A/N: A bazillion thanks to Gabriele, champion formatting monkey, and encourager extraordinaire!

Chapter 16

Ginny pushed herself away from the wall, and wiped her eyes on the hem of her blouse. Her thoughts came in disjointed fragments: Quicksilver; Dark of the Moon; tattoo; hired killer… Blindly, she crossed to her room. In the bathroom, she blew her nose, and wiped the tearstains from her cheeks. She regarded herself in the mirror. She was a mess, her eyes and nose red, her skin pale and blotchy. She rested her hands on the sink, and stared at her reflection. Draco had been right after all: she had weighed him in the balance, boxed him up neatly, labelled him 'unacceptable,' and filed him away. Now it seemed that all her preconceived ideas about him weren't worth a brass Knut.

She heard a muffled sound from Draco's room across the corridor, as though something had been dropped, or thrown. All at once she was afraid he would leave again. She could not let him go: she had questions, and she wanted answers now.

She crossed to his room again, and rapped resolutely on the door. When he did not answer, she pushed the door open, and walked in.

He was wearing trousers this time, and a shirt, and was standing by the bed, towelling his hair dry.

Ginny didn't give herself time to lose her nerve. "You're Quicksilver," she said.

Draco winced. "No."

"No? Then how do you explain that?" Ginny stepped close to him, and jabbed at his chest with her finger.

Draco pulled away from her. "Stop."

She wasn't going to stop. "Draco, why do you have a tattoo of Mercury's wings on your chest?"

He didn't answer.

"Are you Quicksilver?"

"No." He tossed the towel onto the bed. "That is… it's not only me."

"What do you mean, not only you?"

He sighed, and turned away from her, facing the mirror and pushing his fingers through his wet hair, arranging it into a semblance of order before he turned to face her again. "If you say a word about this to anyone, I'm dead."

She looked at him, bewildered. "Why?"

He slumped into one of the chairs before the empty fireplace, and buried his head in his hands. After a long moment, he looked up at her. "What I'm saying to you is never to leave this room: I'm not being dramatic when I tell you this information could cost me my life."

"All – all right."

He looked away from her. "You're right: I am part of Quicksilver. And Quicksilver runs counter to everything the Dark of the Moon Society stands for. Sometimes we even rescue the same Muggles Dark of the Moon is trying to kill."

"We…?"

"Right: we. Quicksilver's not a man, Ginny; it's a team: there are four of us."

She felt her mouth fall open.

Draco gave a cynical little laugh. "The papers are always saying that Quicksilver does things no ordinary man could do alone. Did you think they were just making that up?"

Ginny sank into the chair opposite Draco's. "No, but…" It was all so unexpected, and there were so many questions buzzing round her brain that she didn't know where to begin.

"But you, like everyone else," he finished for her, "preferred to think in terms of a super-human hero, going about saving the world single-handedly."

Ginny opened her mouth to protest, and then closed it again. He was right: there was something appealing about the idea of a super hero. She – they all – had wanted to believe it.

"All right then," she said, "tell me about it."

He rested his elbows on his knees and looked pensively into the cold grate. "I killed a boy once," he said, and the tone of his voice was casual, almost conversational. "He was a Muggle: just a young boy. I Crucioed him to death."

For just a moment, Ginny thought she must have misunderstood him. Because surely what she'd thought he said could not be true. "No," she said.

"Yes. I did. I was being initiated into the Death Eaters, and one of my Initiation Rites was to torture a Muggle to death."

Ginny felt her skin crawl.

Draco went on, his tone detached. "I killed this young boy, and I did it in front of his father, while the other Death Eaters looked on: watched me become one of them. I was seventeen years old.

"But then the Aurors showed up…" Here, Draco glanced quickly at her, and she knew the revulsion she felt was written clearly on her face; she couldn't help it.

"They seemed to appear out of nowhere, and there was all this light and smoke, and I was hit in the head with some sort of spell… And the end result was that I woke up two weeks later, in the care of the Muggle man whose son I'd killed." He looked at her, as if to say, 'And that explains it all.'

She stared at him, horrified. It explained nothing.

After a moment, he looked back at his hands, which were clasped between his knees, and went on. "The Muggle man saved my life, you see. The Aurors would have killed me – or at the very least, locked me away in Azkaban – but in all the scuffle of arresting the Death Eaters, they missed me somehow. I was left behind.

