Disclaimer: Nope, I don't happen to own anything of the Potterverse; however, I do own (part of) the plot, as well as the character Timothy Groan, as much as he is inspired by Mervyn Peake's character Stillingfleet, from the Gormenghast trilogy.
Prologue
With a start he wakes up, panting, the first rays of sunlight of the morning of the first of June filtering through the threads of thick fabric hanging over his bed. Something sharp is in his mouth: a terrible, specific sense of unease.
Ron Weasley slowly lowers himself back into his bed, the softness against his body providing no comfort. Wincing a little, he shifts to his side; thankfully Groan had caught him, just in time, or else –
Turning his head into his pillow, he already knows that something will happen.
~
Chapter One: A Gathering of Heirs
1st June, 1997
Her room is where the magic of the protective wards are weakest. They do not know why, having only ghost-like suspicions which they wave away, half-annoyed and half-afraid, like they would wisps of frost and long-drawn breath in frigid winter air. But anyhow, they do not tell her.
But one evening on the first of June, the last red tendrils of English sunshine curling slowly away from the expanse of idyllic English countryside, it is due to this inexplicable fact that someone has managed to deliver his charge into the room.
This room, the smallest in the house, has always been a beautiful one, despite its modest furnishing and proportions. Shaped curiously like a quadrant with the curved side adorned with quiet, understated windows, it catches the first rays of morning light, and allows the turning of autumn to be viewed in its rawest red and gold.
When Severus Snape quietly leaves his unconscious charge on the bed in the corner of the room, devoid of its owner who is still blissfully away, in another universe which Hogwarts now belongs to (in his eyes at least, bloodshot and wary), even he stops for a while, knowing somehow why this room would be hers, and there is a wearied quirk to his lips as he ponders the irony of Draco Malfoy being here.
Lying here, defenseless and vulnerable, in Ginny Weasley’s room.
~
As Draco Malfoy lies on Ginny Weasley’s bed, his silver-white hair spread out like a halo beneath his head, the fifteen-year-old Heir of the House of Groan, having saved the life of Ronald Weasley days before, is already moving.
Having sent his Muggle uncle and his steward away, he dismisses the remainder of the household with an efficiency which belies his years.
Finally, as he picks up his bags, moving – for he always moves in a half-walk, half-run that cannot be so simply understood as either action - towards the highest balcony, jutting out from the Tower of Stones, he allows himself a smile.
It is time to collect the debts owed to the Noble House of Groan.
~
He wakes up, and a curtain of long red hair is the first thing he sees.
‘…just left him to die…’
‘Snape must have left him here…’
‘Why?’
‘…his mother’s left, they say…’
‘No protection left…’
The somewhat sinisterly familiar voices weave in and out. The sudden light hurts his eyes, but a blink later, the blurs of people swim into view.
Potter, of course. His eyes seem intent on looking at the ceiling, facial muscles drawn tight. The two Weasleys, with the youngest Weasley nearest to him, her hair falling in front of him, face turned away, hidden. The other Weasley looks uncomfortable, and for once the blank expression seems to have left his face, and instead there is some sort of tragic concentration in it – he studies some obscure feature about the place, not looking at anyone in particular. Granger and the Weasleys’ parents. McGonagall. Even, to his mild surprise, Lupin, the werewolf professor.
As if everything that had happened was not enough of a nightmare.
A sigh escapes his lips. Ginny Weasley immediately turns around, and, in a concerted effort to state the obvious, says, ‘He’s awake!’
He tries to sneer at her, if not for the fact that there is no pity in her light amber eyes. Instead they are just wide, with dark grey circles under them, as if she hasn’t had enough sleep for a long time. The sight strangles the words in his dry throat, and he can only stare at her, dumbly, and for the world of him he cannot explain why it distracts him so from what he has just escaped from.
The room is curiously bright, and he realises that a full section of it consists of floor-length windows. There is something intimate about the room -
Wincing, he finally finds his voice. ‘Where am I?’ He sounds harsh, his voice scratching and clawing its way out of his throat. And then, as the implication of his companions finally struck home, a suspicious ‘I didn’t do anything that you can prove.’
He isn’t protecting anyone else. He is just speaking for himself.
It almost makes him feel light-headed.
Finally, a snort from the older Weasley, and ironically enough, the world seems strangely less lopsided now because of his action. Not everything is wrong.
It’s just that, a voice in his head says mockingly, a lot of things are.
‘Can you remember how you got here, Malfoy?’ asks McGonagall, and in a spurt of annoyance at her evading his question with a question he tries, in one swift action, to get up, but yowls when the pain shoots through his body, a ruthless reminder.
His sleeve. It feels dry, he thinks, breathing shallowly, until he turns his head and realises that the only reason it feels dry is because the blood has long since congealed and hardened on the material.
‘I wouldn’t move too much, if I were you,’ remarks McGonagall, but the acerbic edge to a voice is not there, replaced by something softer in quality. He flinches.
‘I don’t need your pathetic pity,’ he hisses, his eyes fixed on the sleeve.
‘We don’t need a lot of things in life, Malfoy,’ comes a voice, and he is almost startled to realise that its owner is Ginny Weasley. ‘But it isn’t as if we’ve got a choice.’
‘Ginny…’ admonishes her mother, and she in turn turns her full gaze onto him, a heavy, motherly gaze which he draws away from, unable to bear it. ‘We’d better see to your injuries, first.’ She smiles, and her eyes are over bright. Her voice is warm. He hates her already.
‘He needs nothing,’ comes Potter’s voice, quiet with hatred. Draco whips around, this time barely registering the shock of pain, to return the other boy’s steady, unwelcoming gaze. It makes him feel suddenly and recklessly awake. ‘He only needs to be killed by his very own Dark Lord.’
The last words were barely a hiss, and at them Draco freezes, retorts stolen from his mind. And then, before anyone can move, Potter turns on his heel and stalks off.
‘Harry!’ calls Lupin, after him, and he gets up, hastily, going after the idiot, and the action pulls Draco out of his trance.
‘Where am I?’ Draco asks again.
‘In. My. Room,’ replies Ginny Weasley, enunciating each word clearly and bitterly, and he dearly wants to slap her, to shake her and scream at her, to tell her that he hates her as much as she hates him. ‘Seems like someone got kicked out of Tom’s inner circle.’
Something changes in the room at this point; even Draco notices this, as he ponders, wildly, who Tom is, before dimly remembering, and becoming wakefully afraid, and angrily so, although he doesn’t know exactly why. He clenches his left fist. Ronald Weasley shifts uncomfortably, and glances at the mudblood Granger, who looks worriedly at Ginny Weasley. The adults look away. Adults always do.
So instead he smiles at Ginny Weasley, a cruel, knowing smile, and asks, ‘And you would know about that, wouldn’t you, sweet Ginevra?’
Her eyes, for the first time since the year before in Umbridge’s office, are intent on him, narrowing, and for that instant he is almost pleased with himself.
But she leans forward, hand reaching towards him, and in a singular motion tears his sleeve off.
‘Non serviam,’ she reads, and the fluster of motion from the others stops suddenly. Everyone stares. ‘“I will not be a slave,”’ she pauses here, then, almost in a whisper, ‘A slave to whose will?’ She raises her eyes to his, unwavering, before bending down again. ‘He wrote it in his handwriting,’ she continues abruptly, and he stares, unable to move, as slowly but surely, a tentative finger traces the thin cursive words cut into his flesh, its touch so light he barely feels the pain beneath the caked blood. The expression on her face is almost soft, the facial muscles relaxed. Then the words come out in a torrent, bruising and quick. ‘Did he tell you that he would have loved you, if he weren’t who he is, and you weren’t who you are? Did he ask you if you liked to hear that? Did he laugh?’
