Dungeon Five Ch. 6
The next week went by ridiculously fast for Draco. Training had gotten progressively more intensive as the winter break approached, and Draco found himself more often than not on the Quidditch pitch. The weather was also getting worse and worse, so most of the time the experience wasn't exactly pleasurable. It was a good way to expel some excessive energy, though.
School work was harder then ever, all the professors burying them with essays and reading assignments to prepare the seventh years for their N.E.W.T.s. Draco spent almost all his free time with his friends, either in the Library or their common room, exchanging notes and brought him to perhaps the only good thing to come out of the week—his friendship with Pansy.
After their unexpected encounter with the Gryffindors on Saturday, their relationship had lost some of the careful constructed distance they'd adopted since their break up. They weren't exactly back to how they were before, but it was close enough for Draco.
The strange thing was watching Pansy with Daphne.
When Draco and Pansy had first hooked up on the night of the Yule Ball during their fourth year, things had been weird for a while before they found their feet and moved on as kind-of-but-not-really friends with benefits. That didn't happen with Daphne and Pansy. At all.
It seemed like the girls were closer than ever. Every time Draco saw one of them, they were with the other, and the strange thing was that they weren't exactly acting like a couple. Not even one wandering hand or lingering look. They were just … more intimate. Sometimes he felt as if he was intruding whenever he looked at them.
With a mental shake of his head, Draco moved on from the complicated relationship that had nothing to do with him to the complicated relationship that actually did. Weasley—Ginny, however strange that was to think of her by her first name—was a puzzle.
A puzzle he had to admit he rather enjoyed unraveling.
He'd gotten into the habit of observing her from a distance whenever she was in the same room as him. Draco watched as boys', and even some girls', heads turned to look at her as she walked into the Great Hall. Ginny was charismatic, magnetic, electric and everybody knew it.
She was this hybrid, this mix of girl-woman that captured everyone's attention.
Ginny's body was all woman. His eyes were immediately drawn to the dip of her waist or the flare of her hips. Her breasts weren't magnificently ample, but they were full and looked like they would fit perfectly in his palm. Ginny's face was a work of art in the sense that it wasn't traditionally pretty. She was striking in the way that her honey eyes shined when she laughed or the slightly crooked angle of her lateral incisors. She was in no way perfect, and that was what made her beautiful.
Yet, however grown up she looked, what really fascinated Draco was her mind. It captivated him like nothing else had before, and if that didn't baffle him, he didn't know what else did. He usually wasn't one to wax poetics about girls, but Ginny… she was this bright light that almost blinded, a sun in the constellation he orbited. She was kind to others while being authentic to her bold nature. She was strong in that she wasn't afraid to show her vulnerability.
Draco was completely enthralled by her and he was terrified for it. He was equal parts scared and enthusiastic to get to uncover every secret her mind and body held; he was—
Going to be late.
He got up as fast as he could without looking like a complete idiot from where he was sitting in the common room and bid his friends farewell before gathering his stuff and leaving. He moved through the almost empty halls of the dungeon, stopping his mad dash only when he heard someone in the distance and finally reached the stairs.
When he got to the third floor, he wasn't exactly winded, but his hair was definitely messier than before. He didn't have time to fix it in private, however, so he decided to just go ahead with it.
Filch was waiting for him outside the Trophy Room's closed door. "Ms. Weasley is already inside," the old Squib said with a sort of grimace. "You are both allowed to leave when lunch starts. No magic."
He extended his hand. Draco sneered at having to give his wand to a squib, but he did it with no further argument. The door shut behind him as he entered the stuffy room, but Draco barely registered it. All he noticed was Ginny Weasley.
She was wearing a grey sweater and jean overalls that were rolled up. The ankle boots she had on were a few inches south of where her pants ended and his eyes were inexplicably drawn to that small expanse of fair skin. It was with great effort that he brought his gaze to her face to see that she had her hair up in a messy sort of bun and no makeup on.
"I see you got started already," Draco said.
Ginny's head snapped to his direction and she immediately smiled at him. Draco felt his breath hitch in his chest. Without his consent, his lips pulled up in one corner in response.
"Morning, Draco." Her voice was carefree as she tossed him a rag. "Time to live like us normal people who don't have house-elves to clean everything for us."
Draco huffed a playful sort of laugh. "Peasants."
They spent some time in companionable silence, cleaning side by side. Their shoulders brushed every once in a while and made his body warm up, even as the temperature outside was continuously bleak as they headed further into winter.
