Her slim, yet powerful, hands cupped a steaming mug of hot chocolate. Though tea was a common drink for her family, hot chocolate never failed in soothing her. Twenty minutes ago, her mother and Remus had pushed Ginny out of the bedroom they were healing Draco in. Since entering unconsciousness in the bathtub, Draco had become more delirious and combative. In the most recent incident, he had mistaken Remus' hands working to regrow the skin on Draco's left forearm as Bellatrix and had managed to flip Remus to the ground, pinned his body down to the floor and began choking his throat. Being quick on his feet, Remus had thrown Draco into the wall and performed the full body binding curse as to allow Mrs. Weasley to sedated Draco. It was after Draco's attack that the group of healers realized the physical scars Draco would walk away with were meaningless compared to the mental scars Draco would endure.
"Gin?" Fred asked with George to his side.
"Yeah." Ginny smiled towards her brothers from her perch on the cottage's railing. Softly, as if a sudden movement might startle her, the twins took a seat on the swing facing Ginny.
"You ok?" George asked his sister cautiously.
"Yeah." Ginny nodded meekly. After an hour of working over Draco's wounds, nobody in the house was able to figure out how to remove the piece of skin tattooed with the Dark Mark from his forehead. His other wounds would heal nicely with time, and his health would return with lots of rest and food. The image of the Dark Mark on his forehead, however, was burned into her line of vision and Ginny wondered if she would ever not image it.
"Its ok to not be ok." Fred offered. The simple phrase seemed to crack something in Ginny. Refusing to allow herself to crumble, Ginny held back her tears.
"I'll be ok." Ginny mumbled. The twins took that as a sign to back off, and let her be to her own thoughts.
The atmosphere flexuated greatly between the twins and Ginny after their small conversation. Maybe it was sympathy, Ginny couldn't tell, nor did she care to tell. She was grateful nevertheless when the twins created a diversion so as to pull Mrs. Weasley from Draco's side for half an hour.
"He knows, my father knows about us." Draco whispered urgently as soon as Mrs. Weasley had left. "I tried so hard to keep that out, but I couldn't- I couldn't-"
"Draco," Ginny whispered soothingly.
"I was so stupid, how could I let that happen to you?"
"Draco," Ginny repeated stronger, continuing to stroke his cheek with her thumb.
"We need to get you out of here, somewhere he can never find-" Draco's thoughts were interrupted by Ginny's lips crashing on his own. Ginny's kiss calmed Draco greatly as he relaxed into her lips, her taste, her smell, her tears. Draco slowly pulled away to see fresh tears spilling over Ginny's cheeks. Hastily she pulled away embarrassed and used her sleeve to dry her eyes.
"I'm sorry," Ginny whispered as the tears came back anew, "We all thought you were dead." Ginny choked out as her tears began to pour, "Moody didn't want to. When everyone else came here we assumed you would show up too, and then you didn't come and you didn't come and… and…" Ginny shook her head in her hands and Draco pulled her body towards him so she was crying into his shoulder with his arms wrapped comfortingly around her.
"When they levitated you into the house I couldn't think," Ginny continued, her voice muffled by Draco's shoulders, "I couldn't look past your wounds and everything was so bloody… You face was so ashen… I thought you were going to die on the couch…"
"I'm ok." Draco soothed into her ear as Ginny allowed the emotions, she had held together for the last week to spill into his shoulder. Draco continued to rub circles into her back softly and eventually fell back into the first dreamless sleep he had experienced in a week.
Ginny woke with a start realizing she had fallen asleep on Draco. The darkness that covered the room save a soft glowing light from the nightstand lap told Ginny she had slept far too long. She carefully untangled herself from Draco's arms as to not wake him and crept downstairs. Fred and George slept heavily in the living room, each one claiming a couch. Ginny assumed Bill and Flur were sleeping in their room while her parents slept in the guest room per their usual. Silently, Ginny made her way to the kitchen where she placed the kettle on the stove to make tea.
"Did you sleep well?" Molly's voice from the dining table spooked Ginny and she nearly dropped the mug she was holding.
"Oh merlin! I thought everyone was to bed."
"I can't sleep." Molly explained pulling a seat out for Ginny next to her. Obliging, Ginny walked over to the dining table and sat next to her mother. Next, Molly waved her wand summoning a steaming cup of water with a tea bag to Ginny.
"When I was in my 5th year at Hogwarts, I met your father." Molly began, "He was most defiantly the hottest guy around. He was a Beater for Gryffindor, and he was pretty good at it. I knew of him before the middle of my 5th year, but I guess I didn't notice him until then. He was a pretty shy guy so he didn't hang around a lot, mostly stuck to himself.
"Of course, when we did start dating, I told my close friends, but didn't really tell anyone else. I didn't have anything to lose by telling anyone, but I just didn't feel like I needed too. But after we started dating, I realized I wanted to stay with Arthur forever. I took a little longer to convince him of that." Molly laughed easily of the memory and Ginny began to relax giving her mother an easy smile. "After I graduated we decided to get married, and it was absolutely perfect. We bought the Burrow as a piece of land and began building the house and before we knew it, we were expecting Bill. When I was pregnant with Charlie war started to break out and we didn't know what to do. We both wanted to fight, but we had our sons to take care of. There were so many nights where I would stay up wondering if your father would come home in one piece. There were a few times he came home with wounds, but nothing was serious.
"Ginny, dear," Molly turned to her youngest daughter and Ginny noticed the tears that filled her mother's eyes, "I'm not going to tell you this is going to be easy. I wish I could say the worry goes away, or something to give you comfort. But you just have to keep reminding yourself that now, at this moment, he's safe. I understand the choices you had to make, I wish this was a normal situation where we could have been more joyous over this news, but I'm proud of the woman you have become, and I am proud of the decisions you have made."
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you before." Ginny whispered with her head hung.
"Oh, Ginny," Molly pulled her daughter into a tight hug, "You never have to apologize for what you have to do to keep those you love safe."
"Now," Molly sighed heavily whipping tears from the corners of her eyes, "why don't you go back to him. I don't know what he went though there, but he will need you when he wakes up. The best thing you can do for him now is be there. I've sent a message on to Ron, Hermione and Harry, they're at another safe house and are going to come here in the morning to check in with Draco. Your father and I need to head back to the Burrow, but you call me whenever you need anything. Bill agreed to take care of things here and bring you back home when you're ready."
"Thank you, Mum," Ginny smiled. With a watery smile and a motherly caress of Ginny's cheek, Molly left the kitchen. A soft 'pop' was heard moments later as Molly disapperated from the Burrow.