Disclaimer- Not mine. Don't sue.

Author's Note- You are all so fantastic. I just want to thank everyone who's reading this story and everyone's who's reviewing. Your feedback is just wonderful and I really, really love it. Let's give another round for my wonderful beta reader, Jess, because she's absolutely wonderful as well. I do not know what I'd do without her. And now, on with the story. Please review! This one's for Katie.

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OEDIPUS
Roses

"He that plants thorns must never expect to gather roses."
-English Proverb

xxx

The first thing he saw was red- swimming around him. It was only a moment- a flash- before falling back into night again.

The second thing he saw was flowers- roses maybe- and still red. There were so many surrounding him, closing in, but there was no smell and there was no sound. No sound except for fingernails on paper over and over again. When he tried to follow the noise, he went black again.

The third thing he saw was her.

And he swore to Salazar, he really was in hell.

Sunlight. It was the warmth Ginny needed to sooth her aching muscles. There was a hint of a smile as she sat down on the kitchen bench.

"Well, look, it's Dilys Derwent- back from the sick bed," Fred commented from across the table. Ginny tossed him a glare.

"Who the bloody hell is that?"

"Language, Ginny," came her father's voice from behind his paper.

"Sorry, Dad." She bashfully looked back at Fred.

"Don't worry about it," he said slyly.

She shot him another glare. "Whatever." And she went back to nibbling on a biscuit.

Molly and Remus were standing at the counter, Molly washing dishes and Remus making tea. Molly, it seemed, was chatting poor Remus's ear off, but it didn't really look as though he minded.

Two days had already passed since the night Draco Malfoy had landed on their doorstep. Things had been thankfully quiet since then. Remus, fully recovered from the full moon, was finally up and about. Mr. Weasley had forced Fred along on his mission to fix up the house and Charlie had been back and forth from the Ministry, bringing word and sending messages. Mrs. Longbottom had even made an appearance or two, coming down to the parlor after dinner and catching up with the news for her fix of gossip, an appetite hard to satisfy in times like these. She'd heard from Neville, she told them, through the Muggle post. He'd been away for a fortnight now living in his flat in London.

After Hogwarts, he had been recruited by the Department of Mysteries and almost everyone had been surprised- especially Neville. He gladly accepted the job and was currently working there as a trainee. Word from him was scarce as he was extremely busy. When he did pick up the odd bit of information, he was sure to send it the Order, becoming somewhat of a spy. Ginny thought Neville must like the idea of that very much- the once bumbling student now working the prestigious Department of Mysteries and sending invaluable information to the Order. Ginny was glad for him, though she missed him as well. Neville had always been a good friend of hers, maybe even her best. He was remarkably easy to talk to. Ginny loved Luna, but there were some things the girl just didn't understand. Neville, however, was logical and down to Earth- the perfect match for Ginny's constant display of recklessness and sometimes stupidity.

Ginny, regrettably, had heard of Neville's good health secondhand. She had not been able to participate in their parlor talks after dinner. In fact, she had not even been able to attend dinner. Ginny had unfortunately been made the Manor's unofficial nurse in Hestia's absence and she had barely left Malfoy's side in forty-eight hours because of it. Her back was aching from sleeping in the chair beside his bed and she was in a rather foul mood because of it.

"How is he?" Charlie asked. He was sitting next to Fred.

"The same," Ginny replied. She didn't feel like elaborating. She'd had enough of Draco Malfoy.

He was always the same, just lying there with his furrowed brow. Ginny would just sit reading in the stiff wooden chair and when she got tired of reading, she would study the paper on the wall, finding patterns in the roses there. She had been following Hestia's directions, administering potions and medicine as appropriate, but the red-cheeked witch had still not returned.

"Then what are you doing out here?" Apparently, Molly had overheard. Ginny silently sighed.

"I was hungry."

"I told you I'd bring you lunch in at noon."

"I know, but-"

"Ginny, what if you're gone and he wakes up? What if he did wake up already?"

