Unnatural Selection
Dedication to a new age
Is this the end of destruction and rampage?
Another chance to erase and then repeat again

~*~*~*~

Draco was resigned to the fact that he had long passed the point in his life when the decisions he made regarding his future were still his own. Somewhere along the way, control had been wrested from his tight grasp and secured around his neck like a collar. Since then, others had held the leash, telling him where he could go, what he could do, and when. The decisions he had made seemed to have destined him to a life of subservience, as if Fate itself was against him succeeding. In some ways, Draco was relieved to no longer have the responsibility of “choosing the right path”—or falling down the wrong one, as the case seemed to be—though, as of late, he'd become quite indifferent to life in general.

He tilted his head back until it touched cold stone and closed his eyes. He strained his ears for sound, wondering if he had gone deaf since he'd been imprisoned. It was a thought that used to cross his mind often, but after the first few months of silence, he'd effected the skill to block out the sounds. A skill that involved hours of mindless staring, but, hey, at least he no longer noticed the silence.

It was unnatural... this lack of sound. Unnerving. Wasn't Azkaban known for the moaning and raving of its prisoners—people losing their minds along with all their happy memories? He supposed that Azkaban no longer existed. Prisoners of the new order were so defeated after the war that they needed no Dementors to drain their hope. Their silence was a testament to that.

Draco thought about the last sound he had heard: the voice of some unknown delegate offering him freedom. The previous morning, a man from the Ministry had paid him a visit to inform him that he had been selected to be a candidate for a special program designed to rehabilitate prisoners back into the wizarding world. In exchange for becoming the Ministry's test weasel, his sentence would be cut two years short, depending on when or whether he was deemed civilized enough for true rehabilitation.

At this meeting, he had learned that five years had passed since he'd entered Azkaban, which surprised him, though maybe it shouldn't have. Before the Ministry official had enlightened him with this information, Draco had had no idea how long he'd been imprisoned. In his isolation, time had been impossible to measure. His tiny cell contained no windows to show him what time of the day it was, and his meals were so bland he could never distinguish between his breakfasts and dinners. Even so, sometimes it had felt like he'd been there for decades, and other times it felt like just yesterday that he had stood trial. To learn that he had completed over half of his sentence, that he was two years shy of obtaining freedom, had sent a jolt through his system. It was like nothing he had felt since Albus Dumbledore's murder. So close, yet still not close enough.

It was a lot of information to take in, not just how much time had passed, but also this offer of freedom, which felt so near to him, just within his reach. If he dared to imagine, he thought he could touch it. It seemed too good to be true that he could walk out of Azkaban within the next week and never have to look back if he could help it.

Eying one of his questionable meals sitting on the floor by the door, Draco wondered who in their right mind would think he was ready for rehabilitation before his sentence was over. He'd tried to kill someone—that was why he was in Azkaban, wasn't it? Four counts of attempted murder, or something like that? He really hadn't paid much attention during the trial. By that time, he'd stopped trying to wrestle back control of his life. Instead, he'd allowed the Ministry to do what they wanted with him, since they were going to do that regardless. Anyway, he'd been safer doing what the Ministry wanted him to do. He'd nearly gotten his whole family killed when he was working under the Dark Lord's orders. After a threat like that, what difference did it make what he did? Why not let the winning side control him? At least this side wouldn't kill him at the drop of a hat.

Draco reminded himself, often, that it was better to not be in control. Look what it had gotten him: he'd been patient, done as he was told, and waited, and now he was going to be rewarded with freedom. For whatever reason he had been chosen, he was going to be free. Soon. And now his body just wouldn't still at the thought of it. Against his will, his foot tapped nervously against the edge of the threadbare mattress and his heart kept jumping like a bird trying to escape from a cage. It felt a little bit like anticipation or maybe anxiety, but Draco had long forgotten what those emotions felt like.

Attempting to relax, he leaned back against the wall, imagining that the stone was soft enough to contour to his body, reminding himself once more that it was not safe to hope. Expectations could so easily be ruined, and he was afraid that if this plan didn't go through—if this was a dream or a cruel trick that the Ministry liked to play on its prisoners—the disappointment would make his final two years of prison excruciating. He was afraid to taste hope and then have it forcefully taken away.

His optimism was fleeting—as was his hope in these times.

But three weeks after his meeting with the Ministry official—after Draco had successfully beaten back his hope and that hint of excitement that had tried to escape, three weeks during which he had managed to convince himself that two more years of Azkaban would sail by before he knew it—the official had returned. While receiving one of this bland meals, the guard told him that he would be freed sometime that day, and despite his habit of suppressing all expectations, he waited anxiously. Nervously.

The sound of a key turning in the door of Draco's cell echoed throughout the small space, breaking through the barrier of silence created in his mind. Butterflies fluttered in his stomach. He swallowed thickly, his mouth so dry it made the action painful, and his heart did that jumping thing again.

“Prisoner Malfoy, your Portkey is ready for you.”

Draco stood up, the sounds of his chains clattering with a raucous noise he could not remember ever hearing before. His heart was pounding so hard that he fancied the bird in his chest must have finally been released from its prison and was now desperately trying to take to the sky.

Draco's flight from Azkaban.

He licked his dry lips as his mouth watered at the thought: freedom was just on the other side of the door.

The Smallprint
Hope, I hope you've seen the light
'Cause no one really cares
They're just pretending

~*~*~*~

Just outside his cell, waiting for the guard to check the security of Draco's chains, a man wearing official Ministry robes stood with an impatient frown. He and the guard escorted Draco down the corridor, but the Ministry official was a busy man, as Draco quickly discovered. He barreled down the corridors of the prison as if a Dementor were on his heels, and Draco was surprised by the effort it took for him to keep up. He would have said he'd been in good shape before he'd entered Azkaban, but the five years he'd spent staring at the walls, drowning in silence, had robbed him of much of his strength. He wouldn't know how thin he'd become until he looked in a mirror.

“We've already spoken to the proprietors,” the official said, forgetting to give his name, if he'd ever intended to give it in the first place. “They know all about you and your history, and they know what is expected of you when you leave their home. Don't try anything foolish or you'll go right back to your cozy cell.” He was in such a hurry that even his words were spoken quickly, making him hard to understand.

Draco would have answered, but he was startled by the sounds echoing off the stone. There weren't many: just the stomps of the boots of the guards and the Ministry official, the harsh clanking of Draco's chains, and the soft rustling of clothing, but it was more than Draco had heard in ages. His mind was unaccustomed to so many distractions, so it was difficult for him to pay attention.

They halted in front of a small room, sparsely furnished with a steel table and two rickety wooden chairs. On the table sat an old plush teddy bear—where one of its eyes used to be fluffy gray stuffing poked out.

“At four o'clock exactly, this Portkey will activate. There will be someone on the other side to meet you. Wait for them there. Do not wander off.” The official pointed to his thick black eyeglasses as if to say “I'll be watching you.”

Draco wanted to snort at him, but he controlled the urge and rolled his eyes instead. Prison had lowered his tendency to bait and insult other people. Maybe he was out of practice, being alone for as long as he had.

They waited the last few minutes in silence until four o'clock, when Draco was then directed to take hold of the bear. There was a sharp tug at his navel as he swirled through space, and then he landed gracelessly on hard ground. It took him a couple seconds to catch his breath and stand, and when he had, he wondered if he'd been sent to the wrong location.

All around him was a sea of color, hills and hills of the brightest flowers he had ever seen. He was awestruck by the beauty of it, by the brightness. He had to close his eyes after a few seconds, but the sun pierced through his eyelids, so he pressed the bear to his face. Azkaban had been dark and cold. This was the first time he'd seen color, or felt the sun, in five years. It was ironic that he had to close his eyes, cast himself back into darkness, in order to let it all sink in.

“Hey, Luce, another rotten turnip just dropped in!” a voice complained ahead of him.

Draco opened his eyes to see a stooping man reach the top of the hill with a short, knobbly cane in hand. His brown robes were patched up in all sorts of colorful flowery patterns that did not seem to match the scowl on his face or the crease in his brow.

“What choo doin' over there? Don't stand around gaping like a loon. Get in the house!” The man extended his cane to prod Draco's shoulder towards a large cottage situated behind him, right on top of the hill. Before they could reach it, the door opened, revealing a tiny, plump woman with curly snow white hair, as soft and wispy as one of the clouds that lazily floated across the bright blue sky.

“Now, Filip, don't frighten the boy!” The woman turned to Draco as she ushered them into the house. “Don't mind him, deary. He's a crotchety old man, but he can be sweet when he's hungry.”