"The Muggle man, who ought to have killed me himself – should have, at the very least, hated me and made me suffer for what I'd done – just… took care of me. He saved my life."

He looked up at her again, and his eyes seemed to be burning, haunted by that long-ago memory. "He bought my soul," Draco said. "He bought it, and in return I have to keep on saving Muggles now. I don't have any choice: my life isn't my own."

Ginny realised that he did not sound at all bitter about it: merely thoughtful. She ventured a question. "What do you mean, he bought your soul? Is it some sort of magical contract?"

Draco shook his head. "No, not a contract: at least, not a written one. It's something more… I don't know, more spiritual maybe. But just as binding, all the same."

"It was binding?"

"To me, it was."

Ginny sat back in her chair, and considered him. Here was a facet to Draco Malfoy's personality that she never would have dreamt existed. Bound to something so completely contrary to his nature, by a mere… 'spiritual' bond? It did not seem possible.

After a moment, she recollected herself to more practical matters. "You said there's more than one of you."

"Right."

"Who else?"

She sensed his reluctance. He looked her over carefully, and she felt that he was taking her measure, deciding whether he could trust her or not.

"David Gordon," he said at last, "And Lowen Kincaid."

She was shocked. "Do Fiona and Betsy know?"

"Yes, of course they do."

It occurred to Ginny to feel miffed that the other wives had known, and she alone had been left out. She pushed this aside, however. "Who's the fourth?"

He looked at her steadily. "The fourth one is our leader. He's your father."

Ginny laughed out loud. "Oh, come on Draco! You're not serious!"

"I am."

At the expression on his face, she stopped laughing. "But… you… my father…"

He smiled dryly. " 'Never the twain shall meet,' eh?"

"Never."

"Well, I assure you, it's true. I happen to have a great deal of respect for your father."

"My father? Poor, shabby, Muggle-loving Arthur Weasley? No." She shook her head decisively. It was too much: it was not believable.

"Yes, as a matter of fact."

"But… why? How…?"

"Do you remember that Underground fire – oh, it must have been ten years ago, now?"

She frowned, trying to remember. She'd been home from Hogwarts on summer holidays then, and in those days, hadn't been particularly concerned about anything that happened in the Muggle news. Gradually, however, the details of it filtered back through her memory. "The one on the blue line, where so many people were trampled to death…?"

"That's the one: there were three hundred and sixty-one Muggles killed in that fire. Your father was appalled by the death toll. He kept thinking of all the lives that might have been saved if there had only been some magical intervention. So he came up with this idea: wizards speeding to the rescue, like the messenger of the gods. Mercury. Quicksilver."

He looked at her to be sure she was following him. She nodded, and he went on.

"The rescues had to be conducted with complete anonymity, of course: it all ran counter to the Statute of Secrecy, and about a dozen other wizarding laws. But your father was determined: he really does have the most unfathomable love for Muggles.

"Anyhow, he knew Lowen Kincaid through the Ministry: Kincaid used to work for the Department of Magical Games and Sports. They got talking one night, over drinks in the pub, and… before you knew it they'd collaborated on their first rescue.

"After that, Kincaid's cousin joined them: David Gordon. Did you know Lowen and David were cousins?"

"No," said Ginny faintly, "I didn't know." It seemed there were quite a lot of things she hadn't known, and she was tempted, rather resentfully, to point this out to him. With an effort, she bit her tongue and let him continue.

"Well, they are. And it wasn't long after that when the thing with the Muggle boy happened, and there I was, looking for some way in which to work out my debt to the Muggle man who'd saved my life.

"Somehow, your father got hold of the story. He interviewed my father in Azkaban before his trial, and I suppose that's how he found out. He contacted me one night, by Floo, and asked if I was willing to join them."

"I can't believe you were," said Ginny. "You've always hated anything to do with the Weasley family."

"Don't think it wasn't difficult for me," Draco replied, with a tactlessness that irritated her. "But I saw it for what it was: a means of working out my debt to the Muggle man. As well," he added, "You could say that what I'd done to the Muggle boy left a… a bad taste in my mouth."

Ginny caught a glimpse of something in Draco's eyes, and suspected that this was a gross understatement. She reached out and touched him lightly on the wrist. He turned his hand over and twined his fingers around hers, holding them tightly.

