Tidings
It had been three hours since Harry left, and Ginny sat around her home, bored out of her mind. She had already explored the hundreds of rooms, and she had already examined the large backyard. And she was restless. Where were the rock-climbing walls? The secret rooms? The pools?
Now, one must remember that the pretty Ginny was also the sibling of six brothers. In order to fit in during her childhood, she had to climb trees and run and swim and cuss and fight, but most importantly, she had to be able to squeeze into small spaces and steal and lie well to cover for her brothers. And though she was nearly grown all the way up, she had held onto most of those things in her heart. She still loved the rush of climbing high in a tree and falling halfway down, only to catch herself and drag herself back up. She had so many scars on her knees and elbows it just seemed as if she was a lighter color there. She still lied quite often, and on occasion would find herself stealing things from muggle stores.
Ginny shook her head and rose from her seat. She needed to go out. She didn't know where, but she had to go somewhere other than the dull house. She flitted down the stairs quietly and grabbed a handful of floo powder. She glanced around and threw it in the fireplace, whispering the only place that could come to her: 601 West Fairview Lane. In a second, Ginny rolled out of the fireplace in Ron's flat.
"Oh!" Someone called from a chair not far away. "Ginny, is that you?" It was a girl. Ginny shook some soot out of her hair and rose unsteadily.
"Last time I checked… " She brushed herself off and gazed over at the desk. It was Hermione, as she expected. "You know, you should hire a sweeper to come in and fix that." She gazed into the stack and clucked a bit.
"Just a second," Hermione's voice fell low. She scribbled something on a slip of parchment and set her quill down. She raised her wand and Ginny moved out of her way. She blinked and focused on the chimney, then called out "Scourgeify!" In less than a blink of the eye, the chimney and the surrounding floor was clean. Hermione bent back over her work and picked up her quill again.
"So, busy at work?" Ginny asked her as she crossed the spacious room.
"Yeah, just have a few more papers to jot before Harry's match. Being an Auror is busy work, you know." She laughed slightly and shook her head and began scribbling again. Ginny sank on the couch, still a tad bored, but not nearly as bored as she had been.
Scratch, scratch. Scratch. Silence. Scratch, scratch. Scratch. Scratch, scratch. Scratch. Silence. Scratch, scratch. Scratch. Scratch, scratch. Scratch. Scratch, scratch. Scratch. Ginny sighed heavily, filling the void with something other than that damned scratching noise.
"What's wrong?" Hermione called, still scratching away.
"I'm so bored." She sighed and scrawled over the length of the couch.
"Pity that. I'm going to a party tomorrow."
Ginny sat straight up. A party? Sounded like fun… loads of fun. "Bully. Really?" She turned around and faced Hermione, who was still hunched over her work.
"Yeah, a masked ball. Supposed to be lots of cute fellows there." She glanced up quickly and winked at Ginny. "It's formal, but it will be so much fun." She smiled broadly before bending back down to her work.
"Oh! Can I go? Sounds like a blast. Oh please Hermione, please," Ginny fell off the couch and began crawling on her knees toward her friend. "I'll do anything, really I will." She batted her eyelashes and pouted.
"All right, but the look had nothing to do with it." Hermione laughed a bit and ruffled Ginny's long hair. Ginny fell back and smoothed her hair out. She might have been a tomboy, but she was a tomboy who had good hair. Just at that minute, a very familiar, very touching booming voice filled the room.
"Hey Hermione, Seamus drank all of the wine. I'm going to go out and… " His words were cut short as he came to the front of the couch and saw Ginny lying on the carpet, her hair slightly mussed and her elbows pulled back, stretching her shirt tight across her chest. "Hello," he breathed as he sat down, staring at his latest affection.
"Hello," Ginny huffed. Harry's words had not left her, but he was so cute in his faded tee and blue jeans. He was just so… so… artistic. She sighed a little, and caught herself. She hoped that he wouldn't have noticed. She tried to hate him, really, but she couldn't.
"What have you been up to?" He asked, leaning his face down to hers. Out of the corner of her eye, Hermione watched the pair closely.