Draco didn't say a word as the woman, who insisted he call her Lucy, babbled about her husband, and he allowed himself to be ushered into the kitchen where a ginger-haired young woman stood at the fireplace, stirring a cauldron. The girl turned around as they entered, and Draco thought he remembered her face from somewhere—but only in a vague sense of recognition. She seemed to know him, though, because her eyes widened, and she turned back to her cauldron so quickly that he wondered how she hadn't injured her neck.

“Just sit right here, and let me tell you about ourselves,” Lucy said, shoving Draco down into a seat at the long wooden table in the middle of the kitchen.

She stood so that he had to turn his back to the girl by the fire, which was fine with Draco as she didn't seem too keen on him anyway. Filip, who insisted Draco call him Mr. White, positioned himself grumpily beside Lucy, both of his hands resting on the top of his cane. Draco realized as he sat there under their scrutiny that he was still holding the bear, and even though he felt a little foolish carrying it around, he couldn't quite bring himself to throw it away yet. It had been his escape from prison. Maybe it would bring him luck in his new life of freedom.

“Welcome to The Cottage,” Lucy said. “You are here to work out your issues in order to integrate back into society. We are a cheery lot, but don't let that fool you. There are a few rules everyone living under this roof must follow, including yourself.

“The first rule: this is your home, not your prison. You were allowed to come here because you were deemed not dangerous, and as such, you are free to leave the house.”

Not dangerous? How could he not be dangerous? Four counts of attempted murder, remember! Draco gave her a skeptical look, but she didn't seem to notice and continued on in her blithe way. Beside her, Mr. White was scowling at him. Apparently, Draco would not be offered his trust on a silver platter.

Lucy continued. “There isn't anywhere for you to go, anyway, and Apparition is strictly prohibited. We'd like to see you try to escape.” She smiled at him in what he had decided was her default cheery manner, but cheery though it was, it made Draco wary. Obviously, Lucy White was not as oblivious as she appeared.

“The second rule: everyone must help out around the house. Since we'll be living together, you can manage to complete a few chores. These will be outlined to you in the morning.”

Honestly, Draco had expected no less than that, but even so, he couldn't stop the prickle of irritation that niggled at his Malfoy pride. He'd never had to do chores in his life, and he couldn't believe he was going to be lowered to the status of a house-elf now. Okay, so maybe, to them, he deserved this treatment, being Death Eater scum or whatever people thought of him, but chores were not what he had wanted to spend his freedom doing.

“And the last rule: if you behave well, show some improvement, cooperate, you'll be out of here in no time. If you break any of these rules, just expect to either stay here longer or go back to Azkaban. Ginny here will show you where you will be staying.”

Draco wasn't given the chance to wonder in what way he would have to improve or how that improvement would be measured. Behind him, the girl—Ginny, apparently—dropped the wooden spoon she'd been holding. Draco flinched as it clanged against the side of the cauldron and dropped to the floor.

He turned around to see her glaring at him, causing his palms to sweat with nerves. He should have known that his presence outside of Azkaban would be unwelcome to the public. His part in the war had not been kept secret while he'd been on trial; he was sure everyone knew what he had done—or tried to do. The girl whose brown eyes glared at him so hatefully would be the first of many people to give him such looks. Draco wasn't sure what he had expected life to be like for him outside of prison. He supposed he hadn't thought much about it at all.

“Just leave that, dear. I'll get a new one,” Lucy said, giving the girl—Ginny, he reminded himself—a little shove in his direction. Draco turned back around to see Mr. White bent over in front him, his eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“I'm watching you, boy. Don't try anything funny. Got any idear what makes those flowers out there grow?” he asked, jerking an ancient thumb over his shoulder toward the door.

Draco shook his head, surreptitiously wiping his hands on the worn bear in his lap.

“If you do anything stupid, you'll find out!”

He shuffled away to the opposite end of the table and sat down heavily, letting out a loud hmph! of disapproval. Draco didn't dare laugh, though he might have scoffed at the old man a few years ago. The greatest folly of his youth had been his inability to recognize danger and stay away from it. But Filip White was not the Dark Lord in any way, shape, or form, so Draco allowed himself a small, if condescending, smile at the man's antics.

“Let's go, Malfoy,” the ginger-haired girl grumbled as she snatched a part of his grungy sleeve and pulled him toward a door.

Draco was momentarily startled but quickly regained his composure. What rude help they employed! Maybe he'd be able to teach her better manners in the time that he stayed there. A Death Eater teaching a woman how to be polite while he learned how to be civilized once again. He snorted at the thought and then smirked at her when her eyes snapped in his direction.

“Am I the only one here?” he asked, watching the crease in her brow deepen as her annoyance curiously grew.

“No, of course not,” she replied. “There's one other man here, but he's working right now. I'm sure you'll get the chance to introduce yourself later.” He realized that she was sneering at him. Well, not at him, because she absolutely refused to look at his face, but, out of practice though he was, he'd made enough facial expressions identical to her current one to recognize it, and the sarcasm dripping from her tongue was like a serpent's poison.

It was a wonder that the infinite hills of flowers outside couldn't temper her bad attitude. Draco thought of the old days, when his mother had overseen the house-elves as they worked in the garden at the manor. She used to take walks there when her spirits were low, insisting that beauty could cure all ills. He frowned at the remembrance. His thoughts hadn't turned to his mother in a very long time. He wondered what had happened to her after his trial and sentencing. It suddenly seemed unfair that he'd been freed from prison and yet still could not return home. He supposed he'd let his hunger for a world outside of Azkaban carry him away. He wouldn't be totally free until he left this cottage.

Thinking of his mother had stirred something in him and, for the first time in fiveyears, Draco had the unexpected urge to fight his fate, to go against the natural flow he had followed since he had been captured at Hogwarts after the final battle, to make his own way in the world again, despite his previous bad decisions. His heart beat the same way it had in prison when he had allowed himself to feel that moment of anticipation for freedom.

“This will be your room here,” Ginny said as she stopped in front of a door at the end of the hall on the second floor. “The Whites have been kind enough to provide some clothes for you. Not that you deserve any of their kindness.”

He felt the bite in her tone as if she'd gone and sunk her teeth right into his arm, and he almost rose to her baiting. He wanted to fight back, sneer at her the same way she was sneering at him, give her a bite that she couldn't easily shake off. But he stopped himself. There was no point in needling the help, not when he didn't even have a wand with which to protect himself should she become seriously hostile. He had been lucky to survive the war, to have gotten out of his trial relatively unscathed, and to be released from Azkaban two years early. It would have been a shame for him to come that far just to get thrown back into prison because the maid had hurt feelings.

He glared at her as he opened the door, his jaw clenched.

“Thanks... Ginny, was it?”

Her eyes glowed with fire, and her brows creased together savagely.

“That's right. Ginny Weasley.”

His heart seemed to stop or slow down or pound harder—he didn't really know because he'd met her hate-filled, now-somewhat familiar eyes, knowing the shock and recognition that would show up on his face, and the smug look on her own was enough to make him want to return to Azkaban, if only to escape it.

His eyes flicked away from hers and landed on her cheek, where he'd be safe from her scrutiny. His mind whirled with possibilities. He could feign ignorance, pretend he still didn't know her—but the shock on his face had been a dead giveaway that he did remember her, or at least her family. He could shut the door in her face, lock himself in his room until morning, when he'd have to start his chores—but he knew he'd only meet her again sometime; the cottage wasn't that large, and it was isolated by the hills and the flowers.

His mouth fell open. He wanted to say something, but....

“Don't waste your breath. I'd rather not hear it,” she spat. Without another word, she turned and stomped away.

Draco could hear her pounding down the wooden stairs until she reached the kitchen again. He slumped into the door frame, thankful for its support, and released a hard breath. And then his lips twitched, turning into a shaky smile, which then transformed into a grin, fueled by laughter that bubbled in his throat. Fate must have had a serious grudge against Draco, because he could see nothing less funny than the idea of living, for an undetermined length of time, with the sister of a man he had actively hated for several years and whose death he had nearly caused on more than one occasion.

Nonetheless, he hadn't laughed since long before he'd entered Azkaban five years ago, and thankfully no one was around just now, because had they heard him from behind his closed door, they would have wondered whether the person inside was laughing hysterically or sobbing.

