The first thing Ginny noticed upon waking was the intense, all-consuming pain that swept through her body as she began to stir. Her back felt like it was on fire, and her ankle was swollen and sore, and the ache in the front of her head was so overpowering that it was making her stomach churn, threatening the release of her meager dinner. She kept her eyes squeezed together, because opening them was sure to bring about a new wave of pain, and she lay motionless on the ground while fighting back the rising nausea.
When she was sure that cracking open her eyelids wouldn’t hurt anymore than she already did, she opened them slightly, squinting because she expected a harsh, bright light. Perhaps she was expecting to find herself in St. Mungo’s, or even the Ministry of Magic, but whatever the case it didn’t matter, and the all-encompassing darkness surprised her. There were no lights at all, and she had to blink several times to make sure that her eyes truly were open.
And then she groaned, the noise sounding harsh to her ears. It echoed off the walls and rebounded back at her, intensifying, and she bit her lips to keep herself from crying out in pain again. She twitched a few fingers just to check that she still had control over the movement. She let her hands run over the floor, her fingers sliding over cold, unforgiving stones held together with coarse, rough mortar that was taller than the rocks were. She realized that the harsh tendrils of pain in her back were from lying on the poorly constructed floor.
Where am I? She thought, mind reeling, and it wasn’t until someone answered that she realized she’d whispered the thought out loud.
"Azkaban," came the hoarse, barely audible reply. It sounded as if it came from her right, closer than she’d expected but still distant. She wasn’t ready to sit up yet, so she stared at what she assumed was the ceiling, though she couldn’t see it, and tried to understand the jumble of thoughts that made up what had happened prior to this point.
She remembered being with her brother, and Harry, and she could recall the exact locations of the street lights on the Muggle street they were standing on. The gravel had been loose under her shoes, and it was difficult to get correctly balanced, especially when dodging the barrage of hexes and spells sent by the Death Eaters on the far end. It had been a raid, and the Order had gone to stop it, and Ginny recalled all of that quite well.
It was only after she got hit with a particularly nasty hex that she wasn’t sure the name of that things began to get fuzzy in her memory. Ginny remembered going down and could clearly recall the pain that shot through her legs, but then everything went a blissful shade of black, and she knew no more.
The youngest Weasley shifted slightly and finally managed to sit upright, feeling both lightheaded and weak as she used her hands to push her body into a shaking, sitting position. She felt around until one of her hands came in contact with a rough, cold wall, and she half-fell towards it so that she could lean her back against it for support. It was only then that the stranger’s words resounded in her ears, ringing so loudly that she was afraid she could hear nothing else.
"Azkaban?" she repeated, the words coming out as a suppressed gasp. Dark, horrible thoughts about the prison sprang into her mind, as did the stories she’d heard from Harry and other Aurors about the conditions inside. She knew that it had to be much worse now, now that the Death Eaters had taken over the complex for their own use, and she had to admit that even though she was incredibly frightened about the prospect of being in the prison, she wasn’t entirely surprised. She knew that the Dark Lord’s supporters kept all of their prisoners there.
The stranger who had spoken coughed suddenly and the sound was so sickly sounding that it almost made Ginny cringe.
"Are we in cells?" she asked, since it was the first question that came to her mind. She wanted to know if she had a cellmate. For a split second she was excited, because perhaps she knew the other person, and maybe it was another Auror who would help her find a way out, or at least pass the time until her brother and Harry came to save her.
"Weasley?" the voice said then, sounding almost surprised, and Ginny’s hopes came crashing down around her when she recognized the slightly nasal, dry-sounding tones of the person she would least like to be stuck in a prison with, Death Eaters or no.
"Malfoy?" she whispered, hoping that she was somehow wrong. "What are you doing here?"
He coughed again, and the action was so hard and prolonged that Ginny thought he would start dry-heaving. She started to move towards the sound, and she wasn’t entirely sure why, but the movement sent a new burst of pain through her torso that was so intense she had to stifle the involuntary gasp that accompanied it.
"What do you think I’m doing here?" he asked, and she could hear the feeble sneer in his tone.
"Why would the Death Eaters be keeping you prisoner?" the redhead asked. She was both confused and glad that Malfoy was kept in the horrible prison, and she felt somewhat guilty for being happy at the other student’s misfortune. Despite the numerous taunts and jeers at her family, she supposed that no one really deserved to be here, not like this.
"They tend to do that when you refuse to join them," Malfoy answered, all malice gone from his voice. He sounded tired and resigned, and Ginny wondered briefly how long he’d been here. "And yes, we are in cells. That’s usually how prisons work."
Ginny assumed that there were merely bars between them, because she could think of no other reason for being able to hear his voice if there had been stone walls separating them. She realized that the Death Eaters must have rebuilt several of the cells so that they could watch the prisoners whenever necessary, and thusly reverted to the timeless tradition of trapping the victims behind thick, metal bars instead of individual cells surrounded by stone walls.
A lump hardened in her throat when she wondered if her brother or Harry had been captured too, and she shook her head, ignoring the pain it caused. She had to keep believing that Harry and her brother were going to rescue her, or else she’d go mad with despair. She pushed herself closer to the cold wall digging through the thin fabric covering her back and hugged her knees close to her chest.
"Why did you refuse to join them?" Ginny asked, aware that her voice sounded almost painfully small in the chamber.
"None of your business, Weasley," Malfoy spat, and then started coughing once more. Ginny could only imagine how his body had to shake violently with the horrible, dry wheezing, and if she hadn’t been so concerned about her own safety then she would have felt almost sorry for him. As it were, she was terrified to find out what else the Death Eaters were doing in this remote prison.
"Are the Dementors still here?" she asked, trying to keep her voice from wavering in fear.
"Sometimes," came Malfoy’s vague, distant answer. He lapsed into silence then, and Ginny could hear him shuffling around in his own cell. Then there was a muted thud, followed by silence, and Ginny tried to fight against the rising sobs. She was trapped in Azkaban, surrounded by Death Eaters and quite possibly Dementors, and the only company she had at all was the surprisingly non-Death Eater bully Draco Malfoy, who seemed quite ill.
She tightened her arms around her legs and shivered in the cold, her skin prickling. She thought of her family, Harry, and Hermione, and tried to picture what they were doing as she was sitting there alone in the dank cell, and the thoughts kept her falling into depression as she waited for something to happen, because it was all she could do.
o.0.o.0.o.
Ginny had very little comprehension of the passage of time, because there were no windows in her cell nor any indications of when the days changed, so she began to consider the passing of days when she finally fell into her fitful, restless bouts of sleep, when her exhaustion grew to the point where she could no longer deny it. According to her new system of time, it had been only one day before they came for Malfoy.
She was lying on her back on the ground, staring up at the ceiling and thinking of practicing Quidditch with her brothers at the Burrow. She was trying hard to imagine the sensation of flying on her old Cleansweep, the wind blowing against her face and sweeping her hair backwards over her shoulders, but try as she might she simply couldn’t keep the image in her mind long enough to relive it.
