Chapter 11
Angelic face mingled with blood. Eyes that would always be drenched with tears. A heart that would never open to him again. This was the way Ginny looked across from him. At the same time, he wished with every fiber that he knew why he was in the empty room in the first place. His own soul seemed to tremble just imagining what was about to happen to him. Maybe he was captured by a gang of defensive students who wanted to put a stop to all of the violence that was going on at Hogwarts; maybe he was going to be put on a secret trial; maybe he was going to die.
Death. While looking at her, it wasn't a word he was familiar with, or at least nothing he feared. How could he be frightened of something so miraculously tiny compared to all of the pure life that seemed to flow through her? Even though it angered him to know that she was being punished for something he had done, it saddened him to know that she would find out sooner or later about his past. Things many won't speak about; things he can't forget.
What he had done to her was more than he could bear. Never in the history of his frail, worthless life had he ever wanted to take something back or to make something right. He was Draco Malfoy. Mistakes weren't allowed.
And she wasn't a mistake. She was a moment. A second in the life of a nobody who was just trying to fix everything that was going wrong; the things that would haunt them forever.
"Not a mistake?" A deep voice whispered into his ear, a chin on his shoulder. Would it matter that he couldn't move to push the face away? Would it matter that he was still even alive at the moment? Nothing mattered.
"Are you listening?" Blaise asked, looking into an expression that seemed as empty as a shard of glass. Nothing was in his eyes but a glare, a reflection. A reflection of her.
"Oh, please, Draco, snap out of it." Blaise drawled, snapping his fingers in front of Draco's face. When Draco's eyes met his, Blaise put a smile of approval on his beautiful face. "Ah, welcome back. Nice to see me again, eh? It's been a few days at least since we've had any sort of conversation. Any conversation that mattered, anyway."
Draco was still silent, his gray eyes acting as if they were mesmerized by the glaring floor and not by Blaise. Not by the freezing room. Not by life. He had no reason for moments or time, just for silence and himself.
Blaise was satisfied enough with just that. "Well, at least you're alive. That's more than a good reason to wake Ginny."
Draco's eyes quickly jumped up to meet Blaise. "No, no. Please leave her the way she is."
"Why is that? So she won't find out about you? About everything that's been going on?" He smirked. "She'll find out sooner or later, you know. It's only hurting you."
"Why am I here, Blaise? We both decided she didn't have to know. Ever since you woke me up that day, you said that she would never have to know. That she would just be able to go on with her life-"
"Until," Blaise sulkily interrupted, "she seemed highly interested in you, Draco. Until irony decided to twist you into a thousand frames. Don't you think she should just...die?" A blade floated into Blaise's hand. Draco began to struggle against his bindings, and even yell before a cloth gagged him.
Blaise bent close to him, their faces only inches apart. "You've been played a fool. You've been used. I'm going to tell you everything, you idiot. Just let me tell Ginny first." He smiled, slowly creeping towards Ginny's limp, but strongly bound body.
With only a few taps and quiet callings, Ginny's eyes slowly opened. Draco could only look away.
"Hello Ginny." Blaise scoffed. "I'm sure you've met Draco." He said, pointing a finger towards the melancholy and bruised body across from him.
His face was so cold to her. Even alien. She didn't expect any warmth in his eyes, but she yearned for a smile across his lifeless lips. Anything to bring back the vibrant energy that seemed to flow through his deeply understanding soul. Still, she only felt the seem anguish that she had felt before when he wouldn't even look at her, catch her gaze.
"It's time to tell secrets, boys and girls." Blaise mocked, untying Draco's mouth. "Draco gets to go first. Now, Draco, how many women have you ever slept with?"
Draco rolled his eyes. "I pass. Next question."
Taking the dagger, Blaise cut Draco's left cheek without Draco even flinching. "Strike one. Questions cannot be avoided. But," he said, sympathetically looking over to Ginny, "I see how that question has no relevance to the reason you're here. Let me rephrase. How many times have you slept with Ginny?"
"None."
Blaise laughed. "No, really, how many times?"
Draco's cold eyes met Blaise's. "I haven't." He said through his teeth.
"Because you haven't had the chance or because you were stopped before you could?"
Draco looked away.
Blaise faced Ginny. "He doubts his state of mind. Tell Ginny what happened that day. That day in Diagon Alley when, for some odd reason the streets were quiet and the shops closed, she was attacked."
The room was silent for a moment. It seemed like years to Ginny until Draco finally looked at her. His cheek was bleeding, but it seemed to be the last thing on his mind. Looking into his eyes, she knew that he had so much he needed to say so much that he had kept inside for too long. "Ginny...I'm so sorry." He said hoarsely, tears beginning to form in his eyes.