After a moment, he continued. "So I jumped on board, and the four of us have been a team for nearly ten years now. It's only in the past couple of years that we started leaving the sign of Mercury's wings at the rescue sites. That was my idea, actually," he added, with a trace of his old smugness.

Ginny's head was spinning with questions. "But… I don't understand…"

"What don't you understand?"

She fell silent. Really, he had explained it all. About Quicksilver, at least. After a moment, she asked, "What about Dark of the Moon?"

He shrugged. "What about it?"

"I… I suppose I was hoping you would tell me it's not true after all."

"Oh, it's true," he said grimly.

"You're playing both sides."

He looked at her quickly. "Yes, and that's why you can't tell anyone – anyone – what I've just told you."

"What would the Baron do if he knew you were part of Quicksilver?"

"He'd kill me without a second thought." Draco's voice was flat.

"You can't keep something like this a secret forever. Sooner or later, you're going to have to choose between the two."

"Not if you keep your mouth shut, I'm not."

She pulled her hand away. "Don't be stupid, Draco! You can't play both sides. There…" she gestured futilely, "…there are principles involved: there's right and there's wrong." She folded her arms and looked at him, her eyes pleading. "I know you're a good man: you wouldn't be a part of Quicksilver if you weren't. Doesn't it bother you to be a part of something as evil as Dark of the Moon?"

Draco stood up and walked to one of the tall windows, looking down into the garden with his back to her. "Don't go trying to change me, Ginny. I am what I am; you don't have to like it. And I never claimed to be a good man."

She went to him, and put her hands on his shoulders. She felt him grow very still, as though he was holding his breath. "Draco," she said.

He turned to face her, and she saw that there was real anguish in his eyes. "Right and wrong is so simple for someone like you." His voice had a harsh edge. "You've been on the right side all your life; you've never had to change. It doesn't cost you anything to live the way you live."

Ginny frowned. She started to say something, to argue back, and then stopped herself. There was nothing she could say. Because he was right: there was a huge cost to the decision she was trying to convince him to make. Perhaps it was not right for her to insist on something that, in the end, Draco alone would have to bear the consequences of.

She touched him on his shirt, over the place where the Mercury's wings were tattooed, and lightly traced the shape of the wings that were there, just under the expensive fabric. "I'm proud of you," she said. "But I'm worried about you too."

His expression softened marginally. "I'm not asking you to worry. Just… don't try to change me."

"I can't promise that: I want you to change."

His jaw tightened.

"But I'll try not to nag you about it," she said hastily. "Is that good enough?"

Her hand was still resting on his shirt, and he reached up and caught her wrist. "Go flying with me," he said in a husky voice.

Ginny recognized an olive branch when she saw one. "All right: just give me in a minute to plait my hair." She started for the door, but Draco held onto her wrist.

"No, leave it down."

"What, my hair?"

"Yes. Leave it down," he repeated.

"I can't leave it down while I fly," Ginny said, confused. "It'll be so tangled that I'll never get a brush through it again."

"I'll brush it out for you, then." He did not loosen his grip on her wrist, but looked at her with a peculiar, glittering intensity that made any further words dry up in her mouth. Suddenly, it seemed hard to breathe properly. She managed a faint nod, and followed him down the staircase, and out of the house.

In silence, they went to the broom shed, and collected their brooms. They kicked off, and together they soared up over the stand of Scotch pine that bordered the lawn, and then they were out over the open moor. It stretched away in three directions, raw and sweeping, and savage, draped in the muted intensity of early summer colours. The wind whipped Ginny's hair around her face, assaulting her with the scents of pine and early heather, and from some unseen, low-lying bog, a hint of peat.

They flew for miles, not speaking to each other. From time to time, they dropped down to investigate a burn that threaded, thin and silvery, through the bracken, or a trestle bridge spanning a deep gorge, or an eagle's eyrie built into the side of a craggy cliff. By the time Draco motioned to her, and turned for home, the sun was beginning to dip below the rim of the far mountains, and the shadows lay long on the ground below them.

In the foyer of Four Winds, they kicked off their shoes and hung up their cloaks.

"Wait for me in the library," he told her. "I'll be there in minute."

While she waited, Ginny poured them each a drink, and wondered what he was doing. Her question was answered a moment later, when Draco came in, carrying her hairbrush. She felt her stomach do an odd flip. She hadn't thought he'd actually meant it when he said he would brush her hair for her. No one had ever brushed her hair, besides herself and her mother, and sometimes girlfriends at school, when they'd been experimenting with new hairstyles. There was an intimacy to the act, and the idea of Draco doing it for her made her face grow unexpectedly warm, and her skin tingle with anticipation.