"Alright, alright, I'm going back." Ginny grabbed another biscuit before stomping away from the table.

"Give my regards to Malfoy!" she heard Fred call after her. The biscuit was flying through the air before he knew what was happening, exploding with the contact of his forehead.

She didn't even look back, slamming the bedroom door only to see the familiar red rose wallpaper surrounding her.

Another day babysitting Malfoy, she thought grudgingly, plopping into the stiff wooden chair. The book she had been reading, Peter Pan, was spine up on the end table beside her. When she reached for it, she was met with quite the surprise.

"Weasley?"

The book dropped.

Pain was shooting through him. He could feel it everywhere, stabbing, biting, catching in his breath. And he couldn't move.

It took a moment for his mind to register, for his eyes to focus. She was shutting the door when he legitimately woke up. Her navy collar dress was clean and crisp, flattering but out of date. He didn't recognize her at first, though the old apparel should have been a clue. But she was older now, yet still uncannily familiar. The last time he had seen her was three years ago, just one day before that fateful night. She'd been walking down the Charms hallway right beside Potter. She'd said something funny that made him laugh and he had pulled her into him, dropping a kiss upon her freckled nose. Simple, unadulterated loathing had blinded Draco then and he remembered it- well.

Her hair was much shorter now, curling around her chin and ears in a much more mature cut. She was taller now too, not by much, but the couple or so inches were noticeable.

And he had no idea in hell why she was here.

Then again, where the fuck was here?

"You're awake," she said after a moment and rather blankly too. She had just been staring at him before that.

"It would appear to be that way, wouldn't it?" He meant to sound sarcastic, scathing as was his nature, but he ending up croaking. Salazar, how long had it been since he last used his voice? His throat stung painfully- just like everywhere else it seemed.

The girl- Weasley- looked utterly helpless, casting her eyes this way and that, trying not to look at him. Ginny- he'd finally remembered her name. How could he have forgotten? Ginny- the name always rolling off Potter's lips with a smile on his face. That sense of utter loathing rose in his throat again.

"How do you feel?"

"Like I've been stabbed multiple times in a wide array of places." He certainly wasn't lying about that. "Well, what do you know, Malfoy? You hit the nail right on the head." She looked rather cross. Malfoy opened his mouth to say something, but instead something caught his eye.

"Red roses," he realized, staring at the wallpaper. That was what he had seen- red rose wallpaper.

"Aren't you a clever one? And here I was worried you had a concussion." Malfoy ignored this, turning back to her earnestly.

"Where am I?" he demanded.

Ginny rolled her eyes. "Well, if you're going to ask like that…"

"Pardon me," Draco said politely, "where bloody fuck am I?"

"And that's just so much better."

"Stop playing games with me, Weasley. I have the right to know where you mutts dragged me off to," he snapped. Ginny thought he looked rather like a child, hissing and sputtering like a little boy who got coal in his stocking.

"Rights? You think you have rights?" Ginny laughed, "I don't know where the hell you think you are, Malfoy, but I can guarantee, it's not anywhere you have rights."

Draco glared at her viciously, smiling like a goddamn banshee, she was. He was Draco sodding Malfoy! What was she thinking talking to him like this? Of course he had rights!

And suddenly, it hit him. He had given himself up to the Order.

He really did have no rights.

The weariness, the disorientation had made him forget that night- the traitorous thoughts running through his head, the traitorous thoughts he had turned into traitorous actions.

And there was no going back.

Fuck…

"Where am I?" he said once more, stiffly and through closed teeth. He had never felt so stupid in his entire life, ready to beg a Weasley for information as she found amusement in toying with him. This was blasphemy.

"What? Do you really think I'm going to tell you- so you can run off to all your little Death Eater friends?" Draco had to admit, she was right not to trust him.

Because at the moment, he wasn't even sure he trusted himself.

"You're enjoying this far too much."

"Just a taste of your own med- Oh!" she exclaimed, running over to the bureau across the room, "I had almost forgotten." She withdrew a clear vile of blue liquid, then looked to a sheet of scrawled writing posted inside the cabinet. "You need to take this."

