Four – Staggered Steps
After that first night, Ginny came to expect Draco Malfoy every time she hobbled out of the dungeons from her “detentions,” battered, bruised and bleeding from a myriad of gouges in her skin. He was always there waiting for her. Always. His face was blank, his expression carefully guarded, and he never had a pleasant thing to say. But he was always there.
The first time she broke her ankle – actually broke, as opposed to the usual sprain that resulted when one was thrown against a stone wall too many times – he had growled under his breath, irritated, but in the end had levitated her so she wouldn’t have to walk all the way back to the Gryffindor Tower.
“If you were smart – and I know that’s a very big if – but let’s pretend and say that if you were smart, you would be on your way to Pomfrey’s right now,” he said darkly, eyes darting from shadow to shadow as he trudged slowly through the empty corridors, Ginny floating a few inches off the ground at his side.
“Yes, Malfoy, because that is exactly what I want,” Ginny retorted, gritting her teeth as they rounded a corner a little too quickly, her injured ankle swinging violently through the air. “I’m dying for those nauseating Carrows to know that they’ve tortured me so much that I broke my ankle and actually needed help.”
Draco stopped walking, instead turning to the redheaded witch floating next to him. “Weasley,” he said wryly, “you do need help.”
Ginny stared at him blankly until he gestured to his wand hand and the fact that he was levitating her all the way back to her room. She sniffed and chose not to answer. Draco shrugged indifferently.
"Besides," he continued, ignoring her silence, "are you really that dense? Weasley, you had to crawl out of that room. I am positive that the dear Carrows are already aware that you are badly injured. And Pomfrey can fix you up a lot better than I can."
“Careful, Malfoy, or you might fool someone into thinking that you care,” Ginny snapped weakly, but her heart wasn’t in it. Her ankle hurt too much.
“Zabini must’ve cracked your head too hard against the wall,” Draco muttered, but dropped the subject. She knew that he knew that she had her pride.
Ginny always tried to thank him for his kindness – if you could call it that – but he always cut her off and threw an insult back at her as he walked away. In time, she learned that if she didn’t try to show him her gratitude, he would stick around longer. This was something that Ginny found endlessly puzzling – one, that she actually wanted to show her gratitude to Draco Malfoy, and two, that when she discovered how to keep him around longer, she took advantage of it.
“Why don’t you ever let me thank you?” she asked him brazenly one night, after they had reached the portrait hole of the Fat Lady.
“What makes you think that I want your thanks?” he replied coolly, again throwing up that smirk on his face.
“Why do you always answer my questions with another question?” Ginny retorted angrily, poking him in the arm. Draco, the smirk still on his face, chose not to reply.
“And,” Ginny said, thinking of something else, “maybe you don’t want my thanks, but what if I want to give it to you?” She watched how his grey eyes gleamed in the weak light.
“Perhaps,” he answered slowly in a voice so soft Ginny wondered whether he was talking to her or to himself, “perhaps I don’t deserve your thanks.” This was such a definitive statement that Ginny couldn’t think of anything to say at all, instead only blinking back at him stupidly as he began to back away.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Weasley,” he called back to her from the lengthening shadows. “Unless you gain enough brains to keep yourself out of trouble for one day. But no, I suppose that would be too intelligent of you, especially since you’re a Gryffindor and all.” Merlin, how was it possible that she could hear his smirk from the darkness?
And just like that, things snapped back to the way they always were. Ginny vaguely wondered if there was some other reason they never let the conversations get too serious between them as she shouted some form of “you are an insufferable, dim-witted prat” towards his retreating back.
But though it was rarely serious, the snarky banter that the two of them exchanged each night as he led her, bloodied and injured, back to her room was refreshing. There was almost no weight to their words and in his company, Ginny could forget who she was for a moment. She didn’t have to be Ginny Weasley: fearless leader of the mouvement de résistance against the Carrows, Secret-Keeper of the Order of the Phoenix and someone whom those scared of Voldemort could respect. She was just Ginny, the girl who trembled uncontrollably when she imagined what Voldemort could do to her – what Tom Riddle had done to her. She was the girl who loathed Draco Malfoy, exactly as she had when they were little, when the world was not so dark and everything made a little more sense. And when the two of them argued, jabbing each other’s metaphorical buttons, Ginny was able to fool herself into thinking that they were back in times when the worst thing in her world was that the Boy Who Lived didn’t return her affections.
But in the back of her mind, no matter how much she enjoyed quarrelling with him, Ginny never could forget that they were on opposite sides. Draco Malfoy was the enemy. His mansion was home to Voldemort’s headquarters. His friends tortured her friends – and herself – night after night, howling with laughter every time one of them cried or asked for mercy. His parents had tortured, even killed countless Muggles and wizards alike – indeed, his father had tried to kill her when he gave her that diary back in her first year. Draco Malfoy was everything that Ginny despised, everything she and her family fought against, and yet – he wasn’t. She couldn’t explain why, but for some reason, when they were together and just bantering about pointless, meaningless things, she felt herself relax, felt the strain and the fear simply melt away.
