. . . . . .
Indeed, this is the way fate usually treats us, it’s right there behind us, it has already reached out a hand to touch us on the shoulder while we’re still muttering to ourselves, it’s all over, that’s it, who cares anyhow. - Jose Saramago
. . . . . .
“We’re taking broomsticks,” Wilde said as he and Draco hurried down the docks to a squat building by the water’s edge.
“Broomsticks?” Draco asked, surprised. It was not uncommon for witches and wizards, especially the young, to use broomsticks to get around, and until the last century it had been the preferred form of transportation for traveling over the Channel. In recent years, however, using broomsticks to cross to France had become very dangerous; the running water made it impossible to enchant the rider to become invisible, so the crossing had to be attempted at night, and even then there was still a great deal of danger posed by modern Muggle technology, which had become so advanced that Muggles on both sides of the Channel could easily spot a wizard in the sky. And that, of course, led to questions, suspicions, and memory-altering charms. The only time the Ministry would authorize a crossing by broomstick was if the wizard in question needed to cross very, very quickly for a very, very important reason.
“Yeah, broomsticks,” Wilde said dourly, clearly not excited at the prospect of spending any time on such a conveyance. “Dippet wants us there fast.” And he slipped around the edge of the building they’d approached, opened the broom shed on the far side, and began rummaging through the rows of Ministry-furnished broomsticks, provided for just such an occasion.
“Great,” Draco said, hiding his uneasiness, and began looking for a broom for himself. As he looked he interrogated Wilde about what had happened, but his co-worker knew little besides the fact that a few hours after the workday had ended, several members of the French ministry, disheveled and out of breath, had burst into the English Ministry of Magic and terrified the janitors still at work. They’d found the Minister of Magic and asked for his help, and since then anyone who could be spared had been crossing the Channel. Apparently the Aurors had been the first to go, and Draco wondered if Ginny knew that Harry was on the other side of the sea, possibly in mortal peril. He wondered if she knew that he was going as well, and whether her estranged husband’s plight even mattered to her. He wished he could contact her somehow, but there was no time and soon he and Wilde were kicking off the dock and taking off into the dusky sky, part of a long line of fellow wizards making their way to France.
When they landed on French soil they Apparated immediately to Paris, even though the Bâtiment d'Administration, as it was called, was not located in that city. They went to an office in the heart of town, one that Draco recognized from his time in Paris as the office of the leader of the city’s wizard population. It was not that kindly old man that he saw when he opened the door, however, but the French Ministry’s stern-faced president, Bernard de Flesselles, along with Nigel Dippet and Louis d’Armand, with whom the Malfoys had sat at the ball.
Dippet looked very relieved to see the two men, who of all the department were some of the employees most familiar with the French language, government and culture. Dippet himself had dealt almost exclusively with Germany during his time in the department, and until the events of the last few months had occurred he had not been concerned with familiarizing himself with France.
“Malfoy, Wilde, I’m glad you’re here,” he said briskly. “I suppose you know what happened?”
Wilde and Draco looked at each other. “No, sir-” Draco began, but Dippet, fiddling nervously with his wand, pressed on.
“Wilde, you’ll go to the school, and Draco, you’re going to Ministry headquarters. When you get there, ask for Lepain-” he looked at Wilde- “and Malfoy, you’re looking for Jean d’Auber.”
“Wait,” Draco said. “They’ve attacked in two different places?”
“I am afraid so,” M. de Flesselles said, rising from his chair. He looked a little ashamed, and Draco thought that he certainly ought to be; he’d been warned about the threat and had not acted on those warnings. “Half of the group attacked the Bâtiment d'Administration and the other half attacked the Palace of Beauxbatons. We have not had any casualties yet, but we worry that it is only a matter of time.”
“That’s why I need you two here,” Dippet said, looking hard at his employees. “I need you to act as liaisons between their people and ours.” He paused a moment and pursed his lips. “We want this over quickly,” he said, which Draco thought was rather unnecessary.
But he simply nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said, and Apparated.
The Bâtiment d'Administration was a rather magnificent building in a secluded area southeast of Paris. Unlike the British, who had decided to center their government in the Muggle capital, the French had decided, for ease and safety, to put their government buildings away from prying eyes and keep everyone, Muggle or wizard, from living too close. This, Draco concluded as he appeared on the outskirts of the compound, was very convenient as it meant that no civilians would be caught up in the fighting.
Fighting, however, seemed to be in short supply at that moment. Everything was quiet, and if not for the wizards all gathered a safe distance from the building, Draco might have thought that it was a false alarm. But then, as he watched, a bolt of green light suddenly shot from one of the upper windows- like a sort of test to see if they were still out there, Draco thought- and ricocheted off a defensive spell surrounding the gathered wizards.
So there was someone in there after all, he pondered, and with that thought in mind he called out to the wizards near him, deciding it was best to identify himself before wandering into their ranks.
“Draco!” replied one of the wizards, and Draco was surprised to see Seamus, who worked for the Irish ambassador and hence for the Irish Ministry and therefore had no need to respond to Dippet’s call to arms. If he knew Seamus, though, he would bet that he’d volunteered for the job.
“Seamus,” he replied, approaching. “What’s going on? And where’s d’Auber?”
“He’s over here,” Seamus replied, leading the way through the throngs of wizards. Draco noted with interest that the majority were English, and he wished again that President de Flesselles were not so adamant in insisting that it was not necessary for France to hire more Aurors. That was why they’d needed the English so badly; they simply didn’t have the manpower to fight this battle. “As for what’s going on, L’Aube Foncée managed to get an inside man in here, and they let the rest of the group in. They attacked in the late afternoon, so luckily most people were gone, but those people who had stayed late are now being held hostage.”
“Do we know what they intend to do now that they’re inside?”
“Well, this building and Beauxbatons have impressive defensive spells, and from what we can tell they’re changing those right now to work in their favor. We suppose they mean to use these buildings as headquarters for a larger attack.”
“So you were right all along,” came a new voice, and Draco saw M. d’Auber coming toward them in the fading light. “We should have been worried about these dark wizards of yours.”
Draco shrugged. There was nothing he could say that wouldn’t come out with a distinct “I told you so” tinge to it, so he kept his mouth shut.
“I’m glad you’re here, M. Malfoy,” d’Auber said. “Come with me.”
Nodding his goodbye to Seamus, Draco followed the Frenchman to a small area that seemed to have been designated headquarters. All around them were Aurors, French and English, who were concentrating on keeping the defensive spells up. In the headquarters area, a few men were poring over maps of the surrounding land, and a few more were examining the structure of the spells on the building. “The Bâtiment d'Administration has highly advanced defensive spells on it,” d’Auber explained. “But now, instead of keeping invaders out, they’re keeping us out, and they’re nearly impossible to take apart without the recoil killing anyone near the spell. We’re waiting for blueprints of the building to arrive from Paris, so we can try to find any possible way inside. We expect them to arrive at any time. And until then, we wait.”
