A/N: Thank you to all you wonderful reviewers, and to Gabriele, who once again has worked his formatting genius!
Chapter 9
A light mist clung to the air, softening the gibbous moon high overhead, when he mounted his broom and kicked off from the roof of the Mansion. He pulled back on the handle, the night air numbing his face as he gained altitude. At a shout from the front, he eased off the handle, levelling out and falling into his place in line behind the others. He had not yet been initiated, so he rode at the back. After tonight, though, things would be different. After tonight he would be riding directly behind the leader, second to no one but his father.
Ten minutes' hard riding brought them far into the countryside, where lonely dots of light flecked the landscape, separated from each other by wide expanses of rolling fields. On the hillside the ghostly moonlight outlined the shapes of cottages and byres, and rambling stone walls. They started their descent.
Rookwood stood at the door of the cottage. Two others guarded the windows, while Father held his wand on the Muggle man who was on his knees, weeping and pleading.
"My God, let him go! If you have any pity... if there is anything human in you at all..."
He watched for Father's nod, and when it came he trained his wand on the boy in the middle of the floor, and bellowed the word with all the force of the adrenalin pumping through his veins. "Crucio!" He held his wand arm steady, willing it not to tremble, refusing to flinch before the animal noises of terror and pain being ripped from the boy.
"Our Father which art in Heaven..."
Father gave another, almost imperceptible nod and he lowered his wand. The acrid smells of scorched flesh, and urine filled the kitchen, and he felt his stomach pitch. The boy was not dead yet. He had never watched someone die before and he had somehow thought that, after one or two times, the screams would simply stop, and it would all be over. He hadn't expected it to go on and on like this, hadn't known that death would have sounds and smells to it, and would take so damned long to finish.
"Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come..."
Father struck the Muggle hard, on the mouth, and he cried out, putting his hand to his lips. When he brought it away, it was bright with blood.
"Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven..."
He realized the man was praying. He looked at Father, who gave him a slow, feral smile then deliberately turned his back. It was up to him, then. The boy, panting and moaning on the floor in front of him was his to do with as he saw fit. Whatever he was going to do, he had better make sure it was good. He hesitated, wondering if he dared try the Killing Curse: anything to make it happen quickly. But if he failed, his father would recognize him for the coward he was, and Father must not think of him as a coward. He raised his wand.
"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us..."
"Crucio!" The boy arched and shrieked, begged and pled. He held his wand arm steady, and kept his eyes on his father's back.
Ginny left Sarah's and had hardly set foot out of the fireplace in the Four Winds' library when Lolly rushed at her, wailing.
"Oh, Mistress! Master Draco is taken so sick! He is having a high fever and is tossing and turning in his bed something terrible and Lolly is beginning to fear that if Mistress does not fetch a Healer quick it is soon being too late for him!"
Ginny studied the little creature in amazement. Genuine fear was written on her lined face, and she was hopping from foot to foot, plucking abstractedly at the hem of the house-elf's garment she wore.
"Come off it, Lolly," she said, trying to curb her annoyance. "He can't be as sick as all that."
Lolly gave a wrenching sob and her little shoulders began to tremble. Ginny's head was still throbbing; she would have dearly loved to shake the house-elf until her teeth rattled in her head. Instead, she tried to sound placating. "If he's not feeling better by morning, I'll call in a Healer, no matter what he says. How's that?"
Lolly shook her head mournfully, and two tears leaked from the corners of her bulging eyes. Ginny sighed; apparently, there was going to be nothing for it but to go have a look at him.
"All right Lolly, don't cry! Come on; let's go up together and we'll see how bad it is." She started for the stairs, and the house-elf followed her, sniffling loudly.
Ginny had intended to just pop her head into Draco's bedroom long enough to put Lolly's fears to rest, but when she pushed open the door she knew at once that something was terribly wrong. The room was dim and stuffy, with the pervasive staleness of sweat and fever in the air.
"Draco?" she called out. There was no answer. Hesitantly, she approached the bed, and then stopped and stared in disbelief.
Draco lay amid a tangle of sheets, his eyes sunken, his breathing shallow and laborious. A sheen of sweat covered his skin, which looked strange and waxy in the candlelight, and his blond hair was plastered damply to his forehead.
A shock of real fear ran through her. "How long has he been like this, Lolly?"