‘Ginny,’ comes another voice, an awkward, upset one; Ronald Weasley’s voice. ‘It isn’t Riddle anymore. It’s – it’s Voldemort,’ he pauses, looking very deadly pale and scared, ‘don’t let Malfoy get to you, now. It’s not Riddle.’
‘I know,’ his sister replies, and there is a trace of irritation in her voice. Finally she removes her hand away from him, and Draco lets out a breath he hadn’t known he had held. ‘I know it isn’t; it’s just something Tom would have done.’
Granger looks quickly, sharply at her.
‘Poppy is coming,’ McGonagall speaks, her voice stiff, ‘Poppy’s coming, and then we’ll see exactly what kind of hurt has been inflicted on the boy.’
Ginny Weasley looks away, and Draco knows, suddenly, what she is thinking.
When she turns around again, he almost thinks she is smiling at him, a smile as cruel as his own.
~
‘Harry,’ she says, and he looks up, self-consciously brushing another stray lock of black hair away from his face. Her face is strangely hard in the darkness, without enough light to bring out the softness of her cheeks. ‘Ron said you wanted to talk to me?’
‘Yes,’ he nods, then, frowning a little, asks, ‘Are you alright?’
Ron has told him about how she repeatedly spoke of Riddle in her room, an hour earlier. Malfoy has been shifted to another room by now; he is still sleeping, sedate and dreamless with the aid of potions Harry doesn’t believe he deserves. Malfoy deserves nothing.
Ron has told him what Voldemort has written on Malfoy’s arm. A war cry: Non serviam. Hermione has said that these were the words Lucifer whispered when he fell, believing himself not to be the subordinate of his Creator.
An example is what Malfoy has been reduced to. Harry almost smiles, cruelly, at this. But Harry isn’t cruel. So instead of smiling, he just keeps quiet, letting his anger bide its time.
‘I’m fine,’ she replies, but her face is thoughtful, facing away from him into the distance beside him, beyond the window which he is next to. ‘It’s just…’
‘It’s just what?’
‘It’s just…’ she trails off, and her eyes close, abruptly, briefly, before opening again. She still doesn’t look at him. ‘Bill and Phlegm’s wedding is this weekend. School has only ended for half a day, really, and already…already so many things have happened.’
‘You mean Malfoy’s happened,’ states Harry dryly, and idly he knows there is something she isn’t telling him, but he is too spent with the day’s anger and bitterness to be able to rally any effort to push further. ‘And the attacks on the muggleborns’ families have happened. Don’t worry, Ginny, everyone’s been brought to Hogwarts, and everyone is safe, even the Dursleys are, cooped up in Hogwarts…’
‘Hogwarts isn’t safe, I thought you would know that,’ she cuts in, her voice soft and her words fast, almost tripping over each other. ‘They haven’t found Groan, the Slytherin Prefect from my year, and his Muggle uncle,’ she adds.
Harry sighs. ‘I thought everyone would know that Hogwarts isn’t safe, Ginny,’ he replies, conceding defeat, admitting in his words that he has been patronizing. ‘But it’s the safest place now; the safest place to house so many people. And Groan and his uncle…well, they haven’t found their bodies, and anyway at least we know that Groan had had the time to dismiss an entire household of servants before disappearing, if that’s a good sign. And he’s in Slytherin…’ He trails off, and reaches over and tugs at one long red lock of hair, which falls straight until its last inch, where it pulls into a curl.
‘Harry,’ she says, and this time her voice is flat. He looks up, startled at the sound. ‘Stop doing that.’
‘Doing…’
‘That,’ she says, and a note of agitation has crept into her voice, ‘Whatever it is you’re doing to my hair.’
Shocked, he lets go of the lock, and it slips away between his fingers. ‘Ginny, I…’
‘You said it’s over,’ and she finally faces him, ‘you said it’s over, at least until you’ve done what you must. Then you’d better make sure you keep to your own word, Harry James Potter, because I’m not someone you can come back to as and when you like it.’
He has never seen her angry before, at least not at him, and here she is, voice quiet and hard. ‘I didn’t mean that,’ he finally says, shaking his head, then, more fervently, ‘I didn’t mean it that…’
‘I don’t care and don’t want to know what you meant,’ she interrupts, again, but this time there is for some reason a heavy note of tiredness in her tone. She shifts away, getting up, leaving him. ‘I’m going to bed, Harry, and you’d better go to bed soon too. We still have to settle Malfoy tomorrow. I heard McGonagall asking Pomfrey if there’s any way they can extract information or memories from him, without hurting him. Although why she should care whether or not he gets hurt is beyond me,’ Ginny pauses, and Harry is struck again by how hard her face seems without there being enough light to soften it. Her next words tumble out of her, like a flood coming from behind a broken dam. ‘I hope he gets hurt; I hope he gets as hurt as – ’
‘Ginny,’ he whispers, and is shocked by how uncertain his own voice is. ‘Ginny, stop it. He’s not worth it.’
A long gap of silence hangs over them. Then, finally, she nods, and begins to walk away, saying, ‘He’s not worth it; you’re right.’ Then, repeating, ‘He’s not worth it.’
One day, when Harry remembers this conversation, he finally thinks to wonder who she was really referring to.
~
2nd June, 1997
‘He’ll never need to know,’ Hermione whispers into her ear, and the words she neglects to speak hangs low over the two of them, like a monsoon cloud threatening to break: he’ll never need to know, if only you don’t say a word, Ginny; if only you don’t say a word, he’ll look at you and one day he’ll smile, memory coloured with the dyes of years, and he’ll thank you for this year, he’ll love you still.
Ginny looks away, turning so that Draco Malfoy’s body, white and calmly breathing, is closer to her, and oddly enough she is thankful for his being here, despite her words to Harry in the early hours of this morning; she feels safe in the presence of something so strangely white and still. Hermione’s presence weighs heavily over her, her voice and her scent and her hair all over the place, intrusive, and Ginny wishes she would shut up, shut up, shut up. Go away.
‘What are we doing here, anyway?’ Hermione asks, and anxiously she rubs her hands about her arms as if she is cold, even though this is June, and summer kisses the windows.
‘I thought you’ll leave me alone if I came here,’ replies Ginny, cruelly but almost absent-mindedly, remembering what Hermione has done. She doesn’t turn around, knowing already that Hermione flinches at this.
‘You agreed to it eventually,’ she whispers, ‘you were happy.’
‘I was,’ Ginny concedes, and her heart wants to relent. She misses Hermione; the smiles and the girlish support and the heady confidence when she confides in her. ‘And I know you were just – trying to help…’
‘Yes, yes…’
‘But you didn’t,’ Ginny interrupts her, firmly, ‘It’s gotten worse than ever before. I can’t look at him; just looking at him disgusts me. It’s – it’s so much like what – what Tom did. I can’t believe I didn’t see that before.’
The last words are spoken almost in a slow, horrified wonderment. Hermione blanches, reaches out towards Ginny, but the smaller girl pulls away before she touches her.
‘Ginny, Ginny, it isn’t; and Riddle did it because he wanted to kill Harry, not because he wanted to help him – and, and anyway, it wasn’t Dark magic; I would never…Ginny,’ Hermione’s words fall over themselves and Ginny stares at her, at the frightened face stripped of its usual seeming assurance. ‘I would never, never, never hurt Harry.’
Abruptly, almost as if she hasn’t been listening to Hermione, Ginny speaks, ‘I can’t look at him, Hermione, and I can’t let him touch me…’
‘It’ll be alright, it’ll be alright,’ Hermione says frantically, never listening, ‘Ginny, he’ll be alright.’
‘No – no he won’t be, and Hermione – what about me?’ Ginny asks, and the two girls face each other.
