Prologue
Ginny Weasley stared out the window into the bright spring morning. It was a fairytale spring this year, no fickle frosts, no grey drizzly days. Trees and flowers bloomed like they'd never bloomed before. Mellow sunshine and the sounds of birdsong drifted in through the window.
Ginny turned away from the window with a sigh, and bent to check on the old man dying in a makeshift bed on a spring morning full of life. His breathing was hollow, but steady, his skin papery, but still warm. Ginny couldn't understand how he'd lasted this long. He was 142 and had been at death's door for weeks now. Some horrible part of her wished he would just hurry up and die, die so she could move on with her life, join the war effort. As much as her parents told her that caring for her great great uncle Thestius was helping as much as anyone, she knew they lied. They locked her up in an attic room with a dying relative and a guilty conscience for company, keeping their youngest child and only daughter safe.
She sat down and reread the morning's paper for the third time. There had been an attack on The Leaky Cauldron yesterday. She wished more than anything she could help! She couldn't fight, she wasn't an auror, she wasn't even that good at Defense, but she was trained as an apothecary and could at least help ready the wounded for transport to St. Mungo's! She banged her fist against the wall in frustration, waking her uncle, who mumbled and tried to sit up.
"Oh! I'm sorry, go back to sleep!" she tried to coax her uncle, filled with guilt. She wouldn't be much help to the Order if she couldn't even keep her temper!
"No, no," Uncle Thestius mumbled as he propped himself up on a shaky elbow. "What's in the paper? Anything new on the war?"
"The Leaky Cauldron was attacked," she told him flatly.
"Ah, and you want to be out there!" he cackled knowingly. "You'd leave an old man like me to die to go fight a war!" He shook a finger at her.
Ginny was immediately contrite, and began to try to soothe him.
"No, no, none of that, now," he waved her away. "Don't blame you, don't blame you in the least. If I were a bit younger I'd be out there next to you! As it is I can do my part yet."
Ginny looked at him questioningly, but didn't dare contradict him.
"You think…you think I'm too old, you think I can't help!" he cried in a wheezy voice. "I fought against in the last war, you know, and against Grindelwald…" Ginny did know, he'd told her at least dozen times before. "The purebloods…it's the purebloods who have to lead the way…the Muggle-bloods…they help, they try, but they don't…they don't understand…"
Ginny begged to differ. She felt that as they were the ones targeted, they probably understood better than anyone what the war was about. She had tried to point that out to him once, but he didn't seem to follow her very well.
"It's all in my will," he continued, tired now. He struggled to stay awake. "In my will, you'll see…you wait…" He drifted off to sleep.
Ginny watched him sleep, wondering again what could be in his will. He'd been talking about it since he'd met her, he seemed to think he held the key to winning the war, and that it was all in his will. Ginny was beginning to wonder if he was a bit senile. He was rich, she knew, filthy rich. He had probably left all his money to some cause or other. Hopefully he'd left a bit for her. She wasn't hoping for a fortune, but a bit to buy some new robes or something would be really nice. Since her father had lost his job at the Ministry, they were barely able to keep food on the table.
A week later Uncle Thestius was dying in earnest. He had slipped into a coma and had only woken up once or twice. Ginny slipped into the room as twilight fell, holding a single candle and hating the gloom, but feeling that it might be disrespectful, somehow, to have the room fully lit. She set the candle on the nightstand and sat down in the chair next to his bed to begin her vigil. Somehow she knew he would die tonight. She could almost see Death at the end of his bed, waiting patiently to claim his next victim.
Hours later, Uncle Thestius blinked open his eyes blearily and tried to sit up. "My will…" he began upon seeing Ginny, his voice almost too faint to hear. Ginny leaned closer, her ear close to his lips to hear what he said. "You must…do what it says…you must…promise me…" his voice was weak and shaky, his face grey.
"I will," Ginny stammered, patting the blue-veined hand on the sheet feebly, feeling woefully inadequate.
"You must…swear to me…"
Ginny looked at him, startled. It occurred to her that she had no idea what she might be swearing to do. "I – I'll do my best," she managed to get out.
A strangely intense light burned in his eyes, like a candle's last bright flicker before it burns out. "Swear it. Swear it in Merlin's name."
Ginny considered for a moment, strangely afraid. Who was she to refuse a dying man's last request? He couldn't want anything too dire. Maybe if she swore, it would give him some peace.
"In Merlin's name, I swear, I will do as the will says."
The old man fell back against the pillow, relieved. When Ginny woke in the morning, stiff necked after sleeping in the chair, he was gone.
Draco Malfoy swore loudly as the morning sun crept across his face, waking him. He groaned and rolled over, trying to hide his eyes from the persistent light and swearing to get even with the house-elf who had neglected to close his curtains before he awoke.
"Good morning, Draco," a voice too close to him chirruped.
Pansy. He kept his eyes shut and deepened his breathing. Maybe if she thought he was asleep she would go home. Why the hell had he let her stay the night?
"Sweetie?" A tentative touch on his shoulder.
It was no use. The whore was going to stay until sent her away. He forced his eyes opened and stared coldly at the woman sharing his bed. Hard faced and angular, she had never been pretty, and clearly first thing in the morning was not her best time of day. He must have been drunker than he thought last night.
Pansy's smile faltered under his hard stare. "I thought we might have some breakfast in bed…" she said timidly, her voice dying.
"No."
Pansy sighed. "Well, what are we going to do today then?" she whined.
Draco stared at her in disbelief. She thought they were going to do things together? What, did she think they were a couple now? The only thing he'd wanted to do with her he'd done last night, and now he wanted her gone.
"We're not doing anything. You're going home, and I have work to do."
