~*~
When Ginny woke up, it was to a dark room and a blinding, pounding headache that made her gasp in pain and shut her eyes again almost immediately. She felt the bed shift and a cool hand rest on her forehead. Both movements sent little arrows of agony into her skull. She risked opening her eyes again, to find her mum's worried face hovering above her.
"How do you feel?" she asked quietly.
"Terrible," Ginny whispered, her voice a thin rasp. "Head hurts."
"I know, dear. You've been ill, but you're getting better. I can give you something for your head."
Mum stood up but the motion was too nauseating to Ginny; she shut her eyes again so she wouldn't have to watch as Mum moved away from the bed. A few moments later she felt the mattress dip again and Mum's hand, cool against her cheek.
"Where am I?" she asked, without opening her eyes.
"You're home," Mum replied. "Here you go. Open your mouth, dear."
Mum's hand lifted her head gently and something extraordinarily repulsive was tipped into her mouth. She swallowed it, but only because she didn't want to make a mess of herself. "Eugh," she said, pulling away in protest. "What is that?"
"It's something that will help you get better. Now hush, dear, and go to sleep."
"Mmmm." The potion worked fast; she could feel the pain become fuzzy as she drifted closer to the edges of sleep. "What happened?"
"Don't worry about that," Mum whispered. "Everyone is fine, and so are you. Just rest."
Ginny tried to protest, but the pull of the potion was too strong, and she faded down into slumber.
*
The next time she woke the pain in her head was a dull throb and Bill was sitting by her bed, slouched in a chair and flipping through the pages of a huge, ancient-looking book, his dragon-hide clad feet propped up on her bedside table.
"If Mum sees you she'll have a fit," Ginny said hoarsely, and suppressed a giggle as Bill started and nearly tipped himself out of the chair.
Bill laughed and straightened up, closing his book and letting it drop to the floor beside his chair with a thud. "Good morning," he said. "How do you feel?"
"Terrible," she said. "Head hurts, and it tastes like something died in my mouth."
"Poor love. D'you want a glass of water?"
"Please."
Bill got up and disappeared into the hall; she heard a tap running, and he came back in a moment with a large tumbler of water. He helped her sit up and slid one arm around her shoulders, holding the edge of the glass as she sipped carefully.
"Is that a bit better?" he asked when she'd finished.
"A little," Ginny said, and let Bill settle her back against her pillows. She closed her eyes with a sigh, willing her head to stop hurting. "What's going on?"
There was a long silence, and Ginny finally pried her eyes open so she could look at her brother. Bill was staring at his hands, his face solemn.
"Bill?"
"Nothing's going on right now," he said after another long pause. "Everything's fine."
"If everything's fine, why are you trying not to look at me? Where's—" She caught herself before she could say "Draco", and then memories started to come flooding back.
Draco catching her at the foot of the stairs to the Entrance Hall, his arms around her as he tried to keep her from going to the Death Eaters across the lawn.
The feel of a foreign mind pressing down on hers and making her do things she didn't want to do, no matter how hard she tried to stop.
Hermione's recriminating expression as Ginny tried to explain what was happening to her.
The look on Ron's face when she said the name Tom Riddle.
Harry staring at his feet, his face frightened...and guilty.
A spike of pain shot through her head, and then Bill was holding her up and tilting more of that vile potion down her throat. Ginny tried to protest but her head hurt too much to move it, and then the potion was working its way through her, pulling her back into sleep.
*
Ginny didn't know how long they kept her asleep after that, but when she finally woke again it was late at night and her room was empty. Her head still ached but the pain had lessened quite a bit. She sat up cautiously, pleased when the movement didn't make her feel dizzy or nauseous, and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Her knees felt shaky, but she could stand, and she crept out of her room and down the hall to the toilet under her own power. Somehow that felt like a major accomplishment.
She caught sight of her own reflection in the mirror over the sink and stared, braced against the counter. Her hair was lank and tangled, her face pale, and despite all the sleeping she'd been doing she looked exhausted.
"Don't think you should be out of bed, dearie," the mirror said. "You look like death warmed over."
"Thanks," Ginny said wryly, but she had to agree. Now that she'd seen what she looked like she felt dirty, but the thought of drawing a bath was too tiring. She settled for filling the sink with warm water and washing her face. Even that small effort left her feeling worn out, though, and she shuffled slowly back to bed to sink gratefully into the warm mound of bedclothes, feeling slightly more human.