She was frowning over this realization when she heard the heavy footsteps sounding down what she assumed was a corridor, and then she saw light, the first light she’d been exposed to since being captured by the Dark Lord’s supporters. It was actually coming from several wands carried by hooded, dark figures, and it was so bright that Ginny had to throw her hands up over her eyes.
The light had given her a good look at her cell, even though she’d already discovered how much smaller it was than she had originally thought by pacing around the outside and estimating the area enclosed. She kept her eyes closed and didn’t say anything, hoping to catch snippets of the Death Eaters’ conversation that might bring her information on the whereabouts of the other Order members. Unfortunately, the hooded figures said nothing, and all Ginny could hear was the sound of the solid footsteps on the stone floor.
There was the distinctive sound of a key clicking, and a latch falling away, and then Ginny opened her eyes despite the pain that burned through them, because she wanted to see what was going on. One of the hooded figures went into Malfoy’s cell and grabbed him roughly, yanking his body upwards. Another followed, and the two each took hold of one of Malfoy’s upper arms, hauling him out of the cell. He struggled and fought against them, but it was obvious that he was weak, and after a moment he drooped limply and allowed himself to be carried out of the cell.
The Death Eaters said nothing as they carried him away down the hallway, the light disappearing with them. Ginny sat up and grabbed a hold of two of the metal bars keeping her in her cell, staring at the spot where she could last see them far after they’d moved on.
The Draco Malfoy she’d just seen had looked nothing like the one she remembered from Hogwarts. This Malfoy was bony, gaunt, and significantly malnourished looking. His hair had gotten somewhat long and unruly, and his skin looked sallow and pale. Ginny touched a hand gingerly to her own face and wondered bleakly if she would start to look like that too, if they kept her here long enough.
She stayed in her position, kneeling on the floor, lost in her own thoughts, until they brought him back. Once again the light from their wands was so bright that Ginny had to close her eyes, and they were eerily silent. She wondered briefly if they were simply keeping their mouths closed near the prisoners, or maybe just her, so that there were no leaks of information, but she decided that the Death Eaters probably weren’t worried about their prisoners escaping.
The hooded men threw Malfoy back in the cell with surprising ease, and he landed awkwardly on the stone floor, hacking violently. Ginny could see him on all fours, bent over the ground, coughing and trembling. Then he collapsed none too gracefully, as if all the energy he had was suddenly gone, and the Death Eaters left, causing the chamber to revert to darkness once again.
"Malfoy," Ginny whispered, as soon as she felt it was safe to speak. He didn’t answer, and she couldn’t hear any shuffling to let her know that he was even moving. "Malfoy!"
All she got in response was a soft groan, and it sounded almost like the noise was mingled with a quiet sob. Ginny froze, and she wasn’t sure if she was more concerned about the fact that they had hurt Malfoy enough to cause him to cry, or that Malfoy was crying at all. She did feel sorry for him now, very, very sorry, and she wished that she could reach out to him and alleviate some of the pain. It was a strange sensation to be feeling towards such a snobbish bully, and it confused her so much that she sat back on her heels, putting distance between her and the shaking man across the bars.
There were several minutes of tense silence, and Ginny was surprised when he finally spoke.
"Happy, Weasley?" came the muffled, strained voice. It sounded like he had curled himself into a fetal position and had his arms wrapped around his head. Ginny sat back down hard on the ground, swallowing the strange lump that had developed in her throat.
"No," she whispered, hoping he could hear her. "I’m not happy at all."
o.0.o.0.o.
They seemed to come for him once a day, at least according to Ginny’s idea of days, and the process was similar to the first time. Malfoy struggled less each time as the Death Eaters carried him from his stuffy cell, and it took him longer to move again when they brought him back. Ginny had taken up waiting near the side of her cell for him while he was gone, her hands clenching the bars, despite the fact that he hadn’t spoken to her since the first time he’d been taken away.
For some reason that she didn’t understand, she felt very much alone when he was gone. He was her only source of company, and even though he didn’t speak to her, she knew that he was there, and his presence was oddly comforting. She clung to any comfort she had, because the memories of her family and her old life were starting to fall away. She was finding it harder and harder to focus on those long-gone aspects of her life.
That realization was far more frightening than the knowledge of where she was, and who her captors were.
Malfoy was gone again, and she was kneeling by the side of her cell, her forehead resting on the cool metal bars keeping her prisoner. It seemed that he was gone longer this time, and not knowing what they were doing to him was maddening. Ginny sang an old song her mother used to sing when she was young and feeling unwell, her voice carrying softly in the stillness of the chamber, keeping her eyes closed and wishing with all of her heart that she was back home in the Burrow, tucked safely away in her old bed.
When they threw him back into his cell, he didn’t even move. He simply lay exactly where he had landed, and Ginny could hear his raspy, gasping breaths. It took her a moment to realize that she could see him while staring at his unmoving form and the remaining presence of the light meant that the Death Eaters hadn’t left. Ginny looked up at her cell door, trembling violently, her hands suddenly going very cold.
One of the dark, hooded figures nodded, the gesture barely noticeable in the folds of the robe, and another one unlocked her cell door with a loud click. Ginny stifled a gasp and threw herself as far back as she could, her back flat against the opposite wall. Her heart was beating wildly in her chest, and she realized that it had never occurred to her that they would come for her the same way they came for Malfoy.
The Death Eater who unlocked the door merely held it open, while another, taller cloaked figure walked in. His, and she knew the figure had to be male from the broad, sweeping shoulders, footsteps were almost painfully loud on the stone floors of the cell. He stopped a few feet in front of her, and she realized that the only sound in the dim light was her hitching breaths, which were coming faster and faster in fear and terror. She couldn’t pull her eyes away from the man standing before her.
"I’m not going to kill you," said the figure, and somewhere, despite the fact that Ginny couldn’t even focus on anything other than the imminent horror awaiting her, she knew that it was Lucius Malfoy, because she would recognize that silky, menacing voice anywhere. The figure raised one hand, revealing his wand. "I need information first."
"I don’t know anything," Ginny pleaded, slumping down against the wall. The cold stones beneath her back were the only solid thing she could find. Her body was shaking so violently with fear that she couldn’t even keep her figure pressed against the stones.
Lucius merely raised his wand, and Ginny was suddenly glad that his face was covered; she didn’t want to see the horrible glint in his eyes that she knew was there.
"Where is the Order stronghold?" he asked her, his voice very low. Ginny couldn’t even speak; she just shook her head so hard that her orange locks fell into her face.
"Where is it?" he asked again, his voice rising.
"I don’t know!" Ginny exclaimed, whimpering. She wouldn’t, and couldn’t, betray her friends and family to the madman standing before her. She knew that he was going to hurt her, and she knew that she had to endure it, because turning everyone else in would be far, far worse than living through the Death Eaters’ torture.
