“Take a seat, Miss Weasley.”
Ginny carefully sat in the softer of the two chairs, willing herself not to vomit all over the carpet. A combination of anguished terror and morning sickness was not boding well for the scant contents of her stomach.
“Would you like something to drink?” her head of house asked her, in a surprisingly warm voice.
“N…n…no thank you, Professor.”
Oh god, she was going to be expelled, she was going to be thrown out of Hogwarts unqualified and made to live as a Muggle. Still, at least there was no need to worry about her mother finding out!
“So….if your mother’s Howler is anything to go by, it seems that you are with child, Miss Weasley, is that correct?”
Numbly, she nodded.
“I see.”
She could feel her lips trembling, and the tears building up behind her eyes. Unable to prevent them, she put her face in her hands and began to sob, her pleas not to be expelled fading into incoherency.
A moment later, she felt a reassuring pat on her shoulder, and looked up to see Professor McGonagall crouched in front of her.
“Don’t worry, Ginny, you’re not going to be expelled.”
“I…I…I’m not?”
“No. But there are matters to discuss. Firstly, what have you decided about the…baby?”
Ginny’s brow furrowed in confusion, “Decided?”
“Yes, are you keeping it or not?”
“I…I…I’ve not thought about it,” she gasped, her head spinning, “I just assumed I’d keep it, I suppose.”
“How far along are you?” Professor McGonagall asked curiously.
“Erm, eight weeks, more or less.”
“That would mean that the child was conceived when you were under the age of consent, Miss Weasley, this is very serious. Who is the father?”
“I…I can’t tell you, Professor, er, that is to say, I won’t, I’m sorry,” she mumbled, hanging her head so as not to see the inevitable look of disappointment.
“Well, at least tell me this; Is he a Gryffindor? I need to know, Miss Weasley, it’s important.”
“No, Professor.”
“I see.”
“Professor, what’s going to happen?”
“Well, it depends. If you decide to keep the child, then I suppose certain allowances will have to be made. If not, well then, that is self explanatory.”
“You’d let me stay at school pregnant?” Ginny asked incredulously.
“My dear girl, you are not the first witch to become pregnant under this roof, nor, I suspect, will you be the last. Hogwarts has a duty of care to all young witches and wizards, it is bound to educate and qualify you. We are simply unable and unwilling to throw you out over something like pregnancy. But, my dear, you do need to give this situation some serious thought. Have you not discussed your options with your mother?”
“No, you know how she feels about…termination…”
“Yes, quite. But that is of no consequence. It is your choice, Miss Weasley, one that must be fully informed. I suggest a meeting with Madam Pomfrey tomorrow.”
“Yes, Professor.”
“Have you spoken to the father?”
“No, Professor, I was waiting for the right moment, but it seems my mother had other ideas.”
“So it would appear. Well I imagine that you and he have rather a lot to discuss. He must be feeling rather shocked.”
“I know. I didn’t want him to find out this way. I’m so confused, and I feel so wretched that I’ve not been able to think properly and we’ve not had a chance to see each other yet.”
“Well then, I shall speak to Madam Pomfrey and arrange an appointment for you. You have Transfiguration this afternoon do you not?”
“Yes, Professor.”
“Good, I shall notify you then. You may leave.”
“Thank you, Professor.” Ginny rose from her seat, wearily pulled her bag onto her shoulder and headed for the door.
“One more thing, Miss Weasley.”
“Yes, Professor?”
“Do take care.”
“Thank you, Professor.”
He heard the handle to the office door turn, and the stereotypical squeak of institutional hinges. Creeping forward as much as he dared, he watched her back out of the room. She was still breathtaking, even from behind – especially from behind, given their antics the last three times they’d met. Three times, that was it, three times using a potion and a charm, and she was pregnant. Clearly his mother wasn’t exaggerating about Weasley fertility after all.
Feeling suddenly very nervous, he stepped out into the corridor silently, and waited for her to turn around. It felt so weird to be looking at her; she looked the same as he remembered, but not. She was standing not ten feet away from him, pregnant with his child – it was a terrifying feeling. Images assaulted his mind’s eye, glimpses of her face, euphoric and angelic in the throes of orgasm, her soft breasts framed by softer titian hair as she lowered herself carefully onto him, her lower lip tantalisingly captured between her teeth, her shapely legs raised in the air, wrapped around his waist, or hooked over his shoulders. Biting back a groan and willing his body not to physically react, he waited.
