Disclaimer: The characters, places and situations of the Harry Potter series are the property of JK Rowling and other associated companies. No profit is being made from this story. Outside is the musical property of Staind. The story that Ginny is writing was inspired from and derived from Cabaret the musical. The Pineapple Song is from that musical and is the basis of one of the scenes in this chapter.
Author's Note: I'm sorry for the dicey timeline. If it confuses, I am deeply apologetic. I do this intentionally because the timeline isn't necessarily clear to my characters. Email me if it doesn't all come together for you. I am always happy to offer further explanation. As noted before: I have no personal experience on the subject of heroin use, heavy alcohol use, prescription drug use, crack/cocaine addiction, or rehabilitation for any of the above. My knowledge of the above is merely literature and film based.
Thanks To: Linda: I wouldn't know how it feels either. I can only imagine how hard something like that is to kick. Thanks for the advertisement-like review. Hopefully, if anyone checks out the reviews first yours could snatch me another reader. You're awesome!
Amanda Mancini: I intentionally blur past and present. Thanks for the thoughtful words. I hope you enjoy the chapter.
Oliverwoodsgirl: I know nothing of the "underworld". I am as innocent as an angel, honest! I'm glad that I have restored your faith in me as a writer. Keep reading. I think you'll enjoy this.
Anatomy of an Addictionnar·cot·ic
NOUN:
1. An addictive drug, such as opium, that reduces pain, alters mood and behavior, and usually induces sleep or stupor. Natural and synthetic narcotics are used in medicine to control pain. 2. A soothing, numbing agent or thing
Chapter Three
Colors
Draco sat in the sparse and small office of Greg.
Just Greg.
Everyone seemed to go by first name only here.
This was especially uncomfortable for one who had made a rather comfortable life living almost entirely on name alone.
Greg looked seriously at him. Looking at him, around him, though him, into him.
Draco wondered if there was some sort of training that these people went through to make you as uncomfortable as possible. It was working extraordinarily well.
He flipped through a police report and then his eyes flitted back up to Draco's.
"You weren't in possession of much. But in possession, nonetheless. There was heroin found in your bloodstream at the time of arrest. No previous record. Detoxification is recommended, but not required. For heavier users it would be mandatory. You have chosen a rather dangerous drug to abuse, Draco. But you seem to abuse it in moderation, which is very uncharacteristic."
"Uncharacteristic of what?" Draco asked.
"Of heroin addicts in general," Greg said.
"I'm not addicted," Draco argued.
Greg, of course, heard this often. He did not answer back, just looked skeptically.
"Half an hour meeting here, with me every morning at eight, or detoxification."
Draco returned a skeptical glance. "What does detoxification entail?"
"Three of your twenty-eight day sentence will be carried out under medical supervision while the chemical works its way out of your system entirely."
Draco was about to argue when Greg held up a hand to stop him.
"The results of the drug test you submitted to upon arrival show that you arrived clean. As long as tests, one every day of your internment here, shows that you are not using, detox will not be necessary."
Nodding, Draco submitted to these rules.
Greg continued. "Heroin, don't get me wrong, is a very powerful narcotic, Draco. Even the littlest usage can foster a very strong dependency. It will be very hard to resist using while you are here. That is why detox is recommended. Do you understand your choices?"
Draco nodded slowly. "No detox. I want to beat this on my own." It sounded like the right thing to say.
"Sign the waiver for my records. And I will see you bright and early tomorrow morning," Greg said with a smile.
Draco heaved a great sigh of relief when he had left the confined space of Greg's office, not looking forward to returning there tomorrow morning.
He saw the redhead down the hall. She was talking to a younger girl with short-cropped black hair.
She looked up and smiled at him.
The other girl waved a lollypop.
And you
Can bring me to my knees…This time Red was wearing glasses, expensively framed glasses.
No yoga pants this time. No book spouting religious yoga psychobabble.
He thought maybe he'd noticed her from the club.
But no.
He brushed past with a smile, eager to meet Blaise and restore some sanity to his world.
"You know, the fact that I'm the one showing up to visit you in rehab will mark you out as a gay man?" Blaise asked cheerfully, leaning against a tree just off the path by the lake. "You should have called Pansy."
"She wouldn't have come," Draco said with a smile. "She thinks they have a disease or something."
"And you?" Balise asked, slipping him some rather illegal paraphernalia covertly. "How are you handling it?"
"Not so bad. I think I can do this," Draco said. His smile hadn't abated. "Just as long as I keep busy." Keeping busy…code word.
"Don't they have ways of finding out though?" Blaise asked, shifting uncomfortably.
Draco narrowed his eyes. "Surely you don't think that they can outsmart me, Blaise?"
"Drug tests?"
"Pin prick. Blood test. I have ways around it. They won't suspect me."