Draco motioned for her to sit on the hearthrug, and settled himself on the chair behind her. The light had faded from the library windows, and an edge of chill was creeping into the room. Draco pulled his wand and pointed it at the fireplace. "Incendio." The flames burst into life, and crackled merrily.

He looked down at her, sitting on the floor at his feet, and thought that this was a kind of magic he had never learned about in school. He hadn't wanted Ginny in his life to begin with, but she had come in anyway, with her brilliant hair, and her tight jeans, and her white ring and her soft touches… and he knew that he was different because of her. He felt things now: things he hadn't known a person could feel. How amazing that such a thing was possible.

He set his glass down on the table beside him, and picked up the hairbrush. "Ouch," she said, almost as soon as he had begun, and he stopped. He didn't want to hurt her. "Start at the bottom," she said, "and work up. It's easier that way."

He separated off a small section of hair, draping the rest of the tangled mess over her shoulder, out of the way. He began at the bottom, as she had said, working carefully through each snarl and knot, until the strands slipped straight and shining and free through his fingers.

Love: it was by now such a familiar feeling, and yet so strange; he could hardly comprehend it. He leaned forward and rested his lips on the top of her head, closing his eyes, breathing in the simple scent of her hair, and he felt her go still under him. But she did not pull away. Instead, she gave a little sigh, and leaned back against his knees.

After that, the air in the room seemed thicker, somehow. Electrified. He did not hurry, but took his time over each section of hair, marvelling at its colours, careful not to hurt her. Trying to give her something; to communicate, through the simple act of brushing her hair, what he felt for her. When he had finished, he laid down the hairbrush, and lifted the thick, glossy mass in both hands, watching it flow back through his fingers like liquid fire. And he wondered at himself.

He, Draco Malfoy, had had scores of women more beautiful than Ginny Weasley: women who were more experienced, more obedient, more eager to please. But never had he done anything with any of them that had affected him as deeply as the experience of brushing out his wife's hair had done. He leaned forward and kissed her head again.

Ginny pulled away from him, and came up on her knees, facing him. "Thanks," she said, and when he looked at her, she dropped her eyes, tracing an uncertain pattern on the hearthrug with her fingertips.

He said nothing, but let the silence hang between them, heavy and charged with possibilities.

At last, she said awkwardly, "Well, I think I'll go to bed."

He leaned forward and cupped her face in his hand. "I'll go with you," he said.

She froze, and time froze with her, suspended in a breathless state in which everything seemed to hang by a fragile thread. He watched her, half-afraid of what she would say. But she did not say anything. Instead, she reached up and took his hand in hers. She stood up, tugging him to his feet.

"Yes," she said, "come with me."

He led her up the staircase, their footsteps noiseless on the carpeted treads. Outside his bedroom door, he stopped and turned to look at her. "Are you sure?"

She smiled at him. In the dimly-lit corridor, her eyes were luminous and there was something in them that made him flush with heat. "I'm sure," she said.

He pushed open the door to his bedroom, and followed her in, closing it behind them. With his wand, he lit a single lamp and then, before he did anything else, he went to the fireplace and firmly closed the draft. "No Floo calls this time," he told her.

He went to her, and put his arms around her, tipping up her chin, and studying her face minutely: the brown eyes fringed in copper-coloured lashes; the freckles smattered across her pink cheeks. Gently, he kissed one eyelid closed, then the other. He kissed the tip of her nose, and finally, her mouth. Ginny kissed him back, her lips soft and hesitant. He knew this part was nothing new to her, but he let her go slowly, taking her time, getting used to the idea of where it was leading. She was the one who pulled him closer and deepened the kiss. He felt a surge of heady power: she wanted him.

He felt her fingertips stroking his face, and something inside him crumbled under the light touch. He heard himself make a noise deep in his chest, and pulled her hard against the whole length of his body. She didn't protest, only moved a little against his hips. He didn't know whether she'd done it on purpose or not, but it was provocative, and he felt his pulse skyrocket. He had to have more of her. He slipped his hand under her blouse, her skin hot against his. Impatiently, he pulled at the thin fabric. "This is in the way."