And wait they did, as the Aurors and the dark wizards inside exchanged curses, none of them hitting their targets. Draco helped the men look over the blueprints when they arrived, and more than once stepped in just in time to keep men from either side of the Channel from getting into fights fueled by stress and fatigue.
At eleven an Auror appeared and asked if Draco could take a shift assisting with the spell and keeping an eye on the building; the rest of the Aurors were all exhausted from the effort involved in patching the spell every time it was hit. He agreed and spent three hours assisting with the spell’s upkeep and talking to the Frenchmen around him.
At two in the morning someone arrived to take over his spot. Draco stood stupidly for a moment, exhausted from the exertion, and an Auror somewhere behind him suggested he lie down and have a rest. Cots had been brought in from somewhere, and Draco, looking at them, decided that sleep was exactly what he needed.
The cot was uncomfortable and hard, but Draco was out almost immediately. He had time for only one thought of Ginny- let me come home to her, even though she no longer lived with him- before he was asleep.
. . . . . .
Ginny didn’t go into work that day. She thought she wanted to up until the moment before she left- it would be good for her, she told herself, and she had to go back some time- but in that instant when she pulled out her wand, she had a sudden vision of being pestered by Glennis and Corbin about missing so much work, and then she’d have to explain to them what had happened. And she couldn’t do that, because she herself didn’t know. Should she say that she and Draco were separated? Having marital troubles? Or that they were strange bedfellows who never should have wed in the first place? No, it was much better to wait until she’d talked to Draco and figured out their exact status.
And she wanted to do that soon- not because she wanted it to be over, but she wanted to find some closure so that maybe some of the pain would go away- but she hadn’t managed to gather the courage to go back to the Manor. She supposed she’d have to do it in the next few days, and she figured that until then she could skip a day or two more out of work She had enough vacation days to do it, anyway.
So she spent another day at Luna’s and only cried twice all afternoon, of which she was proud. Of course, she still thought of Draco nearly every moment of the day, but still, she felt that some improvement had been made and that perhaps someday she could talk about Draco without suffering emotional duress.
After dinner Luna went to the grocery store and Ginny decided to go with her. She normally wasn’t much of one for grocery shopping, but she felt the need to get out, so she changed into real clothes and did her hair and makeup and followed Luna to the store with a smile on her face.
The shop nearby was tiny, as Ginny had often found Muggle stores to be, but still, knowing Luna, it was no real surprise that somehow she managed to disappear from Ginny’s sight. Amused, Ginny walked gave the store a once-over, just to be sure, and then checked outside. Sure enough, Luna was out there, just saying goodbye to a tall, curly-haired man Ginny recognized as a reporter at The Quibbler.
“Oh, I was just looking for you,” Luna said dreamily when Ginny approached. “Mark had some interesting news.”
“Oh, what was that?” Ginny asked, smiling. When two Quibbler writers got together, the bizarre stories they told had to achieve a new level of strangeness.
“Dark wizards have taken over the French Ministry and Beauxbatons,” came Luna’s very straightforward reply.
“I feel sorry for the French, then,” Ginny laughed. But then her smile faltered as she remembered Draco telling her he feared just such an attack from that group- what was it called?
“Luna, where did Mark hear about that?” she asked, wondering if it could be true, as she followed her friend back into the store.
“It’s something reporters are naturally good at,” Luna said vaguely. “Pasta tomorrow night?”
“Sure,” Ginny said distractedly. “Do you know anything about the group who attacked?”
“Their name is something about the dawn,” Luna shrugged.
“L’Aube Foncée?”
“I didn’t know you spoke French.”
“Is that the name of the group?” Ginny demanded.
“That sounds right,” Luna responded. “Apparently the Ministry is worried about it. They’ve called out some of our men. All the Aurors went over, including Harry.”
“Oh, dear,” Ginny said faintly, and was secretly thankful that Draco was not an Auror and wouldn’t be a part of the fighting. “Perhaps I’d better get to work and see if they might need help. You can never had too many medics.”
“Oh, you can have too many medics,” Luna said knowingly, tapping the side of her nose. “Don’t forget the story of the bagpiper and the turnips.”
“Never,” replied Ginny, though her mind was on L’Aube Foncée and Harry and Draco. “I’ll see you later, all right?”
Luna nodded and Ginny Apparated to work. “What’s happened?” she asked as she reached the nurses’ station on her floor.
One of the new girls smiled. “Well, he wasn’t breathing well, so we recommended a week-”
“I meant in France.”
“Oh. Let me ask Parker.”
She paged Parker, who managed the floor in the evenings. He had heard about the attacks in France, he said in response to Ginny’s question, but he assured her that the Ministry had already informed them that the French had the medical side of things under control. “You know they’ve always had such an impressive medical system,” he said. “Far better than ours. And the Ministry decided that they don’t want any more people going over there than they have to.”
Ginny thanked Parker and walked slowly back to the stairwell, wondering what to do next. If Harry was out there fighting, perhaps she should go the Burrow, where she was sure that the Weasleys, his surrogate family, were waiting with bated breath. She had nearly decided to go when a familiar voice called her name, making her jump.
“Calliope,” she said as she saw her friend standing in the lobby. “What are you doing here?”
“I was looking for you,” the girl explained, looking pale and drawn. “I tried your house and the house elves said you were gone, so I thought you might be here.”
“Well, you’ve found me. What do you need?”
Calliope looked at her in surprise. “I wanted to go with you, to wait for news.”
“To wait?”
“At Dover,” Calliope nodded, and then, seeing Ginny didn’t know what she was talking about, she added, “For Seamus and Draco?”
Ginny gasped. “Are they over there fighting?”
“The whole department got sent over. Didn’t you hear?”
Ginny sidestepped that question. “But Seamus doesn’t even work for our Ministry.”
Her friend shrugged. “He wanted to go. He said it was the right thing to do.” She bit her lip, and Ginny could see how worried she was about her boyfriend. “So are you coming?”
“Of course,” Ginny said before remembering that she had forfeited her right to be Draco Malfoy’s concerned wife. But she didn’t care; her Draco was in trouble- that thought made her catch her breath in fear- and she was going to find out what was going on.
The two women Apparated to a large Ministry building on the wizarding docks at Dover, normally used to regulate wizards crossing the Channel. Tonight, however, it was filled with witches and wizards waiting for their loved ones to return, and if they did not return soon, for news of what was going on in France.
Several harried-looking Ministry officials were standing at the door. “There’s no need to be here,” one of them said resignedly, as though knowing his speech wouldn’t work. “The Ministry will inform families immediately as soon as our wizards return-”
“Thanks, but we’ll wait here,” Ginny said, and grabbed Calliope’s elbow to drag her through the door.
“There’s Hermione,” Calliope said, pointing through the crowd.
Ginny’s future sister-in-law was indeed there, pushing her way through the throng toward them. “Ginny, Calliope,” she said as she reached them, and Ginny saw that she looked tired. “I suppose you heard about Ron and Harry, then?”
“Ron’s out there?” Ginny demanded.