‘Ginny…’
But before Hermione can speak, Draco Malfoy opens his eyes, and, almost as if she senses this already, Ginny Weasley turns back to greet the sight.
~
Draco wakes up, and with the potions still holding his senses in thrall, a half-formed emotion from a suppressed dream just escapes the vaguely-roused tendrils of his mind.
‘You’re awake,’ comes a voice. He blinks, and a curtain of red hair swims into view, and for a beat he almost sees an eleven-year-old girl with dark blue eyes – but only for a beat. Then it is light brown eyes, flinted and hooded in the morning June sun.
‘Weasley,’ he replies, but there is hardly a weak thread of bitterness in his voice. Numbness holds his mind in a whiteness strangely devoid of feeling. ‘McGonagall…’
‘She should be coming with Pomfrey soon,’ replies Weasley, voice with nary an inflection, ‘There’re other things that need to be attended to in Hogwarts.’
‘So he did it then,’ he remarks, and he almost forgets to wonder at how this conversation seems to actually be progressing.
‘Tom would always have done it,’ nods Weasley, ‘and he’ll do more.’
‘Ginny, don’t…’ another voice enters, and breaks the spell. ‘Ginny, come on, we should tell the others that he’s awake…’
‘You go,’ Weasley replies almost quickly, almost gratefully, ‘I’ll stay.’
‘Ginny!’ Granger expostulates, her voice going up by an octave. ‘Honestly, what is wrong with you?’ Her voice becomes suddenly frantic now, abruptly lowering to a hiss. ‘I’ve only done all this for everyone’s good, and you should stop talking about Riddle as if he – well, because he isn’t, and Malfoy, well, Malfoy – he’s…’
‘I know, I know, Hermione, which is why I can’t talk to any of you right now; we’ve both of us talked too much to each other. I’ve said too much. We can always talk later, but we won’t stop unless I stop seeing you around for a while,’ Weasley’s speech is comes in staccato beats, short and sharp, and Draco almost narrows his eyes, vaguely wondering, as she continues, ‘So go. And hurry, Hermione, and bring all of them with you, but don’t talk to him, please don’t; you won’t be able to now without – being strange.’
Finally Granger nods, and, looking pale, hurries out of the room.
‘McGonagall put up wards around the room; you can’t move your arms or legs until she lifts them,’ Weasley says cleanly without preamble, just as the door closes softly behind Granger.
‘I figured,’ he replies, and is almost surprised that it comes out dryly.
‘I would say I’m sorry if I were to care, and if I were to think you’ll believe me,’ she says, in her mercurial fashion, all brilliant red and burnished gold like he remembers, in swimming, unfocussed technicolour memory, and there is no pity in her eyes.
‘I would believe you,’ he answers almost heavily, not wanting to care about the former clause in her speech, and instead focusing on the latter. ‘You’ve never lied to me before.’
‘We’ve never talked much. We don’t happen to like each other. I might in fact hate you, considering what your father…’ she mentions him without pausing, without looking at Draco, and continues easily, ‘…did in my first year, and considering that you let him do it, and considering all the other things that you have done to us Weasleys, collectively or separately,’ she says, tone and intonation still clean and light, like a sharp summer wind, ‘Even though admittedly, you’ve never insulted me as much as you did others. Is that a sign of friendship and trust, Malfoy?’
He almost smiles. ‘Not quite, I suppose. But you don’t lie for – such purposes.’
‘How do you know?’
‘You don’t. You’ve always told them about Tom Riddle, haven’t you, and nobody’s ever listened.’ He watches her; he realizes that in this state of numbness he is thankful at the distraction that is her. ‘You’ve always had diarrhea of the mouth.’
‘If you’ve realized and somehow listened, then why did you do what you did then, Malfoy?’ she leans forward. There is a strange gold glint to her eyes, too light to be called brown, really. ‘What did he do to you?’
‘I don’t know anymore, for the former. As for the latter question, he wanted me dead. I don’t know why I’m not,’ he says, quickly, frankly, calmly, ‘and honestly like you I’ve always had diarrhea of the mouth, too.’
‘I know,’ she smiles, this time, ‘that’s how I got to hex you in your fifth year.’
‘That was painful,’ he admits, almost freely, and wonders suddenly whether he should count the seconds this conversation lasts, so that he can remember it more factually later.
Weasley’s eyes are a light yet burnished gold.
Then the door opens and Weasley turns around, quickly, and away from him, and they enter the room, with Potter leading, and suddenly the numbness loses its hold, and the words leave him and only the pain is left.
~
When they finally get Malfoy to speak, it is only through Veritaserum. Harry frowns; having come close to the door first, he knows he had heard Malfoy’s voice, the thin inflection dying just as his hand turned the knob.
‘Ginny, can I come in?’ he asks, still mulling over Malfoy’s words, Malfoy’s actions, still letting his anger brew within himself, quietly and hotly. He raps on the door, slightly ajar. ‘Ginny?’
‘Harry, I…’
But Harry has already entered the threshold, and he stops as Ginny pulls a swath of material about her, heavy and white. ‘What’s that?’ he asks, pointing.
‘I thought I told you not to come in,’ Ginny says in answer, and her forehead is creased. Unheeding, Harry walks over, his slight, lanky frame folding easily into a cross-legged position on the floor next to her.
‘You didn’t manage to say so,’ he says, softly, ‘and anyway, Ginny, how come you’re so irritable?’
‘It’s the bridesmaid dress Phlegm ordered,’ replies Ginny, still not looking at him.
‘Gin…’ Harry feels the edge of something starting to spill over onto his control. ‘What’s gotten into you?’
‘Well, the fact that I found Malfoy lying on my bed…’ begins Ginny, but Harry stops her, his hand reaching out, slender fingers circling around her arm. She looks very nearly beautiful like this, her hair undone and in long, loose waves, the sunlight from the windows kissing it and seeming to set it ablaze. Something clenches around Harry’s heart, and he shakes his head.
‘Ginny, it’s not just Malfoy, is it? Are you angry with me? Because of my breaking up with you – Ginny, I’m not breaking up with you, not really, it’s just that…’
‘Harry,’ Ginny interrupts, and there is a strange look on her face, ‘not everything’s about you.’
‘I know,’ Harry finally snaps, ‘But you’ve been this way since I came here ‘cos the Dursleys were deposited at Hogwarts…’
‘Well then, it’s not all about you,’ Ginny retorts, and the sharpness of her tone almost causes Harry to flinch, but he doesn’t loosen his grip on her. Her eyes finally meet his, a murky brown, seeming incongruous on her white, small face.
‘I’m not angry with you, Harry,’ Ginny finally says, softly and heavily, ‘it’s just – there’re a lot of things happening now, and…’
‘You can talk to me about it,’ Harry whispers, leaning his head towards hers, adjusting slightly until his cheek is pressed against hers. ‘Gin, I really do…’
‘I know,’ Ginny says quickly, ‘I know.’
‘Is it Riddle? Do you – do you still have nightmares about him? Is that why you were so bothered about Malfoy’s arm?’ Harry asks, pulling back, before placing his other hand on her shoulder, feeling the hard shoulder blade clearly beneath the thin cotton of her shirt. She continues to return his gaze steadily, but he doesn’t remember, really, her eyes being such a shade of brown. A gap of silence falls between them.
‘Harry,’ she says finally, and there is a quirk to her lips, and he realizes that she is smiling – a dry, thin smile devoid of mirth.
Suddenly his mouth feels very dry, and he knows he doesn’t want to hear her next words.
He leans forward, and presses his lips on hers.
~
Ron remembers when Ginny first returned home, that year when the Chamber opened. He refuses to remember it as the year when Ginny opened the Chamber.
