A/N: Please see the Author's Note at the beginning of the last chapter for a brief catch-up on the world of this fic. Please also check out the prequel to this fic, In the Bleak Midwinter. Aside from the whole "this is a sequel" business, some important stuff from that fic is going to come up again in this one very soon. You have been warned. :]
And many thanks to my amazing reviewers! I love you all.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling. Fic and chapter titles are from "Spring Came," a poem by Kendra Peters.
Chapter 11: Stars of Brilliant Hues
"I am Draco Malfoy," he said, careful not to blink. "I'm here to see Blaise Zabini."
The stone gargoyle nodded once and Draco waited. A few minutes later, the wooden door on the left opened up and revealed Blaise Zabini, quirked eyebrow and all.
"Draco?" he said, looking confused. "What are you doing here? No wait—" Draco shut his mouth, which he had opened to try to explain his presence. "—Come on in." Blaise stepped aside to let Draco through.
Shutting the door behind him, Blaise called in a slightly elevated tone, "Let's have some tea in the drawing room."
Draco looked at him as if he were going crazy.
"There's got to be a house-elf nearby who overheard," Blaise whispered at Draco. "I still don't know their names yet, so I just shout out my commands, and usually it works."
Blaise's mother had died two years earlier, leaving everything she owned to her only son. However, he'd been in hiding, working secretly with the Order of the Phoenix, until the fall of Voldemort not one year earlier. He'd only recently moved back into the manor that he now owned.
"You redecorated," Draco pointed out blandly. The previously dark and dank front hall was now draped with royal purple silk and lit by wrought-gold torches. Draco wrinkled his nose. "Why purple?"
"The color of royalty, my friend," Blaise said smoothly, leading them into the sitting room on the right of the entrance hall. " 'When you're rich and important, flaunt it tastefully.' The one thing in life my mother and I were able to agree upon."
True to Blaise's word, a tea tray lay heaped beneath mounds of cakes and sandwiches on the center table. Blaise picked up a sandwich and ate it in one bite.
"So why are you here, Draco?" he asked with his mouth full.
Draco sighed.
"I'm here because I left Ginny and I couldn't think of anywhere else to go," he said in one breath. He pretended to be very interested in a snag on the carpet.
Blaise choked for a moment on his sandwich, gulped it down hastily, and then cried, "Are you out of your mind?"
Draco looked up at him. "No. Listen, she's miserable without her family, anyone can see that. And they wouldn't even come to see Alice! Their first grandchild, Blaise, and they burned the letter before they even bothered to read it!" Draco sighed again. "I just thought… I just thought that maybe they would come back to her if I left."
Blaise got up and started pacing violently around the room. "You're crazy. You're losing your head." He paused and stared intently at Draco for a moment. "Or you are seriously stupid." He went back to pacing.
"Don't you get it?" Draco shouted, jumping up himself. "I love Ginny, but she's miserable—family is everything to her!"
"No, Draco." Blaise crossed the room and grabbed his friend by the shoulders. "You are everything to her."
-&-
Ebby carefully opened the door to the room where Ginny lay, ushering Healer Cole and Ron back inside.
"Mistress is in very deep sleep," she murmured, shaking her head.
Ron glanced over at the bed. Ginny now lay carefully clothed in a white nightgown. Her skin was almost as pale as the fabric against it; even her freckles seemed dimmer. Her hair curled out around her head in soft little tentacles, covering the pillow with vibrant red like a stain of blood. Ron shuddered.
"… and I'll need a mortar and pestle to grind the herb," Cole was saying to Ebby. Even as he spoke, however, a small table appeared next to Ginny's bed. On top of it sat a black marble mortar and pestle and a basket of what Ron assumed what fresh aconite.
"What—?" the Healer began, raising his eyebrows.
"Anything in the house will appear in this room when it is needed, sir," Ebby explained at once. "As long as it is somewhere on the Malfoy lands, sir, it will pop up when you think of it." As she spoke, a steaming bowl of what looked like water and some rags appeared on the table as well.
"How—?" began Ron, but Ebby was already hurrying out of the room, calling, "Ebby must go look after Alice, now, sir!"
The Healer looked at Ron. "Alice? Is there someone else here?"
Alice! Ron had forgotten all about her. "Yes. Ginny—my sister—she had a baby just recently," he said.
The Healer looked shocked. "Why didn't you say something? If she was already weak…"
Ron felt his heart rate sharply accelerate. "What?"
The Healer was too busy mumbling to himself to hear him. "Well, that would explain the extreme reaction…"
"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?" Ron bellowed.
Cole jumped and looked sharply at him. "Really, was that necessary?"
Ron grabbed him. "Just answer my question."
"I mean…" The Healer suddenly looked uncomfortable. "She just gave birth. Her immune system was already weak from the strain. This new information… well…" He paused. "Well it doesn't really help her chances, does it?" he finished quickly, avoiding Ron's eyes.
"You tell me," Ron growled. "You're the Healer."
His words seem to push the man into action.
"Right," said Cole. "Right. Well. You take this warm water," he levitated the steaming bowl and the rags to the other side of the bed, "and start patting down her face and chest. We don't want to warm her up to quickly—complete submergence would be a shock to the body. That should do for now."
"What are you going to do?" asked Ron warily as he crossed to the side of the bed where the bowl now rested and began wetting a rag.
