the reporters involved! And even if she’s somehow guilty, tell the Board that we’ll throw her in Azkaban after the World Cup.”

Hermione rolled her eyes.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Harry said, turning to Philby, who was nineteen and fresh out of Auror training. He was a bespectacled young man who was thin and freckly, with a shy, boyish face, and looked like he still belonged in the library at school, instead of investigating crime scenes. “I was never here, okay? The Board wouldn’t like it if I got involved.” Philby nodded. “Good. And Malfoy, you’re the witness. You need to go in and repeat everything you said. And remember, I wasn’t here.”

Draco, who was comfortably lounging on the couch as if he wasn’t part of a crime scene, looked at Harry with an evil smirk. “Really, Potter? So I’m seeing things, am I? You know, I actually could be seeing things. If, say, a bag of Galleons fell out of the sky, then yes, I’d be so happy that I might imagine you briefly, just to watch your imaginary face screw up because I have free money and you don’t.”

Harry sighed. This was what happened when a law enforcer broke the law and got involved in murder cases, when he should really be in bed, minding his own business. Harry grimaced. Malfoy could corrupt even the best of wizards. “How much?”

Hermione gasped, scandalized.

“Oh, nothing much. One hundred Galleons.”

“One hundred? I grow lemon trees, Malfoy, not money trees!” Harry raged. Draco shrugged, with the most annoying smirk on his face. Harry opened his mouth to yell some more, but thought it would be a waste of energy. “Fifty,” he finally spat in defeat.

“Fifty it is, then.” Draco grinned winningly. That was all he had wanted, really, fifty Galleons to pay Ginny for this month’s rent. Potter was so predictable. Take the amount you want, double it, and Potter would chop it in half and offer you what you actually wanted in the first place.

“I don’t have any money on me, right now, but I’ll drop by tomorrow.” Harry shuffled miserably away, and Draco could hear him explaining to Hermione that it wasn’t corruption, it was for her own sake, because if he got in more trouble, she would be stuck with Chubby even longer.

“I could throw him in Azkaban for trying to corrupt an enforcer of law!” Hermione fumed.

“And Malfoy would tell the Board of Aurors why he was trying to corrupt me in the first place! If the Board finds out I went against their direct order, I’d get fired!”

Hermione shot him a withering glare.

“Okay, so maybe I won’t get fired, but I’d get a longer suspension, and –”

“I told you not to come along! I told you Philby and I could handle it!”

“But I’m the Imperius expert!”

“And I am England’s best Auror! I think I would know how to identify someone who’s been Imperiused!” Hermione snapped.

“Hermione,” Harry sighed, running a hand through his messy black hair. “You know how hard it is for me. I tried to live a normal life after the war, but I couldn’t. I’m only happy when I’m out on the field, hunting down bad guys! You know this, Hermione. A suspension – until the rest of the year! That’s more than three months! I feel like it’s already been too long without working. I’m dying, Hermione!” Harry cried, blinking his green eyes in that almost-puppy dog way (he could never quite master the doe-eyed expression, and ended up looking like he had a blinking problem) that he knew Hermione couldn’t resist.

Hermione bit her lip, then blew out a breath and nodded in an exasperated manner. “Go home, Harry,” she muttered, and proceeded to Apparate with Joscelind.

“Oh, and Potter,” Draco called, unable to resist. “Not you, Potter, your wife. Surely you aren’t considering walking into the Ministry in your lovely Gryffindor pajamas?”

Hermione looked down at her red and gold striped pajamas (which matched Harry’s, of course) and her face flushed into the perfect shade of Gryffindor red.

“I must say, you’re losing your professional touch. Must be a side effect of being married to a Potter.”

Now it was Harry’s turn to flush scarlet. After all those years, a war, and a memory loss, Draco Malfoy could still get on his nerves more than anyone else.

---

Ginny gasped in terror as the hooded figure glided out of her closet, clutching a blunt axe in its gloved hands. The figure didn’t say a word, and didn’t make a noise, except for the eerie low chuckling – or was she imagining it? Ginny couldn’t see anything under the hood. She almost expected red eyes or a Death Eater mask to be sneering sinisterly at her, but there was nothing under the hood except pure darkness. She would have suspected the figure to be a Dementor, but the fear she felt was the fear for her life, not the cold, terrorizing fear that a Dementor brought.

Still, fear was fear, and Ginny was almost paralyzed with it. Her door was locked, her wand was in the axe-wielding maniac’s pocket, and she had nothing to save herself with – except for her voice. She screamed. She screamed long and loud and clear, but nobody came. Was everyone gone? It was only moments ago that Hermione left the room.

The figure chuckled, now just meters away. When the person trying to murder you was chuckling, it was never good. The room must have been silenced. Damn. Ginny scrambled out of her bed and furiously backed away, hurling random objects at the assassin with all her strength, but the infuriating villain just knocked them away with Ginny’s own wand. Ginny found herself pressed up against the wall. There was absolutely no way to escape. But wait!

The assassin stepped forward and raised the axe, ready to strike. Ginny dove for the corner of her messy bedroom, where she had, long ago, carelessly tossed the broken-Snitch Portkey that Oliver had given her for emergency Quidditch practices. Ginny ignored the protests of her aching shoulder and reached forward to grab the Portkey. As soon as her fingers closed on the object, she felt the white-hot bite of the axe on her shoulder blade, made even more painful by the axe’s bluntness, but it didn’t matter, because before the axe could slice through any vital organs, she was gone.

The Portkey took her to the middle of the deserted pitch in the Puddlemere Stadium, where Ginny lay, half-panting, half-sobbing, and bleeding profusely. But there was no time to waste; if she was the target, then the assassin would know just where to find her. It would be a matter of moments before the murderer tracked her down to the pitch.

Ginny knew the locker rooms were locked, and Coach Deverill’s office – the only room in the Stadium with a fireplace – was locked too. Without her wand to Apparate with, she needed to get to a fireplace, and fast.

Ginny tore out of the Stadium, her bare feet hurting against the rough asphalt, and her shoulder continuing to bleed. She ran until she reached the nearest residential home, which she knew belonged to Dougherty, the Stadium security guard. She banged on the door as loud as she could, but there was no response. Had the murderer predicted her movements and gotten to Dougherty first?

She continued to desperately bang on the door, when she saw a ghostly white blur fly out of the window. It was unmistakably a Patronus heading for the Ministry, so Dougherty must be in trouble.

Ginny wanted to help, but she was wandless, and Dougherty could already be dead. She needed to fly to safety, and Dougherty had a broom shed. Ginny ran over to the shed and kicked down the door, wincing as splinters dug into her foot. There was a flash of metal, and before Ginny knew what was happening, a blood-stained axe was frozen an inch in front of her face, and the figure in the broom shed was surrounded by Dougherty’s armed neighbors, who had woken up because of Ginny’s racket.

Several people screamed, “Expelliarmus!”, but the hooded assassin was faster. There was a swish of black robes, and the murderer was gone.

“Aren’t you Chaser Weasley?” one man asked.

“Dougherty is hurt!” a woman cried.

“Get him to St. Mungo’s!”

“Who was that man? Was he a Death Eater?”

“How do you know it was a man?”

“Are we in danger? Call the Aurors!”

“Call the Aurors! They should investigate!”

The crowd was panicking, and Ginny clutched at the sleeve of the man standing nearest to her. “I need to get to a fireplace!”

“Don’t you need to go to St. Mungo’s?”

“Fireplace!” Ginny screamed.

“Move out of the way!” the man called out. “Weasley needs to get to the fireplace!”

The crowd moved aside and let her in through Dougherty’s back door. Ginny thanked the man, and threw some Floo powder into the hearth. “The Ministry!” she screamed into the flames, and after a dizzying moment, came flying out of the Ministry fireplace.

The Ministry security guards nearly jumped out of their skin to see a pink and red blur run blindly towards them, and raised their wands. Ginny was in no condition to avoid the red sparks of the guards’ Stunning Spells, but the last coherent thought she had was, I’m safe.

---

“Auror Potter!”

“Yes?” Hermione asked, not looking up from the Wadcock case file that Philby had produced. The rookie’s more efficient than Harry is, Hermione thought with some amusement.

“Mr. Weasley’s younger sister is here, and she’s in an awful state. Should we turn her over to your department, or should we send her to St. Mungo’s?”

“St. Mungo’s? What for?”

“She’s hurt, ma’am.”

“Hurt? Oh dear, what has she gotten herself into now? I told her to stay put. Thil – er, Philby! Take this and alert Auror Brand. I’ll be back as soon as I see Ginny.” Hermione handed Philby the case file, and dashed after the security guard.

When she got to the Visitor’s Booth, where the other guard had placed Ginny in a chair, Hermione was shocked to see that the younger woman’s pajamas were saturated with blood. “Episkey!” she said, and the wound zipped up. After clearing away the blood, and using all of the healing spells she knew, Hermione decided that a visit to St. Mungo’s wouldn’t be necessary. She instead sent her Patronus to Philby, asking him to find a Blood-Replenishing Potion, and decided to take Ginny to Auror Brand’s office, where all the action was, much to Brand’s dismay.

Auror Joseph Brand was suffering from a massive headache. He had spent all day pursuing a shady Mafia man named Lukovski, who had hexed him with a rather strong Jelly-Legs Jinx that still made him feel wobbly. Then, he had been woken up at one-thirty in the morning, and if that wasn’t bad enough, he had just been told that the prime suspect to the Weasley vs. Blunt Axe case was none other than super-celebrity, Joscelind Wadcock, who was now glaring at his left nostril as if she wanted to murder it. He sighed. Celebrities. He hated them.

“I can see that the woman is under the Imperius, Macmillan. So take it off before she bores a hole through my left nostril.”

Auror Macmillan removed the curse, and Joscelind slumped against her chair, fast asleep.

“Miss Wadcock! Miss Joscelind Wadcock!”

Joscelind stirred, cracked open an eye, then jumped up so quickly that she kicked the desk and upturned the cup of tea Brand had been brewing. The Head Auror could have cried. “What are you doing in my room?” she yelled shrilly, adding to Brand’s headache.

“I’m not in your room, Miss Wadcock. You’re actually in mine.”

Joscelind looked around, then declared, “I do not sleepwalk! Why am I here? Did you kidnap me? Explain yourself!”

Brand rolled his eyes. That was what he wanted to ask. “Miss Wadcock, I have been informed that you, under the Imperius Curse, broke into Ginny Weasley’s flat and attempted to murder her with a blunt axe.” He pointedly ignored Joscelind’s baffled expression. “In the attempt to reach Miss Weasley, you have also tried to afflict bodily harm on Draco Malfoy. Although you have been under the Imperius, we wish for your cooperation to ask you further questions and to test your memory in the interrogations room.”

“What?” Joscelind asked, staring at Brand as if he were a madman. “I did what to who with a what, and did what to who on the way to do what to who?”

Brand sighed again. “I will repeat myself on the way to the interrogations room.”

At that point, the door opened, and an exhausted-looking Ginny walked in, supported by an equally frazzled-looking Hermione. “It wasn’t Joscelind,” Ginny said in a voice barely above a whisper. “She was a distraction, I think. The real murderer was hiding in my closet the whole time. He – she – it – whoever it was, tried to kill me,” Ginny said numbly. “It was awful, it was terrifying, and – and –” Ginny wiped away the tears that kept threatening to spill, trying not to cry. She wouldn’t cry, because she wasn’t a baby anymore, and Ginny was still trying to justify her last outburst by blaming it on the pain-relief potion.

“Auror Brand!” Philby shouted, running into the office. “Auror Brand! The residents of Puddlemere Court are going crazy! They claim to have seen an axe-murderer, and they’re saying that he was after Ginny Weasley. A Patronus from a man named Alton Dougherty also confirms this. He was hurt in the fight with the axe-murderer!”

“I just came from there,” Ginny said. “The murderer was in my room, and I Portkeyed to Puddlemere Stadium, and from there I ran to Puddlemere Court. I was trying to use Dougherty’s fireplace, but I think the murderer got there first, and he was also in the broom shed, and the neighbors stopped the axe literally an inch in front of my face!”

Auror Brand’s headache disappeared. A real murderer, panicking citizens, the national security at risk. This was what he worked for. This was what he was born to do. “Send out the troops! Question Miss Wadcock for anything she might have seen, or might remember. Everyone put their guards up! Like my old friend used to say, constant vigilance!”

---

Hermione thought that Philby would have made an excellent secretary. He took wonderful notes and was superb at following instructions. However, an Auror needed to take charge of situations, and Aurors, for the most part, needed to give instructions instead of following them. Harry was excellent at this particular aspect.

As nice as Philby was, he was no replacement for Harry. Was anyone a replacement for Harry? But the point was, the Board of Aurors was incredibly unhappy about being lied to, especially about something as big as the issue of Draco Malfoy, who could have turned out to be a threat to society. It was only because Harry had saved said society that he wasn’t immediately fired. That, and his remarkable talent as an Auror. To Hermione, however, having Harry suspended in a situation like this was as bad as having him sacked.

Hermione had always hated breaking rules, but sometimes, breaking rules saved lives. Ginny was a dear friend to her, and some nasty character was after Ginny’s life, not to mention that the heartless lunatic was hurting anyone that got in the way. If she wanted to protect Ginny and the rest of England, she would need Harry’s help. She just wasn’t as good an Auror without him. If the rules said she couldn’t work with Harry, why, she’d break the rules!

The rules also said information about case files would be kept strictly secret from civilians. But there was one civilian who could strategize better than anyone Hermione knew. Maybe he was still a bit angry with her, and a bit jealous of Harry, but she knew that he knew that their friendship came first.

They had all worked perfectly together during the war; Hermione was the person who had provided the Order with brilliant new spells and hexes that surprised the Death Eaters to no end, Harry was the man of action, who took down more Death Eaters than anyone else, and Ronald Weasley was the strategizing genius, who had predicted the Death Eaters’ movements with almost alarming accuracy.

It was time, thought Hermione with a smile, that the Golden Trio got back together to seriously kick some axe-murderer ar – er, rear end was the polite term.

---

“Tall, hooded, dressed in black robes, and wielding a blunt axe. Has a chuckle that sounds like it might come from a man with a high voice, or a woman with a low voice,” Philby muttered to himself, jotting down anything and everything Ginny said. “Anything else, Miss Weasley?” he mumbled shyly, refusing to look at Ginny, and blushing a lovely shade of tomato.

“Er… Well, I wasn’t paying much attention, being so close to death and all, but I thought the person’s robes smelled a bit stale, like they hadn’t been worn in a long time, and I think I also caught a whiff of alcohol…”

“Stale robes, alcohol. Anything else?”

“Er… No. That’s it, I’m afraid.”

“Thank you for your cooperation, Miss Weasley,” Philby said in a voice that almost squeaked.

From the other side of the room, Draco rolled his eyes. Ginny was not an unattractive woman, but she was nowhere near beautiful enough to be causing any boys a nervous breakdown – that was what Veelas were for. But Philby was rather amusing.

“Mr. Malfoy,” Philby said, uncomfortably addressing Draco, who, for the benefit of his own entertainment, had rolled up his sleeves. The black skull on his left forearm grinned menacingly at Philby, who paled visibly.

“Yes, Plibby?” Draco drawled, knowing full well that the boy’s confidence level dropped every time someone messed up his name.

“Phiby, sir,” he corrected.

“Right. So, what was it that you wanted to ask, Fishby?”

“Er… I was told to ask you if you wanted your memories back. The Ministry has your Pensieve from 1998, but we haven’t gotten rid of it because you don’t have a copy of the memories inside your head...”

Draco looked pensive for a moment, and Ginny’s curiosity was piqued. She was actually beginning to find the post-war Draco Malfoy tolerable, and she knew the main reason he was no longer evil was that he didn’t remember his darkest days. That, and the influence of Andromeda Tonks. Ginny was afraid that if Draco remembered the war, he would once again become the cold-blooded monster that he had been.

“I’ll take the Pensieve.”

