Chapter 5: The Wrong Side

Ginny

Maybe Dumbledore already knows. Maybe telling him what she saw in the dungeons would change nothing. Certainly, Snape must know about the Dark Mark if he's truly in the inner circle, and Hermione is right in saying that Dumbledore trusts Snape. If Snape knows, then Dumbledore must know. So there is nothing to be anxious about. Whatever Draco is planning is probably too insignificant to matter.

Ginny closes her eyes. She can only justify her actions (or her inaction) for so long.

Most students are still in the Great Hall eating dinner, and the corridors are quiet. Ginny turns away from the winding staircase that leads up to the Gryffindor tower, deciding on a whim to go outside instead. The castle feels stuffy, and dense sunlight from the setting sun is flowing seductively through the high windows.

It's breezy outside. Ginny makes her way down a well-worn dirt path to the lake.

She knows she should tell Harry what she saw.

She should have already told Harry.

But there is everything else. Everything she can't say to Harry.

Suddenly, she is thinking about kissing Draco again, and she feels the familiar dizzying rush. It's just a crush. Some kind of ridiculous, dysfunctional crush.

Melting ice is floating on the water in patches, with the edges already thawed and marshy-looking. The ground is spongy underfoot.

Ginny hears footsteps behind her. She turns around to see a group of young Hufflepuff girls laughing together. She keeps walking, increasing her pace. It feels good to move, to breathe the cold air and just get out of her head for a moment.

She hears footsteps again. She turns around, and this time, it's him. "What do you want?" she calls.

He jogs up to her. He glances quickly and nervously at the Hufflepuff girls, but they are engrossed in their own conversation, walking in the opposite direction.

Ginny frowns. Draco would be embarrassed to be caught running after her like this. Of course he would. Whatever kissing they did in the dark crannies of the castle, he would probably die before he'd let any one of his Slytherin friends see him touch her. A blood traitor, he called her.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" she says again.

"Where are you going?" he asks. He falls into step with her.

"Nowhere."

"Yeah, me too." He smiles at her sideways.

"Aren't you worried that someone will see us?" Ginny asks.

"There's nobody here," says Draco. He shoves his hands in his pockets and they walk down the bending dirt path around the contour of the lake until the Hufflepuff girls are far behind them.

"And what if there were?" asks Ginny. "What if there were people around? You wouldn't be caught dead talking to me like this, walking beside me like we're...some kind of friends," she finishes lamely.

"Oh, and you would be ok with that, would you?" he scoffs. "If you saw Potter coming this way, you'd probably jump into the lake, never mind the hypothermia."

He was right. If Harry could see her now…Merlin, that would be a disaster. "So maybe that means we're not meant to be here together. If we can't even fess up to having a conversation in front of our friends, then it must be pretty bad."

"You're probably right, Weasley." Draco nudges her softly with his shoulder. "So why did you come out here? Really? You left the Great Hall in a hurry."

"I just needed some air, I guess. It's too stuffy in the castle." She looks at him. He is tall and lanky, and he looks good in his green and silver robes. His pale cheeks have turned patchy red in the breeze, and his grey eyes are kind, not narrowed in anger. "Why did you come out here, Malfoy? And why do you keep looking at me in the Great Hall? I can see you, you know."

"How can I not look at you?" he says, exasperated. Ginny raises an eyebrow. "No, I mean…I didn't mean…" His cheeks flush brighter. She watches the flush creep up the back of his neck, out from the collar of shirt, and she tries to contain her smile.

He avoids her eyes and shoves his hands deeper into his pockets. "I mean, the reason I'm looking at you is because I'm obviously on edge. You know what you saw in the dungeons. You hold all the cards, Weasley. Every morning I wake up, and I wonder if this will be the day I get carted off to Azkaban."

"I told you I'd give you time," says Ginny. "I said I wouldn't go to Dumbledore straight away, and I haven't. But you promised you would stop doing whatever it is Lord Voldemort has ordered you to do."

He winces at the name, but Ginny says it brashly. To say anything else would be to cower in the face of evil, to give in to fear. Harry taught her that. She gives him a hard, probing look. "And you haven't stopped, have you Malfoy?"

