A/N: Thanks to all readers and reviewers! 😊 Yep, I'm starting to post this again, and I'll keep posting until it's completely up. I'll also start posting the D/G Jack the Ripper fic soon.

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Ginny woke with a start. She sat up in bed, shivering, feeling horribly cold. She reached round for the blanket, but it seemed to have disappeared. But I was warm, she thought. Only a few minutes ago. I'm sure I was… oh, I'm sure Malfoy stole all the covers!

She glanced at Draco, but he didn't have the blankets either. They seemed to have vanished into nowhere, and he had rolled all the way over to one side of the bed, curled up into a small ball for warmth. She watched him sleep for several moments, looking her fill as she never had the chance to do at any other time. There was some reason why this wasn't a good idea. She just couldn't quite think of it.

His chiseled face was soft and unguarded, and he had tucked his folded hands under his left cheek. Ginny felt the corners of her mouth tug upwards. She leaned over and reached out her hand. Before she knew it, she was touching the back of his arm, very very gently, watching the tiny silver hairs stiffen and rise. Draco made a little noise and stirred in his sleep. She froze.

Oh, gods, he's going to wake up! Swiftly, she scrambled out of the bed.

The loo was small and plain this time, but that was all she needed now. She was splashing water on her face when a thought struck her. I found this because I wanted to. Maybe I can find other things, too. 'Without giving herself a chance to think twice, she hurried out the door and started down the corridor, her heart pounding.

Something was moving behind her. The stealthy footsteps mimicked her own.

Just your imagination, Ginny told herself, walking faster.

When she stopped abruptly, the footsteps nearly matched hers, but not quite.

There was nobody behind her. Nobody at all. She just had to turn round and see, and then she'd prove it. The corridor was empty except for her. Perfectly empty…

The sourceless light flickered. She was standing still, but something… or someone… was coming up behind her.

It's a very bad idea for you to go off on your own, Ginny.

It touched her on the shoulder, and she screamed.

Draco Malfoy spun her round to confront him, and even though she couldn't think of the last time she'd seen him looking so angry, his furious face seemed like the most welcome sight she'd ever seen.

"Just what sort of fucking idiotic thing are you trying to do now, Weasley?" he demanded.

Of course he'd have to open his mouth and ruin it.

"I wasn't doing anything the least bit idiotic, Malfoy," she said. "And you can just let go of me."

"Apparently I can't," he said," since you seem to have a habit of slipping away at the first opportunity in order to test the very limits of fucking idiocy."

"You haven't even let me explain," she said through clenched teeth.

"There's no need for an explanation. You don't seem to grasp the sheer stupidity of what you've—"

"Damn it, Malfoy, if you hadn't grabbed me like a perfect troll, maybe I could've found the art supplies—did you ever think about that?"

"Maybe, Weasley, just maybe, you could have landed yourself in trouble that you can't begin to imagine," he said coldly. "But I'm quite sure that you didn't bother to think about that. I really ought to tether you to my side with a good Binding spell at night. One more incident like that, just one, and I'll do it. I'll tie you to that bed, and I won't let you go."

She looked down at once, hoping desperately that she wasn't blushing. "I was only—"

"I don't want to hear about what you were only. Do you have any idea what could have happened—" Draco stopped abruptly, as if he had not meant to say so much.

In the silence, Ginny realized just how hard he was breathing. "You mean it really is dangerous?" she asked.

"Yes. Yes, and you have no idea how much, Weasley."

"I don't understand."

"How nice for you."

She scowled at him. "What is it you're so worried about then, Malfoy?"

Draco pressed his lips tightly together and looked away from her.

"I have a right to know. And—" Ginny had a flash of inspiration. "If you won't tell me, then I'm just going to go on trying. You can't watch me every minute."

His head snapped back towards hers, and she saw the gleam of his silvery eyes in the faint light. "Fine. Fine, I'll tell you, then. If you must know, Weasley—and it seems you must, because you'll carry on with your suicidally stupid wandering about otherwise, I suppose—then I'll tell you. Azkaban is one of the soft places, and this corridor is a sort of transitional space, as I've told you. It might lead to any of them—including there."