After a while of not speaking, he sighed. "This is absolutely dreadful work."
"Hmm, yes," Ginny hummed in agreement. "It would be much more enjoyable if we had a boom box and some Weird Sisters."
Draco frowned at the medal he was currently cleaning before turning his head slightly in her direction. "Boom box?" He grimaced. "Is that Muggle?"
Ginny's hands froze. She turned very slowly towards him, her brows furrowed. "What's wrong with that?" Her tone was firm, her eyes slightly narrowed as she challenged him to say the truth.
For a while there, in his incessant interest in her, he had forgotten that the Weasleys were the biggest blood-traitors known to England. He'd forgotten that they believed Muggles were equals and that they were avid members of the Order of the Phoenix.
"They are inferior, Ginny," he tried to explain to her. "Second fiddle at best."
Her eyes widened in what could only be described as outrage, and he rushed to try to make her understand.
"It's not their fault! I'm not saying we should kill them or anything like that. I'm just saying that they're not magically gifted and magic is superior in every sense. It's why Muggle-borns are extremely privileged to be allowed entrance to our world and why they have to pay a fee to do so. Muggles are dangerous and have to be kept from knowing about magic."
"Dangerous?" She scoffed and took a step away from him as if she couldn't bear to be close to him in any form. It sent an unexpected pang through him. "How can you say that? What have they ever done to us?"
Draco looked at her, confused and wide-eyed, as she angrily pushed a few fly-aways behind her pierced ears. There was so much accusation in her eyes—and even a bit of what he was frightened to describe as disgust—that he had to look down. As he looked at the medal in his hands, his counterargument came to him.
"Look at this." He put the gold medal in her hands and watched as she reluctantly read the inscription.
"Medal for Magical Merit?" She frowned at the medal, refusing to look at him.
He suppressed the sick feeling in his stomach when he realised that she was avoiding making eye contact with him and instead waited impatiently as she turned the medal around.
"Tom M. Riddle, Slytherin Prefect," She read.
"He was one of the best students to ever walk this castle," Draco explained. "He received that medal in his fifth year, Ginny. Everything pointed to him being the greatest wizard of his time. He's a bit of a legend in Slytherin. However, he had the complete misfortune of being a half-blood orphan. Dumbledore refused to let him move in permanently at Hogwarts and made him go back to the tiny Muggle London orphanage every summer. This is 1942 we're talking about. Do you know what was happening in the Muggle world at that time?"
"A Muggle war of some sorts," Ginny whispered, speaking the words as if saying them any louder would make something terrible happen. Her glazed eyes didn't leave the medal.
"Yes, a Muggle war. He had so much potential; he had his whole life ahead of him." Draco's voice was harsh, desperate to make her see his way. "His orphanage went up in flames in the middle of the night. A Muggle contraption designed to explode, I believe, obliterated the house in a matter of seconds. Tom Riddle didn't return for his sixth year at Hogwarts, Ginny, because of Muggles."
For a while she didn't say anything. The only sound in the room was their ragged breaths as the tension seemed to build. There were tears in her eyes when she finally looked up at him.
"Is that why you think they're dangerous?" she demanded. "Because their technology accidentally killed one of Slytherin's greatest?"
"They're vicious creatures who are constantly fighting! They shouldn't be allowed to mingle with us because they don't have magic and, yes, they are inferior to us!"
"And what about all our Goblin Rebellions?" Ginny raised her voice above his. "The Giant Wars, all the conflicts between magical creatures—Grindelwald? Let me remind you that while that Muggle war that killed Riddle was happening, we were having our Global Wizarding War because of that Grindelwald bastard, and thousands were killed because of him and his ideals! Is that what you want to happen again?"
Draco stared wordlessly at her. Her chest was heaving with how fast she was breathing, her cheeks stained red, not in embarrassment, but in anger.
He didn't know what to say. At first it was because he was transfixed with how fierce she looked, but then he began to think of a comeback and found himself lacking arguments. In all his life, he had never thought about it like that. For him, Muggles were inferior to wizards because they lacked magic and were dangerous. To think that wizards were just as dangerous was—strange.
"Gin—"
"No! You shut up now and let me speak! You think they're inferior to us because they don't have any magic? Their technology is so advanced you wouldn't believe it, Draco! They can fly for fuck's sake!"
Draco's eyebrows shot up at her cursing and the new fact presented.