Philby’s face fell. “Mr. Malfoy, could you take just the memories? You see, Pensieves are rather expensive…”

“Nonsense. I wish to reclaim my memories in their current state, which is in the Pensieve.”

“Yes, sir,” Philby replied sadly. He would receive another lecture from Auror Potter about the importance of saving the Ministry budget.

Philby left, with one last shy glance at Ginny, and an uncomfortable silence hung over Ginny and Draco.

Ginny realized, with a funny sort of feeling that was halfway between gratefulness and self-pity, that Draco Malfoy, her greatest enemy that ever lived, had pretty much saved her life. If he hadn’t stopped Joscelind, she would have been murdered in her sleep by an old friend. If he hadn’t called Hermione, who had stormed her flat, waking her up, and distracting the assassin, she still would have been murdered in her sleep. She supposed that she should thank him. She just didn’t know how.

“Malfoy. I, er, that is… The axe-murderer, er, would have killed me. Yes. The axe-murderer definitely would have killed me. So what I would like to say is that, er, I’d like to tell you that…” Why? Ginny thought glumly. Why does this have to be so difficult? “You – that is, I –”

“What you would like to say,” said Draco in an amused drawl, “is that you wish to make me a lovely breakfast with sausages and scrambled eggs?”

“Yes, exactly,” Ginny replied, smiling in relief.

Draco, for the first time that Ginny had ever seen, genuinely smiled back.

And from that moment on, they somehow, inexplicably, became friends – sort of.

---

To be continued…

---

(*) The occamy mentioned at the beginning of the chapter is what I thought was a suitable Patronus for Draco. According to the HP Lexicon, the occamy is “a beautiful, carnivorous creature native to India and the Far East, resembling a winged snake, but plumed, having two legs, and reaching up to fifteen feet in length. As occamy eggshells are formed from pure soft silver, the occamy's reputation for aggression may be overstated, as most of its interaction with humans probably has consisted of defense of its eggs.”

I thought that having a dragon be Draco’s Patronus was a bit overdone already, so I used a more exotic animal. The part about the snake and the silver definitely fits Draco, and the occamy’s aggression towards humans to defend its eggs seems to be, in my opinion, a good reflection of Draco’s personality – I believe that he is only mean to others to protect himself. ;)

---

---

Chapter Six

---

“Lavender Brown is crazy! There is no other word to describe her but crazy!” Draco yelled, throwing up another ward and adding a Silencing Charm on the door, which Lavender was hexing and pummeling, asking The-Puddlemere-Reserve-Chaser-Who-Was-Almost-Axed-To-Death for an interview.

Ginny was curled up on the couch, hugging a cushion. She didn’t want to go into her room after what had happened the night before, and was feeling so disturbed and frightened that she was actually glad that Draco was there with her.

“Look, Weasley,” Draco sighed, settling down next to her on the couch, though he kept a respectable distance. After the life-saving incident, they had formed a sort of very awkward, highly unstable friendship, but there was still a legion of kinks that needed to be worked out. “It’s broad daylight, you’re sitting next to the infamous Draco Malfoy, and you’re armed – wait, no you’re not. What did you do with your wand?”

Ginny shook her head.

“You don’t know?”

Ginny nodded.

Draco sighed again. “I’m sure the Aurors will find it. As for you – you can’t sit there like that forever. At least do your shoulder exercises.”

Ginny half-heartedly began moving her shoulder.

Draco’s patience was wearing thin. Everything had been fine until after breakfast. He had offered to wash the dishes, and during that time, he supposed Ginny’s shock wore off, causing her to be hit with the full force of the terror she just went through. He understood quite well that she was terrified, but at least she could speak to him. After all, he had saved her life, and they were supposed to be friends – sort of. “Is there anything you want me to get you?” he asked as nicely as he could.

Oliver. I want nothing more than to bury my head in his chest and have him tell me that everything would be all right. But everything wasn’t all right. With the team’s big match against the Appleby Arrows in less than two weeks, and one of their official Chasers missing, it was no wonder why Oliver’s screech owl (aptly named Bludger) was currently bashing itself against her window, along with all the other owls from friends, family, and reporters wanting to speak with her.

“Did you just say Oliver?” Draco asked in surprise (and hurt, seeing that Ginny was rejecting the company of her savior and friend – sort of – in favor of a brawny Quidditch Captain), but his words were lost to Ginny, who was deep in her own thoughts, and had not realized that she had spoken out loud.

Oliver was probably more concerned about Draco’s absence at practice than hers, because she was a useless, injured player. He was undoubtedly furious, and Ginny was almost surprised that he hadn’t sent Draco a Howler for skipping practice again. She wondered if Oliver had Splinched himself while trying to Apparate into her flat, which was usually warded to allow certain people to visit, but was now closed off against all visitors. She also wondered if his fireplace had spit him back out because hers was disconnected from the Floo network. She wondered what made winning so important that Oliver was skipping practice and floating outside her window to recruit Draco – floating outside her window?

“Hey, look,” Draco said with a strong amount of disdain, glancing at the Man-Who-Women-Liked-Better-Than-Their-Saviors, “Wood’s here.”

But Ginny didn’t care what Draco was saying, because she was more focused on getting his wand. After snatching it away, she pointed it at the window, ignored the waving Scotsman, and transfigured the window into a solid wall, blocking out all owls and Quidditch Captains.

“Impressive,” Draco muttered. “But I thought you wanted to see him. He looks concerned. Aren’t you going to talk to him?”

Ginny shook her head and buried her face into the cushion. Oliver wasn’t here for her – she knew it. Perhaps she was falling into a state of depression, but she felt so useless, and couldn’t think of a single reason why Oliver would talk to her. After all, when Draco had gotten in the way of the axe-murderer, he was almost hurt, and Oliver wouldn’t want to get hurt because of her, would he?

She really hadn’t thought about it for a very long time, but the sudden appearance of a mysterious murderer kept reminding her of the time when she almost died in the Chamber of Secrets. She kept picturing Tom Riddle’s face under the hood, and while she knew that Tom was gone, and would also never do anything so unrefined as to murder with an axe, it was enough to terrorize her into the state of speechless depression that she had fallen into after the incident with the Chamber. For months after Harry had rescued her, Ginny had not spoken a word, isolating herself because she felt that no one would understand, not even Harry. She was feeling the same way again – Oliver would not understand.

“Weasley. Talk to Wood. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” Draco couldn’t hide the bitterness in his voice, but couldn’t understand where that bitterness was coming from, since Ginny was obviously in a very disturbed state, and it was natural for her to prefer the company of an old friend than a new sort-of friend who also happened to be an old enemy, even if it was one who had saved her from what was terrifying her in the first place.

How did he know what I wanted? Must be that stupid Legilimency. She shook her head.

“Weasley.”

Ginny buried her face even more deeply into the cushion. She looked so pitiful, so vulnerable, so different from the real Ginny – the one that was crazy and slightly scary – that Draco couldn’t bring himself to be angry with her.

“Perhaps,” he said thoughtfully, “you need a Pensieve.”

Ginny looked up slowly. Perhaps she did.

---

“Wood!” Draco called. “I don’t think I can make it to practice today.”

Oliver lowered his broom from the fifth story. Draco scowled when he saw a passing woman nearly fall over from swooning at the Scotsman. Nobody – well, except for Pansy Parkinson and Rosalyn Lancaster, but they didn’t really count – ever swooned at him.

“Well, of course,” Oliver said, oblivious to the swooning woman, and interpreting Draco’s scowl as his anguish at missing a wonderful Quidditch practice. “Everything’s in the Daily Prophet. Looks like you had quite a night. I came here to see Ginny. How is she? Poor lass is probably terrified.” Oliver looked gravely concerned, and Draco, for some inexplicable reason, felt a pang of annoyance at this.

“Of course she’s terrified,” Draco said irritably. “Wouldn’t you be, if an axe-murderer was after you? That’s why I’m going to Dervish and Banges (*) right now, to buy her a Pensieve.”

“Good thinking. She’s in there by herself?”

“She wants no visitors. None. Only me,” Draco said, with more emphasis than was strictly necessary.

“Oh. Will she be all right?”

“She’ll be fine. There are more wards around her place than Hogwarts ever had. Nothing, not even a dust mite, can get in. I’m quite talented with wards, you know,” Draco added, without really knowing why he suddenly had the urge to brag.

“Good. Er…” Oliver looked uncomfortable.

“Yes?”

“Er…”

“I do need to get going, you know. Because I, unlike you, care about Weasley’s welfare.” Now, why in the name of Merlin did I say that?

“Er, right. If you say so. Er… We – er – I have decided to replace you with Katie Bell. Our next big game is in less than two weeks, and we need someone who’s more experienced. Sorry.” He really did look sorry, though he had no reason to be, since he was only a Captain making the best choice for his team.

Draco was highly affronted, but nodded curtly and Disapparated.

Once he was in Hogsmeade Village and out of Oliver’s earshot, Draco let out a string of curse words that wished the Puddlemere Captain a very painful death. “Replace me? How dare he replace me! With a Gryffindor, out of all people!” he fumed.

He marched down High Street to Dervish and Banges, and entered. He was greeted by a wizened old woman sitting at the counter. “I’m here to buy a Pensieve,” he said without preamble.

“Very well, sir,” said the old woman, and disappeared into a back room, leaving Draco by himself.

Draco thought about his own Pensieve. His Pensieve wasn’t just a collection of memories – it was the darkest years of his life. He was certain that the Pensieve would answer all of the questions he had about himself, but he was also afraid that he wouldn’t like what he would see. The memories couldn’t be too bad, since the Aurors had seen them and let him go free, but Draco was still apprehensive. The Dark Mark on his arm meant that he had been a Death Eater, but that hadn’t meant anything to him because he didn’t remember what it was really like. He was afraid that seeing his memories would bring a meaning to the Mark.

Draco also did not want to see his parents’ deaths. He didn’t know if he had actually witnessed them dying in the first place, but he wasn’t interested in finding out anytime soon. Of course, he could ask Potter or some other Auror to summarize the contents of his Pensieve for him, but that would mean admitting that he was scared – of himself – and no Malfoy should ever admit to being afraid.

Despite all the apprehension that he had towards his Pensieve, Draco was very, very curious. Other people knew more about him than he did, but he was certain that the people who he associated with now, namely, the Puddlemere United team, weren’t the best people to ask about himself. After all, until the beginning of his fourth year, he had not appreciated the companionship of anyone who wasn’t a Slytherin. And where were all the Slytherins now? Dead, imprisoned, or missing and at large. From what he had heard, the only happily surviving Slytherin was Tracey Davis, who had married Ravenclaw Terry Boot, and was running a small bookshop next to the Post Office right here in Hogsmeade. He had never liked Tracey very much. Not only was she a Half-Blood, she also preferred making friends with Ravenclaws to Slytherins, and hated Quidditch with a passion. So, Tracey probably knew less about him than most Gryffindors did, those in Azkaban weren’t exactly the sanest of people, and those who were dead were, well, dead. He really had no one to ask about himself.

Draco was distracted from further thought by the old woman reappearing from the back room, carrying a wrapped parcel that was the Pensieve. “Three hundred Galleons (**),” she said in her raspy voice.

“Three hundred Galleons? Woman, are you crazy? When my Father bought a Pensieve –”

“That was more than a decade ago, Mr. Malfoy. And, it was before the war. Inflation and post-war taxes are taking their toll,” she said somberly.

Draco couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so he paid, and on the way home, he thought about how Ginny better not collect rent from him for the next six months – if, of course, she let him stay that long.

---

Ginny Weasley’s room was a mess. It had nothing to do with the Aurors who had searched the room, because Aurors were professionals at putting things back where they found them. That was the problem. The Aurors had put the dirty sock on the chair because that’s where they found it, and they had stuffed the – the – half-eaten plant-furball hybrid thing, whatever it was, under the bed because that’s where they found it. Ginny had put them there in the first place, and for what reason, only Merlin knew.

Draco was not particularly interested in Ginny Weasley’s belongings. Though he was dirt-poor at the moment (he was actually three hundred Galleons in deficit, until the redhead paid him back), he had once possessed the finest things money could buy, as well as the things that money could not buy (but blackmailing could), and Ginny’s things did not appeal to him in the slightest. Draco thought that Ginny gave a new meaning to the word ‘priceless’. Her things were so worthless that they did not have a price – they weren’t worth a tenth of a Knut. In fact, if he were Ginny, he would actually pay anyone who was willing to take the broken limited-edition Harry Potter bobblehead.

Even while finding it painful to look at the foul objects in Ginny’s room, Draco made a resolution to clean the place. Ginny had shooed him out of the sitting room while she extracted her memories. Because Ginny happened to live in a one-room flat, he had a choice between going to her room, or sitting in the loo. It was just his bad luck that he had decided to open the door to Pandora’s Box, first. Now that he saw the treacherous filth, he could not ignore it. This room was pure evil, and it needed to be purged.

Not wanting to touch anything, especially not that clump of cloth that looked suspiciously like dirty underwear, Draco magically lifted everything off the floor and placed them on the bed to be sorted. The half-eaten plant-furball hybrid thing didn’t really seem to be alive, but it squeaked unpleasantly when Draco poked it with his wand.

Draco sighed. This was going to take a long time.

During his cleaning, Draco came across Ginny’s underwear drawer, which he definitely should not have seen (though the massive amounts of white cotton told him why she wasn’t married yet), used the Laundering Charm on over twenty articles of clothing, and had sorted a huge number of odds and ends into two piles: one for ‘Broken’, and one for ‘Still usable, but what is it?’.

He still didn’t know whether the lumpy green furball was truly alive or not, and was considering the possibility of burning it, along with everything else in the godforsaken room, when the door opened.

Ginny walked in, holding her Pensieve, and looking much better than she did earlier that morning. What she saw almost made her drop the Pensieve. “Malfoy! What have you done to my room? It’s – it’s –”

“Clean?” Draco supplied.

“Horrible! Who gave you the permission to ransack my stuff?” Ginny demanded.

“Ransack? I believe I have done the opposite of ransacking, which is organizing very neatly.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Malfoy. How will I ever be able to find anything in here? Nothing is where I left it!”

“Your clothes would either be in your closet or your dresser, which are the places where most normal people keep their clothes, though I am in no way implying that you are normal. Your Quidditch- and school-related awards and trophies are now out on display instead of hiding in some dark corner, which really was an insult to them – I wouldn’t be surprised if one of your trophies were trying to kill you for shoving it under a pile of unwashed socks. Your other belongings are sorted into various drawers based on what they are. This pile is for things that are broken and need to be tossed out. That pile is for the things that I have deemed usable, but have no idea what they are. I suppose this furball –”

“Stop poking Arnold Jr.!”

“Arnold Jr.? If this great monstrosity is Arnold Jr., then I definitely wouldn’t want to meet Arnold Sr.!”

Ginny put down her Pensieve and cuddled the lumpy, misshapen, Quaffle-sized furball in her arms. “Arnold Jr. was Fred and George’s first attempt at trying to create a Pygmy Puff Plant, where Pygmy Puffs grow on trees. As you can see, it didn’t work out right, and after my Pygmy Puff named Arnold died, I adopted this little critter.”

“Ah. So that mutant furball is your pet?” Draco looked both disgusted and amused. “What does it do? Other than squeak when poked, I mean.”

“It eats the dead things in my room.”

Draco grimaced. “You make it sound like that’s a good thing.”

“It is,” Ginny insisted. “When Arnold Jr. wasn’t around, the dead things started decomposing, and it smelled sort of bad.”

“Really? Bad, you say? I can’t imagine your room smelling anything but heavenly,” Draco said sarcastically. “Enough talk of furballs and bugs. How was the Pensieve?”

Ginny grinned widely. “I’m tons better. My head is cleared, and I don’t feel so miserable anymore. Thanks for buying me the Pensieve.”

Draco opened his mouth to say that he did not buy her the Pensieve, because she would be paying for it, but Ginny looked so thankful, and no one had ever been thankful to him before, and the Pensieve really did seem to have helped her a lot, so when he spoke, instead of saying a nasty comment on how she was indebted to him forever and ever, he ended up saying a simple, “You’re welcome,” which, of course, was the first time he had said that to anyone.