“You didn’t hear?”
“Only about Harry. And . . .” she trailed off, embarrassed, but she knew Hermione would understand. “And Draco.”
Hermione nodded sympathetically. “Well, Ron decided he wanted to help, too, even though I don’t know what he expects they’re going to do with an employee of the Games and Sports department.” She looked at Calliope. “Seamus, too?”
Calliope nodded, and Hermione put her arm around her shoulders and led her into the crowd, Ginny following close behind. In the corner she saw her parents waiting, and they scooted over so Calliope, Hermione and Ginny could sit on the bench next to them. The group spoke no words, only patted each other’s hands comfortably and waited.
For Ginny the wait seemed unbearable. It killed her not to know what was going on, not to know if her brother and her friend and her husband were dead somewhere on the other side of the sea. She was worried about Ron and Harry, of course, but she knew they could take care of themselves. Could Draco? He hadn’t seen much action during the war. She wasn’t sure how he was at fighting.
But he just had to be all right. She didn’t know what she’d do if Draco died. Even if they were no longer together, she couldn’t bear to think of the world without Draco Malfoy in it. Looking at Hermione and Calliope, she wondered if they felt the same about the men they loved. She wanted to ask but she was afraid of upsetting them, so instead she leaned back in the bench and closed her eyes tightly. Please let Ron and Harry and Draco come home soon, she thought, and that became her mantra. She repeated it over and over again until finally, exhausted by worry, she drifted off to sleep.
. . . . . .
It was six o’ clock when Draco awoke suddenly. In the dim light of the dawn, he could just make out the figure standing over him, calling his name. “Draco, get up.”
“Potter?” Draco asked, rubbing his eyes. “How long have you been here?”
“A while,” Harry replied, and Draco thought he sounded tired. “Look, they want everyone up on their feet. They think they found a way in.”
Draco was on his feet immediately. “But there was nothing useful on those blueprints.”
Harry shook his head. “They finally found one of the men who originally helped with the defensive spells, and he’s been trying to figure out a way through them for the last few hours. He’s finally found a way to let us in.”
Draco look around. “There’s a lot more people here than there was last night.”
“Beauxbatons has been retaken,” Harry explained. “There were fewer protective spells on it than L’Aube Foncée expected, and we managed to get inside.”
“We? You were there? And then you bothered to come here?” Draco suddenly felt guilty for having spent the night sleeping while Harry had spent it fighting.
Harry shrugged. “Come on, we need to get into position.” And the two men began making their way to near where Draco had been on watch duty. Nearby, a group of Aurors was preparing to remove the defensive spell while a very old man- the one who’d found a way in, Draco supposed- rolled his wand between his fingers, apparently ready to do whatever enchantment would allow the fighters into the Bâtiment d'Administration.
All around them, wizards were donning invisibility cloaks or performing Disillusionment charms on themselves. It made sense, Draco supposed, because if the two spells did not go down at exactly the same time, there would be a moment or two when the wizards sitting outside the Bâtiment d'Administration would be completely exposed. He cast his own Disillusionment charm while Harry pulled his invisibility cloak around himself, and they both sat down to wait.
“You know,” Draco said after a moment, “I always envied that cloak of yours.”
“Really?” Harry’s voice came out of nowhere. “It was always useful. Used it to sneak around Hogwarts more than once.”
“Yeah, I always hated that you always got away with it. If I ever snuck out, I got detention.”
Harry chuckled. “We had some great times at Hogwarts, didn’t we, Malfoy?”
“You’re delusional, aren’t you, Potter?”
Harry just laughed again. “All right, so we wanted to kill each other. But I’m glad I’m here with someone I know, at least,” he said. Draco didn’t reply, and after a moment Harry said, “Ron was at Beauxbatons but he was hurt. They had to send him home.” He sounded concerned.
“Is he going to be okay?” It slipped out before Draco realized what he was saying. But he was worried, for Ginny’s sake.
“He’ll be fine,” Harry said, and hesitated a moment. “Ginny will be glad to hear that,” he said, too nonchalantly.
Draco shifted uncomfortably in response, unwilling to take the bait.
After a moment, Harry continued. “What happened with you two?” he asked, but Draco still didn’t respond. “I have to tell you,” Harry continued, “when I found out you two were married, I was furious, with you, with her, with myself.”
“With yourself?” Draco couldn’t help asking. “Were you interested in Ginny?”
“I was at the time,” Harry said quietly. “I suppose I thought that it was the logical choice- I’ve known her forever and the Weasleys are all the family I’ve got anyway. Or at least all the family I want to claim,” he added wryly.
“Are you still interested?” Draco forced himself to ask. He wasn’t interested in Harry Potter’s love life, but he was interested to know if Harry was going to pursue Ginny. Ginny had always said she wasn’t interested in Harry, but now that she was free of Draco, perhaps she’d change her mind. He felt sick at the thought of her with another man.
“Not any more,” Harry said, and Draco felt his mood lighten. “I realized that I care about her as a friend and that’s all.” He paused. “Were you worried?” he asked, and Draco could hear the smile in his voice.
“Lay off, Potter.”
“I think she misses you,” Harry said after a moment. “Did you know she hasn’t been to work since she left?”
“Really?” He knew Ginny loved her work.
“Really.”
Draco stared out at the dim sky, deep in thought. Maybe- but no. She’d left, hadn’t she? “But Ginny left me,” Draco said, all the while wondering why he was confiding in Potter. The sky must be falling, he decided. “It was her choice.”
“I can’t guess why,” Harry said. “But maybe she regrets it.”
“When did you take such an interest in my life, Potter?”
Draco heard movement next to him and supposed it was Harry shrugging. “Like I said, Ginny’s family,” he said. “And I want her to be happy, and it always seemed she was happy with you.”
Everyone kept saying that, Draco reflected. And yet Ginny had left without so much as an explanation or a goodbye. With a sigh he pulled out his wand. “I don’t know. But right now, I’d like to concentrate on surviving this.”
Harry laughed again, but grimly, and just then d’Auber stood and held his wand aloft. “Préparez!” he called.
“Ready?” Harry asked.
“I guess,” Draco said, gripping his wand.
“Just don’t die,” Harry said. “I don’t want to bring your body back to Ginny.”
“Can it, Potter,” Draco said, and in that moment d’Auber brought his wand down in a decisive motion. Draco and Harry stood. It was time.
. . . . . .
Ginny awoke just after seven, when the first wave of wizards returned. These were the injured, Ginny decided as she scanned them with a critical eye, who’d been sufficiently healed that they could stand the crossing back to England. She looked over them carefully, wishing that Draco was among them- it would mean he’d been hurt, but it would also mean he was safe.
Draco was not among that group, but Ron was. Hermione saw him first and ran to his side before the rest of their group had even realized what was going on. He looked pale and ill, but he was well enough to kiss Hermione thoroughly and hug his family. As Arthur and Hermione helped him to a chair, he told them of the battle at Beauxbatons, where he and Harry had been part of the group who’d infiltrated the castle and caught the dark wizards off-guard. Unfortunately, in the fighting he’d been hit with a rather nasty curse that had cut up his side quite badly. The healers in France had patched him up, but they’d recommended he get re-checked when he got home.