"I'm going to a party tomorrow," she sniffed. She turned her head away, though she didn't want to.
"Really?" He knelt on the floor, coming closer and closer to her. If he was close enough, he might just be able to kiss her. She'd come back to him after one kiss, even though he had yet to kiss her. Sweet words and paintings were all he had to give, but he wanted to give her so much more. He was dangerously close to kissing Ginny, and Hermione knew it. She cleared her throat and Dean fell back.
"Ginny, I think you'd better go home and get ready for the game tonight. Tomorrow I am going shopping for a dress, maybe you would want to come with?" She pulled Ginny to her feet and stared her in the eye. Scum! she tried to tell her with her eyes. He's terrible! He's had more women in the past few months than I have spells memorized in my life. Don't be a fool!
Ginny seemed to understand the other woman's silent warnings and shrugged. "Why not? I've never been rich enough to, so I guess now is better than ever." She smiled and waltzed to the fire place. "See you Dean," She smiled slightly as she was lost in a green cloud of fog.
"Why?" Dean asked Hermione as she sat back down at her desk, her task of protecting her friend complete.
"You have broken more hearts than I can remember," she told him simply. "Which means it is too many. And Ginny is my friend. I'll let you do it to anyone, other than her." She nodded to emphasis her point and went back to writing. Scratch, scratch. Scratch.
"Fine." He huffed and turned around sharply.
Draco sat in his room, his head crumpled in his hands. This work that Snape had given him was just so hard to think about when the sun was shining outside. He knew that there was something else he could do, other than sit in this cold, dark castle room and work endless hours on assignments that didn't even really matter. Well, they did in a sense. Since he couldn't be a Death Eater anymore – that damned Hermione was doing too good of a job – he had to find honest work.
Which meant working.
He sighed and let his swollen head fall to his desk. Who cared about spells that wouldn't harm someone? His whole life he had wanted nothing more than to practice the dark arts, and now he couldn't. Well, he could, but he would be found out. Again, Hermione was to blame for that. She ran one hell of a tight ship in the Ministry. Those Aurors had never been so accurate in catching dark magic so quickly. He sighed and focused back on the paper. Something about p… parsnip… parasol… p, p, p… parlez… something…
His eyes wandered back to the balcony right outside his window. The panes were closed shut, and the curtains were drawn. He sighed with frustration and rose angrily. He needed sunlight and fresh air. He couldn't think!
He threw open the shades and the sunlight came pouring in. It was warming and refreshing on his bare chest. So he was only wearing a light pair of jeans. So what? He opened the doors with a little more caution and stepped out onto the hot stone in bare feet. His icy toes relaxed at the touch, and he sighed a bit. It felt so good to be out and warm. He leaned against the wall and felt the sizzle of his sweaty back and the hot surface. It hurt, but it felt so good.
In a moment of idleness, he contemplated climbing to the gazebo, which was maybe two meters away from the lattice that stretched the wall next to his balcony. To run would have meant freedom, but he realized that he would have no where to go. He sighed at his imprisonment and thudded his head against the wall. He was about to take his pants off and sit in his underwear in the hot sun, but Snape called him from his closed door. He quickly bolted inside and closed the doors hurriedly. His shirt was lying on his bed – this he scooped up and slid on as he ran to his door. It wouldn't open unless it was him opening it, at least, from the outside.
"Just a minute!" He called as he searched for a pair of shoes. There was a pair of house slippers by his bathroom, and he crammed them on his feet. He jumped a bit as he reached for the door, and as he pulled the handle, he fell on his bum.
"That was graceful," Snape commented as he stepped over the blushing Draco. "How are your studies going?" He peered over the papers and shook his head.
"Well… " Draco began, but Snape interrupted him.
"You haven't done much at all since I left you! And it's been what? Three hours?" He shook his head and smiled a bit. "Your father is home again, by the way." Draco stiffened. His father hadn't wanted to see him lately. There was much talk of him planning some kind of festivities, but what they were was lost on him. Draco wanted to change the subject.
"Do you know what this party is?" Draco asked tentatively. He sighed and walked back over to the desk, knowing that there would be little or no response.