Blaise laughed. "More tricks of the trade from Sally-Anne."
Draco's expression fell.
All this time
That I could make you breath…"Yeah, I only wish I hadn't been too fucked up to use her tricks when I was arrested. I could have avoided all of this."
Blaise nodded solemnly. "But, Draco, you never know. Maybe this could be good for you."
"Yeah, maybe." He looked to the entrance. Looked at his watch. It was time for bloody group therapy. This should be interesting. "Thanks for coming, Blaise. I really needed to see you."
"Yeah, you really needed your shit. I just happened to be the one to bring it to you."
Draco smiled gratefully. "No, I wanted to see a friendly face."
Blaise's eyes went wide. He'd never heard his friend so serious, so forlorn. "If you want me to come back sometime—,"
"No," Draco said. "Don't. I'll be fine."
All the times
That I felt insecure…He turned and left Blaise standing there. He wasn't sure he would be fine if he had stood there any longer. Was Sally-Anne okay? Was Blaise? None of them were. Not even Pansy who would play cool and calm till the last. They were all slowly falling apart.
And I leave
A burning path of flame…
***
"Do you want to take a walk, or something?" Ron asked.
He seemed nervous here.
That made Ginny smile.
"No," she said. "Let's just sit here." She pointed to a bench on the front porch of the quaint lodge. It had a view of the lake and of the avenue of trees just beside.
"Are you doing all right?" he continued.
"Fine and how are you?" she asked sarcastically.
Ron gave her a look that begged to be taken seriously.
Ginny leveled impatient eyes on him. "I've been betrayed by my boyfriend, my brother and my sister-in-law, and my own goddamn agent. How do you think I am, Ron?"
"I don't know. How are you?" he repeated.
"Bloody grand. I'm writing a new story. I'll dedicate it to you. 'To my wonderful big brother who dumped me in some goddamn shit hole and forgot about me.' How does that sound?"
Ron looked repentant. "Gin, one of these days you'll thank us for caring enough to 'dump you here' as you put it. We want you to get better. I don't know what has had you so wound up and angry. But it's been going on for over five years now. It's got to stop. I can't take it any longer. I want the old Ginny back."
"The old Ginny died a long time ago, Ron," Ginny said, standing up, angry. "What you see is what you get. Take it or leave it."
She threw her cigarette to the ground.
Ron said nothing.
"I've got to go. Tell Hermione and your little monster that I miss them terribly."
Ron watched her disappear inside the lodge, sadly.
I'm on the outside
I'm looking in…
He didn't see the same person he knew.
He wondered to himself when she had changed. She seemed sadder, angrier, more trapped, too independent. She relied too much on other people and needed no one. How could they fix her when they didn't even know what they were trying to fix?
Rehab.
It was the only way they knew how to deal with her.
Maybe there was no way to help her.
***
Group therapy.
What the hell was this?
She was there.
Sitting next to the girl with the candy.
Their mediator hadn't shown up yet.
Draco sat silent while other members of the group would cast a glance his way and turn to the others with a two-word diagnosis. He thought maybe that this was some sort of game. They were picking on him because he was new.
He listened in earnest.
A tall and spindly man in a running suit and a Dutch accent announced him to be "Prescription drugs."
"No," a woman in dreads argued. "Women and booze."
"Cocaine and himself," an angry older woman announced.
"Heroin," a voice called triumphantly behind him. Flea sat down next to him and explained. "They always do that to the new people. It's fun to guess the new guy's addictions."
"What's she in here for?" Draco asked, pointing to Red.
"Oh her?" Flea asked. "Alcoholic."
Draco appraised her. She didn't seem the type. She looked more like prescription drugs and sex.
Maybe he was putting her in a class of users all too elite for her.
Vivian.
The mediator.
Just Vivian.
She had a whistle around her neck. God only knows why.
She began to pass something around the circle.
Oh Christ! Nametags. Fucking nametags.
"Okay, lets start this meeting off on a good note. In a circle, we'll introduce ourselves to the two newest members of our group. Name, story, so on…" Vivian said. She indicated Draco and Red as the newest members.
So she was new.
He wasn't the only poor sod who hadn't been massacred in group-fashion before.
This should be lovely.
The angry old biddy volunteered to start.
Her story was sad, or that's what she thought of it. It sounded generic and rehearsed to Draco's ears. He listened quietly and amused himself with guessing what it was that the old lady, the gay guy and the doctor facing a malpractice suit were really hiding.
The skeletons in the closet.
They all seemed to fashion a story that included all of the facts and none of the real story.
If it was the story that they wanted to hear…
Draco had a hell of a story.
I can see through you
See your true colors
It was Red's turn.
Draco was in for a shock as she produced her nametag and pinned it to her sweater self-consciously. It read Ginny.
For the life of him he couldn't figure out why she should alarm him by putting on a nametag.
