The other aurors assigned as guards to Azkaban thought they were shaking down the rookie when they assigned her to walk the corridor through the solitary confinement boxes. The first night, they were right. After that, though, Ginny was only letting them think she was unhappy but bearing up well. In truth, she grew to like it, the calm and quiet of nothing but her thoughts and the damp stones of this corridor no one else ever walked. The day shift didn't bother sending anyone down; even the house elves just conjured the food into the cells.

Supposedly the cells were soundproof, and supposedly the cells were unoccupied, since they amounted to sensory deprivation and had been deemed cruel and unusual punishment even by a system that had thought Dementors were perfectly acceptable jailers. In reality, a rotating cast of characters moved through the cells, depending on who had pissed off the guards that week, usually by not offering a large enough bribe. The soundproofing spells were spotty, and sound usually flowed out of the occupied cells, although it usually didn't go in, as far as she knew. She'd thought of complaining, but to who? Tentative feelers to Harry and Hermione had led to pats on the head and reassurances that things were being run as they should be, and was she sure that she wasn't just trying to make things exciting, given how much she'd complained about being assigned away from all the action?

And, if anyone cared, Draco Malfoy wouldn't be a permanent resident of the cell on the very end of the corridor, so thoroughly forgotten that the dust and cobwebs and moss on the walls had been too thick to retreat tamely when she had started to walk down here. It still lingered, and she thought nightly of bringing a scrub brush to tackle it, but held off because she didn't want her fellow guards to get the idea of setting her to clean up after them.

She supposed he had to be alive, because surely they'd at least send someone in to clean out his remains if he'd succumbed to illness or despair, but she never heard anything from his cell. The others all made noise, sooner or later, anything from mad laughter to piteous whimpers, and that never more than a day, since it meant that they had broken and could be moved back to their regular cells. The nights when no one had earned extra punishment were her favorites, because then it was just her and her thoughts.

Tonight had been one such night, and she had swiped a cloth from the kitchens during her dinner break, determined to at least clear away a little bit of the filth from the end of the corridor. Stopping just short of the worst of it, she had the thought that she should've gotten a bigger cloth. And several gallons of bleach.

"Are you all right?" The voice was soft, hoarse, and just about made her jump out of her skin. "Ah, you moved. I was afraid you'd fainted or died and it's not as if I can call for someone to help you, is it?"

Clutching the rag tightly, she said, "I stopped to clean the wall." Which was kind of a pointless thing to say to a disembodied voice, but she couldn't quite think of what would be better.

"I see." There was a slight rustle, and Ginny backed up a step before telling herself she could either be stupid or curious, but not both. "Do I know you? It thought I recognized your voice before, when you would sing under your breath, but now I'm sure it sounds familiar."

Ginny forced herself to calm down and take a deep breath. "Draco Malfoy." It was the only logical source for the voice, even if he wasn't supposed to be able to hear anything outside his cell.

There was a small laugh, and it was a terrible thing, cracked and rusty, as if the person enduring it had never heard of laughter and was being forced into it against his will. "In that case, I really have gone mad. I could've sworn that was my name."

"Of course it is," Ginny said crossly, swiping at a cobweb. "And I doubt you're familiar with my voice, which you're not supposed to be hearing anyway."

After a small silence, he said, "No, of course I'm not. Goodnight, Ginny Weasley."

She didn't know how to answer that and so she scurried away, only slowing down when she approached the end of the hallway which connected to the main guard room. No need to let them think she'd finally been spooked.

The next night, she walked her route through the solitary corridor as she always did, her steps precise and firm. No one spoke. Again the next night, and again, until on the fifth night, she smuggled a bucket and a brush past the others and marched determinedly to the end, ready to finish what she'd started. If he wanted to talk, she didn't have to listen.

Except he didn't talk, even though she was making all sorts of noise as she attacked the filth on the walls, including cursing the asinine regulations that had guards checking their wands before they were allowed to come on duty. Ginny'd taken to just leaving hers at home and flooing in.

"Did you die?" she asked when she couldn't stand the silence anymore.

"Not as far as I know," came the response. "The thought of being a ghost and not at least leaving the cell is kind of tragic, don't you think?"

Her lips quirked up at his tone and she attacked a stubborn green spot with renewed enthusiasm. "Try walking into a wall. If you go through it, you're a ghost."