Ginny smiled again, and her eyes lit up in such a way that Draco did not ever want to see that light go out, not if he could help it. “Do you think we should go to practice now?”

Draco swore inside his head. Count on Ginny to ruin the mood, Draco thought, though what mood she was ruining, he didn’t know. “No,” he snapped. “Termite-home replaced me.”

“Termite-home?”

“Wood. That ruddy piece of firewood replaced me with Katie Bell. Apparently, she’s more experienced than I am, even when I practically lived on a fucking broomstick while I was in bloody Switzerland.”

Ginny laughed. Her laughter sounded sort of like Ron’s chortle-guffaw mixture, and rather unladylike, but it was still nice enough to lift Draco’s spirits a fraction of an inch. “Are you jealous of Katie? And you’re mad at Oliver?” She laughed some more. “He was sorry, wasn’t he? Even though he shouldn’t be. He’s always so sorry when inconveniencing other people, unlike some people who barge into other people’s homes and demand to live there.” Ginny said this in a teasing sort of way, but Draco was annoyed. He had never liked the old Gryffindor Keeper. He was too much of a gentleman, the ladies loved him too much, and he was just too bloody, noble, honest Gryffindor.

“He’s only doing his job. That’s what he’s supposed to do, replace those who skip practice with those who don’t.”

“And why did I have to skip practice?” Draco snarled, angry with the fact that Ginny was defending Wood, even after he, Draco, her new sort-of friend, had bought her a Pensieve. “Was it for my own convenience? I don’t think so!”

“But Oliver only meant the best –”

She was still defending Wood! What was wrong with her? “I only meant the best too! I only wanted to help the stupid chit who had to go and bother some crazy axe-murderer! I almost got killed while trying to save a worthless thing like you!” Draco realized, a moment too late, the impact of the words he had just shouted.

The happy light in Ginny’s eyes flickered off, and Draco inwardly swore even more. “Well,” she said coldly. “Did I ever ask you to get involved in my business? I truly thank you for saving my life, but remember that it was completely your choice, so you really shouldn’t blame anything on me.” Ginny tossed him a bag of Galleons. “Here’s the money for the Pensieve, Malfoy. I was going to give it to you at dinner tonight, but consider that canceled.” She whirled around and headed out the door, but paused to drop one more comment. “And you know what? Oliver didn’t take you off the official team because you missed practice. It’s because you absolutely stink at being a team player.”

Ginny left, and Draco’s anger fizzled out. He felt like the biggest loser in the world. Their sort-of friendship had fallen apart at the seams after just three hours, and it was all his fault. How did he always muck things up like this? He poked Arnold Jr. It squeaked. Draco picked it up and buried his face in its surprisingly warm fur. It made a content sort of purring noise, and Draco decided that if his friendship with Ginny wasn’t going to work out, he would, at the very least, make friends with Arnold.

---

Katie was playing very well. It was almost as if she had never taken time off from the sport to work at Gringotts. Rosalyn actually seemed to like Katie, and everything was going smoothly. Oliver kept giving Katie two thumbs up, and Ginny had yelled at him to keep at least one hand on his broomstick. Now, he was grinning at Katie instead, and Ginny thought she was going to be sick.

Ginny was furtively glaring at Katie, who was hovering near her, and waving for Ian to pass her the Quaffle. Katie caught it successfully, and zoomed away, just in time to miss the Bludger that was flying towards her. If Ginny had paid more attention to the game as a whole, instead of focusing her glare on Katie, she would have noticed that the Bludger switched its target to the nearest available player, who, unfortunately, was her.

The only person who noticed was Antonio Rabnott, the Reserve Beater who had sent that particular Bludger. By the time he yelled, “Ginny! Look out!”, the Bludger had already knocked Ginny unconscious.

When Ginny came back to her senses, there was a dull ache in her head, and she was being lifted up by her teammates. Someone was saying something about St. Mungo’s, but stopped when Katie yelled, “She’s awake!”

Ginny had no idea what was going on. She had been glaring at Katie, and the next thing she knew, her teammates were fussing over her, and Katie’s face was two inches from hers. “Ginny!” Katie cried. “Are you okay?” Katie was shaking her shoulders, and Ginny could feel her brain rattling.

“I’m fine!” she yelled. The pain Katie was causing her shoulder was worse than the pain in her skull, and Ginny decided that this week was definitely not her week. “What happened?” she asked, after slapping away Katie’s hands.

“I’m really sorry,” said Tony, looking more scared than sorry. The last time he hit Ginny with a Bludger, she had yelled at him for hours, and Merlin knew that an irate Ginny was more terrifying than a Death Eater. “I – IhityouwithaBludger.”

Ginny sighed, and it was only after breathing in the scent of wood and grass that she realized that the person holding her up was Oliver. It’s pathetic, Ginny thought, that I can recognize Oliver’s wood and grass smell while sitting in the middle of a grassy pitch, surrounded by more than a dozen broomsticks. She sighed again and said, “It’s all right, Tony. This is Quidditch. Quidditch and injuries are like potions and cauldrons.”

“Are you sure you’re all right, Ginny?” asked Oliver softly, and Ginny felt a surge of anger. If only he hadn’t grinned at Katie, then she wouldn’t have been glaring at her. But who was she to decide who Oliver smiled at?

Feeling rather dejected, Ginny stood up and reached for her wand, only to remember that it was still missing. “I’m fine,” she repeated, and shrugged off Oliver’s hand. “I just need to go home and sleep. Today really hasn’t been the best of days.”

“Right, then. I’ll walk you to the Coach’s office.”

Ginny was suddenly too tired to argue, and let him follow.

Halfway to the office, Oliver spoke again. “Ginny, if it’s all right with you, I’d like to take you to my place for some soup. There’s nothing better than my Mum’s Scotch Broth to make you feel better.”

Ginny didn’t know what was what anymore. She missed the days when Oliver was simply her best friend. But a Scotch Broth did sound good. “But you’ll miss practice,” Ginny protested.

“I don’t need practice,” Oliver replied with a cheeky wink, then put on his professional face. “No, I wasn’t being serious, so never tell anyone I said that. You can never have enough practice, but I think everyone’s worn out for today. After confirming that you were alive, half the team called it a day and practically ran home. I have been working them a bit hard these days,” he admitted.

“Well then, how about some good old Scotch Broth?” Ginny said, approaching the fireplace.

Oliver grinned. “After you, milady.”

---

Draco was pacing. Practice should have ended hours ago, but Ginny was yet to come back. If there hadn’t been an axe-murderer on the loose, he would have assumed that Ginny was just trying to avoid him because of their earlier spat, but Ginny was too sensible a person to be doing that when her life was under threat.

She didn’t even have her wand, for Merlin’s sake! He shouldn’t have let her leave the safety of the flat at all. What good would wards around her flat do when Ginny insisted on leaving said flat?

What was she doing? Where was she? Who was she with? If it was Oliver bloody Wood, Draco swore to become the next axe-murderer, and Wood would be his target.

Draco didn’t know exactly what it was that he had against the Scottish Keeper. He was chipper and courteous to everyone (unless you were on the opposite Quidditch team – then he’d knock you off your broom without a second thought), but of course, the women took this the wrong way. They fawned all over him. Draco believed that he, himself, was strikingly gorgeous, and most (several – some – a handful – oh fine, two) women inclined to agree, until Wood showed up. At school, during his first Quidditch match, Draco had stalked onto the field, and Pansy had been screaming and waving at him… Until Wood came out, and Pansy was momentarily stunned into a dreamy-eyed expression. Then she received an elbow in the ribs from Blaise Zabini, and realized that it was a Gryffindor she was drooling over. Draco honestly did not think that Wood was so attractive that his fellow Slytherins could overlook the bloody scarlet robes of the Gryffindor team, but he wasn’t the most objective person to ask.

Rosalyn had also shown some interest in Draco, but that was only because as a Chaser on the official team, it wouldn’t do for Rosalyn to hover around her own team’s Keeper when the goalposts were on the other side of the field. With Wood too far away to look at, she had considered dropping back to the Reserve team, but then Draco showed up, and she had taken to appreciating the next best thing. Draco was infuriated with being second-best. He was only second-best to Harry Potter, and now Wood was reminding him of that bespectacled git.

Someone knocked on the door, and Draco was jerked out of his thoughts. Was it Ginny? Was it the axe-murderer? No. It was the bespectacled git that he had just been mentally cursing. Well, speak of the devil – or the hero, in Potter’s case.

“Potter,” Draco snapped, opening the door. “What are you doing here?”

Harry was halfway between amusement and irritation. “I thought I heard a bag of Galleons dropping out of the sky, but I suppose I was mistaken.”

“Oh. That. Well yes, that bag of Galleons officially belongs to me, so hand it over.”

“Polite as always, Malfoy.”

“Of course.”

“Where’s Ginny?”

“I don’t know.”

Harry raised both his eyebrows. He had never been able to master the art of raising just one eyebrow. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“I mean I haven’t a clue.”

“Malfoy!”

“Potter.”

“Did you kick her out of her own flat?”

“No, Potter!” Draco snapped. Why did Potter insist on thinking that he was so ill-mannered that he would kick a woman out of her own house? He may not be the next Oliver Wood, but he was still an aristocratic gentleman – sort of. “She walked out herself. She went to Quidditch practice and never came back.”

Harry suddenly blanched. “Malfoy.”

“What, Potter?”

“Pansy Parkinson was just released from Azkaban this evening. You don’t think…”

Draco raised a delicate eyebrow (contrary to popular belief, he did not pluck his eyebrows; they were naturally thin like that). “Nonsense, Potter. It’s not that I’m defending her, but if she just got out today, how has she been making those previous attacks?”

“She was probably in contact with someone else.”

“Not me!” Draco said defensively.

“I know it’s not you. But… oh, why haven’t I realized this before?” Harry asked, his green eyes lighting up with his sudden realization.

“Because you’re a completely hopeless dunderhead?”

“Did you know that we never caught Blaise Zabini?”

“I’m not surprised. He always was a slippery one.”

“He never was much of a threat, and there was nothing suggesting he was related to Death Eater activities, so we kind of dismissed him.”

“You know,” said Draco thoughtfully, “Ever since that Chamber incident, Zabini’s regarded Weasley with some kind of awe…”

“Merlin,” Harry breathed, his pickled-toad eyes going wide. “I know what he’s up to! He thinks Voldemort’s soul might still be in Ginny! He’s going to kill Ginny using non-magical means so Voldemort’s soul wouldn’t be harmed, and it would be magically transferred to him! Zabini’s trying to resurrect Voldemort!”

“And is this possible?” Draco asked, feeling slightly alarmed.

“Of course not! The only reason Voldemort is dead is because all seven parts of his soul are destroyed, and Ginny is definitely Voldemort-soul-free! But Zabini doesn’t know this! He’s going to kill Ginny, and it would be for nothing!”

“I see. So what happens next?”

“I’m going to have to get Zabini before he gets Ginny!” Harry declared, then Disapparated.

“Hey!” Draco exclaimed to thin air. “You didn’t give me my bag of Galleons!”

---

To be continued…

---

(*) Dervish and Banges is a ‘magical equipment’ store, and I figured that a Pensieve would go in that category.

(**) I really should have mentioned this ages ago, but according to the HP Lexicon’s currency converter, 100 Galleons = 500 UK Pounds = 741 Euros = 993 US Dollars.

---

Chapter Seven

---

“Zabini?”

“Yes! Blaise Zabini is after Ginny because he wants to resurrect Voldemort!”

“But Harry, Voldemort can’t be resurrected. You made sure of that.”

“I know that, you know that, but Zabini doesn’t know that!”

“Harry. I will have my team search for Zabini, because it’s possible that he’s after her, but he’s not trying to resurrect anyone.”

“Yes, he is! He either wants to bring Voldemort back to power, or wants to be the new Dark Lord himself.”

“Harry,” Hermione sighed exasperatedly. “Blaise Zabini was never a Death Eater. Why would he want –”

“That was probably a cover! He pretended to have nothing to do with Voldemort, because he was the one who actually worshipped him! Like Wormtail!”

Hermione didn’t know what to do when Harry was in his ‘I’m-onto-a-suspect-and-I’m-getting-all-these-brilliant-ideas-about-why-I’m-right-so-try-to-contradict-me’ mode. He had been like this when he suspected Draco Malfoy of being a Death Eater, and he had been right. Since then, there was no stopping him when he started homing in on a suspect. Hermione suspected that she had picked up her own extreme paranoid behavior from Harry.

“Okay, fine. But regardless of what Zabini’s up to, I think we should discuss how we’re going to work.”

“Work?”

“Yes, Harry: work. You know, that thing you do for a living?”

“What about it?”

“You can’t work until the beginning of next year, and I can’t work without you. By the time you come back to work, who knows what state Ginny will be in, and who knows how many more murders will have been committed!”

“Exactly my point! So I need to work. But how?”

“Volunteer to help Ron grade his students’ essays.”

“What?”

“We need Ron’s strategy. We need to know where this axe-murderer is going to strike next.”

Harry nodded. Ron may not exactly be happy with either of them at the moment, but a case this big needed the Trio. “Do you think it’s time to go on another illegal excursion under the old Invisibility Cloak?”

Hermione’s uncharacteristically mischievous grin was enough of an answer.

---

The soup was delicious, Ginny decided. Oliver’s Mum’s cooking was good enough to rival her own Mum’s.

Now, they were sitting on Oliver’s couch – closely, but not too closely, to each other – and watching replays of their last game against the Applebee Arrows. “There,” Oliver said, freezing the Tele-wiz and pointing at Ian O’Brien. “That was a brilliant move that threw the Arrows off, but they’re going to be expecting it next time. Instead of an actual barrel roll, I think we should feint it and score directly. Of course, this won’t work all the time…” Oliver jotted down some notes, then played the Tele-wiz again.

The last match with the Arrows had been successful, but that was when Joscelind Wadcock had been around. Ginny had also been playing, but the way things were going, she wouldn’t be playing again until the big Christmas Eve game – if her skills were up to par by then.

“And there’s the Bludger attack that knocked out the Arrows’ Seeker! Fleetwood – I’m not sure which one – said it was an accident, but they’ve been working on it, and have gotten it nearly perfected.”

Ginny liked the Fleetwood brothers, Matthew and Michael. They were a lot like Fred and George, seeing that they were twins, Beaters, and had a hilarious sense of humor.

“And there’s Wadcock and Weasley with their new passing maneuver. It worked brilliantly, it did. Weasley’s scoring technique is nothing short of fabulous! It has a certain finesse to it. And what a steal that was! It’s a shame our two best Chasers aren’t going to be playing for this game.”

Ginny found it endearing how when Oliver was absorbed with the replays, he started speaking about everyone in third person – including Ginny, who was sitting right next to him, and himself.

“Ugh,” he groaned. “That was a terrible miss for Wood. That man needs to work on his backflipping skills.”

After the replay was over, Oliver wrote down a few more ideas in his notebook, which was titled ‘Applebee Arrows’. The notebook was dedicated to everything about the Arrows – their strengths, weaknesses, players, Reserves, techniques, and anything else about them, including the fact that the Arrows’ Seeker was allergic to roses, so the Puddlemere fans should be encouraged to bring lots and lots of them to the game. Ginny thought that the notebook was fairly impressive, but Oliver had one for every team they’d ever played, and Ginny thought that was a bit too much. How was he ever going to find himself a girlfriend when he was so occupied with Quidditch that he didn’t even have time to notice the woman sitting next to him? Her hair was like a neon sign! How could he not notice a color that positively screamed, ‘Look at me! I’m two shades brighter than a Quaffle!’

“Ginny,” Oliver said suddenly. “Your hair is two shades brighter than a Quaffle.”

“Okay,” Ginny said, surprised.

Oliver sighed. “That wasn’t romantic at all, was it?”