She pushed her glasses up and cleared her throat.
"I'm Ginny. I'm a writer."
At this several people nodded in agreement. Mostly the women in the group…and the Dutch accent…confirmed…gay.
Reads her romance novels.
"I write romance novels."
Draco felt some sort of satisfaction at other peoples' transparency. There was nothing about any of these two dimensional people that could shock him.
She chewed on a fingernail and continued.
"I don't have a drug problem. My boyfriend just thinks I drink too much," she offered with a tentative smile.
"And why does he think that?" Vivian asked.
"Because he's tired of me. He thinks it's the fact that I drink. That's what's ruining things." She swallowed hard and tried to smile. "Things were ruined a long time ago."
"How? Can you be more descriptive?" Vivian asked.
Ginny looked startled.
She thought for a moment.
Spill. Draco thought. Spill.
No. On second thought, don't give these vultures the change to feed on the carnage of your fucked up life, doll. Keep it to yourself. Defy them.
She finally smiled.
"Bulbs," she explained, "like onions and garlic are a collection of modified leaves that live underground in the form of bulb. If you've ever peeled an onion, you can see how it's made up of tightly wrapped leaves. These modified leaves don't have the same role as green leaves that are exposed to sunlight. Instead, they store energy."
Vivian stared at her, wordless.
"Is that supposed to be some kind of fucked up analogy?" the doctor asked incredulously.
"Victor," Vivian warned, "Feeling words. Used feeling words to express your thoughts to others."
"No," Ginny answered quietly. "The Idiot's Guide To Edible Gardening."
Draco smiled and leaned back, happy to be wrong. He couldn't predict everyone. She was interesting, fucking nuts and interesting.
She sat down.
Lulu with her lollypop sat up and said, "I'm Eden. I'm a heroin addict."
No shit? Draco thought. She didn't even look old enough to vote. Jesus.
"My mother kicked me out when I was sixteen. I lived with my boyfriend for a year. He's dead and I'm here."
She was good at this. Basic information. Nothing tedious.
Flea scratched his head and said, "Jimmy. Crack. Knocked off a Seven-Eleven."
It was Draco's turn and everyone looked at him, hungry for a sensational truth.
Cause inside you're ugly
Ugly like me…
He told the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God.
Demanding father.
Fortune.
Dark Lord.
Dark Mark.
Heroin.
Cliché number one.
He had no desire to be a puppet.
He had no ambition for an evil empire.
No ambition to be a do-gooder.
Wanted to spend his days blowing though his trust fund and eventually his inheritance.
The circle stared at him speechless.
I can see through you
See to the real you…
There was a long silence while all of the substance dependent minds processed through the information he'd just handed them.
Vivian was the first to speak. "Draco, if you insist on mocking the rest of us and my methods of teaching, then I suggest you leave. Come back when you can take all of us seriously and when you can give us a serious answer."
Draco smiled.
He stood and left the class.
The truth was unwelcome. The story that gleamed with the least amount of truth would win him his twelve-step salvation.
So, tomorrow it would be downcast, penitent eyes, an apologetic tone and my father expected too much of me, never loved me, gave me money and no attention. I turned to drugs at a young age. They seemed to be the only thing that could take his place. All I wanted was some attention. Blah, blah, blah.
But he had the afternoon free for today.
He strolled out to the lake feeling very pleased with himself and the world in general.
He lit a cigarette.
Life was fucking great!
***
Henry was looking for something.
He would find it here, in Berlin.
An inspiration, a thought, a song.
He was a writer.
An idealist.
Naïve prey to the gleaming flytrap that was the city's nightlife.
Mondshein Kabarett.
Sounds like a great place to lose yourself, find yourself.
Find love.
Find hate.
Find something worth writing about.
In America it was all too fast, too loud, too wholesome, too seedy.
He longed to be in the land that inspired the greatest writers of the last century.
Henry was convinced that you couldn't write unless you had Berlin in your veins.
He wanted it in his system so bad.
Ginny looked up from her work.
Draco sat on the sofa across from her and stared at her until she would acknowledge him.
She hadn't seen him in three days, since his outburst in group. The others, of course thought he was mocking them. In all eventuality this was true. He didn't seem like the type that would take rehab seriously. From what she knew of him, he seemed like the withholding type.
Oh she knew who he was.
She was the only one among the other addicts that had believed his story.
Only because it was her story too.
The Muggles just thought he was crazy.
That was exactly what he wanted them to think.
She wondered if he recognized her as well.
Maybe he did.
Maybe it didn't much matter.
"That was an excellent story you told us the other day. You should write. You have the imagination for it," she said with a smirk. "Only it wasn't a story, was it?"
Draco blinked and then stared.
"What do you want? I'm very busy," Ginny said finally. She saved her work but didn't shut her computer down.