He would count to a hundred, quickly and softly, listening to the screams from the room next to his, something twisting within him, and then the footsteps, heavier and older, and when he finally reaches a hundred, he would climb out of his bed, feet cold on the floor despite the June warmth, and grope his way blindly into her room.
He remembers just how the moonlight floods into her room, viscous and accusing, and once he had whispered, holding tightly onto her hand as she sobbed, gaspingly, ‘Should I stay with her, mum – just in case, well, just in case things come…’
A quick, fierce look from his mother had censured him from continuing.
And he remembers the mornings, strangely cold for June, when Ginny stirred the cold milk in her bowl of cornflakes: thrice clockwise, thrice counter-clockwise, again and again, until the milk turned yellow and Ron would reach over, clumsily and hurriedly, and stop her.
But Ginny seems alright, his mother would say, Ginny is alright, look, she’s talking as always, and she’s well-behaved, and she’s…
And she’s brushing her hair straight, over and over again at night in front of her mirror, Ron remembers thinking, just unlike how she once told you she was too tired at night to do so. And she’s brushing her hair, and telling me about things Riddle said, clever things, and funny things.
Looking into the same mirror as he stands behind her now, Ron remembers that he had thought, even then, that Ginny is beautiful, really, in a quiet, pure way; she is beautiful in a manner that is so polite, you don’t realize it until you watch her, just as Ron remembers he had, that summer. Her skin is fair, not pale, her hair a rich, heavy red, her lips small and shell-pink. Her eyes are gold. As Ron grows older, and begins to see other girls – Fleur Delacour, his future sister-in-law, and her sister, Gabrielle, Cho Chang, Lavender Brown, Parvati and Padma Patil – with the kind of beauty that is immediate and straightforward; he cannot help reacting to it. But even so, cloudily, Ron always knows that Ginny is just as beautiful; he acknowledges with that mixture of pride and reluctance that only a brother would know.
‘How do I look, Ron?’ Ginny asks, shifting a little in her bridesmaid’s dress, which she has mumbled earlier about being made of cotton overlaid with some kind of expensive lace; it is a simple dress, white and sleeveless and with a lightly pleated, slightly flaring skirt.
Beautiful, Ron thinks, but instead answers, ‘Alright, good,’ nodding as he does so. Ginny catches his eye and smiles, knowing him well enough. ‘C’mon Ron, you’re so stingy. Bill and Charlie would’ve told me the truth.’
‘And you’re very sure of yourself, aren’t you?’ replies Ron, grinning, before continuing, his eyes half-closed as the sunlight shifts and filters more strongly into the room, ‘I’m sure Harry’ll like it.’
He studies her almost lazily beneath his lashes, watching as the smile drops clearly from his sister’s face.
‘What did Harry say to you?’ demands Ginny. She does not turn around; her eyes meet his in the mirror.
‘He didn’t say anything, Gin; I’m not so very thick that I can’t see what’s going on in front of me,’ Ron pauses, ‘What did you do, Gin?’
Something stills within her, and in the mirror she is suddenly seems static, although she had not been moving all this time.
‘I didn’t do anything.’ Her words are quick.
‘You’re guilty,’ accuses Ron, but not roughly. ‘You wouldn’t have been talking so much about Riddle otherwise.’
‘What do you…?’
‘I remember the summer after your first year, Gin; you kept saying things about him, you wouldn’t stop,’ Ron says, and he hears a thread of desperation in his voice, now. ‘Harry didn’t need to say anything – Harry doesn’t understand, does he? And this isn’t about Malfoy, as much as he’ll rather talk to you than the rest of us…’
‘How did you know?’
‘Harry told me that, at least,’ Ron concedes. ‘Ginny,’ he coaxes, turning her around, ‘Tell me, and I’ll do whatever I can. This time, I promise.’
Ginny closes her eyes, before they flutter open again. She looks up, and Ron, not for the first time, realizes how much smaller she seems compared to himself. Her tone is quiet as she speaks. ‘I didn’t do it, Ron. But I can’t tell you what it is about, either. Not yet, anyway.’
Ron nods, slowly, uncomprehending her words but strangely accepting of it. She will tell him sooner or later – she will. At least – at least now she knows that he wants to listen to her.
Slowly, slowly, he pulls her towards him, and when he embraces her he remembers as he had that night, how small and how frightened she must be.
And then he pulls away, kissing her on the forehead, and heads to the kitchen, the sense that something is coming awaking vaguely in his conscience, even as he slowly descends the stairs towards his mother’s kitchen, with the warm smells of food and home emanating from it.
~
I shut my eyes and the world drops dead/ (I think I made you up inside my head)
Ginny fingers the penciled writing on the wall behind Draco Malfoy’s bed – Percy’s bed, really, but now only Draco Malfoy is on it, so it was of his ownership, however temporarily and however unwittingly – and recognizes it; it is by a Muggle poet, a tragic Muggle poet, who put her head into an oven, slowly and calmly, and killed herself.
‘Sylvia Plath,’ drawls a voice, invading into her thoughts. She turns around to face him; Malfoy is upright against the headboard of the bed, in Percy’s pajamas, the cuffs reaching over his wrists by half an inch. ‘I read the quote just now; it’s from one of her poems.’
‘Mad Girl’s Love Song,’ nods Ginny, ‘I didn’t know you liked Muggle poets.’
‘I don’t,’ replies Malfoy, managing to inject disgust and dislike and so many other unpleasant things into his voice as he does so. ‘I read it somewhere, that’s all.’
Ginny can tell him that it does say something that Malfoy should read a Muggle poet’s work anywhere, but instead doesn’t, knowing suddenly that he can ask her, as well, why she should know so clearly where the quote comes from, and so she asks, ‘What does it feel like, Malfoy, to take Veritaserum?’
‘Why don’t you ask me what it feels like to know that your father is dead, and that your mother has probably gone in that direction, too?’ replies Malfoy, softly, but there is a dense lick of anger in his tone, and Ginny recognizes it all too well.
She doesn’t care for it. She opens her mouth, recklessly, to say something, but he is too fast for her.
‘Why are you here anyway, Weasley?’ he asks. The bruises about his face have long faded, but the shadows remain. ‘Why aren’t you with Saint Potter?’ He leans forward, his face inches from hers, and she feels her control slipping away, the anger at Harry, at herself, at him, threatening to reveal itself. ‘I can’t tell you much about your Tom, if that’s what you want. He’s ugly; he isn’t what you would know.’
‘Not everything is about Harry, not everything is about Tom, and not everything is about you,’ retorts Ginny, not backing down. This close, his skin seems almost white, his hair silver – the colour of early morning virgin snow.
‘But everything is about you and all of us combined, isn’t it, Weasley, and that’s why you’ve come here to avoid everyone else,’ drawls Malfoy, and amazingly, she sees a ghost of a smirk flit about his face. She knows his silence is his display of grief; she knows it hasn’t really sunk in yet. She has seen him cry before, returning from Astronomy class with Groan, with Myrtle hovering him. ‘We’re an expert at losing friends and alienating people, aren’t we, Weasley?’
Back stiffening, she doesn’t dignify him with an answer, and instead leaves without a word, walking down to her mother’s kitchen, where Ron has already settled himself into a chair.
~
The family, Harry, Hermione and Fleur Delacour are gathered about the table when they hear the cough from the living room.
For a moment everyone freezes; then, in a flurry of movement, Mr. Weasley crosses over the threshold between the two sections of the first floor of the Burrow, his wand before him – and then stops.
Before the fireplace, a tall, slender figure stands, bags around his feet. There is an English politeness about his short, sand-coloured hair, and his incongruous, violent-shaded eyes are almost too close together as he looks up at Mr. Weasley, but even the Weasley patriarch senses the sharp sensuality and potency that is the boy, and which cannot be diminished by the dust and the fading sunlight.