~*~*~*~

Draco didn't go down to dinner that night despite the violent grumbling of his stomach at the scent of pot roast wafting up the stairs. He spent the rest of the evening sprawled out on his bed staring at the ceiling trying not to think. It used to be so easy to do, when he'd been in Azkaban, blocking out the silence along with his thoughts. But he'd seen color again, felt heat, seen the sun, and now he couldn't get his brain to turn off.

If he'd half-expected someone to come upstairs and call him to dinner, he'd only been half-disappointed. Ultimately, he was grateful to be alone. The bed seemed to suck him down into its softness until he was too comfortable to move. So he didn't. His thoughts finally succumbed to sleep, and he drifted.

He'd woken again to the sounds of a door slamming and pounding footsteps in the hallway. Startled out of bed, Draco groggily went to the door and threw it open to find a frantic-looking man noisily pacing the hall, wringing his hands and muttering to himself as he went. On the floor in front of the door sat a plate of that night's dinner, now undoubtedly cold. He stared at the food, his stomach grumbling, and for a moment, he felt warmth toward whoever had thought of him during supper, but the moment was interrupted by someone's approach.

A wand tip illuminated the darkness, casting light on the wand's owner as well as the man having the fit. Draco didn't know why the sight of Ginny Weasley was so unexpected, but in his surprise, he closed the door just enough so that he could still see out but she couldn't see him. Now he could see that the man was a bit older, maybe in his fifties or so, with thinning gray hair and a face carved with pain.

“You shouldn't be up, Jimmy,” Ginny said in a soothing voice, her face blank and calm. She gently tugged on his sleeve until he turned around to face her, but even then his eyes darted around nervously. Draco couldn't help the pang of irritation over the difference between her treatment of him earlier and her treatment of Jimmy now, even though no Weasley had ever treated him with kindness before. Not only was she rude help, she discriminated against people as well. Hadn't her family fought against that sort of thing during the war?

“He's come for me, hasn't he?” Jimmy cried, his voice hoarse and shaky. “I'm next, I'm next, I'm next!”

“No one's come for you. Lucy explained it all to you, didn't she? He's here for the same reason you are. To get better.”

Jimmy shook his head savagely. “No, no, no, no, no. My children are gone, and I'm next!” His eyes connected with Ginny's and held like she was his lifeline. “Don't let him get me!” he begged, his voice gone high with panic.

“I won't let anyone get you,” she replied fiercely. “Come on. Let's go take your potion.”

Ginny rubbed his arm as she firmly guided him into a room across the hall from Draco's. She returned a moment later, the light of her wand doused, and closed the door behind her as quietly as she could. She stopped in the middle of the hall, staring at Draco's door intently. His heart pounded in his chest as he closed his eyes, hoping she couldn't see him through the crack, hoping that she had no idea he was watching. She'd only scowl at him for eavesdropping and then.... Well, okay, he was eavesdropping. He could admit it. And, well, maybe a tiny part of him wanted her to find him because he knew she'd have something to say about his lurking. And unpleasant though her animosity was, it was something normal—something he'd had before he'd gone to Azkaban. Not necessarily with her, but it was so easy to envision her as a different red-headed idiot, standing next to Potter and Granger. For some reason that comforted him in this unfamiliar place.

She made a sound of disgust at the back of her throat and approached the door. Draco stood his ground, planting his feet to keep himself from inching farther into the room, but the door didn't fly open in her hellish female wrath.

She stopped in front of the door, frowning at the cold dinner on the floor before picking it up and carrying it off. Unfortunate, really, because his stomach was growling and twisting into itself in hunger. He would have eaten it, cold or not. Trying to forget the missed meal, he crawled back into bed, his mind ruminating over the two faces of Ginny Weasley and Draco's instinctual responses to either challenge or avoid her. But by the time sleep had claimed him, his thoughts had turned into half-nightmares, in which Ginny's eyes burned with furious fire and Jimmy's voice screamed at him accusingly.

Sunburn
She burns like the sun
And I can't look away
She'll burn our horizons, make no mistake

~*~*~*~

Sweat rolled down Draco's neck, sliding uncomfortably through the collar of his work robes as he sprayed potion on an obnoxiously cheerful-looking begonia. His work wasn't difficult, but seeing as how he had spent the previous five years in a cold stone box, his skin was unused to the light and heat of day. He could feel his face turning pink and was disgusted that manual labor was burning his flawless skin.

Wiping the sweat off his face with his sleeve, he stood from his painful, stooped position, his back cracking loudly.

The cottage sat on its hill off in the distance, but for all intents and purposes, Draco was alone. After breakfast, Lucy had explained his chores and then pushed him off into Jimmy's care, much to both men's horror. Draco had become a master at hiding his expression while he had stared blankly at the walls in Azkaban, but Jimmy was not as practiced. In fact, he was quite terrible at hiding his emotions. It had been no secret, even to Draco, that he was upset by Lucy's charge. He remedied his problem by leading Draco as far away from the cottage as they could go without losing sight of it, handing him a spray bottle and a small cauldron of fertilizing potion, and then retreating to safer distances.

Point and spray, Jimmy had said. So that's what Draco did.

Planted next to the begonia patch was a large square of sunflowers as tall as he was. Draco stared one of them down, imagining a grumpy face within the florets, but the flower refused to give in. He squirted it in the face with the potion, holding that it had deserved it for looking at him with such a challenging stare.

The work quickly became routine and thus mind-numbingly dull. Point and spray here. Point and spray there. For the little effort he was actually putting into the endeavor, he was sweating what he thought was an unhealthy amount. Soon he was going to shrivel up like a raisin, and his body would be lost among the sunflowers. Any moment now it was going to happen. Point and spray.

An hour passed, maybe more, when he spotted Ginny wading through the flowers toward him, her hair the spitting image of an out of control campfire. By this time, Draco was so bored with himself, so exhausted from the heat and so dead on his feet, that even her perpetually frowning face was a sight for his sore eyes.

No, he wasn't being fair. She knew how to smile—at anyone other than Draco, that is. He'd witnessed it at breakfast when he'd walked into the kitchen and seen her laughing at something Lucy had said, but a moment later, her mouth had turned down in an angry frown and had remained that way for the rest of the meal.

He wondered—and he was sure it was dehydration talking—what it would take for him to make her smile at him as sincerely as she scowled. Or maybe he wanted to make her scowl more. Draco wasn't quite sure what he wanted because at that moment he didn't particularly care. He was so parched, he had created a mental list of things he'd give for a simple goblet of water and right at the top of it was Ginny's soul. He figured they were of about equal value, though he might have been mistaken. Certainly the water would be worth more than a Weasley's soul.

“Not trying to run away, are you?” she asked in a tone of voice Draco recognized but couldn't comprehend.

Draco stared at her like one of his sunflowers. The sun gave her some color, made her skin appear rosy and warm. It was quite unfortunate that she was squinting so hard, because he couldn't tell if she was attractive or not with all of those creases in her brow—and the ever-existing scowl.

When Draco stared at her blankly, his mouth hanging open slightly, she snapped her fingers in front of his face, causing him to totter back on his heels and nearly fall to the ground.

“Dammit. I hadn't thought of it until now,” he answered, glaring at the spray bottle in his hand as he would have glared at a leash tying him to a tree.

Even if he had run and kept running, he knew it would have been pointless. There was no end to the hills or the flowers as far as he could see, and with the sun blazing above him, sucking him dry of energy as well as moisture, Draco was sure he would have died before ever reaching a town. He would have been caught wandering the fields and then chucked back into Azkaban.

He knew a good thing when he saw it, and it was worth it to cooperate with the Whites, while tolerating Ginny Weasley, to stay out of prison. The fact that she thought he'd try to escape a good thing irked him. His finger itched to spray that glower right off her freckled face.

She opened her mouth to retort, but he cut her off.

“Do I bother you?” he asked savagely, glorifying in the dumbfounded look on her face as she comprehended his words.

“What kind of a question is that?” she yelled.

The way she clenched her fists at her sides and the way her eyes widened made Draco believe that he had shocked her into raising her voice. It was clear that she had never intended to lose her cool; the agitated biting of her lips and wrinkling of her brow attested to that.

“I was just wondering why you feel the need to antagonize me,” he spat.

Dumbfounded once again, she wrestled with words until something coherent and condescending came out. “Why did you ever leave Azkaban? You should have rotted there! You don't deserve to breathe the same air as people like Jimmy or the Whites!”

“Or you, you mean to say?” His grip on the spray bottle tightened, sending a mist of potion onto a patch of chrysanthemums.

Her arm slashed through the air. “You are a murderer and a coward, and I hate looking at your smug face!”

The force of her words was so strong that Draco released his breath and took a step back, as if he'd been winded. Behind him, a sunflower peered over his shoulder.

