Part 4

Blaise was at this point seriously considering taking Ginny out on a proper date.

He knew that was the direction he wanted but he also knew that something was broken about her.

He hadn't brought up the night at the ball obviously, it just didn't seem like the right time. But when was ever the right time to ask someone if they had been abused.

He thought about it all week. How the fuck could he talk to her about it without scaring her off?

He wanted to know if she was okay. If she was healing. And then he wanted to romance her as opposed to her exes who had been controlling her. She hadn't told him per say, but he had heard what she had tried to hide from him.

He was wondering if she had ever actually been happy in her adult life. He wouldn't be surprised if the answer was no. He needed to find a way to talk with her about it.

He just hoped to fucking Merlin that she wouldn't push him away because of it.

But if she did, then what?

She had told him so many different things but never anything specifically about herself. He tried to listen to what she wasn't telling him but she made it fucking difficult.

Blaise was a no-bullshite type of man. He preferred to tell it like he saw it but being a Slytherin, he never said anything until he was absolutely certain.

It had taken him weeks to piece together the gorgeous Gryffindor and he was still second guessing himself about his findings. But he also couldn't hold it back anymore. If he wanted to help her, he needed to know the truth.

Ginny really liked spending time with Blaise. He was like a breath of fresh air with his wicked humour and precise observations about the world around them.

One Sunday it all seemed to change yet again, because that Sunday she had taken him along to look at a flat when George couldn't join her and he started talking about his work.

It started innocently enough and she could never have guessed the direction of his conversation. He told her about what he did, or what the company did.

They were becoming friends and she wanted more because he didn't seem like the rest of them.

In truth, he was reminding her more and more of a non-damaged version of Harry. His deep-rooted insomnia after the war had taken a serious toll on their relationship. Something she'd only really thought about after discussing it with Blaise a couple of weeks earlier.

"We experiment a lot,-" He was saying proudly. "-our scientists are the best in the country. We employ both magical and muggle scientists and have them working together. It really is astounding some of the things they can do together."

She nodded, fascinated, trying to focus on whether or not she liked the kitchen but failing miserably due to his mere proximity.

He continued. "One of them came up with an ingenious invention. Glasses that cancel any glamour cast."

She froze. He gave her a look and the pit of her stomach clenched. He couldn't know.

"I tried on them the first time a Grangers birthday ball." The pit of her stomach dropped like a stone when he took a step closer to her. "Ginny, what happened to you?"

She stayed stiffly behind the small kitchen island, keeping him at an imaginary distance. She tried to be blasé about it, ignoring the beginning of a migraine. So she smiled, putting on the cheerful façade she knew and trusted well. "Whatever do you mean Blaise? I was dancing and we met when I was out on the patio."

He shook his head. "Are you really going to lie to me? I saw you clearly. You looked,-" He hesitated. "-well, for lack of a better word, you looked completely broken."

She glared at him, that was none of his bloody business. "You know what, fuck you Blaise." Her voice wasn't harsh, but she meant it with every fibre of her being. No one was ever supposed to know.

He blinked, taken aback by her harsh reply. "I'm going to accept you lashing out because of this. I saw the lengths you'd gone to to hide it. But know that I want to help you."

Her voice was bitter without even trying. "I don't want your help. No one can help me." A lump was forming in her throat, threatening to spill over.

"Well, I want to help you heal yourself. Who broke you?" His voice was gentle but the edge was unmistakable. It was obvious that he was angry but not at her.

"Leave me alone Blaise." She tried to walk faster but he was keeping up easily.

"Gin, I-" She didn't even bother to correct him, he wasn't really her friend, he wasn't her anything so he shouldn't call her by her nickname.

That was all he managed to get out before the lump in her throat erupted into full on sobs. "All of them, alright! Every single fucking one of them since Harry." Well, maybe he sort of was her friend after all.

Blaise was feeling dumbfounded. He knew most of the men she had been with in some capacity or other. After all, the British wizarding community wasn't that large and most of her chosen beaus had been in Slytherin. "But… why? Why the hell did you let them?!" The frustration he felt was leaking into every single one of his words.

She sighed, resigned to tell him at least some of the truth. "They treated me well. At first anyway. Then the control began and the frustrations. It was usually my fault. I didn't behave the right way. I wasn't brought up right so maybe a bit of the fault is my parents too."

He didn't believe her, it could never be her or her family's fault if those guys had truly been in love with her. He frowned, wondering just how broken she was. "How many times have you been in St. Mungo's because of one of them?"

