A/N: Inspired by The Handmaid's Tale, which I highly recommend.
Gray
She was a pureblood and he was high-ranking, so naturally, he had gotten to choose. She still remembered standing in a line, that feeling of being cattle, the pause in the steady, stately padding of his footsteps as he came to a stop in front of her. She had lifted her head, though it was against some unspoken rule, had met his eyes, daring him to choose her. Prideful, despite the dirt on her skin, the old sweat perfuming her ragged clothing, the dried blood caking her hair. Fierce, she hoped.
She'd been surprised. That much she remembered. His wife must have died, she'd realized in that moment. Surely his son would've wanted to do his own shopping.
"Weasley, isn't it?"
"It was, sir." The reply came from somewhere behind her.
"Was?"
"The name of the blood traitors has been stricken."
How foolish. Her brothers, her parents, what were their names now? If they existed, if any of them lived, they were Weasleys still.
If. It was the first time she'd said it.
Some of them were dead, she knew. She'd seen them fall in the final battle. Some, she hoped—as if hope was a thing she still believed in—had made it out.
She was under no delusions about her circumstances. She'd known what awaited her, what was expected of her. When the house elves had come to bathe her, she'd let them peel the filthy clothes from her battered body, allowed them to coax her into the water and lather her with perfumed soaps that stung in every cut on every limb. They'd dressed her in robes far finer than anything she'd ever worn, indeed anything she'd ever seen, and arranged her hair and made up her face before taking her outside.
There'd been a gathering there—faces she knew, faces that had either seen or done too much, faces that didn't belong together. His son was there after all, accompanied by a girl whose face she knew from Hogwarts. Purebloods all, or so she assumed.
When they'd brought her before the Dark Lord, she hadn't flinched. She hadn't begged or cried or tried to be brave. She'd simply been. He'd spoken to her, words that she couldn't remember now, and she'd replied in a voice hoarse and broken. No emotion. Why bother? When the Death Eaters around her had laughed, it had been a man beside her who had silenced them. She hadn't noticed him before, hadn't been certain when he'd stepped up to join her.
The ceremony had been swift. She hadn't objected. She hadn't resisted. She had said and done what was expected, slipping her hand in his, allowing him to press his lips to hers. When the Dark Lord had congratulated the man beside her, she had looked up at the sky, releasing a sigh that could not have gone unnoticed, but no one acknowledged her disrespect.
When he'd come to her that night, she had offered no resistance, lying back on the bed, eyes closed against the weariness as much as the onslaught. When he'd entered her, standing between her legs at the foot of the bed, her head had come off the pillow in surprise. Their eyes had met over her naked body. Wordlessly, he'd climbed onto the bed and settled his body on hers, her legs twining around him, faces much too close but indescribably not close enough. They'd moved together, silent but for the sighs and soft moans that could not be muted, and when he'd finished and left, her hand had crept down to stoke the only warmth her body could remember.
He bid her good morning when she entered the dining room. He hoped her day had been pleasant—that came with dinner. He was courteous—always, to a fault. He scowled if she didn't return the greetings, so she'd learned what to say and when. They ate in a silence that discouraged conversation but was not entirely hostile. Sometimes his son joined them with his wife, but never in the mornings. Mornings were theirs alone, whatever good that was.
When his friends came to call, as was prone to happen more often than not, she was silent, obedient, and accommodating. When it was someone she'd known before—Snape, Draco when he was alone—their eyes would inevitably meet briefly over the threshold or the pudding. Not in solidarity, or one-sided pity or commiseration. Just in acknowledgement, and that was enough.
He came to her often, arriving late in the evening and staying for more than one coupling. There was comfort in the thrusts of their bodies, the tangle of the blankets, the sweat, and the stolen moments of sleep before the fire rose again. She grew to appreciate the simple motion of running her hands through his hair, fingers bunching in the long silvery silk, and the lust it seemed to arouse in him. His name never escaped her lips, nor hers from his. Only the first syllables, the barest acknowledgement of the reality of their partner, were occasionally breathed into being.
Gi-
Lu-
Once, he had become too complacent.
His razors had greeted her when she'd entered the bathroom, long and silver and gleaming like the hair they tended. He'd found her a quarter of an hour later, staring, transfixed, at the blades. Their eyes had met in the mirror. When he'd reached around her to take the danger from her reach, his other hand had snaked around her waist, sliding down between her thighs.
The razors had been put to a different use that night.
That was the first time he'd stayed until morning. She'd awoken to him cradling her forearm, one finger gliding absently over the smooth pale skin. There was nothing to trace, of course. The evidence of the previous night's passion had been healed.
That was the morning he'd broken their silence. "What do you want?"
Want? She didn't want.
"What do you want?" He'd said again.
Everything. Nothing. Nothing she could have.
"One of your brothers lives."
He hadn't said which one. She'd doubted he cared, or perhaps he just hadn't known.
"I'll see him." Not May I or Will you let me. I will.
It had been Percy that came to the manor. Of course Percy.