He'd never murdered anyone, despite his weak attempts, and, even then, he'd only tried to kill two people. The others had gotten in the way. Collateral damage. But they had survived.

He'd been trapped back then: his future only going in one direction—the same direction as his father's—but his foolishness in his youth had convinced him that what he had been doing was important. He had wanted so badly to do better than his father, to seize glory for himself in the wake of Lucius's failures in the Dark Lord's service.

The folly of his youth. Certainly she had her own regrets herself? And smug... he couldn't remember the last time he had felt smug, let alone looked it.

The sun suddenly seemed to feel hotter to Draco. His hair clung uncomfortably to his neck, sweat dripping from the too-long strands. A rebuttal was on the tip of his tongue, or maybe it was an insult, but Draco couldn't get his mouth to work.

The last thing he remembered was his eyesight going black.

~*~*~*~

He'd woken again in his own dark little room, the teddy-bear-slash-former-Portkey hugging the top of his head. Reaching up and snatching it from the pillow, he tossed it across the room, where it hit the wall with a weak thud and then lay limply on the floor. He felt bad as soon as he'd done it. The bear had not been the one to call him a murderer or a coward, and it had only helped him since he had first met it.

Draco rolled over onto his side to escape the accusing expression that he imagined reflected in its one cold marble eye, and instead met the cool gaze of Ginny, who was sitting in a chair by his bed. He was starting to think that she was stalking him.

When she'd seen that he had awoken, she cleared her throat in a gesture of awkwardness, shifting so that she was sitting on the edge of her seat. Draco waited expectantly for her to speak, but she seemed at a loss for words, or unwilling to breech the silence.

So Draco shattered it for her. “What are you doing here?” he asked in a hard voice. Like she had any right to come into his room uninvited and watch him sleep when just earlier she had been calling him names!

Her eyes lowered to her lap, where her fingers worried the material of her robes. “Lucy said I was to take care of you,” she mumbled.

“I don't need your care, so you may leave.” He flopped back over onto his other side, where he could see the bear sitting in an awkward handstand against the wall. He closed his eyes against it, trying to block everything out, trying to recreate the bubble of silence he had lived in while at Azkaban. But the bubble had been irrevocably popped. He couldn't stop sound or pause life any better than he could kill a defenseless old man.

A cold wet cloth plopped unceremoniously on the side of Draco's face, startling him into a sitting position and nearly making him fall out of the bed.

“What are you doing?”

“You're dehydrated. Put that on your fat head and drink this!” Ginny shoved a massive tankard of water into Draco's hands, sloshing it all over his bedclothes in the process. “If you don't want my care, then I won't give it!”

She stomped to the door, but his voice stopped her before she could leave.

“Wait! Wait. I wouldn't want the maid to be punished for not following orders. You can care for me.”

He laid back down gently, his head spinning from all of his moving around. He cradled the tankard carefully, trying not to spill any more water onto himself.

Ginny turned around, her jaw set stubbornly and her brows wrinkled in a V shape, sloping down to the bridge of her nose. He suppressed the smirk that longed to come out of hiding, but knowing her temper and seeing how angry she was already, Draco decided it was best not to push her any further.

She grabbed the wash cloth from where it had fallen on the mattress and gently patted Draco's face with it. He closed his eyes, ready with a quip about servitude and her rightful place in the world, but he quite forgot it as she wiped the cloth along his neck. Something strange happened, something he never expected. Not with her, anyway. Not here. Not now. A tremor shot through his body as the muscles in his stomach clenched oddly, making his breath catch in his throat. His eyes flew open to see what Ginny was doing, but she was glaring at the cloth and muttering angrily under her breath, quite oblivious to his body's reaction to her ministrations.

“Th-that's alright. I was only joking. You can go,” he stuttered gruffly, shoving her hands away.

“Make up your mind already, will you?” She sighed in exasperation, leaving the damp cloth on the bed as she stood. Before she left the room, she turned back to him, still looking annoyed but dutiful. “Don't drink that water all at once, just a little at a time. You've been instructed not to leave bed. And if you need anything please hesitate to ask.”

She slammed the door behind her.

Draco released a breath of relief, his muscles relaxing now that she had gone. He carefully rolled to the edge of the bed, reaching for the poor bear, knowing he was still too far away, and yet a burst of magic summoned the beaten toy to him. Panting and weak from the effort, Draco took a sip of water and then curled up on his side, his knees nearly touching his chest, the teddy bear clutched tightly in his arms.

He tried to drift back to sleep, but he couldn't stop thinking about Ginny's touch.

~*~*~*~

Over the next few days, Draco developed a routine. His mornings consisted of setting the table, eating breakfast with Lucy, Mr. White, Ginny, and Jimmy, and then working out on the hills either fertilizing flowers with growth potion or cutting them for distribution.

He'd been surprised to learn that the Whites were the main suppliers of flower shops all over the United Kingdom and the continent. Their magically enhanced garden grew the largest, brightest, longest-lasting flowers in all of Europe, and they were often sought by shops and private buyers. The land that the flowers grew on had been passed down from previous generations of Mr. White's family. Lucy had training as a Healer, specializing in medicine that resembled what Muggles called psychiatry, which hadn't been useful to her as it wasn't a very popular branch of Healing. She and Mr. White had opened The Cottage as a place for each one to explore and combine their passions, rehabilitating patients through work in the immense garden.

Draco supposed it was a nice thought, a nice ideal sort of life for them, but as the sun glared down on his back, he couldn't help but wish that the Whites had inherited an ice cube company instead. Besides Ginny, Jimmy, and himself, they employed nearly fifty workers to cut flowers. Draco saw them from time to time, depending on which section of flowers he'd been assigned to harvest or fertilize.

In the evenings, he sat in the sitting room, usually with a book, sometimes writing letters he would never send, that would never be read: letters to his parents, telling them about the dullness of the day-to-day; letters to Professor Snape, apologizing for refusing his help in Draco's sixth year—wondering how things would have been different if he had let Snape help him with his mission, wondering whether Snape would have survived. He wrote letters to people that he would never admit writing to: the people whose hands he had sneered at when they had offered help; the people with whom he had always shared a feeling of disgust; the people who he had hurt in his quest for glory. (Crabbe's letter had been a particularly difficult one to write. Draco couldn't stomach rereading it, and so he hid it underneath his mattress, where it sometimes called to him in his nightmares.)

But Draco had kept himself occupied, despite his nightmares and his letters and his chores. He'd taken up the hobby of people-watching, specializing in the observation of Ginny Weasley.

Some nights, he didn't have nightmares but vague dreams filled with tremors and touches and a pale, freckled face surrounded by a mass of flaming red hair—red like tiger lilies, flaming like the sun. Ginny's antagonism decreased as the days passed, but she still spoke kinder to Jimmy than she did to Draco. Usually, she avoided having to endure his presence for any length of time. She poked her head into the sitting room to see if he was there and then left when she spotted him. In the mornings, she ate her breakfast as quickly as possible in order to leave the table and his presence.

Even so, Draco watched her and occasionally spoke to her. He made sneering comments about her freckles and her hair, about the way she dressed and how she worked. He might not have realized it, but his insults were childish. Safe. They were always about her and never about her family and certainly never about the war.

He'd spotted her cutting tiger lilies one morning, and he'd changed his path so that he had to walk past her, even though the foxgloves he'd been assigned to that day were in the complete opposite direction.

“Oh, Ginny. Didn't see you there. With that hair of yours, I thought you were part of the scenery,” he said to her, feigning surprise.

She'd looked up at him from her crouched position, annoyance and loathing in her eyes, a smudge of dirt smeared across her cheek. The cutters she had been holding flashed in the light of the sun, making the dark orange lilies around her look like the bloody scene of a homicide.

“Bugger off, Malfoy! You've got work to do.”

He'd found it amusing that he had compared her appearance to flowers, and she'd still taken offense.

“Ah, ah! Watch your language. Wouldn't want to hurt poor Jimmy's feelings would you?”

She shot up from the ground, the cutters much more threatening now that she was standing.

“You leave Jimmy alone! You don't know anything about him!”

It wasn't entirely true, though Draco wasn't going to admit to having eavesdropped on her helping Jimmy back to bed his first night at The Cottage.

“How sweet of you to defend him from me. Don't let Potter catch wind of your love affair. It would break his heart.”

He'd left her seething in the lilies at that remark, while he had snickered to himself.