Ginny closed her eyes and tried to think what had happened to so utterly sap her energy. Everything after she had re-entered the Great Hall with Draco was a blur of images and movement and noise that she couldn't quite bring into focus. It was hard to think about, and she had brief, flashing memories of things she couldn't possibly have seen.
She had known when Harry killed Voldemort. His death broke whatever spell had been on her, the strands of her being that Voldemort had pulled out of her returning with a snap. There had been a huge sensation of relief, a cessation of a pressure she hadn't known was there until it was gone.
And then everything had gone black, and when she woke again she'd been here. Ginny closed her eyes, straining to remember just a little bit more, but the effort made her head start to throb dully. She sighed in frustration; the pain made it hard for her to think, and there didn't seem to be any way to avoid it. She gave it up and curled around her pillow, trying to find a spot that didn't make her headache worse.
*
The next several days were much like the previous few; half the time Ginny barely got her eyes open before Mum or Dad or Bill were dosing her with the horrible potion and sending her right back to sleep. It was a week before she was even allowed to sit up, propped against a mound of pillows stacked against the headboard.
"Can't I even read something?" Ginny asked plaintively, while Mum bustled around and arranged the curtains so that there wasn't too much sun.
"Not yet, love," Mum said. "You don't want to strain yourself. I'll send Bill in to talk to you in a minute. Maybe he'll read you a bit from his Quidditch magazine. Won't that be nice?"
Ginny muttered under her breath. Nice. To be treated as an invalid, read to as though she was a baby; why, she couldn't think of anything she'd rather do. Mum came back to the bed and tried to plump her pillow, but Ginny waved her away in irritation.
"Stop fussing, Mum. There's nothing wrong with my pillows."
"Are you tired, dear? Does your head hurt?" Mum paused, her face lined with concern. "Just let me pop downstairs and get your potion—"
"No! I'm not tired and my head doesn't hurt, and I don't need another pillow or a warming charm or anything else!" Ginny snapped, then bit her lip guiltily as Mum's face fell. "I really am fine, Mum," she said, trying to control her irritation. "I'm just bored."
"Well I'm sorry for that, but you mustn't strain yourself rushing into anything before you're ready. You need rest, love. It's the only way you'll get..." Mum bit her lip and changed tack. "It's the best way to deal with those headaches of yours. Madam Pomfrey said so."
Ginny was sure Mum was about to say, "get better", but that didn't make any sense. She wasn't really sick, after all. No one ever died of headache. But Mum looked so worried that she didn't have the heart to press.
"Send Bill up then, with his Quidditch rag," she said, and felt a little better when Mum smiled.
A few minutes later Bill arrived, his arms full of books. "Mum said to read to you from a magazine, but between you, me and the bedpost, I think she's being a mite overprotective," he said, dumping his load on her bedside table. "I don't see why you can't read on your own, and I can't think of anything I'd rather do less than read out loud for an hour."
"What, you're not going to treat me like I'm made of glass?" Ginny asked, and grinned as Bill rolled his eyes at her. She leaned forward to scan the spines of the books, snickering a bit at some of the more lurid titles. "Don't tell me you actually went out and bought these yourself? I didn't think you were the romance type."
"I didn't, I borrowed 'em from Fleur. I don't know what you like to read." Bill pulled a stack of magazines from the bottom of the pile. "Got the last few months' back issues of Quidditch Weekly, if you'd rather that. Or put in a request, and I'll see what I can smuggle past Mum." He flashed her a conspiratorial grin.
Ginny grinned back. "I will. Toss me a magazine, will you? I'm not in the mood for a novel."
They read in a companionable silence for several hours, until Mum came back up with a tray of food for them to share. After the meal was over, Bill produced a pack of cards and they played a few hands of Exploding Snap before Ginny's head started to ache again.
"Need me to get Mum?" Bill asked, a faint tinge of worry in his voice. "You don't need potion or anything?"
"No," Ginny said. "I'm fine. Just a little tired, is all."
Bill nodded and collected the cards, putting them back in the pocket of his robes. He leaned back in the chair and stretched, yawning hugely. "You're not the only one. I might just join you in a bit of a nap."