"And if I don't, I'm a bruise with legs." He went quiet, but before she could get antsy again, he said, "No matter how hard I push, my hand's still firmly remaining on this side of the wall, so I guess I'm destined to live a little longer."

Ginny didn't say anything, because it didn't seem appropriate to say that was either good or bad, and so she didn't know what was left. The only noise was from her scrubbing, and that gradually slowed to a halt as her thoughts whirled. Finally she said, "What're you totally innocent of that nonetheless ended up with you being thrown into Azkaban unfairly?"

"I'm totally, one hundred percent guilty of being Draco Malfoy." She couldn't see him, but she could picture him just as he used to be, cocky and defiant. "As for actual charges, I had a Dark Mark, therefore I was only fit for prison."

"Good of you to recognize it," she snapped, and went back to her scrubbing. He didn't speak again that night, although she mumbled a goodnight when she left.

And, really, what she ought to do was report to someone that the spells on his cell needed to be seen to, since he could both hear and be heard. Why didn't she? Well, it would mean admitting she'd talked to him and not immediately gone to report, which would get her in trouble. Malfoy certainly had no reason to lie in order to protect her. She could do it tomorrow, and maybe she would - if he said they'd talked before then, she could just brazen it out.

The next day, though, she was off work to attend a wedding, where she and Harry stoically endured teasing about being next before parting ways gratefully at the end of the minimum polite amount of time at the reception. It was easier to go together than apart, but the pressure had killed any hint of a relationship long since. He kissed her cheek when he dropped her off at her flat, and she wished him a good night, and that was it. Almost all it had ever been, really.

She looked up what Draco Malfoy had been jailed for, and it was as he'd said - he was found guilty of being a Death Eater by the tribunal which had been set up for the purpose of prosecuting war criminals directly after the battle at Hogwarts. His father had also been convicted, although he was released within a year. Narcissa Malfoy had escaped without any penalty.

"Why are you still here?" she asked as soon as she reached the end of the hallway that night. "Don't your mummy and daddy love you enough to pay your way out of jail, like they did for dear old Lucius?"

"So he's out," Draco said, and she could clearly hear satisfaction and relief in his voice. "I wondered, when I stopped hearing his shouts, whether he'd died. I'm glad to know he's all right, thank you."

She scowled at the blank wall. It hadn't been her intention to help him, and his courteous tone needled her more than his sneers had ever done. As if he knew, he continued, "You should be careful how much time you spend down here. Someone might notice, and I wouldn't want you to get into trouble on my account."

"Thank you for your concern," she said icily. "But I'm assigned to walk this corridor, so it's not as if I'm here to keep you company."

"Just a happy thing for me that you do," he said complacently, and she heard something dragging along the floor. "I must say, I'm really glad for whatever you did out there that cleaned the air. I can smell your perfume - what's it called?"

She pursed her lips, but didn't see any harm in answering. "L'Air du Temps - it's a muggle perfume Harry got for my birthday."

"The spirit of the times comes from muggles." His voice was amused, and sounded much closer. "If only all of the effects of the zeitgeist were as pleasant."

Ginny walked back down the hallway.

Three days later, she brought down a blanket, and her dinner. It's not as if the other guards were good company. "You know, I used to wonder what I did to get stuck in Azkaban."

"Do tell," he said with some amusement. "And feel free to waft the scent of that fried chicken over this way a bit more."

"If you're going to say one word about my plebian tastes..." She trailed off, not sure what she could threaten.

Sharply, he said, "Grow up, Weasley. I haven't smelled or seen real food in two years. If you want to break me, keep coming down here and taunting me with the smell of something I want but can't have."

"Oh, yes, my fried chicken's going to do what years of isolation didn't accomplish," she said, but it was more subdued than a snap. She thought she could almost understand, knowing the food the prisoners got was deliberately bland and unappetizing.

Amused again, he said, "Maybe, maybe not. Bring in some fish and chips or a cherry pie and we'll test the theory further."

Ginny just grunted and bit viciously into her drumstick. When she got self conscious about the sounds of her own chewing, she cleared her throat and said, "Why did you start talking to me?"