She raised her arms and let him pull it over her head and drop it to the floor. She reached for the fasteners on his robe, fumbling with them a little, but getting them free at last. Uncertainly, she slipped her hand inside the robes, and then undid the buttons on his shirt. At last, she found his skin, and her fingers skimmed over his chest, and down his belly. He closed his eyes briefly, while the room reeled around him. It was torture; sheer, perfect torture. He groped for the clasp on her bra, awkwardly, one-handed. "Designed to keep men out," he muttered, and she giggled. The bra landed on the floor, on top of her blouse.

Ginny pushed the robe off his shoulders, and Draco lifted her up into his arms, depositing her onto the high bed. He stepped back, looking at her while he shed the rest of his clothes. He thought she would be shy, but to his surprise, Ginny lay back and let herself be looked at. She was… perfectly imperfect: incandescently beautiful. He came to her and lowered himself over her, and then for a long time there was only their breathing, harsh and hot in the darkened room, and their incredible first discovery of each other.

Once, he paused, lifting himself up on his arms, and looking into her flushed face. "You know I have to hurt you."

She bit her lip, and nodded. "It's all right."

"I'll try…"

"Just do it."

And he did. She gripped his arms and cried out in pain, and he stopped at once. But after a moment, he felt her relax a little underneath him, and he began to move again. And then he heard himself gasp her name out loud, and he was flying.

Afterward, he slumped onto her, and they lay there, wrapped around each other, both breathing hard, and a little sweaty. When his heart rate had returned to normal, and he trusted himself to speak again, he put out a finger and ran it over her collarbone.

"All right?"

"Never better."

He looked at her face then, and saw that she was telling the truth. He kissed her. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For letting me be the first."

"Oh…" In the dimness, he could tell that she was blushing. He rolled onto his back, pulling her over against his side. She curled up, fitting herself into his shape. He was beginning to feel pleasantly drowsy, surrounded by the heat of Ginny, and the secure feeling of knowing she was there.

"Draco," he felt her breath as she said the words against his shoulder, "I love you."

His heart missed a beat, and he could not breathe. He was stunned. She loved him? He opened his mouth, but was struck by a sudden, icy wave of fear. He wanted to say it back to her. Because it was true: it was so true. But somehow, he could not make the words come out of his mouth.

After a moment, he felt Ginny raise her head in the darkness, and knew she was looking at him. "Haven't you ever said that to anyone before?" she said quietly.

That was the trouble; he had said it scores of times before, to women who expected you to say that kind of thing, whether you meant it or not. Sure, he had said it: he had just never meant it before. Saying it had never exposed him to someone like it would if he said it to her. And so now, when he finally meant it, he could not make his mouth form the words. Instead, he pulled her closer against him, and turned his face into her hair. And after a moment, she settled into him again, and gradually he drifted off to sleep.

He awoke twice more that night, and Ginny was there, ready for him. And once, she woke him up herself. When he woke for the last time, it was to see morning sunlight streaming through the cracks in the long, velvet draperies. Beside him, Ginny was still asleep, her back to him. He watched her freckled shoulders move up and down with her breathing, and thought about what had happened.

She loved him. The thought of it filled him with wonder. Other than his mother, Draco couldn't think of a single other person who had ever loved him. Others had indulged him, or admired him; used him, or feared him: none of that was the same. Ginny loved him. It meant she would stay, of course. It meant he no longer had to dread September, and her leaving.

And somewhere, between now and then, he would find the courage to say the words back to her.

She woke up then, and rolled over, looking up at him with sleep-heavy eyes. He leaned over and tried to kiss her, but she turned her head away. "I have to brush my teeth," she mumbled, behind her hand. Her eyes were smiling at him. He felt a rush of relief: he had wondered if, in the cold, hard light of day, she would regret last night. Apparently, that worry was groundless. She sat up and pulled on the sheet, tugging it off the bed and wrapping it around herself before heading for the bathroom.

"Leave the sheet here!" he protested, but she ignored this, throwing him a haughty look as she glided off in the direction of the shower, trailing her makeshift robe behind her. "You weren't so bloody concerned about your modesty last night," he called after her. In answer, his shaving brush came flying through the bathroom door, and bounced on the pillow by his head. Draco lay back and laughed.