"No, I don't."
Draco shook his heavy head sadly. He knew it. It was probably a surprise party for him or something, but he still wanted to know what it was exactly. He slumped in his seat as Snape took his. He picked up the quill, which suddenly weighed a million grams.
"I suppose you still don't understand?" The man's gaze had wandered to the sunbeams playing in the window. He leaned forward and closed the shade all the way. Draco's heart fell a little.
"No sir, I don't." His eyes wandered to the page, where the inkblots were running together into streams of colors. His eyes crossed. His stared down at his nose until Snape began explaining the concept one more time.
"If you are going into the Ministry, you will need to know how to harm someone without killing them in the process. Now, there is a curse called the Vanquisher. You must be within 20 meters of the person you are planning to take down, and then you simply point your wand at them and say 'Rout' and they will be severely stunned." Snape was drawing a diagram on the parchment in front of Draco.
"Why didn't I ever learn this at Hogwarts?" Draco moaned.
"Because if a student is angry and knows this curse, then the whole school could be in danger. Curses and spells that prove immediate danger to students are forbidden. You should know that." He laughed a little and shook his head at the boy.
"How did Potter and Granger learn them then?"
"They can read."
The answer was so simple it shut Draco up for a while. He glared back at the paper and diagrams. He just really didn't want to be there. The sun was still out, maybe if he faked his way through the rest of the lesson, he could…
"Draco, you need to finish your lesson." The blond was snapped back to reality.
"Yes sir, right away." He shook his head and looked back at the paper. The assignment was simple enough – write down everything Snape had just said and draw a picture. Draco laughed a little and began scribbling.
"It's the sun. It's a real distraction to students, you know," Snape sighed as he rose. Draco was almost done…
"Here," he sighed as he lifted the paper weakly to the dark man. Snape' eyes searched it quickly, and then he nodded.
"Excellent." He set the paper down and sighed. "Now apperate outside."
"What?"
"Just do it. Right outside your window is fine." Draco shrugged and did as he was asked. In a few moments, Snape followed with a boggart on a leash. Draco shuddered. There were some awful memories with boggarts. "Now, I want you to stun the boggart. I don't care what shape it takes, just do it."
Snape tied the leash to a tree. Draco sighed and judged his distance. It was about right. He pointed his wand at the boggart and whispered, "Rout." Immediately, the boggart fell, and began twitching horribly. It was stunned, and it looked like it hurt. He walked a bit toward the boggart, which began taking several shapes in the span of a few seconds. They were all of the people he knew and cared at least a little about… Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy. They were all suffering the curse. He scoffed at the creature as the leash slackened.
"Good work," Snape strode up to him and clapped him on the back.
"Now how exactly does this work?" Draco found himself asking. He wasn't turning all humanitarian, he was just curious.
"Well, from what I've experienced, it feels like miniature shocks running up and down your spine. It hurts, really it does. But I think when you are thrashing over large rocks, it hurts you worse the next day." Snape smiled and Draco chuckled a bit. There was never really much humor between the two of them – just shared hates and experiences. That was all there would ever be between the two of them.
Snape was about to send Draco inside when a very dark figure emerged from the stone walls. The figure did not respond well to light, and kept a cloak about its shoulders and face. Draco's fingers gripped themselves tightly around his wand, ready to take the figure down with his newly learned curse, when the figure pulled back the hood and his father's face emerged.
"Father!" he cried, joy and relief masking his fear. He lessened his grip on his wand and smiled a bit.
"Hello son. I have news to tell you." Lucius smiled a toothy grin and Draco quivered. His father never smiled, even in the pictures of his youth. This was the first time he had ever seen his father so happy and sober at the same time.
"What news brings you out?" Draco asked almost shyly. The power he usually held over his father had disappeared when he had seen the smile, which was strange to Draco. He was more powerful and deceiving than his father, and that was how he had gotten so many of the things he had today, but this… this was unexpected.