"I'm going to press this aconite and make her drink a small dosage of the juice," he said. He looked at Ginny. "I only hope she swallows…"
Ron was not assured by the clinging hope in the man's voice. Professional surety, for example, might have been a bit better at that juncture. All the same, the tall, freckled young man proceeded to press a damp cloth across his sister's forehead and collarbone, causing the curls around her forehead to frizz up and leaving a dark, wet stain on the front of her nightgown. After several minutes of the same action, her skin felt a bit warmer to the touch, so Ron put the rag back in the bowl, and it disappeared.
He looked across at the Healer. A tiny glass cup, much like a teacup without a handle, had just appeared on the bedside table. The Healer tilted some brownish-green looking liquid into it until it was a couple of centimeters full. Then he cleared his throat.
"Right," said Cole. "You open her mouth, and I'm going to pour, and then we watch and see if she swallows."
"How long until she wakes up?" Ron asked as he parted her lips carefully with his fingers.
"I doubt she will wake up after the first dosage," said the Healer, "and we can only give her one dose every twelve hours." He paused to pour the liquid into Ginny's mouth. "We'll be lucky if she wakes up after two doses, but it could take four or even six. I don't know."
Ron closed her mouth around the liquid gingerly, prepared to sit her upward if she began to choke. He and the Healer watched fearfully as she lay still for a long moment. Then, suddenly, without any other movement, she swallowed.
`"Thank Merlin," Ron sighed, looking across at the Healer. "Now what?"
"Now," said Cole, "we wait."
Ron turned his eyes back to his sister, reaching for her hand, praying for a sign of consciousness.
-&-
"I can't believe you implicated me in this mess," Blaise ranted, shaking Draco angrily in his grasp. He let go, and Draco fell ungracefully back onto the couch where he'd been sitting. "Now I get to be yelled at, too."
"Blaise, I had to do it. I couldn't tell her. I know she would try to stop me… I know would never have had the strength to leave."
Blaise bent down to him and looked him straight in the eyes. "Have you ever met your wife?" He stood up and rolled his eyes. "Honestly, Draco. You're acting like a bloody noble Gryffindor. It's disgusting." He began pacing again.
Draco stood up. "Fine. Look, I'm sorry I came here. I'm leaving now. Please don't tell anyone that you saw me."
Blaise laughed harshly and without humor. "You're leaving now. Okay. Where are you going? Where could you possibly go?"
"I'm one of the richest men in England," Draco shot back, getting very angry now. Why doesn't he understand? "I think I'll manage."
Before Draco could move, Blaise had his wand in his hand. "Petrificus Totalus," he said, a mixture of pity and contempt in his voice. "Sorry, mate."
Draco's limbs sprung to his body and he collapsed, unable to move. He hoped his eyes conveyed his sudden and deep hatred.
"I know you'll kill me later," Blaise was saying, looking down at him, "but you've got to listen to reason, mate."
Draco tried to shake his head, or even his fist, but it didn't work. Blaise kept talking.
"First off, Ginny loves you more than anyone, even herself. Yes, it's a stupid Gryffindor tendency that you seemed to have picked up on—but it's still priceless. It's invaluable. And here you are, sacrificing yourself in that noble and completely demented way that says 'I have no idea what I'm talking about.'"
Draco tried to glare. Still not working.
"Secondly: you just had a baby, Draco. A baby. Your firstborn child, and your first act as a loving father is to run off and abandon her." Blaise shook his head. "No offense, mate, but I think that's a Malfoy record… and that says a lot.
"Last but not least," Blaise continued, "let me just ask you one question. Do you really think—and beneath that layer of self-sacrificing ponce, I know you know the answer—do you really think that Ginny is going to be happier without you? Family or not?"
Blaise looked down at Draco, straight into his eyes. For several minutes, they simply stared at each other in complete silence. Then, Blaise stepped back, lifted his wand, muttered the countercurse, and held out a hand.
"Git," Draco muttered, allowing Blaise to help pull him upward. "That was two questions."
"One and half, really," said Blaise, and a large smile spread over his face.
-&-
Several minutes passed, during which Ginny did not move. Ron shifted from foot to foot, his eyes not leaving her face. His palms were beginning to sweat. After ten minutes, he said, "Shouldn't something have happened by now?"
To his surprise, the Healer nodded. "Yes. I didn't think just one would do it." He sighed. "Ah, well. What time is it?" Suddenly, a grandfather clock appeared against the wall. "Ah. One. Then I'll be back at one in the morning to give her the second dose." He glanced over at Ron. "Unless you think you can manage it?"
Ron glared at him. "Fine. Just leave all that stuff in here," he added, waving a hand at the instruments and the aconite on the bedside table, more for the room than for the Healer.
"Right, then." Healer Cole crossed to the door. "I'd say she should take a warm bath after the second dosage, whether she's awake or not by then. And make sure you only give her as much juice as I did. And… what else… oh yes, send your house elf if you need me." He stopped and turned back to Ron. "Any questions?"
"No. Thanks for your help. Ebby will pay you; I think she's downstairs."
"Jolly good," said the Healer, and then he was gone.
Ron collapsed into the chair at Ginny's side. For a moment, he sat quite still, his head in his hands. Then he took her hand.
"Ginny," he whispered. "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry and everyone's sorry. Please come back."
He watched her face for several minutes. There was no change. Then, resolutely, he set down her hand and stood up. He thought for a second, and before he'd even made a decision, a desk, several sheets of paper, and a quill appeared in the corner of the room.
Ron crossed to desk, sat down, and started writing a letter.
Dear Mum, he began…
-30-
Voila! I hope you liked it! More soon. Please read and review!