It seemed an eternity before she finally shut the door with a resounding click and began to turn. In reality it was barely more than five seconds. She was fumbling for something in her bag with one hand, and clutching at her stomach with the other, her head was bent over her bag, concentrating on locating whatever it was she was looking for. Finding it, she pulled it free and stood up straight. Her eyes locked with his and they both froze.
She made the first move, taking a step backwards, still clutching her stomach. The object in her hand transpired to be a handkerchief, which she brought up to her face, wiping away the tears that had begun to fall again.
“Ginny…” he began, unsure what to say.
She gave a muffled sob, turned around and began to walk quickly in the opposite direction.
Oblivious of the public location, he swore and set off after her.
She moved fast, ducking through secret doorways hidden behind tapestries and up narrow staircases he had never seen before, and he was having trouble keeping up with her. He daren't call out to her again in case someone heard, and so he put all his efforts into chasing her.
She was slowing down, he was getting closer. Each time he had thought he was getting somewhere, she would look over her shoulder, squeak, then renew her efforts to escape him, but now she was slowing infinitesimally. Eventually, she ground to a halt, panting and clutching her stomach. Too late he remembered why he was chasing her in the first place, and he stopped dead, the cold tendrils of dread creeping down his spine. He was a fool - she was pregnant with his child and he was chasing her through the school. Surely it couldn't be good for the baby?
She was bent double, gasping for breath, one hand on her ribs, the other over her abdomen. Rushing forwards, he grabbed her bag from her shoulder and placed it on the floor. He went to put his arm around her shoulders, but she shrugged him off, and backed up against the wall.
"Ginny, I..." he began, not knowing how to articulate the tumultous thoughts whirling through his head.
"Please..." she gasped, "Please, Draco, don't..."
"Don't what?" he asked in confusion.
She was sobbing in earnest now, great shuddering gasps that tore the breath from her lungs. She was trying to speak but he couldn't make out the choked words. He didn't know what to do or what she wanted from him, and so he just stood there, one hand uselessly clingling to the elbow of her robes.
"...old enough...how...cope?...Don't...know...what...to...do...not...fair..." she gasped, before dissolving once more into wracking sobs.
Minutes later, she had begun to gain control of herself, and her sobbing had subsided into ragged breaths and wet sniffles. Eventually, she looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes, wringing her handkerchief between her fingers.
"What am I going to do?" she whispered. "I'm so sorry, I don't know how it happened."
"What is there to do?" he asked. The moment the words left his lips, he realised that he shouldn't have said them.
Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. "Professor McGonagall wants me to talk to the school nurse about my options...you know...termination and stuff. But I'm not sure I can. I'm scared, but I don't want it to die."
As she said these words, he felt something clench painfully in his stomach, accompanied by a shuddering, cold wave of nausea. Would she kill their baby? Did he have a say in it? Questions swirled around in his brain, each one grittier than the last, but at the centre of it all, he was desperately trying to avoid asking himself one question; did he care enough about her to risk disownment by confessing his paternity? The answer evaded him.
They had been lovers three times. Before that, they were 'mortal enemies' that hid a growing friendship and mutual attraction behind pointed barbs and witty snipes. It had started one afternoon after Quidditch, and they had been meeting secretly for months since. He enjoyed her company, she was a refreshing change from the simpering saccarin of the Slytherin girls - their conversations were always so much more intellectually stimulating. Then their odd friendship of sorts had turned into lust and desire, and their impassioned kisses and fervent gropes excited him. He was addicted to her in a way - he couldn't keep his hands off her, even going so far as to brush her breast or thigh briefly in the corridor if he had the opportunity.