“I’ll take you to St. Mungo’s right now,” Hermione said, standing.
“What about Harry?” Molly asked.
“He wasn’t hurt, so he went to help the fight at the Ministry building,” Ron said. “I haven’t heard anything about them. I assume he’s still there.” He paused and looked at Calliope and Ginny. “I didn’t see Draco or Seamus,” he said. “I think they were at the Ministry building.” Both girls nodded. Ginny felt a strange blend of worry and relief wash over her- she still didn’t know where Draco was, but at least he hadn’t been hurt or killed at Beauxbatons.
As Hermione and Ron Apparated away to St. Mungo’s, the Weasleys and Calliope sat back down, but Ginny walked across the building to speak to one of the Ministry officials who had accompanied the injured on the crossing, a man she knew from his recent visit to St. Mungo’s. The building had emptied out somewhat as people found their loved ones and left with them, but there were still many there waiting. “Any casualties?” she asked the man.
He looked at her in surprise, then recognized her as a healer and shook his head. “But a few of ours were quite seriously hurt. They’re still over there.”
“Do we know what’s going on with the fight at the Ministry?”
He shrugged. “I believe they’re still fighting.”
Ginny nodded and returned to her family, and found herself once more waiting.
The time dragged on, and by nine-thirty Ginny was sure she was going to go mad if she didn’t get some news. Her constant state of worry was wearing on her nerves, and she stared at the ground and ordered herself not to cry.
And then she heard the sweetest sound she could imagine: “There are boats coming!” someone called from the window. As one, the whole group surged to its feet, waiting. After several interminable minutes, an Auror in tattered robes entered and quietly spoke to a Ministry official, who broke out into a smile.
The man pointed his wand at his throat, presumably to magnify his voice, and spoke. “It’s over,” he said, and cheers and gasps of relief broke out all through the crowd. “The dark wizards have been captured and our people are coming home.” As if on cue, the doors opened and tired-looking wizards poured in, their eyes searching the crowd to see if anyone was waiting for them. The sound in the room grew to a dull roar as its occupants laughed, cried, and shouted when they found their loved ones.
The building slowly emptied as the reunited families returned home. Within fifteen minutes, there was only a handful of people still waiting. Harry, Seamus and Draco had still not arrived, and Calliope looked so downcast that Ginny impulsively took her hand. “He’s coming home,” she said, and Calliope nodded, gripping Ginny’s hand so tightly that it hurt. But Ginny welcomed the pain; it gave her something to hold on to, something to ground her as she fought her own worry and terror.
Another twenty minutes passed, an endlessly long twenty minutes, before the another boat arrived and its occupants appeared.
“Seamus!” Calliope cried, and ran across the room to him. Her boyfriend, dirty and bruised but still smiling, caught her up in his arms and twirled her around, both of them laughing and crying as they held each other. Ginny smiled. Even though her own heart was still aching, she was glad that Seamus was back safely.
Harry came through the door then, looking around himself awkwardly, and when his eyes fell on the Weasleys his face lit up with pleasure and surprise; after so much time, it still surprised him that he had someone who cared about him that way. Arthur and Molly were across the room in an instant, and Ginny followed closely after, her eyes still on the door as she waited for Draco to walk through it. He never did, and in a few moments, she realized that Harry was the last member of that group.
When Molly and Arthur were done hugging Harry, Ginny hugged him as well, thinking all the while of how she’d been so annoyed with him a few months earlier. It was amazing how a crisis made people realize who was really important to them.
“Where’s Draco?” Harry asked as he pulled away from Ginny.
Ginny’s heart dropped into her stomach. “You don’t know?”
He shook his head. “I was with him at the Bâtiment d'Administration, but we got separated once we were inside. I assumed that he came back already. That was the last boat, and if he wasn’t on it . . .” He trailed off and looked at Ginny, apparently realizing too late how his words were affecting her.
She stared at him, her fingernails digging into her hands, too shocked even to cry. Maybe he was just hurt, she told herself, and the French healers had kept him there to make sure he was all right. Or maybe he’s dead, came an unwelcome thought, and she clenched her fists harder to keep her hands from shaking. She could hear people talking around her, and she assumed some of them were addressing her, but she couldn’t slow her mind down enough to make sense of the words. Draco was going to be all right- or was he dead? A picture suddenly flashed into her mind of her husband lying still and cold on a spiral staircase, and she was suddenly thankful that she’d never had any talent with Divination and had no reason to believe the vision might be real.
“You know,” Harry said, “he went there to help deal with the French Ministry. He’s probably just finishing up with them. I’m sure he’ll be along soon.”
Molly had taken her hand. “Yes, of course, that’s what happened.”
Ginny just shook her head. “Oh, Mum,” she whispered, and that was the last thing she said for quite some time.
The room slowly emptied around them until only the Weasleys and Harry remained. “Maybe I should go back,” Harry said a few minutes later. Molly and Arthur immediately began voicing their concerns, but Ginny, still in a dazed state, could only wonder at the fact that her eyes were still so dry. Maybe she was going crazy.
Harry walked to the door and the movement brought Ginny back to herself somewhat. She had just turned to look at her mother when Harry suddenly stuck his head back in the door. “Brooms!” he called, and Ginny tensed suddenly. She wanted to run outside, to see if it was Draco, but her feet refused to respond. So she stood still and had a sudden feeling that based on who came through that door, her heart would either start beating again or stop forever.
In a few moments the door opened and Harry came through followed by three men, all looking tired and battered. The third was Draco, dirty and bandaged.
He looked up and his eyes, full of longing, met Ginny’s. They stared at each other for a long moment across the room, and then Ginny’s legs gave out, the result of a mix of fatigue and sudden, light-headed relief. She fell into the chair behind her, put her head down, and began to cry.
Draco was there in an instant, kneeling on the ground before her, forcing her to look at him. “Ginny,” he whispered, and his voice was like a prayer, “Ginny, please come home. I don’t want to live without you anymore. I love you too much.”
Ginny wondered for a moment if she was dreaming. But no, he was there before her, real and warm and pleading. She looked up at him, into his eyes, and she knew he meant every word. He looked anxious, waiting for her answer, and when she smiled he smiled back.
He wrapped her in a tight embrace, and with a pop they were back at Malfoy Manor- back home, Ginny thought- in the front hall she’d never thought to see again. But she didn’t have much time to reflect because he was brushing his fingers gently over her face, looking down at her as though he was afraid she’d disappear if he looked away. Then he dipped his head toward hers and carefully, finally, kissed her. It left her breathlessly smiling, and when he pulled away she looked at him earnestly.
“I love you,” she said.
“Good answer,” he said.
And Bernard the house elf, unnoticed in the corner where he’d been dusting, smiled. “It’s about time.”
. . . . . .