"You think they are 'dangerous'? Well, so are we! There is absolutely no reason for you pure-bloods to hate Muggles so much."
"Us pure-bloods," he reminded her. "Your family is still one of the Sacred Twenty-eight."
She sneered at him—actually sneered— and turned her back to him, putting the medal forcibly down and picking something else to clean. "Whatever, Malfoy."
To hear her go back to calling him by his surname felt like an actual blow. The amount of—of disappointment in that short sentence was enough to make him feel like he couldn't breathe for a while.
All that arguing had left him with a headache and a terrible taste in his mouth. In a few minutes, Ginny had made him question everything he'd learned since a small child. He had no idea what to think.
His father had always told him that Muggles were filthy because they didn't have any magic, that they were lesser creatures, but he supposed Ginny was right in saying their technology was great. He couldn't deny that.
He frowned when a thought crossed his mind.
Draco remembered reading the Malfoy's history books. Before the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy, the Malfoy's were Lords in Muggle France. They lived peacefully among the other Lords, some of whom were Muggles, and prospered when King William I offered them land and lordship in England.
In one of the most ragged books in the library back home, Draco remembered reading that it was confirmed that the first Lucius Malfoy had been an aspirant to the hand of Queen Elizabeth I. The Malfoy's suffered greatly when the Statute was signed because most of their fortune at the time had come from dabbling in Muggle currency and assets.
His father had always enforced the importance of upholding the family traditions, but didn't that mean working with Muggles?
Draco frowned even deeper as the pounding in his head increased. All of this was giving him the migraine of the century. He didn't want to think anymore.
They continued their work in complete, heavy silence, both now on opposites ends of the room. It was such a contrast to how they had begun that Draco found himself getting pissed. How dare she break the comfortable way they were interacting?
Then he realised it had actually been him who'd brought up the whole Muggle thing. He barely refrained from kicking the stack of trophies in a fit of rage.
When Filch finally opened the door and handed them their wands, Draco was no closer to figuring out what to think or what to do. He saw Ginny hesitating before leaving, as if she wanted to say something or was perhaps waiting for him to do it. He had nothing to say to her. His head was a big, confusing mess and he could barely stand the sight of her as it was, let alone carry a conversation.
She left without looking back.
Draco sighed and made his way to the Great Hall with slow steps, his mind going a mile a minute and his thoughts a jumbled mess that he was no closer to figuring out by the time he sat down next to Blaise.
"Draco?"
Draco looked to his right to meet his friend's concerned eyes. "Migraine," he said in a low voice before letting a sigh escape. "Tell me your family's history, Blaise."
"My family?" The cinnamon-skinned boy raised an eyebrow at him.
"Yes." Draco stared unseeingly at his empty plate and nodded his head. "Zabini is Italian, right?"
"Yeah." Blaise sounded confused. "We used to be very important in Roman monarchy. Family records show we worked mostly from the shadows, though. Whenever there was a scandal, you could be sure a Zabini would be in the middle of it."
"A lot of interaction with Muggles, I assume."
"I—" Zabini faltered, then lowered his voice. "Why are you asking me this, Draco?"
"The Malfoys' had," Draco also lowered his voice, "involvement with Muggles, I mean. We used to be very present in Muggle affairs, mostly monarchy related as well."
Blaise's shoulder relaxed. "Yes, quite. The first Zabinis were Muggles native to central Italy, although it wasn't called that at the time. We were direct descendants of the Sabines, who became the first senators of Rome…" He trailed off as if realising he'd gotten overexcited at his family's history. "Why do you want to know this?"
Draco met his friend's eye unflinchingly. Blaise had always been good at hiding his emotions, but Draco was better and he could see everything his best friend was trying to hide. He was scared that Draco was about to berate him for revealing his Muggle ancestry and, at the same time, surprised he had done the same.
"No reason," Draco said at length, careful to keep his voice as light as he could.
Blaise seemed to sense it was best if he dropped the topic, so he quickly started talking about their latest Arithmancy essay in a normal tone of voice. Draco was barely listening to him, though. His thoughts were completely focused on Ginny.
His eyes scanned the Gryffindor table without his consent, stopping only when they met her own. For a second it was if all the air around him had disappeared. Even from this distance, he could see all the hurt and disappointment in her eyes, and it was enough to make his heart stutter painfully in his chest.
He didn't know what was right or what was wrong anymore. All he knew was that he wanted this feeling to go away and that he never wanted to see her look at him like that again.
.
.
.