"I want to know who you are. You're familiar to me. I thought it was because you reminded me of a friend of mine. But I recognize your name too."
Ginny pulled her socked feet up under her.
"We went to school together. If it helps, I didn't recognize you until you told that story. I can't decide whether you're crazy or brilliant or just plain stupid."
Draco sat back. "So we went to school together? I still don't recognize you."
All this time
That I feel like this won't add…
Ginny smiled.
"I'm Ginny Weasley. I was a year under you."
Recognition lighted in his eyes. He gawked.
"Jesus," she said in an insulted tone. "I didn't change that much. You don't have to get theatrical about it."
"It's just…"
"Just what?" Ginny asked.
Draco shook his head. "I didn't expect you would be a Weasley. Though the red hair does give you away a bit now."
Ginny nodded. "I didn't expect you to know me right from the off. I did try to stay a bit invisible at school."
"So you're a writer now?" he asked.
"You mean you haven't read all of my books," Ginny said in mock astonishment.
Once for you…
"I've been busy."
"I suspect you have. Lots of murder and world domination to get up to." Ginny smiled.
Draco liked her smile.
"So what have you been doing?" she continued.
"Specifically avoiding questions like that one," Draco said cryptically.
So he was being a spoiled little bitch? Same as always.
"Blowing your way through your family's fortune and fighting with the local slobs?" Ginny added with a knowing wink.
She was the scotch drinker at the club the night he was arrested.
He smiled.
Ginny cast about the room and found them alone. She leaned closer, closing her laptop and giving him her attention completely. "So, do you have a mark?"
Draco furrowed his brow and stared at her. Pushing up the long sleeve of his shirt he showed her the mark that he had wanted to get rid of.
He was surprised to see her face light with amusement.
"Did it hurt?" she asked. Her eyes darted up to his for a moment before returning to his forearm and the mark.
"Yes," Draco said as he stood. He pulled his sleeve over the mark and moved to the door.
And I taste
What I could never have…
"Draco?" Ginny called after him.
He turned.
"Stick a sweet in your mouth every now and again. A lollypop, anything. Heroin withdraw is supposed to make you crave sugar," Ginny finished with a wink.
Draco smiled and left.
It's from you…
She watched him leave.
Hit a nerve.
Doesn't want to talk about his past.
Only hers.
Ginny opened her screen back up.
The cursor blinked and she felt a new surge of creative energy.
Kate was what filled his life, his mind.
She was in his head, in his system.
It was Katerina, but now Kate.
Like everything in this beautiful, sinful city, she tried to hide her true nature.
Her name was poetic, Katerina.
But no. Kate was more American.
She served drinks at the Mondshein Kabarett under the watchful, serpentine eye of Tom.
Henry looked forward to the moments, those small moments when she was away from Tom. Tonight she wasn't working. She was with him.
They walked along a darkened street of the city.
Already the political climate was becoming tense in the country. But Henry couldn't feel threatened sufficiently when she was near him. It just didn't seem practical.
The taint of democratic thinking.
The integrity of a pure German race.
The inferiority of the surrounding nations.
That was Tom talking.
Hitler's followers.
Henry heard none of it.
It was a contradiction. A man who owns a jazz club in Berlin and talks about inferior races. Jazz was born from some of the races that the Nazis deemed inferior.
Tom was a contradiction.
One that Kate was infatuated with.
She never forgot Tom's kindness in taking her in, giving her a job and a place to sleep.
Henry wished she would.
He knocked at her door.
Late afternoon cast the city into a dreamlike state. Day was wearing off and the night would come with lights and music and booze to fill the still and quiet hours with life.
Kate smiled when she opened the door and saw him.
He held between them a brown wrapped package that took her by surprise.
Her brown hair, braided on her head neatly, framed her translucent white skin and attracted the eye to her perfect red lips bent into an excited smile.
"Henry, what is it?" she asked.
"Open it."
She took it from him reluctantly and invited him into her humble flat above the club.
"Oh!" she exclaimed as she tore the brown paper away. "It's a pineapple. Henry, how did you manage it? Such a beautiful fruit." Her eyes lit as she held the fruit to her nose and inhaled its sweet scent. Her blue eyes closed in delight as she smelled it. "But this is a gift that a boy would only give to his sweetheart," she said, opening her eyes finally.
Henry moved toward her and took her up in his arms.
"I would fill this whole room with pineapples if it could express how much I love you, darling," he said moving his lips over hers.
She smirked.
Why was this bullshit so entertaining to the masses?
She would have to ask Eden tomorrow.
"Ginny?" a voice asked tentatively.
A voice behind her.
She turned to see Vivian standing in the doorway to the downstairs common area.
Ginny smiled. Raised her eyebrows. A gesture that meant simply, 'what do you want?'