The boy smiles.
‘Mr. Weasley,’ he says, ‘My name is Timothy, of the Noble House of Groan.’
~
Prologue
With a start he wakes up, panting, the first rays of sunlight of the morning of the first of June filtering through the threads of thick fabric hanging over his bed. Something sharp is in his mouth: a terrible, specific sense of unease.
Ron Weasley slowly lowers himself back into his bed, the softness against his body providing no comfort. Wincing a little, he shifts to his side; thankfully Groan had caught him, just in time, or else –
Turning his head into his pillow, he already knows that something will happen.
~
Chapter One: A Gathering of Heirs
1st June, 1997
Her room is where the magic of the protective wards are weakest. They do not know why, having only ghost-like suspicions which they wave away, half-annoyed and half-afraid, like they would wisps of frost and long-drawn breath in frigid winter air. But anyhow, they do not tell her.
But one evening on the first of June, the last red tendrils of English sunshine curling slowly away from the expanse of idyllic English countryside, it is due to this inexplicable fact that someone has managed to deliver his charge into the room.
This room, the smallest in the house, has always been a beautiful one, despite its modest furnishing and proportions. Shaped curiously like a quadrant with the curved side adorned with quiet, understated windows, it catches the first rays of morning light, and allows the turning of autumn to be viewed in its rawest red and gold.
When Severus Snape quietly leaves his unconscious charge on the bed in the corner of the room, devoid of its owner who is still blissfully away, in another universe which Hogwarts now belongs to (in his eyes at least, bloodshot and wary), even he stops for a while, knowing somehow why this room would be hers, and there is a wearied quirk to his lips as he ponders the irony of Draco Malfoy being here.
Lying here, defenseless and vulnerable, in Ginny Weasley’s room.
~
As Draco Malfoy lies on Ginny Weasley’s bed, his silver-white hair spread out like a halo beneath his head, the fifteen-year-old Heir of the House of Groan, having saved the life of Ronald Weasley days before, is already moving.
Having sent his Muggle uncle and his steward away, he dismisses the remainder of the household with an efficiency which belies his years.
Finally, as he picks up his bags, moving – for he always moves in a half-walk, half-run that cannot be so simply understood as either action - towards the highest balcony, jutting out from the Tower of Stones, he allows himself a smile.
It is time to collect the debts owed to the Noble House of Groan.
~
He wakes up, and a curtain of long red hair is the first thing he sees.
‘…just left him to die…’
‘Snape must have left him here…’
‘Why?’
‘…his mother’s left, they say…’
‘No protection left…’
The somewhat sinisterly familiar voices weave in and out. The sudden light hurts his eyes, but a blink later, the blurs of people swim into view.
Potter, of course. His eyes seem intent on looking at the ceiling, facial muscles drawn tight. The two Weasleys, with the youngest Weasley nearest to him, her hair falling in front of him, face turned away, hidden. The other Weasley looks uncomfortable, and for once the blank expression seems to have left his face, and instead there is some sort of tragic concentration in it – he studies some obscure feature about the place, not looking at anyone in particular. Granger and the Weasleys’ parents. McGonagall. Even, to his mild surprise, Lupin, the werewolf professor.
As if everything that had happened was not enough of a nightmare.
A sigh escapes his lips. Ginny Weasley immediately turns around, and, in a concerted effort to state the obvious, says, ‘He’s awake!’
He tries to sneer at her, if not for the fact that there is no pity in her light amber eyes. Instead they are just wide, with dark grey circles under them, as if she hasn’t had enough sleep for a long time. The sight strangles the words in his dry throat, and he can only stare at her, dumbly, and for the world of him he cannot explain why it distracts him so from what he has just escaped from.
The room is curiously bright, and he realises that a full section of it consists of floor-length windows. There is something intimate about the room -
Wincing, he finally finds his voice. ‘Where am I?’ He sounds harsh, his voice scratching and clawing its way out of his throat. And then, as the implication of his companions finally struck home, a suspicious ‘I didn’t do anything that you can prove.’
He isn’t protecting anyone else. He is just speaking for himself.
It almost makes him feel light-headed.
Finally, a snort from the older Weasley, and ironically enough, the world seems strangely less lopsided now because of his action. Not everything is wrong.
It’s just that, a voice in his head says mockingly, a lot of things are.
‘Can you remember how you got here, Malfoy?’ asks McGonagall, and in a spurt of annoyance at her evading his question with a question he tries, in one swift action, to get up, but yowls when the pain shoots through his body, a ruthless reminder.
His sleeve. It feels dry, he thinks, breathing shallowly, until he turns his head and realises that the only reason it feels dry is because the blood has long since congealed and hardened on the material.
‘I wouldn’t move too much, if I were you,’ remarks McGonagall, but the acerbic edge to a voice is not there, replaced by something softer in quality. He flinches.
‘I don’t need your pathetic pity,’ he hisses, his eyes fixed on the sleeve.
‘We don’t need a lot of things in life, Malfoy,’ comes a voice, and he is almost startled to realise that its owner is Ginny Weasley. ‘But it isn’t as if we’ve got a choice.’
‘Ginny…’ admonishes her mother, and she in turn turns her full gaze onto him, a heavy, motherly gaze which he draws away from, unable to bear it. ‘We’d better see to your injuries, first.’ She smiles, and her eyes are over bright. Her voice is warm. He hates her already.
‘He needs nothing,’ comes Potter’s voice, quiet with hatred. Draco whips around, this time barely registering the shock of pain, to return the other boy’s steady, unwelcoming gaze. It makes him feel suddenly and recklessly awake. ‘He only needs to be killed by his very own Dark Lord.’
The last words were barely a hiss, and at them Draco freezes, retorts stolen from his mind. And then, before anyone can move, Potter turns on his heel and stalks off.
‘Harry!’ calls Lupin, after him, and he gets up, hastily, going after the idiot, and the action pulls Draco out of his trance.
‘Where am I?’ Draco asks again.
‘In. My. Room,’ replies Ginny Weasley, enunciating each word clearly and bitterly, and he dearly wants to slap her, to shake her and scream at her, to tell her that he hates her as much as she hates him. ‘Seems like someone got kicked out of Tom’s inner circle.’
Something changes in the room at this point; even Draco notices this, as he ponders, wildly, who Tom is, before dimly remembering, and becoming wakefully afraid, and angrily so, although he doesn’t know exactly why. He clenches his left fist. Ronald Weasley shifts uncomfortably, and glances at the mudblood Granger, who looks worriedly at Ginny Weasley. The adults look away. Adults always do.
So instead he smiles at Ginny Weasley, a cruel, knowing smile, and asks, ‘And you would know about that, wouldn’t you, sweet Ginevra?’
Her eyes, for the first time since the year before in Umbridge’s office, are intent on him, narrowing, and for that instant he is almost pleased with himself.
But she leans forward, hand reaching towards him, and in a singular motion tears his sleeve off.
‘Non serviam,’ she reads, and the fluster of motion from the others stops suddenly. Everyone stares. ‘“I will not be a slave,”’ she pauses here, then, almost in a whisper, ‘A slave to whose will?’ She raises her eyes to his, unwavering, before bending down again. ‘He wrote it in his handwriting,’ she continues abruptly, and he stares, unable to move, as slowly but surely, a tentative finger traces the thin cursive words cut into his flesh, its touch so light he barely feels the pain beneath the caked blood. The expression on her face is almost soft, the facial muscles relaxed. Then the words come out in a torrent, bruising and quick. ‘Did he tell you that he would have loved you, if he weren’t who he is, and you weren’t who you are? Did he ask you if you liked to hear that? Did he laugh?’