"Great news." Lucius stepped toward Draco and held out his arm, and Draco stepped forward. Snape followed suit, but Lucius turned around sharply. "You needn't follow." Snape was just about to protest, but Lucius shrugged and laughed. He actually laughed a bit. "Oh, buggar. Never mind. You might as well congratulate him when he hears." He grinned sloppily at Snape, who was unaccustomed to seeing the man before him smile.
"Hear what?" Draco asked again, the power in his voice returning as the shock of his father's facial features dimmed.
"Have you a girl?" Lucius suddenly asked out of the blue. Draco opened his mouth to argue that his father was veering off the topic, but he held his tongue. He might as well humor the man, because his father might not tell him the surprise if he talked back.
"No, not since Hogwarts. I have been wrapped up in my studies, you know that… " He was cut off by his father's dry, crackled laugh.
"Excellent! Excellent!" Lucius muttered to himself, even though both Draco and Snape heard. He cleared his throat and coughed a bit. "So… Have you thought about getting married yet?" His eyes twinkled with glee as he beheld his son's horrified expression.
"I have considered the thought maybe twice before in my life. I hadn't planned on marrying until I had a steady job, or something to take up my time." Draco stared at his father with unblinking eyes. "What are you getting at?"
"Like my father and his father and his father's father, I have upheld the great Malfoy tradition. I have betrothed you to a woman." Lucius beamed down at his son, who broke away from his glare and walked a pace away before holding out his arms defensively.
"How could you!" he almost screamed. "You know that I favor being alone. Why would you do such a thing to me?" Draco was on the verge of tears, but he didn't cry. To cry would show that he was weak, and he was not weak.
"How could I?" His father's face went from happy to angry in a second. "It is my right as a father, that is how I could. And I don't care if you favor being alone. Marry her and produce an heir, that is all that matters." His voice was fading from angry to reminiscent. "I mean, I didn't want to marry your mother, but I did. I was in love with another woman, a beautiful woman who returned my affections, but she was married off to another man, and I to another woman. Our families pulled us apart and set us on our own ways." Lucius had began walking casually, his voice very misty and far away.
"But then you came along, brave, bold, strong. It pulled your mother and I closer together, and I began to respect her for how strong she was. Then as you grew, I came to love her. And I love her very much now." He turned and faced Draco, who was still standing where he had left him. "There is nothing that you can say that will change my mind. I have already talked to her father, and made arrangements for the wedding on Saturday week. There is a ball tomorrow that will christen your marriage. You will be there and you will meet her." Lucius had snapped back to a cold and distant state. If his son wasn't going to enjoy his own wedding feast, then he would make him.
"Father, but I… "
"You will wed Saturday week!" With that Lucius stormed off. Draco was left standing in the shade of the tree, where the boggart was slowly regaining consciousness. Snape walked up to him slowly and shook his head a bit.
"I didn't know that." Snape was gazing at the dark figure that was gloomily entering the castle.
"What am I going to do? I don't want to fall in love after I'm married. That takes away the sport of chase." Draco sighed and slumped against the tree. Snape approached him slowly, unsure of what to do.
"If it helps, I never married, and I regret it. I'm too old now."
"It doesn't."
"The least you can do is meet her and see if you could ever like her." Snape was growing angry at Draco, but not because Draco was rude. It was because he couldn't deal with the young man's emotions.
"I'll try, but you know as well as I: If I don't like the situation I go into, I'm not going to improve on it." Draco's gaze wandered to the fading sun in the western sky. If only he could disappear like the sun…
"Well, on your feet. There is want in your lessons. I think you can learn a new spell by the end of tonight." Snape held out his hand, and Draco grabbed it, hauling himself up with the stronger arm.
"Thanks."
"No problem. You know, you only have four more spells to learn before you can take the Auror test. I think you're ready, and I'll put in a good word for you down at the Ministry." Draco's eyes alighted in the fading light.
"You mean it?"
"Every word."
"That has made my day."
"Glad to hear it."
The two shadows could be seen walking into the castle, side by side, finally an understanding coming between the two of them. The sun finally winked behind the mountains and all was still for the night. That is, except for the boggart, which had changed into Draco's most heated desire: His father, lying bleeding on the ground, a steel knife shoved right in his heart.