She shrugged. "I don't know."

"Yes you do, please tell me." He softened his voice and almost compelled her to answer him.

Her rigid stand crumpled and her shoulders slumped and her voice was very small when she answered. "At least seventeen times. I've sort of lost count."

His eyes widened and she flinched at his outburst. "What the fuck Gin?!" He was shaking now. Before she could say anything, he visibly tried to calm himself, took a deep breath and said. "Were you with Flint before the ball?"

She choked, she could feel the lump there and the tears that were threatening to spill. So she didn't speak, she just nodded instead.

He rounded on her. "What did he do to you?" This time his voice was low and dangerous but he couldn't stop himself.

"I can't tell you." She almost whispered the words.

His jaw set and he huffed angrily. "Did he violate you in any way?"

She scrunched her face together, the tears flowing freely now. She obviously didn't want to tell him but hopefully she'd grown to trust him just a little bit.

This obsession of his was turning out to be more complicated than he thought.

She was hurting badly, and not physically. Physical wounds could be fixed with magic. Her wounds were mental and extensive. He knew that most of the wizards she'd been with had little to no respect for most women. The way she'd described the beginning of the relationship and then the gradual control was very familiar to him. He had seen it time and time again in the wizards in his extended social circle.

He focused his attention on her again, she took a deep breath and just nodded.

His blood pounded angrily through his veins, licking up his throat, spurring him on, egging him on, begging him to trounce every single one of the men who had ever hurt her in any way. Fucking bastards! He had known about that in the periphery of his life due to his close friendship with Harry but he had never thought it was this bad.

He gasped at the force of his wrath as it coursed through him with vindictive motivations and licked up his muscles, tensing each and every one. "What the fuck happened?!"

She was irate now, but a thought occurred to him. "Just leave it, will you?!"

He wouldn't abandon her, no matter how much she tried to push him away. "No! I fucking mean it, alright?! I actually want to help you! And there's no fucking way I'll let you push me away."

She gritted her teeth in anger, but didn't reply.

He wondered at the lack of magic surrounding her. Magic always had a way of sizzling when a witch or wizards were going through an emotional outburst, so he tried a different approach. "Wait. Why isn't your magic reacting?"

She flinched and a fleeting guilty look stole over her features. "I'm losing my magic."

Her answer seemed honest but he definitely didn't believe that. "You can't lose your magic. You can only lose your confidence in your magic."

She rounded on him. "That's a fucking lie Blaise! I can feel it leaving my body!" Her frustration was evident and he was sure he'd gotten to the real root of her problems.

A dog started barking down on the street, ripping them both out of their bubble. They both gasped and looked around. They were still in the empty flat and Ginny didn't really care much for it. She was just glaring blankly out of the kitchen window.

Blaise exhaled loudly. "Look, I have very talented employees, maybe some of them have researched this field. Don't you want some answers at least?"

She seemed to curl in on herself and he had no idea what to do. She didn't say a word.

So he waited. He just stood there like an idiot watching her every move, her every minute facial expression. He almost didn't dare take a breath.

Her expression suddenly turned defiant and angry and he was just about to calm her down. He didn't even get a word out of his mouth. And then she just disapparated.

Away from him.

Ginny apparated to a field outside the Burrow and began screaming and raging at nothing and everything. How the fuck dare he?! Such a self-righteous prick! And she couldn't even fucking blast the tree nearby to smithereens because her fucking magic was failing her.

No one was ever supposed to know and he had just shattered her façade as easily as stepping on ice on a shallow puddle.

She raved at her surroundings. Raved at the situation she was in. She tried to throw a bombarda at the tree but that didn't work either. Her magic just fizzled and died in her palm.

That was when she started to cry.

She sank down onto the grassy field and bawled her eyes out, screaming at the injustice of it all.

She hadn't realized how much she had come to cherish her time with Blaise. She had really liked the way he made her feel when she was with him but now she didn't know if she could ever speak to him again.

He now knew her innermost secret and it was absolutely mortifying.

She loathed the way he'd brought it up. He had taken her completely unawares at it had made her lash out.

But now, a week later and having it at a bit of a distance, she knew he couldn't have brought it up any other way what wouldn't have made her react with bitter anger flowing freely through her.

She sat there, in her childhood bedroom, looking at nothing.

She was back to square one.

