Chapter 25: Pursuit of Happiness.

Cigarette Daydreams by Cage the Elephant

Elara was panting when she woke up. Her hair was clinging to her sweat-soaked neck and she could feel the twist of the lingering terror ripping through her mind. Another nightmare. She sighed heavily, shoving her hair from her face and swinging her legs over the side of the narrow camp bed. She slipped her feet into her trainers, grabbed her wand from the small side table, and pulled her cloak over her shoulders.

Ted was sitting just outside the opening of their small tent, he was looking out into the space in the woods, his wand in hand as he watched the surrounding area for intruders. Elara lightly touched his shoulder in warning that she was beside him. He looked up and gave her a sad smile, knowing that the nightmares came frequent for her. Elara sat next to him, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them, her chin resting on her kneecaps and her wand in her hand.

"What was it this time?" Ted asked.

"Draco," Elara whispered. "I can't remember what exactly, but I know it was about him."

Ted made a noncommittal hum and turned a bit to look at her. "Tell me something about the two of you. Something that makes you laugh."

Elara smiled. This was their routine in the two weeks since they left the cottage. When one of them would wake up from the inevitable nightmare or experience a long stretch of anxiety fueled insomnia, they would prompt one another to trade stories. Things that made them happy, good memories they could hang on to.

"Draco always eats the center of my lemon tarts," Elara said, a bit of laughter in her tone. "I like the outside, where the crust is and he likes the center because of all the whipped cream. When we were little, mum would give us each our own tarts and we would scoop the centers out. He would give me his crust, and I would give him my center."

"You don't like the center? Why not?" Ted asked.

"It's too sweet. I like the lemon tarts, because they aren't quite as sickeningly sweet as an apple or chocolate, but with all the whipped cream on top, it's still too sweet."

"Why not just take the whipped cream off?"

Elara laughed, "I don't know. We never thought about it. He liked the center part the best, I liked the crust, so we would trade."

"There used to be a bakery in the neighborhood I grew up in," Ted said, a far away look in his eyes as he turned to face the woods again. "They had the most amazing treacle tart I ever tasted. It's the first dessert I ever bought for Andy, when we were younger."

"Harry's favorite is treacle tart," Elara responded. "He always tastes like it when we…" She trailed off, her cheeks heating up from her admission.

Ted laughed lightly, "I'm old, but I'm not blind. I'm also not immune to missing the taste of the person you love. Cinnamon, Andy always tastes like cinnamon."

"Treacle and Chocolate. I think it's because his aunt and uncle were very awful to him when he was young. They never let him have sweets, so he gobbles them up constantly now."

A wistful smile fell over Ted's face and a comfortable silence settled between them. Elara moved a few inches closer to him, leaning her head on his shoulder. He wrapped an arm around her, tugging her closer to him. It was a comfort she sought from him frequently. In her Uncle's arms, she felt safe, as if in the middle of the woods, on the run from snatchers and Death Eaters, she had a little piece of something familiar. Something that felt like home.

"You know, one of my biggest regrets is that Andy didn't get to be a part of your lives growing up. That she was casted out, disowned by her entire family, for me." He said.

"I haven't known either of you very long, but I get the idea that she would do it a hundred times over," Elara whispered. "You two were made for one another. From totally different worlds, and fit together like jigsaw pieces."

Ted laughed lightly, "For being seventeen, you are very attuned to the world surrounding you."

"I spent over fifteen years inside the Manor, with nothing but time to study. People aren't much different than books. Some are harder to read than others, some take more time, but you can read them just the same. I just have a little extra help from my abilities to absorb emotion."

"Does it hurt?" Ted asked, "Being able to feel everyone's emotions so deeply?"

The question struck her in an odd manner. She had been asked many times to explain what she was feeling, to explain other's emotions. Everyone who knew, wanted proof. Wanted her to prove to them that she could feel them, and then seemed surprised when she did. Everyone was quick to be weary, to feel the need to guard themselves around her once they found out. They felt vulnerable and naked, knowing someone could feel what they felt, knowing that while their thoughts were private, their emotions were not.