Azkaban. Ginny sank to her heels on the floor. Her legs didn't seem to want to hold her up anywhere.

"Oh, shite." Draco knelt next to her. "Weasley?"

The long, dark, dull corridors, dripping and steaming with damp.

The ring of keys on the jailer's belt.

"Look, I never meant to tell you any of that! But you simply had to keep bashing on regardless with that bloody maddening Gryffindor bravery—no, no, it's entirely yours, isn't it, and quite special?- until—Weasley, are you all right?"

The clang and sullen protest of metal against metal as the door swung open on its rusty hinges.

He sat on the bed, his head drooping, his silvery hair dulled…

Except that he didn't. Draco was still kneeling on the stone floor next to her, and his eyes shone very bright. "I'm a complete arse, you know," he whispered. "and if I weren't, I never would have said such a thing- speak to me, Weasley—you're so pale, I can see every one of your freckles, even that faint butterfly-shaped one across the bridge of your nose—there-"

"Does that mean we're going to end up there anyway? No matter what we do?" Ginny could hear how high and shrill her own voice was, but she seemed to have no control over it.

"No. Shh. Shh. It's all right." His mouth almost brushed her ear. "It's only one of the places, don't you see? And the connection's very dim and distant, as well. I never even knew it existed until quite recently… I was sure it didn't… oh, Weasley, I swear that you'll never set foot in that terrible place, and neither will I, ever again. Never."

Draco soothed and shushed her, crooned in her ear, made gentle sounds, and Ginny was never sure when she felt his big hands softly stroking her back and shoulders, quieting her. She couldn't have said when his motions stopped, either. Right after it ended, she made a half-hearted stab at trying to convince herself that she had only imagined it all. The effort didn't get very far.

"I don't really think I was anywhere close to finding it anyway," she finally said. '"The door from my dream, I mean." She leaned back against the stone wall and sighed. "How are we ever going to get away with this, Malfoy? It's mad, isn't it? Only two more days."

Draco tapped his chin. "Weasley, you do understand that I don't know what the hell you're talking about, right?"

"You should. You're the one who told me it was only two more days."

"I don't mean that. You mentioned the same thing right before we fell asleep. A door you'd seen in a dream. At least, I think you did, since I was absolutely deranged with exhaustion…?" His forehead creased with doubt. "Or was I wrong?"

Ginny shook her head. "No, I did say something about it."

"But you've yet to explain what you meant, Weasley."

"I suppose I haven't done," she admitted.

He leaned closer to her. "Weasley, what was the dream? "

Ginny shifted uncomfortably. He was sitting much too close now, she thought, and his bright grey eyes seemed to be seeing her more clearly than she liked, at the moment. "I found that door at the end of one of these corridors," she said. "I opened it and went inside, and it just felt… safe. It was another corridor, more brightly lit. It was foggy or misty or something, so I couldn't see all that clearly, but there were definitely paintings hung on the walls."

"What else?" asked Draco. "Was it large or small?"

She tried to remember. "It might have been rather a large space. I couldn't really tell. The lights were brighter, and at the end…" Ginny sat bolt upright. "Malfoy, I've seen all of it before. I've been there before."

"Where? What do you mean?"

Her forehead creased, trying to remember. "I… I think I've dreamed about it. Maybe more than once, but I can't seem to get the memories to quite come clear." She felt him start at her side, just a little. Or had she? Maybe she'd just imagined it. "But it's more than that," she went on slowly, trying to piece things together in her head. "I know when I last saw it clearly. It was months ago… last June. I was in the Bas-Bleu gallery. It was on the opening night of my art exhibit. I went in by a side door instead of by the front, and I got lost in a strange corridor—" She broke off.

She knew how that had ended. The memories were still sharp and fresh in her mind if she only swung open the door leading to them just the a little way. She had walked through that gallery, and then she had opened the door leading to another corridor. She remembered every detail as clearly as if it had happened a heartbeat ago.

The sconces had cast pools of orange on the wooden floor, each separated by sinister darkness. She had been sure that she'd taken a wrong turn somehow. That was all. She'd walked briskly forward, but she couldn't seem to get anywhere; the corridors kept turning and twisting every time she was sure she heard the distant hum of voices again, and finally the hall ended, boxing her into a corner. She'd looked around wildly. She was completely surrounded by dark wooden doors on all sides, each furnished with an old-fashioned, ornate lock below its doorknob.