Inevitably, one day they had gone too far, and neither one of them possessed the will or inclination to halt the process and so they had gone all the way. Some might have called it a quick shag, but Draco Malfoy did not class himself as 'some'. He wasn't sure what it was, but 'Shag' was too coarse a term, 'Sex' was better but so utterly inadequate. He had been her first, and he had taken her hard and fast, ignorant of the magnitude of what he was doing until it was done. When it was over, and the rational part of his brain began to function again, he had gathered her into his arms and kissed her gently, apologising over and over again, trying to explain that he hadn't known. She'd been crying then too.
After that, she'd avoided him for a week, during which he was driven to admit that he missed her. Desperate to make up for his monumental error, he had pulled out all the stops to impress her. Malfoys did not attempt remediation, and so the carefully planned meal in the 'room of requirement' was a distinct departure from his normal behavior. This compulsion to make everything all right again was confusing and frustrating, nevertheless, he was elated when she turned up, her arms folded, and a scowl on her face. He promised her that he would make it up to her, that if she gave him one more chance, he could, and would show her what it should have been like, what he had wanted it to be like. His sincerity and genuine remorse had swayed her, and she had allowed him to touch her once again.
Determined not to make the same mistake, he had taken it slowly, teasing and caressing with infinite tenderness, leaving her breathless and keening her need. When he had finally entered her, slowly and gently, she had cried out in relief. They had made love then, for that was what it had been - they had been creating a greater depth of feeling between them, making the love. Clearly that hadn't been the only thing they had created. That part was still fuzzy in his mind - how on earth had she managed to get pregnant? Not only, in his efforts to prove his contrition, had they taken a contraceptive potion, but they had used a charm too - a good, solid, reliable charm.
With a week to go before the summer holidays, they had returned to their respective houses and resumed the routine of their daily lives, irrevocably altered. Their relationship had been taken to a new level entirely, and their furtive glances and tingling touches of hands in crowded hallways held a new meaning; they recalled memories of their passion, and led to hours lost in daydream. Not that a Malfoy would admit to daydreaming, of course.
She had come to him the night before they journeyed home for the summer, pushing him back onto his bed and straddling him. He'd been surprised by her dominance, but any protestations died on his lips when she began to touch him, taking control and reducing him to full compliance, and it had excited him. When she had finally performed the necessary charms and taken him into her, her movements had ripped the air from his lungs in a series of gutteral groans and their coupling had been hip-achingly passionate, their climax leaving them trembling and incoherent. He had been drawn towards sleep then, encouraged by her still form spreadeagled on his chest, suffusing his body with an oddly sentimental warmth as he watched her fight her own battle with exhaustion. When he had been woken by his room-mates the following morning, she was gone.
She was looking at him now, waiting for him to say something, to tell her it was going to be alright and that she'd wake up and find it all a bad dream. But he couldn't, this much he knew, because the same desire filled him - he wanted to wake up to the high plaster-moulded ceilings of Malfoy Manor, the deep blue of his bedroom walls and the comforting weight of his duvet. But it wouldn't happen - this was real.
"What do you want?" he asked gently. "If you need any... help... you know I'm here."
"Is that what you think I want? Money?" she cried, pushing herself away from the wall and turning to face him, thunder in her eyes.
"No...that's...that's not what I meant," he protested weakly.
"Then what did you mean, Malfoy?"
"I don't know," he sighed, running a hand through his hair in agitation. "I don't know what to do or say to make this any better."
"I think you've done quite enough!" she retorted.
"Please Ginny..."
"I'm sorry," she said softly, "that was uncalled for. I'm just scared; I'm scared that you don't want anything to do with me, I'm scared that my mother will find out about us, or worse, your father, I'm scared because I don't know what I want to do - I'm too young to be a mother but I can't kill it, I couldn't bear it, which really only leaves one option."
"I'm here, aren't I?"
"That's not what I mean. Whether you stand by me or not is inconsequential. The fact is, that we both know that it isn't going to work like that. Can you imagine the sorts of dangers this would put us in? Your Father tried to kill me once, remember? For goodness sakes, Draco, this isn't some sort of romantic fiction - this is real, and painful and messy. This is me, a sixteen-year-old girl pregnant with the child of a 'mortal enemy', facing being ostracized and shunned by my friends, ridiculed in the press, and bringing shame onto my family. Have you even considered what might happen to you? We both know which side of the fence your family sits on and it isn't the same as mine. Then of course there's the small problem of me only being fifteen when I fell pregnant - I'm sure that carries a sentance in Azkaban, you know."