“Romantic?” Ginny squeaked. Oliver was being romantic? Why? Romantic with her? Why? Ginny mentally cursed herself. She should have replied differently, more like ‘Okayyy’, with a seductive wink.

“You see, Ginny…” Oliver looked uncomfortable, and Ginny felt the same way. “Romance has never been my area of expertise. Sure, plenty of women like me, but I’ve never returned their feelings. But now, it’s different.”

“Different?” Ginny asked, her voice becoming squeakier.

“Yes. There’s this girl… She’s really bright and spirited, and excellent at Quidditch, and I’ve known her for a very long time. Of course, I’ve only thought of her as a friend, and sort of like a little sister…”

“Little sister?” Ginny repeated, in a very squeaky voice.

“Yeah. Except that lately, she keeps cropping up in my thoughts, and there’s nothing brotherly about them.” Oliver turned faintly pink.

Sweet Merlin, I feel the same way. Could Oliver…? Could he really? “I see,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper before Oliver mistook her for a squeaky mouse.

“But you know me, Quidditch was my first love, and while learning Quidditch strategies, I never had the time to learn strategies on how to deal with women. And I was wondering if you could help me…”

“Help you?” Is this where I help you realize that you like me more than Quidditch?

“Yeah. How do you tell a woman, who considers you as nothing more than a friend, that you like her?”

You kiss her senseless and say, ‘Ginny, I love you.’ “Well,” Ginny began, trying to keep her heart from beating its way out of her ribcage. “You could start by taking her to a coffee shop.”

“Coffee shop. That seems safe enough. All right.” Oliver ran a nervous hand through his short brown hair. “Give me a few days. I need to – to plan this out. Unless you want to do the planning for me?”

“Er… It’s always better to have these kind of things come from your own heart.”

“My own heart. I see. And, er, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone about this. I don’t want the jealous women reporters writing all sorts of slander about this girl.”

Oliver was so thoughtful. Ginny thought she might melt. “No problem,” she managed to say.

“Thanks, Ginny,” said Oliver, his eyes shining unusually bright. “It’s getting late. You should go home, to the safety of your wards. Do you want to Floo, or should I walk you over?”

Walk me over? We won’t be walking over, because I’m about to faint and you’ll have to carry me, which will cause me to faint even more. “I’ll Floo. I really shouldn’t be walking about, even if it’s just across the street.”

“You’re right. Thanks for everything, Ginny. I’ll tell you when I get the, er, the date ready.” Oliver turned pinker, and looked so adorable that Ginny had to clasp her hands together behind her back to stop herself from pinching his cheeks. “Good night.”

“Good night,” Ginny choked out, and fled.

When Ginny burst out of her own fireplace, she collapsed onto her couch and squealed, long, loudly, and happily.

To Draco, the nervous wreck who had been considering calling the Missing Persons Department, it sounded like an anguished, painful scream. “Weasley!” he roared. “What happened? Who hurt you?”

He ran over to the couch and lifted Ginny into a sitting position. Whatever he was expecting from Ginny, it certainly wasn’t a giddy smile accompanied by dreamy eyes. Draco was truly alarmed. Somebody had hexed her brains out! Ginny had the same expression on her face that Pansy that once been caught with in her second year, when looking at Oliver Wood. “Weasley? What’s wrong?”

“Oliver!” she squealed, burying her face into a cushion and hugging it in a decidedly non-platonic way.

Draco couldn’t believe his ears. Ginny Weasley was not supposed to go all pudding-like for Oliver Wood. She was not supposed to be pulling a second-year Pansy on him! “What about him?” he snapped furiously.

“He asked me out on a date!”

A date? A date? He had been worrying about an axe-murderer attacking Ginny, when, for the whole time, she had been all safe and sound in the company of a good-for-nothing tree-man. “That’s great,” he said noncommittally, feigning indifference.

Ginny Weasley was getting a boyfriend, who wasn’t Harry Potter, thank Merlin, and that meant that he, Draco Malfoy, would get more time to himself while Ginny went out. Yes, he would have peace and quiet, and would have the entire flat all to himself, and there would be no Ginny Weasley around to bother him. And it was a good thing that she had a man to keep her occupied, because if there weren’t, she would come after his strikingly good looks, and Merlin knew that he did not want a freckle-faced tomboy Weasley falling in love with him. Certainly not. Nope. Never.

“Weasley,” Draco spat, “mauling that cushion in such a barbaric way will do nothing to help your shoulder heal. How thoughtless of you. Now, could you please remove yourself from that couch, so I could get some sleep?”

“Good night, Malfoy!” Ginny chirped, and practically skipped off to her room, leaving the poor cushion at Draco’s mercy.

---

When Harry and Hermione, under the old invisibility cloak, slipped into Ron’s quarters at Hogwarts, the last thing they expected to see was Ron flat against the wall, with Pansy Parkinson in front of him, waving two wands in front of his face.

When Harry and Hermione confirmed that it was indeed Pansy who they were seeing in Ron’s quarters, the last thing they expected to hear was Pansy screaming, “Nobody toys with my heart!” She looked mad enough to spit nails, and Ron was looking absolutely bewildered, not to mention quite a bit scared.

“Look, Parkinson –”

“Parkinson? Parkinson? Whatever happened to Pansy? It’s a pretty name, so why don’t you use it?” she demanded.

“Er, Pansy, look. Whatever we had between us, if we had anything between us, ended with your incarceration.”

Pansy looked outraged. Harry and Hermione gripped their wands just in case.

Azkaban had been good for Pansy. No longer was Azkaban guarded by Dementors; they had all been recruited into Voldemort’s army, and were all destroyed during the war. Azkaban was still cold, certainly, but nobody had to put up with the eerie cold of the Dementors that froze out all happiness. Azkaban were now guarded by human Aurors, who treated the prisoners like humans too – Hermione had made sure of this. After the war, she had protested outside Percy’s office until he passed the Granger Act of P.U.K.E.: The Prisoners’ Union for Keeping Equality.

However, Pansy was looking so much better now than the last time they had seen her that Harry was wondering just how well Azkaban treated its prisoners. Her hair was impeccably cut into a shiny, jet-black bob. Had Azkaban hired a hairdresser without his knowledge? She wasn’t stick-skinny, like normal prisoners were, but instead sported a healthy body that was toned in a way that required exercise – the kind that you couldn’t do in a prison cell. Was the Azkaban Gym going to become the latest diet trend?

Harry shot Hermione an inquisitive look, and was rewarded by an extremely guilty expression. “Perhaps I went too far?” she whispered, gesturing at Pansy’s perfect hair.

Harry would have rolled his eyes, but the scene before him was much too interesting to miss. Pansy was brandishing a collection of letters and screaming, “Our relationship began with my incarceration! Didn’t these letters mean anything to you?”

“Parkin – er, Pansy, I don’t know what you’re talking about! I never wrote them! I don’t remember ever corresponding with you after the war!”

“How can you say that? Just yesterday, you said you were happy that I was being freed! You said you loved me!”

“I never –”

“Is it because I’m ugly now? Is it because prison made me the hag I am today?”

“Actually, Park – Pansy, you look better now than you did before. You look healthier, and your face is much less pug-ish.”

“So you’re saying I look like a pug?” Pansy cried. “You only loved me through the letters because you didn’t have to see my face? How can you do this to me? You’re not my Ronniekins anymore!”

Ron looked appalled. “Ronniekins? Of course I’m not your Ronniekins! Only my brothers – wait,” Ron paused, comprehension dawning on his face. “Parkinson, what did these letters say? Did you get any sort of packages with them? Like, say, from Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes?”

“Oh, is that it?” Pansy huffed. “You sent me all these letters, telling me that you loved me, just so I would agree to testing out your brothers’ products on the other prisoners?”

Hermione could not hold back an angry gasp, but no one heard her except Harry.

Ron looked furious. “Parkinson. Listen to me. My brothers played a trick on you. And on me! A really dirty one, too. I knew they would get me back for telling Mum about that one experiment… Ooh, I’m going to have Hermione attack them for violating P.U.K.E., but they deserve it! Er, listen, Parkinson, I didn’t write these letters, Fred and George did. So go profess your love for them. Did you really think I would sign all my letters with the name Ronniekins?”

Pansy looked like she had been hit in the stomach with a Bludger. “Fred and George? Your stupid brothers toyed with my heart to test out a few silly products?” Pansy looked uncharacteristically broken, and Ron was suddenly looking very sorry for himself, and perhaps for Pansy too. “I see,” she said dully. “It appears that I’ve made a mistake. So you don’t love me. That’s okay, not many people do. I’m used to it,” she muttered, half to herself. She snatched up the letters and her cloak, and made for the door.

“Wait,” Ron called out. “I, er, I’m sorry for what my brothers did. I never – I never would have played with your feelings like that. And I’d still like to – to – oh hell, I’d like to thank you. For helping us in the war. I told the Wizengamot, you know, and that’s why they reduced your sentence from lifetime to seven years. None of my strategies would have worked without your information, so I’d really like to thank you.” Ron spoke to the floor, scratching the back of his head sheepishly.

“She helped us?” Harry whispered to Hermione.

“I didn’t know this,” Hermione snapped back, sounding very miffed.

Pansy’s expression seemed to soften. The fact that her face could soften was very startling to Harry. “And I’d like to thank you for sparing my life in the Third Battle.” She held up her chin a little bit higher. “I never thank people, so consider yourself special.” She gave Ron a small half-smirk, tossed him his wand, and left.

Before Ron had any time to collect his thoughts, Harry and Hermione threw off the cloak and bombarded him with questions.

“She helped us?”

“You saved her?”

“How did this happen?”

“And you said I was fraternizing with the enemy!”

“Why’d you save her?”

“You do realize that you were still going out with me at the time? So you kept this entire thing a secret from me? I was your girlfriend, and you just went about saving an enemy in distress, exchanging information with her? What else were you exchanging with her?”

“Hermione!” Harry and Ron exclaimed at the same time.

“Is this why you broke up with me? I saw it – that shy, soft look that you were just giving Parkinson. You used to save that look for me,” Hermione said, her voice wavering the tiniest bit.

“No, Hermione,” Ron defended. “I swear, there was nothing – nothing – between me and Pansy – I mean Parkinson.”

“I never did understand your excuse for breaking up with me. But our relationship really wasn’t the same after the war. Was it thrilling, working in secret with the enemy? After Parkinson, was I boring to you?”

“Hermione, this isn’t like you,” Harry said cautiously. “You – you guys broke up because of – of me…”

“Which was absolute rubbish for an excuse,” Hermione snapped. “The only thing I ever did with you was to do my job with my Auror partner. And Ron had to go make up something about the photo-developing room resembling the Hogwarts broom closet.”

“It did, you know. Except for the red light, and the lack of brooms, and all the photo-developing stuff,” said Harry, rather unhelpfully.

“That completely trashed my reputation! Did you know the impact of your false rumors, Ronald Weasley? Everyone looked at me like I was some sort of scarlet woman!”

“When they found out we were going to be married, it was all right,” Harry began consolingly, then stopped. “Wait a minute, here. Reputation?”

Hermione’s anger seemed to fizzle out a bit, as she cast Harry a wary glance. “Er, that is, Harry –”

“You married me to save your reputation?”

“…”

“Hermione,” Harry said, his voice dangerously low. “We almost had to cancel the wedding because you wouldn’t stop crying. I thought it was wedding-day nerves, since your Mum was crying with you, but the two of you were crying for different reasons. Am I right? I’m right, aren’t I?”

“No, Harry! Harry, I love you, and you know this!”

“Now you do,” Harry snapped. “How could you not? You were my first real family. I’ve given you everything I could. I loved you like no one else I’ve ever loved before. And all this time, your marriage to me was only by name. It was only to save your bloody reputation.”

“Harry!” Hermione cried, but it was too late. Harry turned and stormed out of the room, disappearing under his Invisibility Cloak.

---

Harry pulled off his Cloak and roughly shoved it into his pocket. He knew Hermione would probably look for him in the Three Broomsticks, so he went to the Hog’s Head instead.

The Hog’s Head was not the best of places. War-torn witches and wizards came here to wallow in their misery. Some had lost their entire families and their homes in the war. Others had been injured beyond repair. Even after seven years of peace, the horrors of the war never left the faces of the Hog’s Head visitors. That was why Harry avoided this place as much as possible. But this was a different circumstance.

He nodded politely at the people who gave him sad smiles, happy that he had won the war for the Light, but sad at what the war had given them – or rather, taken away from them. Harry sat at a dark corner of the pub and ordered a bottle of Firewhisky.

He was halfway through the bottle when someone joined him at his table. “Parkinson.”

“Potter,” Pansy replied. Her voice was still hostile, but had lost most of its venom – or maybe she was just drunk.

“What do you want?”

Pansy snorted. “What do I want? Ronald Weasley. Well, actually, the Ron who I thought I was in love with, but it turned out to be some joke.” She laughed bitterly, mostly at herself, wondering why she was admitting her broken heart to Harry Potter, of all people.

Harry was interested, despite himself. “I heard rumors that you and Ron were somehow involved during the war. I don’t think – er, er, Hermione is very happy with that.” ‘Hermione’ was, at the moment, a very difficult name for him to mention.

“She’s married to you now, isn’t she? The great Hermione Potter, Britain’s best Auror. She incarcerated my entire family, you know. They’re all in Azkaban for life. I was spared, by Ron. But I don’t think it really means anything anymore.”

“So you were involved?”

“No,” she replied shortly.

Harry, being an Auror, hated monosyllabic answers. “Care to elaborate?”

“After a few shots of Firewhisky.”

After a full bottle of Firewhisky, Harry finally got Pansy to tell her story. “What happened was that I was a stupid coward,” she said, trying not to slur her words. “After I became a Death Eater, I liked torturing Muggles, but I never did my actual duties until the Third Battle. I was having tea with my Mother and Bellatrix at the Lestrange Estate, when the Order attacked. Bellatrix made me fight.” Pansy paused for another swig of the golden-red liquid. “I ended up being cornered by Ron – no, Weasley. He’s just Weasley now. He disarmed me, and there I was, Death Eater duties be damned, on my knees, begging for my life.” She frowned heavily, and drank two shots of Firewhisky before continuing, “He said he would spare my life if I gave him Death Eater information. I gave him everything I knew, and amazingly, he kept his word. A Death Eater would have killed as soon as the information was given.”

Harry nodded grimly. He knew the story of Colin Creevey, who had been tortured for information. He only knew a little, so not much harm was done, but as soon as he stopped speaking, he was dead.

“Then, of course,” Pansy went on, “I, being the cunning Slytherin that I am, Disapparated before he could take me to Azkaban. Stupid noble Gryffindor, he didn’t even expect me to do such a thing,” she scoffed. “I fought again at the Fourth Battle, and the Fifth. Both times, I found Weasley, and fought with him. Or at least, I pretended to. I gave him more information. I don’t know why I did it, and I still don’t. But he formed his strategies around what I told him, and when Granger – no, she’s Potter now – arrested me after the Final Battle, it was that information that reduced my sentence.”

“That was it?”

“Pretty much. Then the letters started to come, about two years after my incarceration. At first, I was suspicious, but I was strangely happy, so I wrote back, and we continued this for five years.” Pansy stopped and started drinking directly out of the bottle. “Then it turns out to be a joke!” she cried. “His stupid brothers made it up so they could use me to test their products on the prisoners. I just came back from their shop. I destroyed half of it!” she declared proudly.

“I’m going to have to arrest you for that,” Harry said, half-amused and half-serious.

“Whatever,” Pansy said, waving a manicured hand.

Azkaban also has a nail shop? Harry thought disbelievingly. He would have to visit the place for himself, and see all the damages that P.U.K.E. had done.

“Well, I found out that their business was flourishing, thanks to me. And guess what else I found out?” Pansy was now slurring very heavily, and her hazel eyes were almost glazed over. “The person writing those letters back to me was their teenaged part-time worker!” she exclaimed, screwing up her face like a real pug. “The stupid little boy was writing sappy love letters to me as practice for when he found a girlfriend! He thought it was funny!” Pansy suddenly burst into tears, and Harry was flabbergasted.