Her heart seemed to stop. She was hoping for him to say something, anything else. As she looked into those lost eyes belonging to the very person she hated, she felt so alone. She felt so betrayed.
Draco looked away from her face, that face that seemed to stab him like a thousand knives. "I don't remember doing it, Ginny. I don't remember attacking you. But I remember waking up in my own room, in my own bed with a headache that could kill a horse. I thought it was only a dream, until-"
"Until his father came in the room." Blaise smiled. "His father arrogantly walking in with this grand smile telling Draco how proud of him he was. How he was doing everything that he was supposed to be doing. How proud he was making the Dark Lord. He told Draco that he had went with him to Diagon Alley to pick up a few things when Draco's eyes seemed to light up when he saw you, Ginny. He told Draco how it wasn't even his idea to attack you. That you weren't even an important part in any plans. Yet Draco decided that he would have a little fun with you. That was, supposedly, when I came in and stopped you."
He faced Draco. "I stopped you because you had taken the fun too far, you had wanted too much. When I hit you, you fell towards Ginny, but when you awoke, you just simply couldn't remember a thing. Draco, you thought that just slipped your mind?"
There was a very long silence. Blaise began once again, "Of course, it was all a lie. The truth is that when your father found out that you didn't want to follow in his footsteps and become a follower of his own Lord, he got extremely angry. So flustered in fact that when you were given a mission by the Dark Lord to take away the virginity of and kill an innocent student, that he contacted me, telling me that I could be very high status with the school if I just took your form and attacked a girl." He moved closer to Draco. "You did try to save Ginny, Draco. You went against your own father."
Then Blaise grabbed Ginny by the throat. "You just showed up at the wrong time. That was why you became a victim. I was supposed to do what I do best and get out of there. Sadly, Draco heard what was going to happen that day and came to your rescue. He didn't want to be known as a killer or a Death Eater." His grip began to tighten around her neck. "We erased his memory. Told him that he had attacked you and that he should be proud."
Blaise's icy glare met Draco. "A real Slytherin would have been more than proud, he would be ecstatic. Yet he wouldn't speak to me for a day or two. Then he went to check up on you even after I told him a thousand times that you wouldn't remember that you were attacked. He just felt so bad for you."
Blaise removed her mouth bindings and roughly kissed her, tears falling down her cheeks. "That was when you interfered. You almost ruined everything. You told him that he had truly saved you when I had went through all of that rigorous brainwashing to make him believe he attacked you. Thank the gods he thought that you just didn't remember what happened."
Draco hadn't said anything the entire time. He just sat there, dumbfounded. How could he have been so blind? Everything was right in front of him. And when Blaise had dared to kiss Ginny, all he could do was look away.
"What else have you done to us, you bastard? What's the point of all of this?"
Blaise shot him a very cold glance. "I'm getting to that. The rest was all done by Ginny. She seemed to fancy you an awful lot after she believed that you were her rescuer. All I had to do was act as if I wanted a piece of her, which set you off like a firecracker. Then I kidnapped Harry, made him believe I had been murdered and took his form."
It was silent for many minutes. Finally, Draco spoke up. "So what are we doing here now?"
"Well," Blaise began, moving towards Draco, "the Dark Lord isn't an idiot. He soon discovered that you hadn't performed your task, that it had been interrupted and that Ginny was, in fact, alive and pure. Your father told me after I captured Harry that I would need to kill Ginny, and that if I did I would be a very respected person at Hogwarts. That I would have power. But of course, I couldn't have you getting in my way, so I had to lead you here too. Now I can finish what I started and your father will be here in a few hours to see that everything has been completed."
Blaise's eyes moved toward Ginny. "Now, if you'll excuse me Draco, Ginny and I have some unfinished business." He began to move closer towards her.
Draco caught something from the corner of his eye. "Wait, Blaise. I can't let you do that."
Blaise's face showed a very awkward expression. "Oh, yeah? And you're going to stop me?"
"No," Draco shrugged, "but Harry will."
With that, a shard of glass went directly through Blaise's chest, spewing blood across Ginny's face. With one last look into Ginny's eyes, Blaise's lifeless body fell to the floor.
Harry looked around, his hair wildly flowing in all directions, chest heaving. You should never leave a guy tied to a chair with sharp, cutting glass on the floor. **
Harry quickly untied Draco, and they both unwound Ginny's bindings. None of them knew exactly where they were, but Harry knew that Hedwig was close by. "She always comes to find me if I'm not where I'm supposed to be." He shrugged.
