Chapter 1. Be Careful What You Wish For
—Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now? ~ John Lennon (unsourced)—
In the first few minutes of waking, Ginny willfully kept her eyes closed, dreading to greet yet another morning alone in the ancient house. Though it had been only a few weeks, it felt like ages since she'd last bid her youngest goodbye as the little girl ecstatically boarded the train for her first year at Hogwarts. With all her children gone, the only noises that disrupted the maddening silence were the ticking of the clock and the occasional creak of centuries-old wood.
With eyes still closed, she resisted the urge to stretch out her limbs, knowing it would make her feel all too starkly the gaping emptiness of the bed. She didn't need to check to know her husband hadn't come home last night, or if he had, it would've been a quick in-and-out operation for a fresh change of clothes. As the Head of the Auror Department, he seemed to be making a permanent home out of his office these days. The Pureblood Murderer had added another victim to the death count only a few days ago, with no sign of slowing down. But if it wasn't a serial killer on the loose, then there would've been an escaped convict to chase all the way to China or a Death Eater enclave to bust in Brazil.
She knew these were uncharitable thoughts. Her husband was a valuable asset to the Wizarding community, and she should have known that being his partner would entail sharing him with just about everybody else, but sometimes, sometimes...It felt like she hadn't seen her husband in weeks or spoken more than a couple of words to him in several months, and certainly nothing beyond a cursory inquiry of how he was and getting the exact same answer every time: "Exhausted, Ginny. I'm going right to bed."
An unidentifiable feeling pooled in her chest, filling up her lungs until she struggled to breathe. Merlin, what's become of me? Ginny concentrated on taking deep, calming breaths and noticed a peculiar smell—a scent of musky and undeniably male cologne, a smell that had no business being there. Her Harry hadn't bothered with cologne since their dating years.
No. No no no. I would never. There may have been tiny moments of—but no, never. She frantically searched her mind while refusing to open her eyes, squeezing them further shut as if the physical act could hold her wild, panicked thoughts from seeping into reality.
Nothing. Her mind found nothing out of the ordinary in her memories. She'd Apparated home from the Prophet's office and spent an uneventful evening consisting of writing letters to her children at Hogwarts, reheating leftovers for her dinner, and downing a glass of wine before heading to bed.
All right, calm down. You're not stark naked for one...or feeling any of that kind of soreness. There was a slight throbbing to her head, but it was a localized pain rather than a skull-splitting headache. She gingerly traced her fingers over her scalp and felt a small bump towards the back of her head where the pain was concentrated. When had she hit her head hard enough to bruise?
At the very least she wasn't intoxicated or hung-over—that much was in the clear—so there was no need to worry that anything had transpired out of drunken stupidity. Ginny breathed a small sigh of relief before tensing again. Then why did the bed smell of someone else's cologne? Had someone stayed here without her knowledge?
Cautiously, she cracked open a bleary eye. The shock of the waiting sight bolted her up right. In the next second, she screamed and tore herself from the bed. Her legs tangled in the sheets in her haste, propelling her torso first in a tumble to the mercifully carpeted floor. With a fighter's instinct, she didn't waste a second for even a grimace of pain. Instead, she yanked her legs free of the bedding she'd dragged down with her and sprung to her feet.
Directly in her view again was the half-covered, naked, and indisputably male body in her bed—too pale and slim to be her husband's. She suppressed the urge to scream again, eyes darting instead to locate her wand. The rest of her mental faculties quickly caught up to her, and she realized with another stab of panic that she wasn't in her bedroom at all. The furniture was too dark and somber; the tapestries and beddings were entirely the wrong color—green with silver trimmings instead of blue and gold. With a gulp of cold dread, she noticed that her attire too was wholly unfamiliar—a sheer, cream nightie that barely covered her bum. It had been years since she wore anything less than an old tee shirt and fleece pajama bottoms to bed.
Unable to find a wand in sight, Ginny settled for grabbing the bedside lamp—a heavy, ornate construction with a bronze base and a stained-glass shade. It took both of her hands to wield the makeshift weapon.
In the time since she screamed loud enough to rival a banshee, all the unknown man did was to roll over onto his stomach and clamp a pillow over his head. She'd heard him speak as she scrambled to get up, but his words had been too muffled to make out.
Now what? Flames of mounting rage had begun to lick at her initial fear, leaving her torn between whether to make a run for it or to beat him senseless until he explained how the hell she'd gotten here, and perhaps keep beating him after that if his answers confirmed the worst of her suspicions.
He spoke again from under the pillow. No longer nearly as overwhelmed by panic, Ginny could concentrate enough to make out his words. "Gin," he mumbled and strangely, his voice took on a childish whine, "why did you wake me? The little monsters will be up soon enough."
That couldn't be right. Who the hell called her Gin? And little monsters? What?