“What?” he demanded one night as she watched him wind a long, flesh-colored bandage around her left wrist, which had gotten bent in a direction that a wrist should never bend due to a particularly exuberant Pansy Parkinson.
Ginny realized that, as she had been thinking about how relaxed she felt around him, she had also been blatantly staring at him with an almost dreamy expression on her face. She felt herself go pink.
“N-nothing,” she stuttered, feeling for the life of her as if she was eleven years old again and had just dipped her elbow in the butter dish.
He studied her for a moment – taking in the flushed skin and nervous eyes – before replying. “I should suggest to Crabbe and Goyle that they stop banging your head against the wall so much,” he said, his voice dry. “You Weasleys don’t have many brain cells to begin with, and it looks like the loss of so many in those detentions is affecting your ability to maintain simple motor functions.”
Ginny wrinkled her nose at him and then soundly kicked out with her right foot, nailing him in the shin. He laughed – yes, he did that around her occasionally – and caught her foot playfully before turning his attention back to her sprained wrist.
It certainly was a strange feeling, looking at Draco Malfoy and realizing that he gave her some sort of peace. She was supposed to hate him – she was born to hate him. That was what she was meant to do. But he was the only one that ever helped her, the only one who was there, waiting for her, always, when she limped away from the Carrows’ torture chamber. He healed her wounds so she wouldn’t have to suffer the humiliation of going to the infirmary and proving that she was weak. He practically carried her home every night, certainly a shameful task for him as well as her, but he did it nonetheless. And the thing was – he did all of this in such a manner that she never doubted that he didn’t want anything in return. One might call her naïve, tell her that he was a Malfoy and a Slytherin and the son of a Death Eater, that he was doing this to gain her trust and that one day he would demand everything and more in payment, but Ginny didn’t believe it. He helped her simply because – well, because he did.
But needless to say, these encounters occurred only when they were alone, in the darkness, far past midnight. In the light of the day, he treated her with as much contempt and disdain as he always had. Not that he didn’t treat her with contempt and disdain when they were alone at night either, but those nocturnal interactions lacked that edge of suppressed hatred and violence that he showed her when his friends were around. Ginny found none of this surprising – if there was one thing to be said about Draco Malfoy, it was that he was immaculate about how he appeared to the rest of the world. But she found herself increasingly puzzled by this other side he grudgingly revealed to her every night as he healed her bruises, dipped her cuts into a small wooden bowl filled with essence of Murtlap, and staggered down the corridors, half-carrying her home.
After that first night, Ginny came to expect Draco Malfoy every time she hobbled out of the dungeons from her “detentions,” battered, bruised and bleeding from a myriad of gouges in her skin. He was always there waiting for her. Always. His face was blank, his expression carefully guarded, and he never had a pleasant thing to say. But he was always there.
The first time she broke her ankle – actually broke, as opposed to the usual sprain that resulted when one was thrown against a stone wall too many times – he had growled under his breath, irritated, but in the end had levitated her so she wouldn’t have to walk all the way back to the Gryffindor Tower.
“If you were smart – and I know that’s a very big if – but let’s pretend and say that if you were smart, you would be on your way to Pomfrey’s right now,” he said darkly, eyes darting from shadow to shadow as he trudged slowly through the empty corridors, Ginny floating a few inches off the ground at his side.
“Yes, Malfoy, because that is exactly what I want,” Ginny retorted, gritting her teeth as they rounded a corner a little too quickly, her injured ankle swinging violently through the air. “I’m dying for those nauseating Carrows to know that they’ve tortured me so much that I broke my ankle and actually needed help.”
Draco stopped walking, instead turning to the redheaded witch floating next to him. “Weasley,” he said wryly, “you do need help.”
Ginny stared at him blankly until he gestured to his wand hand and the fact that he was levitating her all the way back to her room. She sniffed and chose not to answer. Draco shrugged indifferently.
"Besides," he continued, ignoring her silence, "are you really that dense? Weasley, you had to crawl out of that room. I am positive that the dear Carrows are already aware that you are badly injured. And Pomfrey can fix you up a lot better than I can."
“Careful, Malfoy, or you might fool someone into thinking that you care,” Ginny snapped weakly, but her heart wasn’t in it. Her ankle hurt too much.
“Zabini must’ve cracked your head too hard against the wall,” Draco muttered, but dropped the subject. She knew that he knew that she had her pride.
Ginny always tried to thank him for his kindness – if you could call it that – but he always cut her off and threw an insult back at her as he walked away. In time, she learned that if she didn’t try to show him her gratitude, he would stick around longer. This was something that Ginny found endlessly puzzling – one, that she actually wanted to show her gratitude to Draco Malfoy, and two, that when she discovered how to keep him around longer, she took advantage of it.
“Why don’t you ever let me thank you?” she asked him brazenly one night, after they had reached the portrait hole of the Fat Lady.
“What makes you think that I want your thanks?” he replied coolly, again throwing up that smirk on his face.