"Crucio," Lucius said casually with a flick of his wand.
The pain that exploded around her was the most intense thing she’d ever felt in her life. Her arms and legs felt as if they were being pricked with thousands upon thousands of little needles, the pain cursing through her blood like poison. Her head was pounding so hard she thought it would explode, but she couldn’t raise her arms to wrap her fingers around her hair. She could only writhe on the ground, convulsing against the cold floor. There were sounds now, sounds that she could barely make out, and with a start she realized that the horrible, high shrieks were coming from her. She distantly heard someone yell for it to stop, and then it did, and the all-consuming pain was quite suddenly gone.
She just laid on the floor, sobbing incoherently, her arms wrapped around her trembling form. She heard the sound of footsteps leaving her cell, and then another click that sounded like a latch falling away again, and then Lucius cast the spell again.
The cries of pain she heard then were not her own, although her mind was still too clouded with pain to understand what was going on. She simply lay on the floor, and then everything went silent again. There were more footsteps, and a few more audible clicks, and then the light disappeared down the hallway once more.
Lucius hadn’t said that he would be back, but he didn’t have to, and Ginny knew that he would be. She let out a horrible sob, tears running down her cheeks and dripping off her chin, wondering how she was supposed to make it through more of the torture sessions.
"Weasley," Malfoy said. His voice sounded weak and far away. The sound of it only made Ginny cry harder, and she pulled her legs closer, hugging her knees to her chest as she lay sprawled on the stone tiles.
"Weasley," he repeated, and there was the sound of shuffling, like he was scooting closer to the bars separating them. "Answer me."
"I hate you," Ginny gasped, struggling to breathe through the racking sobs that threatened to completely overtake her.
"Weasley," he started, and he sounded almost like he understood the venom laced through her voice. The repetition of her name only caused a flood of memories through Ginny’s head, memories of her brother and Hermione, and of Christmastime at the Burrow, and of all of the horrible, awful things Draco Malfoy had said against her family for so many years. She let out several anguished cries before pushing herself up on all fours.
"I hate you!" she shrieked, facing the direction his voice had come from. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!"
She didn’t realize that she had been crawling towards the bars between their cells until she was there, and her hands brushed against the cool, familiar surface. Then she collapsed, crying so hard that she could no longer keep her body upright at all. It felt as if she simply had no strength or resolve left, and for a moment she wished suddenly that she would die so she didn’t have to go through it any longer.
There was something warm against her arm, making its way down to her hands, balled into fists against the floor. She realized that they were his hands, and he had put them through the bars to touch her, and then she realized that he had been hit with the curse as well, from his own father, and that he had been the one to yell for Lucius to stop hurting her.
The realization caused her hands to open involuntarily, and his fingers laced through hers. She had always thought that his hands would be clammy, cold and unfeeling, but they were warm, and she could feel his heartbeat through his palms. They stayed like that for a very long time, until Ginny didn’t have any tears left to cry, and even then he kept her hands in his.
She fell asleep with her fingers held firmly in his, her cheek pressed hard against the cold stones beneath her form.
o.0.o.0.o.
They took Malfoy the next day, and didn’t come back for Ginny afterwards. While he was gone she waited by the bars, her hands feeling empty and cold, and she was afraid that they would kill him, because she knew he was terribly weak and wouldn’t make it through much more of it. Now she understood why he was always shaking so much when he came back, and she assumed they used the Crutiatus Curse. She wasn’t sure why they took him so often, because he clearly had no information about the Order to give them, but she concluded that it must be simply because his father was angry and disappointed in his son for not joining the Dark Lord’s cause.
When they brought him back Ginny could see the dark circles under his eyes, and the way his shirt seemed to hang off of his gaunt body. She stayed in her kneeling position on the side of her cell while they threw him inside. His knees fell against the stone with a horrible smack, and he half-sobbed at the impact. He collapsed immediately on the floor, and Ginny made no move until the Death Eaters’ footsteps had completely disappeared into the distance, and then she extended both arms through the bars as far as she could, feeling around for him.
She could hear him dragging his form across the floor, and then there were fingers grasping for hers, and she grabbed them, curling her own fingers around his trembling hands.
"Malfoy," she whispered. His hands in hers were shaking horribly, and when she heard his muted gasp she realized that he was sobbing so hard his body was convulsing against the bars between them. Ginny’s chest constricted almost painfully, and she let go of one of his hands to move her fingers up his gaunt arm and around his shoulder, pulling him in closer to the iron. Their foreheads touched and Ginny felt his weight fall against her, and his body shook and shook under her hands.
"We’re going to get out of here," she said softly, suddenly aware that she was crying too, her hair sticking to the sticky lines down her cheeks. She rubbed her thumb against the side of his hand, and with her other hand she made circles on his bony back, hoping that somehow, she was conveying some form of comfort, the only form she knew how to give there.
"I’m never getting out of here," he said hoarsely, emotion choking him and warbling his tone. "They’ll keep me here until they kill me."
"No," Ginny said firmly, with more resolve than she thought she had left. "The Order is coming for us. They’ll get us out."
She didn’t mention that actually, the Order would probably only be coming for her, and that up until a week ago she’d thought Draco Malfoy was a Death Eater, but she somehow knew that he already realized both of those things, and he didn’t bother to correct her statement. He simply grasped her hand harder and snaked his other hand through the bars to grab her shoulder, pulling her as close as he could.
"Ginny?" he said after awhile, when she had thought he had fallen asleep. The use of her first name snapped her out of her reverie, and she thought that it sounded rather nice coming from him, as if maybe it could heal a lot of the things between them.
"Draco," she responded in turn.
"I’m sorry," he said faintly. His breath was hot against her face, and she was quite suddenly aware of how close they were with their foreheads touching, faces pressed between the iron bars.
"For what?" she asked. Under her hands, she could feel him shrug.
"Everything," he said, sighing. "I’m sorry for everything."
And then she smiled, even though he couldn’t see it, because at the end of everything, when Draco Malfoy had absolutely nothing left except for his own pain and suffering, he turned out to not be such a bad person after all.
o.0.o.0.o.
They didn’t come again after that. At first Ginny thought that it could only be a bad thing, because they were suddenly busy with so many other things that they just didn’t have time to torture their prisoners. Then, she started to understand that maybe it was a good thing, and it meant that the threat of the Order had grown so great that they were all required to fight and had to leave Azkaban entirely.
Ginny and Draco had a long time to themselves then. They talked about everything from the classes at Hogwarts, to their favorite professional Quidditch teams. Ginny recounted some of the stories from when she was younger, telling Draco all about holidays at the Burrow and the pranks Fred and George used to pull when her mum wasn’t paying attention. And they both tried to remember what it felt like to fly, with the wind in their faces, soaring above everything else until nothing mattered at all.