Then the door had swung open, the same door to the same room the two of them had fled from the night before that, the night that Ginny told Draco she wouldn't be his official Malfoy mistress. It was the room that the two of them had escaped from only the night before, when Ginny had taken Draco's hand and fled with him to an unknown, unimagined ending, all because she could not see him go to Azkaban without a fight, no matter what it might cost her. It was the room in the Crystal Palace; the room that was somehow also Draco's heart. Draco had stood in it then, beckoning to her. But then he saw her with Dean, and he beckoned no more.

I thought you were a sort of dream. A dream of perfect purity. I thought that you'd make me pure, and that you were the only person or thing or thought who had the power to do it.

And what about now? she'd asked him.

You're not pure, he'd told her. You can't purify me. I don't… I don't need you now. You're no better than Marie ever was.

Ginny looked at Draco narrowly. Under a truth spell that she knew could not be broken, Draco had sworn he did not remember any of it. But how, how was that even possible?

"So you really don't remember that night, Malfoy?" she asked.

"No," said Draco. "I've told you before. I wasn't at that art show. I wasn't in England. I was in Paris, enduring a vile weekend at a country estate filled with worthless socialites. I remember that I stood on a balustrade on the night of the eighth of June, smoking a Muggle cigarette, staring into the darkness, and despising every moment of life."

"I'm sorry," Ginny said quietly, not knowing what else to say.

"Don't be," said Draco. "Those moments passed, didn't they? And now, well, here we are."

They sat silently for several moments, side by side. There was almost no space between them at all now.

"The memory feels so real, though," Ginny finally said.

"It is real, because you do remember it," said Draco. "Whatever it was, and whatever it really meant, the reality in your mind is what you can't rid yourself of. But I had no part in it. Please believe that. I only wish that it didn't cause you pain, because it so clearly does."

Ginny thought about that. "It doesn't hurt me anywhere near as much as it used to. I think… I think I never really believed it before. That you didn't know anything about it, or remember anything about it, I mean."

He smiled faintly. "But you do now?"

"Yes. I do." She thought about it a bit more. "It does seem to have so much reality in my mind, though. Malfoy, do you think that means that the gallery could be a real place? A place that could be reached from here, anyway—a soft space?"

"I'm starting to wonder about that as well."

"I remember something Luna said," Ginny said slowly. "Zenobia told her just how important it was to do these sculpture sketches. Back when Zach first brought you into the rooms." It seemed a ridiculously long time ago now.

Draco rolled his eyes. "Yes, well, we already knew that. But as to how… " He drummed his fingers on the floor. "There's one detail that strikes me in particular. The corridor you saw was part of Zenobia Smith's gallery, and she was certainly one of the Immortals who was most instrumental in tucking me safely away in the Crystal Palace until the Ball. So…"

"It's her gallery," said Ginny. "Oh, Malfoy! She wants us to find it."

"Maybe so," said Draco. "But that does raise the question of why we haven't done yet."

"I don't know," said Ginny. "I don't have the least idea. I've been able to find all sorts of other things I've very much wanted to find."

"I'm afraid that I know why we can't find it," said Draco. There was no levity in his voice at all.

Ginny shivered. She wanted to hear him mocking her, laughing at her, goading her—anything at all but this flat seriousness. "Why?"

"Do you really want to know?"

She thought about that, too. Then she nodded. "Yeah, I think I do, actually. Or rather it's that I have to. I can't blunder about in the dark, Malfoy."

His smile was sad, but it reached all the way to his eyes. "Ah, the Weasley courage rears its lovely head, I see. I've been giving some thought to that original Tempis spell, the one that drove us out of the safety of the Malfoy rooms. It was remarkably complex, I think, and there was an aspect that was almost… I'm not quite sure what quite to call it except malicious. This may very well be a part of it, although I have no idea why."

A chill went down Ginny's spine. "What on earth do you mean?"