‘Ginny,’ comes another voice, an awkward, upset one; Ronald Weasley’s voice. ‘It isn’t Riddle anymore. It’s – it’s Voldemort,’ he pauses, looking very deadly pale and scared, ‘don’t let Malfoy get to you, now. It’s not Riddle.’
‘I know,’ his sister replies, and there is a trace of irritation in her voice. Finally she removes her hand away from him, and Draco lets out a breath he hadn’t known he had held. ‘I know it isn’t; it’s just something Tom would have done.’
Granger looks quickly, sharply at her.
‘Poppy is coming,’ McGonagall speaks, her voice stiff, ‘Poppy’s coming, and then we’ll see exactly what kind of hurt has been inflicted on the boy.’
Ginny Weasley looks away, and Draco knows, suddenly, what she is thinking.
When she turns around again, he almost thinks she is smiling at him, a smile as cruel as his own.
~
‘Harry,’ she says, and he looks up, self-consciously brushing another stray lock of black hair away from his face. Her face is strangely hard in the darkness, without enough light to bring out the softness of her cheeks. ‘Ron said you wanted to talk to me?’
‘Yes,’ he nods, then, frowning a little, asks, ‘Are you alright?’
Ron has told him about how she repeatedly spoke of Riddle in her room, an hour earlier. Malfoy has been shifted to another room by now; he is still sleeping, sedate and dreamless with the aid of potions Harry doesn’t believe he deserves. Malfoy deserves nothing.
Ron has told him what Voldemort has written on Malfoy’s arm. A war cry: Non serviam. Hermione has said that these were the words Lucifer whispered when he fell, believing himself not to be the subordinate of his Creator.
An example is what Malfoy has been reduced to. Harry almost smiles, cruelly, at this. But Harry isn’t cruel. So instead of smiling, he just keeps quiet, letting his anger bide its time.
‘I’m fine,’ she replies, but her face is thoughtful, facing away from him into the distance beside him, beyond the window which he is next to. ‘It’s just…’
‘It’s just what?’
‘It’s just…’ she trails off, and her eyes close, abruptly, briefly, before opening again. She still doesn’t look at him. ‘Bill and Phlegm’s wedding is this weekend. School has only ended for half a day, really, and already…already so many things have happened.’
‘You mean Malfoy’s happened,’ states Harry dryly, and idly he knows there is something she isn’t telling him, but he is too spent with the day’s anger and bitterness to be able to rally any effort to push further. ‘And the attacks on the muggleborns’ families have happened. Don’t worry, Ginny, everyone’s been brought to Hogwarts, and everyone is safe, even the Dursleys are, cooped up in Hogwarts…’
‘Hogwarts isn’t safe, I thought you would know that,’ she cuts in, her voice soft and her words fast, almost tripping over each other. ‘They haven’t found Groan, the Slytherin Prefect from my year, and his Muggle uncle,’ she adds.
Harry sighs. ‘I thought everyone would know that Hogwarts isn’t safe, Ginny,’ he replies, conceding defeat, admitting in his words that he has been patronizing. ‘But it’s the safest place now; the safest place to house so many people. And Groan and his uncle…well, they haven’t found their bodies, and anyway at least we know that Groan had had the time to dismiss an entire household of servants before disappearing, if that’s a good sign. And he’s in Slytherin…’ He trails off, and reaches over and tugs at one long red lock of hair, which falls straight until its last inch, where it pulls into a curl.
‘Harry,’ she says, and this time her voice is flat. He looks up, startled at the sound. ‘Stop doing that.’
‘Doing…’
‘That,’ she says, and a note of agitation has crept into her voice, ‘Whatever it is you’re doing to my hair.’
Shocked, he lets go of the lock, and it slips away between his fingers. ‘Ginny, I…’
‘You said it’s over,’ and she finally faces him, ‘you said it’s over, at least until you’ve done what you must. Then you’d better make sure you keep to your own word, Harry James Potter, because I’m not someone you can come back to as and when you like it.’
He has never seen her angry before, at least not at him, and here she is, voice quiet and hard. ‘I didn’t mean that,’ he finally says, shaking his head, then, more fervently, ‘I didn’t mean it that…’
‘I don’t care and don’t want to know what you meant,’ she interrupts, again, but this time there is for some reason a heavy note of tiredness in her tone. She shifts away, getting up, leaving him. ‘I’m going to bed, Harry, and you’d better go to bed soon too. We still have to settle Malfoy tomorrow. I heard McGonagall asking Pomfrey if there’s any way they can extract information or memories from him, without hurting him. Although why she should care whether or not he gets hurt is beyond me,’ Ginny pauses, and Harry is struck again by how hard her face seems without there being enough light to soften it. Her next words tumble out of her, like a flood coming from behind a broken dam. ‘I hope he gets hurt; I hope he gets as hurt as – ’
‘Ginny,’ he whispers, and is shocked by how uncertain his own voice is. ‘Ginny, stop it. He’s not worth it.’
A long gap of silence hangs over them. Then, finally, she nods, and begins to walk away, saying, ‘He’s not worth it; you’re right.’ Then, repeating, ‘He’s not worth it.’
One day, when Harry remembers this conversation, he finally thinks to wonder who she was really referring to.
~
2nd June, 1997
‘He’ll never need to know,’ Hermione whispers into her ear, and the words she neglects to speak hangs low over the two of them, like a monsoon cloud threatening to break: he’ll never need to know, if only you don’t say a word, Ginny; if only you don’t say a word, he’ll look at you and one day he’ll smile, memory coloured with the dyes of years, and he’ll thank you for this year, he’ll love you still.
Ginny looks away, turning so that Draco Malfoy’s body, white and calmly breathing, is closer to her, and oddly enough she is thankful for his being here, despite her words to Harry in the early hours of this morning; she feels safe in the presence of something so strangely white and still. Hermione’s presence weighs heavily over her, her voice and her scent and her hair all over the place, intrusive, and Ginny wishes she would shut up, shut up, shut up. Go away.
‘What are we doing here, anyway?’ Hermione asks, and anxiously she rubs her hands about her arms as if she is cold, even though this is June, and summer kisses the windows.
‘I thought you’ll leave me alone if I came here,’ replies Ginny, cruelly but almost absent-mindedly, remembering what Hermione has done. She doesn’t turn around, knowing already that Hermione flinches at this.
‘You agreed to it eventually,’ she whispers, ‘you were happy.’
‘I was,’ Ginny concedes, and her heart wants to relent. She misses Hermione; the smiles and the girlish support and the heady confidence when she confides in her. ‘And I know you were just – trying to help…’
‘Yes, yes…’
‘But you didn’t,’ Ginny interrupts her, firmly, ‘It’s gotten worse than ever before. I can’t look at him; just looking at him disgusts me. It’s – it’s so much like what – what Tom did. I can’t believe I didn’t see that before.’
The last words are spoken almost in a slow, horrified wonderment. Hermione blanches, reaches out towards Ginny, but the smaller girl pulls away before she touches her.
‘Ginny, Ginny, it isn’t; and Riddle did it because he wanted to kill Harry, not because he wanted to help him – and, and anyway, it wasn’t Dark magic; I would never…Ginny,’ Hermione’s words fall over themselves and Ginny stares at her, at the frightened face stripped of its usual seeming assurance. ‘I would never, never, never hurt Harry.’
Abruptly, almost as if she hasn’t been listening to Hermione, Ginny speaks, ‘I can’t look at him, Hermione, and I can’t let him touch me…’
‘It’ll be alright, it’ll be alright,’ Hermione says frantically, never listening, ‘Ginny, he’ll be alright.’
‘No – no he won’t be, and Hermione – what about me?’ Ginny asks, and the two girls face each other.
‘Ginny…’
But before Hermione can speak, Draco Malfoy opens his eyes, and, almost as if she senses this already, Ginny Weasley turns back to greet the sight.