"I have," he insists. "I haven't done anything wrong."

"I know you're still up to something," Ginny hisses, losing her temper. "You're just a liar, aren't you? Of course you are, what am I saying? You've got no morals. You're a Death Eater!"

"Keep your voice down." He looks panicked.

They walk a little way in silence.

They are almost around the bend of the large lake, heading back towards the castle. The sun is low and spread thin across the clouds, and the air is wet and cold. It smells like half-bloomed flowers and new, windblown grass.

"I don't know what you've heard, Weasley, but it's not true. Anyway, how would you know what I'm doing or not doing? It's not like you can see me every minute of every day."

No, thinks Ginny, but Harry can.

She can't tell him that, though. Just as Ginny can't tell Harry about Draco's Dark Mark, she wouldn't dare talk to Draco about the Marauder's Map, or Harry's meetings with Dumbledore, or anything associated with the Order. He's on the wrong side, she reminds herself. If this were a story, he'd be one of the bad guys. And she kissed him. And she liked it. And even now she can imagine touching him again. "Who else has seen the Mark?" Ginny asks.

He thinks for a minute before answering. "Nobody at Hogwarts."

"Not even Pansy?"

He looks confused. "Why would Pansy have seen it?"

"She's your girlfriend, isn't she?"

Draco looks at her sideways. "You're jealous of Pansy?"

"Don't sounds so pleased, Malfoy."

"I am pleased."

"I'm not jealous," Ginny says. "I just assumed, you know, that she's seen you without, I don't know, without your shirt on." Now she feels embarrassed.

Draco looks amused. "Oh, well, she has actually. I mean, so have loads of people. I live in a dormitory with a bunch of blokes, don't I?"

"So…"

"I use a concealment charm. I also try to keep it hidden, obviously, but if I know that someone might see or if I have to get changed for Quidditch practice or something, I use the charm." He pauses. "It's difficult to maintain, though. It's not like hiding a birthmark, or even a regular tattoo." Draco looks pained. "It's like it doesn't like being hidden; like it knows what I'm doing and it fights my magic."

"Oh," Ginny breathes. "That's awful." She can't help herself. "How could you let him do that to you? To put that piece of himself on your flesh?"

He's stopped walking and he's looking at her like he's also just realizing that she's on the wrong team, that they don't have any single shared thing between them. "It's an honour," he says softly, but defiantly. "Do you know how many students at Hogwarts have the Mark? Nobody else."

"Well, of course not."

"I was chosen. He chose me because I am worthy."

"Worthy of what? Of destroying people's lives? Of bringing back darkness and despair to the Wizarding world?"

"It's not like that." He looks annoyed. "I am a pureblood wizard. I come from a long line of powerful witches and wizards, of those loyal to magic. Loyal to this world. The Muggles are weak and stupid, and given half a chance, they would destroy us. You know they would. It's why we've got the Statute of Secrecy, isn't it? Well, some wizards feel it's not fair for us to hide, to grovel at those who are weaker. We are powerful enough to destroy them, yet we've got to hide and slink around as if we've got something to be ashamed of."

"Spoken like a true Death Eater," says Ginny. "What if I were a Muggle, or Muggle-born? Would you truss me up like an animal, like your lot did at the Triwizard Tournament?"

"You're not a Mudblood."

"Don't you dare use that word." It's twilight and the air around them is all shades of blue and grey. Ginny has drawn her wand. His hand is inside his robes, but he's too slow once again. "You're disgusting, Malfoy. I don't know what came over me before. Temporary insanity, maybe."

"You're being stupid," he hisses. There's a desperation to his tone. "You're just brainwashed by Potter and Dumbledore and your Muggle-loving father."

Ginny feels something hot and raw bubbling inside her. What is she doing out here, in the dark, with this awful person. He may not be sneering and sarcastic, but he is still every bit as terrible as he's always been.

"Everyone knows Arthur Weasley is mad about Muggles," Draco hisses. "He's always fiddling with their rubbish. He's a laughing stock at the ministry."