He had actually left them alone together, something that would have surprised her if she had allowed herself to feel.
"Ginny…"
Her name had sounded foreign. It was so rarely said. The house elves called her mistress. The others called her nothing.
"You're alive."
Was she? He sounded surprised, so she supposed she must be.
"Hello, Percy."
Their conversation had been stilted, and mercifully brief. When he'd awkwardly hugged her at the close, she'd felt nothing. Perhaps if it had been Bill, or one of the twins. Anyone but Percy.
Half a year.
He watched her sometimes. She could feel his eyes following her around the library, tracing her movements around the dining room. He didn't find her objectionable—she'd given him nothing to object to. Was he interested in her? Doubtful. She had been interesting, once, but the shell that remained did little that could be of interest to anyone. Boredom? Possibly. Lust? Probably. That was really all that existed between them.
The Ministry functions came and went, though the Ministry as it had been was gone. The parties, the balls, the ceremonies, were her only source of information. Luna, Neville, purebloods older and younger than herself. Their bodies were there, their faces, but not the spirits that had once lived inside. She understood. She was no different. Harry, of course, was dead, as was Ron. Hermione… she wouldn't think what may have happened—had almost certainly happened—to her.
Other faces she knew. Faces the girl she had been had fought against. They glided around the ballrooms, mindless of the former enemies in their midst. When the Dark Lord appeared, as he inevitably did, they knelt as one, Death Eaters and their captives alike. Cowed. Subservient.
Defeated.
Night was ever the same. Though she never resisted him—welcomed him, even—it seemed sometimes that he wished she would. This made her wonder, and then realize with certainty though she had no proof. The Death Eaters had attacked—that she'd known—and they had raped. Their need to feel power had extended beyond magic, reaching deep inside them to something primal and feral. They'd enjoyed it. He had enjoyed it. Strange that she could learn that wordlessly, in relative safety, simply from his presence in her bed.
His bed, really. Everything was his.
A year.
The Dark Lord was displeased with him. She understood without being told—she had produced no baby. He'd threatened him, of that she was sure, because he came to her every night now. Their pleasure had taken on a desperation that only served to intensify their meetings. If he fell out of favor, she would be passed on. That knowledge brought with it a tingling of something she'd not felt in months. Fear.
The morning she fell back on the mattress from dizziness, she knew. He'd done it. They'd done it.
The child grew inside her. He still came often, but less and less for sexual purposes. His hand would find her belly, fingers splayed over the growing roundness. The child learned to respond to his touch, pushing back against his palm to make itself known. When this happened, something in his face would soften, the lines drawn by the war receding for a few brief moments, something akin to tenderness rising in his eyes. Sometimes—rarely—when he'd been drinking but not reached drunkenness, or when he'd fallen asleep beside her and was still caught between sleep and wakefulness, he'd share that look with her, looking full into her face with an expression more intimate than anything else they'd shared. It made it hard to breathe.
She wondered what her face looked like in those moments.
She was unsurprised when the child was a boy (he was part Weasley, after all). She was relieved that this, at least, meant he would not be passed off to another like a broodmare. His light hair stung her heart, but here and there a freckle dotted his fair skin.
They gathered to present the child to the Dark Lord. When he asked what the child would be called, Ginny blithely suggested, "Tom."
She had been crucioed for that. It had been worth it.
He had not come to her that night.
In the end, they called the child Abraxas after his grandfather. He had agreed when she'd suggested Charles for the middle name. He hadn't appeared to recognize its significance. She knew he had.
She had gone to him that night.
Two years.
The gala was much like the others. Lavish. Interminable. Suffocating. Percy found her and seemed to take genuine delight in his nephew. His own wife was heavily pregnant. Percy was excited, said the child would come soon.
She hoped it would have red hair.
When it happened, it happened in an instant. A wizard in the center of the ballroom had calmly raised his wand. The room exploded.
She awoke on the floor, covered in debris and blood. Behind her, Abraxas screamed in the arms of his broken nanny. She freed him from the dead woman's hold, pulling him to her chest in the pandemonium—
The wand. The nanny's wand.
Her fingers closed around it. For the first time in two years, her magic stood ready.
Chaos. The figures that fought the Death Eaters were unfamiliar, whirling dress robes of black and blue and red, every color muted by the dust and debris in the air, settling on the fabric, choking their breath. She learned later the rest of the world had banded together in this room. French. German. Russian. American.
Power flowed through her. When Bellatrix strode toward her, she cut her down in an instant, without hesitation. She shielded herself against others, protecting the child who bore her eyes. She yearned to go on the offensive. To fight. To kill.
He appeared out of the chaos, saw the wand in her hand. Something tightened in her stomach. They faced each other, wands raised, but when he fired it was the figure behind her who fell. Slowly, they turned their attention away from each other, protecting each other, protecting themselves, until they stood together, an impenetrable wall against the onslaught of friend and foe.
And when the dust settled, when it became clear the Dark Lord was no more, that the lives of his followers were forfeit, she'd lowered her wand and let him go.
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