Pansy looked startled, and for a moment Draco thought she might lash out at him. But, as Draco had come to expect, she smoothed her face into what she must have hoped looked like a cheery smile. Draco sneered at her in disgust, just to watch the smile falter and then be restored. He knew she was desperate to marry him, and would and had put up with all sorts of mistreatment for fear of losing him. She didn't seem to realize that she had never had him in the first place. He wondered if she'd be quite so eager to please him if she knew just how broke the Malfoys were. Not just broke, but deeply in debt.
"Well…I know you're busy, sweetie…" she managed at last, sitting up in bed with the covers clutched to her chest. She waited expectantly for him to look away and give her some privacy. He didn't. She tugged a bit at the sheet, but it was firmly tucked under the bed. Draco watched her in amusement. The bathroom was on the other side of the bed, there was no way she could make a dash for it, she had to go all the way around the bed. Pansy pulled at the sheet in earnest, then tried the blankets. They wouldn't budge. Maybe Draco wouldn't punish the house-elf after all. Finally she decided to just forget the covers. She walked naked to the bathroom, head high, trying desperately to hold on to the last fragments of her dignity, like the Emperor who just found out that his new clothes weren't clothes at all. Draco decided it was because of bodies like hers that people wore clothes.
Finally Pansy left, carefully ignoring him, the closest she dared go to actually defying him. When she had gone, Draco got up and took a leisurely shower and dressed, bored already. Bored with this day, bored with his life. He was living in a nowhere land, too young to be a Deatheater, not trusted enough to be an Auror.
A house-elf brought in his breakfast when Draco snapped his fingers, and with it, the mail. It hastily Disapparated as soon as the tray hit the small table. Draco could hardly blame it. The Malfoys had never set much stock by the phrase 'Don't kill the messenger.'
Draco sifted through the mail as he sipped his coffee. A bill from Quality Quidditch Supplies, one he would not be showing to his father, a second notice bill from Madam Malkin's, a few circulars, a brief letter from Daphne Greengrass, another girl who hadn't quite given up hope of him, and an official looking letter of some sort. He tore the last open. It was a notice of the death of some ancient relative, and a request that he be present at the reading of the will. Draco put down the coffee to read it better. Who was this guy anyhow? He wondered if it was worth going to the reading, then decided it couldn't hurt. Maybe the old man left him a few galleons. Why else would they have requested he come? He looked at the date of the reading. This morning. He quickly swallowed the rest of the coffee, scalding his throat, and threw on some better clothes. He'd have to hurry to make the reading.
Draco found the address five minutes after the appointed time. Fashionably late. He sauntered in and surveyed the room. A couple of older men, lawyers presumably, and a redheaded girl who looked vaguely familiar, in a dusty, closet-like room, the walls lined from floor to ceiling with leather bound tomes. A large desk that had seen better days and three mismatched chairs completed the picture. The girl sat in the far chair, trying not to look at him. He wondered again where he knew her from. She must have been at Hogwarts, possibly a year or two below him. Perhaps he should ask her out for a consoling cup of coffee afterwards. Draco sat down, trying to look as if he knew exactly why he was there, and that the whole thing bored him.
One of the men cleared his throat softly. "Ah, yes, Mr. Malfoy, wonderful, so glad you could come. Peabody is my name, this is Jakobson." Draco acknowledged him with a slight nod, growing more and more curious.
"Yes, well, perhaps we best begin…the will, if you please?" Mr. Peabody reached out his hand, and Jakobson handed it to him. Peabody cleared his throat again and began to read.
'I, Thestius Eustice Black, being of sound mind, do hereby make, publish and declare this to be my Last Will and Testament, hereby revoking all wills and codicils by me at any time heretofore made.'
Ginny glanced over at Draco, growing more and more uneasy. She had sworn to Thestius on his deathbed to honor his last requests, and she was now regretting it. Anything that had to do with Draco Malfoy couldn't be good. She snuck a glance at him as his attention turned to a paperweight on the desk. Could he know what was in the will? He must. How else could he look so calm. Ginny listened with growing impatience as the lawyer read through pages of small bequests, 100 galleons to a servant here, a favorite pipe to an old friend there, and so on. Nothing to do with her. Yet.
'…To Draco Alexander Black Malfoy and to Ginevra Molly Weasley, I do hereby bequeath all the rest, residue and remainder of my said estate, real, personal and mixed, of every kind and nature and wheresoever situate, on the condition that they wed within six (6) months of the date of my death, to be divided equally. If, in the case that they should not wed within the appropriated time, or that one should die, the said estate shall be bequeathed to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. Should the marriage be dissolved at any time for any reason other than death, the entire remainder of said estate shall be bequeathed to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries.'
Ginny sat up straight in her chair, staring at the staid lawyer with her mouth open. She wanted to speak, wanted to confirm that this was all a horrible joke, that the real will would be pulled out any minute now, but she was having trouble making her voice cooperate. Finally, after an eternity of silence, she managed to croak, "What…what exactly does that mean?"
Mr. Peabody looked sympathetic. "It means if you marry Mr. Malfoy within six months, all of Mr. Black's estate is yours. If not, well, it all goes to St. Mungo's. There's a letter explaining it fully. It's here somewhere." He began to open and shut drawers in the desk, not seeming to realize the earth shattering significance of the will. Marry Draco Malfoy? Draco Malfoy who never looked at her but to torment her? Draco Malfoy of the Malfoys, some of the vilest Deatheaters to walk the Earth?
Through the rush that filled her brain, she heard Draco ask just how much the old man's estate was worth. She listened closely, breath caught in her throat, praying it would be pittance. The amount she heard staggered her.
Disclaimer: None of this is mine, don't sue me. Flattered you had to ask though.
A/N: Like it? Please review, it's much appreciated.