The silence stretched on so long that her leg started to cramp from the cold seeping through the thin blanket she sat on. Just before she gave up, he said softly, "I thought you were hurt. I couldn't have done a lot from in here, but if my vital signs go down sufficiently, someone is supposed to investigate. They'd have found you."

Not wanting to ask how he'd planned to make his vital signs drop, or think about why he'd be willing to do that, she joked, "I suppose eau de corpse would probably break you even faster than if I brought down champagne and strawberries and roast beef."

"You'd think so," he said. "It's amazing, though, what can be endured if you have your mind right."

"And what's right?" She sounded petulant, but she didn't care. "Killing and maiming people for a hideous monster?"

Quietly, so quietly she wasn't absolutely sure she heard him correctly, he whispered, "Right is knowing who you are, and accepting that that's everything you can control."

Throwing the remains of her dinner back into the bag, she bundled it all in the blanket and scrambled to her feet. "Very nice. I'm sure you got it from the finest of fortune cookies."

The next day, she was part of the crew that brought Flint down to solitary, and she was horrified to discover that the cell he was originally going to be put into contained a skeleton, in robes she recognized as not being more than a few years old. The exposure to the air and the damp must have accelerated the decomposition, but it made her sick to think that someone's family didn't even get to know that their black sheep was dead, let alone give him a proper burial.

She couldn't eat her dinner that night, not even the cherry pie that she'd brought to taunt Draco with, and she pressed her hands over her ears to block out the sound of Flint's animalistic groans. "How can you stand it?"

"I remind myself how little stands between me and becoming the same sort of howling lunatic," he said softly, and concentrating on listening to him made it easier to ignore the noise. "I retreat into memory and thought, and if I'm mad, I'm mad in a way that's true to myself."

The wall was cool as she leaned her forehead against it, and it was strangely comforting to know he was just on the other side of it. "A mad prisoner sounds more sensible than I do. I think I need a holiday."

His breath caught so sharply that she could hear it, despite the insulation of the stone walls that sometimes made their words indistinct. "If... If you go, could you tell me? So I don't wonder?"

The desperation in his voice was clear even though she was sure he'd hidden as much of it as he could, and she nodded, her voice clogged in her throat. "Yes," she said hurriedly when she realized he couldn't exactly see her. "Yes, I'll tell you."

"Make sure you bring me back a souvenir," he said lightly. "Perhaps something with a nail file in baked goods motif."

"I don't think so, Malfoy," she said, her own equanimity returning as she wrapped her dinner back up, certain she wasn't going to eat tonight. She looked at it thoughtfully, and at the wall.

"All right, you can skip the nail file. It's not as if I can get a proper manicure without some oil to massage into my cuticles." When she didn't respond, he said, "Come on, Weasley. That's your cue to tease me about being such a girl."

Automatically, she said, "You're such a girl. Is your cell laid out like the others down here?"

That surprised him and he was quiet for a moment. "How should I know? This is the only one I've been in."

"I need to know the layout of your cell," she said, going back in her mind to a time before she had a wand, back when her mother had taken her through some simple exercises to practice her control, after the incident where she set fire to Charlie's hair.

Crisply, he said, "And I need to know what you're wearing."

"Oh, for heaven's sake!" She was tempted to just leave, but she took a deep breath and said, "I'm wearing jeans and a Chudley Cannons jersey that I got from Ron for Christmas, and my guard robes over that. Ancient grey trainers that were white once, but I haven't gotten around to replacing them. And I'm not telling you about my underwear, so don't ask."

"Quite all right, I'll just imagine you without any." She glared at the wall, knowing he was back there looking smug, but then he started reciting. "The wall between us is ten paces long, as is the facing wall, which has a window precisely one hand wide and three hands tall. A cot which is several inches short of six feet long and barely two feet wide is pushed against our wall. There's a toilet at the foot of the cot, and a sink that hasn't worked in months, and let me tell you, that was a blow."

She concentrated on forming a mental image. He'd moved the bed, but otherwise it was like the other cells for solitary confinement. "And the table? Is it still centered below the window?"

"If you can call such a rickety thing a table, yes." His voice sounded unlike anything she'd heard from him before, and she wasn't sure whether she'd call it hopeful or frightened. "Don't do anything stupid, Weasley. You won't hear me if they put you in the next cell."

Shrugging, she said, "It's only a little sin."