And now Ginny and Draco understood everything. They had both been wrong, but now they didn't need any reason to be right.
"Ginny, I'm still so sorry." Draco said, finally knowing that he could look at her without shame. "Your attack, your bruises. They've all been my fault."
Ginny smiled. She put her head against his chest. "No, Draco. They've been your father's fault. I would never blame you for anything except for not believing me in the first place."
Draco pushed her away. "My father. Blaise said he would be here soon. Blaise!" Draco's eyes looked to Blaise's body. "What will we say?"
"Oh, that's easy." Harry said, as if unaffected by his death at all. "I was captured once again by some random killer and defeated him. This time it was Blaise."
"You're so cocky, Potter." Draco drawled. "I wish it was that easy. I don't know what to tell my father."
Ginny seemed to just sit in silence. She had nothing she wished to say, but so many ideas had found their way into her head at once. She just wanted to leave, wanted to go away.
"Draco," she whispered, pulling at his hand, "let's just go."
He looked down into those beautiful eyes. "Go where?"
She smiled, and closed her eyes, wiggling her way into his arms. "Anywhere. Somewhere that no one would know us. Somewhere we could be together."
Harry tried to look away, hoping not to draw any attention to the fact that he was still in the room.
Draco was silently laughing to himself, knowing that Ginny was very low on blood to the brain. "Ginny, we just go anywhere we want-" She looked up at him again, knowing that she was actually serious. She was willing to pack her things and suddenly disappear if she was with him.
"We can find a place and call it home." She said.
**
Twenty years later, Harry is known world-wide for his mastering skills of Quidditch and Defense Against the Dark Arts. He was also named the first wizard to make completely unbreakable glasses for the safety of himself and others, just because he hates contacts.
Ron Weasley became the coolest guy to ever live.
Ginny and Draco are still missing. The money that Draco had saved up for a few more level years of wizarding education and a new car was 'stolen' from his home, and he has only written to his mother once from a blank address. The letter states:
Dear Mum,
I hope that you are doing well. I send all of my sorrows for father being in jail for the murder of a Mr. Zambini. Life is the same in paradise. I know you've never met my love before, but I hope you will one day. We are both in a place that we know is best for all of the family. It is a place you would call paradise. It is a place we call home.
With best wishes,
Draco
The End
Angelic face mingled with blood. Eyes that would always be drenched with tears. A heart that would never open to him again. This was the way Ginny looked across from him. At the same time, he wished with every fiber that he knew why he was in the empty room in the first place. His own soul seemed to tremble just imagining what was about to happen to him. Maybe he was captured by a gang of defensive students who wanted to put a stop to all of the violence that was going on at Hogwarts; maybe he was going to be put on a secret trial; maybe he was going to die.
Death. While looking at her, it wasn't a word he was familiar with, or at least nothing he feared. How could he be frightened of something so miraculously tiny compared to all of the pure life that seemed to flow through her? Even though it angered him to know that she was being punished for something he had done, it saddened him to know that she would find out sooner or later about his past. Things many won't speak about; things he can't forget.
What he had done to her was more than he could bear. Never in the history of his frail, worthless life had he ever wanted to take something back or to make something right. He was Draco Malfoy. Mistakes weren't allowed.
And she wasn't a mistake. She was a moment. A second in the life of a nobody who was just trying to fix everything that was going wrong; the things that would haunt them forever.
"Not a mistake?" A deep voice whispered into his ear, a chin on his shoulder. Would it matter that he couldn't move to push the face away? Would it matter that he was still even alive at the moment? Nothing mattered.
"Are you listening?" Blaise asked, looking into an expression that seemed as empty as a shard of glass. Nothing was in his eyes but a glare, a reflection. A reflection of her.
"Oh, please, Draco, snap out of it." Blaise drawled, snapping his fingers in front of Draco's face. When Draco's eyes met his, Blaise put a smile of approval on his beautiful face. "Ah, welcome back. Nice to see me again, eh? It's been a few days at least since we've had any sort of conversation. Any conversation that mattered, anyway."
Draco was still silent, his gray eyes acting as if they were mesmerized by the glaring floor and not by Blaise. Not by the freezing room. Not by life. He had no reason for moments or time, just for silence and himself.
Blaise was satisfied enough with just that. "Well, at least you're alive. That's more than a good reason to wake Ginny."
Draco's eyes quickly jumped up to meet Blaise. "No, no. Please leave her the way she is."
"Why is that? So she won't find out about you? About everything that's been going on?" He smirked. "She'll find out sooner or later, you know. It's only hurting you."