But Ginny had shown him, hadn't she? Apparently, she no longer thought of Potter at all. She was too busy running off with one of the younger men who came at the end of the day to pick up the flowers they had cut for distribution to shops. Draco didn't know him personally, but he'd seen him around—seen how his eyes had followed Ginny as she unloaded the flowers she had cut that day, watched him elbow his fellow deliverymen and nod appreciatively in Ginny's direction. He was the complete opposite of Potter: tan-skinned where Potter was fair, blond-haired where Potter was dark. No glasses. No scars. Just the ever-lasting expression of a prat on his face.

He didn't just look like a prat—he acted like one, too. June was a hot month, and Draco had taken precautions to keep from fainting again, carrying a canteen of water that Lucy had given him and wearing robes made of a thinner material. But Draco remained draped in his robes the entire day, no matter how sweltering the sun was. Ginny's deliveryman showed up with the others around five o'clock, before the sun had set but at that time of day when it was starting to cool off, and just to show off, he liked to unbutton his robes about halfway through the job, showing off tanned skin and rippling muscles that Draco certainly did not have, rotting in Azkaban as he had for five years.

Draco had gained some weight since arriving at The Cottage, but he was still dangerously thin, especially when his slight frame was compared to the deliveryman's broad physique. Draco had never thought of himself as short, but that man made him look shorter. And certainly Draco was a prat, snobbish and rude with a superiority complex, but a greater prat existed in Ginny's lover, which disgusted Draco because he thought she could do better. No, he thought she would have done better, never mind what she could have done or deserved.

The blond hair was the only thing that Draco and the deliveryman had in common, and even that feature was different. Draco's hair nearly shone white in the light of the sun, a blinding platinum color that was cold and harsh. The deliveryman's blond hair was gold and warm. It seemed to absorb heat and reflect it back out as light. Their hair matched their characters, made Draco less approachable and the deliveryman more inviting.

For some reason, this irked Draco. Maybe because he almost fancied that Ginny had chosen her deliveryman exactly because he looked nothing like Draco or Potter. But he'd be flattering himself if he thought Ginny Weasley thought high enough of him to try to forget him with a man who was his opposite.

Now, rocking in a chair on the porch, Draco's eyes followed Ginny as she flew past gardenias and gladiolas, tulips and roses, hand in hand with her deliveryman.

As they disappeared over a hill, racing away from the setting sun, he thought about his suggestion of her love affair, and wondered why seeing her with that man made his stomach clench uncomfortably and his hands form into tight fists. Nearly every day he watched them as they sneaked off together, and there was nothing he could do about it because he meant nothing to her, and she wasn't supposed to mean anything to him.

She didn't. Honestly. But that damn wash cloth and his blasted dreams made him imagine things he shouldn't ever be imagining. Like Ginny running off into the hills with Draco, to do whatever it was that she and that deliveryman did together.

She always came back in time for dinner, and Draco put his observational skills to the test by studying her over the table while she avoided conversing or even looking at him. Her countenance never revealed any of her secrets, leading him to wonder if she had learned Occlumency and utilized her skill with it now.

And at night when he went to bed, his stomach lurched almost painfully as he thought of the day and of her. He wondered what she had been looking for that she had found in that man, and also why he felt as if he had missed out on something important.

Escape
But I’ll still take all the blame
'Cause you and me are both one and the same
And it's driving me mad

~*~*~*~

Jimmy eyed Draco carefully as the blond cut a marigold and placed it in a wide basket with other flowers that had already been harvested. He'd been at The Cottage for nearly two months now, finally feeling settled in enough to call the place home, even though a part of him always thought about his mother. The mornings spent among the flowers, fertilizing or harvesting them, were some of the most peaceful hours of his day. He'd begun to look forward to them, finding that the isolation of his work rivaled how he'd felt in Azkaban, which, although not a place to which he ever wished to return, had always made him feel safe. In prison, he could neither be blackmailed by evil maniacs into doing their bidding, nor could the Ministry continue to air his family’s unsavory past in trial after public trial. Safe or no, Draco was grateful to be out in the open now, able to see the sky and smell the flowers. The certainty that things would turn out the way they were supposed to had come back to him, though his attitude now was less defeatist and more optimistic.

Even Jimmy's wariness had ceased to bother him.

The silence stretched between them as they worked on this particular order from a large shop in Switzerland. Draco was fine with the silence, so when Jimmy spoke, he had to stop himself from reacting too severely and revealing how startled he was. He hadn't heard Jimmy speak much at all in the two months Draco had been at The Cottage.

“You... you're not as bad as I thought,” he said nervously, watching Draco from the corner of his eyes as he attempted to keep a steady grip on his cutters.

Draco didn't reply, letting the silence hang thickly in the air. What could he say to that? Was it a compliment? Jimmy, however, continued before Draco could decide what to do.

“I... I thought you'd be just... just like them. I was... scared of you.”

Draco focused on his work, trying to still his shaking hands long enough to cut a marigold without crushing its fluffy head. His palms hadn't sweat this way since the day he had arrived, when he had faced Ginny's loathing for the first time.

The fact that this man, who was old enough to be his father, if not older, was scared of him—him!—made Draco want to laugh. The nervous kind of laughter people forced out of their mouths when they were uncomfortable. As uncomfortable as he was, though, Draco did not laugh. Instead, he continued hiding behind the silence.

“But you aren't.” Jimmy turned back to his own marigold, snipped, and placed the flower in the basket. “I was wrong about you. All this time you've been here, you've kept to yourself. My fear just seems so pointless now. Maybe there's nothing to be afraid of anymore.”

At that, Draco finally looked at his companion. Lit by the sunlight, he appeared younger than usual—his gray hair less stringy, the wrinkles that lined his face shallower, his eyes a more youthful blue. Draco didn't know what he was doing at The Cottage, what kind of rehabilitation he was undergoing. He couldn't imagine the older man as an ex-convict from Azkaban, so why else would he be there, cutting and fertilizing flowers with someone like Draco? This was his first time wondering about it, even thinking about it. And now Jimmy seemed like a real person to him, rather than a fearful shadow avoiding the sun lest he be exposed and disappear.

Yes, he was a real person, but an idiot nonetheless. For a person who hadn't trusted Draco since he'd arrived, he too easily forgave. He should have known better than to take Draco's good behavior at face value, especially when Draco's freedom was on the line. No Slytherin would make that mistake, and this man was obviously not as cunning as any Slytherin.

“Don't be daft,” Draco finally answered. “Of course there are things to be afraid of, but you can't waste your life away hiding from them. They'll find you anyway. And then where will you be?”

At the top of the Astronomy Tower, holding the most powerful wizard of the age at wand point? Breaking bread with the Dark Lord as his snake devoured a woman whole?

“Alone,” Draco concluded. “Dissatisfied. Even more terrified than you were before.”

Then Jimmy did something Draco never expected him to do. He smiled at him. It was the kind of smile that made the creases in his face completely disappear. It made him real and new, and, for the first time since meeting him, Draco thought he might have actually been younger than he appeared.

“You're right,” he agreed jovially.

All this time, Jimmy might have feared Draco, but Draco had feared Jimmy just as much. He was the voice of the war, of all the people who had been hurt by Draco's actions and the actions of his family. Draco might not have killed anyone, but he had been a pawn in the Dark Lord's game, and the events with Dumbledore at the top of the Astronomy Tower had set the game in motion. No, he may not have been directly responsible for the death and destruction, but he was a representation of the destroyers, and Draco hated seeing himself like that in Jimmy's eyes. They both feared each other and had avoided one another as much as possible because of that.

But look at Jimmy now: he was smiling at Draco and speaking of fear as if it were a legend of the past. No, Draco didn't know what kind of rehabilitation Jimmy had come to The Cottage to receive, but it was clear that he had shaken his demons, well and truly.

And by the end of the following week, Jimmy was released from The Cottage.

~*~*~*~

He left early in the morning, before Draco or the sun had risen. Ginny woke him up a couple hours later by barging into his room, a force to be reckoned with as her eyes glinted with a fire that matched her hair.

“What did you do?” she screamed at him after he'd jolted awake.

“What the hell are you talking about?” he mumbled groggily.

“Jimmy's gone! What did you do to him!”

He shook his head to clear it, uncomprehending her words. “What are you talking about?” he growled impatiently.

She reached for his blankets and pulled them off his bed with a flourish. “Jimmy. Is. No. Longer. Here. What. Did. You. Do.”

“Hey! What do you think you're doing!” he cried while reaching for the discarded blankets.