Indeed, this is the way fate usually treats us, it’s right there behind us, it has already reached out a hand to touch us on the shoulder while we’re still muttering to ourselves, it’s all over, that’s it, who cares anyhow. - Jose Saramago
. . . . . .
“We’re taking broomsticks,” Wilde said as he and Draco hurried down the docks to a squat building by the water’s edge.
“Broomsticks?” Draco asked, surprised. It was not uncommon for witches and wizards, especially the young, to use broomsticks to get around, and until the last century it had been the preferred form of transportation for traveling over the Channel. In recent years, however, using broomsticks to cross to France had become very dangerous; the running water made it impossible to enchant the rider to become invisible, so the crossing had to be attempted at night, and even then there was still a great deal of danger posed by modern Muggle technology, which had become so advanced that Muggles on both sides of the Channel could easily spot a wizard in the sky. And that, of course, led to questions, suspicions, and memory-altering charms. The only time the Ministry would authorize a crossing by broomstick was if the wizard in question needed to cross very, very quickly for a very, very important reason.
“Yeah, broomsticks,” Wilde said dourly, clearly not excited at the prospect of spending any time on such a conveyance. “Dippet wants us there fast.” And he slipped around the edge of the building they’d approached, opened the broom shed on the far side, and began rummaging through the rows of Ministry-furnished broomsticks, provided for just such an occasion.
“Great,” Draco said, hiding his uneasiness, and began looking for a broom for himself. As he looked he interrogated Wilde about what had happened, but his co-worker knew little besides the fact that a few hours after the workday had ended, several members of the French ministry, disheveled and out of breath, had burst into the English Ministry of Magic and terrified the janitors still at work. They’d found the Minister of Magic and asked for his help, and since then anyone who could be spared had been crossing the Channel. Apparently the Aurors had been the first to go, and Draco wondered if Ginny knew that Harry was on the other side of the sea, possibly in mortal peril. He wondered if she knew that he was going as well, and whether her estranged husband’s plight even mattered to her. He wished he could contact her somehow, but there was no time and soon he and Wilde were kicking off the dock and taking off into the dusky sky, part of a long line of fellow wizards making their way to France.
When they landed on French soil they Apparated immediately to Paris, even though the Bâtiment d'Administration, as it was called, was not located in that city. They went to an office in the heart of town, one that Draco recognized from his time in Paris as the office of the leader of the city’s wizard population. It was not that kindly old man that he saw when he opened the door, however, but the French Ministry’s stern-faced president, Bernard de Flesselles, along with Nigel Dippet and Louis d’Armand, with whom the Malfoys had sat at the ball.
Dippet looked very relieved to see the two men, who of all the department were some of the employees most familiar with the French language, government and culture. Dippet himself had dealt almost exclusively with Germany during his time in the department, and until the events of the last few months had occurred he had not been concerned with familiarizing himself with France.
“Malfoy, Wilde, I’m glad you’re here,” he said briskly. “I suppose you know what happened?”
Wilde and Draco looked at each other. “No, sir-” Draco began, but Dippet, fiddling nervously with his wand, pressed on.
“Wilde, you’ll go to the school, and Draco, you’re going to Ministry headquarters. When you get there, ask for Lepain-” he looked at Wilde- “and Malfoy, you’re looking for Jean d’Auber.”
“Wait,” Draco said. “They’ve attacked in two different places?”
“I am afraid so,” M. de Flesselles said, rising from his chair. He looked a little ashamed, and Draco thought that he certainly ought to be; he’d been warned about the threat and had not acted on those warnings. “Half of the group attacked the Bâtiment d'Administration and the other half attacked the Palace of Beauxbatons. We have not had any casualties yet, but we worry that it is only a matter of time.”
“That’s why I need you two here,” Dippet said, looking hard at his employees. “I need you to act as liaisons between their people and ours.” He paused a moment and pursed his lips. “We want this over quickly,” he said, which Draco thought was rather unnecessary.
But he simply nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said, and Apparated.
The Bâtiment d'Administration was a rather magnificent building in a secluded area southeast of Paris. Unlike the British, who had decided to center their government in the Muggle capital, the French had decided, for ease and safety, to put their government buildings away from prying eyes and keep everyone, Muggle or wizard, from living too close. This, Draco concluded as he appeared on the outskirts of the compound, was very convenient as it meant that no civilians would be caught up in the fighting.
Fighting, however, seemed to be in short supply at that moment. Everything was quiet, and if not for the wizards all gathered a safe distance from the building, Draco might have thought that it was a false alarm. But then, as he watched, a bolt of green light suddenly shot from one of the upper windows- like a sort of test to see if they were still out there, Draco thought- and ricocheted off a defensive spell surrounding the gathered wizards.
So there was someone in there after all, he pondered, and with that thought in mind he called out to the wizards near him, deciding it was best to identify himself before wandering into their ranks.
“Draco!” replied one of the wizards, and Draco was surprised to see Seamus, who worked for the Irish ambassador and hence for the Irish Ministry and therefore had no need to respond to Dippet’s call to arms. If he knew Seamus, though, he would bet that he’d volunteered for the job.
“Seamus,” he replied, approaching. “What’s going on? And where’s d’Auber?”
“He’s over here,” Seamus replied, leading the way through the throngs of wizards. Draco noted with interest that the majority were English, and he wished again that President de Flesselles were not so adamant in insisting that it was not necessary for France to hire more Aurors. That was why they’d needed the English so badly; they simply didn’t have the manpower to fight this battle. “As for what’s going on, L’Aube Foncée managed to get an inside man in here, and they let the rest of the group in. They attacked in the late afternoon, so luckily most people were gone, but those people who had stayed late are now being held hostage.”
“Do we know what they intend to do now that they’re inside?”
“Well, this building and Beauxbatons have impressive defensive spells, and from what we can tell they’re changing those right now to work in their favor. We suppose they mean to use these buildings as headquarters for a larger attack.”
“So you were right all along,” came a new voice, and Draco saw M. d’Auber coming toward them in the fading light. “We should have been worried about these dark wizards of yours.”
Draco shrugged. There was nothing he could say that wouldn’t come out with a distinct “I told you so” tinge to it, so he kept his mouth shut.
“I’m glad you’re here, M. Malfoy,” d’Auber said. “Come with me.”
Nodding his goodbye to Seamus, Draco followed the Frenchman to a small area that seemed to have been designated headquarters. All around them were Aurors, French and English, who were concentrating on keeping the defensive spells up. In the headquarters area, a few men were poring over maps of the surrounding land, and a few more were examining the structure of the spells on the building. “The Bâtiment d'Administration has highly advanced defensive spells on it,” d’Auber explained. “But now, instead of keeping invaders out, they’re keeping us out, and they’re nearly impossible to take apart without the recoil killing anyone near the spell. We’re waiting for blueprints of the building to arrive from Paris, so we can try to find any possible way inside. We expect them to arrive at any time. And until then, we wait.”