~
Draco wakes up, and with the potions still holding his senses in thrall, a half-formed emotion from a suppressed dream just escapes the vaguely-roused tendrils of his mind.
‘You’re awake,’ comes a voice. He blinks, and a curtain of red hair swims into view, and for a beat he almost sees an eleven-year-old girl with dark blue eyes – but only for a beat. Then it is light brown eyes, flinted and hooded in the morning June sun.
‘Weasley,’ he replies, but there is hardly a weak thread of bitterness in his voice. Numbness holds his mind in a whiteness strangely devoid of feeling. ‘McGonagall…’
‘She should be coming with Pomfrey soon,’ replies Weasley, voice with nary an inflection, ‘There’re other things that need to be attended to in Hogwarts.’
‘So he did it then,’ he remarks, and he almost forgets to wonder at how this conversation seems to actually be progressing.
‘Tom would always have done it,’ nods Weasley, ‘and he’ll do more.’
‘Ginny, don’t…’ another voice enters, and breaks the spell. ‘Ginny, come on, we should tell the others that he’s awake…’
‘You go,’ Weasley replies almost quickly, almost gratefully, ‘I’ll stay.’
‘Ginny!’ Granger expostulates, her voice going up by an octave. ‘Honestly, what is wrong with you?’ Her voice becomes suddenly frantic now, abruptly lowering to a hiss. ‘I’ve only done all this for everyone’s good, and you should stop talking about Riddle as if he – well, because he isn’t, and Malfoy, well, Malfoy – he’s…’
‘I know, I know, Hermione, which is why I can’t talk to any of you right now; we’ve both of us talked too much to each other. I’ve said too much. We can always talk later, but we won’t stop unless I stop seeing you around for a while,’ Weasley’s speech is comes in staccato beats, short and sharp, and Draco almost narrows his eyes, vaguely wondering, as she continues, ‘So go. And hurry, Hermione, and bring all of them with you, but don’t talk to him, please don’t; you won’t be able to now without – being strange.’
Finally Granger nods, and, looking pale, hurries out of the room.
‘McGonagall put up wards around the room; you can’t move your arms or legs until she lifts them,’ Weasley says cleanly without preamble, just as the door closes softly behind Granger.
‘I figured,’ he replies, and is almost surprised that it comes out dryly.
‘I would say I’m sorry if I were to care, and if I were to think you’ll believe me,’ she says, in her mercurial fashion, all brilliant red and burnished gold like he remembers, in swimming, unfocussed technicolour memory, and there is no pity in her eyes.
‘I would believe you,’ he answers almost heavily, not wanting to care about the former clause in her speech, and instead focusing on the latter. ‘You’ve never lied to me before.’
‘We’ve never talked much. We don’t happen to like each other. I might in fact hate you, considering what your father…’ she mentions him without pausing, without looking at Draco, and continues easily, ‘…did in my first year, and considering that you let him do it, and considering all the other things that you have done to us Weasleys, collectively or separately,’ she says, tone and intonation still clean and light, like a sharp summer wind, ‘Even though admittedly, you’ve never insulted me as much as you did others. Is that a sign of friendship and trust, Malfoy?’
He almost smiles. ‘Not quite, I suppose. But you don’t lie for – such purposes.’
‘How do you know?’
‘You don’t. You’ve always told them about Tom Riddle, haven’t you, and nobody’s ever listened.’ He watches her; he realizes that in this state of numbness he is thankful at the distraction that is her. ‘You’ve always had diarrhea of the mouth.’
‘If you’ve realized and somehow listened, then why did you do what you did then, Malfoy?’ she leans forward. There is a strange gold glint to her eyes, too light to be called brown, really. ‘What did he do to you?’
‘I don’t know anymore, for the former. As for the latter question, he wanted me dead. I don’t know why I’m not,’ he says, quickly, frankly, calmly, ‘and honestly like you I’ve always had diarrhea of the mouth, too.’
‘I know,’ she smiles, this time, ‘that’s how I got to hex you in your fifth year.’
‘That was painful,’ he admits, almost freely, and wonders suddenly whether he should count the seconds this conversation lasts, so that he can remember it more factually later.
Weasley’s eyes are a light yet burnished gold.
Then the door opens and Weasley turns around, quickly, and away from him, and they enter the room, with Potter leading, and suddenly the numbness loses its hold, and the words leave him and only the pain is left.
~
When they finally get Malfoy to speak, it is only through Veritaserum. Harry frowns; having come close to the door first, he knows he had heard Malfoy’s voice, the thin inflection dying just as his hand turned the knob.
‘Ginny, can I come in?’ he asks, still mulling over Malfoy’s words, Malfoy’s actions, still letting his anger brew within himself, quietly and hotly. He raps on the door, slightly ajar. ‘Ginny?’
‘Harry, I…’
But Harry has already entered the threshold, and he stops as Ginny pulls a swath of material about her, heavy and white. ‘What’s that?’ he asks, pointing.
‘I thought I told you not to come in,’ Ginny says in answer, and her forehead is creased. Unheeding, Harry walks over, his slight, lanky frame folding easily into a cross-legged position on the floor next to her.
‘You didn’t manage to say so,’ he says, softly, ‘and anyway, Ginny, how come you’re so irritable?’
‘It’s the bridesmaid dress Phlegm ordered,’ replies Ginny, still not looking at him.
‘Gin…’ Harry feels the edge of something starting to spill over onto his control. ‘What’s gotten into you?’
‘Well, the fact that I found Malfoy lying on my bed…’ begins Ginny, but Harry stops her, his hand reaching out, slender fingers circling around her arm. She looks very nearly beautiful like this, her hair undone and in long, loose waves, the sunlight from the windows kissing it and seeming to set it ablaze. Something clenches around Harry’s heart, and he shakes his head.
‘Ginny, it’s not just Malfoy, is it? Are you angry with me? Because of my breaking up with you – Ginny, I’m not breaking up with you, not really, it’s just that…’
‘Harry,’ Ginny interrupts, and there is a strange look on her face, ‘not everything’s about you.’
‘I know,’ Harry finally snaps, ‘But you’ve been this way since I came here ‘cos the Dursleys were deposited at Hogwarts…’
‘Well then, it’s not all about you,’ Ginny retorts, and the sharpness of her tone almost causes Harry to flinch, but he doesn’t loosen his grip on her. Her eyes finally meet his, a murky brown, seeming incongruous on her white, small face.
‘I’m not angry with you, Harry,’ Ginny finally says, softly and heavily, ‘it’s just – there’re a lot of things happening now, and…’
‘You can talk to me about it,’ Harry whispers, leaning his head towards hers, adjusting slightly until his cheek is pressed against hers. ‘Gin, I really do…’
‘I know,’ Ginny says quickly, ‘I know.’
‘Is it Riddle? Do you – do you still have nightmares about him? Is that why you were so bothered about Malfoy’s arm?’ Harry asks, pulling back, before placing his other hand on her shoulder, feeling the hard shoulder blade clearly beneath the thin cotton of her shirt. She continues to return his gaze steadily, but he doesn’t remember, really, her eyes being such a shade of brown. A gap of silence falls between them.
‘Harry,’ she says finally, and there is a quirk to her lips, and he realizes that she is smiling – a dry, thin smile devoid of mirth.
Suddenly his mouth feels very dry, and he knows he doesn’t want to hear her next words.
He leans forward, and presses his lips on hers.
~
Ron remembers when Ginny first returned home, that year when the Chamber opened. He refuses to remember it as the year when Ginny opened the Chamber.
He would count to a hundred, quickly and softly, listening to the screams from the room next to his, something twisting within him, and then the footsteps, heavier and older, and when he finally reaches a hundred, he would climb out of his bed, feet cold on the floor despite the June warmth, and grope his way blindly into her room.