Very rarely did anyone care if it hurt her. Harry cared. Harry had scooped her up and found a way to collect her feelings from her in the form of crystal beads. Fred cared. Fred had created a dampening potion for her, to help keep it under control so she wouldn't have to succumb to everyone around her.

Even Snape, who was one of the first outside of her family to know of her abilities, aside from Blaise, of course. Snape who created her first dampening potion, who had suggested using Harry to pull her out of her own mind when it imprisoned her. Who felt remorse and guilt deeper than anyone she had ever felt.

"There are plans in place to guarantee the perception of success."

Snape's words to her rang loud around her head as her thoughts spiraled deeper into themselves. Did it hurt? Did it hurt to know someone's emotions and…

Elara bolted upright from her leaning position against Ted and pursed her lips in thought, staring deep into the moonlit woods as her brain began to whirl and a tug in her chest pulled a strange piece of the puzzle from the depths of that night. The night Dumbledore died. There had been so much going on, so many people surrounding her, so much adrenaline pumping through her veins that she had initially missed it. The fear she had felt, that was definite. There was fear from nearly everyone standing on the ramparts of the tower that night.

Everyone except for Dumbledore.

"There are plans in place to guarantee the perception of success," Elara whispered, scrambling to her feet as she began pacing the frozen ground.

"I'm sorry?" Ted asked, his confusion shrouding his tone.

For someone who was pleading for his life he was certainly calm. Calm as if he knew he was going to die. As if he knew what was about to happen. Plans in place… Dumbledore had felt no fear, no confusion. She closed her eyes, trying desperately to channel that night, to dig into her memory and try to feel it again. There was fear, practically thick in the air from Draco and Harry. There was excitement from the other Death Eaters, there was anger and an unwillingness from Snape, a bitterness to his emotions that suggested he was doing something he didn't want to do.

And from Dumbledore there was an almost impassive serenity. No fire under the plea for help, the plea for his life. Almost as if he wanted to die.

"Uncle Ted," Elara said, turning on her heel to stare down at the man. "Do you know what hurts most about feeling others emotions deeply? It isn't what you would expect. It isn't that I get flustered when someone is irate, or I cry when someone feels desperate or very sad. It's the things I miss in the moment. The small emotions, that fade into the background, that get eaten up by stronger ones around it. Emotions like serenity in the middle of a battle, they fade into the background. What hurts about my abilities, is when it takes me a little longer than it should to piece something together because I was distracted by stronger emotions, like rage or excitement. That I missed the bitter unwillingness of a man who feels forced to do something he doesn't want to do."

Ted slowly rose to his feet, stepping toward Elara with uncertainty. "What do you mean?"

"I'm going to sound barmy, but I need you to just hear me out a moment," She began. "I think we've got it all wrong."

"What? What have we gotten wrong?" He asked.

Elara's breaths came in heavier pants as she stared at the ground between them, her eyes flickering all over the frost covered twigs as her mind worked to fit everything together. Every impossible piece that didn't make sense in the moment, that had kept her up at night, that had confused and uprooted every person in the Order.

"I think Dumbledore knew he was going to die that night. And I think he knew Snape was meant to do it. In fact, I think that was part of the plan," She said.

I know what has to be done and so does Dumbledore… Potter is being prepared for more than we are… Hone your abilities, don't shut them out for ease of process… Interesting, that your father should give you a horcrux right before you should meet with the Dark Lord...

Snape knew. Snape knew about the horcruxes, he had to have known, at least to some extent. And he had been telling her since the beginning of her time at Hogwarts! He had alluded to it more than once and she was too blinded by the bigger picture to notice the details. To pay attention to the lesser emotions.

"Elara, darling, that doesn't make any sense. Why would Dumbledore have wanted to die by Snape's hand?" Ted asked.

"I don't know yet," She admitted. "But Uncle, what do you know about Horcruxes?"

Elara knew that telling Ted about the Horcruxes was a risk. It was opening up more doors should he be captured. If the information was brought out of him, it could mean Harry's death. It could mean the end of the Wizarding community as they knew it. But she needed to flesh out the idea with someone. She needed to tell someone everything, every small detail she had shoved to the back of her mind to collect dust as they sat, unused and unimportant.