He swallowed hard - clearly she'd been giving this a lot of thought.
"Tell me, Draco, how exactly do you propose to 'help' me? Announce your impending fatherhood to the world, marry me and badda-bing badda-boom, happy ending? No, I thought not."
"If you keep the... baby... I want to be involved. Please don't shut me out, Ginny, it's not fair. My father is in Azkaban, thanks to the efforts of your merry little band of Gryffintwerps, so really, the only one to be worried about is my mother, and she'd never disown me." I hope.
"But it's not that easy, is it? If we tell anyone about us, they'll come down on your head over the whole 'underage' thing faster than you can say Quidditch."
It was true, they would.
"We can't hide it forever, Ginny, I refuse to allow you to simply walk away. I thought we had something good? You know I don't have many good things to call my own. If you're going to keep the baby, and please Gods, tell me you are, because I can't bear the thought of you killing it any more than you can, then let me at least be here for you, even if no-one knows it. Don't ever think you've got no-one to turn to, because that's bollocks."
"When did a Malfoy become so poetic and sentimental?" she snapped.
"When a bloody sodding Weasley delivered a bloody sodding kick to his guts, that's when."
"Are you referring to the actual kick I gave you after that Quidditch match, or the figurative one that my mother so subtly delivered at breakfast?"
"Dunno. Both probably."
She laughed weakly, and bent down to pick up her bag. "I'm going to be late - I've got Ancient Runes first."
"I've got Potions."
They looked at each other silently for a few moments, before he gathered her into his arms and hugged her tightly.
"I'm sorry," he whispered in her ear, before letting her go.
"So am I," she muttered, fresh tears beginning to track down her face.
Giving her hand one last reassuring squeeze, he released it and watched as she headed down the corridor and disappeared around the corner. Suddenly, chastisement over tardiness seemed so terribly inconsequential, and he felt the weight of his new burden settle squarely on his shoulders. Sighing heavily, he rubbed his face with his hands and began the trek back to the dungeons.
Ginny carefully sat in the softer of the two chairs, willing herself not to vomit all over the carpet. A combination of anguished terror and morning sickness was not boding well for the scant contents of her stomach.
“Would you like something to drink?” her head of house asked her, in a surprisingly warm voice.
“N…n…no thank you, Professor.”
Oh god, she was going to be expelled, she was going to be thrown out of Hogwarts unqualified and made to live as a Muggle. Still, at least there was no need to worry about her mother finding out!
“So….if your mother’s Howler is anything to go by, it seems that you are with child, Miss Weasley, is that correct?”
Numbly, she nodded.
“I see.”
She could feel her lips trembling, and the tears building up behind her eyes. Unable to prevent them, she put her face in her hands and began to sob, her pleas not to be expelled fading into incoherency.
A moment later, she felt a reassuring pat on her shoulder, and looked up to see Professor McGonagall crouched in front of her.
“Don’t worry, Ginny, you’re not going to be expelled.”
“I…I…I’m not?”
“No. But there are matters to discuss. Firstly, what have you decided about the…baby?”
Ginny’s brow furrowed in confusion, “Decided?”
“Yes, are you keeping it or not?”
“I…I…I’ve not thought about it,” she gasped, her head spinning, “I just assumed I’d keep it, I suppose.”
“How far along are you?” Professor McGonagall asked curiously.
“Erm, eight weeks, more or less.”
“That would mean that the child was conceived when you were under the age of consent, Miss Weasley, this is very serious. Who is the father?”
“I…I can’t tell you, Professor, er, that is to say, I won’t, I’m sorry,” she mumbled, hanging her head so as not to see the inevitable look of disappointment.
“Well, at least tell me this; Is he a Gryffindor? I need to know, Miss Weasley, it’s important.”
“No, Professor.”
“I see.”
“Professor, what’s going to happen?”
“Well, it depends. If you decide to keep the child, then I suppose certain allowances will have to be made. If not, well then, that is self explanatory.”
“You’d let me stay at school pregnant?” Ginny asked incredulously.