Quickly, before she could rethink it, she kept the picture of his cell solidly in her mind and went over the spell one more time before she carried it out, making the food she'd wrapped in a cloth napkin disappear from her lunch pail and, hopefully, reappear on the table inside his cell.

When he didn't say anything, she began to fear that she'd done it wrong and accidentally splinched him. How she was going to explain Malfoy suddenly having a pork chop through his arm, she had no idea. "Malfoy? Did I kill you?"

"I... I'm not sure," he said shakily.

The lump was back in her throat, as she thought about how long it must have been since he had received a decent meal. "I promise, I didn't poison it. I didn't even spit in it."

"I wouldn't care if you had." He sighed loudly and she squirmed, remembering he'd said that smelling good food would break him. Had she done the wrong thing? "Thank you. Thank you for your... kindness. I don't even care if it's pity."

That Draco Malfoy of all people could say that almost broke her. Struggling not to sound teary, she closed her empty lunch pail and stood. "I've got to go. See you tomorrow."

She was gone before he could answer, although she stopped before she left the secluded area to calm down and present an unruffled facade to the other guards. There was no point in having them asking questions.

It wasn't difficult to pack twice as much into her lunch pail, and she got practiced enough to where she could apparate the wrappers back out as easily as she could apparate the food in. Conversations were sometimes short and sometimes stretched for hours, and one day after she told him about a book she was reading, she included it with his next meal so he could read it, too.

Other occupants of the solitary corridor came and went, and Ginny baked Draco a birthday cake, singing off-key after she apparated it in. He insisted that she had to take back a slice for herself and she did, showing off the precision with which she could handle a spell intended for children and house elves.

He was sick as a dog the next day, and she fretted about whether to get a healer, until he lost patience and said firmly, "All that's wrong with me is that I ate an entire birthday cake, and even if there was something wrong, I'd rather finish the job of dying in here sooner rather than later. It'd be better than having to go back to how it was before you."

It was too much for her, and she put her hand against the wall, the closest she could get to him, and said, "I don't want you to talk like that. I won't be the one that broke you."

"I won't talk about it, if it bothers you." His voice was soft, almost carressing. "As for the other, you've no choice about it. You already are."

"Sometimes, I really don't like you," she said with a pout, not wanting to acknowledge how untrue her words were.

He had no such compunction, and his voice was low and stirred something almost forgotten inside her. "If I'd known all I had to do to have it be only sometimes that you don't care for me was to live in misery and squalor and isolation, I might not have minded my arrest so much."

"You're such a jerk, Draco Malfoy!" She scrambled to her feet, leaving the blanket behind as she snapped her lunch pail shut and started down the corridor.

"Ginny!" She stopped when he called her so desperately, closing her eyes against the sick feeling of having him sound like the others, even a little bit. "Ginny, please!"

Walking back was one of the hardest things she'd ever done. "I'm here," she whispered, pressing her hands and face against their wall. "I'm sorry."

"The fault is mine," he said, very formally. "I won't... I'm sorry for upsetting you."

Tears trickled down her cheeks and she wasn't sure if, after all, she wasn't the one breaking. "I can't stand it. I can't stand the thought of you dying in there."

"You have to," he said gently. "I'll try to make sure it doesn't happen soon, but they're never going to let me out of here. It's less punishment than they wanted for me, so maybe they've forgotten me, but I don't want them reminded."

Scrimgeour, Harry, Ron, even Hermione. Herself, a few months ago. Her parents, Kingsley, Andromeda, McGonagall - there was no way to know who was keeping him here, not without asking questions that would draw attention, attention that could make Draco's situation worse.

"Since we're getting out all sorts of unpleasant business, you might as well know that I've been picturing you without underwear for... a very long time." She smiled wryly at the wall as he continued, obviously making an effort to sound normal. "That time in sixth year when you went all day without a bra is a particularly nice memory."

Ginny reared back and stared at the wall in disbelief. "I'm not sure that I don't find it disturbing you remember a single incident when I had laundry issues."

Laughing, he said, "You're very pretty. I know you've probably changed, but that's how I picture you - your hair shining in a ponytail and your little freckled nose all scrunched up when you're smiling or frowning."