It was the beginning of a perfect summer. Most days they were apart, while Ginny went to her job at the Ministry in London, and Draco tended to the vineyards in Greece and Australia. In the evenings, they flew together, or visited friends, or just lay on a blanket under the stars, and talked into the small hours of the morning. The nights were long, and filled with each other. Ginny, with her sweet inexperience, was teaching him things he'd never known about sex before: that it could be filled with laughter. That it was not about taking at all, but about giving. That it really was different with someone you loved.

One night, a week into August, Ginny reminded him that her twenty-fifth birthday was coming up. It was raining outside, a steady, soaking drizzle that had trapped them inside, and given them a good excuse to build a fire. They were playing Dragons and Dwarves in the library, and as usual, she was losing spectacularly.

"I want you to do me a favour," she said.

"I'm not giving you back those points you just lost, if that's what you mean," he answered, and trumped the card she had just played.

"No, that's not what I want."

Something in her tone of voice made him look up. "What, then?"

"I want you to come to the Burrow with me, for my birthday."

He snorted. "Your family wouldn't want me there, and I wouldn't want to be there, so it wouldn't be much of a birthday for you."

She lay her cards facedown in front of her, and leaned forward, taking his hand. "I'd want you there. And besides, you're already on good terms with my father, and that has you automatically on good terms with my mother…"

"Your brothers are the ones I was thinking of," he observed dryly.

"Oh, my brothers can go stuff themselves," Ginny said impatiently. "I want to tell them about us."

He looked closely at her. Did this mean what he thought it meant? He had never quite got up the courage to ask her if she was going to stay after September, preferring to believe she would tell him when the time was right. Now, he considered her request. Could he suffer through an evening of Weasley idiocy for the sake of making Ginny happy? After all, it wasn't like her brothers were going to attack him in front of their father, or anything. He sighed.

"You wouldn't leave me alone with them, and expect me to go off and do 'man things' while you and your mother drank tea in the kitchen?"

"No, of course not! I'd stay right by your side every minute."

"And we wouldn't have to stay long?"

"For supper and cake. I'll tell my mother we only have an hour and a half."

An hour and a half with Ginny's brothers. It was a gruesome thought. He sneaked a look at her: hope and expectation were shining there, like a child at Christmas. Damn it.

"Oh, fine then," he muttered.

With a squeal, Ginny jumped up from her chair and in an instant had come around the table and sat in his lap, burying her head against his shoulder. He had a strong suspicion she was trying not to cry.

She lifted her head and looked at him. "Thank you, Draco. That's the best birthday gift I could have asked for." Generously, she added, "You don't even have to get me another present."

She smelled warm and indescribably her. Draco slipped his hand inside her shirt. "Hey, don't I get some kind of reward for being so noble?" he said. She looked at him in astonishment. He grinned lewdly at her, and moved his hand higher.

She smiled. "Mr Malfoy," she said, "if you're going to brave the Weasley family for my sake, you can name your reward."

"That's the ticket," he said, and kissed her deeply.

Later, they lay under a light blanket on the hearthrug, the coals of the fire casting them in orange and black shadows.

"That was quite a reward," he said to the ceiling.

"Mmm…" she answered sleepily. Then, a thought seemed to occur to her, and she sat up straight, looking down at him. "Draco," she said, "I think that for giving you such a great reward, you should give me something, in return." She paused for effect, and trailed her fingers up the inside of his thigh. "I think you should forgive me my Dragons and Dwarves debt."

He shuddered under her touch, but retained flawless control. "I don't know," he said doubtfully. "How much is it now?"

She bent close to him, and her breath was warm against his ear. "Two hundred eighty Galleons, nine Sickles, and two Knuts." She bit his earlobe gently.

Draco was suddenly breathless with the force of his love for her. She had brought so much joy into his life: warmth, and laughter, and companionship. He could not begin to remember what life had been like before her. He pulled her down onto his chest, and stroked her back.

"Two hundred eighty Galleons, nine Sickles, and two Knuts," she said, sounding a little breathless. "Come on; let's call it even."

Draco nuzzled her ear, and breathed in the scent that was entirely Ginny. Entirely his. "Never," he whispered. "Not a single Knut."

Ginny dissolved into peals of laughter, and beat her fists against his shoulder. "You're evil!"

"Yes, I know." And then he covered her mouth with his own, and neither one of them spoke again for a long time.