"I…was wondering if I could have a moment with you."
Ginny nodded but said nothing.
Vivian took the seat that Draco had just vacated.
"I can't help but wonder that there's something else bothering you that you didn't want to mention in front of the group. They can be a rough audience for first timers."
Ginny thought about this.
It was worth a shot to try her theories out on Viv.
All those times
That I tried…
She started to cry even before she had begun to explain.
Smiling through her tears she said, "There's one person who opens your eyes to the world. Some people are afraid of that one person. I cherished him."
"Who are you talking about, Ginny?" Viv asked. Her face clearly stated her confusion.
"I'm getting there," she said through gritted teeth. "Tom was my first friend. He was older than me and knew so much more than I did. But he wasn't arrogant. He was a very patient and kind friend. He taught me what love was. Loyalty, the kind you would die to keep. I wasn't even with him for very long. I hadn't even known him a year before he died."
She wondered how much sense she was making.
It was all coherent to her.
Hell, it was her life. Of course it was coherent to her.
She looked down at her hands before she finished the rest. "I wasn't very loyal in the end. I let him die. I thought I had loved somebody else at the time. I thought letting him go was the right thing. I know now that it wasn't."
She smiled and looked up at Vivian. "Now I spend all my time trying to do Tom justice in literature. But he never comes out right." She patted her laptop on her knees. "But this time I think I have a shot at it. I think I can get him right."
"And Tom, what was he like?" Vivian indulged.
Ginny grinned. She knew she was being humored but it felt good. "He had dark hair and intense eyes that could see through you. A timeless, nineteen-forties way about him, his smile, his attitude, the way he carried himself, the manner in which he spoke." She laughed inwardly. She couldn't come right out and say that she was friends with someone her own age that had, in fact, lived sixty years before her time. "He always called me 'doll' and it always made me feel special."
"He sounds perfect," Vivian said with a grin.
Ginny's smile faltered. "I only wish that his literary counterpart did him justice."
She opened her computer screen and looked at the blinking cursor again. "But this time I think I will."
My intentions
Full of pride…
Sensing an end to the conversation Vivian rose and left Ginny to her work.
Quiet.
Pensive.
She couldn't have guessed Ginny's real torment.
That was why she was here, right?
Face it.
Face what you would rather drown in alcohol and drugs.
Ian had visited her just after Ron had left the other day.
Yes, Ian.
She was cheating on Harry and using poor Ian.
Poor Ian.
Poor Harry.
Poor, blind Harry who saw nothing but how fucked up she was.
He didn't see how fucked up he was.
She had made him that way.
Ron knew it.
Hermione knew it.
Even her meddling mother knew it.
Helpless, sick, down to her final resolve Molly Weasley had seen what her fuck-up daughter had done to her favorite boy.
She destroyed him with guilt and resentment.
But he was still hanging on.
Ian had come as she had asked.
He was disappointed when all she wanted from him was her pain medication.
Her back was killing her.
They had taken her pills.
She wasn't in here for that.
She was an alcoholic for fuck's sake!
She stood and left not long after Vivian, fingering the prescription phial in the pocket of her sweater.
It was ten and there wasn't time to take a walk before they lock the doors at night.
She walked the halls instead.
When she finished a flight of stairs that led to the fourth floor she stopped.
Eden had just come out of one of the rooms.
Suspicious.
Draco came out afterward.
"Thanks," he said.
She smiled and left by the flight of stairs at the other end of the hall.
She hadn't noticed Ginny at this end of the hall.
The conspiracies worked in her head.
There was only one answer for this.
Draco turned and saw her.
He smiled sarcastically.
"What do you want?" he asked, about to close the door.
"For you to leave her alone, Don Juan. She's only seventeen." Ginny approached him so as not to shout. "Her life's already fucked up as it is without you adding your own."
"What do you think it is that we were doing in here?" he asked, amused by her suspicion.
"She just came creeping out of your room. I think the action speaks for itself."
Draco held up a book.
Camille.
Her last book.
The one EW trashed.
Well, not trashed.
Had less than glowing remarks for.
"I was doing my research. She was helping me."
Ginny blushed.
"You're snooping?"
"I didn't go through your things and take it, now did I?" he asked opening the door wide enough for her. "Want to come in and finish our discussion or shall we continue to shout in the halls?"
She smiled.
Came in.
"I'm having trouble getting the first one. All I have is Camille and 1942."
Ginny waved a dismissive hand. "A Stone's Throw. It was crap anyway. You're not missing much." She stared.
He sat on the bed.
Near the door.
Where she stood.
"Look, I'm sorry about the Dark Mark thing earlier. It was rude of me to ask," Ginny offered.
Draco shook his head.
Dismissed her apology.
And I waste
More time than anyone…
"I thought it was pretty weird of you to ask. But it wasn't rude."