“Why do you always answer my questions with another question?” Ginny retorted angrily, poking him in the arm. Draco, the smirk still on his face, chose not to reply.
“And,” Ginny said, thinking of something else, “maybe you don’t want my thanks, but what if I want to give it to you?” She watched how his grey eyes gleamed in the weak light.
“Perhaps,” he answered slowly in a voice so soft Ginny wondered whether he was talking to her or to himself, “perhaps I don’t deserve your thanks.” This was such a definitive statement that Ginny couldn’t think of anything to say at all, instead only blinking back at him stupidly as he began to back away.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Weasley,” he called back to her from the lengthening shadows. “Unless you gain enough brains to keep yourself out of trouble for one day. But no, I suppose that would be too intelligent of you, especially since you’re a Gryffindor and all.” Merlin, how was it possible that she could hear his smirk from the darkness?
And just like that, things snapped back to the way they always were. Ginny vaguely wondered if there was some other reason they never let the conversations get too serious between them as she shouted some form of “you are an insufferable, dim-witted prat” towards his retreating back.
But though it was rarely serious, the snarky banter that the two of them exchanged each night as he led her, bloodied and injured, back to her room was refreshing. There was almost no weight to their words and in his company, Ginny could forget who she was for a moment. She didn’t have to be Ginny Weasley: fearless leader of the mouvement de résistance against the Carrows, Secret-Keeper of the Order of the Phoenix and someone whom those scared of Voldemort could respect. She was just Ginny, the girl who trembled uncontrollably when she imagined what Voldemort could do to her – what Tom Riddle had done to her. She was the girl who loathed Draco Malfoy, exactly as she had when they were little, when the world was not so dark and everything made a little more sense. And when the two of them argued, jabbing each other’s metaphorical buttons, Ginny was able to fool herself into thinking that they were back in times when the worst thing in her world was that the Boy Who Lived didn’t return her affections.
But in the back of her mind, no matter how much she enjoyed quarrelling with him, Ginny never could forget that they were on opposite sides. Draco Malfoy was the enemy. His mansion was home to Voldemort’s headquarters. His friends tortured her friends – and herself – night after night, howling with laughter every time one of them cried or asked for mercy. His parents had tortured, even killed countless Muggles and wizards alike – indeed, his father had tried to kill her when he gave her that diary back in her first year. Draco Malfoy was everything that Ginny despised, everything she and her family fought against, and yet – he wasn’t. She couldn’t explain why, but for some reason, when they were together and just bantering about pointless, meaningless things, she felt herself relax, felt the strain and the fear simply melt away.
“What?” he demanded one night as she watched him wind a long, flesh-colored bandage around her left wrist, which had gotten bent in a direction that a wrist should never bend due to a particularly exuberant Pansy Parkinson.
Ginny realized that, as she had been thinking about how relaxed she felt around him, she had also been blatantly staring at him with an almost dreamy expression on her face. She felt herself go pink.
“N-nothing,” she stuttered, feeling for the life of her as if she was eleven years old again and had just dipped her elbow in the butter dish.
He studied her for a moment – taking in the flushed skin and nervous eyes – before replying. “I should suggest to Crabbe and Goyle that they stop banging your head against the wall so much,” he said, his voice dry. “You Weasleys don’t have many brain cells to begin with, and it looks like the loss of so many in those detentions is affecting your ability to maintain simple motor functions.”
Ginny wrinkled her nose at him and then soundly kicked out with her right foot, nailing him in the shin. He laughed – yes, he did that around her occasionally – and caught her foot playfully before turning his attention back to her sprained wrist.
It certainly was a strange feeling, looking at Draco Malfoy and realizing that he gave her some sort of peace. She was supposed to hate him – she was born to hate him. That was what she was meant to do. But he was the only one that ever helped her, the only one who was there, waiting for her, always, when she limped away from the Carrows’ torture chamber. He healed her wounds so she wouldn’t have to suffer the humiliation of going to the infirmary and proving that she was weak. He practically carried her home every night, certainly a shameful task for him as well as her, but he did it nonetheless. And the thing was – he did all of this in such a manner that she never doubted that he didn’t want anything in return. One might call her naïve, tell her that he was a Malfoy and a Slytherin and the son of a Death Eater, that he was doing this to gain her trust and that one day he would demand everything and more in payment, but Ginny didn’t believe it. He helped her simply because – well, because he did.
But needless to say, these encounters occurred only when they were alone, in the darkness, far past midnight. In the light of the day, he treated her with as much contempt and disdain as he always had. Not that he didn’t treat her with contempt and disdain when they were alone at night either, but those nocturnal interactions lacked that edge of suppressed hatred and violence that he showed her when his friends were around. Ginny found none of this surprising – if there was one thing to be said about Draco Malfoy, it was that he was immaculate about how he appeared to the rest of the world. But she found herself increasingly puzzled by this other side he grudgingly revealed to her every night as he healed her bruises, dipped her cuts into a small wooden bowl filled with essence of Murtlap, and staggered down the corridors, half-carrying her home.
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