Before she could retort, a stern, “That's enough!” made both of them freeze in place. Lucy stood at the door, her arms crossed over her chest disapprovingly. “Jimmy no longer needed us. He's returned to his family.”

“What family?” Ginny cried, tears in her eyes. “Death Eaters killed them!”

“Ginny!”

Draco's heartbeat faltered at the mention of Death Eaters. The way she threw the words out there was a shock to his system, though even if he had been expecting them, he imagined his heart would have malfunctioned anyway. He hadn't heard the words spoken out loud in years. A part of him had longed to forget that they had existed.

And then she was spinning back around and looking at him with that accusing glare he hadn't seen since she'd started seeing the deliveryman and avoiding him.

“Death Eaters invaded his home and tortured his family! How does someone just recover from something like that?”

“Ginny!” Lucy cried again, before grabbing hold of her arm and dragging her out of the room. “Come help me with breakfast.”

Draco remembered the warm smile that had lit Jimmy's face the last time he had worked with him cutting marigolds. “Well, good riddance to him,” he mumbled to the empty room.

The words tasted false somehow.

Undisclosed Desires
I want to recognize your beauty's not just a mask
I want to exorcise the demons from your past
I want to satisfy the undisclosed desires in your heart

~*~*~*~

It had taken a few days, but Ginny eventually grew accustomed to Draco being the only other resident in the house. At least, that's what he supposed based on her new behavior after Jimmy's release. She had stopped glaring at him and had instead adopted an expression of deep contemplation or depression—he couldn't tell which.

Draco had tried to stay out of her way as much as possible, observing her from afar when he could. Mostly he spent his time among the flowers. Even when he wasn't working, he'd take a book outside and find a nice place to lie down in between a bed of geraniums and morning glories. There, he'd pass the day outside where the silence was comfortable and open, rather than contained within walls like it had been in Azkaban.

He held his arm above his eyes, blocking out the sun, and pulled the sleeve of his robe down to stare at the pale, unmarred skin of his forearm, analyzing it for the faintest trace of the dark curse that used to reside there. He had only worn the Mark for a short time compared to others, but, all the same, that kind of magic left an imprint. Sometimes Draco felt remnants of the Mark in the middle of the night, waking him up from nightmares of old men flying off towers and demons of fire consuming everything they touched—dark thoughts and odd bolts of fear that came and went as swiftly as the deaths he'd had the misfortune to witness. He was sure the panicked sweat he occasionally woke up in was a side effect of the curse, as were the feelings of despair and anxiety when he thought about his family. These were things he had not experienced before he had been branded with the Dark Mark.

In Azkaban, he'd spent most of his time trying not to think, and since arriving at The Cottage, his thoughts had burst free into the sun, naturally staying away from the dark. But now that he was thinking about his past and about the Mark once again, he couldn't help but feel as if he should have been thinking about them all along. How was it fair that he had forgotten the war so easily when people like Jimmy needed the refuge of a secluded cottage to defeat their demons? Normally he wouldn't give a goblin's arse about the consequences of his actions. While in school, he'd done plenty of things to torment his classmates, and he'd been proud of his actions. But his involvement in the war was not something he was proud of, and he did give a goblin's arse about what his actions had done to people.

Maybe that was because he had failed. Would he have felt differently if he had succeeded in his mission, if the Dark Lord had won? Or would the Mark have consumed him as surely as it consumed him now?

He lay in the flowers with his eyes closed for several minutes, absorbing the sun, until he sensed the light being blocked by a larger presence. He opened his eyes slowly to see Ginny's slight frame standing over him.

“What do you want?” he asked testily.

She dropped down to her knees, her hands coming to the sides of his face.

“What are you—!” But his outrage died in his mouth as he saw her red-rimmed eyes and anguished expression.

Before he knew what was happening, her lips had covered his and he had no time to register what was going on, no way to regain his balance, because even though he was still lying on the ground surrounded by a vibrant sea of fragrances and colors, he felt like he was falling and she falling with him. His hands automatically reached up to cup her face. He found their positioning awkward and clumsy, but it didn't matter because she was lips and warmth, teeth and sun, tongue and fire. His nose brushed against her chin as her braid tickled his ear, but he was too focused on the taste of her to care—a taste that was so much better than the scent of flowers or the sound of freedom.

He hadn't realized until this moment, with the bird in his heart beating its tiny wings against his ribcage, why he had watched her as closely as he had these past few weeks. So, he tried to tell her in his kiss because telling her with words took a courage that he did not possess.

Abruptly, she pushed herself off him, as if she’d burned herself on his lips, as if she’d suddenly found her actions distasteful. For those few moments, Draco had felt like something had gone right, like everything seemed to have fallen into place, but when he saw her face, he mentally recoiled from her.

Ginny's eyes nervously darted from one flower to another, completely avoiding Draco. Her hands were balled into fists, clenched so tightly that her knuckles had paled, which was a stark contrast to her bright red face. None of those things were what repelled him, though. It was her face, the utter revulsion that hung there, and he wondered if she had also made that face when she was kissing him.

The sky burned like fire behind her, reminding Draco of the evenings she had run off with the deliveryman, and at this thought, he withdrew from her even further. She’d used him, he realized, to make herself feel better. Not only that, she had picked him second to 'delivery boy'. And Draco refused to be anyone’s second choice.

She seemed to sense his thoughts because, if it were possible, her eyes became harder—flinty and ready to ignite.

“You don’t understand,” she said.

“I understand perfectly,” he replied, grabbing his book as he rose unsteadily to his feet.

“Is that so!” she shouted at him from the ground. She seemed to have no strength to pick herself up but enough to harbor such a deep and exhausting anger. “You don’t understand a damn thing!”

Draco dusted grass and petals off his robes and then looked down at her with such indifference that it almost looked like loathing. But it was painful how far from loathing he felt for her. That’s what made this encounter unpleasant, what made his heart beat like it wanted to rip itself from his chest. She felt nothing for him—had used him, even—and he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

Despising the hateful expression on her face, Draco turned away, dismissing her. A moment later, however, he was sprawled out on the ground again. Ginny had tackled him and was straddling his waist. He heard the sound of her palm meeting his cheek before he felt the pain. She stared into his astonished eyes with resolute stubbornness, and Draco could do nothing but rub his stinging cheek. Then her expression crumpled into one of such pain that Draco wanted to pull her into his arms and soothe her in any way he could. Of course he didn’t act on the urge, but the tears that gushed down her cheeks weakened his resolve. Did that make him less of a man if a woman’s tears had the power to make him do her bidding?

“I shouldn't have even—” she spat, disgusted.

“Then why did you?” His voice was calm, his anger now dissipated.

“Because! I have… no one! There’s no one!”

Draco sneered. “What about your deliveryman?”

“He doesn’t want me! No one does. Except you.”

It was almost humorous how quickly his blood ran cold. He was sure his face had paled to its original complexion—a feat in itself considering how tan he’d become from his work in the fields.

“I see the way you watch me,” she whispered.

Her body dipped lower over his, and, for a moment, Draco thought she would kiss him again. He wanted her to, but she froze, realizing what she’d been about to do, and straightened her back again.

As she wiped the tears from her face, Draco said, “Can you please get off me?” But she ignored him.

“My brother died five years ago today,” she said. Something about her voice was too distant and too casual.

Draco said nothing.

“He… he died fighting your lot. He died so that people wouldn’t have to die anymore—so they wouldn’t have to be afraid.”

Her fist connected with his chest, but all the heat had left her, and her punch was more like a weak attempt at a slap.

“And you let them!” she cried. “You were one of them! How could you do that? You killed my brother!”

She punched him again, over and over, but, if her punches were weak before, they were jokes now. “You killed him,” she mumbled again, and Draco knew that she was no longer with him there in the garden. Her mind had taken her back to a time that plagued Draco’s thoughts most nights. But while he had come to realize that his past was behind him, a wall over which he had climbed, an injury that was nearly healed, she had never even tried to jump over the wall. Her wounds were still fresh, refusing to heal.

Lifeless as she was now, Draco sat up, pulling both of them to their feet in two swift motions.

He was unapologetic.

“I won't ask for your forgiveness or even try to explain myself. You would never understand my motivations. What I did was wrong to you, but it was necessary to me.”

She didn't say a word. Moments passed in which the sun seemed to have disappeared beyond the horizon. They hadn't noticed the lateness of the evening, but the slight chill in the air reminded them.

“Figures,” she said finally.

He bowed his head, unable to meet the accusation in her eyes. “I'm sorry about your brother,” he said softly.