At the sight of Ginny's alarm, Lolly began to weep openly. "All afternoon and evening, Mistress."
"Who can we call? Who's his Healer?"
Lolly straightened her shoulders. "Lolly knows just who to send for, Mistress. Healer McLeod is Master Draco's..."
"Send for him now," Ginny interrupted her. "And bring him up the moment he gets here."
After Lolly had gone, Ginny straightened the bedclothes and fetched a damp cloth from the bathroom. Hesitantly, she touched it to Draco's face. When he didn't respond, she did it again, more confidently, pushing the damp hair off his forehead and sponging the back of his neck as well. He didn't move, only lay there, breathing in that frightening, shallow way. His pyjama top was soaked with sweat, but she didn't think she could manage to get it off him by herself. She found her shoulder bag, where she had dropped it on a chair, and pulled out her wand.
"Dessicato," she said, running it over his shoulders, and around the pillowcase. It wasn't wonderful, but it was drier, at any rate. She would have Lolly change the sheets later. She lit the lamps and opened the bedroom door. She could hear voices downstairs, and a wave of relief washed over her. The Healer was here.
Healer McLeod was an elderly wizard with a kind face, and he examined Draco while Ginny and Lolly hovered in the corridor outside.
When he stepped out of the room, he spoke to Lolly first. "Go sit with your master and keep him comfortable." Lolly bolted into the bedroom, and Healer McLeod turned to Ginny. "He'll be all right with the house-elf, for the time being. Let's you and I go somewhere where we can chat more comfortably."
They went to the kitchen, and Ginny made a pot of tea while he asked her how long Draco had been ill, and what his symptoms had been before this. When the tea was ready, she brought it to the oak table and sat down across from him.
"Thank you, dear," he said, stirring in sugar. He put his spoon down and looked at her directly. "Now, Mrs Malfoy..."
"It's Ms Weasley," she interrupted him. "I kept my old name."
"Pardon me. Ms Weasley, then. I've examined your husband, and frankly, I'm puzzled." He studied her carefully. "This episode has all the earmarks of Curse Sickness."
Ginny felt the blood drain from her head. "Curse Sickness?"
"Yes. Does that ring any bells with you? Do you know of any curses your husband may be under at this time?"
She stared at him, trying to fathom what he was saying, horror mounting in her at what it might mean if... He seemed to sense her distress, and he spoke gently, but insistently. "Ms Weasley, I cannot treat him unless I know what is wrong with him."
Oh Morgana, Bill was under the same curse as Draco! Which meant that if Draco was sick, then Bill would be too. Her mother had said he wasn't well.
"It's The Curse of the Firstborn," she whispered.
"I beg your pardon?"
She told him. She poured it all out to him, and it was like throwing a great, horrible weight off her shoulders. She talked about the curse, and how she and Draco had always despised one another. She told him how she'd been half in love with Ted and how, now that she was married, he'd finally sat up and taken notice. She told him that Bill had been sick too, and even told him about Ted's kiss, and all the while he listened without saying a word.
"Thank you for being honest with me," he said, when she had finished. "And in return, I will be honest with you. I do not know if your husband or your brother will survive this breach of curse..."
"But that's just it," Ginny protested. "Why should either of them have to die? I wasn't unfaithful to Draco! I wasn't... at least, not... that way..." It sounded feeble, even to her ears. Her nose began to prickle dangerously and then, as if that one breach had burst the whole dam, she buried her face in her hands, while the tears spilled over and ran down through her fingers. What had she been thinking? What had she done?
At last she sat up, wiped her eyes, and blew her nose on a napkin while the Healer poured her another cup of tea.
"I am not a great expert on curses," Healer McLeod told her, "but though I say it myself, I am something of an expert on marriage. I've been married to the same woman for eighty-seven years." He patted Ginny on the hand. "Will you permit me to give you some advice?"
She nodded dully.
"I have seen many failed marriages in my time: too many. And I have learned from them that unfaithfulness and ruin in marriage do not begin with an act; they begin with an intent. That seems to be where you've strayed from the Curse Standard." He looked at her kindly. "But I think you've already ascertained that for yourself, haven't you?"
She nodded mutely, twisting the napkin in her hands.
"On the other hand," he went on, "I have seen many an arranged marriage succeed because of the happier side of that same truth: that faithfulness, happiness and longevity in marriage also begin with an intent."