Ginny smiled faintly and watched as he arranged the chair so he could put his feet up on the bedside table. He settled his robes around him and winked.
"What, here?" she asked incredulously. "Wouldn't you rather sleep in a real bed?"
"Nah," he said, waving a hand vaguely in the air. "I'm used to sleeping in chairs and on floors. I've done worse, in Egypt."
"I know," she said. She'd heard all of Bill's Egypt stories and knew that was true, but she was sure he wasn't staying because he was so used to napping in uncomfortable places. "That doesn't mean you need to watch over me all the time. It's not like I sleepwalk. Anymore," she added awkwardly.
Bill didn't seem to notice her discomfort. "Yes, but I promised Mum I'd stay and so I'm staying. And don't think you can talk me out of it," he said sternly. "You're nowhere near Mum's level when it comes to nagging, so don't try."
"I wasn't going to. I'm just saying you don't have to hover like an old granny. Any of you."
"We hover because we care," Bill replied calmly. "Go to sleep."
She muttered, but obediently lay back. If he wanted to get a crick in his neck sleeping in a chair, it was his own fault. She heard Bill shift into a more comfortable position and allowed herself to drift off to sleep.
~*~
Draco sprawled on a bench in the Quidditch bleachers, letting the early afternoon sun soak into his skin. Up here it was easier to believe in the illusion of freedom. After spending most of the last year hiding inside the castle, being able to lie in the sun was a blessing. One that he was making the best of, these days. Anything that got him out from under the eyes of the horde of people who'd overrun Hogwarts after the final battle—Aurors, Ministry peons, and dozens of jubilant wounded.
Draco couldn't share the same jubilation. They were mostly celebrating the deaths or captures of people he knew. Pansy's parents, Blaise's parents, the families of half the Slytherins he'd gone to school with, or so it seemed. People his parents had hosted at dinner parties or invited over for tea, people Draco had socialized with since he was a child.
He shook his head restlessly, shading his eyes against the bright sun. He was trying to avoid thinking about the war and its messy aftermath, as if by avoiding unpleasant thoughts he could stave off the truths behind them. Bad enough that he was surrounded by people who claimed that everything he might mourn for was a victory.
None of them trusted him. He could feel it in the way gazes lingered on him when he passed people in the halls, the way conversations fell and rose again after he'd moved on. He hadn't done anything wrong during the war, but according to the Ministry he hadn't exactly done anything right either. No one liked a coward, and while Potter and his gang were off dodging Dark wizards and fighting for Dumbledore, Draco had been doing things like grading potions assignments for a bunch of 11-year-olds and being his father's son.
He wasn't even that anymore. Father was dead now, killed during the attack on the Ministry that had served as a distraction for the Aurors there, preventing them from joining in the final battle at Hogwarts. No one had told Draco directly, but he had heard Father's death described in graphic detail more than once. Thinking about it made him nauseous. Mingled with the images painted for him by gleeful story-tellers was the memory of the last conversation he'd ever had with Father, and the cold, desperate ache of knowing that Father had died thinking him a traitor and a coward.
Mother had vanished onto the Continent, to "visit" some obscure set of cousins Draco hadn't even heard of until a Ministry official asked him who they were. They'd even made him take Veritaserum and let them ask him questions—a horrible, invasive process that he never wanted to repeat. And after all that, he still didn't have anything to tell them—he supposed Dumbledore could have told them the same thing, but the old man had been curiously absent for Draco's interrogation.
Draco sighed and sat up, bracing his back against the wall and staring moodily over the deserted pitch. He'd toyed with the idea of pulling out his broom and flying laps, but he might draw more attention than it was worth. He'd had his fill of being watched, and really, just being able to come outside and sit in the stands was enough.
When he had the stands to himself, that was.
Weasley and Potter weren't quiet at the best of times, and neither of them—valiantly wounded war-heroes that they were—had any reason to skulk anywhere. Draco heard them long before they walked onto the pitch, brooms in hand. Potter was still moving with a slight limp and Weasley favoured his left side, but the injuries they'd taken in battle didn't seem to be slowing them down any. Weasley said something that made Potter laugh, then swung his leg over his broom and pushed off. Potter followed him into the air, and Draco slid along the seats into the patch of shadow cast by the wall behind the last bench. He watched sullenly as they flew in lazy circles above the grass.