"Why am I here, Blaise? We both decided she didn't have to know. Ever since you woke me up that day, you said that she would never have to know. That she would just be able to go on with her life-"
"Until," Blaise sulkily interrupted, "she seemed highly interested in you, Draco. Until irony decided to twist you into a thousand frames. Don't you think she should just...die?" A blade floated into Blaise's hand. Draco began to struggle against his bindings, and even yell before a cloth gagged him.
Blaise bent close to him, their faces only inches apart. "You've been played a fool. You've been used. I'm going to tell you everything, you idiot. Just let me tell Ginny first." He smiled, slowly creeping towards Ginny's limp, but strongly bound body.
With only a few taps and quiet callings, Ginny's eyes slowly opened. Draco could only look away.
"Hello Ginny." Blaise scoffed. "I'm sure you've met Draco." He said, pointing a finger towards the melancholy and bruised body across from him.
His face was so cold to her. Even alien. She didn't expect any warmth in his eyes, but she yearned for a smile across his lifeless lips. Anything to bring back the vibrant energy that seemed to flow through his deeply understanding soul. Still, she only felt the seem anguish that she had felt before when he wouldn't even look at her, catch her gaze.
"It's time to tell secrets, boys and girls." Blaise mocked, untying Draco's mouth. "Draco gets to go first. Now, Draco, how many women have you ever slept with?"
Draco rolled his eyes. "I pass. Next question."
Taking the dagger, Blaise cut Draco's left cheek without Draco even flinching. "Strike one. Questions cannot be avoided. But," he said, sympathetically looking over to Ginny, "I see how that question has no relevance to the reason you're here. Let me rephrase. How many times have you slept with Ginny?"
"None."
Blaise laughed. "No, really, how many times?"
Draco's cold eyes met Blaise's. "I haven't." He said through his teeth.
"Because you haven't had the chance or because you were stopped before you could?"
Draco looked away.
Blaise faced Ginny. "He doubts his state of mind. Tell Ginny what happened that day. That day in Diagon Alley when, for some odd reason the streets were quiet and the shops closed, she was attacked."
The room was silent for a moment. It seemed like years to Ginny until Draco finally looked at her. His cheek was bleeding, but it seemed to be the last thing on his mind. Looking into his eyes, she knew that he had so much he needed to say so much that he had kept inside for too long. "Ginny...I'm so sorry." He said hoarsely, tears beginning to form in his eyes.
Her heart seemed to stop. She was hoping for him to say something, anything else. As she looked into those lost eyes belonging to the very person she hated, she felt so alone. She felt so betrayed.
Draco looked away from her face, that face that seemed to stab him like a thousand knives. "I don't remember doing it, Ginny. I don't remember attacking you. But I remember waking up in my own room, in my own bed with a headache that could kill a horse. I thought it was only a dream, until-"
"Until his father came in the room." Blaise smiled. "His father arrogantly walking in with this grand smile telling Draco how proud of him he was. How he was doing everything that he was supposed to be doing. How proud he was making the Dark Lord. He told Draco that he had went with him to Diagon Alley to pick up a few things when Draco's eyes seemed to light up when he saw you, Ginny. He told Draco how it wasn't even his idea to attack you. That you weren't even an important part in any plans. Yet Draco decided that he would have a little fun with you. That was, supposedly, when I came in and stopped you."
He faced Draco. "I stopped you because you had taken the fun too far, you had wanted too much. When I hit you, you fell towards Ginny, but when you awoke, you just simply couldn't remember a thing. Draco, you thought that just slipped your mind?"
There was a very long silence. Blaise began once again, "Of course, it was all a lie. The truth is that when your father found out that you didn't want to follow in his footsteps and become a follower of his own Lord, he got extremely angry. So flustered in fact that when you were given a mission by the Dark Lord to take away the virginity of and kill an innocent student, that he contacted me, telling me that I could be very high status with the school if I just took your form and attacked a girl." He moved closer to Draco. "You did try to save Ginny, Draco. You went against your own father."
Then Blaise grabbed Ginny by the throat. "You just showed up at the wrong time. That was why you became a victim. I was supposed to do what I do best and get out of there. Sadly, Draco heard what was going to happen that day and came to your rescue. He didn't want to be known as a killer or a Death Eater." His grip began to tighten around her neck. "We erased his memory. Told him that he had attacked you and that he should be proud."
Blaise's icy glare met Draco. "A real Slytherin would have been more than proud, he would be ecstatic. Yet he wouldn't speak to me for a day or two. Then he went to check up on you even after I told him a thousand times that you wouldn't remember that you were attacked. He just felt so bad for you."