“Er,” he began, entirely unsure of how to deal with bawling ex-enemies. “Parkinson? Parkinson?”

Pansy, apparently having drunk too much, collapsed sideways onto Harry’s chest. Looking down at her tear-streaked face, which was slightly pug-like, yet endearing in its own right, Harry thought the feeling he was getting was uncomfortably similar to what he had felt when Hermione sobbed into his chest after being dumped by Ron. What was it that he had for women who cried because of other men? There was Cho, who had cried because of Cedric, Ginny, who had cried because of Tom Riddle, Hermione, and now Pansy too? If this was Voldemort’s twisted way of getting revenge on him from the afterlife, he was going to pay dearly – as soon as Harry Potter became the Man-Who-Died-Because-His-Wife-Caught-Him-Looking-At-Another-Woman.

Speaking of his wife, hadn’t she just confessed that she married him only to save her reputation? This meant that until some recent time, when she learned to love him back, she had been pining for Ron. Harry believed himself to be a nice guy, but even the nicest guys did not like it when their wife was pining for another man – especially if that man was their best friend.

Harry decided that he had two choices: he could sit, drink, and brood, then go back to Hermione, or mysteriously disappear and have Hermione come to him. The second option sounded more appealing. Pansy was an interesting woman, but he was a married man, who, despite everything, still loved his wife. He would take Pansy home then wait for Hermione to come find him.

“Look, Parkinson, you need to go home – wait…” Harry’s brain sparked off another impulsive idea. If he mysteriously disappeared, and Pansy disappeared too, wouldn’t Hermione suspect that they were together? Then wouldn’t her jealousy of Pansy cause her to realize just how much she loved him? And Pansy really seemed to like Ron. If he could make friends with Pansy during their disappearance, he could set her up with Ron, and he would be happy with Hermione, while Ron would be happy with Pansy. It was a great plan, in theory.

Feeling a lot more cheerful, Harry grabbed Pansy around the waist and Disapparated with a pop.

---

Oliver had said that the coffee-shop date would be in the afternoon. Ginny wasn’t sure what his definition of ‘afternoon’ was, but her definition was definitely not seven o’clock in the evening.

Ginny was unhappily doing her shoulder exercises when there was a terrible explosion that knocked down her door. Her heart stopped for a moment, and she feared that the axe-murderer was back.

“Expelliarmus!” Draco roared, and snatched the thin wand out of the air. He was about to stun the intruder, when he changed his mind, and decided to stop and stare instead.

Ginny stared too, paused almost comically in mid-shoulder rotation.

A very haggard-looking Hermione traipsed in, and collapsed into the nearest kitchen chair. Her hair was bushier than ever – it could have been used as packing material for fragile objects. Her clothes were dirty, her face smudged with ash and soot, and she looked like she had run around all of England, twice.

“Hermione?” Ginny asked carefully. “What happened?”

“I – I ran around Eng – England. Twice!” she exclaimed, then started to sob.

“Hermione?” Ginny said in alarm.

“Always knew she was a nutter, that one,” muttered Draco.

Ginny sent him a death glare, then turned back to Hermione. “Hermione, what’s wrong?”

It was very hard to hear Hermione from between her sobs, but Ginny managed to pick up words like Ron, Pansy, jealous, mistake, Harry, confession, love, missing, three days.

“What?”

“Allow me to translate,” Draco said haughtily. “Potter here is so emotionally upset that she is positively broadcasting her thoughts loud and clear for any Legilimens to pick up. Apparently, your brother was in the company of Pansy Parkinson, and they were discussing their past relationship –”

“Relationship? My brother and who?”

“Pansy Parkinson,” Draco replied matter-of-factly. “And Potter here got jealous, and, interesting… What a love triangle, or should I say, parallelogram, this will be. Anyway, Potter got jealous and told the truth of why she became Mrs. Potter, and now the other Potter is furious, and he’s been missing for three days. I say, Potter,” Draco continued, turning to Hermione. “If you’re running around England looking for Potter, who’s looking for Zabini and other potential axe-murderers? That Philby kid can’t handle this on his own.”

“Philby?” Hermione asked, stopping in mid-sob to gape at Draco with wide eyes. “I sent him out on an assignment regarding Zabini. He said if he isn’t back within two days, I should be worried. It’s been three. He’s not back yet…”

---

To be continued…

---

---

Chapter Eight

---

“Weasley, what’s wrong?” Draco asked.

“Wrong? Nothing’s wrong,” Ginny said, perplexed.

“Then what are you doing?”

“I’m getting ready for my date,” she replied matter-of-factly.

“In a frilly yellow potato sack?” Draco wasn’t too thrilled about Ginny dating the termite-infested tree-man, but he couldn’t help but smirk at her ridiculous outfit.

“Potato sack?” Ginny spluttered. “Frilly dress robes are all the rage these days.”

“But not for you,” Draco said, trying to hold back his laughter.

Ginny was normally considered a fashionable woman. Her half-wizard, half-Muggle style of dress developed from the hand-me-downs from her brothers. Her pixie-face looked adorable in boys’ clothes, and she tailored and accessorized in a way that made her style unique, without making her look like a man. It gave her a spunky girl-next-door appearance that many men liked. She was popular with the men, despite her reputation as a heart-breaker. After getting over her long-term crush on Harry Potter, she seemed to have lost the ability for long-term relationships in general, and dated just for the fun of it.

But Ginny’s lack of experience with men that she actually wanted to keep around for longer than a few weeks put her at a disadvantage when trying to dress to impress. Usually, the men sought her out, not minding that she was wearing a ripped pair of jeans that she had nicked from one of her Muggle-born boyfriends. But she definitely couldn’t go on a date with Oliver, who she’d fancied for a while, while wearing her brother’s old T-shirt.

She had chosen the happy-looking yellow dress robes that were on display at Madam Malkin’s. She thought it looked fine, but Draco, who was nearly choking while trying not to laugh, suggested otherwise.

“What,” Ginny demanded, “is so funny?”

“Nothing, nothing at all,” Draco said, composing himself. He now knew why Ginny didn’t wear women’s clothing – it looked completely out of place. The frills didn’t agree with the sharp temper in her eyes, and the bright yellow color looked extremely gaudy with her neon hair. If Oliver Wood had eyes, he would most likely think twice about ever going on a date with Ginny again. Not that Draco cared. “You look fine, Weasley,” Draco continued smoothly. “It just isn’t my style, that’s all. My Mother would not have worn something like that if her life was being threatened, but Mother was a particularly elegant woman.”

“Pansy Parkinson was considered an elegant woman. She wore frilly pink robes to the Yule Ball,” Ginny retorted.

“Ah, so that was what the hideous dress was for. My memory gets fuzzy around then, you see. But she was fourteen at the time. You’re twenty-four. But like I said, it’s your style, not mine, and I’m sure Wood would find you quite lovely – after a few glasses of Firewhisky. Or, actually, you better make that a few bottles.”

“Whatever, Malfoy. I think the yellow brings out the gold in my hair. I’m wearing this dress,” she declared, crossing her arms defensively in front of her, and glaring at Draco, as if daring him to challenge her.

Draco thought that her stubbornness was going to get her into a lot of trouble someday. “If it makes you happy,” he said, inwardly glad because he knew Wood wasn’t going to like that dress. “When’s the date?”

“I’m not sure. He said in the afternoon.”

The afternoon came and went, and it was six in the evening. There was no Floo call, no owl, and no Wood. Ginny’s hair, which had been neatly curled for the occasion, was starting to frizz again. If her face was any indication of how she was feeling, Draco thought it best that he stay out of her way. He was itching to say something snarky, but held his tongue. Draco had never looked at Ginny the same way after she tried to chop his head off on his first day living with her. So, he grabbed a book from the shelf, and sat quietly in the corner.

An hour later, Draco was rereading the same sentence over and over again, not really absorbing it. He was internally debating if it was worth getting hexed to tell Ginny that her shoulder exercises were meant to restore her shoulder, not pop it out of its socket. If Ginny’s eyes weren’t already spitting sparks, Draco would have remarked that she looked like an angry, broken windmill.

As Draco turned back to try and read the book again, the front door came crashing down. “Expelliarmus!” he roared, and snatched the intruder’s wand. He would have hexed the unwelcome guest without further thought, but the brown bush that was perched on top of the intruder’s head made him pause. Only one person he had the misfortune to know had hair like that.

Hermione Potter collapsed on a chair, crying, and tried to explain her story, mostly by broadcasting her thoughts to any Legilimens within thinking distance. Being a Legilimens, Draco understood very clearly.

Draco found the situation rather amusing, though it was a surprise to him that Pansy would take an interest in old Weasel-King. He was particularly delighted that Potter’s wife had not loved him, though she apparently did now. If he was Potter, of course, he would be disgusted that a Mudblood loved him. But Potter was Potter, and he was pathetic, and Draco couldn’t understand why a Pureblood like Ginny had ever liked him.

Draco relayed the news to Ginny, then realized something. “I say, Potter, if you’re running around England looking for Potter, who’s looking for Zabini and other potential axe-murderers? That Philby kid can’t handle this on his own.”

“Philby?” Hermione repeated, stopping her crying to look shocked instead. “I sent him out on an assignment regarding Zabini. He said if he isn’t back within two days, I should be worried. It’s been three. He’s not back yet…”

“Oh, how brilliant,” Draco said. “You sent a rookie out to catch Zabini, Slytherin’s slipperiest. Some genius you are.”

“We should be worried!” Hermione cried. “He was the best color-coder I’ve ever met! He had potential!”

“Stop speaking in the past tense, Potter. You make it sound like he’s already dead.”

“How do you know he isn’t dead yet?” Hermione demanded, her paranoia replacing her misery concerning Harry. “Did you kidnap him? Are you in this with Zabini? Are you going to demand a ransom from the Ministry?” Hermione snatched her wand away from Draco and waved it threateningly in his face. She was quite the scene with her tear-streaked face, bushy hair, and slightly swollen eyes that deserved their own trademark color called ‘paranoia brown’.

“There, there,” Ginny said as nicely as she could, which wasn’t very nice at all, because Oliver had apparently forgotten about their date. “Malfoy’s been with me all day long, and he couldn’t have kidnapped anyone. Philby looked like a smart kid, I’m sure he’ll be fi –”

The fireplace erupted into green flames, and Draco and Hermione both turned their wands to it. “Who’s there?” Hermione thundered.

“Oliver Wood?” came an uncertain reply.

“Oliver!” Ginny exclaimed, her anger quite forgotten. “You’re a bit late!”

“Late?” Oliver looked confused. “I, er, listen, Ginny, would you mind coming over to Bon Appétit? I’ve ordered food, and it’s… well, it’s getting cold.”

It wasn’t the best way to invite a woman to dinner, but it worked for Ginny. “Cold? Food shouldn’t be left cold! I’ll be right there!” Ginny said, and Disapparated on the spot. The flames died down as well.

Draco snorted, then turned to Hermione. “Potter. I believe that Philby is in a position where he needs to be found. I also believe that you’re in a position to go find him.” Draco motioned for her to leave. “And next time, refrain from knocking down my door.”

Hermione huffed indignantly and bustled out the door, grumbling, “Your door? Since when was Ginny’s door your door? Arrogant, egotistical, bigheaded –” she stopped herself before she went into the unspeakable zone of the English language.

---

When Ginny rematerialized in Diagon Alley’s most famous restaurant, Bon Appétit, Oliver stared at her in a way that was a bit difficult to describe as romantic. “Ginny, are frilly yellow potato sacks in fashion?” he asked.

Ginny blushed scarlet. She should have listened to Draco’s advice. Oh, how he was going to taunt her by saying, ‘I told you so.’

“It is, actually,” she said carefully, plastering on what she hoped was a confident smile. “You know me, the trendsetter. By next week, frilly yellow robes are going to be the hot item.”

“If you say so,” Oliver said with a shrug. “Let’s eat. The food’s getting cold.”

Ginny didn’t like having her dates order food for her, and planned on telling Oliver that sometime soon, especially since she didn’t like fish that wasn’t fried (and this fish was everything but fried), but it was only the first date, so she grinned and took a bite. Ginny was surprised that the food actually was cold – very, very cold. “Oliver,” she began, “when did you order this food?”

“About an hour ago,” he replied glumly.

“It took you an entire hour to ask me to come?”

“Well, I thought she might come back…”

“She? She who?” Something wasn’t right, but Ginny couldn’t quite determine what.

“Katie. I thought you knew,” Oliver said.

“Katie?” Ginny echoed dully. She could almost hear her world crashing down on her.

Oliver raised both eyebrows (he, like Harry, did not master the art of raising just one eyebrow). “Well, when I said I liked a superb Chaser who was like a little sister to me, who’d you think I was talking about? Rosalyn?” He wrinkled his nose in distaste.

Ginny was doing a perfect impersonation of a shocked fish. Katie? Katie Bell? The Katie who Oliver kept smiling at during practices? Katie, the superb Chaser? Katie, the little sister who suddenly blossomed into a woman? Katie, who was definitely not Ginny Weasley? Katie? Katie?

Picking her jaw back off the floor, Ginny managed to say in a strangled sort of voice, “So, why am I here instead of Katie?”

Oliver sighed heavily. “Shouldn’t let the food go to waste. We had just ordered dinner, when Katie’s friend, I think her name was Leanne, came running over. She was upset, asking Katie how she could be on a date when she was the reason Leanne’s brother was in St. Mungo’s with something like a broken heart. Katie denied it, but Leanne was ready to hex her, so they both left. Did you know that Katie was a heart-breaker? I didn’t. I didn’t even know she had a boyfriend. But then again, she’s really pretty…”

Ginny was gripping onto her wand very tightly. It was new, since the axe-murderer had run off with her old one, and she wasn’t as comfortable with it yet. As a result, the wand sparked, and the next thing she knew, the table was on fire.

“Ginny!” Oliver exclaimed. “I know you don’t like cold food, but this is just too much! Aguamenti!”

The tip of Ginny’s wand was still shooting off angry red sparks. The other customers began looking around for somewhere to hide. “I think I should go now, Oliver. My wand, it’s new, and it’s going out of control,” she said as evenly as she could.

“Yeah. That sounds like a good idea,” said Oliver. “The food’s a bit too warm to eat now. Would you like to borrow my wand to Apparate?” he asked, holding out his wand. “Yours seems a bit dangerous –”

Ginny Disapparated before he could finish, leaving behind an explosion of sparks. On the other side of the room, Lavender Brown, who was on a date with Ian O’Brien, tore her eyes away from her sweetheart to see what the commotion was about. What she saw was Oliver pointing his wand in Ginny’s direction, and Ginny disappearing into red sparks.

The last she had seen, Oliver had been on a date with Katie Bell. They appeared to get along quite well. Lavender did some quick thinking. If his date was Katie Bell, who had been a Reserve until Ginny was hurt, that would mean that Katie would only be on the official team if Ginny wasn’t. Katie was Oliver’s date. Oliver liked Katie. Oliver apparently did not like Ginny. Oliver Wood seemed to be violent with Ginny, shooting sparks at her like that, and come to think of it, every time the axe-murderer attacked, Oliver was somewhere near Ginny. He even lived across the street from her. He also knew Joscelind Wadcock, including where she lived, and he had been good at Charms and Defense Against the Dark Arts when he was in school. It would have easy to cast an Imperius Curse on her. Also, Oliver was only the temporary Captain because Joscelind was away. If Joscelind was blamed for trying to murder Ginny, she would never come back to Puddlemere, and he would be Captain forever. It all fit.

“Ian!” Lavender gasped. “I think your Captain may be the axe-murderer!”

---

“This is ridiculous, Potter,” Pansy hissed. “We’re surrounded by Muggles!” She seized the back of Harry’s jacket and began pushing him around, using him as a shield to keep the Muggles away from her. “I used to torture them for fun, remember? Now I don’t want anything to do with them! I don’t even want to look at them!”

“Parkinson, it’s the Eiffel Tower! Of course it’s full of Muggles!” Harry said, trying to keep his voice down.