Draco almost missed spotting Granger, making her way across the edge of the pitch and straight to the bleachers he was sitting in. She paused at the bottom of the stairs and turned to watch Potter and Weasley for a moment, shading her eyes against the sun. She turned and started up into the stands, hitching her shoulder to re-settle the ever-present book bag. Draco slouched even further into his shadowy corner, but it didn't do any good. She spotted him right off, and after a moment of indecision began making her way across the empty benches toward him.
Draco thought briefly about escape, but Granger looked determined and he didn't really feel like letting her chase him around. Best to just get it over with.
She came to stand in front of him, a few risers down. "What are you doing here?"
Draco shrugged, habit pulling his spine straight and his chin up. "I was enjoying the day until quite recently," he said haughtily.
Granger rolled her eyes and dropped her book bag onto the bench, clearly ready to make herself comfortable. "I suppose you came out here to watch Harry and Ron play."
"I didn't come out here to watch anyone do anything," Draco snapped. "In case you've failed to notice, Granger, I was here when they got here. I was looking for some peace and quiet, though I see that's a lost cause."
Granger's lips thinned, but she sat down on the bench and twisted around so she could keep her eyes on him.
Draco smirked and leaned back, tilting his head so that he wouldn't have to watch Weasley and Potter swooping across the pitch. He settled himself for a wait, but it wasn't very long at all before she broke the silence.
"Why are you here, anyway?" she demanded. "You haven't changed. I know you weren't really on our side for this war. Why do you stay here? Why don't you go home?"
"Nosy as ever, I see."
"Well someone's got to ask. It might as well be me."
"Maybe you were just wrong about me," Draco sneered.
"No," Granger replied, "I'm pretty sure I'm not wrong about you. I know that you're a stuck-up prat whose main hobby is tormenting other people. What I am concerned about is your sudden interest in Ginny." She paused and glanced out at the pitch. "Frankly, Malfoy, you are the last thing she needs right now. The last thing anyone needs. She's very ill you know, and her parents have enough to worry about with Ron and Harry having been injured and the situation with Charlie...the only reason we're all still here is because she's too ill to allow Ron and Charlie to go back to the Burrow. We certainly don't need someone like you poking around."
Draco stiffened at Ginny's name, his fingers curling against the cool wood of the bench under him. He'd known Ginny was ill, that wasn't news—he'd carried her up to the hospital wing himself when she'd collapsed after the battle, and had been beside himself with worry when they'd moved her out of the castle without telling anyone—but no one had told him that her injuries were serious. Granger looked back at him, a mix of curiosity and antagonism in her eyes.
"It wasn't sudden," he said finally, and smiled in grim amusement as Granger's curiosity melted into confusion. "My 'interest' in Ginny. It wasn't sudden. And you should keep your nose out of things you don't know anything about." He stood up and shook out his robes before striding toward the stairs. His hands were trembling, tucked into the sleeves of his robes, but he was damned if he'd let it show.
He knew Granger was watching him, but he didn't care; his afternoon was spoiled and it was all her fault. He stomped across the lawn toward the castle, his mind whirling. Ginny couldn't really be that sick, could she? Surely someone would have said something.
Except there was a good possibility that nobody would. Draco was persona non grata around here, after all. No one told him anything.
Draco ignored the looks and whispers that marked his passage through the Entrance Hall and retreated back to Snape's old workroom. He was still in charge of Potions, which meant that despite what everyone thought of him he wasn't entirely useless. At least it gave him something to do while he thought about Ginny's illness.
*
Draco waited until the next day to go in search of the person who might tell him the truth. To his amazement, Dumbledore was actually in his office when he arrived, and didn't even look surprised to see him.
"Mr. Malfoy. I was wondering where you'd got to," he said cheerfully at Draco's hesitant tap at the door. "Do come in."
Draco entered, scowling. Where he'd got to...where did the daft bugger think he'd been? He didn't have anywhere to go. Dumbledore motioned to one of the chairs in front of his desk, but Draco ignored that. He paced in front of the bookcases instead, trying to decide how best to approach what he wanted to ask.
Dumbledore waited.
"I wanted to ask you about Ginny," Draco finally said to a row of books. "I haven't seen her, and I can't ask...but I think she might be—be really ill. Dying, maybe."