"I mean that it's as if it doesn't really want us to find that gallery, because we'd be able to complete the sketches if we did. And then Potter couldn't very well send me to Azkaban, could he?"

Chill after chill was running through her. His large, warm hand sat in his lap, only inches away. She could just reach over and take it. No, I can't. I just can't.

"Cheer up, Weasley," said Draco at last.

"How can I be cheerful?" Her eyes flashed at him. "How can you even talk about it so lightly? Malfoy, we've got two more days!"

"Oh, where there's life, there's hope, you know. And whatever that Tempis spell really was, it's run up against you. What a powerful opponent you are."

"I don't feel powerful at all," she said in a whisper. "I feel horribly weak, Malfoy. I hate the feeling so much."

"Shh. It'll be all right. You've got that wonderful gift for finding things."

"I haven't found anything useful at all."

"But you will. I know you will."

Ginny felt her eyelids drooping closed. "So tired… we should go back to that bed…" Her words ended in a yawn.

"In a moment."

She heard the rustle of fabric, and felt a comforting weight over her. Draco must have taken off his cloak and spread it over them both, she realized drowsily. How warm she was now. How good it felt.

"Shh," his low drawling voice kept saying, until it was natural and right and sweet for her to rest her head on his shoulder.

The gesture was instinctive. She didn't even realize she'd done it until it was too late to take it back, and by then, she didn't want to. He stayed very still for a long time, and then his hand moved up to toy with a long curl of her hair, his fingers moving so slowly. Neither one of them said a word. Her eyes were closed. But she could no longer pretend that he wasn't doing anything at all, and she knew, somehow, that neither could he.

"Should find that bed again…" she whispered.

"Shh," he said. "Lean back."

She was tired, so tired. She couldn't possibly get up. She nodded, and then she felt herself sliding back, her head against his arms. He guided her into his lap and rearranged himself so that her head was cradled perfectly and his fingers were moving in circular motions on her scalp.

Shhh. Weasley. Shhh. Ginny. Shh.

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Tap. Tap. Taptaptap.

Her head lay on something hard and rough and irregular. She sat up dizzily, trying to open her eyes. A cold breeze blew over her body. All of the warm comfort had gone away.

Tap tap…

Ginny got to her feet. A tall figure wrapped in a dark cloak moved ahead of her, and she flattened herself to the wall, following it.

Taptap. Tap.

The head turned towards a spill of faint light. She saw Draco.

"What are you looking for?" she asked him.

He looked at her, his eyes wide and vague, like a child's. "My… my…"

"Can't you tell me?"

Draco shook his head.

Ginny wondered if they were in a dream or not. There seemed no way to be sure. Since they might have been, however, she felt it was safe to take his hand in hers. Oh, how good it felt! She pressed his big palm and squeezed his long strong knobbly fingers, loving the sensation of his skin against hers.

"I want to help you find it," she said. "Whatever it is."

"Nobody can help me," said Draco.

"Rubbish," she said, with more confidence than she felt. "I'm very good at finding things. Remember when you told me that?"

"I don't know," he said. "I… I don't…"

The light above them contracted to a dim bead. At the same moment, she felt his hand tighten around hers. "There's someone here," he whispered.

"Don't be silly. Of course there isn't."

"Yes. There is. Listen. Over there…" Draco's eyes shone unnaturally large, his pupils dilated in the faint glow of light.

"Oh, Malfoy. Don't be—" Ginny stopped. There was a very soft sound behind them both, like someone moving stealthily across the stone floor towards them. But not too stealthily. It sounded like someone who wanted to be heard.

"There's no way out now," said Draco. "I was a fool to ever think there was. The ways are closed. No escape."

"Will you stop talking like that!" hissed Ginny. "Just come on."

"Don't run," he said. "It won't help."

"Oh—all right! We can walk on tippy-toe, if you like. Let's just get out of here!"

Ginny began to move ahead in long, determined strides, Draco at her side. The footsteps behind her drummed in on her mind like searing blows, each threatening to tear her fragile composure to pieces. Were they getting louder? The temptation to turn round and look was almost unbearable. I can't, she thought. I can't, because then I'll go mad. I'll simply start screaming and I'll break down and it will all be over.

"There's nowhere to go, you know," said Draco.