"So what do I have to do?" she asked dully, "to make him and my brother well again?"
He looked grave. "I will not pretend with you. There is no guarantee that either of them is out of the woods at all. My best advice to you is; align your intentions with what you know to be right, and trust the rest to Providence. Perhaps your husband and your brother will recover yet."
He finished his tea, and stood up. "I'll be back tomorrow to check on him again. Send for me right away if things should go badly in the meanwhile." He stepped over to the kitchen fireplace, and turned to press her hands in his. "Good luck, Ms Weasley." He started to go, and then turned back to her. "You know," he said thoughtfully. "When dealing with the enemy, I've observed that a little... kindness never goes amiss." Then he stepped into the fireplace, and was gone.
Ginny stood in the kitchen rubbing her throbbing temples with fingers that were like ice, sick at the thought that two men – one of them, her own brother – might die because of her selfishness. She knew right from wrong. She knew what marriage meant; what had she been playing at, trying to sneak around a blood curse like that?
She had walked into this arrangement of her own free will; no one had forced her. Now it was time to face up to her responsibility. She went up to her bedroom and changed her new copper-coloured dress and leather boots for an old nightgown and housecoat. She picked up the dress, intending to hang it in the cupboard, but all at once the very sight of it sickened her. She knew she would never be able to wear it again. Dropping it into a pile with the boots, she Vanished the whole thing.
In Draco's room, she found Lolly sponging his forehead with cool water.
"How is he?" she asked, coming to stand beside the house-elf.
"Lolly is seeing no change, Mistress."
"Go ahead to bed, Lolly. I'll stay with him for awhile." When the little elf hesitated, Ginny prodded her. "I'll call you if I need you."
"Lolly is already bathing him, Mistress, and is changing the sheets, so Mistress is not needing to bother with any of that."
"Thank you." Ginny had no idea how she would have managed such a thing by herself, anyway.
After Lolly went off to bed, she studied Draco's face. His features were raw and aristocratic, the nose straight, the cheeks high, the lips full. He would be quite handsome really, were it not for the expression of bored hauteur he perpetually wore. She found herself wondering what he might have turned out like if his life had been different, if he had not been raised among Death Eaters, if he had not grown up so full of himself and so disdainful of the rest of the world.
She sat in a chair beside his bed, and tried to read. From time to time, she bathed his face and neck with a damp cloth, or fussed with the covers, just to feel she was doing something. His breathing was not changing for the better, as far as she could tell, and it worried her. She had supposed he would begin to improve, now that she had openly admitted her stupidity.
By midnight, she was certain he was worse. There were odd gaps between his breaths, and when he did breathe in, it was with an odd, rattling noise. And somehow she knew that whatever was happening to him would be happening to Bill at the same time.
'Think, Ginny!' she told herself desperately. Surely there was something more she could do. She wracked her brain, trying to remember what Healer McLeod had told her. 'Faithfulness in marriage also begins with an intent.' Well, she intended to be faithful. What else was there?
And then, it hit her. She flew across the hall to her bedroom and wrenched open the desk drawer, shuffling frantically through it for a bit of parchment and a quill that wasn't broken. She found them both, and sitting down in her chair, scrawled a hasty note. She paused to read it once before she sealed it up.
Dear Ted,
I regret to have to tell you that at some point, recently, my life has changed and is not going at all in the direction I'd hoped it would when I met you. I cannot explain it any better than that; someday, I hope I will be able to, but for now, it would be best if we did not see each other again.
Ginny Weasley
It was horrible, and awkward, but she did not care. Nothing mattered right now but breaking the thread of expectation that still held her to Ted. She would do damage control later; right now, Bill and Draco were out of time.
She sealed it, and ran downstairs to the Owlery behind the kitchen. Draco kept three owls. Two of them, his own personal eagle owl and a great grey owl were gone. Being nocturnal, they were likely out hunting just now. The third owl though, was a snowy owl, which slept at night, and was kept for emergency posts like this. Ginny stroked her feathers urgently.
"Hera! Wake up, Hera. I have something for you to deliver."
The beautiful white bird came awake, and perfectly trained, held out her leg at once. Ginny tied the message on and whispered Ted's name, then watched her soar away, gilded now and then where the moonlight touched her wings, until the night had swallowed her up. With a sigh of resignation and relief, she headed back upstairs. There was nothing more to do but wait.