They spent the entire time sitting or lying by the bars between them, keeping their hands clasped together through the openings in the iron. Ginny liked the feel of his hands against hers, because it gave her something to cling to, and the warmth of his fingers was the only thing she was really sure about anymore. She assumed that he felt the same way, because he very rarely moved to take his hand out of hers.
Then a light came, quite awhile after there had been anyone else in the chamber besides them, and it bobbled down the hallway as if carried by the air itself. It was harshly bright, and Ginny covered her face for only a moment before she realized that it was suspended by nothing and that could only mean one thing.
"Harry," she whispered hoarsely, swallowing hard. She abruptly let go of Malfoy’s hand, trying to ignore how wrong it felt without his fingers in hers, and he said nothing as she shakily rose to her feet and made her way to her cell door, grasping the bars with both hands. "Harry!"
The invisibility cloak fell away to reveal Harry and Ron, both looking rumbled and dirty but no more worse for the wear. Ginny nearly sobbed with relief when she saw them, and Harry pointed his wand at her door, whispering a spell. When nothing happened, he tried another one, and this time the door fell open with a loud clang, and Ginny fairly catapulted herself into her brother’s waiting arms, shaking violently against his warm body.
"Oh, Ron!" she sobbed, pressing her face against his shoulder. His arms were strong and solid around her.
"Ginny!" he exclaimed, seeming to be just as choked up as she was. Harry, however, had his face set in a grim line, looking over the cell in which Ginny had been kept in for so long. "Oh, Ginny, I’m so glad you’re alright."
"How did you get here?" Ginny asked when she could finally pull away without trembling. "Where are the Death Eaters?"
"It looks like they’re gone," Harry answered, looking somber. "Most of them have deserted this place."
"Deserted?" Ginny asked.
"Voldemort called them all out," the dark haired boy said with a nod. "The fighting has intensified everywhere."
"I’m so glad we found you," her brother seemed to sigh. Then, he seemed to spot Draco’s kneeling form for the first time, and his smile turned into an ugly sneer.
"Fitting for Malfoy," he spat. "Let’s go."
He started to leave, his arm still wrapped around Ginny’s shoulders, and Harry followed, holding his wand up high so they could see where they were going. Ginny, upon seeing that they were passing Draco’s cell without stopping, twisted violently in her brother’s hold.
"No!" she cried out, reaching both hands for the blond boy still trapped inside. "No, we have to let him out too!"
Her sudden movement caught Ron off guard, and his arm fell away from around her. Ginny shot forward and landed hard on her knees on the tiles, reaching into the cell as Draco moved towards her, and their hands laced together between the bars once more.
"Go," Draco whispered to her as she pressed her face between the iron as far as she could. His grip on her fingers was hard and needy, and one of his hands let go of her fingers to move up to her shoulder, and then to the back of her neck. "Go with them."
"No," she cried, tears trailing down her cheeks. "I’m not leaving without you."
For all those days she’d been trapped in here, he was the only thing she had, the only source of warmth and comfort she’d been allowed, even if she hadn’t expected it. She couldn’t bear to lose it, or to imagine him still trapped there without her, alone and lonely in the cold, dank cell. She choked back a sob as she could hear her brother mumbling something behind her.
"Go," Draco repeated, and then leaned forward to kiss her, his lips feeling warm and welcome and wonderful against hers. She kissed him back, hungrily and needing, until two strong hands wrapped around her waist and hauled her roughly backwards. She let out a strangled sob and reached forward, her fingers brushing his just once more before her brother carried her off down the hallway.
"No!" she screamed, her hands still waving in front of her as though if she tried hard enough, she might be able to reach him again. She tried to resist, but she didn’t have any strength left, and although she let him carry her away she continued to cry out Draco’s name over and over, until Harry whispered another spell and the world around her turned black, and she fell into the blissful darkness.
o.0.o.0.o.
When she awoke, she was surrounded by dim lights, shrouded by the white curtain lining the bed around her. She blinked slowly until she realized that this time she really was in St. Mungo’s, and that the pillow behind her head felt wonderfully soft. Looking around, she noted that the only lights were coming from the candles next to her bed, and that from the look of the darkness just past the window, it was sometime during the night.
On the right side end table there was a small bouquet of flowers in a clear vase, and she smiled when she saw the daisies, which was undoubtedly her mother’s doing. She wondered why none of them were here, until she thought back on Harry’s words, and realized that they were all probably fighting the Death Eaters as she was laying in her hospital bed, in the flimsy, thin gown she felt brush up against her skin.
She sat up with a muffled groan, the pain in her body still lingering. There was a comfortable silence in the room, much more welcome than the horrible silence in the cell at Azkaban, and as she looked over at the flowers once more she saw a small note tucked into them, sticking up between several leaves and white petals. Frowning slightly, she reached over to pluck it out and opened the parchment.
It was definitely Harry’s angular scrawl, but all it said was "329" and try as she might, Ginny couldn’t figure out what 329 meant. She stared at it for a few more minutes, but nothing else appeared on the torn sheet.
She decided to get up and see if she could find a drinking fountain, because her throat was awfully dry and she still didn’t have her wand. The floor was cool beneath her bare feet, but she liked the sound her soles made against the linoleum, and she made her way out into the darkened hallway.
There didn’t seem to be anyone there, and if the fighting was as bad as she thought it could be, than they would probably need all of the best Healers out in the field to save the injured, leaving St. Mungo’s decidedly understaffed. Ginny was momentarily grateful, and she turned back to her door so she could make a note of which one it was, in case she got lost trying to find her way back.
Her door read "306", and Ginny stopped, staring at the embossed lettering on the wood. 329 was a room number.
It took her mind a long while to grasp what she needed to do, and she thought wildly through the possibilities of why Harry would write down a room number for her, and then hide it amongst the flowers by her bed. Finally she decided that she wouldn’t know anything until she went to find out for herself, and so she did, stealing through the hallway trying to be as quiet as possible, her feet making the only noises she heard.
She saw only one flash of movement, and it was a nurse’s aid, but she disappeared into the nurse’s station without even glancing in Ginny’s direction. Ginny let out a sigh of relief and kept going, until she was standing outside of the door marked "329" holding one hand up to it, trying to calm her racing heart.
She pushed the door open, trying to be silent, and peeked inside, finding that it was a room much like her own had been, and the sheets were drawn around the bed. She held her breath and stepped inside, letting the door close gently behind her. Everything had suddenly fallen into place inside her mind.
She slipped through the curtains and tiptoed to the side of the white bed, pulling aside the bed sheets. Draco mumbled something in his sleep and obligingly turned over so that there was room, and Ginny slid into the covers beside him. The movement seemed to wake him slightly, and he turned his head to look at her through sleepy, half-closed eyes.
For a moment she was afraid that he would be angry with her and demand that she leave, but he smiled slightly and simply turned back over so that he was facing her, and she slipped one of her knees in between his. His fingers curled around hers and she sighed in contentment as he leaned forward to kiss the end of her nose gently.
