Well, whoda thunk it? Draco Malfoy, of all people showing a good side. It takes all kinds of people to make this world…
And, once more, I own no one and no thing associated with Harry Potter…
Part III Between Life and Death
Draco looked back at her calmly, but not challenging. She stared at him, a hand over her mouth, the other pressed into the wall behind her, trying to back away. "Draco?" she whispered, incredulous. "You let me out? I—I mean us… you let us out?"
He sighed and glanced at his feet, looking at loss. "Yes," he told her quietly. "That was me. I'm surprised you didn't recognize my voice, actually. Ginny—"
He took a step towards her, one hand extended, but she scooted sideways to avoid him. "Why?" she asked.
"Huh?"
"Why did you do that for us? I know you hate us both. I know." She met his eyes again, searching. She had seen his eyes before, but there was something different in them, something she couldn't place. But he definitely looked different.
"I may be the son of one of Lord Voldemort's minions," he said quietly. "But that doesn't mean I want to be able to think that there are two people in the cell beside me that are going to get killed if I don't do something." He paused. "And I could do something. I know what they planned to do to you, Ginny. Both of you. I—I didn't want to know that it was only happening because I hadn't done something to stop it."
They were both silent, until Ginny said, "You've really changed, haven't you?" He didn't answer. "You don't just act different, you look different, too. Like you've—you just look a lot more pleasant."
He smirked, an expression she was much more used to seeing from him. "It's been two and a half years," he said. "A man can change a lot in two years."
"He can," she replied. "You did. Why? How?"
He rubbed the back of his neck, looking embarrassed. "When you can say that your father beats your mother and yourself, makes your life a living hell, and then tells you that he wants you to learn to be just like him… well—sometimes you'll have an epiphany of sorts."
Ginny narrowed her eyes, still suspicious. "Your father works for Lord Voldemort," she told him. "He made a fugitive out of me in my first year, and his master made my life a living hell for a few months."
He gave her a withering look. "A few months." A sour expression flickered across Draco's pale face. "You were fed, you were protected from the elements, and no one touched you."
"And that's more than you can say," she finished quietly for him.
"Exactly."
Once again, they were silent. Ginny started to say something, but quickly closed her mouth when she looked up and saw Draco unbuttoning his robes. She gaped at him as he let them fall to the floor, and then peeled off the white tee shirt that was underneath. "Draco, what—"
"Look at this," he cut her off, turning around to show her his back. She gasped. The white flesh on his shoulders and spine was scarred and scabbed with whiplashes. One long, bluish scar traced a long line down his back, directly over his spinal cord. Old bruises mottled his shoulders, and she winced, noticing also that the bottom of his hairline was also the edge of a new gash, just beginning to heal.
"My father did this to me," he said flatly. "My father and his friends, and sometimes I even have the honor of getting kicked around by the Dark Lord himself. If I make any noise—cry out, gasp, whimper, swear—they just hit me again." He turned around to face her again, his face hard. She saw for the first time the scar that raked through his eyebrow, a neat little path down the middle.
"Why are you telling me this?" Ginny inquired.
"I have to tell someone," he said heavily, pulling his shirt back over his head. You were just lucky enough to be the person closest to me when I had a spell of wanting to."
She blinked a few times, then reached over and picked his robe up off the floor, handing it to him. "Thank you," he said, pulling it on and doing up the clasps at his throat.
"Draco," she said. "When you told me you would never hurt me…"
"I meant it," he answered quietly. He took a step towards her, so they were barely an inch apart. "Ginny—"
"Don't," she ordered, putting a hand on his chest to hold him back. "I don't know if—" She trailed off, staring at the ground. "Why are you doing this? Why change now?"
"I told you!" he cried, suddenly angry. "I hate my life, OK? There are days when I want to die! When I actually think seriously about jumping out a window or into the lake, or drinking one of Snape's poisons! You have no idea what that's like." He pulled back the sleeve of his robe to reveal wrist and forearm crisscrossed by old and new scars, even some that were still scabbed from recently being opened. "I've started cutting myself. Just to see the blood run, just to prove that I'm still alive." He looked at her accusingly. "If I'm going to die, I might as well make amends before I go. Hell is that last thing I need just now."
Ginny fought the urge to put her arms and hold him close; she could tell he needed it. But she could also tell that he would never let her. Not now. "Why are you telling me?"
He sighed and started to walk away. "You wouldn't understand."
"I might, if you'd just tell me!"
Then he was right in front of her, his hands were on her shoulders, and his eyes were boring holes through hers. She gasped, and tried to step away from him, startled, but he held her firmly. "You want to know?" Draco demanded harshly. "Do you want me to tell you? Do you want me to tell you?"
Ginny found herself choking on her breath as she tried to look away and found that she couldn't. She wondered briefly if she was dreaming or hallucinating, or if Draco was on drugs. But the look in his eyes quickly dispelled such notions. He looked desperate, hungry, feral…
"Well?"
She bit her lip as his fingers dug into her shoulders. "Please," she whispered. "You're hurting me—"
He swore in a language she didn't recognize, and loosened his grip. "I—"
Ginny found herself running her hand up chest and neck to tentatively stroke his face. Draco closed his eyes and seemed to sink into her touch, and his hands slid from her shoulders to cup the backs of her elbows, then came to rest just above her hips. "Ginny, I've no right to…" He couldn't finish his sentence. "You don't understand what—"
"Then tell me."
He opened his eyes and looked at her again, a kind of desperate mischief forming in their silvery depths. "You asked for it," he whispered to her.
And then he kissed her.
Ginny's eyes snapped open in shock, but then she closed
them and sank into Draco's kiss, snaking her arms around his neck as his
wrapped themselves tightly around her waist. He was kissing her hard and it almost hurt, but she decided that
she didn't care. She could feel him
trying to wring himself out into her, to exorcize the demons that consumed
him. His hands drew lines of flame on
her back, his mouth the coals of a fire that soon spread to fill her entire
body. Goddess, she thought
weakly. I never thought it could be
like this…
All to soon, Draco tore his lips away from hers, and she opened his eyes to his tortured face. "This isn't right," he rasped. "This isn't right…"
She shushed him with a hand over his mouth. "That never bothered you before," she whispered.
"I can't do this to you," he told her harshly. "I—I can't…"
She made him look at her. "Do you want this?" she demanded. "Is this what you need?"
He tried to hold her away from him, to keep himself from losing control. "Yes," he whispered huskily. "Yes."
She reached up and took his face between her hands, staring calculatingly at him. "What's the reason you don't kill yourself?" she demanded, knowing the answer.
He sighed and closed his eyes again. "The hope that one day, I might tell you it was me who let you out, and this might happen." He reached up and held her by the wrists. "I didn't think that I'd feel so terrible for doing it."
"You love me, don't you?" she asked, amazed.
"Yes. But you don't love me."
Ginny blinked, startled at Draco's bluntness. "No, I don't," she whispered. "But—you need me. And for that, I'll learn to."
For the first time that she had ever seen, Draco smiled.
'
Whadaya think? Was I too mean to Draco? I had to beat him down a wee bit to give him a reason to shape up, but I mean really, does he need the whiplashes? Oh well. Ginny will heal him J
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