Andromeda stayed.
"Narcissa won't last the week and I want to be with her, and you clearly have the space," she said as they walked all together through the Manor's halls, peering into every guest room. Finally Andromeda found one that suited her, and with a wave of her hand she dismissed them.
"Go do whatever it is you two do, and don't bother me with it."
They joined hands as soon as her door shut, both exhaling.
"Shall we go do whatever we do, then?" he asked, mischievous as ever.
"I suppose there's nothing else we can do." But she was smiling too, and they were both happy as they walked back to her room.
It was that night, however, that it happened for the first time. Ginny woke them both with the thrashing that came from one of her nightmares, and although he managed to calm her and drag her out of the dream world, she could hardly sleep for the rest of the night. The next morning she wasn't herself; she seemed skittish and wouldn't say much to him, even as he gently kissed her all over.
"What happened?" he whispered, even as he saw the sun moving higher in the sky, knowing he should be with Narcissa. "In the dream?"
"Same as always. He comes and tells me to do something terrible, and I just do it, without thinking at all. And then when I wake up, I'm still so convinced it really happened. Because in the past, it has."
"And last night, what was the terrible thing?"
"It's too awful to say."
"It was a dream, Ginny. You had no control over it."
She had turned away from him, and was sitting up, ready to leave the bed.
"I…he told me to go kill Narcissa, so that I could have what I clearly want. So I did, of course. I went to her room, and I took one of her pillows and…" She had begun to cry in earnest, something she rarely let anyone see. "I'm sorry, Lucius. It's so terrible, I'm sorry."
But of course he sat up too and reached around her from behind, just holding her until all the tears fell away. And then he rocked backwards, lying them both back down.
"It's just," she began, even as her eyes closed and she finally began to return to sleep, "before I realized, I used to think all the things I did at Hogwarts were dreams, too."
He watched her sleep for a while, until he was content that her breathing was deep and even, and then slowly extricated himself from the bed, hating every second. It was his duty to be with Narcissa, in fact he was already much later than he knew he should be, but Ginny seemed so much more alive than she and not beyond help; he felt compelled to stay by her side, not wanting her to wake alone.
And indeed, Narcissa was asleep when he arrived back at the master bedroom, Andromeda by her side. The look Andromeda gave him as she glanced at the clock on the wall (half-past ten) was withering, but he merely motioned for her to leave. She left in a silent huff, very much wanting to slam the door but thinking better of it, and he took her empty seat, keeping watch over a woman who seemed to barely know him.
He went back to Ginny's room late in the afternoon, and was happy to find her sedate, wet hair hanging down her back. Her puffy eyes betrayed the morning's trauma, but overall she seemed much improved.
"Something to eat?" he asked, and she nodded, following him downstairs to a meal for just the two of them, laid out before the fire in his quiet study.
Andromeda joined them at breakfast the next morning, and Ginny, herself again and still hoping to rid them of the maddeningly persistent witch, asked where Teddy was while she was at the Manor.
"Thrilled to be staying with his Uncle Harry, I'm sure. They get up to all kinds of trouble together, don't they?"
An image flashed before Ginny's eyes – a photograph that used to hang in the apartment she and Harry had shared of Harry holding Teddy on a broomstick at waist height. The pair spun around and around in slow circles, laughing hysterically. Ginny blinked twice and tried to push the thought away.
"Yes, lots of trouble. I'm sure he's overjoyed to have a week of junk food and pranks and general bad behavior."
If Lucius noted tension in this exchange, he said nothing, merely continuing to lazily create designs in syrup across his French toast.
"Why don't the three of us do something fun today?" he suggested, looking up when he had finished his elaborate syrup swirls. The women looked back, stricken.
"Fun?" Andromeda asked incredulously. "Narcissa could be dead tomorrow, and you want us to go on some kind of lark?"
"Together?" Ginny asked, much more worried about the idea of spending the day with Andromeda's constant prodding.
"I think we're all suffering enough here, and I think that, if she could even understand the passage of time right now, she would want us to enjoy ourselves for a few hours."
"Well, I really can't go anywhere. Not anywhere someone would see the three of us together, that is," Ginny said, although she was already growing enamored with the idea of living a normal day in public with Lucius.
"I think you can," he said thoughtfully. He glanced at Andromeda who, by all appearances, hadn't softened. "I think that Andromeda and I were out to lunch and you happened upon us and she invited you to sit down and you and I shook hands and agreed to let things be in the past where they belong…"
Andromeda snorted, but he continued to lay plans without her.
"But no one need see us, anyway. You told them you were at the beach, didn't you? So we'll go some small Muggle beach town, far away from the prying eyes of Rita Skeeter and her ilk."
Ginny jumped up, chair scraping across the cobblestone terrace.
"Well let's go then!" she exclaimed. "I'll go get ready."
"No, we can't possibly. What of my sister? What if something happens while we're gone?" Andromeda looked around at them again, but this time her eyes belied that she did want to go, and was only asking them to put up a little bit more of a fight.
"If Harry and Teddy are getting into trouble then you should take your time off to get into some of your own," Ginny pressed. "But if you're so worried about it, just send Draco an owl and tell him to come spend the day with her. It's Saturday, isn't it? He'll be available." She neatly summoned a piece of parchment, a quill, and a bottle of ink, laying it all out before Lucius. "Come get me when you're ready."
And she was gone, running into the house in a whirlwind of red hair and citrus perfume.
Andromeda was looking at him, bemused expression playing across her features against her will.
"Well, are you going to come or not?" he asked, smoothing the parchment and beginning to unscrew the ink's lid. "Because if you are I really need to get this letter off straight away."
"You're spoiling her," Andromeda said, "just like you spoiled Narcissa all that time ago, when she was only young and you were all done with school, big and impressive."
"Ah, and she was impressed, wasn't she? I know she loved getting those big packages - or even better, the small ones - delivered to her every week in front of everybody in the Great Hall. But you're avoiding the question."
"If I don't come, it will be very difficult for you and Ginny to explain how you managed to find one another."
"Yes, but it will be a risk I'm willing to take. We're both marvelous liars."
"Why would you do such a thing for her? It could spoil your whole already wobbly reputation to be seen out with another woman, especially Harry Potter's ex."
"Ginevra's had a hard life, and especially a hard day yesterday, mostly because of things I could have changed many years ago. I'm only trying to remove the curse of being touched, however briefly, by Dark magic."
Lucius was deep into his note to Draco, already close to signing it. She watched him finish and seal it with his wand, and then he too pushed back his chair.
"I'm off to find the owl then, unless you have any objections."
"No," she decided, finally, "no objections."