And then, intertwined with the one person she would never have expected to find comfort from, she fell asleep feeling warm and safe for the first time in a long time.
When she was sure that cracking open her eyelids wouldn’t hurt anymore than she already did, she opened them slightly, squinting because she expected a harsh, bright light. Perhaps she was expecting to find herself in St. Mungo’s, or even the Ministry of Magic, but whatever the case it didn’t matter, and the all-encompassing darkness surprised her. There were no lights at all, and she had to blink several times to make sure that her eyes truly were open.
And then she groaned, the noise sounding harsh to her ears. It echoed off the walls and rebounded back at her, intensifying, and she bit her lips to keep herself from crying out in pain again. She twitched a few fingers just to check that she still had control over the movement. She let her hands run over the floor, her fingers sliding over cold, unforgiving stones held together with coarse, rough mortar that was taller than the rocks were. She realized that the harsh tendrils of pain in her back were from lying on the poorly constructed floor.
Where am I? She thought, mind reeling, and it wasn’t until someone answered that she realized she’d whispered the thought out loud.
"Azkaban," came the hoarse, barely audible reply. It sounded as if it came from her right, closer than she’d expected but still distant. She wasn’t ready to sit up yet, so she stared at what she assumed was the ceiling, though she couldn’t see it, and tried to understand the jumble of thoughts that made up what had happened prior to this point.
She remembered being with her brother, and Harry, and she could recall the exact locations of the street lights on the Muggle street they were standing on. The gravel had been loose under her shoes, and it was difficult to get correctly balanced, especially when dodging the barrage of hexes and spells sent by the Death Eaters on the far end. It had been a raid, and the Order had gone to stop it, and Ginny recalled all of that quite well.
It was only after she got hit with a particularly nasty hex that she wasn’t sure the name of that things began to get fuzzy in her memory. Ginny remembered going down and could clearly recall the pain that shot through her legs, but then everything went a blissful shade of black, and she knew no more.
The youngest Weasley shifted slightly and finally managed to sit upright, feeling both lightheaded and weak as she used her hands to push her body into a shaking, sitting position. She felt around until one of her hands came in contact with a rough, cold wall, and she half-fell towards it so that she could lean her back against it for support. It was only then that the stranger’s words resounded in her ears, ringing so loudly that she was afraid she could hear nothing else.
"Azkaban?" she repeated, the words coming out as a suppressed gasp. Dark, horrible thoughts about the prison sprang into her mind, as did the stories she’d heard from Harry and other Aurors about the conditions inside. She knew that it had to be much worse now, now that the Death Eaters had taken over the complex for their own use, and she had to admit that even though she was incredibly frightened about the prospect of being in the prison, she wasn’t entirely surprised. She knew that the Dark Lord’s supporters kept all of their prisoners there.
The stranger who had spoken coughed suddenly and the sound was so sickly sounding that it almost made Ginny cringe.
"Are we in cells?" she asked, since it was the first question that came to her mind. She wanted to know if she had a cellmate. For a split second she was excited, because perhaps she knew the other person, and maybe it was another Auror who would help her find a way out, or at least pass the time until her brother and Harry came to save her.
"Weasley?" the voice said then, sounding almost surprised, and Ginny’s hopes came crashing down around her when she recognized the slightly nasal, dry-sounding tones of the person she would least like to be stuck in a prison with, Death Eaters or no.
"Malfoy?" she whispered, hoping that she was somehow wrong. "What are you doing here?"
He coughed again, and the action was so hard and prolonged that Ginny thought he would start dry-heaving. She started to move towards the sound, and she wasn’t entirely sure why, but the movement sent a new burst of pain through her torso that was so intense she had to stifle the involuntary gasp that accompanied it.
"What do you think I’m doing here?" he asked, and she could hear the feeble sneer in his tone.
"Why would the Death Eaters be keeping you prisoner?" the redhead asked. She was both confused and glad that Malfoy was kept in the horrible prison, and she felt somewhat guilty for being happy at the other student’s misfortune. Despite the numerous taunts and jeers at her family, she supposed that no one really deserved to be here, not like this.
"They tend to do that when you refuse to join them," Malfoy answered, all malice gone from his voice. He sounded tired and resigned, and Ginny wondered briefly how long he’d been here. "And yes, we are in cells. That’s usually how prisons work."
Ginny assumed that there were merely bars between them, because she could think of no other reason for being able to hear his voice if there had been stone walls separating them. She realized that the Death Eaters must have rebuilt several of the cells so that they could watch the prisoners whenever necessary, and thusly reverted to the timeless tradition of trapping the victims behind thick, metal bars instead of individual cells surrounded by stone walls.
A lump hardened in her throat when she wondered if her brother or Harry had been captured too, and she shook her head, ignoring the pain it caused. She had to keep believing that Harry and her brother were going to rescue her, or else she’d go mad with despair. She pushed herself closer to the cold wall digging through the thin fabric covering her back and hugged her knees close to her chest.
"Why did you refuse to join them?" Ginny asked, aware that her voice sounded almost painfully small in the chamber.
"None of your business, Weasley," Malfoy spat, and then started coughing once more. Ginny could only imagine how his body had to shake violently with the horrible, dry wheezing, and if she hadn’t been so concerned about her own safety then she would have felt almost sorry for him. As it were, she was terrified to find out what else the Death Eaters were doing in this remote prison.
"Are the Dementors still here?" she asked, trying to keep her voice from wavering in fear.
"Sometimes," came Malfoy’s vague, distant answer. He lapsed into silence then, and Ginny could hear him shuffling around in his own cell. Then there was a muted thud, followed by silence, and Ginny tried to fight against the rising sobs. She was trapped in Azkaban, surrounded by Death Eaters and quite possibly Dementors, and the only company she had at all was the surprisingly non-Death Eater bully Draco Malfoy, who seemed quite ill.
She tightened her arms around her legs and shivered in the cold, her skin prickling. She thought of her family, Harry, and Hermione, and tried to picture what they were doing as she was sitting there alone in the dank cell, and the thoughts kept her falling into depression as she waited for something to happen, because it was all she could do.
o.0.o.0.o.
Ginny had very little comprehension of the passage of time, because there were no windows in her cell nor any indications of when the days changed, so she began to consider the passing of days when she finally fell into her fitful, restless bouts of sleep, when her exhaustion grew to the point where she could no longer deny it. According to her new system of time, it had been only one day before they came for Malfoy.
She was lying on her back on the ground, staring up at the ceiling and thinking of practicing Quidditch with her brothers at the Burrow. She was trying hard to imagine the sensation of flying on her old Cleansweep, the wind blowing against her face and sweeping her hair backwards over her shoulders, but try as she might she simply couldn’t keep the image in her mind long enough to relive it.
She was frowning over this realization when she heard the heavy footsteps sounding down what she assumed was a corridor, and then she saw light, the first light she’d been exposed to since being captured by the Dark Lord’s supporters. It was actually coming from several wands carried by hooded, dark figures, and it was so bright that Ginny had to throw her hands up over her eyes.