Everything she had overlooked in her pursuit of happiness, in her attempt to get away from her family name, in her decision to follow Harry and push away any part of her that may sully him.

Elara emptied the last two years of knowledge, of emotions and conversations into Ted's lap to open up and analyze. It was the first time she had told anyone of her conversations with Snape, of the subtle clues he had left behind for her to decipher. They spent hours talking, going over the information she had, digging deeper into her memory and picking apart the smallest ideas and complicated emotions.

She realized that Ted was a very level-headed individual with the ability to put aside his own bias to assess information at face value; which was exactly what she needed. Elara quickly understood, while they talked and theorized together, why Ted was in Ravenclaw during his time at Hogwarts. He was intelligent but not in the practical sense, like Hermione or Remus. He was creative in his theories and gave her different avenues to consider.

He also believed her, which she hadn't initially expected when she began talking to him about her idea.

"Why would Snape take over as Headmaster though?" Ted asked, looking up from his breakfast several hours after they had begun their discussion. "Why not just let Minerva run the school?"

"He'd have to save face, wouldn't he?" Elara countered, "If he's still playing both sides against the middle, he'd have to look like he was working for You-Know-Who still. What I can't figure out is why he would allow the Carrow's of all people to become professors?!"

"Unless he wasn't given the choice," Ted suggested. "If you're right, and he took the Headmaster's position in order to save face, he would have to allow Death Eaters on premises, wouldn't he?"

"But the Carrow's? They're evil, Uncle Ted. Absolutely evil."

Ted shrugged, taking another bit of his porridge and grimacing down at the bowl. "I could really go for a proper breakfast. Eggs and sausage… I swear it will be the first thing I eat when we're not stuck living in a tent. At the very least, some honey to flavor this gruel."

Elara chuckled and nodded in agreement, "I'd do questionable things for a good pastry."

Draco spat blood onto the flagstones beneath him as he rolled onto his side, coughing and clutching his ribs as another aftershock of agony tore up his spine and pumped blood to his ears. His vision blurred and came back into focus enough to see Amycus Carrow's smug face as he holstered his wand and walked away, leaving Draco to writhe on the ground in pain.

The Carrow's were becoming even more creative in their punishments these days, and a simple cruciatus was no longer Amycus's go to curse of choice. Instead, he had become rather fond of some dark curse that Draco had never heard before. But it set his nerves on fire and made his ribs crack and twist out of place before smashing them back together again. He felt like every joint in his body had been pulled apart. As if he had been strapped to four horses that were running in different directions, his limbs being torn from his body from the inside and then slammed back into place.

It was unpleasant, to say the least.

"Shit, Malfoy! Are you all right?" The light voice of Ginny Weasley faded into his consciousness.

Draco blinked heavily, his vision adjusting to the room around him. He realized he must have faded out for longer than he thought, because the lighting was dimmer than it had been and sunlight pouring in from the windows was the dark orange glow of dusk.

"Never been better, Red," He groaned, trying to sit up.

Ginny knelt beside him, a hand on his chest as she held him to the ground. "Don't get up," She said. "Was it a crucio or whatever the hell that new one is?"

"It was Amycus, so the new one. Alecto is still rather fond of the tried and true," Draco mumbled. He coughed, clutching at his ribs as the force of it rattled his burning insides. "Fuck! If I wanted to be tortured constantly I would have just stayed at the fucking Manor with Bella."

Ginny frowned down at him, her brows pulling together to crease the space between them with concern. From where she sat, on her knees and hovering over him, he could count the freckles on her nose. She brought her hands up to his face, gently cupping it and moving his head from side to side. "You smacked your head good on the stones, it looks like."

"And here I thought the headache was lack of caffeine," Draco responded.

She smirked and twisted away from him, digging through a beat up, old knapsack that was littered with ink stains and had a broken clasp on the front. G.F.W was embroidered into the canvas material. Ginny pulled out a phial of the familiar purple pain relief potion and handed it to him. "I've added a touch of Skele-gro to this batch, to help with the ache in your bones. Let me know how it works, yeah?"

Draco nodded, pushing himself up to his elbows and swallowing down the contents. "G.F.W?" He asked.