He looked out the darkening window.
Silence.
She slid down the wall and came to sit on the floor.
Taking out her medication she threw a pill into her mouth and swallowed it dry.
Draco watched her.
She held her breath and swallowed.
Eyes closed.
A moment or so more.
She opened her eyes and breathed deeply.
A sigh of relief.
"What's that?" Draco asked.
Ginny held up the prescription. "For my back."
"What's wrong with your back?"
"Hurt it. Car crash."
Draco nodded. Nothing to say to that.
"You're using too. So I know you won't tell."
Draco raised an eyebrow in surprise. "You're here for prescription drug use too? I thought it was just alcohol."
"No, just alcohol. But I'm not allowed medication." She leaned her head back against the wall. "Barbarians."
"I don't use it that often," he clarified.
She opened her eyes and looked doubtfully at him.
"At nights. My hands shake. I feel weird. Like I'm a visitor in my skin. I think about things I'd rather forget."
Ginny sat up at this. "A visitor in my skin," she repeated. "I don't think I've ever known how to describe it quite so well." She leaned forward. "Do you feel like the part of your life that you were meant to live has already passed and now you're just stuck here?"
Draco thought and then nodded slowly. "Sometimes."
"The mark. You regret it?"
"No," Draco said. "I regret what it took from me."
Ginny cocked her head. "What?"
"My friend. My one true friend. I have other friends. But not like her. And I miss her…a lot."
"Who?" Ginny asked.
Draco took a breath and shook his head. "It doesn't matter. She's dead."
"Oh," Ginny offered.
There was another break in the conversation.
Silence.
Penetrating silence.
They were unable to look away from one another.
Ginny stood slowly.
She was standing in front of him.
Took his arm and pushed his sleeve to his elbow.
Bent and kissed the mark that had been a world of regret for him.
She had a world like that too. And was sympathetic.
She examined the place on the crook of the same.
Kneeling before him.
She looked into his eyes.
She had surprised him.
"Does that hurt?" she asked.
"Needles don't bother me," Draco said inches from her.
He felt her cold fingers moving up his arms and to his neck.
He let her pull him down to meet her kiss.
"I'm afraid of needles," she admitted.
His fingers were at her collarbone. He traced the delicate lines of her neck.
Undid the first button.
Her fingers ran through his hair.
He pulled her down next to him on the bed. She went willingly.
His lips were on her neck. Her pulse under his tongue. Moving over her, hands on her hips, under her shirt. One working on the second button. The third.
Her fingers raked his back.
Pulling his shirt up over his head.
Her chest rose to meet his when she inhaled, sucking in air at his touch.
He could forget everything with her.
He could become addicted to her.
Wondered if anyone else had.
"Oh, Christ!" Flea said. Opening the door suddenly. "Draco, mate, you think you might warn me next time. Lock the door at least?"
"Flea!" Draco shouted. "Get the fuck out!"
Ginny was in a fit of laughing.
"Hey, Jimmy," she said, buttoning her blouse again, pulling her sweater around her shoulders.
"Hi, Ginny," Flea said, winking at her.
She sat up and brushed Draco's hair from his face. She was still laughing.
Draco was glaring at Jimmy.
"So what are you two up to?" Flea asked.
"Go to hell," Draco answered.
"We were discussing my books," Ginny said.
Kissing Draco's cheek she added, "Continue that discussion later?"
Jimmy raised an eyebrow suggestively.
Draco didn't answer.
"He'd love to," Flea answered for him.
"Bye guys," Ginny said, leaving.
Laughing.
Go figure Jimmy would show up at the oddest moment.
Oh well.
It was late.
***
Somewhere between the fourth floor and the third her amusement faded and she began to cry.
She stopped in the stair well and sat.
Catch your breath.
Her laptop sat forgotten in the common room.
She went down to get it instead of continuing on to her room.
He wasn't what she wanted, was he?
Did she want Harry or Ian?
No.
What made him different?
Was he different?
I'm on the outside
I'm looking in…
She sat down.
Set it on her knees.
The screen glowed to life.
A blue-green that cast deathly shadows on her face.
She typed.
Wrote until sleep enveloped her.
Every action of hers had become an addiction to drown another.
So convoluted that she couldn't tell what the thing that triggered all was in the first place.
A desperate act.
That's what she decided that her almost-tryst with Draco had been.
She wanted him because he made her forget herself for a moment.
He was so much like Tom.
So much more than Harry.
I can see through you
See your true colors…
But he didn't have the same passions that Draco had.
He had none.
Only the memory of a friend. Someone he had loved and lost.
Ginny couldn't be that friend.
Draco couldn't be Tom.
Harry had taken her to dinner one evening.
They had done this often.
Too often to give Ginny any suspicion that this evening was to be in anyway different from all of the others.