"I cut my hair," she said, reaching up to touch the back of her head. "It's easier to take care of since I got it bobbed, and it's darker than it was at Hogwarts, since I sleep most of the day instead of being out in the sun."

"I've changed a little, too," he said softly.

The corner of her mouth kicked up, and she swiped at her damp cheeks. "Don't tell me. You're pale and skinny, and your manicure's a mess."

"Well, you never did bring me a nail file." She started laughing then, much more than the joke warranted, and he waited until she was done before saying, "You should go now, since I know you'll come back."

"Kicking me out, are you?" she teased, but he was right. "Any requests for tomorrow?"

She could practically see his smirk as he said, "Depends. Am I allowed to sexually harass you?"

With a laugh, Ginny said, "Considering I've got all the power here, I think I'd be the harasser."

"Oh, if only," he said, and she shook her head before bidding him goodnight.

When she was out shopping the next day, pushing a cart around the muggle grocery store she'd started going to so that no one would notice how much more she was buying in groceries, she saw a nail file and threw it into the cart, wondering if she should bake it into a loaf of bread or just wrap it in his napkin. She stopped briefly to look at boxes which promised to color her hair and picked one up that looked about like the same shade her hair had been at school, but she put it back. Better not to change anything than to have people asking questions, and anyway she'd hated her orange hair.

There was one thing they hadn't taken into account, and when Ginny arrived at work, her supervisor asked, "You heard anything from Malfoy's cell?"

"I don't think so," she said carefully, resisting the urge to embroider her response.

He grunted. "His food's been coming back uneaten. We'll have to send someone down to check he's alive."

The genesis of an awful idea shot through her mind, and Ginny said, "Should I do that today, then?"

"No, of course not," he said, as she knew he would. Taking orders or even a suggestion from a girl wasn't something Jack had ever been willing to contemplate. "We'll give him another day or so. It's not like anyone'll miss him."

Trying carefully for the right balance between indifference and emotion, she said, "I'm sure his family would want to know. They'd probably pay for a healer to come in, or for a burial if they couldn't claim his body themselves."

"His family." The scorn was clear, but Ginny could tell he'd caught on to the mention of money. "Go on, get on with your business."

She nodded and went, the months of practice helping her appear normal as she passed through the guard room and into the corridor. Once the door was safely shut and she'd taken three cautious steps in, she broke into a run and slapped her palms against Draco's wall. "What's more important, being a Malfoy or seeing your mother again?"

"What?" Draco was bewildered and rightfully so, but she didn't wait for more.

"Just answer the question!" She bounced from foot to foot, her mind racing as she considered possibilities. "Would you be willing to give up being a Malfoy if it meant your freedom?"

She recognized the silence as him thinking, but finally he said, "Would being free mean never talking to you again?"

Outraged, she said, "Don't you dare. I'm not that important."

"Yes, you are," he said quietly. "If I can have you and be free, then I wouldn't have to be a Malfoy."

Feeling charged up as the crazy idea reached full flower and she realized it was simple enough to work, she said, "Well, Draco, you said you were going to die here. The trick is what happens afterwards."

She outlined her plan and he asked questions, refining the plan until he approved of it. "I've got two conditions," he said firmly. "If you won't comply, it's all off."

"Conditions? You have conditions?" She put her hand on her hip and glared at the wall. "What are they?"

"First, you have to be safe, no matter what," he said. "If there's any risk for you, we call the whole thing off."

She shrugged. "Obviously. We can try more than once."

Draco made a scoffing noise, and said, "We'll see. The second condition is that you have to find a way to tell my parents. Include the phrase 'jam dumplings can cause trouble' when you talk to them."

"I'll see what I can do," she said. "Gather up everything in your cell that shouldn't be there. I'll bring it while I'm here, but we don't want to take any chances."

After a moment, he sighed and said, "It's all on the table. And, Ginny - in case... I just need to tell you that I--"

She cut him off. "Tell me when you can look me in the eye."

Despite not having the first idea of how to go about it, Ginny knew that time was of the essence in contacting the Malfoys. They'd probably also be able to secure the needed materials more discreetly than she could, and more quickly. The direct approach seemed the simplest, and so as soon as her shift ended, she apparated to the Malfoys' front gates and rang the bell.