“Sod the Eiffel Tower! I’ll curse it to rubble! I want to go back! Now that I know that you didn’t actually kill Draco, I want to see – Ahhh! Get off me, you filthy little brat!” Pansy screeched at the little Muggle girl who was pulling on her skirt.

The little girl dropped Pansy’s skirt and scowled up at her. “Tu n’êtes pas ma Maman!” she declared.

“…videmment, enfant stupide,” Pansy spat. “Partez!”

Harry snickered as the girl stuck out her tongue at Pansy, then ran off to find her Mum. “I understood the ‘stupide’ part. You speak French?”

“Of course. I spent many summers in France with the Malfoy family. Speaking of the Malfoys, I would like to see the last remaining one. Where is he?”

“How should I know?” Harry said, not really wanting Pansy to meet Draco, but not knowing why he didn’t want her to.

“Well then, take me back so I can find him!”

“I’m not going back!”

Pansy rolled her eyes. “This is stupid. You got into a fight with your wife, and you ran away to France. And you’re supposed to be the Savior of the world. You didn’t save the world by running away from the Dark Lord, so why are you running away from your wife?”

“Hermione can be scarier than Voldemort –” Pansy stiffened a bit at the name, but otherwise did not indicate that it bothered her, “– but right now, I’m the one who’s mad.”

“Of course. You’re moodier than most women are at that time of month.”

Harry grinned sheepishly. “Hermione used to call me ‘Captain Capslock’.”

“What’s Capslock?”

“It’s the key that you – oh, never mind, it’s a Muggle term.”

Pansy wrinkled her nose. “Trust Granger – no, it’s Potter now. This is confusing. There are two Potters running around, and soon there will be more. What horrible children you’ll have, with bushy hair and pickled-toad eyes. Anyway, trust Potter to give a wizard a Muggle nickname.” She shook her head disapprovingly. “Hey, Potter, what’s that?” she asked suddenly, pointing at something far away.

“What?” Harry leaned over the banister to get a better look, accidentally dropping Pansy’s arm, which he had been holding to prevent her from Disapparating.

Pop.

“Parkinson!”

He had fallen for the oldest trick in the book.

---

“No one is allowed in here!” Hermione screamed at Mr. and Mrs. Philby. “I understand that your son is hurt, and that you’re terribly concerned, but I need to have my team examine those wounds for Dark magic, and you need to keep out! You need to keep out too!” she barked at the irritated Healers. “This ward is now under Ministry protection!” Hermione slammed the door and threw up a ward that could only be broken by Ministry workers.

Auror Ernie Macmillan was Hermione’s new partner. He had originally worked on the Russian Wizarding Mafia case with Head Auror Brand, but with an Auror being attacked during the axe-murderer case, Brand decided that Hermione needed a skilled partner.

“Tell me again,” Hermione said to Ernie, “how did you find him?”

“I was trailing a Mafia hit man, and the hit man was trailing someone else. I was too late, because the hit man was gone, and he’d already gotten his victim. It was Philby. He was slashed across the chest when I found him.”

“Why is the Mafia after Philby?”

“No clue. We don’t know if it’s actually the Mafia, or if it’s someone who’s paying the Mafia to do their dirty work. That’s what Auror Brand is trying to find out.”

“Where did you find Philby?”

“Not too far from the Museum of Modern War, or the old Malfoy Manor.”

Hermione frowned deeply. There was something funny about Draco Malfoy, she knew it. He was staying so close to Ginny in order to avoid suspicion. He was behind all the attacks on her, and saving her life was only an act. She needed to get Draco out of Ginny’s flat, but how?

As much as she didn’t want to see Ron right now, especially after her embarrassing outburst after seeing him with Pansy, she needed to, for Ginny’s sake. Hermione was willing to bet that even if he wasn’t the actual axe-murderer, Draco was somehow involved. Ron’s strategizing genius would discover how he was involved. Being Ginny’s overprotective brother, he would also find a way to kick Draco out of Ginny’s house.

“You take over the Philby case, Ernie,” Hermione said. “I need to go consult an expert.”

“But Hermione, we are the experts!” Ernie called, perplexed.

---

Draco was sitting in front of the open cupboard, staring at his Pensieve. It was so tempting to just reach in and regain all his memories, but he didn’t know what that would do to him and his relationship with the world.

He had questions about himself, certainly. Like why his parents had been in a situation that required him to save them by becoming a Death Eater. He wondered what being a Death Eater meant to his younger self, though it was technically his alternate self, because he had started his life over at the age of thirteen.

Technically, he was only twenty years of age, though his actual age was twenty-five. Living in the friendly but uneventful Swiss village didn’t really give him an opportunity to mature either. He had grown up a bit, and had changed under Aunt Andromeda’s decidedly non-Malfoy ways, but he was still childish. But he liked it. Coming back to England, he saw how everyone, Potter especially, looked much older than they were. They were weighed down by the invisible burden the war had left behind, and he wasn’t sure if he was ready to deal with it.

Finally resolving to look at it when he was a bit more settled into life on his own – though Ginny still looked after him a bit –, Draco shut the cupboard and decided to order some owl-delivery pizza.

Several minutes later, a large owl tapped on the window, and Draco settled down into the couch with the Tele-wiz set to a Kenmare Kestrels vs. Ballycastle Bats match. He opened the box of delicious-smelling green tomato and newt sausage pizza, and lifted the first delectable slice. He opened his mouth to take a bite of the cheesy, tomato-y, newt-y goodness, when he was rudely interrupted by a faint pop, accompanied by a pair of freckled hands that snatched away the precious pizza slice.

“Oh, I was famished,” said Ginny, taking a humongous bite. “Mmm! Newt sausage, my favorite topping. How’d you know?”

“It is unbecoming for a lady to speak with her mouth full,” Draco snapped irritably, grabbing a new slice for himself. “Not that you’re much of a lady.”

“Hmm. Wha – tha wa thoopy!” Ginny exclaimed, gesturing wildly at the Tele-wiz.

“What?”

Ginny swallowed her mouthful of pizza. “That was stupid! Fannahan should have directed the Bludger at Silver, not Pfeifer!”

Draco terribly wanted to ask her what went so wrong with her date that she came back in fifteen minutes, and didn’t even eat. But Ginny, who was now yelling profanities at the Tele-Wiz, didn’t seem to be in the mood. For some strange reason that he couldn’t quite understand, Draco decided to let her be. He was glad that the date didn’t work out, and justified his happiness by telling himself that he didn’t like Wood, and if Ginny dated him, she would be bringing him around a lot, and Merlin knew that Draco didn’t want to be stuck in a house with two intolerable lovebirds.

Ginny, while cursing the Quidditch players to Hell and back, felt relieved that Draco wasn’t asking her questions. She wasn’t sure why he was leaving her alone, which was a definitely un-Malfoylike thing to do, but she was grateful because, if he asked her to explain, she thought she might cry. She was so disappointed, and felt so stupid for thinking that Oliver, who was practically a brother, would feel anything for her. So, she pretended that all the Quidditch players on the Tele-wiz were Oliver, swore at them like a sailor, ate half of Draco’s pizza, laughed when Pfeifer fell off his broom, drank some Butterbeer, threw a piece of tomato at Draco, laughed some more, and for the first time since Draco came around, felt comfortable with his presence.

---

To be continued…

---

(*) The little French conversation between Pansy and the little girl was translated through the use of an online translator, and may have errors. I’m sorry to any French speakers who might be annoyed by this, and if there is a mistake, please point it out!

To the rest of the non-French speaking folk, the conversation is simply, “You’re not my Mum!” and “Obviously, stupid child. Go away!”

---

Chapter Nine

---

Hermione took a deep breath and worked up her courage. It really shouldn’t be so hard. It was just Ron, her best friend since childhood… and her boyfriend of three years, who became an ex four years ago, who had been best man at her wedding, who had been standing so close when she said ‘I do’ and got married to another man.

It was all Fate’s fault. Hermione was supposed to be the new Transfiguration Professor at Hogwarts, while Ron took the now jinx-free Defense Against the Dark Arts post. They were supposed to sneak into broom closets after classes, get married, have children, and make their kids (all with bushy red hair) embarrassed by having parents as their professors. They were supposed to grow old together, and become Headmaster and Headmistress of Hogwarts. But none of that ever happened.

Professor McGonagall, aged and weary from the war, declined the position of Headmistress, and maintained her teaching post. Hermione made Ron take the Defense job, but she was left jobless. Then, while looking for a job at Flourish and Blotts, she ran into Theodore Nott, wanted Death Eater, caught him, took him to the Aurors, and the Aurors never let her go.

Hermione hadn’t really wanted to be an Auror, but she was assigned to work with Harry, who brought fun and excitement to the job, and she fell in love with her job. She now regretted being so enthusiastic. She had canceled dates with Ron to hunt down criminals with Harry. She missed a Weasley family dinner to attend Harry’s promotion. Now that she really thought about it, Ron had a legitimate reason to be jealous of Harry. She had been too stupid and too blind, and lost the love of her life because of that.

She had learned to love Harry. He really was a wonderful husband. But for the first year or so, it had been extremely awkward. Harry was her best friend, and if it hadn’t been for Ron publicly declaring that she was doing unmentionable things in the photo-developing room with Harry, the other Aurors wouldn’t have looked at her like a scarlet woman, and she wouldn’t have had to save her reputation – and job, since scandals were highly disapproved of in the Department of Law Enforcement – and she would never have considered Harry as more than a friend.

So, Hermione decided that it was partly her fault, partly Ron’s fault, and mostly Fate’s fault. She would have to read ‘The Book of Fate’ as soon as she solved the axe-murderer case. And to solve the case, she needed Ron. She knocked on his door.

“Hermione,” Ron said, cracking open the door. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

“Did you hear from Harry?”

“No. Did you hear from Parkinson?”

“No.”

“They’re both missing.”

“I know. Do you think they’re together?”

“I don’t see why Harry would want to spend time with her,” Hermione said sharply. “And the same goes for Parkinson.”

“Right. So, you want to come in?”

“Yes, please.”

Hermione sat on Ron’s plush armchair, glaring disdainfully at the clean environment. She knew that Ron did not clean. Though she tried very hard, the House Elves at Hogwarts just refused to leave. S.P.E.W. wasn’t very effective if the elves she was trying to save weren’t cooperating. She sniffed unhappily at Ron’s proffered cup of tea.

“Is something wrong?” Ron asked cautiously.

“Yes. House Elves have been cleaning your room,” she spat bitterly.

Ron was too used to Hermione’s antics to bicker over something like S.P.E.W. After the war, Ron had grown up – fighting in the front lines and watching your Dad and two of your brothers die while fighting next to you could do that to a person. That was part of the problem. He had outgrown his little spats with Hermione, and sadly, as the tension died, so did the relationship. Hermione had not lost anyone, and though she had loved the Weasleys dearly, their deaths did not affect her as much as they had affected him. Hermione had learned to move on with life and enjoy the peace that they earned. Ron had retreated into a quiet appreciation of the peace, but he would never be able to forget that the price of the peace was hundreds of lives, including three members of his family.

Ron and Hermione both realized that they were too different. At first, this had been the cause of attraction; later, it had caused a rift. Hermione was too active, always hunting down criminals and dueling with deadly assassins. Ron was tired of it all. He just wanted to teach his students how to be safe, and with some of the more gifted students, how to play a mean game of chess. It was actually quite funny how his best chess student was a Slytherin. Ron really had grown up.

“I know, I know. I try to clean up after myself, but there are just too many papers to grade. I’ll make an effort to keep clean though, okay?”

Hermione blew out a frustrated breath. She missed the Ron who would get red in the face and say, ‘That’s what House Elves are for!’ When she was younger, she hated fighting with him, but now that he didn’t fight back, she missed it. It was almost laughable. But there wasn’t much she could do except just carry on.

“Do try not to think so much about yourself, Ron. House Elves are living beings too.” She took a sip of her tea. “I came here to ask for your help. You know that there’s an axe-murderer out to get Ginny. I have a hunch that it has something to do with Draco Malfoy, and the thought won’t leave me alone.”

“Malfoy,” Ron said darkly. “I knew something was up when he moved into Ginny’s flat. And what was she thinking, letting him live with her?”

“We need a strategy. This is where you come in. The first thing is to get Malfoy out of Ginny’s house. It’ll be easier to monitor him when he’s away from Ginny.”

“I can do that right now. Just go into my big brother mode, and I’ll send him packing.”

“Great. The sooner we do this, the better for everyone.”

Ron looked like was going to agree, then hesitated. “I, er, have some papers that need to be graded by tomorrow. Help me finish, and then we’ll go kick some Malfoy butt.”

Hermione smiled wistfully. She liked that Ron was being responsible, but she missed the old Ron terribly. “All right. What’s the topic on?”

---

Pansy looked longingly at her childhood home. Parkinson Manor was now renamed Brocklehurst Manor. Brocklehurst was a Muggle, and it was only because of his Half-Blood daughter’s success in the Ministry that he became one of the most respected Muggles in Wizarding England. Pansy grit her teeth in indignation. A Muggle, living in her home!

But there was no use thinking about that. She was homeless, and she had nowhere to go. The little money that she had was from the sympathetic Azkaban guard who gave her all of his pocket change. She wanted to see Draco, but decided that it would be better to borrow a room at the Leaky Cauldron for the night.

When Pansy stepped into the pub, she was greeted not by Tom, but by a smirking Harry Potter. Since when did Potter smirk?

“Parkinson, you’re so predictable,” he said.

“Listen, Potter, if you’re not going to tell me where Draco is, the least you could do is move aside so I can rent a room here.”

“People aren’t friendly to former Death Eaters, you know.”

“Then take me to Draco!”

“What’s your relationship with him, exactly?” Harry asked, comfortably leaning against the counter.

“Old friend, ex-boyfriend, now… well, he just came back from the dead. I don’t know what he is now.”

“Ex? What happened? You thought you were too good for his sliminess?”

“Draco is not slimy, Potter. You’re mistaking him for Snape. Draco used a lot of hair gel when he was younger, but that was years ago. Get over it,” she snapped, then continued, “He’s my ex because I thought he was dead. The war completely ruined our relationship.”

“So you’re going to start seeing him again?”

“I don’t know. That depends on what he’s like now.”

“If I told you where he was, what would you tell me?”

“What could you possibly want to know, Potter?”

“Where’s Zabini?”

“Blaise? I haven’t heard from him since he disappeared during the war. He was never involved with the Death Eaters, if that’s what you wanted to know. Thought he was too good for all that stuff.”

“So you have no idea, not even a guess, to where he could be?”

“No. If Blaise doesn’t want to be found, he won’t be found. He and his mother were always slippery like that. Even for Slytherins, they were especially cunning, not to mention rich. They never flaunted their wealth, but I’ve always suspected that they were richer than the Malfoys were. Money buys freedom, Potter. Blaise is probably somewhere on an exotic island, having Veelas fawn all over him.”

Harry scowled. He wanted to take Pansy in for an interrogation, but if Draco’s memories featured nothing about Zabini, than Pansy wouldn’t know much either. Besides, he was suspended, and in no position to interrogate anyone. “What did Zabini think of Ginny?”

“Ginny? The little Weasley?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, back when we were in school, he thought she was good-looking, but most boys did – except you, Potter. And he thought she was different from the other Gryffindors because of the Chamber incident. Other than that, I don’t think he thought much about her – he didn’t like blood-traitors, either.”

“What do you think of Ginny?”

“Like I said, she’s a blood-traitor. You know what I think of blood-traitors. But I’m proud of her, too.”

“Proud?”

“I heard she dumped you. That was a smart move for her. In fact, I heard she dumped you for Neville Longbottom. Maybe she does value Purebloods over Half-Bloods,” Pansy said teasingly.

Harry grunted unhappily. “It was a mutual break-up, thanks very much. If you met Ginny, like say, in five minutes, what would you do to her?”

Pansy raised a dark eyebrow in that annoyingly Slytherin way. “Why?”

