Chapter 6: Sectumsempra

Draco

The following afternoon, Draco gives Crabbe a dose of Polyjuice potion and slips into the Room of Requirement.

The tall chamber is crowded with odds and ends, but Draco only has eyes for the vanishing cabinet. He has put in so many hours and so many months trying and failing to repair it. None of the standard mending charms did any good. He was beginning to despair when he came across a library book containing spells to repair magical artefacts. The book had an entire section on bewitched cabinets and wardrobes, and now Draco is making his way through the section, hoping that something will stick.

After an hour of fiddling with the complicated wandwork, he is ready to tear his own hair out in frustration. He storms out of the room to find Grabbe waiting for him, the Polyjuice potion worn off. "Come on," he grunts.

Grabbe frowns. "How much longer is this gonna take?" he whines. "I'm sick of looking like a little girl, standing around this hallway. There isn't no one here anyway. Haven't you done it yet?"

"I told you not to ask questions," Draco scowls. "This is important business for the Dark Lord. Do you want to displease the Dark Lord, Grabbe?"

Grabbe quiets down, but he looks upset. Draco decides to risk showing him the Dark Mark next time if he continues being difficult. One thing he has enjoyed, in spite of everything else, is the look of shock and fear that crosses people's eyes when he shows them the Mark. For once, they take him seriously.

Draco and Grabbe make their way down the castle steps. Ahead, he catches sight of Ginny Weasley.

It's her audacious hair that makes her impossible to miss, even when she is surrounded by people (which she constantly is).

A little ways away, on the landing below, he notices Potter and his sidekicks. Granger and Weasley are engaged in some argument, but Potter's gaze is locked on Ginny.

He is looking at her with such naked longing that Draco wants to shout at him to stop, to charge at Potter and push him aside, thrust him to the ground, anything to smother that look before Ginny can notice. A feeling of futile hatred surges through Draco so suddenly that he's surprised Potter can't feel it emanating towards him.

If Potter wants her, it's only a matter of time before they end up together.

Ginny and her friends disappear around a corner, and students surge into the hallway on their way to the Great Hall for lunch.

Draco stands rooted to the spot, his insides twisting with anger at the unfairness of it. Famous Harry Potter has gotten everything Draco's ever wanted so effortlessly, so why not her as well.

"You go ahead," he tells Crabbe, who has already joined the queue into the Great Hall. "I'm not hungry. I'll eat later." He turns and walks quickly away from the crowd, elbowing his way between groups of chattering students. He fights his way down the staircase against the flow of bodies, bursts through the main doors, and finds himself outside by the lake again, walking briskly down the same dirt path that winds around the water. What does it matter, really, if Potter and Weasley begin dating? She's made it clear that she wants nothing to do with him.

Draco replays their argument in his mind. He has to agree with her – they are fundamentally different. She opposes everything he believes in. Or thought he believed in.

His father would call him a coward, questioning his ideals for a pretty face, for a Weasley of all people, but that's not the extent of it. The doubts and the fears had begun to seep into his mind long before that night in the dungeons.

His father has been telling stories of the Dark Lord's reign since Draco was a child: a time when the Malfoy name had been given the reverence it deserved, when the purity of their blood stood for something. Yet now that the Dark Lord has finally returned, how quickly Lucius Malfoy has fallen to disfavor, locked away in Azkaban. Meanwhile, his mother is so consumed with worry she's practically having a nervous breakdown, and Draco has been given an impossible assignment that nobody thinks he can accomplish.

He'd accused Ginny Weasley of being brainwashed by her Muggle-loving father, but couldn't she say the same of him?

The wind whistles in his ears and Draco shivers in the cold, but he keeps walking down the path, pounding out his jumbled thoughts into the dirt.

Dumbledore may be a Mudblood-lover, he may favour Harry Potter and his cronies, but at least he is somehow predictable in his actions. If nothing else, Dumbledore is a man of his word: he does not act rashly, does not murder indiscriminatingly.

Murder.

Is that his fate, once he fails to complete his mission? Draco's eyes sting in the wind. He blinks furiously. Stop it! He thinks. Don't be stupid. Control yourself.