And wait they did, as the Aurors and the dark wizards inside exchanged curses, none of them hitting their targets. Draco helped the men look over the blueprints when they arrived, and more than once stepped in just in time to keep men from either side of the Channel from getting into fights fueled by stress and fatigue.
At eleven an Auror appeared and asked if Draco could take a shift assisting with the spell and keeping an eye on the building; the rest of the Aurors were all exhausted from the effort involved in patching the spell every time it was hit. He agreed and spent three hours assisting with the spell’s upkeep and talking to the Frenchmen around him.
At two in the morning someone arrived to take over his spot. Draco stood stupidly for a moment, exhausted from the exertion, and an Auror somewhere behind him suggested he lie down and have a rest. Cots had been brought in from somewhere, and Draco, looking at them, decided that sleep was exactly what he needed.
The cot was uncomfortable and hard, but Draco was out almost immediately. He had time for only one thought of Ginny- let me come home to her, even though she no longer lived with him- before he was asleep.
. . . . . .
Ginny didn’t go into work that day. She thought she wanted to up until the moment before she left- it would be good for her, she told herself, and she had to go back some time- but in that instant when she pulled out her wand, she had a sudden vision of being pestered by Glennis and Corbin about missing so much work, and then she’d have to explain to them what had happened. And she couldn’t do that, because she herself didn’t know. Should she say that she and Draco were separated? Having marital troubles? Or that they were strange bedfellows who never should have wed in the first place? No, it was much better to wait until she’d talked to Draco and figured out their exact status.
And she wanted to do that soon- not because she wanted it to be over, but she wanted to find some closure so that maybe some of the pain would go away- but she hadn’t managed to gather the courage to go back to the Manor. She supposed she’d have to do it in the next few days, and she figured that until then she could skip a day or two more out of work She had enough vacation days to do it, anyway.
So she spent another day at Luna’s and only cried twice all afternoon, of which she was proud. Of course, she still thought of Draco nearly every moment of the day, but still, she felt that some improvement had been made and that perhaps someday she could talk about Draco without suffering emotional duress.
After dinner Luna went to the grocery store and Ginny decided to go with her. She normally wasn’t much of one for grocery shopping, but she felt the need to get out, so she changed into real clothes and did her hair and makeup and followed Luna to the store with a smile on her face.
The shop nearby was tiny, as Ginny had often found Muggle stores to be, but still, knowing Luna, it was no real surprise that somehow she managed to disappear from Ginny’s sight. Amused, Ginny walked gave the store a once-over, just to be sure, and then checked outside. Sure enough, Luna was out there, just saying goodbye to a tall, curly-haired man Ginny recognized as a reporter at The Quibbler.
“Oh, I was just looking for you,” Luna said dreamily when Ginny approached. “Mark had some interesting news.”
“Oh, what was that?” Ginny asked, smiling. When two Quibbler writers got together, the bizarre stories they told had to achieve a new level of strangeness.
“Dark wizards have taken over the French Ministry and Beauxbatons,” came Luna’s very straightforward reply.
“I feel sorry for the French, then,” Ginny laughed. But then her smile faltered as she remembered Draco telling her he feared just such an attack from that group- what was it called?
“Luna, where did Mark hear about that?” she asked, wondering if it could be true, as she followed her friend back into the store.
“It’s something reporters are naturally good at,” Luna said vaguely. “Pasta tomorrow night?”
“Sure,” Ginny said distractedly. “Do you know anything about the group who attacked?”
“Their name is something about the dawn,” Luna shrugged.
“L’Aube Foncée?”
“I didn’t know you spoke French.”
“Is that the name of the group?” Ginny demanded.
“That sounds right,” Luna responded. “Apparently the Ministry is worried about it. They’ve called out some of our men. All the Aurors went over, including Harry.”
“Oh, dear,” Ginny said faintly, and was secretly thankful that Draco was not an Auror and wouldn’t be a part of the fighting. “Perhaps I’d better get to work and see if they might need help. You can never had too many medics.”
“Oh, you can have too many medics,” Luna said knowingly, tapping the side of her nose. “Don’t forget the story of the bagpiper and the turnips.”
“Never,” replied Ginny, though her mind was on L’Aube Foncée and Harry and Draco. “I’ll see you later, all right?”
Luna nodded and Ginny Apparated to work. “What’s happened?” she asked as she reached the nurses’ station on her floor.
One of the new girls smiled. “Well, he wasn’t breathing well, so we recommended a week-”
“I meant in France.”
“Oh. Let me ask Parker.”
She paged Parker, who managed the floor in the evenings. He had heard about the attacks in France, he said in response to Ginny’s question, but he assured her that the Ministry had already informed them that the French had the medical side of things under control. “You know they’ve always had such an impressive medical system,” he said. “Far better than ours. And the Ministry decided that they don’t want any more people going over there than they have to.”
Ginny thanked Parker and walked slowly back to the stairwell, wondering what to do next. If Harry was out there fighting, perhaps she should go the Burrow, where she was sure that the Weasleys, his surrogate family, were waiting with bated breath. She had nearly decided to go when a familiar voice called her name, making her jump.
“Calliope,” she said as she saw her friend standing in the lobby. “What are you doing here?”
“I was looking for you,” the girl explained, looking pale and drawn. “I tried your house and the house elves said you were gone, so I thought you might be here.”
“Well, you’ve found me. What do you need?”
Calliope looked at her in surprise. “I wanted to go with you, to wait for news.”
“To wait?”
“At Dover,” Calliope nodded, and then, seeing Ginny didn’t know what she was talking about, she added, “For Seamus and Draco?”
Ginny gasped. “Are they over there fighting?”
“The whole department got sent over. Didn’t you hear?”
Ginny sidestepped that question. “But Seamus doesn’t even work for our Ministry.”
Her friend shrugged. “He wanted to go. He said it was the right thing to do.” She bit her lip, and Ginny could see how worried she was about her boyfriend. “So are you coming?”
“Of course,” Ginny said before remembering that she had forfeited her right to be Draco Malfoy’s concerned wife. But she didn’t care; her Draco was in trouble- that thought made her catch her breath in fear- and she was going to find out what was going on.
The two women Apparated to a large Ministry building on the wizarding docks at Dover, normally used to regulate wizards crossing the Channel. Tonight, however, it was filled with witches and wizards waiting for their loved ones to return, and if they did not return soon, for news of what was going on in France.
Several harried-looking Ministry officials were standing at the door. “There’s no need to be here,” one of them said resignedly, as though knowing his speech wouldn’t work. “The Ministry will inform families immediately as soon as our wizards return-”
“Thanks, but we’ll wait here,” Ginny said, and grabbed Calliope’s elbow to drag her through the door.
“There’s Hermione,” Calliope said, pointing through the crowd.
Ginny’s future sister-in-law was indeed there, pushing her way through the throng toward them. “Ginny, Calliope,” she said as she reached them, and Ginny saw that she looked tired. “I suppose you heard about Ron and Harry, then?”
“Ron’s out there?” Ginny demanded.