Sheer confusion doused over her rage and fear. On second thought, maybe it was wiser to get the hell away from this nutjob, acquire backup, and figure it all out later. She quickly glanced around the enormous room and found two possible exits, if one didn't count the large curtained windows. One was a smaller single door on the opposite side of the room. She placed her bets on the other—a formidable set of double doors solid black in color, rising almost as tall as the vaulted ceiling. As a bonus, it was positioned only a few yards from where she stood.
Cautiously, she sidled toward the doors, taking care to make minimal noise while keeping her eyes and the lamp directed at the unknown man, who still hadn't moved. Only a few feet away from making her exit, Ginny nearly dropped the lamp when she heard a soft creak from behind her in the direction of the doors. She swore under her breath. It hadn't crossed her frazzled mind that this might not have been a one-man stunt.
The sound she heard next was the last thing she expected—a child's giggle. Still brandishing her lamp, she spun to face the source of the noise. One half of the double doors had swung open, and in the entryway stood a little boy in his nappies wearing a lime green shirt with the print of a Snitch stretched over his protruding stomach. He held hands with a little girl dressed in yellow, floral-pattern pyjamas, who looked no more than five. Twin mops of red-tinged blond hair framed the identical pairs of bright amber eyes watching her with keen interest.
"Are you playing a game with Daddy again? Can I play too?" asked the little girl, her cheeks dimpling with excitement.
"Me too," said the little boy before tugging free of the girl to toddle over to Ginny.
She stared wide-eyed at the pair, frozen as if Stupefied by their speech and eerily familiar gaze. Before her mind could even process this latest bizarre development, a male voice rung clear through the room.
"What in Merlin's Beard are you doing, Gin?"
Her eyes snapped back to the bed and met the bewildered gaze of the grey-eyed man who now sat fully upright, allowing her to take in the first full glimpse of his face. Her fingers slackened in shock. The lamp crashed to the floor and shattered with an icy sound into rainbow fragments.
The man, who looked impossibly, uncannily, exactly like Draco Malfoy, swore and leapt from the bed, revealing himself to be thankfully clad in a black pair of silk pajama bottoms. "Are you mad?" he shouted at her.
A child's wail shook Ginny from her stunned paralysis. She looked down at the shattered glass at her feet and beyond it to the little boy who stood bawling. The little girl had both palms slapped over her mouth, her eyes wide and round like orbs of hardened amber. Whatever devilry was afoot, overwhelming concern for the children drove all else into insignificance.
"Don't move," she shouted at them at the same time the Draco-look-alike did. She ignored him for the time being to scan her eyes over the boy. To her relief, he seemed more frightened than actually hurt. She picked up a cautious foot and searched for a safe area to step away from the slivers of glass, but a sharp command froze her in place.
"I said don't move! Damn it, where's my wand?"
"That's a bad word, Daddy. You're not 'upposed to say it. Isn't that right, Mummy?" the young girl said sagely with her hands now planted on her hips. Her know-it-all stance might have normally prompted a smile from Ginny, but instead she only felt further unnerved as she noted the freckle-dusted curve of the girl's nose and cheeks. If Ginny didn't know any better, she would've thought she was looking into a blond version of her younger self.
And why, oh Merlin why did the girl keep on referring to her as Mummy? And if Draco's identical twin was Daddy then—Oh dear Merlin, no. There's no way any of this is real. This has to be a dream.
But even knowing she had to be dreaming the whole thing couldn't stem the horror creeping up all the way from her toes to heat her mortified cheeks. What did it say about her that her subconscious had dreamt all of this up in such vivid details? Her mind immediately threw back to the handful of meetings she'd had with Draco in the previous weeks, but they had been nothing to warrant such scandalous dreams as this. She'd merely acted in sympathy for another grieving parent. That was it so shut it, she told her brain before squeezing her eyes shut to the point of watery pain, hands clenched so tightly that the nails bit into her skin. She mentally tugged with her mind, willing her consciousness to pull away and return to reality.
When her eyes opened, nothing had changed aside from the disappearance of the broken glass and lamp, but that was the result of an uttered spell in the dream. Ginny tried again, even fiercer in her effort. Still nothing.
The dream-Draco was bending down and hefting the crying boy into his arms, who cried harder, burying his sobs into the side of his father's neck. The little girl had crept further into the room and wrapped an arm around Draco's leg. She peeked out at Ginny, forehead crinkled with worry. "Are you okay, Mummy?" When Ginny didn't answer right away, the girl looked up and tugged at her father's trousers. "What's wrong with Mummy?"
It was altogether surreal to catch Draco's eyes staring at her with open concern, eyes identical to their real-life counterparts that she'd witnessed flashing with anger alternating with being red-rimmed with grief in these last couple of months.
He schooled his features into a reassuring smile as he glanced down at the girl. "She's just tired, sweetheart. Your brother kept her up last night. Can you be a good girl and play quietly in your room until we get you for breakfast? Your mother could use a bit more sleep."