“My dear girl, you are not the first witch to become pregnant under this roof, nor, I suspect, will you be the last. Hogwarts has a duty of care to all young witches and wizards, it is bound to educate and qualify you. We are simply unable and unwilling to throw you out over something like pregnancy. But, my dear, you do need to give this situation some serious thought. Have you not discussed your options with your mother?”
“No, you know how she feels about…termination…”
“Yes, quite. But that is of no consequence. It is your choice, Miss Weasley, one that must be fully informed. I suggest a meeting with Madam Pomfrey tomorrow.”
“Yes, Professor.”
“Have you spoken to the father?”
“No, Professor, I was waiting for the right moment, but it seems my mother had other ideas.”
“So it would appear. Well I imagine that you and he have rather a lot to discuss. He must be feeling rather shocked.”
“I know. I didn’t want him to find out this way. I’m so confused, and I feel so wretched that I’ve not been able to think properly and we’ve not had a chance to see each other yet.”
“Well then, I shall speak to Madam Pomfrey and arrange an appointment for you. You have Transfiguration this afternoon do you not?”
“Yes, Professor.”
“Good, I shall notify you then. You may leave.”
“Thank you, Professor.” Ginny rose from her seat, wearily pulled her bag onto her shoulder and headed for the door.
“One more thing, Miss Weasley.”
“Yes, Professor?”
“Do take care.”
“Thank you, Professor.”
He heard the handle to the office door turn, and the stereotypical squeak of institutional hinges. Creeping forward as much as he dared, he watched her back out of the room. She was still breathtaking, even from behind – especially from behind, given their antics the last three times they’d met. Three times, that was it, three times using a potion and a charm, and she was pregnant. Clearly his mother wasn’t exaggerating about Weasley fertility after all.
Feeling suddenly very nervous, he stepped out into the corridor silently, and waited for her to turn around. It felt so weird to be looking at her; she looked the same as he remembered, but not. She was standing not ten feet away from him, pregnant with his child – it was a terrifying feeling. Images assaulted his mind’s eye, glimpses of her face, euphoric and angelic in the throes of orgasm, her soft breasts framed by softer titian hair as she lowered herself carefully onto him, her lower lip tantalisingly captured between her teeth, her shapely legs raised in the air, wrapped around his waist, or hooked over his shoulders. Biting back a groan and willing his body not to physically react, he waited.
It seemed an eternity before she finally shut the door with a resounding click and began to turn. In reality it was barely more than five seconds. She was fumbling for something in her bag with one hand, and clutching at her stomach with the other, her head was bent over her bag, concentrating on locating whatever it was she was looking for. Finding it, she pulled it free and stood up straight. Her eyes locked with his and they both froze.
She made the first move, taking a step backwards, still clutching her stomach. The object in her hand transpired to be a handkerchief, which she brought up to her face, wiping away the tears that had begun to fall again.
“Ginny…” he began, unsure what to say.
She gave a muffled sob, turned around and began to walk quickly in the opposite direction.
Oblivious of the public location, he swore and set off after her.
She moved fast, ducking through secret doorways hidden behind tapestries and up narrow staircases he had never seen before, and he was having trouble keeping up with her. He daren't call out to her again in case someone heard, and so he put all his efforts into chasing her.
She was slowing down, he was getting closer. Each time he had thought he was getting somewhere, she would look over her shoulder, squeak, then renew her efforts to escape him, but now she was slowing infinitesimally. Eventually, she ground to a halt, panting and clutching her stomach. Too late he remembered why he was chasing her in the first place, and he stopped dead, the cold tendrils of dread creeping down his spine. He was a fool - she was pregnant with his child and he was chasing her through the school. Surely it couldn't be good for the baby?
She was bent double, gasping for breath, one hand on her ribs, the other over her abdomen. Rushing forwards, he grabbed her bag from her shoulder and placed it on the floor. He went to put his arm around her shoulders, but she shrugged him off, and backed up against the wall.
"Ginny, I..." he began, not knowing how to articulate the tumultous thoughts whirling through his head.
"Please..." she gasped, "Please, Draco, don't..."
"Don't what?" he asked in confusion.