"What?" Ginny said, looking up from her bag.

"G.F.W.," He repeated, pointing to her bag. "What's the F stand for?"

"Fabian," Ginny said, pulling out a small white cloth and a bottle of the antiseptic they had created out of a small amount of dittany and cleansing potion. She poured the mixture on the cloth and began dabbing it on a tender spot of his head.

"Your middle name is Fabian?"

"George's middle name is Fabian," She said. "It was his bag, first."

"Why Fabian?" Draco asked, wincing at the slight burning feeling from the antiseptic potion.

"It was my uncle's name. Fabian and Gideon. George Fabian, Fred Gideon. They were twins, born the same day as Fred and George and according to my mum, just as ornery as my brothers are."

"You don't remember them?" Draco asked, sitting upright when Ginny finished with the antiseptic.

"No," She said, returning the items to her bag. "They were killed by Death Eaters in the first war. Never even met them."

"Oh," He said, his lips tugging downward. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize. You didn't kill them."

Draco shifted uncomfortably and cleared his throat, "What's your middle name then?"

"Molly, after my mum. Yours?" Ginny asked.

"Lucius," Draco said. "I think you know who that is, though."

Ginny laughed, a soft chuckle that turned something in his chest over. "Yes, I have had the absolute pleasure of encountering your father."

Draco snorted and pushed himself up from the floor, dusting off his trousers and straightening his tie. "He wasn't always that unpleasant. Not to us, at least."

Ginny paused, her bag hanging from her hand in the air as she stared at him. "Was he good to your family? Before all of this?"

Draco nodded, "He tried to be. He loves my mum more than life itself, Ellie is a close second. We always had a complicated relationship, Ellie said we were too much alike for our own good."

Ginny laughed, that light, musical laugh again. "Ellie is wrong about one thing."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, look at you!" She insisted, "Do you think your father would have ever joined a resistance as a marked Death Eater? Taken rounds of torture so that a second year student didn't have to..? I certainly can't see a world where he would do that. But then again, it's your dad. I assume you know him far better than I do."

"To be fair, I never thought I would join a resistance as a marked Death Eater."

Ginny shouldered her bag and grabbed his from the nearby desk, handing it over to him. "I don't think that's true. Ellie told us about that night, that you lowered your wand. That you were forced to take the Mark. I wouldn't have let you join the D.A. if I thought I couldn't trust that you wanted to do the right thing."

"You trust me?" Draco asked.

She shrugged, "I suppose I do. You haven't given me a reason not to, yet. Should I not?"

Draco walked to the desk and perched himself on top of it, not quite ready to leave the classroom and end the conversation with her. She regarded him, curiously. Watching his movements as he pulled his foot up to the desk, draping an arm over his knee while his opposite leg dangled. "I'm not even quite sure I trust myself most days," He admitted.

Ginny crossed the room, pulling herself onto the desk opposite of him and crossing her legs in a pretzel fold. She pulled her hands through her elbow length, red hair, collecting it at the crown of her head and pulling an elastic from her wrist to tie it out of her face. "Oh, I'm not sure I believe that, Draco Malfoy."

He arched an eyebrow at her, "Oh?"

She smirked, tilting her head a bit to the side. "Everything you've done in the weeks you've been with us, has been self-assured. You're a Slytherin, so by nature you need to preserve yourself. You need to trust that what your doing will further that sense of self-preservation. You're intelligent, almost annoyingly so. Use that brain of yours. If you didn't trust yourself do you think you'd be here right now, talking to me?"

"It was Blaise's idea, to come to you."

"You agreed though," Ginny said. "Why?"

"I've told you, already. For Ellie."

She shook her head, her ponytail whipping across the backs of her shoulders. "You can't be doing everything for Ellie. There has to be some motivation for yourself in there. Even the most noble of people have some sort of selfishness in their cause. No one is built to be completely selfless."

Ginny unfolded her legs from the top of the desk and hopped back down to the floor. She stepped over to him and held out a hand, looking at him expectantly. Draco felt his eyebrows shoot up his forehead, his eyes growing wide. He grasped her hand and slid off the desk.

