DISCLAIMER: JK Rowling and other powerful people own everything except the plot and my twisted imagination.
A/N Hello all! The first four chapters of Ultra Vires are complete and will be submitted in quick succession. The remaining chapters of the story are still in the process of being written/edited and as such will take a bit longer. This story will be completed. I sure hope you enjoy it!
Chapter One
The wind is so much colder than it has any business being in October. The rain that accompanies it is like a spray of icy needles on her face. Ginny pulls her hood up a bit further and wonders for perhaps the thirtieth time why she's out here to begin with.
Her eyes skim the horizon to the figure perched on a lone bench near the lake. He hasn't moved in twenty minutes at least. Twenty minutes in rain that's making her shiver after thirty seconds.
She noticed him after dinner. She'd been marching towards the staircases. Moping, really. She's been doing that a lot since starting sixth year. And why shouldn't she mope? It's been raining for days. Dumbledore is gone. Her former boyfriend is off saving the bloody world with Hermione Ron-doesn't-fancy-her-my-foot Granger and her brother. She'd been all set to drag herself up the ridiculous number of stairs that led to her common room where she intended on curling up with a stack of Quidditch magazines for the rest of the night. It was at the bottom of those stairs that she glimpsed something out the window.
No, not something. Someone.
Closer inspection told her it wasn't even someone. It was Draco Malfoy. The boy who'd supposedly tried to kill Dumbledore. The boy who'd obviously failed, since Snape was still a hunted man for earning that dubious honor in Malfoy's stead.
She'd paused at the window for a moment, watching the straight line of his shoulders and the thatch of his unmistakable blonde hair. He was alone, of course. He was always alone these days. He'd returned a week after the term's start, ferried by Professor McGonagall of all people. Every table had coursed with raucous alarm, including the former Slytherin Prince's own, until the professor had held up a scroll with familiar handwriting. Silence fell instantly.
Professor McGonagall read the letter, penned straight from the old headmaster's distinctive hand, which said in no uncertain terms that Draco Malfoy was under a powerful spell last year and was no more a killer than any other student in that room. Malfoy didn't sneer or blush. He simply stared at his feet as Professor McGonagall droned on. So, Dumbledore had known of his impending demise. Not that it made a Knut of sense to find out about it now, when he was dead and gone and they were all alone.
The letter went on about forgiveness and all things coming clear in time, but Ginny really didn't listen to much of it. She was focused on the boy slumped at the new headmistress's side, the boy that she'd dreamed of destroying all summer long. It didn't matter that he hadn't done it. He was already the embodiment of everything she hated. What he attempted….what he dared…He was filth, pure and simple. No letter on heaven or earth was going to convince her of his goodness, not even one from Dumbledore.
He didn't look the same, though, except for maybe his hair. He'd grown taller and broader, and his angular face bore haunting evidence of the summer he'd endured. His cheeks were hollowed and dark circles smudged the skin beneath his eyes. She supposed losing your mother and family estate in a freak fire would do that to a bloke. Truth told, when she'd heard about the attack on Malfoy Manor, she'd felt a wicked surge of triumph rush through her. That surge was still a registering flicker as her eyes followed the last free Malfoy on his slow journey to the Slytherin table.
At McGonagall's warning, she, like everybody else who was gaping, pretended to return to her shepherd's pie. All the while, she watched him through the slits of her eyes as he approached the table. The members of his House surveyed him with a mix of fear and morbid fascination. She waited for his familiar snarl to pierce the silence, but it didn't. Maybe his tongue had been cut out. A girl could hope.
He didn't look up from the floor that day, not even when Crabbe and Goyle budged over to give him space. He hadn't looked up much since then, either. Silent and slow, he roamed the halls like a dead thing, moving from class to class as if under a Confundus Charm.
When she'd seen him after dinner tonight, she'd marched primly up her stairs, fully intent on carrying out her original plans. She was certainly not concerned about Malfoy and his pity party. For all she cared, he could freeze to death out there and save Azkaban the price of his daily gruel. It was without any intention or logical explanation that she retrieved her cloak and tapped back down the stairs.
Now that she's standing in the rain staring morosely at his back, she's seriously beginning to question whether or not she's under a spell herself. She squares her shoulders and closes some of the distance stretching between them. Her teeth are chattering and her fingers are aching, and she doesn't think she's ever hated anyone the way she's hating Draco Malfoy right now. Honestly, what kind of grown man holds this kind of melodramatic vigil in the rain?
And what kind of girl goes after him?
Ginny resolutely ignores that question, instead focusing on his morbidly still presence. He doesn't move a muscle, just sits there with his back to her, staring out at the lake. He might as well be sitting in the lake. The cloak he's wearing probably cost him more Galleons than she's ever seen, and it's soaked with rain and…is that blood?
She's still a few yards away, too far to be sure of what she thinks she's seeing. She moves on more quickly, her second-hand boots sloshing through the wet grass.
I should go back for help. It could be a trap. Or he could be dead.
Ginny shakes her head, chiding herself for being ridiculous. If he were dead, he wouldn't be sitting up. And it really isn't so much blood. Just a steady drip, drip, drip from a set of pale fingers hanging over the side of the bench. With six brothers, she's seen more blood than that at the Burrow every summer of her life. The back of his neck is so pale though, even whiter than his impossibly fair hair.