"I have news from Azkaban about Draco Malfoy," she told the house elf that appeared, doing her best to be every bit as haughty as Draco at his worst. "Please show me to where I can speak to his family." And don't leave me standing here for long enough that I have to think about confronting Lucius Malfoy.

The elf was gone that long and longer, but eventually she was taken to a very pretty room that nevertheless seemed gloomy. Lucius Malfoy, rather than the terrifying figure from her nightmares, looked smaller, his hair more grey than silver. Narcissa still looked regal and dignified, but there were lines on the sides of her mouth that hadn't been there before. They sat side by side on a plush blue sofa, spines absolutely straight.

If she hadn't caught sight of how tightly Narcissa was clutching her husband's hand, Ginny might not have had the courage to speak. As it was, she croaked out, "Jam is so much trouble."

"Pardon?" said Narcissa, her eyes wide, and Ginny swore, then blushed.

"Dumplings, sorry. It was dumplings that can be troublesome." Clearing her throat, she started again. "I have some messages from Draco, and he told me to use a phrase when I talked to you."

Narcissa's free hand flew to cover her mouth, and Lucius leaned forward, once again seeming powerful as he demanded, "What did he say? How is he? Did they release him from solitary confinement?"

Taking a deep breath, Ginny said, "They didn't, and they won't. Which is why we will, although you may not like how we've planned to do it."

"Young lady, I can assure you that I will like anything that returns my son to me," Narcissa said fiercely.

"Did you ever read The Count of Monte Cristo?" Ginny asked, then blushed again at their blank looks. "He won't be freed until he dies, so we're going to hasten that along. And then, after he's dead..."

Breathlessly, Narcissa said, "We bring him back to life."

Lucius was already on his feet, leaving without so much as a goodbye. Narcissa edged forward in her seat, focused on Ginny with disturbing intensity. "How can you be sure they won't check for the effects of the Draught of Living Death?"

"They have no reason to suspect it." Wringing her hands together, Ginny explained, "They think he hasn't eaten in over a week - they expect to find him dead when they go check on him. We're just fulfilling their expectations."

The lines beside Narcissa's mouth grew tighter as she said bitterly, "Of course. They don't care that's someone's child, just that they have someone they can be cruel to. Bastards."

Ginny couldn't quite bring herself to disagree. "Originally, the plan was that we'd hope the warden contacted you to try to extort payment, and if they didn't, then I'd cast a bubblehead charm so that Draco would survive after they threw his shrouded body in the ocean."

Hastily, because Narcissa had closed her eyes and swayed at the latter possibility, Ginny said, "Since I had to talk to you, because Draco didn't want you upset when you heard of his death, I thought we could adjust that a bit."

"I'm listening," Narcissa said, although she had a death grip on the arm of the couch.

"I mentioned today to the warden that his family would miss him," Ginny said. "It would be perfectly natural that I came here to inform you of your son's... uncertain state. You and Mr. Malfoy can then go demand humane treatment for Draco."

"But it will be unfortunately too late," Narcissa said thoughtfully, her eyes gleaming.

Nodding, Ginny was almost cheerful as she said, "They'll have to let you claim the body, and I'll probably get fired for causing trouble. We'll all be free of Azkaban."

"Why would you do this?" Lucius asked from the doorway, holding a vial of clear liquid. "Is it for the money?"

Almost inaudibly, Ginny finally admitted what she hadn't been able to even think before. "I love him. I don't care about anything else."

Giving her a probing look, Lucius finally nodded and handed her the potion. "When can you give it to him?"

"Tonight," Ginny said firmly. "You can come for him tomorrow."

The day passed by with agonizing slowness, and she couldn't sleep for worrying that Jack would've shown some decency for once and sent someone to check on Draco immediately. By the time she reported to work, she was haggard and cross, stamping around until she was able to go down the solitary corridor for what might be the last time. "Draco?"

"No one's come," he said immediately, and she felt the muscles in her neck and shoulders relax for the first time since she'd left him the night before. "Did you talk to them?"

She nodded and apparated the vial onto the table. "That's from your dad. He and your mum will be here tomorrow."

"Ginny, I... I can't even say what this means to me." She heard him moving around, attuned to every noise he made. He picked up the vial and was quiet, too quiet. "Are you sure you won't change your mind? You'll still be willing to be with me when you can see what a wreck I've become?"