"Ah," Dumbledore said. "So you've heard that, have you?"
Draco wheeled around to stare at him in horror. "Is it true?"
Dumbledore only motioned toward a chair. "Please, Mr. Malfoy, sit down."
Draco didn't sit. He bit the inside of his lip in an attempt to keep his composure and glared. After a moment Dumbledore folded his hands in front of him and shook his head.
"No, she is not dying," he said. Draco let out a slow, relieved breath, but Dumbledore continued, "She is, however, very ill. There is significant concern for her mental health, but she will probably not die."
"Probably?" Draco repeated incredulously. "She probably won't die? What sort of answer is that?"
"An answer given by a medical community that is still unsure of the full effects of magic on the human mind," Dumbledore said. "Miss Weasley is in the best hands, and we are doing all we can to help her. But we sail in poorly charted waters at best, and we still don't know exactly how Voldemort was able to do what he did to her. We may never know. In the meantime, Miss Weasley is being kept isolated and for the most part, sedated. Time may be the best cure for her."
Draco exhaled heavily and turned away to stare at the bookcases. That wasn't the answer he'd wanted. He'd wanted to hear that Granger was wrong, that Ginny was fine and doing well, and that the only reason he hadn't seen her was because her stupid family was being overprotective.
"Draco," Dumbledore said, his voice gentle. "I'm sorry the news isn't better, but they are doing all they can for her. She will recover in time. But until then, she needs to be kept away from anything that might do her harm, which seems mostly to be other people. Even her own family, to some extent. She is...curiously affected by the emotions of others, particularly strong emotions, and currently the best way to protect her is to watch her carefully and keep her isolated. That's why Madam Pomfrey chose to send her home."
Draco nodded "Will she—" he began, and stopped to clear his throat. "She will be all right, won't she?"
"I have great faith that she will be," Dumbledore said. "Now please, sit down. As it happens, there's something else I'd like to discuss with you."
Draco let himself be waved into a chair and waited while Dumbledore gathered up a handful of papers and tapped them into a neat pile.
"Now," he said, setting the papers down on his blotter. "I have been discussing the matter of next year's staff appointments with several officials at the Ministry, and they have agreed to allow me to offer you the position of Potions professor next year."
After the news about Ginny, this second shock left Draco momentarily speechless. With all the fuss the Ministry had made about his presence at Hogwarts, they wanted to offer him a job?
"How nice of them," he sneered finally. "I suppose they want me where they can keep an eye on me."
Dumbledore chose to ignore his tone. "That is a factor. But the students have done very well under your tutelage, and the Ministry recognizes that. As do I." He gave Draco a look over the tops of his glasses. "You would be doing us a service if you chose to stay. Skilled Potions teachers are difficult to find."
"Do I really have a choice?" Draco asked, not bothering to disguise the bitterness in his voice. "It isn't as though I have anywhere else to go, is it?"
"I don't want you to feel like a prisoner here," Dumbledore said. "Or to feel that you haven't any other choices. You are free to stay or go as you wish."
"Go where?" Draco burst out before he could stop himself. "Mother's run off, I haven't got a home to go back to, Father is—is—" He shut his mouth with a snap, unwilling even to say it, to admit that he still cared what Father thought of him, even now. He took a deep breath to steady himself and went on. "I doubt I would be welcome at Malfoy Manor, or anywhere else. If I have other choices, I don't know what they are."
Dumbledore didn't say anything for a long moment; he bowed his head over the papers on his desk, looking weary and older than Draco had ever seen him. "I'm afraid I don't know what to say," he said finally. "The Ministry is fallible, as any institution made up of humans will be. I do not necessarily agree with what they have done, just as I cannot agree with much of what has happened during this war. It isn't fair for the Ministry to treat you with suspicion for things your father has done, but they do what they feel is best."
Draco shrugged. It was all well and good to say that the Ministry was fallible, but it wasn't Dumbledore's life they were putting restrictions on. He didn't want to end up trapped doing something he'd hate, like Professor Snape. But he didn't have any other options. He stood up, shaking out his robes.
"I'd be delighted to take the position," he said acidly. Dumbledore nodded, and Draco turned to go. He was sure there were other things that should be discussed, but they could bloody well wait.