"Shut up, Malfoy," she said.

He smiled at her. It was a very sweet smile. "I've always admired your courage. I might as well tell you that now, I suppose. It's strange that it should end like this—"

"Nothing's going to end like anything, Malfoy!" She began to walk faster, and then faster still.

It was a mistake, and she realized it quickly. The corridor was narrowing and growing darker. "Malfoy," she said. "Is this what you meant when you said that it wouldn't do any good to run?"

"Yes," said Draco. "I'm afraid so."

She gave a little sob of fear.

"Shh." His fingers traced the back of her hand. "I'm so dreadfully sorry that you were caught up in this. Sorrier than you can ever know. Do you believe me?"

"Yes—I don't' know—oh, who cares about that now?" she burst out. "Malfoy, this is a dream, isn't it? It's got to be a dream; please, please tell me that it is!"

He didn't speak. The cold winds rushed up suddenly in the corridor and whistled past them both, and his eyes suddenly went wide as he looked over her shoulder, behind her. Ginny gasped as he pushed her away from him. "Run!" he shouted in her ear. "Forget everything I said before—run as fast as you can, and don't look back!" He gave her another hard push, so that she stumbled and almost fell.

"But what about you?" she yelled.

"Never mind me! Just get the hell out of here, Weasley."

The muscles jumped in her jaw under her fine-grained skin. "Not without you, Malfoy. You're not getting rid of me that easily."

He smacked himself in the forehead with one hand. "Can't you ever let go of that fucking insane determination of yours for one single second and just do as I say?"

Well, there was an answer that required no thought at all. "No," said Ginny, and she yanked at Draco so hard by his other hand that she actually succeeded in nearly knocking him off his feet.

The thing was coming at him, whatever it was; the danger that had no name and no face (or did it? Perhaps it had a face very like Draco's, except that it was as utterly unlike him as two faces could be), the cold howling madness that had no words (or were there? Little girl, silly little girl, I have blackened his heart and soul, so that he cannot feel love, but only obsession ), and its terror and strength seemed infinite.

But really, it wasn't at all. Ginny pulled Draco out of its path by their connected hands. She opened the door with her other hand. They stumbled inside, and in the space of a heartbeat, the world went silent and safe once more.

Her hand was still in Draco's. She let go reluctantly. His closed eyelids fluttered open, and she could see how pale and sweaty he looked. "Are you all right?" she asked softly.

He seemed to get control of his features with an effort. "Weasley, you're well on your way to driving me towards an early grave if you keep this sort of thing up," he said without quite opening his eyes all the way. "But we seem to have escaped. So yes, unless that part is some sort of wish-fulfillment dream—which seems believable at the moment- I'm all right."

"You're back to your snarky self, Malfoy," said Ginny. "And you seem to be over that noble impulse you had as well. You must be all right."

"I suppose now you're about to tell me some excruciating reason why I shouldn't be."

"No, not at all. I… "She looked round with wide eyes." Malfoy, I think we've found it."

Draco sat bolt upright. "What?"

"A lot of mists and fogs are gone, so I can see now that it's much larger than I thought it was before. A room, not just a corridor. But, Malfoy, look." She reached out her hand and pulled him to his feet, gesturing to the canvas on the nearest wall. "Leda and the Swan. It's one of Michelangelo's wizarding works."

She heard his tiny intake of breath as he stared at the oil painting of the sensuously muscular Leda wrapped in a passionate embrace with the god Zeus, who had taken on the form of a swan to make love to a mortal woman. "And look—there are more," she said, turning his chin with her hand and pointing to the outlines of frames on the walls.

"Why can't we see the others?" murmured Draco.

"I really don't know," admitted Ginny. "Maybe we're only supposed to see one at a time. But Malfoy, this is the gallery. There's no doubt in my mind at all. Unless…" Doubt did start to creep into her voice then. "Unless you think that all of this is just some sort of dream?"

One corner of Draco's mouth quirked. He reached down onto the floor, and when he straightened up, Ginny saw that his arms were filled with something. Sketchbooks! He rolled a couple of pencils between the fingers of one hand. "Well, then we'd better get to work, hadn't we, Weasley?"