This is mad. She's utterly, barking mad to be out here in this weather. And for what? Draco bleeding Malfoy. Oh, she hates him. Hates him.
She sees the barest edge of a bare arm as she nears the bench and a shiver goes through her that has nothing to do with the cold. This is it; she's going to see his Mark. She's sickened by her eagerness as she moves around the bench, but there's reason for it. Once she sees the Dark Mark, once there can be no denial or slick stories, then he'll pay. She'll drag him back up to the castle and drop him on McGonagall's floor. Maybe she'll get to watch the Dementors come for him.
She rounds the bench and turns to face him, planting her hands on her sides. The site that greets her sends her stomach plummeting and her hands fluttering to her mouth before they've fully settled on her hips.
His sleeves are both rolled up, and the wicked, twisting black mark branding him as one of Voldemort's own is blazing on his pale flesh, just as she knew it would be. It's the proof she needs, but she isn't going do a thing with that proof at present because right now it's all she can do to remember to breathe.
It isn't the Dark Mark, or his eerie lack of acknowledgement of her presence that seems to be stealing the very air from her lungs. It isn't even the curved dagger clutched limply in his other hand. Her paralyzing horror is solely the fault of the jagged seeping wounds that form a square around the Dark Mark, as if he's decided to frame the bloody thing in like a painting.
His breath is coming in steaming puffs, and he's blinking steadily, as if he has no idea that she's here. She knows she should say something, should do something! She tries to find her voice, but manages nothing more than a squeak that's lost behind her fingers.
"It won't come off," he says, and her eyes flick at his bloody fingers. She knows instinctively what he's tried to do. A terrible image of it goes through her mind, of his fingers pulling at his own flesh, trying to rip it, tear it away. Her stomach rolls and pitches and she swallows hard against the nausea. Oh gods. He turns his head slowly towards his arm, continuing on with a creepy indifference. "Knives, potions, spells…might try fire, I suppose."
Do something, Weasely! Her own inner urging calls her to action and she springs forward, yanking her wand from her belt. Though it shakes like a leaf in her numb fingers, she manages a brief healing spell that slows the flow of blood to a trickle and closes the wounds a bit. He tips his face up to look at her for the first time.
Empty. His eyes are grayer than the sky and framed in lush black lashes that make no sense on someone with such fair coloring. They are pretty eyes, really, but the hollow aching look that they offer is enough to seep the chill on her skin straight into her core. This isn't right. He isn't right.
"Malfoy," she says, wanting to jar him, wanting to smack him until he snarls back at her like normal. He's looking right at her, but she can tell he sees nothing. She isn't a damned mediwitch! He needs Madame Pomfrey. "Malfoy," she repeats, feeling her skin rise in gooseflesh that has nothing to do with the cold. No response.
"Malfoy!" she shouts. Still he stares with those fathomless eyes. Death Eater eyes? No. Just dead eyes.
"Draco?" she whispers. Something flashes in his expression, his eyes swirling with silver. His lips move and her belly flips and like a key tumbling in a lock, she knows he's seeing her. She simply knows it.
His fingers uncurl and the dagger splashes to the ground. Ginny takes a shaky breath, "Let's get you to Madame Pomfrey."
He gasps sharply, as if he's been underwater for a very long time. His gaze is locked on her face, his eyes bright and knowing as he watches her with something that looks an awful lot like awe. It scares her more than his arm. His fingers move towards her face and she raises her wand sharply. The hex dies on her tongue when he fingers a sodden red strand of hair that has slipped free of her hood.
This is not Draco Malfoy. She would bet her life on it.
"Ginny Weasley," he breathes and she can't even think for the creepiness of it all. Malfoy has never said her name before. The word sounds altogether foreign in his distinctive accent.
"It's me," she responds, heart thundering for every reason and no reason. Why the hell had she said that? What kind of response is that?
Suddenly, he twitches wildly and slumps back onto the bench, eyes fluttering. She feels her gut twist with apprehension. There is nothing right, nothing normal about this. This is the darkest kind of magic, and she knows it.
When he opens his eyes again, his expression is murderous, his eyes a flash of flint and fire. She tightens her grip on her wand and raises it to this new, albeit much more familiar, version of Draco Malfoy. He looks around hastily, gaze darting and shoulders tensing as he takes in his surroundings. It's as if he's seeing them for the first time. Catching a glimpse of his wounds, he scowls and tugs his sleeve down over the still scarlet gashes. His clothing isn't simply dripping when he stands, it's pouring, but that doesn't stop him from crossing his arms and glowering at her with obvious disdain.
"Come for a handout little Weasley?" he snarls and she steps back. This is creepy. She can nearly smell the magical signature on this bizarre transformation. His whole demeanor is different. Arrogant. Cruel. Like he used to be.
He snatches her arm in a vicious grip and yanks her close, a sinister smile lighting his features. "You say a word about this and you'll pay in ways you can't imagine," he hisses.
"What happened to you?" she asks, more words that just spill from her lips without thought. He looks as though she's struck him. That same softened look she saw before seems to enter his eyes, but it's gone before she can be sure she saw it, replaced with his familiar hateful stare.
He drops her arm roughly, shoving her away hard enough that she stumbles to hold her footing. He squelches away, but she doesn't miss the murmured, "I woke up," that she knows wasn't meant for her.