~*~
Once Bill began bringing books, Ginny's days improved immensely. With him in the room Mum was much less likely to fuss, and a steady stream of the flowery romances that Fleur loved kept Ginny entertained—Bill, too, when she could convince him to let her read the juicer parts out loud, in a breathy mock-passionate voice that set them both howling. Bill often seemed like he was chafing at the restrictions placed on Ginny's actions almost as much as she was. He spent one rousing afternoon teaching her how to play Dragon Poker, and Ginny won a bundle of Chocolate Frog cards and a promise of several boxes of Honeydukes chocolate off him before Mum was drawn upstairs by their uproarious laughter and made him stop.
Bill bore Mum's scolding with good grace, and winked at Ginny as he gathered up the cards. "I'll teach you Blackjack tomorrow," he said after Mum bustled back downstairs. "And I think Fleur's got a few more books you can have if you like."
"That'd be grand. But you know what'd be better? If you could smuggle me up a quill and paper without Mum knowing," she said. "Even if I can't see anyone, at least I can write letters."
Bill hesitated, but Ginny put on her best pleading face and tried to look pitiable. "All right," he said reluctantly. "But don't tell Mum, or she'll have my head. And you'll have to let me read them before you mail them off, and you have to let me read the replies before you see them."
"Oh, come on!"
"No, Gin, you have to. I'm not doing it just to be a git, it's because we're not supposed to upset you. I don't want to have to explain to Mum if you have a relapse because I've let someone mail you something you're not ready for."
Ginny huffed sulkily. "What harm can it be for me to get a letter? You know that doesn't make any sense."
"I don't make the rules," Bill replied with a shrug. "I just enforce 'em. Mediwizard's orders that you're not supposed to have contact with anyone until they're sure you're back to normal. And that means that you don't get to read anything or see anyone that hasn't been approved first."
"That's ridiculous. I feel fine!"
"But you're not fine. Please don't argue, Ginny, it's for your own good. I'll bring you ink and quill, but you give me the letters before you send them, and I see any replies you get before you read them." Bill gave her a firm look. "I'm not going to be responsible for you being ill again."
Ginny sighed, but she didn't have any choice but to agree. Next day, as promised, he arrived and pulled several short quills and two tiny bottles of ink out of a pocket and a sheaf of blank paper from his robes.
"You're brilliant!" she whispered, and Bill grinned.
"Anything for my favourite sister," he replied, and laughed when she threatened to hit him with her pillow. She spent most of that afternoon composing long letters to Colin and to Zoë, which Bill read over before pocketing them before he left for home at dinnertime.
"I'll mail these out for you, then," he said with a wink. "And I'll be telling your friends to mail me directly, just in case you had any ideas. I'll bring the replies along when I get them."
Ginny nodded in resignation. He'd left the ink and quills though, squirreled away in Ginny's desk, and she normally had evenings to herself after supper. Sneaking out of her room and stealing down to the kitchen was more challenging than writing an illicit letter to Draco, but a dozen midnight raids on the icebox stood her in good stead, and the headaches hadn't affected her memory of which stairs and floorboards squeaked.
Pigwidgeon was snoozing beside Errol on their perch, having arrived from Hogwarts with a letter to Mum from Ron (that she hadn't been allowed to see), but he woke readily enough when Ginny prodded him gently. She shushed him when he cooed in greeting, then had to jump as he leapt off the perch to flutter excitedly around her head.
"C'mon, Pig," she whispered. "Be a good boy and I'll give you an owl treat." Finally he settled where Ginny could grab him and hand over her letter to Draco. "Now, make sure he gets that. Don't give it to anyone else, understand?"
Pig hooted happily, weighed down by the thick parchment tied to one small leg. Ginny smiled and eased the window open, shooing Pig outside, where he took to the air in a mad display of swoops and dips. She watched him until he was well out of sight, her heart lighter than it had been since before the battle.
~*~
Draco poked at the eggs and sausage on his plate, ignoring the murmur of voices rising from the tables where the students usually sat. Now, of course, they were full of Aurors and Ministry people and those wounded who were able to leave their beds and come to the Great Hall for breakfast. He got to sit at the Head table, which meant that despite the discomfort of having a room full of people staring at him he had a better seat than Potter, Granger and Weasley. They still sat at the Gryffindor table as though they were students. It was a petty thing to be happy about, but Draco wasn't picky about where he found his amusements these days. A series of hoots and the rustling sound of many wings heralded the arrival of the morning post. Draco barely glanced up; there wasn't much point, since he didn't get mail.