The light had given her a good look at her cell, even though she’d already discovered how much smaller it was than she had originally thought by pacing around the outside and estimating the area enclosed. She kept her eyes closed and didn’t say anything, hoping to catch snippets of the Death Eaters’ conversation that might bring her information on the whereabouts of the other Order members. Unfortunately, the hooded figures said nothing, and all Ginny could hear was the sound of the solid footsteps on the stone floor.
There was the distinctive sound of a key clicking, and a latch falling away, and then Ginny opened her eyes despite the pain that burned through them, because she wanted to see what was going on. One of the hooded figures went into Malfoy’s cell and grabbed him roughly, yanking his body upwards. Another followed, and the two each took hold of one of Malfoy’s upper arms, hauling him out of the cell. He struggled and fought against them, but it was obvious that he was weak, and after a moment he drooped limply and allowed himself to be carried out of the cell.
The Death Eaters said nothing as they carried him away down the hallway, the light disappearing with them. Ginny sat up and grabbed a hold of two of the metal bars keeping her in her cell, staring at the spot where she could last see them far after they’d moved on.
The Draco Malfoy she’d just seen had looked nothing like the one she remembered from Hogwarts. This Malfoy was bony, gaunt, and significantly malnourished looking. His hair had gotten somewhat long and unruly, and his skin looked sallow and pale. Ginny touched a hand gingerly to her own face and wondered bleakly if she would start to look like that too, if they kept her here long enough.
She stayed in her position, kneeling on the floor, lost in her own thoughts, until they brought him back. Once again the light from their wands was so bright that Ginny had to close her eyes, and they were eerily silent. She wondered briefly if they were simply keeping their mouths closed near the prisoners, or maybe just her, so that there were no leaks of information, but she decided that the Death Eaters probably weren’t worried about their prisoners escaping.
The hooded men threw Malfoy back in the cell with surprising ease, and he landed awkwardly on the stone floor, hacking violently. Ginny could see him on all fours, bent over the ground, coughing and trembling. Then he collapsed none too gracefully, as if all the energy he had was suddenly gone, and the Death Eaters left, causing the chamber to revert to darkness once again.
"Malfoy," Ginny whispered, as soon as she felt it was safe to speak. He didn’t answer, and she couldn’t hear any shuffling to let her know that he was even moving. "Malfoy!"
All she got in response was a soft groan, and it sounded almost like the noise was mingled with a quiet sob. Ginny froze, and she wasn’t sure if she was more concerned about the fact that they had hurt Malfoy enough to cause him to cry, or that Malfoy was crying at all. She did feel sorry for him now, very, very sorry, and she wished that she could reach out to him and alleviate some of the pain. It was a strange sensation to be feeling towards such a snobbish bully, and it confused her so much that she sat back on her heels, putting distance between her and the shaking man across the bars.
There were several minutes of tense silence, and Ginny was surprised when he finally spoke.
"Happy, Weasley?" came the muffled, strained voice. It sounded like he had curled himself into a fetal position and had his arms wrapped around his head. Ginny sat back down hard on the ground, swallowing the strange lump that had developed in her throat.
"No," she whispered, hoping he could hear her. "I’m not happy at all."
o.0.o.0.o.
They seemed to come for him once a day, at least according to Ginny’s idea of days, and the process was similar to the first time. Malfoy struggled less each time as the Death Eaters carried him from his stuffy cell, and it took him longer to move again when they brought him back. Ginny had taken up waiting near the side of her cell for him while he was gone, her hands clenching the bars, despite the fact that he hadn’t spoken to her since the first time he’d been taken away.
For some reason that she didn’t understand, she felt very much alone when he was gone. He was her only source of company, and even though he didn’t speak to her, she knew that he was there, and his presence was oddly comforting. She clung to any comfort she had, because the memories of her family and her old life were starting to fall away. She was finding it harder and harder to focus on those long-gone aspects of her life.
That realization was far more frightening than the knowledge of where she was, and who her captors were.
Malfoy was gone again, and she was kneeling by the side of her cell, her forehead resting on the cool metal bars keeping her prisoner. It seemed that he was gone longer this time, and not knowing what they were doing to him was maddening. Ginny sang an old song her mother used to sing when she was young and feeling unwell, her voice carrying softly in the stillness of the chamber, keeping her eyes closed and wishing with all of her heart that she was back home in the Burrow, tucked safely away in her old bed.
When they threw him back into his cell, he didn’t even move. He simply lay exactly where he had landed, and Ginny could hear his raspy, gasping breaths. It took her a moment to realize that she could see him while staring at his unmoving form and the remaining presence of the light meant that the Death Eaters hadn’t left. Ginny looked up at her cell door, trembling violently, her hands suddenly going very cold.
One of the dark, hooded figures nodded, the gesture barely noticeable in the folds of the robe, and another one unlocked her cell door with a loud click. Ginny stifled a gasp and threw herself as far back as she could, her back flat against the opposite wall. Her heart was beating wildly in her chest, and she realized that it had never occurred to her that they would come for her the same way they came for Malfoy.
The Death Eater who unlocked the door merely held it open, while another, taller cloaked figure walked in. His, and she knew the figure had to be male from the broad, sweeping shoulders, footsteps were almost painfully loud on the stone floors of the cell. He stopped a few feet in front of her, and she realized that the only sound in the dim light was her hitching breaths, which were coming faster and faster in fear and terror. She couldn’t pull her eyes away from the man standing before her.
"I’m not going to kill you," said the figure, and somewhere, despite the fact that Ginny couldn’t even focus on anything other than the imminent horror awaiting her, she knew that it was Lucius Malfoy, because she would recognize that silky, menacing voice anywhere. The figure raised one hand, revealing his wand. "I need information first."
"I don’t know anything," Ginny pleaded, slumping down against the wall. The cold stones beneath her back were the only solid thing she could find. Her body was shaking so violently with fear that she couldn’t even keep her figure pressed against the stones.
Lucius merely raised his wand, and Ginny was suddenly glad that his face was covered; she didn’t want to see the horrible glint in his eyes that she knew was there.
"Where is the Order stronghold?" he asked her, his voice very low. Ginny couldn’t even speak; she just shook her head so hard that her orange locks fell into her face.
"Where is it?" he asked again, his voice rising.
"I don’t know!" Ginny exclaimed, whimpering. She wouldn’t, and couldn’t, betray her friends and family to the madman standing before her. She knew that he was going to hurt her, and she knew that she had to endure it, because turning everyone else in would be far, far worse than living through the Death Eaters’ torture.
"Crucio," Lucius said casually with a flick of his wand.