“I might be able to talk Ginny into letting you stay with her for the night.”

“At that – that place? The Burrow, or whatever?” Pansy looked faintly horrified.

“No. She has a flat. But I don’t see anything wrong with the Burrow,” Harry said defensively.

“Well, at least she’s a Pureblood. I won’t hurt her, as long as she doesn’t attack me first. I’ve seen her temper.”

“If I take you to Malfoy, are you going to start living with him?”

“Maybe. As you can see, Potter, I no longer have a home.”

“What if he’s living with another woman?”

“I thought that was possible. I’ll ask his wife to let me stay just until I find a job.”

Harry frowned. “Wife. Urgh. Ginny will never be Malfoy’s wife. I just put him there for… complex reasons.”

“Ginny? Wait! Draco’s living with a Weasley? What the hell for?”

“I made Malfoy stay with her to, er, protect her from some maniac – it’s a long story.”

“Poor Draco! I need to see him, now! Weasley hates Draco, more than she hates any other Slytherin! It’s a family feud! Did you see him fifth year? He had giant Bat Bogeys the size of Bludgers attacking him!” Pansy angrily poked Harry in the chest. “Weasley does not need protecting! It’s Draco that should be protected from her! Stupid Gryffindor, you have no brain! Hurry up! Where are they?”

---

“Of course the Kestrels would win,” Ginny said triumphantly, when the match was over. “I need to collect my bet money from Ian.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “It’s nice that you’re able to predict winners, but if I were you, I wouldn’t bet on Puddlemere in next week’s game with the Arrows.”

“You’re right,” Ginny said gloomily. “With me as a benchwarmer, and Joscelind on leave –”

“And me being replaced with Bell,” Draco chipped in.

That had been the wrong thing to say. It triggered an explosion of all of Ginny’s pent-up emotions.

“Bell!” Ginny yelled, so loudly that Draco almost fell off the couch. “I can’t believe Wood replaced you with Bell! You’re tons better! Tons! If anyone tells you that you’re not better than Bell, you knock their teeth out and show them what a real Chaser can do!”

“Okay, Weasley,” Draco said. It was nice to get the stubborn redhead to admit that he was a good Chaser, but Ginny’s sudden overenthusiastic support for him was a bit disconcerting.

“Sod Bell! You can do better than Bell! You are better than Bell! Are you going to take this from Wood? Are you going to let an overgrown sapling replace you with a Christmas ornament?”

“Weasley?”

“Why aren’t you asking me what went wrong with my date?” Ginny suddenly demanded. She knew she was being unreasonable, but the Butterbeer was having a strange effect on her today, and she was about to go crazy. Not to mention that it was strange that Draco I’m-always-in-your-business Malfoy wasn’t asking about something that would undoubtedly entertain him.

“Weasley?”

“Well, I’m going to tell you! When Oliver said he was in love with a woman who only saw him as a friend, when he said that this woman was an excellent Chaser, and was like a little sister to him, who do you think I thought he was talking about? Me! I thought it was me! And when he said the date was this afternoon, did I think that he was just informing me to let me know that he finally worked up the courage to ask Bell out? No! I thought he was telling me to get prepared! And then I find out that he only called me over because Bell had to go see her ex-boyfriend, or something like that, and the food was getting cold! The food was getting cold! Is that all I am to him? The woman who eats cold food? I need to get on a broomstick.”

It took a moment for that last part to register. “What?”

“Broomstick! I need to be in the air!”

“Weasley.”

“Shut up! I want to fly, and you’re coming with me.”

“Why?”

“Because you need to look out for me. I haven’t been on a broomstick in a while, and I might fall off. Also, you know that whole axe-murderer thing is getting on my nerves.”

“And why should I look out for you?”

“Because we’re friends! I don’t care if you don’t want to be. I say we’re friends, and so we are friends. End of story. Okay, friend? Now let’s go fly.”

“Okay… friend.”

---

Ginny flew through the air, gracefully turning loops, flipping, rolling, and simply belonging in the air. She felt tons better. The stresses of the day just seemed to roll right off her shoulders – speaking of which, her injured shoulder didn’t hurt as much as she thought it would. If she was this comfortable being on a broom, Ginny thought it wouldn’t be too long until she started playing again.

As soon as Ginny was in the air, she seemed to have forgotten that she had brought a friend along. It was strange, certainly, to call Draco Malfoy a friend – especially if you were a Weasley. It was even stranger that she had gotten so comfortable with his presence that she could forget that he was there, instead of worrying that he might try to knock her off her broom.

Draco was not exactly enjoying their late-night flying. He had the nasty feeling that something would go wrong, and a flying blunt axe would take her head off. Of course, he definitely was not concerned about a Weasley. He was only worried that the axe would miss Ginny and hit him instead. And the reason that he kept looking at Ginny flying was because he wanted to study her flying techniques, and not because her vivid red hair made her look like a beautiful shooting star.

Some activity below him distracted Draco from watching Ginny, because if said activity was anything suspicious, he would be watching her dead body, which he kept trying to tell himself would be good entertainment, but he seemed to be refusing to listen to himself. Luckily, the people below were not axe-wielding maniacs. Unluckily, they were Oliver Wood and Katie Bell, and if Ginny saw, things would not be pretty.

Katie did not seem to want to be there. She was fidgeting, and looked as if she desperately wanted to get away. Oliver had a firm grasp on the sleeve of her robes, and was talking animatedly about something that was making Katie smile in a forced way that screamed, ‘Okay, I get your point, so shut up now!’

Draco chuckled to himself. It was rather funny how Wood could make random women swoon, but the one that he actually liked didn’t seem interested. If Katie were a Slytherin, Draco would suspect that she was feigning disinterest to make Oliver more interested, but Katie was a Gryffindor, and when Gryffindors said they were uninterested, then they were uninterested.

Draco flew a bit closer to the Quidditch couple. He wanted to know what Wood was talking about that was making Bell smile in a way so fake that if it were any faker, she’d be frowning.

“… managed to blow up a Quaffle by sandwiching it between two Bludgers. You should’ve seen it! It was amazing! The referee was so impressed with that move that he decided to award twenty extra points to our team! Those Fleetwood brothers really are impressive!”

Quidditch. Of course. Wood couldn’t talk about anything that wasn’t Quidditch. In fact, if the topic of discussion was something that wasn’t Quidditch, Wood would somehow relate that to the sport, even if it meant coming up with theories wild enough to land him in St. Mungo’s Psychiatric Ward.

“Oliver, I think that the Fleetwoods are great Beaters, I really do, but I need to go home!”

“But Katie,” Wood protested, “you left in the middle of dinner, and now you won’t even stay for a cup of tea?”

“My brother is sick,” Katie insisted.

Oliver raised his eyebrows. “But you don’t have a brother!”

“I meant Leanne’s brother. We’re very close. I need to go –” Katie was cut off by a bloodcurdling shriek that came from somewhere far above their heads. “What was that?” Katie and Oliver exclaimed at the same time.

“That sounded like Ginny!” Oliver said, and Draco realized, with a horrible sinking feeling, that it was.

True to the thought that had been bothering him a few moments ago, there was a flying axe swooping after Ginny. “Finite Incantatum!” Draco bellowed, but the flying axe paid no heed. It took a few more futile Finite Incantatums before Draco remembered his old trick of looking at shadows to detect Disillusionment charms. There was indeed an invisible someone holding onto that axe. It was impressive, really, how the person was holding the axe with one hand, a wand with the other, and was flying a broom with no hands. Draco smirked. Fancy fliers always ended up in St. Mungo’s with fancy injuries.

---

Harry and Pansy had just reached Ginny’s door when Ron and Hermione appeared out of nowhere with faint pops. Harry couldn’t help but glare suspiciously at his two best friends. Had they been together the whole time he was gone? Instead of worrying about him, had Hermione used the time of his absence to reacquaint herself with Ron?

Hermione glared suspiciously at her husband and the ex-convict. While she was running around England looking for him, had Harry spent time fraternizing with the enemy?

Pansy glared at Hermione, who she had never, ever liked. Hermione had been a bossy Gryffindor know-it-all at school, and after that, she had turned into a super-Auror who had incarcerated Pansy’s whole family, including herself. Also, even though Pansy knew that Ron had never really liked her, and that his letters were the result of the Weasley twins’ evil plan, she couldn’t help but feel slightly jealous that Ron had once loved Hermione in a way that no one would ever love her.

Ron was tired of the growing complications between himself, Harry, and Hermione. To make it worse, judging from how Pansy’s hand was tucked into the crook of Harry’s arm, Pansy had apparently decided to join the tangled web of past and present relationships. He just wanted to kick Malfoy out of his sister’s flat and protect her from any axe-murderers, but apparently it was too much to ask for. Ron wished that life could be more like chess. In chess, he could strategize and manipulate his opposing player into making moves that would eventually lead to his own victory. In life, however, it seemed that he was nothing more than a pawn being played by the cruel grandmaster called Fate.

“Perhaps we should go inside. Ginny will give us some tea,” Ron suggested, and knocked. And knocked again. “Ginny? Are you home?”

“Apparently not,” said Pansy. “Either that, or she’s avoiding her brother dear. I wonder why.”

“Malfoy murdered her!” Hermione exclaimed, jumping to conclusions.

“Zabini has her!” Harry yelled.

“Or, perhaps she’s in the shower,” Pansy said, but nobody was listening.

“Hermione, bring the Aurors! I’ll break in with Ron!”

“Calling the Aurors is unnecessary! Breaking in is unnecessary! I’m a Weasley – I can get through the wards,” Ron said, grabbing Hermione and Harry, who grabbed onto Pansy, and Apparated into the flat.

---

Draco shot off into the air, and began sending a stream of curses and hexes towards the axe murderer. Ginny joined in, but when the murderer dropped the axe, it became harder to find the target. Still, Draco and Ginny were both exceptional duelers, and they managed to knock the murderer off the broom.

There was a scream, a definitely feminine one, and the murderer crashed into the roof below.

“Petrificus totalus!” Draco yelled, freezing the invisible person.

Draco and Ginny both landed on the rooftop. Ginny felt her heart rate accelerate. They had caught the murderer, but what if it really was Tom Riddle? What if he had somehow found a way to return?

Oliver’s arrival broke her train of thought. “Ginny!” he exclaimed, Apparating onto the rooftop. “Are you all right?”

Ginny noticed that Oliver had brought along a panic-stricken Katie Bell and was holding her rather closely, due to her flailing about wildly with desperate pleas of “I don’t want to be here! I don’t want to see this!” However, the feeling of jealousy was suppressed by the overwhelming sense of curiosity mixed with apprehension.

“Fine,” she said dully.

“Let me go, Oliver! I don’t want to be a witness of this!” Katie insisted.

“Katie, it’s okay! Really – Ginny and Malfoy have it all under control. There is no danger here!”

While Katie continued to try to break away from Oliver, and while a bewildered Oliver tried to calm her down, Draco gently grasped Ginny’s shoulder – her good one – and asked softly, “Do you want to see who it is for yourself? Or would you prefer to be told?”

Ginny steeled herself, Draco’s kind gesture giving her strength. “I want to see for myself. I want to see just who it is that made my life so difficult!”

Draco gave her a reassuring pat on the back. “Go for it.”

Ginny pointed her wand at the invisible fallen body and cried, “Finite incantatum!”

The Disillusionment charm was lifted, and Ginny, Draco, and a rather startled Oliver gazed at the unconscious form of Katie Bell, as the other Katie Bell gave a little shriek and began sobbing.

---

To be continued…

---

---

Chapter Ten

---

The crime scene was not a pretty sight. There were two Katies – one lying in an uncomfortable-looking position on a rooftop, the other sobbing with mascara running down her cheeks.

“It’s Polyjuice!” Oliver declared.

“Well, obviously,” Draco drawled with much derision in his voice. No situation was dire enough for him to forget his dislike of the tree-man. “Unless Bell over here has an evil twin.”

“It – it is Polyjuice,” Katie sobbed. “Except that – that I’m the one who’s using it.”

“What?” Oliver asked, looking at Katie as if he were seeing her for the first time.

“I’m not Katie Bell. I’m Leanne Philby. Please don’t sentence me to Azkaban!” she wailed. “I didn’t want to do it! But I had to! If I didn’t, she would have killed me! She’s already hurt my brother!”

Something clicked in Draco’s head. “Leanne Philby? So your brother is that Auror?”

“Yes,” Leanne said, wiping her eyes. “Lyle is in St. Mungo’s right now. I tried to escape from Katie and she hurt Lyle to get back at me! Then she threatened to hurt the rest of my family if I didn’t cooperate. She made me Polyjuice myself into her to trick Oliver while she went to kill Ginny.”

“So Katie wasn’t involved with your brother?” Oliver asked, remembering how Leanne had tearfully taken Katie away in the middle of their date, speaking of her brother’s broken heart.

“Not directly,” Leanne answered, misunderstanding Oliver’s meaning of ‘involved.’ “The only reason she went after him was because of me. She cursed him, and it damaged his heart. He’s okay, though, now.”

“Oh. Damaged heart,” Oliver said to himself. “Not broken heart.” He wasn’t sure if he should be happy that Katie was not a heartbreaker, or heartbroken that Katie was a murderer.

“Why did she want to kill me?” Ginny asked after a while, feeling sort of numb. She had hated Katie all along for stealing Oliver’s attention, but had never thought Katie would hate her back. She hadn’t thought the murderer would be someone who was so familiar to her – and, after all, Katie was a Gryffindor and had always been a nice girl.

“She was recruited by the Russian Wizarding Mafia to get rid of you. I don’t know why, though. She didn’t tell me much.”

“The Russian Wizarding Mafia!” Oliver exclaimed. “Ginny, do you think this has anything to do with your fight with Petrova Porskoff?”

“Over that silly little thing?”

Two years ago, Ginny had played exceptionally well during a game held in Russia. She had done so well that Russia’s star Chaser, Petrova Porskoff, had been humiliated. When they played again one year ago, Porskoff had still harbored a grudge. Porskoff had played roughly, and Ginny had been annoyed. In the end, she not only outplayed the Russian Chaser, but also taunted her as well. It wasn’t the nicest thing to do, but Porskoff had been especially irritating.

“I don’t believe it!” she said. “A little taunting was all I did! And she wants me dead? There must be another reason why the Mafia is after me.”

“Hey, taunting can be serious. Potter still hates me, I’m sure,” Draco commented. “But we’ll find out soon enough if Porskoff is really behind it. I just sent a Patronus to the Potters.”

---

“She appears to have gone flying,” Ron said, coming out of his sister’s bedroom. “Her broomstick’s not in the closet.”

“I’m sure Malfoy’s with her,” Harry added. “I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.”

“Should we go out and look for them?” Hermione suggested.

“No,” Pansy stated. “This is the perfect opportunity for us to sit and talk.”

“Talk?” Hermione asked suspiciously. “About what?”

“About you and Potter. From what I’ve heard, you two had a fight over a misunderstanding regarding Ronald.”

Hermione glared at Harry. “What exactly have you been telling her?”

“Not told, exactly,” Pansy interrupted before Harry could speak. “Potter here is a really bad Occlumens. He’s quite the opposite, in fact, especially when he’s drunk. He was broadcasting his thoughts for every Legilimens in the area to pick up. So, I’ve decided to do some marriage counseling. Potter was nice to me these past few days, so I’ll return the favor and do something nice, for a change.”

“And what do you know about marriage counseling?” Hermione snapped. “I thought your expertise was torturing Muggles.”

Pansy shot a dirty look at Hermione. Here she was, trying to help the ungrateful bush-head, and said bush-head couldn’t even keep her mouth shut. But the thought that Ron may show some interest in her if Potter and Potter worked things out kept her temper in check. She shrugged elegantly. “I had plenty of time to read about psychology in the Azkaban Library.”

“The Azkaban Library?” Harry was aghast. “Merlin’s beard! P.U.K.E. has gone way too far!”

Hermione looked slightly guilty. Pansy rolled her eyes and continued. “As I was saying, if I hadn’t become a Death Eater, I would’ve gone into wizarding psychology. So I read about it as much as I could. Anyway, let’s clarify things, shall we?”