Draco sneered, "What is it?"

"Medicine."

"Oh, wow, that's really great, but what kind, you moron? Do you really think I'm going to ingest something I know nothing about just because you said so?"

"Well yes. Though I admit, I will enjoy forcing it now your throat if you don't take it willingly."

Normally, Draco would be up to the challenge of fending her off, but he was smart enough to know in his current state, he was royally screwed. "Give it here."

He took the vile, looking at it thoughtfully. Figuring he had nothing left to loose, he downed its contents entirely.

"Damn, that was easy."

"Sorry to disappoint you. I thought cooperating might be more obnoxious that giving you the pleasure of abusing me."

"You are clever," she said sarcastically, plucking the empty vile from his hands. He was about to say something snide when a cool, liquidy feeling poured over him. It was like the blood in his body had somehow turned to water, cleaning him of every ache and sore he had. His throat no longer felt like it had been scraped with a razor blade and all the cuts along his chest and back were cold. But there was no pain anymore- none whatsoever.

"Feeling better?" she asked coyly.

"What the hell was that?"

"Pain killer of some sort. I don't know the actual potion, but Hestia left it for you."

"Who's Hestia?"

Ginny opened her mouth to speak, but stopped herself. She was smarter than she looked, Draco thought, staring at her critically. Sure, she would slip every once in a while, but she wasn't about to reveal any information she didn't want to- that is, unless he worked for it.

"If I leave you here alone for two minutes, do you think you can manage not to murder anyone?"

That was uncalled for. Draco involuntarily winced. She had just as good as said he was a murderer and well, maybe he was, but- he didn't know what he was expecting when he got into this, but it sure as hell wasn't this sort of hostility. He thought the Order was good- why was she sitting there with such loathing in her eyes and a tongue ready to bite? Weren't they supposed to be saintly? Wasn't this supposed to be easy?

"I'll be alone, won't I?" he spat.

Her hand was already on the doorknob, "Try not to break anything then, would you?"

"I'm an invalid, not a threat, you stupid bint."

Ginny frowned and when she spoke, she was quiet and thoughtful, "I wouldn't be so sure of that, Malfoy."

And she was gone.

What had he gotten himself into?

xxx

Ginny groaned. What the hell were they talking about in there?

She was practically dying out here.

It was just over three hours ago that Remus and her father had rushed into Malfoy's room just moments after she announced his consciousness. The two had been holed up in there ever since with a lock on the door and her mother had absolutely forbid her from eavesdropping. It was unbearable sitting out in the kitchen, just waiting for them to appear- waiting to get some sort of information out of them. Godric be damned, she wanted to know what was going on- desperately.

Fred, it seemed, felt very much the same. He had been sitting there too, carving into the worn kitchen table with the end of a fork. Normally, Molly would have called him out for it, but she seemed to be so distracted at the moment, fluttering around the stove as she baked something completely unnecessary- a trifle or custard of some sort. Ginny could tell she was just as anxious as her children.

Charlie was in and out of the room, moving upstairs and downstairs, completely and utterly aimless. He was thinking, Ginny knew, and thinking hard. She remembered when he would get like this back at home- at the Burrow. He would pace and pace and pace, as though wearing his footprints into the floor would somehow solve the issue at hand.

At the moment, he was imprinting the shape of his dragons hide boots on the wood in front of the fireplace. He looked anxious- extremely anxious. Neither Ginny nor Fred had any idea of how to ease his troubled steps.

"Charlie?" Ginny said finally, looking for his attention. He stopped abruptly, sticking his hands behind his back in a stiff military position.

"Yeah, Gin?"

"What happened that night?"

Fred and Molly both looked up at this. She knew they too had been wondering the exact same thing. They just didn't have the gall to say it, afraid of Charlie's reaction. The one thing they all did know was that whatever happened that night, it was very serious.

Charlie seemed surprised by the question and it took him a moment to gain his composure.