“You didn’t hear?”
“Only about Harry. And . . .” she trailed off, embarrassed, but she knew Hermione would understand. “And Draco.”
Hermione nodded sympathetically. “Well, Ron decided he wanted to help, too, even though I don’t know what he expects they’re going to do with an employee of the Games and Sports department.” She looked at Calliope. “Seamus, too?”
Calliope nodded, and Hermione put her arm around her shoulders and led her into the crowd, Ginny following close behind. In the corner she saw her parents waiting, and they scooted over so Calliope, Hermione and Ginny could sit on the bench next to them. The group spoke no words, only patted each other’s hands comfortably and waited.
For Ginny the wait seemed unbearable. It killed her not to know what was going on, not to know if her brother and her friend and her husband were dead somewhere on the other side of the sea. She was worried about Ron and Harry, of course, but she knew they could take care of themselves. Could Draco? He hadn’t seen much action during the war. She wasn’t sure how he was at fighting.
But he just had to be all right. She didn’t know what she’d do if Draco died. Even if they were no longer together, she couldn’t bear to think of the world without Draco Malfoy in it. Looking at Hermione and Calliope, she wondered if they felt the same about the men they loved. She wanted to ask but she was afraid of upsetting them, so instead she leaned back in the bench and closed her eyes tightly. Please let Ron and Harry and Draco come home soon, she thought, and that became her mantra. She repeated it over and over again until finally, exhausted by worry, she drifted off to sleep.
. . . . . .
It was six o’ clock when Draco awoke suddenly. In the dim light of the dawn, he could just make out the figure standing over him, calling his name. “Draco, get up.”
“Potter?” Draco asked, rubbing his eyes. “How long have you been here?”
“A while,” Harry replied, and Draco thought he sounded tired. “Look, they want everyone up on their feet. They think they found a way in.”
Draco was on his feet immediately. “But there was nothing useful on those blueprints.”
Harry shook his head. “They finally found one of the men who originally helped with the defensive spells, and he’s been trying to figure out a way through them for the last few hours. He’s finally found a way to let us in.”
Draco look around. “There’s a lot more people here than there was last night.”
“Beauxbatons has been retaken,” Harry explained. “There were fewer protective spells on it than L’Aube Foncée expected, and we managed to get inside.”
“We? You were there? And then you bothered to come here?” Draco suddenly felt guilty for having spent the night sleeping while Harry had spent it fighting.
Harry shrugged. “Come on, we need to get into position.” And the two men began making their way to near where Draco had been on watch duty. Nearby, a group of Aurors was preparing to remove the defensive spell while a very old man- the one who’d found a way in, Draco supposed- rolled his wand between his fingers, apparently ready to do whatever enchantment would allow the fighters into the Bâtiment d'Administration.
All around them, wizards were donning invisibility cloaks or performing Disillusionment charms on themselves. It made sense, Draco supposed, because if the two spells did not go down at exactly the same time, there would be a moment or two when the wizards sitting outside the Bâtiment d'Administration would be completely exposed. He cast his own Disillusionment charm while Harry pulled his invisibility cloak around himself, and they both sat down to wait.
“You know,” Draco said after a moment, “I always envied that cloak of yours.”
“Really?” Harry’s voice came out of nowhere. “It was always useful. Used it to sneak around Hogwarts more than once.”
“Yeah, I always hated that you always got away with it. If I ever snuck out, I got detention.”
Harry chuckled. “We had some great times at Hogwarts, didn’t we, Malfoy?”
“You’re delusional, aren’t you, Potter?”
Harry just laughed again. “All right, so we wanted to kill each other. But I’m glad I’m here with someone I know, at least,” he said. Draco didn’t reply, and after a moment Harry said, “Ron was at Beauxbatons but he was hurt. They had to send him home.” He sounded concerned.
“Is he going to be okay?” It slipped out before Draco realized what he was saying. But he was worried, for Ginny’s sake.
“He’ll be fine,” Harry said, and hesitated a moment. “Ginny will be glad to hear that,” he said, too nonchalantly.
Draco shifted uncomfortably in response, unwilling to take the bait.
After a moment, Harry continued. “What happened with you two?” he asked, but Draco still didn’t respond. “I have to tell you,” Harry continued, “when I found out you two were married, I was furious, with you, with her, with myself.”
“With yourself?” Draco couldn’t help asking. “Were you interested in Ginny?”
“I was at the time,” Harry said quietly. “I suppose I thought that it was the logical choice- I’ve known her forever and the Weasleys are all the family I’ve got anyway. Or at least all the family I want to claim,” he added wryly.
“Are you still interested?” Draco forced himself to ask. He wasn’t interested in Harry Potter’s love life, but he was interested to know if Harry was going to pursue Ginny. Ginny had always said she wasn’t interested in Harry, but now that she was free of Draco, perhaps she’d change her mind. He felt sick at the thought of her with another man.
“Not any more,” Harry said, and Draco felt his mood lighten. “I realized that I care about her as a friend and that’s all.” He paused. “Were you worried?” he asked, and Draco could hear the smile in his voice.
“Lay off, Potter.”
“I think she misses you,” Harry said after a moment. “Did you know she hasn’t been to work since she left?”
“Really?” He knew Ginny loved her work.
“Really.”
Draco stared out at the dim sky, deep in thought. Maybe- but no. She’d left, hadn’t she? “But Ginny left me,” Draco said, all the while wondering why he was confiding in Potter. The sky must be falling, he decided. “It was her choice.”
“I can’t guess why,” Harry said. “But maybe she regrets it.”
“When did you take such an interest in my life, Potter?”
Draco heard movement next to him and supposed it was Harry shrugging. “Like I said, Ginny’s family,” he said. “And I want her to be happy, and it always seemed she was happy with you.”
Everyone kept saying that, Draco reflected. And yet Ginny had left without so much as an explanation or a goodbye. With a sigh he pulled out his wand. “I don’t know. But right now, I’d like to concentrate on surviving this.”
Harry laughed again, but grimly, and just then d’Auber stood and held his wand aloft. “Préparez!” he called.
“Ready?” Harry asked.
“I guess,” Draco said, gripping his wand.
“Just don’t die,” Harry said. “I don’t want to bring your body back to Ginny.”
“Can it, Potter,” Draco said, and in that moment d’Auber brought his wand down in a decisive motion. Draco and Harry stood. It was time.
. . . . . .
Ginny awoke just after seven, when the first wave of wizards returned. These were the injured, Ginny decided as she scanned them with a critical eye, who’d been sufficiently healed that they could stand the crossing back to England. She looked over them carefully, wishing that Draco was among them- it would mean he’d been hurt, but it would also mean he was safe.
Draco was not among that group, but Ron was. Hermione saw him first and ran to his side before the rest of their group had even realized what was going on. He looked pale and ill, but he was well enough to kiss Hermione thoroughly and hug his family. As Arthur and Hermione helped him to a chair, he told them of the battle at Beauxbatons, where he and Harry had been part of the group who’d infiltrated the castle and caught the dark wizards off-guard. Unfortunately, in the fighting he’d been hit with a rather nasty curse that had cut up his side quite badly. The healers in France had patched him up, but they’d recommended he get re-checked when he got home.