She was sobbing in earnest now, great shuddering gasps that tore the breath from her lungs. She was trying to speak but he couldn't make out the choked words. He didn't know what to do or what she wanted from him, and so he just stood there, one hand uselessly clingling to the elbow of her robes.
"...old enough...how...cope?...Don't...know...what...to...do...not...fair..." she gasped, before dissolving once more into wracking sobs.
Minutes later, she had begun to gain control of herself, and her sobbing had subsided into ragged breaths and wet sniffles. Eventually, she looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes, wringing her handkerchief between her fingers.
"What am I going to do?" she whispered. "I'm so sorry, I don't know how it happened."
"What is there to do?" he asked. The moment the words left his lips, he realised that he shouldn't have said them.
Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. "Professor McGonagall wants me to talk to the school nurse about my options...you know...termination and stuff. But I'm not sure I can. I'm scared, but I don't want it to die."
As she said these words, he felt something clench painfully in his stomach, accompanied by a shuddering, cold wave of nausea. Would she kill their baby? Did he have a say in it? Questions swirled around in his brain, each one grittier than the last, but at the centre of it all, he was desperately trying to avoid asking himself one question; did he care enough about her to risk disownment by confessing his paternity? The answer evaded him.
They had been lovers three times. Before that, they were 'mortal enemies' that hid a growing friendship and mutual attraction behind pointed barbs and witty snipes. It had started one afternoon after Quidditch, and they had been meeting secretly for months since. He enjoyed her company, she was a refreshing change from the simpering saccarin of the Slytherin girls - their conversations were always so much more intellectually stimulating. Then their odd friendship of sorts had turned into lust and desire, and their impassioned kisses and fervent gropes excited him. He was addicted to her in a way - he couldn't keep his hands off her, even going so far as to brush her breast or thigh briefly in the corridor if he had the opportunity.
Inevitably, one day they had gone too far, and neither one of them possessed the will or inclination to halt the process and so they had gone all the way. Some might have called it a quick shag, but Draco Malfoy did not class himself as 'some'. He wasn't sure what it was, but 'Shag' was too coarse a term, 'Sex' was better but so utterly inadequate. He had been her first, and he had taken her hard and fast, ignorant of the magnitude of what he was doing until it was done. When it was over, and the rational part of his brain began to function again, he had gathered her into his arms and kissed her gently, apologising over and over again, trying to explain that he hadn't known. She'd been crying then too.
After that, she'd avoided him for a week, during which he was driven to admit that he missed her. Desperate to make up for his monumental error, he had pulled out all the stops to impress her. Malfoys did not attempt remediation, and so the carefully planned meal in the 'room of requirement' was a distinct departure from his normal behavior. This compulsion to make everything all right again was confusing and frustrating, nevertheless, he was elated when she turned up, her arms folded, and a scowl on her face. He promised her that he would make it up to her, that if she gave him one more chance, he could, and would show her what it should have been like, what he had wanted it to be like. His sincerity and genuine remorse had swayed her, and she had allowed him to touch her once again.
Determined not to make the same mistake, he had taken it slowly, teasing and caressing with infinite tenderness, leaving her breathless and keening her need. When he had finally entered her, slowly and gently, she had cried out in relief. They had made love then, for that was what it had been - they had been creating a greater depth of feeling between them, making the love. Clearly that hadn't been the only thing they had created. That part was still fuzzy in his mind - how on earth had she managed to get pregnant? Not only, in his efforts to prove his contrition, had they taken a contraceptive potion, but they had used a charm too - a good, solid, reliable charm.
With a week to go before the summer holidays, they had returned to their respective houses and resumed the routine of their daily lives, irrevocably altered. Their relationship had been taken to a new level entirely, and their furtive glances and tingling touches of hands in crowded hallways held a new meaning; they recalled memories of their passion, and led to hours lost in daydream. Not that a Malfoy would admit to daydreaming, of course.