Wiping his face roughly on his sleeve, he leaves the path for a patch of trees and leans heavily against a knotty oak. He wishes she were here, so he could speak to her about all this. She is the only one he could ever voice these thoughts to – certainly, he could never say anything to his friends or housemates, not after the way he's been boasting about the Dark Lord's return, dropping confident hints about his role in the inner circle. He slumps down and buries his face in his hands. How did everything go so wrong so quickly?


Ginny

She has never been to Dumbledore's office. In her first year after she'd been lifted out of the Chamber of Secrets, after Tom Riddle's memory had been vanquished from the diary, Dumbledore visited her in the hospital wing and they had had a long talk. Apart from that night, she's never had reason to seek out the headmaster, and doesn't truly know how to find him. She could ask Harry of course, but Ginny isn't going to bring this up with Harry, or anyone else. She wants to tell Dumbledore about Draco Malfoy's Dark Mark on her own terms.

In the end, she decides to approach McGonagall after Transfiguration. After waiting for the other students to clear out, she tells her friends that she has a question about the Transfiguration OWL and makes her way to the front of the room.

"Professor," she says tentatively.

"Yes, Miss Weasley?"

Ginny nears her desk, fiddling with the slipper she was meant to be transforming into a bird. "I need to speak with Professor Dumbledore. Could you help me arrange a meeting?"

McGonagall looks surprised and wary. "What is this about, Miss Weasley?"

"I can't say, Professor," Ginny says. "It's about a fellow student." She thinks of Draco's face in the setting sun by the lake and tries to recall her outrage from that night. "It's a matter of privacy, I guess. It's important for me to speak only with the headmaster."

"Very well, Miss Weasley, if you're sure you can't elaborate?" Ginny shakes her head, and McGonagall purses her lips. "The headmaster is indisposed at the moment, but you may speak with him in the evening after dinner. Come to the third floor corridor at eight o'clock this evening. I will be waiting for you in front of the gargoyle statue."

Ginny nods her thanks and leaves the room.

The afternoon goes by excruciatingly slowly. Time stands still in Potions, then drags through Arithmancy. Ginny does not fully taste the food she picks at during dinner, and she doesn't hear the chatter of her fellow fifth-year Gryffindors. In her head, she's rehearsing the conversation she will have with the headmaster, and then justifying her decision to Draco. The Draco Malfoy in her head is always defensive and rude and a little pathetic, but also really good-looking in his silver-green robes, a smirk wavering on those pale lips.

Finally, it is a quarter to eight. As Ginny attempts to slip through the portrait hole, her friend Concepta thrusts out an arm to block her way.

"Where are you off to in such a rush?"

"I'm just going to the library," Ginny invents. "There's a book I forgot to grab earlier, and I need it for my Transfiguration essay."

"Oh is there now? A book?"

Ginny laughs. "Yes! Come on Concepta, don't be weird."

"How cute is this book? On a scale of one to ten?"

Ginny rolls her eyes. "Don't be stupid."

Concepta gives her a probing look. "You've been really mysterious lately, Ginny. It's not like you. I know you and Dean broke up, and, well…"

"It's not a boy, I swear." Although it sort of is a boy. "I've just got a lot on my mind. Come on Concepta, I need to go." She finally makes it out of the portrait hole, and

hurries down the steps to the third floor. There is a rather hideous statue of a gargoyle at the foot of the landing. A few minutes after Ginny arrives, Dumbledore himself approaches the statue from the other end of the corridor. He walks slowly. Ginny notices the blackened hand hanging uselessly at his side. She's seen it before in the Great Hall of course, but up close it looks even more awful.

"Chocolate frog," he says good-naturedly, and the gargoyle steps aside to reveal a stone staircase rising into the air, leading up to the headmaster's office. "Good evening, Miss Weasley." he says.

"Thank you for seeing me, Professor Dumbledore," she says breathlessly. "I need to talk to you about…"

"Let us go up to my office, shall we?" he interrupts. He sounds weary. He seems to have aged a decade since she's last seen him up close: his face is thinner and deeply lined. He makes his way slowly up the stone steps.