Her eyes glittered, and the corners of her mouth twitched as if she was holding something back. He knew that he had sounded insincere, but that was his disappointment talking. This was not the way he had imagined kissing Ginny Weasley, and he had imagined kissing her more times than he was comfortable admitting to even himself.

“But I forgive you for hating me,” he continued.

“You forgive me?” she asked incredulously.

Draco was a bit relieved to hear some emotion in her voice and he nodded. “I hated you, too, you know, at first. Because I was afraid of you. But you've taught me one thing that I will never forget.”

“What's that?”

“Forgiveness is overrated. I don't need it to be a good person because my definition of good is different from yours.”

Then he left her in the morning glories, her eyes staring after him, his heart aching painfully. He had kind of lied. Forgiveness wasn't overrated, and he wanted hers more than anyone else's.

~*~*~*~

Draco had been fertilizing snapdragons when they came to pick him up. Mr. White had been sent to fetch him from the garden, and he ushered Draco into the house with the end of his cane. Draco didn’t have time to wonder what was going on before his eyes fell on their guests. Sitting at the long wooden table in the kitchen, taking cups of tea from Lucy, were the Ministry official that had set Draco free and none other than Harry Potter.

“There you are, dear! You can go home today. Isn't that nice?” Lucy said with her usual grin.

Draco didn't dare believe it. Actually, he couldn’t comprehend that part at all; he was still getting over seeing Potter’s face here at The Cottage, Draco's sanctuary for the past few months.

“That’s right, Malfoy,” Potter said, a slight smile on his face. “You’re free to go.”

Suddenly, the words penetrated Draco's brain. He was free? He could go back to the manor? He could see his mother? His father?

“Just like that?” he asked skeptically, though he might not have been able to hide the tiny hint of hope that sneaked in through his voice. His eyes darted to Potter, who sipped his tea with a confidence that Draco couldn’t remember him having in their school days. It was strange seeing how much Potter had changed. Draco had half-expected time to have stopped while he’d been serving his sentence, and the man in front of him did not resemble the boy he’d hated at school.

Since Draco had seen him last, Potter had grown. He had the appearance of a boy pretending to be a man but wearing his new skin well. Despite that, there were some things that would always be the same, always be so very Potter. The round glasses, for one, and the famous lightning bolt scar, for another.

“Just like that,” Lucy answered kindly.

“Then what is Potter doing here?”

Potter's saucer clattered as he put his tea down and cleared his throat, but it was Draco's old friend, the Ministry official, who had answered before Potter could even catch his breath.

“Mr. Potter was the one who suggested you for this program. He has a right to be here.”

“Potter was the one? You were the one?” Draco asked, almost horrified by the news. Scar-head was the reason he had been released from Azkaban two years early. Fantastic! He owed his freedom to his oldest enemy!

“Mr. and Mrs. White wanted to start a rehabilitation program here to help prisoners and the like integrate back into society, specializing in after-effects from the war and recovery. After a look at your Azkaban files, I nominated you to try out the program. The Whites have had amazing success with some patients from St. Mungo's, too, but you'll be the first prisoner to successfully complete the program.”

Draco sat down at the table, his legs unable to hold him up any longer. He shook his head in disbelief, his thought processes slowing down. He had to wonder what had happened to the prisoners who had not successfully finished rehabilitation. Did they go back to Azkaban? Maybe get shipped off to America?

“But…” Draco paused. “What made you think I needed rehabilitation? My trial, the charges...” His eyes narrowed in anger as a thought came to him. “Wait, what after-effects? I'm not mental!”

The corners of Potter's mouth drooped as he pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose.

“Your report stated that you wouldn’t speak; you didn't move. You were wasting away in your cell, Malfoy. The guards thought you would stop eating one day. You probably would have died if you had stayed there. And I nominated you because there’s evidence that you are not as dangerous as your trial made you seem.” Potter threw back the rest of his tea and then stood, the Ministry official following his lead. “Now, why don't you go pack your things?”

Draco found himself heading back to his room, his mind strangely blank, which was oddly reminiscent of his days in Azkaban. All the time he’d spent at The Cottage, unable to turn off his brain, and now he couldn’t think of anything at all. But he was going to go home. This time, he'd really be free.

When he entered his room, a sudden burst of energy seized him, and he began to rush around the room looking for his clothes, which were strewn all over the floor and bed. It wasn't as though he had a lot of clothes, only what Lucy had provided to him, and his personal belongings were scant. He wondered if this was how Jimmy had felt when he had packed to leave The Cottage those weeks ago. And then he wondered what Jimmy had gone home to, whether he had a home at all anymore. Did Draco? What if his mother had left the manor? What if she’d gone to the continent? What was he going to do with his freedom?

Thoughts of Jimmy led to thoughts of Ginny. He supposed she could go home now that there would be no more residents at The Cottage to take care of. Or maybe she’d continue to live with the Whites, waiting around for someone else to be admitted. Maybe she'd continue to see that deliveryman. But Draco had to make himself stop thinking about Ginny. Whenever his mind strayed to her, he grew irrationally angry. He couldn’t get their last encounter out of his head, couldn’t stop thinking of her debilitating grief, how she had blamed him for things beyond his control.

He could admit that he had been wrong now. When he was sixteen, he had chosen the wrong path. He’d been tempted by Dumbledore’s offer of salvation for him and his family, but he hadn’t acted soon enough. It was too late to regret that now. Everything that had happened during the war had shaped him into the person he was today. And Ginny? Well, she refused to see anything in him except his misdeeds. He couldn't cure her of her sorrow. Even though he had his own demons to deal with, on which he was certainly no expert, Draco was sure that he was the last person Ginny wanted to go to for help anyway. So he put Ginny to the back of his mind, where she couldn’t plague him. Today was a happy day, a long-awaited one.

Before he left the room, Draco grabbed all the letters he'd written with no intention of sending, including the one to Crabbe stashed underneath the mattress, and then he snatched the stuffed bear from the bed, refusing to leave behind his good luck charm. He flew down the stairs, eager to leave this place, eager to see his mother. Outside the door to the kitchen, though, he could hear a muffled conversation. He was about to make his way inside until he heard Ginny's name.

“She seemed to be doing fine until he came,” Lucy said.

“I was afraid of that,” Potter answered with a sigh.

“Perhaps it isn't personal,” Lucy reassured him.

“I don't think so. She knew him. She knew what he used to be like and the things he'd done. I think she has always blamed him, even though it’s irrational. He didn't start the war. He really wasn't even a big part of it. His actions didn't affect much.”

“I'm sure you know better than I do. Filip and I hid out here in the gardens during the height of the war, trying to stay away from it.”

“I was really hoping to take her home today, too,” Potter said. “Mrs. Weasley keeps asking me about her.”

Lucy’s voice was soft, so Draco pressed his ear to the door. “I know, dear. Give her a couple more months. Having Draco here might have hindered her recovery. Maybe she’ll do better when he leaves.”

Draco stepped away from the door, staring at the white-painted wood as if it had slapped him. He had always thought that Ginny had worked here, as a nurse or attendant or something, but she had been a resident—a patient—just as much as he had been. Now her overwhelming grief and anger suddenly made sense. She was still suffering from the war, unable to reconcile with the past.

But, again, he had to push the thoughts aside. There was nothing he could do for her. He was going home. So he schooled his features to hide the truth he had heard and entered the kitchen.

“Ah, there you are. You really don't have a lot of things, do you,” Potter said, earning a glare from Draco.

Mr. White slapped Draco on the back and said, “Good riddance, boy. Don't come back.”

“Oh, Filip, be nice to him!” Lucy reprimanded her husband. “Thank you for all your work. Become a productive member of society and stay out of Azkaban, or maybe we'll see you again.”

“Let's hope that doesn't happen,” answered Draco. He couldn't help the smile that tugged at the corner of his lips. It faltered and died as soon as he felt himself saying, “Tell Ginny that I...”

“Of course, dear. I'll let her know.”

She may not have wanted to say goodbye to him, but he was damn well going to say it to her. Be the bigger person and whatnot.

“Here we go, Malfoy,” Potter warned, holding out a chipped and dirty teacup for him to touch.

Just as the teddy bear had given him his first taste of freedom three months ago, the teacup released him from his shackles permanently. When the tugging sensation at his navel had subsided, Draco looked up at the gates that protected the Malfoy manor from the rest of the world and let out a sigh of relief.

He was home.

“Draco?”

On the other side of the iron bars stood his mother, looking lovely and healthy and better than he had dared to imagine these past five years. She shoved the gates open and scooped him into her arms like he was a toddler again, heedless of Potter and the Ministry official watching uncomfortably.