Therefore it was a bit of a shock when a tiny, fluffy bird dropped out of the flock of owls and cannonballed into the top of his head. Draco winced and swore under his breath, staring at the thing, which swooped around his head. After a moment it ceased its mad aerial dance and settled onto the table in front of him, hopping from side to side as though too excited to stand still. It was carrying a much-folded letter, which Draco detached from its leg while it vibrated with suppressed energy, hooting all the while. Draco fed it a bit of cracker and it flitted off toward the student tables, to settle on Weasley's outraged head and nibble at his hair.
Weasley glared at him, and Draco couldn't help the smirk that crept across his face. If it was Weasley's owl, then he knew who the letter was from. Draco stuffed the square of parchment into his pocket; he wasn't about to read Ginny's first letter to him here, in front of half the Aurors in Britain, the whole staff, and her brother.
He pushed his plate aside, ignoring the knowing glance Professor McGonagall favoured him with and left the hall, and retreated to the sanctuary of his room in the dungeons. No one came to see him here, so he was guaranteed some peace while he sat on the edge of his bed and unfolded the parchment.
Dear Draco,
I'm sorry I haven't been able to write you before now, but Mum seems to think I can't even hold a quill on my own yet. I had to get Bill to smuggle paper and ink in to me so I could write letters, and as it is Bill's insisting I let him read them. He's not reading this one, I'm sending it with Pig at night so he won't know. I don't know if you've heard but I've been sick for a little while. I don't think it's serious, but I get headaches and have to take an awful tasting potion that knocks me right out. For the longest time it hurt to even think about things, but I'm feeling much better now, though Mum doesn't believe me. I haven't been allowed out of bed for ages. Bill brings me books and magazines, so I've been reading a lot, but it's still boring.
I've missed my NEWTs, though Bill says that everyone else missed theirs too—that they've been canceled. I suppose that's good news, but to be truthful I'm disappointed. All that studying for nothing! I bet Colin's pleased...he wasn't looking forward to sitting for them. I hope everything is well at Hogwarts. Mum says Ron and Harry and Hermione are still at Hogwarts, so I imagine you see them regularly. Tell me if Ron looks ill, will you? No one will tell me. I don't see why they don't come home. No one's here, just me and Bill. I heard from Bill that the twins are doing well, but I've had no word at all about Charlie or Percy, and no one's been to see me or anything. I'm starting to get worried, so frankly, anything you can tell me would be brilliant.
That's all I've really got to say. Like I said, I'm not even allowed out of bed, so I don't have any exciting tales. I'm sure you'd be riveted by a detailed description of my wallpaper. Mum has offered to teach me how to knit, and I'm almost bored enough to take her up on it. I've been quizzing her on when I'll be allowed to start applying for jobs and things and she keeps trying to put me off. It's terribly frustrating.
I miss you dreadfully, and I hope you're well...I haven't heard one way or the other, but someone would have mentioned it if you weren't. Has Dumbledore offered to let you stay on there, or are you planning to leave after the summer? You'll have to tell me everything!
Love,
Ginny
P.S. If you write me back, try to send your post at night, and make sure to tell the owl to send it directly to me. Bill's supposed to be intercepting my letters and reading them before he gives them to me, but I'd really rather he didn't read yours.
Draco read the letter over twice, then ran one finger over the words I miss you dreadfully, unable to stop the smile that crept over his face, or the warm rush of pleasure that spread through his chest. Maybe Granger and Dumbledore had exaggerated her illness after all, if she was well enough to write.
He folded the letter carefully and went over to his desk, where he placed it into the top drawer. He didn't have anything pressing to do—he'd write her back immediately, and send it off with a school owl after dark. It was a pity that his old eagle owl was one of the things he'd had to leave behind when he left the Manor, but the school owls would do just as well, and perhaps Ginny would write again. Draco smiled as he pulled his quill and ink toward him, and set to writing.
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A/N: Thanks again to Emily, Beccafran, Banfennid and Mahoney, my wonderful betas.