She had come to him the night before they journeyed home for the summer, pushing him back onto his bed and straddling him. He'd been surprised by her dominance, but any protestations died on his lips when she began to touch him, taking control and reducing him to full compliance, and it had excited him. When she had finally performed the necessary charms and taken him into her, her movements had ripped the air from his lungs in a series of gutteral groans and their coupling had been hip-achingly passionate, their climax leaving them trembling and incoherent. He had been drawn towards sleep then, encouraged by her still form spreadeagled on his chest, suffusing his body with an oddly sentimental warmth as he watched her fight her own battle with exhaustion. When he had been woken by his room-mates the following morning, she was gone.
She was looking at him now, waiting for him to say something, to tell her it was going to be alright and that she'd wake up and find it all a bad dream. But he couldn't, this much he knew, because the same desire filled him - he wanted to wake up to the high plaster-moulded ceilings of Malfoy Manor, the deep blue of his bedroom walls and the comforting weight of his duvet. But it wouldn't happen - this was real.
"What do you want?" he asked gently. "If you need any... help... you know I'm here."
"Is that what you think I want? Money?" she cried, pushing herself away from the wall and turning to face him, thunder in her eyes.
"No...that's...that's not what I meant," he protested weakly.
"Then what did you mean, Malfoy?"
"I don't know," he sighed, running a hand through his hair in agitation. "I don't know what to do or say to make this any better."
"I think you've done quite enough!" she retorted.
"Please Ginny..."
"I'm sorry," she said softly, "that was uncalled for. I'm just scared; I'm scared that you don't want anything to do with me, I'm scared that my mother will find out about us, or worse, your father, I'm scared because I don't know what I want to do - I'm too young to be a mother but I can't kill it, I couldn't bear it, which really only leaves one option."
"I'm here, aren't I?"
"That's not what I mean. Whether you stand by me or not is inconsequential. The fact is, that we both know that it isn't going to work like that. Can you imagine the sorts of dangers this would put us in? Your Father tried to kill me once, remember? For goodness sakes, Draco, this isn't some sort of romantic fiction - this is real, and painful and messy. This is me, a sixteen-year-old girl pregnant with the child of a 'mortal enemy', facing being ostracized and shunned by my friends, ridiculed in the press, and bringing shame onto my family. Have you even considered what might happen to you? We both know which side of the fence your family sits on and it isn't the same as mine. Then of course there's the small problem of me only being fifteen when I fell pregnant - I'm sure that carries a sentance in Azkaban, you know."
He swallowed hard - clearly she'd been giving this a lot of thought.
"Tell me, Draco, how exactly do you propose to 'help' me? Announce your impending fatherhood to the world, marry me and badda-bing badda-boom, happy ending? No, I thought not."
"If you keep the... baby... I want to be involved. Please don't shut me out, Ginny, it's not fair. My father is in Azkaban, thanks to the efforts of your merry little band of Gryffintwerps, so really, the only one to be worried about is my mother, and she'd never disown me." I hope.
"But it's not that easy, is it? If we tell anyone about us, they'll come down on your head over the whole 'underage' thing faster than you can say Quidditch."
It was true, they would.
"We can't hide it forever, Ginny, I refuse to allow you to simply walk away. I thought we had something good? You know I don't have many good things to call my own. If you're going to keep the baby, and please Gods, tell me you are, because I can't bear the thought of you killing it any more than you can, then let me at least be here for you, even if no-one knows it. Don't ever think you've got no-one to turn to, because that's bollocks."
"When did a Malfoy become so poetic and sentimental?" she snapped.
"When a bloody sodding Weasley delivered a bloody sodding kick to his guts, that's when."
"Are you referring to the actual kick I gave you after that Quidditch match, or the figurative one that my mother so subtly delivered at breakfast?"
"Dunno. Both probably."
She laughed weakly, and bent down to pick up her bag. "I'm going to be late - I've got Ancient Runes first."
"I've got Potions."
They looked at each other silently for a few moments, before he gathered her into his arms and hugged her tightly.
"I'm sorry," he whispered in her ear, before letting her go.
"So am I," she muttered, fresh tears beginning to track down her face.
Giving her hand one last reassuring squeeze, he released it and watched as she headed down the corridor and disappeared around the corner. Suddenly, chastisement over tardiness seemed so terribly inconsequential, and he felt the weight of his new burden settle squarely on his shoulders. Sighing heavily, he rubbed his face with his hands and began the trek back to the dungeons.
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