He remembers just how the moonlight floods into her room, viscous and accusing, and once he had whispered, holding tightly onto her hand as she sobbed, gaspingly, ‘Should I stay with her, mum – just in case, well, just in case things come…’
A quick, fierce look from his mother had censured him from continuing.
And he remembers the mornings, strangely cold for June, when Ginny stirred the cold milk in her bowl of cornflakes: thrice clockwise, thrice counter-clockwise, again and again, until the milk turned yellow and Ron would reach over, clumsily and hurriedly, and stop her.
But Ginny seems alright, his mother would say, Ginny is alright, look, she’s talking as always, and she’s well-behaved, and she’s…
And she’s brushing her hair straight, over and over again at night in front of her mirror, Ron remembers thinking, just unlike how she once told you she was too tired at night to do so. And she’s brushing her hair, and telling me about things Riddle said, clever things, and funny things.
Looking into the same mirror as he stands behind her now, Ron remembers that he had thought, even then, that Ginny is beautiful, really, in a quiet, pure way; she is beautiful in a manner that is so polite, you don’t realize it until you watch her, just as Ron remembers he had, that summer. Her skin is fair, not pale, her hair a rich, heavy red, her lips small and shell-pink. Her eyes are gold. As Ron grows older, and begins to see other girls – Fleur Delacour, his future sister-in-law, and her sister, Gabrielle, Cho Chang, Lavender Brown, Parvati and Padma Patil – with the kind of beauty that is immediate and straightforward; he cannot help reacting to it. But even so, cloudily, Ron always knows that Ginny is just as beautiful; he acknowledges with that mixture of pride and reluctance that only a brother would know.
‘How do I look, Ron?’ Ginny asks, shifting a little in her bridesmaid’s dress, which she has mumbled earlier about being made of cotton overlaid with some kind of expensive lace; it is a simple dress, white and sleeveless and with a lightly pleated, slightly flaring skirt.
Beautiful, Ron thinks, but instead answers, ‘Alright, good,’ nodding as he does so. Ginny catches his eye and smiles, knowing him well enough. ‘C’mon Ron, you’re so stingy. Bill and Charlie would’ve told me the truth.’
‘And you’re very sure of yourself, aren’t you?’ replies Ron, grinning, before continuing, his eyes half-closed as the sunlight shifts and filters more strongly into the room, ‘I’m sure Harry’ll like it.’
He studies her almost lazily beneath his lashes, watching as the smile drops clearly from his sister’s face.
‘What did Harry say to you?’ demands Ginny. She does not turn around; her eyes meet his in the mirror.
‘He didn’t say anything, Gin; I’m not so very thick that I can’t see what’s going on in front of me,’ Ron pauses, ‘What did you do, Gin?’
Something stills within her, and in the mirror she is suddenly seems static, although she had not been moving all this time.
‘I didn’t do anything.’ Her words are quick.
‘You’re guilty,’ accuses Ron, but not roughly. ‘You wouldn’t have been talking so much about Riddle otherwise.’
‘What do you…?’
‘I remember the summer after your first year, Gin; you kept saying things about him, you wouldn’t stop,’ Ron says, and he hears a thread of desperation in his voice, now. ‘Harry didn’t need to say anything – Harry doesn’t understand, does he? And this isn’t about Malfoy, as much as he’ll rather talk to you than the rest of us…’
‘How did you know?’
‘Harry told me that, at least,’ Ron concedes. ‘Ginny,’ he coaxes, turning her around, ‘Tell me, and I’ll do whatever I can. This time, I promise.’
Ginny closes her eyes, before they flutter open again. She looks up, and Ron, not for the first time, realizes how much smaller she seems compared to himself. Her tone is quiet as she speaks. ‘I didn’t do it, Ron. But I can’t tell you what it is about, either. Not yet, anyway.’
Ron nods, slowly, uncomprehending her words but strangely accepting of it. She will tell him sooner or later – she will. At least – at least now she knows that he wants to listen to her.
Slowly, slowly, he pulls her towards him, and when he embraces her he remembers as he had that night, how small and how frightened she must be.
And then he pulls away, kissing her on the forehead, and heads to the kitchen, the sense that something is coming awaking vaguely in his conscience, even as he slowly descends the stairs towards his mother’s kitchen, with the warm smells of food and home emanating from it.
~
I shut my eyes and the world drops dead/ (I think I made you up inside my head)
Ginny fingers the penciled writing on the wall behind Draco Malfoy’s bed – Percy’s bed, really, but now only Draco Malfoy is on it, so it was of his ownership, however temporarily and however unwittingly – and recognizes it; it is by a Muggle poet, a tragic Muggle poet, who put her head into an oven, slowly and calmly, and killed herself.
‘Sylvia Plath,’ drawls a voice, invading into her thoughts. She turns around to face him; Malfoy is upright against the headboard of the bed, in Percy’s pajamas, the cuffs reaching over his wrists by half an inch. ‘I read the quote just now; it’s from one of her poems.’
‘Mad Girl’s Love Song,’ nods Ginny, ‘I didn’t know you liked Muggle poets.’
‘I don’t,’ replies Malfoy, managing to inject disgust and dislike and so many other unpleasant things into his voice as he does so. ‘I read it somewhere, that’s all.’
Ginny can tell him that it does say something that Malfoy should read a Muggle poet’s work anywhere, but instead doesn’t, knowing suddenly that he can ask her, as well, why she should know so clearly where the quote comes from, and so she asks, ‘What does it feel like, Malfoy, to take Veritaserum?’
‘Why don’t you ask me what it feels like to know that your father is dead, and that your mother has probably gone in that direction, too?’ replies Malfoy, softly, but there is a dense lick of anger in his tone, and Ginny recognizes it all too well.
She doesn’t care for it. She opens her mouth, recklessly, to say something, but he is too fast for her.
‘Why are you here anyway, Weasley?’ he asks. The bruises about his face have long faded, but the shadows remain. ‘Why aren’t you with Saint Potter?’ He leans forward, his face inches from hers, and she feels her control slipping away, the anger at Harry, at herself, at him, threatening to reveal itself. ‘I can’t tell you much about your Tom, if that’s what you want. He’s ugly; he isn’t what you would know.’
‘Not everything is about Harry, not everything is about Tom, and not everything is about you,’ retorts Ginny, not backing down. This close, his skin seems almost white, his hair silver – the colour of early morning virgin snow.
‘But everything is about you and all of us combined, isn’t it, Weasley, and that’s why you’ve come here to avoid everyone else,’ drawls Malfoy, and amazingly, she sees a ghost of a smirk flit about his face. She knows his silence is his display of grief; she knows it hasn’t really sunk in yet. She has seen him cry before, returning from Astronomy class with Groan, with Myrtle hovering him. ‘We’re an expert at losing friends and alienating people, aren’t we, Weasley?’
Back stiffening, she doesn’t dignify him with an answer, and instead leaves without a word, walking down to her mother’s kitchen, where Ron has already settled himself into a chair.
~
The family, Harry, Hermione and Fleur Delacour are gathered about the table when they hear the cough from the living room.
For a moment everyone freezes; then, in a flurry of movement, Mr. Weasley crosses over the threshold between the two sections of the first floor of the Burrow, his wand before him – and then stops.
Before the fireplace, a tall, slender figure stands, bags around his feet. There is an English politeness about his short, sand-coloured hair, and his incongruous, violent-shaded eyes are almost too close together as he looks up at Mr. Weasley, but even the Weasley patriarch senses the sharp sensuality and potency that is the boy, and which cannot be diminished by the dust and the fading sunlight.
The boy smiles.
‘Mr. Weasley,’ he says, ‘My name is Timothy, of the Noble House of Groan.’
~
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