Monday morning, Ginny dropped in to see her father at his office. Arthur sat at a desk that was cluttered as much with photographs of his family as with parchment, quills and reference books. He didn't notice her at first, and she stood in the doorway, watching him, overwhelmed by a great swell of love and pride that rose up inside her, and brought tears to her eyes. Her father, who had risked his life for ten years to save the Muggles he so dearly loved, and had never taken a scrap of credit for it. She went to him and dropped a kiss on the top of his head, where his pink scalp was beginning to show through the thinning strands of pale hair.

He looked up, delighted. "Ginny! I thought I'd see you today. Malfoy flooed me last night and told me everything."

'Everything?' Ginny thought wryly. She certainly hoped Draco hadn't told her father everything.

"Sit down, sit down," said Arthur, gesturing toward one of the chairs in front of his desk. "But close the door first. I expect you want to talk about… erm… you know what."

Ginny closed the door and sat down. "If you mean Quicksilver, yes. I do want to talk about it."

Arthur sighed, and looked at her with an expression that was half modesty, and half pride. "Draco said he told you most of it."

"He did."

"Then what did you want to say?"

Ginny thought about this for a moment. "Only that I'm proud of you, Dad." She watched her father flush, but knew that he was pleased. "Does Mum know?" she asked.

"Of course. I didn't go sneaking off like that very many times before she got suspicious: thought I was seeing another woman! And I've told her that you know too, now."

Ginny stayed a few minutes more, catching up on family news, and chatting about inconsequential things. At last she rose, and patted her father on the hand. "I need to get back to my office, Dad, or they're going to catch on and stop paying me." She leaned down for a kiss, and turned to go.

"Ginny…"

She turned back.

"How…" Arthur cleared his throat self-consciously. "How's it going between you and Malfoy?"

Ginny couldn't hold back the grin that broke out over her face. "It's going wonderful, Dad. Just great." And with a little wave, she was gone.

Arthur sat for a long time, toying with a Muggle calculator, which he had never yet learned how to use. Things were 'wonderful,' Ginny had said. It was good to see her looking so well, and so happy. He sighed, knowing that she and Malfoy had a fight ahead of them, when it came down to what Ginny's brothers would say about it all. But in the end, he smiled. Malfoy was a good man: he'd seen it firsthand for nearly ten years now. Arthur could entrust his only daughter to him.

That day, he ate lunch with his old friend Filius Flubberbuster. Filius was still Senior Secretary in the Department of Magical Curses and Contracts. In fact, it was he who had first brought Arthur the news, all those years ago, of The Curse of the Firstborn. The two men had been friends before that day however, and they had remained firm friends ever since. Over ploughman's lunch in their favourite pub, he told Flubberbuster about his visit with Ginny that morning, omitting, of course, any reference to Quicksilver.

He'd expected Filius to be pleased at the news that Ginny and Draco were getting on so well, but to his surprise, his friend frowned.

"What's the matter?" Arthur demanded. "It's great that they're making a go of it, isn't it?"

Filius chewed thoughtfully, and swallowed. "I've been doing this job for thirty-five years, Arthur. And I don't like to be a wet blanket, but I've got to tell you that these kinds of things don't often turn out well."

Arthur was astonished. "But it's already turned out well! Their year and a day is up next month, and they're going to stay together. I call that a success, don't you?"

Filius considered this. "There's a saying," he began, "A curse is a curse, no matter how pretty the package." He shook his head. "They don't call them 'curses' for nothing, you know."

"Rubbish," said Arthur firmly. "Things will work out for them: I could see it in Ginny's face this morning."

Filius nodded, and wiped his mouth. "I'm sure you're right then, Arthur. I'm sure you're right." They both reached for the cheque at the same time, but Filius got to it first. "Here, let me get that today. After all, you're celebrating, eh? To a daughter married, and living happily ever after." He raised his glass and drained the remains of his pint.

Arthur followed suit, and pushed himself away from the table. "Thanks, Flubberbuster. Hate to eat and run, but I've got an appointment in five minutes." He picked up his hat, nodded at his friend, and made for the door.

Filius watched him go, and could not dispel a sense of foreboding that was so strong as to be nearly tangible. Arthur Weasley was a good chap: one of the best. He did not want to see him, or any of his family hurt. Still, he thought, as he picked up his own hat, and the cheque, and headed for the till, 'A curse is a curse, no matter how pretty the package.' He'd been doing this job for too long, and maybe he'd grown cynical. But he knew these things rarely turned out happily.

With a sigh, he clapped his hat onto his head, and went back to work.