He said nothing.

xxx

Draco didn't know why he hadn't expected this- didn't know why he actually thought the Weaslette would be the only person walking through that door. When the hinges creaked again, it wasn't a young woman that entered, but two grown men who Draco recognized all too well. The first was a tall, lanky man with graying red hair. The second was shorter, his shaggy chestnut hair framing a thin, wrinkled face. Arthur Weasley and Remus Lupin.

Draco nearly sighed, but in his numb condition, he found it impossible.

The pair were staring at him thoughtfully, completely silent.

Awkward…

Finally Draco croaked, "Well, gentlemen, why don't you have a seat? Make yourselves at home." Though the pain in his throat had disappeared with Ginny's (or Hestia's) potion, it did nothing to ease his cracking tone.

In his blue eyes, Arthur looked amused and he took the seat Ginny had been sitting in just moments ago. Remus simply looked uncomfortable, pulling up a stool from across the room.

Silence again.

This time it was Arthur who broke it. "You saved my son that night." It was a statement that hung thick in the air like fog..

Maybe because it was true.

Draco nodded. "I know."

It was a moment before anyone could respond. Oh, how uncomfortable situations could take the words out of one's mouth.

"Why?" Arthur asked finally.

Draco honestly did not know the answer.

Why had he done it? That night was so much of a blur.

Hogsmeade- the raid the Dark Lord had been planning for months, an attack so great it would lure the elusive Harry Potter out of his hiding, the battle that could have been the final- but it wasn't. It wasn't even close.

It had been a miracle when just three years ago, the Dark Lord had accepted Draco back into his fold. The attack on Hogwarts had been a disaster. Yes, Dumbledore was dead, it was hardly the way the Dark Lord had planned it. After hours of begging, torture, and Snape's kind persuasion, Draco was still considered a Death Eater, but no longer did he have the respect that a Malfoy deserved. He was thrown to the bottom of the food chain- just another one of Voldemort's nameless goons. And he hated it.

He had joined for the glory, for the power, for the respect and suddenly, he was nothing- a coward and a weakling in the eyes of those who were no longer his peers.

Not only that, as part of the deal for his return into the Circle, Malfoy Manor, his ancestral home, had been handed over to the Dark Lord- now a haven for his Death Eaters. It was practically Voldemort's resort as only the very best of his followers were allowed to lounge there. All while Narcissa Malfoy- Draco's beautiful, elegant mother- waited on them hand and foot. He had met her in the village by the Manor any chance she could get away from the servitude the Dark Lord had enslaved her in as punishment for Draco's cowardice. There he could see her once perfect hands red with work and wear and her once immaculate clothes were fraying at the seams. Thank Salazar his father was still in Azkaban. It would kill him to see what the Malfoys had become.

The guilt was overwhelming.

It was Draco's error- and his cowardice- that had landed his mother in such an awful fix. She was a woman who had done nothing wrong in her entire life, a saint in Draco's eyes. She did not deserve the cruel treatment he had caused her. And yet, there was nothing he could do. None of his fellow Death Eaters would help him and a plea to the Dark Lord would certainly mean death. Hell, Aunt Bella would do nothing to stop this madness and Narcissa was her sister!

He hated it. He hated to see her tired and weary like she had not eaten in days- like she was some sort of house-elf. She belonged in satin gowns and golden tiaras- not rags. Every time he thought about it, he got sicker and sicker.

Oh, the plots he had come up with- the plans to rescue her. But how could he, a lowly servant of the Dark Lord, save her from the wrath of all his followers all by himself? He could not- not without help.

But with help…

Draco had never been a killer. He hated the sounds of battle, the screams of death. Lifeless eyes and frozen hands disturbed him. They brought no pleasure- not like they did for the Dark Lord, or for Aunt Bella, or even for his father. The life of a Death Eater no longer held the appeal it had in his younger years. Now it wasn't anything but a burden- a way to survive.

He needed help. He needed to get out and to get his mother out as well.