Ginny feels angry enough to cry, or to scream into the darkness. "Get away from me, Malfoy. Don't come near me again." She sucks in a shaky breath, jabbing her wand at his chest. "If you speak to me again, I will hex you. I promise you that."

She could barely see his face gleaming in the moonlight. His expression is unreadable. Ginny shoves him away with her wand arm, and he takes a staggering step backwards. Then, she turns around and runs the rest of the way down the dirt path, all the way back to the castle doors. She doesn't look back, and she doesn't hear his footsteps. It's after curfew, and she's supposed to be back in the common room.


Draco

Pansy breaks away from her conversation with Millicent Bulstrode and hurries towards Draco as soon as he walks into the Slytherin common room.

"Oh, there you are, Draco. I was just working on our Potions essay with Millicent. Have you done it yet? Can you help us? You're so good at Potions." She beams at him. When he doesn't immediately respond, she keeps talking. "I was wondering where you'd gotten to after dinner. Crabbe nicked a pet toad from one of the second years and tossed it back and forth with Goyle. It was a riot until that half-breed centaur came down from the Astronomy Tower and took points from Slytherin. My mum says Dumbledore's gone senile, letting beasts teach classes inside the castle, putting everyone's safety at risk…" Her voice tapers off. "You look like you've been outside. Your hair is all blown about." She smiles at him, nervously this time. She brushes her own short black hair behind one ear.

"Yeah, I was outside." Draco says. He walks past Pansy and shoos a couple of first years off his favourite armchair. He sits down and crosses his arms, staring straight ahead, unsure if the unhappy feeling pressing on his chest is rooted in anger or anxiety.

His heart is still pounding from the argument. He wants to call Weasley back, to grab her by the shoulders and shake her until she sees through her Potter-induced delusions and actually hears him out.

"It must be pitch black outside. You were out there after hours? You're not afraid of getting caught?" Pansy perches on the armrest next to him, still clutching her Potions scroll. She sounds impressed.

Traditionally, this is the part in the conversation where Draco says he isn't afraid of getting caught, that he isn't afraid of breaking Dumbledore's rules because his father can get him out of any jam. This year, however, with Father locked away in Azkaban, Draco has had to allude to forces even greater than Lucius Malfoy, and to concerns more weighty than the minutia of school life.

"I've got bigger things to care about than some stupid curfew," he tells Pansy. "You know, none of this matters in the real world – house points and curfews and all that." Pansy looks impressed, and Draco feels a tiny bit better. "Now that the Dark Lord has returned, it is only a matter of time before those of us who remained loyal are rewarded, and those who defied him are punished."

Pansy looks even more impressed, but Draco has an unpleasant taste in his mouth. He sounds just like Father. How many times has Lucius Malfoy uttered those exact words? Now he is in Azkaban, and Draco is tasked with an impossible mission with his life on the line. That hardly seems like a reward.

Pansy reaches up to stroke his hair back into place, her fingers brushing his temple. "Don't worry, Draco," she says softly, correctly interpreting the troubled look in his eyes. "Your father will be out of Azkaban soon enough. I bet it's only a matter of time before the Dark Lord has control of Azkaban and the Ministry, and soon all of the stupid Mudbloods will be kicked out of Hogwarts."

"Show me your Potions essay," he tells her, reaching up to take her hand. "We can work on it together." In truth, he hasn't started his own essay. Snape would probably give him some leeway, but Draco doesn't want to give the Potions Master any excuse to take him aside and question him about the state of the Dark Lord's assignment.

Snape was livid after Ron Weasley drank the poisoned wine that Draco had intended for Dumbledore. He doesn't feel like confessing the extent of his ineptitude to the Potions Master. The cabinet is no closer to being fixed, and the end of the school year is quickly approaching.

A new thought creeps into his mind: what would Ginny say if she knew he'd been the one that nearly killed her brother at Christmas? What if Ron Weasley had actually died? Draco feels a swell of guilt, and swallows it down.

It's just weakness. He needs to steel himself.

If he wants power, if he wants greatness, then he needs to be strong enough to kill for it.

Feeling exhausted, he unrolls an empty scroll next to Pansy's. "Let's get started. The Most Widely Used Draughts in the Modern