It was just after her seeing Ian in the afternoons had become a regular routine.
What surprised her was the ring.
He wanted to marry her.
Why on earth would he?
Harry asked and she said no.
She had broken his heart.
Not for the first time. Not for the last.
What surprised her more was the fact that he was still with her.
Hoping things would change.
If he only knew how permanent everything was. She couldn't go forward or back. This was permanent. He didn't deserve to wait in a limbo of hope like that. But she couldn't turn him away. He would have to leave on his own. He never would.
She was destined to be the destroyer of everything good.
Tom.
Harry.
Herself.
Her family.
Draco (whom she didn't even know).
Who knows who and what else?
***
Draco didn't say anything to Flea.
He got up and went into the bathroom.
Shut the door behind him.
He caught his reflection in the mirror.
Changed but the same.
He saw the mark on his arm. He still felt her touch on him. She frightened him and excited him. She was too much like Sally-Anne. He didn't want her to be. He didn't want her to burn out in a flame of glory. He didn't know her. And maybe he didn't want to. But he didn't want to lose her in the same way.
Never.
Cause inside you're ugly
You're ugly like me…
Sally-Anne. Blaise. Pansy. They had all joined ranks together. They used together.
They all had their marks.
Sally-Anne did it because she didn't want to be left behind.
She couldn't live with that decision in the end.
What was Ginny regretting that made her so like Sally-Anne in Draco's mind?
He was less conflicted.
Therefore he depended on heroin less.
He depended on it, yes. And depending on it at all would be hard to kick…if you wanted to.
He didn't.
Blaise was the one that needed it so bad.
He was the one that was stuck.
No powerful father to pull strings, buy him time while he got his shit together like Draco had. He was regretting it. Covering regret with a heavy heroin addiction.
Draco supplied more for Sally-Anne and for Blaise than he used.
He smiled at his reflection.
He used more now that he was in rehab.
But the magic that she had shown him would clear him under any substance test, even blood.
He was in no danger of getting caught.
Do your time.
Get the hell out.
Decide about the rest later.
Good plan.
He pulled a syringe from his pocket and stared at it for a moment.
His hand was shaking.
He thought of Sally-Anne.
The syringe went back into his pocket. He didn't need it just now.
Grabbing one of Ginny's books from the sink he sat on the floor and opened it up. He hadn't realized that he'd brought it in with him.
I can see through you
See to the real you…
***
Henry lay in her bed. She was beside him.
He touched her arm and she did not wake.
He lay staring at the moon filtered through cheap lace curtains.
Knowing that she was not truly his, he devised a way to make her so.
That would mean devising a way around Tom.
Sure that she loved him and not Tom, he planned on telling her.
They could not stay in Berlin.
It was a beautiful city. But its beauty could not shelter them forever. He was American. She a Czech. They were both condemned under Hitler's growing regime of hate.
It would threaten the Mondshein Kabarett soon. He could feel it.
He would tell her when she woke.
Dressing quietly and in the dark he left her peacefully asleep and unaware of what he would do to save them both.
He looked at her one last time before he shut the door to her small and cluttered room above the club. He turned in the direction of the train station. He would worry about decent travel papers in the morning.
He would worry about Tom in the morning.
Katerina lay asleep. But not in a peaceful one.
She remembered the trip she had made to the city, her desperate hope that something worth hanging on to would be found in that city. She wanted to be seen and see in turn.
She saw him.
He saw her.
Tom stood there as if he had expected, needed her.
She needed him.
How did you know you would find me there?
He answered, rolling over to face her, the way he always answered. I didn't know I would find you. I would regret that I never did. But I was looking for you all the same.
She felt she loved him more than her own life.
But she couldn't stay here and he couldn't protect her.
And she guessed that she loved her own life more when it came down to it.
She woke to find Henry had gone.
She broke a loyalty that Tom would never have broken with her. And now she was transferring her love to someone who could take her away from here. Or, at least she hoped Henry would take her away from here.
Tom wouldn't forgive her.
She wondered in the dark room, alone, would she forgive herself.
***
Hilde's voice rang in her ear.
But she did not wake right off.
"Ginny? Ginny dear, you have a visitor."
Ginny got slowly to her feet. She had fallen asleep on the common room sofa. She couldn't imagine that it was anyone she particularly wanted to see.
All the times
That I've cried…
Feeling in her pocket she sensed her nerves clam. Her pills were with her.
She saw him standing just behind Hilde.
I'm going to need one of these right from the off this morning, she thought when she saw Harry.
"How are you doing?" he asked breaking the painful silence that had accompanied them in their walk around the lake.
Ginny stopped and looked at him.
All that's wasted
It's all inside…
"They serve decaf coffee, decaf tea and decaf fucking Diet Coke, Harry. How do you think I am."
