"No. I assure you. They have no idea what Harry and the others are doing. They are simply angry that they do not." Draco was leaning against the counter in the kitchen of 12 Grimmauld Place. Half of the Order was questioning him. "If we keep them busy until Harry returns they will never know what hit them."
"Do you know what Harry is doing?" Snape had an odd expression on his face.
Draco sighed. "I have spent the last three weeks doing nothing but thinking. I've thought about a lot of things. Some of what I thought about led me here. Some of what I thought about leads me to believe that, yes, I do know Harry has been doing. However, if he has not told you, neither will I."
"How do we know we can trust you?" Bill asked what everyone wanted to. Malfoy had been one of the most successful leaders of the death eaters. Yes, they had gotten used to seeing death eaters follow Ginevra home, but they had all been relatively low in rank, except for the twins, and they had all come the first time she confronted them.
Draco shrugged. He had no explanation or justification for anything.
"Nott, what do you say?" Charlie decided it would be best to ask those that had once served under him as death eaters.
Nott looked up at Draco and then over at Ginevra. "I say trust him."
"Siren?"
Siren had been a different person after the death of her brother. She was quiet and reserved now when she had once been energetic and a little wild. She studied Draco's eyes a moment before nodding.
"Pansy?"
"You know I say trust him." Her answer was immediate.
Charlie sighed and looked at Bill who in turn looked at Remus. Remus exchanged a look with Snape before turning his eyes to Molly. Molly looked up at Tonks and over to Bill. That is just the trail of one glance as it made its way around the room. There were many others. Everyone seemed to be trying to figure out what everyone else thought without asking.
Ginevra stood up from where she had been sitting in the corner. "You all want to believe he has changed. Yet you are all afraid to take the risk. You have heard the vote of all former death eaters. You know where I and Snape stand. Yet none who feel they are in a position of sufficient authority to suggest we accept will do so unless they feel the others agree. So I say it. I take the authority to initiate him as a member of the Order. He is invaluable to us. We need him. He is one of us now and that is the decision. May we move on to our next move now or should we eat dinner and put the meeting off until tomorrow?" Snape looked satisfied; Charlie looked a little surprised; Bill seemed to be impressed; Molly looked proud Tonks nodded; all former death eaters smirked; Draco looked honored; and Remus considered her words.
It never crossed Remus' mind to question her right to make such a decision. He took it for granted that she had earned the right. After all, she made quite a few of their tactical decisions, along with Bill, himself, Snape, and Nott. He was considering her question about a meeting versus an evening off.
"I believe the meeting should wait until morning." He finally spoke. "We should clear out so those with the ability can cook." He stood and most of the men followed. Draco stayed behind.
"Firebird," he reached out and touched Ginevra's arm to get her attention, "is there anyway you can slip out so we can talk?"
She smiled and nodded and led him upstairs. She claimed her favorite wing chair in the library and he looked out the window before turning around and leaning against the sill.
"That was the first time you assumed authority, wasn't it?" He asked her.
"They practically always do as I advise, but I've always phrased it as a suggestion before, so yes, that was the first time I truly exercised authority." She was curious as to where this was going.
He nodded absently.
"Why do you call me Firebird?"
He smirked to himself. "Because that's what you look like on the battlefield. It is truly magnificent to watch you fly." He was looking at the floor.
She was taken off guard by his answer. She didn't know why, but she was.
He looked up suddenly. "You disarmed in the middle of a battle." He looked as though that was the one thing he had been unable to understand, and it was.
She examined the cloth covering her knees a moment before responding. "Dueling, fighting, strategy, it has always come easy to me." He smiled, picturing her on the battlefield. "But what I have become known for has not. My conviction about freedom and choice has not always run so deep. My concern and compassion for others has not always come naturally. I had to fight to develop that. I had to fight to learn how to hold my ideals." She finally looked up at him. "If I failed you, for some reason, nothing else would have mattered. If failed you, for some reason, all of the other successes would have been empty. It honestly did not matter to me which decision you made, so long as you made one. If you chose darkness I would not have survived to see it." She paused.
He could tell she was not finished and moved to sit on the couch next to her, watching her in mild confusion. This was not really the type of answer he was looking for. He had no idea what he had expected, but this was not it. To be honest, he couldn't really see how this answered his question yet.
She continued. "I saw too much of myself in your eyes. I saw what I could have been, what I almost was. I knew that had our positions been reversed, had I grown up in your home and you in mine, our positions would have been reversed; you would have been the one fighting for the Order and I would have been the death eater. We are almost completely different in personality, but we are almost identical in character." She looked up at him.
"I knew that if I did not do something right then I would lose you. You would not kill me but you would never follow me again either. The only thing I could do that would get through to you was disarm. Nothing I said would have made any difference. I had to do something, and that was it." She half shrugged before looking back down at her knees.
He ran his hands through his hair. She had just explained why he hadn't been able to kill her, perfectly. He hadn't figured that out yet, but there it was. "I never could kill you because I felt that if I did I would be killing myself as well. I didn't understand it at the time and it nearly drove me mad, but that is why I could not let you die. That is why I saved you life, and saving your life is why I went away to think." It was his turn to be preoccupied with something in the general direction of down.
"I'm sorry if I pushed you too far." Her voice was so small that he immediately went to his knees before her and reached out and cupped her jaw in his hand, forcing her to look him in the eye.
"You did not push me too far. I would not be here if it were not for you. You did what you had to and nothing more. You were what I needed and nothing less. Why would you even think that?" He was searching his eyes, trying to figure out why she seemed so afraid. She was his angel, his savior; she should not feel so insecure.
"You…after you saved my life, you… roared. It sounded as though I had hurt your soul by putting you in that situation." She tried to look away but he held her gaze.
He almost laughed but held it back to a warm smile. "Firebird, my soul was hurt, yes, but it was because I had put you in that situation, not the other way around."
Her eyes stopped trying to escape and look incredulous for a moment before looking surprised, followed by relief, and then joy. He released some of his laughter and pulled himself up so that he was kneeling rather than sitting on his heels.
Their eyes were level and all thoughts but for each other at that moment disappeared. She felt the familiar sensation of being drawn inward and she shifted so she wouldn't fall without breaking eye contact. His other hand was halfway to her hair.
"Dinner!" Pansy called from the stairs.
Draco fell back on his heals and laughed outright. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever heard. She couldn't help but laugh as well and he thought the same. Together they made their way downstairs.