Pansy then began explaining to Hermione what she had told Harry. Ron nodded along with her, occasionally adding a comment or two. They both emphasized that there had been no romance between them whatsoever, and Ron guaranteed that Pansy was not a factor in his breakup with Hermione. Hermione looked a bit placated. Pansy, the expert manipulator that she was, managed to make everyone believe that the final results were wonderful.

“I am a skilled Legilimens,” she said, “and you two are horrible Occlumens. As a result, I can clearly tell that you –” she paused, wrinkling her nose in distaste. “As disgusting as it is to see two Gryffindors in love, I must say, I can tell that you two definitely love each other.”

Hermione blushed and Harry embarrassedly ruffled his hair.

“Well?” demanded Pansy. “Are we going to have to sit here forever, or are you two going to kiss and make up?”

“Not in public!” Hermione said immediately, the prude in her blushing even more at the suggestion.

“Shall we leave?” Pansy didn’t wait for an answer to her question. She just stood up, grabbed Ron, and retreated to Ginny’s room.

Hermione glanced shyly up at Harry, and Harry shyly looked back. They slowly closed the distance between them. Hermione puckered up her lips and Harry pushed his glasses firmly onto his nose. There were mere centimeters left... Then a giant silvery occamy glided in through the window and Hermione shrieked.

“Harry probably missed the target,” Ron muttered, but Pansy had to go see for herself.

She poked her head out from the other room, wondering how the two daft Gryffindors managed to mess even that up, then saw the occamy that she hadn’t seen since practicing the Patronus charm in school.

The great winged snake spoke in what was unmistakably Draco’s drawling voice. “While you Aurors were busy being incompetent, I, the great Draco Malfoy, have caught the axe-murderer. Come see, and bring my medal with you.”

Pansy genuinely smiled. That was the Draco Malfoy she had known before all the horrible things had happened. He was childish and snobbish, but happy. That was what mattered most, wasn’t it? Happiness? Maybe memory loss was a good thing for him.

---

Head Auror Joseph Brand presided over the interrogation, while the Aurors, the witnesses, and the victims were called to watch.

As it turned out, Oliver had been right. Under the influence of Veritaserum, Katie revealed that Petrova Porskoff had orchestrated the entire thing to get rid of her number one enemy. It had also been Porskoff’s idea to get rid of Puddlemere’s experienced captain. Porskoff had hired the Mafia, who hired Katie.

“Why did you –” Harry began, but was cut off by Oliver.

“Why did you do it?” he demanded to know, his expression one between sadness and anger.

“All questioning must be done by Aurors,” Brand interrupted, but all he got for his trouble was an irritated wave of the hand from the Puddlemere Keeper. Celebrities. How he hated them.

“Because I wanted to,” Katie responded, a strange maniacal gleam in her eye. “Ever since my seventh year, I’ve wanted to be evil! It’s my ultimate goal in life!”

“Seventh year,” Hermione said with a gasp. “Harry, Katie was cursed with that necklace in her seventh year!”

Harry nodded grimly. “You’re right. It had aftereffects that the St. Mungo’s Healers apparently missed. So we were right all along.”

“Yes, of course we were right,” Hermione agreed, then paused. “What were we right about?”

“About Malfoy being involved. Although he doesn’t remember, and though it was probably unintentional, it’s partly Malfoy’s fault – he gave the necklace to Katie, making her evil, and making her want to become a murderer.”

Everyone glared at Draco. He scowled. He could see no way around it but to apologize. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, his ego crumbling down with the apology. “Listen. As soon as I go home, I’m going to look at my Pensieve. I’m going to remember everything and apologize for everything that needs to needs to be apologized for. Okay? So stop giving me those looks. I’m sorry. I didn’t know better.”

Oliver wasn’t particularly interested in whether or not Malfoy was sorry. “What were your feelings for me, exactly?” he questioned Katie.

“That question is not relevant to the case!” Auror Brand shouted, but he was ignored.

“You’re annoying. You’re too noble and too chivalrous and too, too boring,” Katie drawled.

Oliver’s expression was a mixture of fury and devastation. “So you just pretended to like me so you would have someone on your side if you ever got suspected?”

“Exactly. And I also pretended not to like Draco, when in reality, I think I’m in love with him.”

Draco looked uncomfortably flabbergasted. “Bell. I apparently almost killed you in school. You can’t possibly –”

“But Draco! That’s what will make our relationship so thrilling! The lingering idea that we could kill each other at any time!”

Draco screwed up his face. “That’s not thrilling, Bell. That’s terrifying.”

“Enough with the drama,” Auror Brand snapped. “We know all that we need to. I’m sending Katherine Bell to receive treatment at St. Mungo’s, acquitting Leanne Philby, and taking Aurors Hermione Potter and Ernie Macmillan to speak with the Russian Ministry of Magic about the Mafia and Petrova. Draco Malfoy and Ginevra Weasley will receive medals for their bravery in capturing a criminal. Oh,” he added with a sigh, “and I’m canceling the suspension of Auror Harry Potter. That’s it. Aurors, I need a few more words with you. Civilians, please move on out.”

The case was closed.

---

“Are you really sure about this?” Ian asked. “I knew Oliver Wood for a long time, and he’s definitely not murderer material.”

“It’s all part of his evil scheme. Of course I’m sure – it’s reporters’ intuition,” Lavender insisted, pacing in front of the door of the room where the axe-murderer case was being solved. She had been tipped off that the suspect had been caught, and that all people involved were currently in this room. Oliver Wood was one of them.

The door suddenly opened, and Oliver, among other people, came out with his arm around a tired-looking girl that Lavender was certain had been in Gryffindor a year above her. Leah, or Luann, or something like that. Oliver, who was now waving hello to them, did not look like he had just been convicted of murder. What was going on here?

Draco Malfoy was next to come out. He caught sight of Lavender and smirked. “Are you here to take a picture of me and my medal?”

“Medal? What medal?”

“My medal,” Draco said haughtily. “Didn’t you know? I thought you knew everything, being a reporter and all.”

“I do,” Lavender reassured. “The medal must be a very recent development… Anyway, I know the case has been solved. So, naturally, I want an interview.”

Despite her confusion, Lavender was a professional at pretending to be confident. Though she had no idea what had happened – even though she would never admit it – she would have no problem conducting the interview.

“So, Mr. Malfoy, could you please recount the events of today? Don’t leave anything out.”

Draco dramatically began retelling his story. Ginny joined them and added her own comments, snorting occasionally at Draco’s melodrama. As the tale unfolded, Lavender was astonished. She had been entirely wrong! Her reporter’s intuition apparently needed some calibration. Yet, the interview with Draco finished smoothly, and she moved on to Ginny. Both of them promised that Lavender would be the only reporter to interview them. She would definitely be getting a promotion for this!

With two successful interviews finished, Lavender happily dashed off to the Daily Prophet headquarters to publish her exclusive interview. Ian dashed off after her. Lavender had a big ‘I told you so’ coming her way.

---

“Harry!” Hermione squealed happily. “You’ve been reappointed! This is wonderful!”

“Yes, it is,” Harry agreed. “I just talked to Brand, and he said I could go with you and Ernie to Russia. And I was thinking that maybe when that’s over, after all this action, we could take a break.”

“A break?” Hermione did not like breaks.

“Yeah. I think we deserve some time off, don’t you?”

“Hmm. Perhaps, but there’s just so much work to do!”

“A little break – a short one – so we can be refreshed and ready for anything!”

“Oh, maybe… Where to?”

Harry smiled. Long ago, Hermione had gushed about how wonderful Hawaii had been when she went there as a child, and had expressed her wish to visit again someday. Then the war had happened and life became too busy. Even their honeymoon had been cut short because they ran across a Dark objects smuggler on their second day in Paris, and like the very enthusiastic Aurors they were, decided to ditch the honeymoon in favor of a pursuit and investigation. But now, Harry would stop time over the entire world if it meant getting some quality time with Hermione. Their relationship needed it, after all. “Hawaii,” he finally said.

“Hawaii!” Hermione looked utterly convinced about needing a break. “Hawaii would be lovely! Just you and me,” she added. “No Ron, no Pansy, no trouble. Just me and my beloved husband.”

Beloved husband. And at that moment, Harry knew she meant it. He smiled, Hermione smiled, and they both laughed like they hadn’t since they were children.

---

Ron had stayed behind at Ginny’s flat, wanting to talk to Ginny about the Draco problem. Now that the two were apparently friends, Ginny might get defensive if he tried to kick Draco out. He didn’t really know what to do about it, anyway – after the Slytherin had saved his sister’s life, he had considerably warmed up to the guy. He would respect Ginny’s opinion on Draco, provided that her reasons were sound enough.

Then he came across the open Pensieve cupboard, and annoyance flashed through him again. Trust Malfoy to not respect other people’s privacy.

“Stupid Malfoy,” he muttered under his breath, relocking the cabinet. “Looking through Ginny’s private thoughts.”

“Actually,” came Pansy’s voice, startling Ron. “Draco hasn’t been meddling with Ginny’s Pensieve. I’ve been meddling with his instead.”

“Why are you still here? I don’t think Ginny would want you here.”

“I’m leaving very soon. Before Draco comes.”

“Don’t you want to see him?”

“I do, but I shouldn’t just yet – he’ll hex me to pieces if he finds out I destroyed his Pensieve.”

“You what?”

“I destroyed his Pensieve.” Pansy sighed heavily before continuing, “I know and you know the kinds of effects that memories of the war has. I especially know how the war changed Draco. Honestly, Weasley, think about it – do you prefer the snobby little boy who made fun of you, or do you prefer the haunted young man who almost killed you?”

“Well, that’s kind of obvious, isn’t it? Taunting is loads better than murder.”

“Exactly. I never want to see Draco like that again. He was so miserable. He really was a happy boy when he was little. His parents were wonderful to him and he loved them dearly. They didn’t die very peacefully; Draco shouldn’t have to remember that.”

“But Parkinson, they’re a part of who he is! You can’t just take all that away from him. What if he wants to remember? And he should – all of us had to suffer through the war. Why shouldn’t he?”

“Because I don’t want him to,” Pansy said matter-of-factly.

“But what gives you the right to do that? To destroy his past?”

“I’m his friend – his real friend. You Gryffindors may not understand Slytherin friendship, but this is how it works: in Slytherin, friends help friends find the easy way out. Why force Draco to remember when he can simply and happily start his life over?”

“I’m sure he’ll be mad at you, though.”

“He’ll forgive me eventually, when he realizes that he’s better off without those memories. He shouldn’t be weighed down by those horrors. Potter told me that Draco remembers up to somewhere around the beginning of our fourth year – that’s an excellent place for him to start his life over. Back then, everything was all right. Everything was happy. He’ll thank me later.”

Ron was touched. Though it was true that he wasn’t too impressed with the Slytherin way of backing out of facing one’s fears, Pansy’s friendship was honestly genuine. Maybe she wasn’t so bad, after all.

“So, Parkinson,” he asked. “If you need a place to stay, why not Hogwarts? We really could use a guidance counselor – especially one who understands Slytherins.”

Pansy grinned evilly. “And maybe I’ll corrupt some Gryffindors while I’m at it.”

Ron laughed. “Report to the Headmaster’s office tomorrow at 8 am sharp. By then, I’ll have convinced him into giving you that job.”

“All right. See you tomorrow… Ronniekins.” Pansy smirked at him, then Apparated away, leaving Ron behind with a half-frown and half-smile. Life at Hogwarts was going to become interesting once again.

---

Ginny was feeling worse than she should. The crisis was over, for which she should be happy, but she had a new concern. Draco had told her of how the first thing he was going to do when he got home was to look at the Pensieve, and that if his resolve weakened, she should just push him headfirst into the Pensieve and get it over with.

This didn’t appeal to Ginny one bit. The current version of Draco, the one that had come back from Switzerland as a tolerable, funny young man, could very well disappear if his memories were returned to him. She would most likely lose the friend who had helped her through the toughest period of her life since the war.

Perhaps it was because she had spent too much time living with the particular Slytherin, but she thought that in Draco’s case, bravely facing his fears wasn’t the best option. Things would be much better if Draco just forgot about the past and moved on. He didn’t need those memories to be himself – he was himself right now, and Ginny liked it.

She liked it. She liked him. She liked Draco.

It hit her like a Bludger to the head. She had been so preoccupied about Oliver – who was now being a perfectly charming gentleman to Leanne – that she had not seen what was in front of her nose, living in her flat, all this time.

“Weasley?” Draco asked, as Ginny had stopped walking in the middle of the hallway, a stunned expression plastered on her face. “Are you all right?”

And Ginny could tell that he was genuinely concerned – concerned about her. He wouldn’t be if he got his memories back. But who am I to stop him? Ginny thought dejectedly. She should just be grateful for the brief moment of friendship she had shared with him, and then let him get his life back.

“I’m fine,” Ginny said, trying to force a smile. “It’s just that everything’s finally catching up with me now. Let’s go inside.”

Ginny found a note from Ron posted on the door, saying he wanted to talk to her about Draco, but since it was late, he was leaving so she could get some sleep. The note made her feel worse. Her brother would obviously come by tomorrow to convince her to kick Draco out, but by then, he would have left of his own accord, having regained his memories and his hatred of her.

Ginny went to the bathroom to wash up, feeling rather downhearted, and Draco had gone to retrieve his Pensieve. Ginny miserably toweled the water off her face, wondering what Draco would do if she stopped him from regaining his memories. He would probably think that she was crazy and start to hate her again. He would hate her regardless of whether or not he got his memories back. It was a lose-lose situation.

Ginny took a deep breath and walked outside to face Draco and his Pensieve. Only, there was no Pensieve. Draco was sitting on the couch, head in his hands.

“Malfoy?” she asked tentatively. “What’s wrong?”

Draco looked up with an odd expression. He seemed happy and upset, grateful and resentful at the same time. “Pansy Parkinson. She’s been here,” he said, waving a small slip of parchment.

Ginny took the note from him. I like the new you better, the note read. And I’m sure everyone else does too. Don’t disappoint them – especially the Weaslette. She’s scary good with the Bat-Bogey Hex.. ~ Pansy

Ginny smiled. So Pansy had gone and done what Ginny herself had wanted to do. Maybe Pansy wasn’t so bad after all. Maybe whatever it was that she had going on with Ron wasn’t so bad, either.

“She apparently destroyed my Pensieve,” Draco explained. “I – I don’t know what to say. It’s like a weight off my shoulders. I don’t have to become who I was in the past. While I’ll never find out what really happened, and who I really was, I don’t think I care anymore. This is good because…” he hesitated.

“Because?”

“Because…” Draco looked uncomfortable, but he sighed and went on, “Because if I went back to being who I was, then you’d hate me. And I don’t want you to hate me.”

Ginny sat down beside him and wrapped her arms around him in a warm hug. “How could I ever hate you? I wouldn’t be here right now if it weren’t for you!”

Draco hugged back tightly and grinned broadly. Then, in a crazy spur of the moment, he pressed his lips to hers.

Ginny pushed him back, scowling. “Ew!” she exclaimed.

Color flooded Draco’s cheeks. She obviously didn’t return any of his feelings – those blasted feelings he just couldn’t seem to crush, no matter how much he reminded himself that he was a Malfoy and she was a Weasley – and now he had just royally screwed up. She would never forgive him, and things would be so awkward, and he’d never again be able to look at her without feeling embarrassed – and why was she smirking like that?

“You should have seen the look on your face,” Ginny said, still with that evil smirk. Then she kissed him.

Draco wasn’t exactly sure what had just happened right then and there, but all that mattered was that Ginny was kissing him like no girl had before, and now he had a new happy memory for conjuring Patronuses. He hoped that he had more happy memories to come – all featuring a mean, crazy, and slightly scary redheaded woman.

---

The End

---

A/N: Thank you very, very much to all readers who stayed with me to the end! And to all of my reviewers – you guys are the best! Thank you, thank you!