“I’ll take you to St. Mungo’s right now,” Hermione said, standing.
“What about Harry?” Molly asked.
“He wasn’t hurt, so he went to help the fight at the Ministry building,” Ron said. “I haven’t heard anything about them. I assume he’s still there.” He paused and looked at Calliope and Ginny. “I didn’t see Draco or Seamus,” he said. “I think they were at the Ministry building.” Both girls nodded. Ginny felt a strange blend of worry and relief wash over her- she still didn’t know where Draco was, but at least he hadn’t been hurt or killed at Beauxbatons.
As Hermione and Ron Apparated away to St. Mungo’s, the Weasleys and Calliope sat back down, but Ginny walked across the building to speak to one of the Ministry officials who had accompanied the injured on the crossing, a man she knew from his recent visit to St. Mungo’s. The building had emptied out somewhat as people found their loved ones and left with them, but there were still many there waiting. “Any casualties?” she asked the man.
He looked at her in surprise, then recognized her as a healer and shook his head. “But a few of ours were quite seriously hurt. They’re still over there.”
“Do we know what’s going on with the fight at the Ministry?”
He shrugged. “I believe they’re still fighting.”
Ginny nodded and returned to her family, and found herself once more waiting.
The time dragged on, and by nine-thirty Ginny was sure she was going to go mad if she didn’t get some news. Her constant state of worry was wearing on her nerves, and she stared at the ground and ordered herself not to cry.
And then she heard the sweetest sound she could imagine: “There are boats coming!” someone called from the window. As one, the whole group surged to its feet, waiting. After several interminable minutes, an Auror in tattered robes entered and quietly spoke to a Ministry official, who broke out into a smile.
The man pointed his wand at his throat, presumably to magnify his voice, and spoke. “It’s over,” he said, and cheers and gasps of relief broke out all through the crowd. “The dark wizards have been captured and our people are coming home.” As if on cue, the doors opened and tired-looking wizards poured in, their eyes searching the crowd to see if anyone was waiting for them. The sound in the room grew to a dull roar as its occupants laughed, cried, and shouted when they found their loved ones.
The building slowly emptied as the reunited families returned home. Within fifteen minutes, there was only a handful of people still waiting. Harry, Seamus and Draco had still not arrived, and Calliope looked so downcast that Ginny impulsively took her hand. “He’s coming home,” she said, and Calliope nodded, gripping Ginny’s hand so tightly that it hurt. But Ginny welcomed the pain; it gave her something to hold on to, something to ground her as she fought her own worry and terror.
Another twenty minutes passed, an endlessly long twenty minutes, before the another boat arrived and its occupants appeared.
“Seamus!” Calliope cried, and ran across the room to him. Her boyfriend, dirty and bruised but still smiling, caught her up in his arms and twirled her around, both of them laughing and crying as they held each other. Ginny smiled. Even though her own heart was still aching, she was glad that Seamus was back safely.
Harry came through the door then, looking around himself awkwardly, and when his eyes fell on the Weasleys his face lit up with pleasure and surprise; after so much time, it still surprised him that he had someone who cared about him that way. Arthur and Molly were across the room in an instant, and Ginny followed closely after, her eyes still on the door as she waited for Draco to walk through it. He never did, and in a few moments, she realized that Harry was the last member of that group.
When Molly and Arthur were done hugging Harry, Ginny hugged him as well, thinking all the while of how she’d been so annoyed with him a few months earlier. It was amazing how a crisis made people realize who was really important to them.
“Where’s Draco?” Harry asked as he pulled away from Ginny.
Ginny’s heart dropped into her stomach. “You don’t know?”
He shook his head. “I was with him at the Bâtiment d'Administration, but we got separated once we were inside. I assumed that he came back already. That was the last boat, and if he wasn’t on it . . .” He trailed off and looked at Ginny, apparently realizing too late how his words were affecting her.
She stared at him, her fingernails digging into her hands, too shocked even to cry. Maybe he was just hurt, she told herself, and the French healers had kept him there to make sure he was all right. Or maybe he’s dead, came an unwelcome thought, and she clenched her fists harder to keep her hands from shaking. She could hear people talking around her, and she assumed some of them were addressing her, but she couldn’t slow her mind down enough to make sense of the words. Draco was going to be all right- or was he dead? A picture suddenly flashed into her mind of her husband lying still and cold on a spiral staircase, and she was suddenly thankful that she’d never had any talent with Divination and had no reason to believe the vision might be real.
“You know,” Harry said, “he went there to help deal with the French Ministry. He’s probably just finishing up with them. I’m sure he’ll be along soon.”
Molly had taken her hand. “Yes, of course, that’s what happened.”
Ginny just shook her head. “Oh, Mum,” she whispered, and that was the last thing she said for quite some time.
The room slowly emptied around them until only the Weasleys and Harry remained. “Maybe I should go back,” Harry said a few minutes later. Molly and Arthur immediately began voicing their concerns, but Ginny, still in a dazed state, could only wonder at the fact that her eyes were still so dry. Maybe she was going crazy.
Harry walked to the door and the movement brought Ginny back to herself somewhat. She had just turned to look at her mother when Harry suddenly stuck his head back in the door. “Brooms!” he called, and Ginny tensed suddenly. She wanted to run outside, to see if it was Draco, but her feet refused to respond. So she stood still and had a sudden feeling that based on who came through that door, her heart would either start beating again or stop forever.
In a few moments the door opened and Harry came through followed by three men, all looking tired and battered. The third was Draco, dirty and bandaged.
He looked up and his eyes, full of longing, met Ginny’s. They stared at each other for a long moment across the room, and then Ginny’s legs gave out, the result of a mix of fatigue and sudden, light-headed relief. She fell into the chair behind her, put her head down, and began to cry.
Draco was there in an instant, kneeling on the ground before her, forcing her to look at him. “Ginny,” he whispered, and his voice was like a prayer, “Ginny, please come home. I don’t want to live without you anymore. I love you too much.”
Ginny wondered for a moment if she was dreaming. But no, he was there before her, real and warm and pleading. She looked up at him, into his eyes, and she knew he meant every word. He looked anxious, waiting for her answer, and when she smiled he smiled back.
He wrapped her in a tight embrace, and with a pop they were back at Malfoy Manor- back home, Ginny thought- in the front hall she’d never thought to see again. But she didn’t have much time to reflect because he was brushing his fingers gently over her face, looking down at her as though he was afraid she’d disappear if he looked away. Then he dipped his head toward hers and carefully, finally, kissed her. It left her breathlessly smiling, and when he pulled away she looked at him earnestly.
“I love you,” she said.
“Good answer,” he said.
And Bernard the house elf, unnoticed in the corner where he’d been dusting, smiled. “It’s about time.”
. . . . . .
Leave a Review