Blaise removed her mouth bindings and roughly kissed her, tears falling down her cheeks. "That was when you interfered. You almost ruined everything. You told him that he had truly saved you when I had went through all of that rigorous brainwashing to make him believe he attacked you. Thank the gods he thought that you just didn't remember what happened."
Draco hadn't said anything the entire time. He just sat there, dumbfounded. How could he have been so blind? Everything was right in front of him. And when Blaise had dared to kiss Ginny, all he could do was look away.
"What else have you done to us, you bastard? What's the point of all of this?"
Blaise shot him a very cold glance. "I'm getting to that. The rest was all done by Ginny. She seemed to fancy you an awful lot after she believed that you were her rescuer. All I had to do was act as if I wanted a piece of her, which set you off like a firecracker. Then I kidnapped Harry, made him believe I had been murdered and took his form."
It was silent for many minutes. Finally, Draco spoke up. "So what are we doing here now?"
"Well," Blaise began, moving towards Draco, "the Dark Lord isn't an idiot. He soon discovered that you hadn't performed your task, that it had been interrupted and that Ginny was, in fact, alive and pure. Your father told me after I captured Harry that I would need to kill Ginny, and that if I did I would be a very respected person at Hogwarts. That I would have power. But of course, I couldn't have you getting in my way, so I had to lead you here too. Now I can finish what I started and your father will be here in a few hours to see that everything has been completed."
Blaise's eyes moved toward Ginny. "Now, if you'll excuse me Draco, Ginny and I have some unfinished business." He began to move closer towards her.
Draco caught something from the corner of his eye. "Wait, Blaise. I can't let you do that."
Blaise's face showed a very awkward expression. "Oh, yeah? And you're going to stop me?"
"No," Draco shrugged, "but Harry will."
With that, a shard of glass went directly through Blaise's chest, spewing blood across Ginny's face. With one last look into Ginny's eyes, Blaise's lifeless body fell to the floor.
Harry looked around, his hair wildly flowing in all directions, chest heaving. You should never leave a guy tied to a chair with sharp, cutting glass on the floor. **
Harry quickly untied Draco, and they both unwound Ginny's bindings. None of them knew exactly where they were, but Harry knew that Hedwig was close by. "She always comes to find me if I'm not where I'm supposed to be." He shrugged.
And now Ginny and Draco understood everything. They had both been wrong, but now they didn't need any reason to be right.
"Ginny, I'm still so sorry." Draco said, finally knowing that he could look at her without shame. "Your attack, your bruises. They've all been my fault."
Ginny smiled. She put her head against his chest. "No, Draco. They've been your father's fault. I would never blame you for anything except for not believing me in the first place."
Draco pushed her away. "My father. Blaise said he would be here soon. Blaise!" Draco's eyes looked to Blaise's body. "What will we say?"
"Oh, that's easy." Harry said, as if unaffected by his death at all. "I was captured once again by some random killer and defeated him. This time it was Blaise."
"You're so cocky, Potter." Draco drawled. "I wish it was that easy. I don't know what to tell my father."
Ginny seemed to just sit in silence. She had nothing she wished to say, but so many ideas had found their way into her head at once. She just wanted to leave, wanted to go away.
"Draco," she whispered, pulling at his hand, "let's just go."
He looked down into those beautiful eyes. "Go where?"
She smiled, and closed her eyes, wiggling her way into his arms. "Anywhere. Somewhere that no one would know us. Somewhere we could be together."
Harry tried to look away, hoping not to draw any attention to the fact that he was still in the room.
Draco was silently laughing to himself, knowing that Ginny was very low on blood to the brain. "Ginny, we just go anywhere we want-" She looked up at him again, knowing that she was actually serious. She was willing to pack her things and suddenly disappear if she was with him.
"We can find a place and call it home." She said.
**
Twenty years later, Harry is known world-wide for his mastering skills of Quidditch and Defense Against the Dark Arts. He was also named the first wizard to make completely unbreakable glasses for the safety of himself and others, just because he hates contacts.
Ron Weasley became the coolest guy to ever live.
Ginny and Draco are still missing. The money that Draco had saved up for a few more level years of wizarding education and a new car was 'stolen' from his home, and he has only written to his mother once from a blank address. The letter states:
Dear Mum,
I hope that you are doing well. I send all of my sorrows for father being in jail for the murder of a Mr. Zambini. Life is the same in paradise. I know you've never met my love before, but I hope you will one day. We are both in a place that we know is best for all of the family. It is a place you would call paradise. It is a place we call home.
With best wishes,
Draco
The End