It was tempting to make a joke of it, but she swallowed her pride and said, "I'm sure. But, if you get out and you realize... I'm the only one here, it's not like you're making a clear choice, so... And we'll have to wait a while to see each other, so you might... Anyway, I'm sure. And I won't regret any of it."

"All right, then," he said determinedly. "Give me a moment to take this and it'll be back on the table."

One of her nails broke as her hand tightened against the rough stone wall, but she didn't notice as she whispered his name and heard him set the glass down against the wooden surface. She couldn't help crying out as his body fell to the floor, but she pulled herself together and apparated the bottle out, along with the cloth it had been resting on.

She stuffed both into her pocket and marched out, informing Jack that she was ill, something he easily believed given how she'd been looking and acting that day. Once she got home, she told the house elf that the Malfoys had stationed there that the package had been opened, then moved around the kitchen, making a cup of tea and wondering why, after all this, she didn't feel anything at all.

Then she remembered the bottle and pulled it out to destroy it, only to recognize the somewhat dingy cloth as the napkin she'd used to wrap the first meal she'd sent into his cell. In crude letters, in the dirty brown color of dried blood, he'd written, "I love you." Ginny cried for the rest of the endless night.

She was fired as soon as she walked in for her next shift, and Jack didn't even try to pretend that it wasn't because she'd told the Malfoys their son might be dying or dead and no one at Azkaban gave a damn. Ginny just shrugged. "It was the right thing to do. If I hadn't, I'd be no better than any of the other poor bastards stuck here under you."

Jack was still yelling as she walked out, leaving Azkaban behind her for the last time. Draco hadn't contacted her, but the napkin he'd written on had disappeared from inside her pillowcase and, since no one else knew of its existence, she thought that meant he had to be alive.

Her family was concerned, but she told them, and then told every news outlet that would listen, about the tragic, disregarded death of Draco Malfoy, about the conditions prisoners were kept in, about the thousand horrible, petty injustices being perpetrated daily. A committee was appointed to review conditions at Azkaban, and Ginny received commendations and death threats in equal measure for exposing the abuses of the system.

She sat and watched as Jack was sentenced to become a prisoner in his own jail, and when the reporters asked for a comment, she told them she was glad that something like justice had been done. "What's next for you, Miss Weasley? As one of the most revered and hated women in Britain, what are your options?"

Smiling, a bit wanly, she said, "I've been thinking for some time that what I need is a holiday."

They laughed, but the next day she had packed her things and taken the international floo to Ibiza. From there, she thought she might take a cruise, or go see America, or just lay about in the sun and wait for her hair to grow lighter and her freckles darker.

That night, as she sat in a hammock and listened to the ocean, so alike and yet so different from the sound of the North Sea outside the stone of Azkaban, she caught the scent of cherry pie and sat up abruptly. He looked so different from what she remembered, the years of starvation having whittled his already thin frame down further, the natural process of growing up making his face more chiseled than pointed. His hair was darker, more brownish gold than the perfect platinum he'd had in school, and his eyes had deepened so they were more cerulean than silver, and nowhere near as cold as she had once thought they were.

"Jam dumplings--" was all he got to say before she launched herself at him, knocking the pie to the ground.

"I love you," she said feverishly, cradling his face in her hands. "I love you so much, I can't bear it."

His arms wrapped around her and he leaned his forehead down to rest against hers. "I love you just as much. I wanted to go to you every day, every one, but I was so afraid... I couldn't wait any longer."

Tentatively, he brushed his lips against hers, only to have her deepen the kiss and melt against him, her arms around him and her fingers tangled in the hair at the nape of his neck. "What's your name now?" she asked breathlessly, between kisses.

Draco laughed. "David Thompson, at your service. My parents were expatriates, so I grew up in Spain, but now that they're gone, I'm thinking of moving back to England."

"Hopefully not before you take me on a wild holiday fling," she murmured, trailing her lips down his throat. "My room's right upstairs."

"How convenient," he said with a crooked smile. "I was wondering where I might stay tonight."

"Stay forever," she said, and he did.
The End.
Mynuet is the author of 71 other stories.
This story is a favorite of 29 members. Members who liked Isolation and Cherry Pie also liked 805 other stories.
Leave a Review
You must login (register) to review.