A/N – I had about a quarter of this chapter roughed out a week after I posted the last one, but it disappeared into the wilderness of my hard drive and I couldn't remember what I wrote. In this chapter, for all those who missed it last chapter, we have a confrontation between Lucius and Moody – I hope that it satisfies.

Disclaimer – I don't own Harry Potter. I'm quite sure JK Rowling wouldn't approve of what I'm doing to her characters. Nevertheless, don't sue. I don't know anything about gardening, either – for what it's worth, my grandmother has roses, but I can't even grow sprouts in a jar.

Chapter VI

Nothing had changed.

Sitting cross-legged on her childhood bed, Ginny looked at around at her old bedroom. There – the old, yellowed lace curtains her mother had sewn from scraps of her old wedding dress. There – the battered stuffed dragon, passed down from Charlie to Fred and George and finally to her. There – the patchwork quilt she and her mother had made together, in the last summer before her first year at Hogwarts.

It was as if she'd never grown up.

When Bill had gone, she'd sat there in thought for some time, thinking over what he'd said, what she'd said – it was reasonable, logical, sensible, that she go back to her own world rather than linger in this dream world, this illusion. She didn't belong here, at Malfoy Manor – she was a Weasley, and the only tie that had ever bound her to this world was gone.

Draco was dead. The dream was over, and it was time to go back to reality. She stood up, drew her robes around her, and went to find Lucius.

Usually, even at this time of the night, he could be found in his study going over the books, or checking his investments. However, as she tapped on the door, pushing it open softly, she was surprised to see that he was not there – nor, in fact, was he in the library, or in the music room. Frustrated, a little piqued by his absence, she collared a stray house elf who told her, bowing repeatedly, that the master had already retired to his chambers.

Determined, she made her way towards his private wing, not pausing to think of the lateness of the hour, nor of any possible impropriety in cornering him in his own bedroom. Rapping sharply on his door, she bounced impatiently on her toes, not quite sure what it was she wanted, certain only that she had to speak to him. She couldn't leave without first discussing it with him.

The door opened to reveal not Timmy, Lucius' personal house elf, but the man himself.

"Ginevra," he said, eyebrow half-raised. "This is…unexpected."

"Lucius," she said firmly, pushing past him into the room itself, "I have to talk to you."

There was a short silence behind her, before she heard the door close and his soft footsteps head back towards her. There was a clink of crystal, and the slosh of poured alcohol –

"Will you go with your brother in the morning?" he asked coolly.

What? How had he…?

She turned to face him, her head held high. "Yes, I will. I've stayed here long enough."

He was barefoot, wearing a loose navy blue under robe, stark against his white, white skin. His long white hair, unbound, hung about him like a cloak – backlit against the fire, he was spectacularly luminous. Ginny found it criminally unfair, sometimes, that appearances could be so deceptive.

"And our bargain?"

"You'll survive, Lucius; you always survive. Others, however, are not so lucky – I can't live like this," she burst out suddenly, months of frustration, grief and bitterness coming to the fore. "I can't live like you do, in this illusion of Malfoy splendour, while the rest of the world is out there somewhere," she waved a hand, "and real people live and die as you feather your nest!"

He watched her closely, taking a meditative sip of his drink. "How else am I to live, Ginevra? What other purpose do I have, now, other than to preserve what little I have left? I know you are young, but I don't think you're foolish – go, if you must, but do not destroy the delicate arrangements I've put into place."

Unfortunately, the calm, condescending tone – normally so effective in sobering her dramatics – had the opposite effect this time. It infuriated her. She had had enough of his twisted reasoning, enough of his patronizing her, and she wanted to go home, back to a familiar world where people believed in what she believed, and who would act recklessly, make mistakes, shout and swear and abuse each other…

"Your arrangements?" she shouted, ignoring his wince, the reflexive withdrawal from an untoward show of emotion. "Fuck your arrangements, Lucius! Fuck your plans, your schemes, and your bloody estate! I don't care – do you hear me? In Merlin's name – no, in Her name – I reject your whole House; I hereby rescind your power to act for me!"

They stared at each other, then, as the magic swirled about them in acknowledgment of her words. There was something very grim in Lucius' eyes, something quickly, carefully hidden, but Ginny was too lost in her righteous, incredibly liberating anger to notice it.

"So be it," Lucius said.

She still cringed when she thought of that night.

"One thing I can say about you, Malfoy," Alastor Moody's gloating, unwelcome voice carried over the still, humid air, "is that whenever you do make a wrong step, you can count on it going spectacularly wrong. What did you say to get that girl so worked up?"

Lucius ignored him, focusing on watering Narcissa's prized roses. She had always done it by hand, from a battered and dented tin watering can, and so he took comfort in carrying on the tradition.

"What do you want, Moody?"

"You know the terms of your freedom from Azkaban. Ginny Weasley – she's gone back to her maiden name, now – was to keep you under constant supervision; and now she's gone…" Gleefully, the grizzled Auror turned up his palms in the worst imitation of innocence Lucius had ever seen.