And she was alone. She had visited Neville but he had been so hopelessly in love with Theo that she had left them and was feeling even more bitter.

Theo reminded her in many ways of Blaise and now she felt ambiguously about him.

On one hand, she missed him, missed his humour and the way he made her feel. It was unfamiliar and intriguing.

On the other hand, she felt like he had been messing with her all this time, she felt made out to be the fool. He had known all along about her injuries and he hadn't said a thing.

Her mum was calling up to her, startling her out of her reverie. "Ginny, could you come help me with the dishes?"

She trudged down the stairs, unwilling to help but knowing she didn't have an option. Her mum's questions weren't usually questions when it came to chores, no matter your age.

As they stood side by side doing labour manually that could be completed in a cinch by magic, her mum decided to interrogate her. "So, how is the flat-hunting going?"

She swallowed. "Not well, I don't know what I want."

"Have you looked at any of them?" She knew that tone. Her mum was being deceptively cheery.

Which also meant that she in no way could skirt the question. "Three, but one was seriously dingy, one was too expensive, and I actually didn't really get a good look at the last one. But I didn't like the view."

"Is there a particular reason you didn't get a good look at the flat?"

"Well, I actually had a fight with someone." She sighed, maybe it would be better to fight with Blaise than not have him in her life at all.

Her mum smiled knowingly. "Was it someone special?"

"Yeah, it sorta was. But now I don't now what to do about it. It's been a week and it seems like I'm the one who have to reach out." She wasn't sure if she wanted to do that. Maybe she would be rejected and she wasn't sure if she could handle that.

Her mum was silent for a few moments, mulling it over. "Well, it's up to you but maybe you should look at it differently?"

Ginny frowned. "Differently how?"

"I don't know what happened between the two of you but maybe you should look at it from his point of view? Because I'm assuming it's a he you're talking about."

Ginny grimaced. "It is and don't know how to fix it."

"Maybe you don't have to fix it. Maybe you just need to look at the issue with new eyes and see it in a different light?"

Ginny shrugged and changed the subject. She wasn't sure how to handle it so she buried it and focused on the mundane task of washing the dishes.

They worked in silence for a while before Molly sighed. "I'm not sure what happened to you Ginny but I have faith in you. I have faith that you will work through whatever bad experiences you have and will come out on the other side stronger than before."

Ginny gulped and wondered, not for the first time, if her mum was an actual legillimens. She chocked back the sob that threatened to escape. "Yes mum."

A couple of weeks later, she had taken her mum's advice and was trying to work through all of her negative experiences. She tried to see them in a new light but it was so difficult to work through it all.

She had spent hours outside trying to connect with her magic but it just didn't work. It was failing her like it had never failed her before.

As if her magic was under lock and key but it was strange because she was sure that she hadn't put it there.

Back in her room, she felt defeated. What if she never got her magic back? Was she turning into a squib? Was that even possible?

As her mind was going around in circles, an owl flew through her window and she tensed as soon as she recognized it, like she had every time it had arrived since that night.

It was Marcus' owl again.

She took the letter with trembling hands and the owl made itself comfortable on her shoulder, almost compelling her to open the letter.

My beautiful Ginny-baby.

Please come see me at The Confunded Curse tonight at eight.

I need you.

Love, Marcus

She was visibly shaking inside and out as she read his short note.

Could she do this? Should she do this?

She knew very well that she shouldn't. She should just chuck the letter in the bin and ignore it. But she was lonely. And he'd written please in his letter.

He'd never written or said please to her before. He'd always just ordered her around. This was a completely new leaf for him.

She focused on that rare word. Please.

Despite their distance of several months, her heart was pounding like a drum in her chest.

Maybe he was in trouble? And needed her help?

She was alone in the Burrow, wondering if she could do it. Agonizing over the decision for hours and hours.

She paced back and forth, trying to figure out what to do.

Once or twice she considered talking to Blaise about it, or George, but she chose not to. They wouldn't understand. This part wasn't something she had discussed with Blaise during their many coffee dates.

When the time drew near, her body almost started working on autopilot. Makeup, dress, jewellery, heels. She looked at herself in the mirror with a sort of distant disbelief.

She looked like someone she knew. From a long forgotten past. It was surreal but at this point, she didn't feel in control of herself anymore.

Marcus had called for her and it was her duty to be there for him. A small voice deep within her was pounding on a closed door to be heard but she ignored it.

The whoosh of the floo was the only indication of her leaving the Burrow behind.