“Welcome home!” she cried.

It was the sound of freedom.

Falling Away With You
So I'll love whatever you become
And forget the reckless things we've done
I think our lives have just begun

In the months since Draco had left The Cottage, he had kept in touch with the Whites. On Lucy's personal recommendation, Draco had earned his first post-Azkaban job—first any kind of job—working in a flower shop in Diagon Alley. The Malfoys still did not want for anything, even after the heavy fines they had paid at the end of the war, but because of his stay at The Cottage, Draco was now used to laboring daily, and the flowers comforted him.

He never would have imagined himself spending his freedom doing chores, but as long as he earned money for his trouble, it seemed like a worthwhile occupation. And his job delighted his mother, who was still convinced that surrounding oneself with beauty was life's cure-all. She also liked to employ his help in the gardens at the manor every now and then, when she decided the house-elves that usually tended them were too incompetent to manage.

Draco didn't mind the flowers. He never would have admitted it to a single living person, but he imagined that the orders they received at the store had been cut by Ginny. He usually drowned saccharine thoughts like that with copious amounts of alcohol, but seeing as how he was working now, that option wasn't feasible—at least until his shift was over.

For the most part, Draco agreed with his mother's theory: the flowers had done wonders for those traces of magic left by the Dark Mark—and for his nightmares. Since he'd left the Cottage, those nightly horrors had become once-in-a-while occurrences. Working in the shop, Draco felt more at peace with himself and the war, more forgiving of his own actions and of the hand Fate had dealt him. And he'd found that he actually enjoyed working with flowers.

"Excuse me," a voice said from the other side of the counter.

"Hold on just a moment," Draco answered as he wrestled with a ribbon that refused to tie itself around a rather small bouquet. A few seconds later, the bow waved one of its cut ends at Draco, as if sticking its tongue out at him.

Setting the bouquet aside, he looked up and said, "I'm sorry. What can I do—"

Behind the counter stood Ginny, looking at him with bright, round eyes. She seemed transformed since the last time he'd seen her: she was... smiling—at Draco, of all people. She may have been smiling uncomfortably at him, but it was a vast change from the scowl that used to adorn her face whenever she'd spoken to him at The Cottage.

Draco cleared his throat. "What can I do for you?"

"I ordered a bouquet of camellias. Pink."

He eyed the bouquet with the difficult bow shrewdly before placing it on the counter in front of her.

He had to be honest. His heart was racing away, like the little bird flapping its wings not so long ago. It had been months since he'd last seen Ginny, and he hadn't heard word of her at all. When he'd written to the Whites, he'd had to force himself not to ask about her, and without him asking, Lucy had never volunteered the information that he wanted. He had always wondered if she did it on purpose, to make him ask, or strictly to keep Ginny's privacy. Probably both.

But here Ginny was, being as pleasant as anything—even more pleasant than she'd been with Jimmy. Her hair had grown longer, he noticed, but it still looked just like the sun. He wanted to touch her skin to see if she still carried its warmth around with her.

"How common," Draco said to her as she sniffed one of the camellias in the bouquet. As soon as he'd said it, he closed his eyes in exasperation, wondering why his mouth filtered out the polite things to say to her.

"They're my favorite," she said with a small smile that made him think strange thoughts about wash cloths and kisses in flower gardens. "Can I get a card to send with these?"

Wordlessly, Draco pulled out a card and waited for her to dictate her message, except that his mouth refused to wait for anything.

"Sending good ol' Jimmy some flowers, eh?"

She smiled, a tiny, crooked lift of her lips that Draco had never seen before. "Oh, no. These are for someone else. But Jimmy's doing well. He'll be delighted that you're thinking of him."

Draco wondered when he had gotten bad at making fun of people. She was completely unfazed.

"What would you like to say?" he asked quietly, ignoring her previous comment.

"I forgive you, and I'm sorry," she replied softly.

Draco had started to write the message—until the words sank in, that is. He put the quill down, his eyes unable to leave her embarrassed face.

"I'm really sorry," she said. "I didn't know how to deal with everything. Including you. Especially you."

"Me?" he asked, his mouth bone dry. "What happened to that deliveryman?"

Her face turned red, and her eyes darted down to the counter.

"I was so stupid. I just wanted someone to hold me, and when that wasn't enough for him, he left."

"The day you kissed me," he said, the idea dawning in his mind suddenly. He remembered the anguished expression on her face, the way her kiss had scorched and pained him with its heat and despair. It had been his despair as well, because he'd thought she was something he could never have.

"I should have never used you like that. I wasn't... right. Back then. It's no excuse, of course, but please forgi—"

Draco held up his hand, refusing to hear those words from her lips. The war had killed a piece of everyone, and Ginny had nothing to apologize for. He understood now, and that's all that mattered.

But she kept on. "Lucy said, the day you left, you told her to tell me that you loved me."

"She—I did?" Draco asked, shocked.

"Didn't you?" she replied, her grip on the bouquet tightening.

"I... I don't know. I didn't have the chance to finish what I wanted to say. Maybe I did love you," he said, his eyes lowering to the camellias. "Loving you would have been... hard."

She laughed slightly at that. "I'm sure it would have been. I didn't make it easy. No wonder the deliveryman didn't want me."

Draco closed his eyes. Took a breath. "Don't say that," he said.

"Can't run from the truth," she replied wistfully.

Draco had a feeling she knew how futile it was to try.

"When Lucy told me that," she continued, "I started wanting to get better. I held onto those words. They pulled me through."

"How's that?" he asked as casually as he could, with a disinterest that failed to be disinterested because of how breathlessly he spoke.

She fiddled with the bow tying the flowers together, stroking the ends of the ribbon until she nearly pulled it apart.

"I thought... if you could love me—you, who I had hated for so long—you, who I had wrongfully blamed for my brother's death—you, who I had been so cruel to while you were at The Cottage—if you, of all people, could love me, then maybe there was a life for me back here. Outside of The Cottage." She licked her lips, her eyes shifting from her hands up to his face. "Even if you wouldn't want me anymore, just the thought that you once had, and that I had been too self-absorbed to notice... that saved me more than anything the Whites did."

Draco didn't know what to say. He swallowed dryly and itched to reach out to her, if only her hands were within reach. The counter separating them was an obstacle that he wasn't sure he should overcome. Maybe it was a shield, but who was it protecting?

And suddenly the words seemed so very obvious, and when he met her eyes, his gaze was severe in its intensity.

"I did want you. You made it difficult, you made it hurt, but I did, and I still want you now. I never stopped wanting you."

Her eyes fell closed and she exhaled heavily. "You'll have to forgive me. I wasn't—"

But Draco interrupted her. "Really, these flowers are hideous," he said, gently taking the bouquet from her and staring at it with disgust. "You worked in a flower garden for who knows how long and the best you could come up with were camellias?"

There was just nothing for him to forgive. He couldn't hold it against her that she hadn't known how to deal with her grief. What had he done with his? Hidden it behind silence. He couldn't blame her for not giving him a chance to love her. It hadn't been the right time for either of them; they hadn't been in the right frame of mind.

For a moment, Ginny let shock show on her face, but then the fire Draco had grown used to seeing while they were at The Cottage appeared in her eyes. Their apologies and regrets were not forgotten, just forgiven.

"What's wrong with them?" she asked in outrage. "I love them. They're soft and pretty and more than you deserve."

"Maybe so. But did you never think that I might have a favorite flower as well?"

Her cheeks grew the same color as the flowers that made up her bouquet, but in good form she continued their faux argument, never letting on that he'd surprised her. "Of course not. Why would I ever consider sending you your own favorite flower? That's just the most ridiculous idea I've ever heard!"

They were both leaning over the counter, nose to nose, and Draco didn't think he imagined her gaze darting down to his lips and back. No, he hadn't imagined it. So he did the only thing he could think to do and obliged her, hoping all the while he hadn't made a grave mistake.

In fact, when his lips crushed against hers, her surprise lasted only a second before she wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer. The counter dug into his stomach uncomfortably, but his discomfort didn't matter because she tasted just as he knew she would: like sunshine and flowers—the camellias she loved, to be exact. They were both a little breathless as they pulled away, the air between them thick and heavy and sweet.

Her fingers came to her lips in astonishment, and with a dazed expression, she said, "Fine. You've convinced me the camellias were all wrong. What's your favorite flower, then?"

Draco gave her his best smirk. It had been a while since he'd used it on anyone.

"Well, if you must know, I prefer tigerlilies."

End