Daylight filtered in through the heavy drapes, and whispered against her eyelids. She sat up and stretched. She had fallen asleep in the chair, leaning forward with her head buried in her arms on the edge of Draco's bed. She rubbed her eyes and looked at him.
He was better. Not completely well, but his breathing was normal, and he had lost that terrible sunken, waxy look he'd had in the night. Which meant that Bill would be all right too.
She stood, with a lightness that was almost giddiness, and felt his forehead with the back of her hand. It was cool and dry. She laughed aloud. They were going to make it. She went to wake Lolly, and to floo her mother. She needed to find Bill right away, and be sure he was all right. And then, she needed a bath and a good, long sleep in her own bed.
Bill, who had spent the night in hospital, was going to be all right, and somehow, the Healers there had missed the diagnosis of Curse Sickness, and were merely calling his illness a bad virus. As Bill was clearly on the mend now, and would probably be able to go home tomorrow, Ginny did not bother to enlighten anyone about it. She spent the afternoon playing chess with him in his hospital room, then floo'd back to Four Winds, intending to look in on Draco briefly before she went down to dinner.
She stopped outside his bedroom door and hesitated. Had Healer McLeod told him what had caused his illness? If so, he would hate her for what she had almost done to him, and if she were honest, she knew he had every right. There was no getting away from it though; she had to see how he was. She bit her lip and knocked.
"Come in."
He was sitting up in bed, reading the Daily Prophet, which he put down when she opened the door. He was still pale and drawn, with his fair hair tousled and his face shadowed with several days' growth of beard. She had never seen Draco Malfoy less than perfectly buttoned-up before, and for a moment, she felt a disturbing, thoroughly physical appreciation for him. She wondered what his reaction would be if she were to tell him that, in spite of the usual care he took with his appearance, he actually looked better this way. He looked at her for a long moment, his expression inscrutable, while Ginny's heart pounded and she waited for him to lash out at her.
"Don't stand there with the door open," he said finally. "Come in here where I can talk to you."
She closed the door behind her and approached the edge of his bed. His duvet, and the bed hangings were scarlet, something she had been too preoccupied the other times she'd been in here to really take note of. She searched his face anxiously, feeling like a naughty child being called on the carpet by a parent, hoping that somehow he would not be too hard on her.
He scrutinised her as she stood there. "The Healer tells me you saved my life."
'I didn't. I nearly killed you.' Even as she thought it, relief washed over her. Just the way he said it made her certain Healer McLeod hadn't told him the illness had been Curse Sickness. Silently, she blessed the old man, and promised to do something to repay him someday. She forced herself to shrug lightly. "I only called in the Healer. I think I should have done it long before I did."
"According to Lolly, you sat up all night with me." He sounded almost accusing.
"Well, someone had to."
"Lolly could have done it."
'Lolly didn't have a guilty conscience driving her,' she thought. Silence fell between them, and she became very conscious of the rise and fall of his breathing, and of her own pulse, beating slower now, but heavy in the quiet. To cover her awkwardness, she reached over and picked up the newspaper he had dropped on the blankets.
She glanced down at the headline. "Oh, please!" she exclaimed, without thinking.
"What's wrong?" Draco pulled the paper from her hand and read the headline aloud. "Quicksilver Saves Alaskan Cruise Liner from Going Down in Storm." He looked at her quizzically. "Yes, I read that. Some mysterious, superhero-type person going about saving the world last night. What's that all about?"
She snorted inelegantly. "It's some nonsense Witch Weekly's been touting for ages now." She took the paper back from him, and stared at the article. "I can't believe it's in the mainstream newspaper, though. Whatever happened to journalistic integrity?"
"How do you mean?"
She threw the paper back down in disgust. "Well obviously, it isn't true! It can't be anything but sensationalism."
"Why can't it be true?"
"Because!" She gestured fruitlessly. "Because it's too good to be true. No one does wonderful things like this without wanting recognition for it. And yet..." she raked the paper scathingly with her eyes, "this person apparently goes to great length to hide his identity."
"What about your old friend Harry Potter?" Draco asked, with an acid tinge to his voice. "He was always the reluctant hero, wasn't he?"
"I suppose so."
"Well, maybe Potter is this mysterious Quicksilver."