Her hand felt small in his, her fingers slender as they wrapped around his palm, a gentle pressure against the back of his hand. He felt his throat bob as he swallowed, watched as Ginny's eyes followed the movement of his adam's apple. Her blue eyes locked onto his and he could see a curiosity behind them.

"I don't want to become my father," Draco found himself whispering. The words spilling from his mouth before he could stop them. He felt his chest tighten as his throat constricted slightly, a burn behind his eyes as he blinked. The words continued to come, he couldn't stop them from slipping past his lips. "I don't want people to be afraid of me. I want them to respect me for the right reasons, not because I've strong-armed them into it. I want to be the sort of person that people are proud to call their friend. I want to have children one day who look up to me, who want to be just like me. I want to love someone the way Ellie loves Potter, the way Blaise loves Alannis. And I'm so fucking tired of being the villain of everyone's story, of being the person people hate just because they need to hate someone."

There was silence that lingered between them, Ginny staring at him, her hand still wrapped around his. So, he continued, "I know how it looks. I know that me taking the Mark and letting them in here was predictable. That people expected that it would be me who fucked up so royally. No one was surprised to hear that it was me. No one ever believed that I would be anything different than a low-life Death Eater who hated muggleborns for the sake of hating them and who relished in the thought of the Dark Lord prevailing. Ellie believed I could be more than that though, so when I say that I'm doing this for her, it's not selfless. It's because I don't know how else to put into words the things that she believed I could be, the things I want to be."

Ginny's eyebrows knit together as she stepped forward, her free hand reaching up to lightly touch the side of his face. He felt himself lean into the touch, he closed his eyes and took a slow breath. When his eyes opened again, Ginny was studying him. The pad of her thumb drew a light path under his eye, cutting across his cheek bone.

"I don't think you're a villain, Draco." She said, "I think you were forced to do some really fucked up shit, but I don't think you're a bad person because of it. I think you're arrogant, sometimes. A bit of a prat on a good day, but you aren't a villain. You aren't evil. You just weren't offered kindness when you needed it."

Ginny stepped in further, closing the gap between them, her chest brushing against his and Draco felt his breath hitch.

"I think you need it," She whispered.

She pushed up on her tiptoes and Draco's eyes fluttered shut as he breathed her in, a calm settling in his chest despite his racing heart. When her lips pressed to his, it was light and sweet and so much different than he had ever experienced with Pansy or any of the other girls he had kissed. Her lips weren't begging for anything from him, they weren't taking what he had. They were giving. They were reassuring and offering forgiveness. As her lips, soft and plump, moved against his, they were re-writing a story of past prejudice, of every time she threatened to hex him, of every time he made fun of her family.

When Draco's tongue slipped past the seam of her lips and began dancing against hers, he could taste the peppermint she always smelled like. He briefly wondered how a mouth that tasted so sweet had the ability to spit such fire. His hands settled on her waist and he found himself pulling her closer, embracing her as their mouths moved in hungered unison.

After several long, air-restricted minutes, Ginny pulled away from him and Draco nearly whined. She wrapped both arms around him and pressed her head into his chest as she held him and he wondered if she could hear his heart thundering.

"You aren't your father, Draco," Ginny whispered. "And you deserve all the kindness the world has to give. Even with the regrets of your past."

Draco tightened his grip on her and rested his chin on the top of her head, "I don't know where you came from, Red. But I'm really glad you're here."

.

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a/n: Hey! Thanks for reading! If you want to, you should check out my FB group! Mimifreed Writing

So I know, I know, people aren't super sure about the Draco/Ginny pairing here. But let me just say... I love it. I love Drinny, you guys. And that's a mountain I'll die on. Anyway, I actually hadn't planned for it to happen, but sometimes characters take on a mind of their own and well... Drinny. It's been no secret of mine that I adore Draco and I've clearly been trying to throw my boy a bone, so consider this a version of that. Also, I guess technically it's monday (it's 2 AM where I'm at) so technically, I'm posting a day late. But, fear not! Because you all have been so patient and wonderful and just overall amazing, I'm gonna give you an extra chapter this week :)

Anyway, you know I love you, and you know I love reviews! So lay them on me! Thank you so much for reading!

xo

Mimi