The only possibility, he knew all too well, was the Order of the Phoenix. He had considered everyone else- but no one was strong enough, or kind enough, to help him in such a way. The Order of the Phoenix, his only chance at salvation, was founded by the very wizard he had tried to murder three years ago. Oh, the irony.

Still, they were his only chance- an impossible chance. So he never pursued it, only thinking in the back of his head, sure to let no one know of his wish to get away.

In Hogsmeade, when he had seen that red-haired Order member, Draco did not know what came over him. It was when that man was lying there, writhing on the ground from the Cruciatus Curse and too worn out to fend off the hex about to hit him, that Draco did something very reckless.

He jumped.

He jumped in front of Charlie Weasley and the Sectumsempra coming at him.

Draco had considered going to the Order so many times, but only in the wee hours of the night, when sleep seemed to be a far off place. He had never been serious about it. Unfortunately, due to rash instinct, he had taken things entirely out of his own hands.

He had ripped the mask off his face then, conjuring a defensive charm around him and the Weasley boy. Her hood and mask still covered her face, but Draco recognized the attacker's confident sway and demeaning laugh- Aunt Bella. Weasley had laid on the ground behind Draco as he tried to recover. Bella had been surprised by Draco at first, but only enough for him to throw one hex at her. She responded with fervor, dueling her nephew until he was on his knees, bleeding with more pain than he had ever experienced.

It was then that a flash of red flew across his vision. Just as he had saved Charlie Weasley, Charlie Weasley was saving him. He heard Bella scream and suddenly he felt himself being carried. The rest he couldn't even begin to remember.

He didn't know what sort of answer they were expecting. Maybe that he did it out of sheer kindness or out of nobility. But that wasn't Draco. That wasn't even close.

That was Potter.

He hadn't saved Charlie Weasley out of goodness or heroics. He had done it because deep down, Draco wanted out and saving a Weasley had seemed like the best way to do it. It was an act performed out of purely selfish reasoning and to be honest, part of him was regretting it.

So why?

"I don't want to be part of that anymore."

Might as well tell the truth, he guessed.

And he explained it all to them- his cowardice, his return, his loss of the Manor, his mother, and his sudden reckless need to get out- to get help. He explained to them it was selfish. He explained to them it was wrong. Be he also explained he felt better being selfish than living behind a Death Eater's mask the rest of his life.

They didn't agree.

"Mr. Malfoy," Lupin said quietly when Draco had finished, "I'd hardly call that selfishness."

"What would you call it then?" Draco snapped. He was feeling vulnerable enough as it was, anxious about how they would react. He had told them the truth and he knew it was stupid, but he figured he might as well kick off his career as an ex- Death Eater with an honest start.

"I'd call that," Remus laughed sheepishly like he honestly didn't believe it, "bravery, actually."

Draco was speechless.

"Yes, you were thinking of yourself, Mr. Malfoy, but you were thinking of your mother as well. Not only that, you risked your life, however selfishly, and we all owe you greatly for that," Arthur said. "I would have lost another son if it had not been for you."

No cursing? No uproar? No punishment or torturous interrogation? Salazar, he had made a good choice in going to the Order for help. These two didn't seem mad about anything.

Suddenly, he remembered Ginny's reaction. Maybe he should prepare for more hostility regardless of how Lupin and Mr. Weasley were taking it.

"I'm not proud of what I did- saving him, I mean," Draco said defensively. He was sneering.

"You don't have to be."

"Don't think I have any respect for you or your family either. I may be in a fix, but I am still a Malfoy. I know a gaggle of poverty ridden Muggle-lovers when I smell one."

It was true. The idea of staying with these blood traitors disgusted him. Sure, he didn't want to be a Death Eater anymore, but he hardly felt any different about Muggles and Mudbloods. It wasn't like he had changed.

"Obviously, you do," Arthur said in an amused tone, looking at the boy with a glint in his eye.

"Do what?"

"Respect us?"

"And why the hell would you think that?"

"You wouldn't have come to us for help if you didn't."

Fuck.

He had a point there.

xxx

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