The pain that exploded around her was the most intense thing she’d ever felt in her life. Her arms and legs felt as if they were being pricked with thousands upon thousands of little needles, the pain cursing through her blood like poison. Her head was pounding so hard she thought it would explode, but she couldn’t raise her arms to wrap her fingers around her hair. She could only writhe on the ground, convulsing against the cold floor. There were sounds now, sounds that she could barely make out, and with a start she realized that the horrible, high shrieks were coming from her. She distantly heard someone yell for it to stop, and then it did, and the all-consuming pain was quite suddenly gone.
She just laid on the floor, sobbing incoherently, her arms wrapped around her trembling form. She heard the sound of footsteps leaving her cell, and then another click that sounded like a latch falling away again, and then Lucius cast the spell again.
The cries of pain she heard then were not her own, although her mind was still too clouded with pain to understand what was going on. She simply lay on the floor, and then everything went silent again. There were more footsteps, and a few more audible clicks, and then the light disappeared down the hallway once more.
Lucius hadn’t said that he would be back, but he didn’t have to, and Ginny knew that he would be. She let out a horrible sob, tears running down her cheeks and dripping off her chin, wondering how she was supposed to make it through more of the torture sessions.
"Weasley," Malfoy said. His voice sounded weak and far away. The sound of it only made Ginny cry harder, and she pulled her legs closer, hugging her knees to her chest as she lay sprawled on the stone tiles.
"Weasley," he repeated, and there was the sound of shuffling, like he was scooting closer to the bars separating them. "Answer me."
"I hate you," Ginny gasped, struggling to breathe through the racking sobs that threatened to completely overtake her.
"Weasley," he started, and he sounded almost like he understood the venom laced through her voice. The repetition of her name only caused a flood of memories through Ginny’s head, memories of her brother and Hermione, and of Christmastime at the Burrow, and of all of the horrible, awful things Draco Malfoy had said against her family for so many years. She let out several anguished cries before pushing herself up on all fours.
"I hate you!" she shrieked, facing the direction his voice had come from. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!"
She didn’t realize that she had been crawling towards the bars between their cells until she was there, and her hands brushed against the cool, familiar surface. Then she collapsed, crying so hard that she could no longer keep her body upright at all. It felt as if she simply had no strength or resolve left, and for a moment she wished suddenly that she would die so she didn’t have to go through it any longer.
There was something warm against her arm, making its way down to her hands, balled into fists against the floor. She realized that they were his hands, and he had put them through the bars to touch her, and then she realized that he had been hit with the curse as well, from his own father, and that he had been the one to yell for Lucius to stop hurting her.
The realization caused her hands to open involuntarily, and his fingers laced through hers. She had always thought that his hands would be clammy, cold and unfeeling, but they were warm, and she could feel his heartbeat through his palms. They stayed like that for a very long time, until Ginny didn’t have any tears left to cry, and even then he kept her hands in his.
She fell asleep with her fingers held firmly in his, her cheek pressed hard against the cold stones beneath her form.
o.0.o.0.o.
They took Malfoy the next day, and didn’t come back for Ginny afterwards. While he was gone she waited by the bars, her hands feeling empty and cold, and she was afraid that they would kill him, because she knew he was terribly weak and wouldn’t make it through much more of it. Now she understood why he was always shaking so much when he came back, and she assumed they used the Crutiatus Curse. She wasn’t sure why they took him so often, because he clearly had no information about the Order to give them, but she concluded that it must be simply because his father was angry and disappointed in his son for not joining the Dark Lord’s cause.
When they brought him back Ginny could see the dark circles under his eyes, and the way his shirt seemed to hang off of his gaunt body. She stayed in her kneeling position on the side of her cell while they threw him inside. His knees fell against the stone with a horrible smack, and he half-sobbed at the impact. He collapsed immediately on the floor, and Ginny made no move until the Death Eaters’ footsteps had completely disappeared into the distance, and then she extended both arms through the bars as far as she could, feeling around for him.
She could hear him dragging his form across the floor, and then there were fingers grasping for hers, and she grabbed them, curling her own fingers around his trembling hands.
"Malfoy," she whispered. His hands in hers were shaking horribly, and when she heard his muted gasp she realized that he was sobbing so hard his body was convulsing against the bars between them. Ginny’s chest constricted almost painfully, and she let go of one of his hands to move her fingers up his gaunt arm and around his shoulder, pulling him in closer to the iron. Their foreheads touched and Ginny felt his weight fall against her, and his body shook and shook under her hands.
"We’re going to get out of here," she said softly, suddenly aware that she was crying too, her hair sticking to the sticky lines down her cheeks. She rubbed her thumb against the side of his hand, and with her other hand she made circles on his bony back, hoping that somehow, she was conveying some form of comfort, the only form she knew how to give there.
"I’m never getting out of here," he said hoarsely, emotion choking him and warbling his tone. "They’ll keep me here until they kill me."
"No," Ginny said firmly, with more resolve than she thought she had left. "The Order is coming for us. They’ll get us out."
She didn’t mention that actually, the Order would probably only be coming for her, and that up until a week ago she’d thought Draco Malfoy was a Death Eater, but she somehow knew that he already realized both of those things, and he didn’t bother to correct her statement. He simply grasped her hand harder and snaked his other hand through the bars to grab her shoulder, pulling her as close as he could.
"Ginny?" he said after awhile, when she had thought he had fallen asleep. The use of her first name snapped her out of her reverie, and she thought that it sounded rather nice coming from him, as if maybe it could heal a lot of the things between them.
"Draco," she responded in turn.
"I’m sorry," he said faintly. His breath was hot against her face, and she was quite suddenly aware of how close they were with their foreheads touching, faces pressed between the iron bars.
"For what?" she asked. Under her hands, she could feel him shrug.
"Everything," he said, sighing. "I’m sorry for everything."
And then she smiled, even though he couldn’t see it, because at the end of everything, when Draco Malfoy had absolutely nothing left except for his own pain and suffering, he turned out to not be such a bad person after all.
o.0.o.0.o.
They didn’t come again after that. At first Ginny thought that it could only be a bad thing, because they were suddenly busy with so many other things that they just didn’t have time to torture their prisoners. Then, she started to understand that maybe it was a good thing, and it meant that the threat of the Order had grown so great that they were all required to fight and had to leave Azkaban entirely.
Ginny and Draco had a long time to themselves then. They talked about everything from the classes at Hogwarts, to their favorite professional Quidditch teams. Ginny recounted some of the stories from when she was younger, telling Draco all about holidays at the Burrow and the pranks Fred and George used to pull when her mum wasn’t paying attention. And they both tried to remember what it felt like to fly, with the wind in their faces, soaring above everything else until nothing mattered at all.
They spent the entire time sitting or lying by the bars between them, keeping their hands clasped together through the openings in the iron. Ginny liked the feel of his hands against hers, because it gave her something to cling to, and the warmth of his fingers was the only thing she was really sure about anymore. She assumed that he felt the same way, because he very rarely moved to take his hand out of hers.