"Other than that. How is everything working for you?"
"Do you mean by that, am I staying on the bandwagon?" She looked his direction, he didn't look back. "I want a Diet Coke, goddammit!"
As an afterthought she added, "With a little rum."
She smiled.
Not joking.
And I feel
All this pain
Stuffed it down
It's back again…
"Don't do that!" Harry said, stopping where he was. She stopped. Turned. Looked at him.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" she asked.
"What's wrong with me? Ginny, what's wrong with you. I just wanted to know if treatment was going well and you turn it into sarcasm. Just answer me directly and stop being a smart-ass."
Ginny said nothing for a moment.
She continued walking. "They won't give me my medication. How am I supposed to get through all of this shit with my back hurting all the time?"
"I told them not to," Harry said in a small voice.
"You what?" Ginny asked, wheeling around.
Harry nodded.
"The accident was a year ago, Ginny."
And I lie
Here in bed
All alone
I can't mend…
"So. What does that mean?"
"It means you don't need them."
"How do you know? You don't know what I need."
"Stop acting like a child!"
"Stop treating me like one!" Ginny found that they were only feet apart and yelling at each other. Did they ever have a conversation that didn't turn out this way?
"Ginny, I can't be around all the time to keep you from destroying yourself. That's why I put you here."
And I feel
Tomorrow will be okay…
"It's voluntary. I can leave if I want."
"I thought that if I couldn't help you then at least they could." Harry moved closer to her. "It's not just alcohol, Ginny. It's painkillers. What will it be next?"
"I can quit anytime I want to. But I don't want to, Harry. I'm happy like this."
He put a hand on her shoulder. "You're not happy."
"I can quit when I want to."
"Have you yet?"
"I can."
"Have you?"
"Fuck you, Harry." Ginny left him standing there. It reminded her of a time not long ago when they'd had an argument like this.
But I know
That I'm on the outside…
She looked back and he was standing there, looking after her. His expression showed how much he was hurting to make things right. Let him suffer, she thought. He's earned it. I've suffered enough already.
I'm looking in
I can see through you…
It was the same that night.
"Are you sleeping with her?" she had asked him.
His surprise gave her answer. "I don't know who you mean," he'd said.
See your true colors…
"Hermione. Are you sleeping with her?" Ginny yelled.
He was still standing in the entrance hall. Still holding his bag and his umbrella. Dripping. He hadn't even the time to take his coat off.
Ginny was standing behind the bar.
A hand on a bottle.
A hand on a glass.
She threw the glass.
It crashed on the door over his head.
He ducked.
Cause inside you're ugly
You're ugly like me…
He looked back at her, eyes wide. "Jesus. What the hell is wrong with you?" He yelled back.
"You cheating bastard! What's wrong with you?"
"You told me to get out last night. I did. I went to Ron and Hermione's. Tell me, how is it possible to cheat with Hermione while Ron is in the next room."
"If not last night, then you've done it before."
Harry approached her cautiously. "You don't even remember last night, do you?"
"I remember enough," she answered.
"Apparently not everything," Harry said. He took the bottle from her hand. He moved around the bar. Put a tentative hand out to her.
"Don't touch me!" she shouted. Her cheeks were wet with tears. "I don't want you near me. I can't even stay in the same room with you." She grabbed the bottle back from him.
He reached after her.
She grabbed her bag and her keys.
"I can't stand it here. You're suffocating me!"
"Ginny, you're not going anywhere," he said.
She turned and chucked the bottle at him and shut the door behind her.
It was raining and she was drunk.
She wrapped her car around a tree near the park.
Just as well, she thought as she headed back up the hill to the lodge. I didn't like that car anyway.
Harry was reminded of the same scene as Ginny walked away from him and left him standing by the lake. He was thinking that all of this was his fault. He should have helped her with this sooner.
He feared she would never forgive him in any case.
Too late for forgiveness.
***
Hurrying to her room, Ginny took the steps two at a time. She was running.
She realized this.
Running from him.
Running from her.
Against the flow of tears.
Against her will.
She wanted to be alone.
To pop a pill and feel better.
She could quit.
She could do it on her own.
Didn't need his help.
Didn't need anyone.
She threw the door open.
Sat on the bed.
Rocking, shaking.
She reached in her pocket.
Her pills were there.
She threw one quickly into her mouth.
But she couldn't swallow.
She tried to swallow.
She couldn't do it.
She couldn't do it on her own.
Spitting the pill out she put it back in the phial and slammed the lid on it. She couldn't control the shaking in her hands. In her skin. A visitor in her skin. Not comfortable. Not at home.
Opening the window, she threw the rest of the medication out before she had the chance to change her mind.
Shaking.
Crying.
Huddled on the bathroom floor.
I can quit.
She was scared.
She couldn't do this.
I can see through you
See to the real you…