She hadn't thought of that. It did sound rather like something Harry would do. "Well, anyhow," she said, aware that the topic of Harry Potter was bound to be thin ice for the two of them to skate on, "I suppose there must be something to it, if the Daily Prophet's running it. Don't they have to check their sources, and all that?"
He shrugged. "That's more than I can tell you. All I know is, it sounds dreadful: mucking about up in the Bering Sea, saving a load of Muggles in the middle of damned inconvenient weather. I'm glad I was safe in my own bed last night."
"You weren't exactly safe in your own bed, last night," she reminded him dryly. "You nearly died."
He didn't answer her at first, only looked searchingly at her until she felt the colour rush into her face. "Stay here and read to me," he said abruptly.
It startled her. "Read to you? Read what to you?"
"Wasn't there some book you were reading in the library, the other night?"
"Oh – that was just a Muggle novel. You wouldn't like it."
He closed his eyes and leaned back against the pillows. "Read it to me anyway."
She stared at him, wondering that he could be so absolutely egotistical and self-assured, and expect her just to fall in line with his plans. "Maybe I can't," she said snappishly. "Maybe I have other plans tonight."
"You haven't any other plans." He did not open his eyes.
He was right, she hadn't. That didn't mean she had to stay here and read to him, though. She tried another tack. "Have you ever heard of saying 'please'?"
"No." She thought she saw the ghost of a smile playing around his lips.
She rolled her eyes. "Oh, you're arrogant!"
He did smile then, with his eyes still closed. "But I'm ill," he said. "Doesn't that make you feel bad?"
The thing was, of course, that it did. "Oh, all right." She flounced away, and went to her own room to fetch the book and change into old jeans and a sweatshirt. When she came back, she saw that Lolly had brought up two supper trays for them.
"Well," she said, with a touch of asperity. "Everything seems to be arranged."
"Yes it does, doesn't it? Pull up a chair, there's a good girl."
She chose to ignore his high-handedness, and pulled up the armchair she had already spent one night in, and tucked her legs up underneath her, opening the book. "The Scarlet Pimpernel," she began. "By Baroness Orczy."
"Odd name. What is it, Hungarian or something?"
Ginny ignored him and began to read. "A surging, seething, murmuring crowd of beings that are human only in name, for to the eye and ear they seem naught but savage creatures, animated by vile passions and by the lust of vengeance and of hate..."
"Damned depressing start," he cut in. "I thought this was supposed to be a love story."
She glared at him. "If you want me to read to you, you can't interrupt." He affected a look of meekness, which did not fool her for one moment, but he did not interrupt again.
The clock ticked on the mantle as she read, and they finished the supper trays that Lolly had brought. From time to time, she glanced up from the page at him. He was utterly absorbed. Ginny sighed and settled back in the chair, giving herself up as she always did to the magic of the printed page.
She was in the middle of the sixth chapter when he spoke. "It's Blakeney."
She stared at him. "What?" Over the last hour and a half, she had sunk down in the chair and stretched out her legs, propping them up on the edge of his bed, and become so engrossed in the story that she'd half-forgotten he was there.
"Blakeney," he said. "Blakeney's the Scarlet Pimpernel."
"How do you know? Have you read this before?"
"No," he said impatiently, "but it's obvious, isn't it? He's the least likely one to be a hero. Besides, the lovely Marguerite never would have married him if he'd been as useless as he seems on the surface."
"She wouldn't?"
"No. She saw something in him that made her believe he wasn't a total dead loss as a husband."
"She did? I mean, I know she did, but how do you know? It doesn't come out until later in the book."
"I know because I'm brilliant, of course." He yawned and closed his eyes. "That's enough for one night." He pulled the covers up around his face, and turned his back to her.
Ginny stared at him. He was dismissing her? "That's it? That's all? You're not going to say 'thank you' or..."
"Close the door on your way out."
Ginny stood up and threw the book as hard as she could at his arrogant, insufferable back. At his muffled "Ouch!" she smiled grimly and stalked from the room, slamming the door behind herself.
"Bastard," she muttered, when she was in the corridor. She should have felt relieved that Draco had dismissed her from reading any longer. Instead, she felt oddly as though she'd just been rejected. She headed downstairs to get her cloak and broomstick. A good, fast fly was what she needed right now. That would help clear her head and put things back into perspective. It would remind her of who they both were, and that there was no being friendly with someone like Draco Malfoy, something she had just come dangerously close to forgetting.