The girl nodded and ran over to Ginny, flinging her pudgy hands around Ginny's knees. "Sleep well, Mummy, or you'll feel icky."
Ginny didn't know what else to do but play along, half-expecting to wake up at any moment. She bent down to properly hug the girl back. "I'll be fine, sweetie. Be a good girl now." She couldn't believe what she was saying.
While the little girl dashed for the door, Draco called for a house-elf by the name of Mindy before whispering something inaudible into the ear of the sniffling boy. The little boy nodded and was brought to Ginny for a wet hug and kiss before he was set down and led outside by the house-elf. When both children had left, Draco approached her and laid a hesitant hand on her shoulder. Reflexively, she flinched from his touch even though she knew none of this could possibly be real—and certainly not the raw hurt passing through Draco's eyes, palpable enough to make her wince. Still, she couldn't shake the sense that to play along as Draco's supposed wife would be a betrayal to her husband, even if it was only a dream. Her subconscious had already gone too far by conjuring this scenario in the first place.
The hurt in Draco's eyes promptly disappeared, replaced by a storm of confusion and worry. He placed a hand to her forehead while his other held her waist firmly to prevent her from backing away. "You don't feel feverish. Merlin, Ginny. What really is the matter with you?" There was a panicked hitch to his voice.
Instead of further fighting against the dream, Ginny decided that 'sleep' was an excellent idea. Maybe then she could finally wake up or at least enter a less outrageous dream where she wasn't married to her husband's boyhood rival and had kids with him for goodness sake.
She pulled away from Draco's grip. "I-I don't know. I think I'm just tired. It's making me...hallucinate," she ad-libbed as she backed towards the bed. "I think you're right. I'll feel better after some more rest." Ginny practically ran the last few feet to the bed before clambering hastily onto the mattress. She burrowed under the sheets and pulled the blanket over her head, squeezing her eyes shut tight and praying for her subconscious to hurry up and dismantle the dream world.
Not a minute had passed before the cover was pulled back from her face. She strained to refrain from showing any reaction, wishing dream-Draco would just leave her alone. He did eventually but not before smoothing her hair back from her forehead and placing a lingering kiss on her forehead that caught her entirely unaware.
"Sleep well, love. I'm calling a Healer for you regardless. There's no use in protesting," he said with a stern note as he tucked the covers neatly around her. She kept her eyes shut, pretending to drift into sleep, though she was sure that if dream-Draco possessed even half of the amount of perceptiveness his real life counterpart had, he definitely wouldn't have been fooled. However, no more was said, and shortly after, she heard the soft creak that must have been those huge doors closing behind him.
She breathed a sigh of relief, and for a change, was glad for the silence that settled over the room. Now all there was to do was to wait for her subconsciousness to descend back into oblivion. Ginny prayed too that this would be one of those dreams that were forgotten upon waking. She certainly didn't need the awkwardness of possessing memories of waking up next to Draco Malfoy's naked chest or knowing what their children could potentially look like (quite beautiful she had to grudgingly admit) or worst of all, recalling the soft imprint of his lips on her skin. Could one selectively Obliviate a memory of a dream? she seriously wondered. If not, she wasn't sure she could face either Harry or Draco again without dying from mortification.
Was this the intention of some Divine Being to punish her for her uncharitable thoughts and general dissatisfaction about her married life lately? If so, it was hardly fair. It's not like it's entirely my fault I feel like I do, she thought miserably. And sure in weak moments, I may have entertained thoughts of—but never would I actually consider...okay, just stop it. This is ridiculous. You don't have to beat yourself up over a dream, for Merlin's sake.
She rolled over, changing her position in an attempt to get more comfortable, but it was easier said than done. The silk beddings, softly pressed against her exposed limbs, chafed her with their unfamiliarity. Simultaneously, the musky-floral mix of cologne and perfume scents infusing the sheets drove her to distraction.
How was all of this so damn vivid? No, don't think about any of it. Just clear your thoughts and relax...It's just a dream.
It's only a dream.
Ginny jolted back into consciousness, feeling as if she hadn't slept at all. The initial seconds of disorientation passed only to be followed swiftly by a blood-draining dismay—she remembered everything.
But at least it's over now, thank Merlin. With a stretch, she flung the covers back and opened her eyes. Her first breath escaped in a gasp. With her second breath, she screamed, "Oh, hell no! This can't be happening."
Author's Note:
Please let me know what you thought about the beginning so far, and feel free to point out any SpaG errors or awkward phrasing you find. There are authors who don't really mind if there are grammar mistakes in their fics, but I'm one of those who will hunt it down to fix it like an itch I have to scratch.
This was written for Ha'niqua's Butterfly Effect challenge at the DG forum and for the Astronomy School Subjects Competition on HPFC.
The idea for this fic was inspired by Ha'niqua's own response to her challenge. That story, titled "Chaos Theory", is a great read with a pretty unique premise so I highly recommend you check it out if you haven't.