Then a light came, quite awhile after there had been anyone else in the chamber besides them, and it bobbled down the hallway as if carried by the air itself. It was harshly bright, and Ginny covered her face for only a moment before she realized that it was suspended by nothing and that could only mean one thing.
"Harry," she whispered hoarsely, swallowing hard. She abruptly let go of Malfoy’s hand, trying to ignore how wrong it felt without his fingers in hers, and he said nothing as she shakily rose to her feet and made her way to her cell door, grasping the bars with both hands. "Harry!"
The invisibility cloak fell away to reveal Harry and Ron, both looking rumbled and dirty but no more worse for the wear. Ginny nearly sobbed with relief when she saw them, and Harry pointed his wand at her door, whispering a spell. When nothing happened, he tried another one, and this time the door fell open with a loud clang, and Ginny fairly catapulted herself into her brother’s waiting arms, shaking violently against his warm body.
"Oh, Ron!" she sobbed, pressing her face against his shoulder. His arms were strong and solid around her.
"Ginny!" he exclaimed, seeming to be just as choked up as she was. Harry, however, had his face set in a grim line, looking over the cell in which Ginny had been kept in for so long. "Oh, Ginny, I’m so glad you’re alright."
"How did you get here?" Ginny asked when she could finally pull away without trembling. "Where are the Death Eaters?"
"It looks like they’re gone," Harry answered, looking somber. "Most of them have deserted this place."
"Deserted?" Ginny asked.
"Voldemort called them all out," the dark haired boy said with a nod. "The fighting has intensified everywhere."
"I’m so glad we found you," her brother seemed to sigh. Then, he seemed to spot Draco’s kneeling form for the first time, and his smile turned into an ugly sneer.
"Fitting for Malfoy," he spat. "Let’s go."
He started to leave, his arm still wrapped around Ginny’s shoulders, and Harry followed, holding his wand up high so they could see where they were going. Ginny, upon seeing that they were passing Draco’s cell without stopping, twisted violently in her brother’s hold.
"No!" she cried out, reaching both hands for the blond boy still trapped inside. "No, we have to let him out too!"
Her sudden movement caught Ron off guard, and his arm fell away from around her. Ginny shot forward and landed hard on her knees on the tiles, reaching into the cell as Draco moved towards her, and their hands laced together between the bars once more.
"Go," Draco whispered to her as she pressed her face between the iron as far as she could. His grip on her fingers was hard and needy, and one of his hands let go of her fingers to move up to her shoulder, and then to the back of her neck. "Go with them."
"No," she cried, tears trailing down her cheeks. "I’m not leaving without you."
For all those days she’d been trapped in here, he was the only thing she had, the only source of warmth and comfort she’d been allowed, even if she hadn’t expected it. She couldn’t bear to lose it, or to imagine him still trapped there without her, alone and lonely in the cold, dank cell. She choked back a sob as she could hear her brother mumbling something behind her.
"Go," Draco repeated, and then leaned forward to kiss her, his lips feeling warm and welcome and wonderful against hers. She kissed him back, hungrily and needing, until two strong hands wrapped around her waist and hauled her roughly backwards. She let out a strangled sob and reached forward, her fingers brushing his just once more before her brother carried her off down the hallway.
"No!" she screamed, her hands still waving in front of her as though if she tried hard enough, she might be able to reach him again. She tried to resist, but she didn’t have any strength left, and although she let him carry her away she continued to cry out Draco’s name over and over, until Harry whispered another spell and the world around her turned black, and she fell into the blissful darkness.
o.0.o.0.o.
When she awoke, she was surrounded by dim lights, shrouded by the white curtain lining the bed around her. She blinked slowly until she realized that this time she really was in St. Mungo’s, and that the pillow behind her head felt wonderfully soft. Looking around, she noted that the only lights were coming from the candles next to her bed, and that from the look of the darkness just past the window, it was sometime during the night.
On the right side end table there was a small bouquet of flowers in a clear vase, and she smiled when she saw the daisies, which was undoubtedly her mother’s doing. She wondered why none of them were here, until she thought back on Harry’s words, and realized that they were all probably fighting the Death Eaters as she was laying in her hospital bed, in the flimsy, thin gown she felt brush up against her skin.
She sat up with a muffled groan, the pain in her body still lingering. There was a comfortable silence in the room, much more welcome than the horrible silence in the cell at Azkaban, and as she looked over at the flowers once more she saw a small note tucked into them, sticking up between several leaves and white petals. Frowning slightly, she reached over to pluck it out and opened the parchment.
It was definitely Harry’s angular scrawl, but all it said was "329" and try as she might, Ginny couldn’t figure out what 329 meant. She stared at it for a few more minutes, but nothing else appeared on the torn sheet.
She decided to get up and see if she could find a drinking fountain, because her throat was awfully dry and she still didn’t have her wand. The floor was cool beneath her bare feet, but she liked the sound her soles made against the linoleum, and she made her way out into the darkened hallway.
There didn’t seem to be anyone there, and if the fighting was as bad as she thought it could be, than they would probably need all of the best Healers out in the field to save the injured, leaving St. Mungo’s decidedly understaffed. Ginny was momentarily grateful, and she turned back to her door so she could make a note of which one it was, in case she got lost trying to find her way back.
Her door read "306", and Ginny stopped, staring at the embossed lettering on the wood. 329 was a room number.
It took her mind a long while to grasp what she needed to do, and she thought wildly through the possibilities of why Harry would write down a room number for her, and then hide it amongst the flowers by her bed. Finally she decided that she wouldn’t know anything until she went to find out for herself, and so she did, stealing through the hallway trying to be as quiet as possible, her feet making the only noises she heard.
She saw only one flash of movement, and it was a nurse’s aid, but she disappeared into the nurse’s station without even glancing in Ginny’s direction. Ginny let out a sigh of relief and kept going, until she was standing outside of the door marked "329" holding one hand up to it, trying to calm her racing heart.
She pushed the door open, trying to be silent, and peeked inside, finding that it was a room much like her own had been, and the sheets were drawn around the bed. She held her breath and stepped inside, letting the door close gently behind her. Everything had suddenly fallen into place inside her mind.
She slipped through the curtains and tiptoed to the side of the white bed, pulling aside the bed sheets. Draco mumbled something in his sleep and obligingly turned over so that there was room, and Ginny slid into the covers beside him. The movement seemed to wake him slightly, and he turned his head to look at her through sleepy, half-closed eyes.
For a moment she was afraid that he would be angry with her and demand that she leave, but he smiled slightly and simply turned back over so that he was facing her, and she slipped one of her knees in between his. His fingers curled around hers and she sighed in contentment as he leaned forward to kiss the end of her nose gently.
And then, intertwined with the one person she would never have expected to find comfort from, she fell asleep feeling warm and safe for the first time in a long time.
The End.
Katmillia is the author of 1 other stories.
This story is a favorite of 27 members. Members who liked His Hands also liked 1456 other stories.
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