"You mean you have not come to replace her?"

Moody grinned maliciously. "If you're not careful, Malfoy, I might just take you up on that offer. And damned sure you wouldn't like it. How did you convince her to give you control of the Malfoy affairs?"

"Very carefully." He pulled on a pair of thick gardening gloves and picked up the secateurs. Carefully, he began to prune the rosebushes, snipping and cutting with ruthless delicacy. Narcissa had told him that careful pruning was necessary to allow the bush to thrive in the next year. "Did you send her brother here?"

"Capable, worldly Bill. You're lucky I didn't send the youngest son, Ron."

"Young Ronald would have done all my work for me, I think. I find your constant interference in my affairs most aggravating, Moody. You have won the contest, the war, and even the popularity stakes – can you not leave me this much?"

Moody snorted. "No. I'll only believe you beaten when I can personally toss flowers onto your grave. I want to know what you plan for the girl."

"For Ginevra Weasley? Nothing, not when she's gone back to her family and to Potter. My influence cannot reach there."

"How were you going to convince her to give you an heir? And don't say very carefully, Malfoy. Did you try to seduce her into staying? Is that why she ran?"

"She ran," Lucius said, very steadily, "because I did not try to seduce her into staying."

"Ginny, dear!" Her mother's arms were wide and welcoming as she enfolded Ginny in a warm, floury hug. "We were so worried about you, staying all alone in that house with That Man. Are you sure you're all right? He didn't try to…do…anything to you?"

"No, Mum," she said, after she'd regained her breath. "No, he didn't try anything.

Her mother had eyed her anxiously for a moment, before deciding to accept her word for it. Ginny wondered what would have happened if she'd thought that Ginny was concealing something – Molly Weasley was like a lion, when one of her cubs was threatened. "Oh, my dear girl, I'm so glad to have you home with us again. It'll be just like old times, with Harry and Hermione staying with us…"

Ginny stared at her. "Harry's here?"

Her diary was exactly where she had tossed it, when she'd come home after her second year and sworn never to confide her deepest secrets and thoughts to anything inanimate ever again. Before then, Ginny had been an avid journalist – she'd found that writing her thoughts down had helped to focus them, organize them into something resembling logic.

She'd never touched a diary since.

But opening this one, given to her by her parents on her tenth birthday, she found all the deepest agonies and dreams of her very young self set there, in the round, elaborately loopy writing she'd favoured then. Most of those fantasies centred on Harry Potter, with his adorable green eyes and nervous, shy grin, so unlike her redheaded, confident, self-centred brothers.

Her childhood crush, the first boy whose smile had ever made her flush, made things low in her stomach flutter madly. Later, of course, she'd fallen in love with Draco, a whirlwind affair composed of equal parts sex, adrenaline and antagonism – Aurors both, they'd been partners, their relationship based on competition and one-upmanship, until they'd discovered their spectacular sexual compatibility.

She'd grieved for Draco, wept, cried and screamed for him, for them, for what they'd lost and what they could have had, but it was all over now.

"Ginny!" There was a pounding on the stairs, a hurried knock on her door, and then it burst open to reveal Hermione, her eyes wide and full of relief. "You're back – oh, I've missed you so much!" She seized Ginny in a crushing hug. "I was so worried for you, alone with Malfoy…"

Ginny's hands fluttered desperately as she tried to break free. Belatedly, Hermione released her and smiled, blindingly bright. The muggleborn girl – woman – was as she had always been, bright, self-assured, and firm in her own convictions. She had an important job in the Ministry and was determined to make a success of it, to use her position and her power to mop up the rest of the Death Eaters and make the world a better place. No wonder she hadn't liked Ginny living with Lucius.

"I can't live like you do, in this illusion of Malfoy splendour…"

"How else am I to live, Ginevra? What other purpose do I have, now, other than to preserve what little I have left?"

"Come on, Ginny," Hermione smiled. "It'll be alright now. We'll all help you, and soon these last few months will be little more than a memory. You'll see – one day, you'll be happy again…"

"The terms of your parole are quite clear, Malfoy," Moody said. "You can't stay here without her. If she doesn't come back, then you go straight back to Azkaban, without your two hundred knuts…"

Lucius Malfoy watched him through those clear – and damnably hard to read – silver eyes. Not for the first time, Moody wondered whether it was a good thing or not that the Ministry insisted on Ginevra Malf- Weasley as this man's keeper. Because Malfoy, like so many others who had experienced the hospitality of Azkaban, was clearly determined not to go back; if Moody knew anything about him, he would do absolutely anything to avoid it.

And Moody didn't believe it was a good idea to give Malfoy a reason to bring the girl back under his influence…

A/N – Thank you to all my wonderful reviewers. Please continue to feed the fanfic author: any and all feedback is greatly appreciated.