In silence, Ginny follows. His office strikes her as immensely interesting, filled with all sorts of mysterious whirring objects. A stone basin stands on a pedestal near a large desk. Fawkes, Dumbledore's beautiful red and gold phoenix, is asleep in one corner of the circular room. Portraits of past headmasters cover the walls, some watching Ginny attentively, while others are snoozing or reading, and still others are absent from their frames altogether. Dumbledore walks around to sit behind his desk, and motions Ginny to take a seat in the chair opposite. "Now, Ginny, what can I do for you this evening?"

Ginny squirms in the seat. She has come this far; there is no changing her mind now. "I've come to speak with you about Draco Malfoy," she begins.

Dumbledore looks mildly surprised, but does not say anything, waiting instead for Ginny to continue.

Ginny finds that it is more difficult to say these words out loud to the real Dumbledore than to speak to an imaginary headmaster in her mind. She takes a shaky breath. "Draco Malfoy has become a Death Eater, Professor Dumbledore."

"Yes, our friend Harry is also quite concerned about Mr. Malfoy. Do you know that he's already spoken to me about his suspicions?"

"I know, Professor," Ginny says quickly, "and I know that you've told Harry not to concern himself with Draco, but these are not just suspicions. I've seen his Dark Mark for myself. He's told me the truth."

"Has he now?" There is the tone of mild surprise again, and Dumbledore looks at Ginny from behind his spectacles, his blue eyes not unkind, but curious. "However did you manage to convince Mr. Malfoy to take you into his confidence? If you don't mind me asking…"

Ginny is thrown by this question. She is prepared to tell Dumbledore the extent of what she knows about Draco's Dark Mark, which admittedly is not much, but she was not expecting to provide the exact details of their relationship. Ginny's face feels too hot. She knows she is blushing, and thinking about herself blushing only makes her blush more furiously.

"Umm…" she searches for a plausible story. She could say that she forced the information from Draco at wand-point, or that he accidentally left his sleeve rolled-up and she caught him unawares…but these lies sound wholly improbable under Dumbledore's pleasant yet probing gaze. "We had detention together in the dungeons last week," she begins. "We were cleaning up dugbogs for Mr. Filch, and Draco, um, I mean, Malfoy seemed very upset that night. We were alone, and we began…talking…and…" Ginny squirms in her seat. She takes a deep breath. "He showed me his Dark Mark, and he admitted he's on a secret mission for Voldemort." Her voice wavers only slightly at the name. "He wouldn't tell me exactly what the mission is, but I know he hasn't given it up."

Dumbledore nods. "I see." He pauses to think for a moment. "Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Ginny. I will ask you to keep this information to yourself for the time being."

"What are you going to do?" she asks. When he doesn't immediately answer, she leans forward in her seat. "I know it's bad, Professor Dumbledore, but I don't think Draco Malfoy is completely evil or anything."

"Nobody is completely evil, dear Ginny, just as nobody is completely good. We are all of us both good and evil at different times, in different circumstances. This is what it means to be human."

Ginny nods. "Yes, but I just mean, he's not all bad. I think he's scared, Professor Dumbledore. He feels like he has no choice, like he's trapped." Is she defending him? Ginny swallows hard. "Maybe you could help him," she says in a small voice. "I don't want him to get hurt."

Dumbledore nods. "Mr. Malfoy is poised to do terrible things, and if he succeeds, he must take responsibility for them. Fear is not an adequate excuse." He pauses. "However, I believe you're right Ginny in your assessment of Mr. Malfoy. I have to say, I've known about Draco's predicament for some time."

"You have, then," sighs Ginny. "I thought you might know, but I had to tell you anyway, to be sure."

"Thank you for coming to me. Once again, I urge you to keep this information to yourself. I have made efforts to help Mr. Malfoy as best I can, but this is a sensitive case – if I appear to know too much, Draco may find himself in even graver danger."

"Do you know what his mission is, then?"

Dumbledore looks very tired. Ginny wonders if he is ill. "I do, Ginny. I do not think you need concern yourself with the details." He pauses to catch his breath. "I think you'd better head back to the Gryffindor common room."

Feeling dismissed, Ginny thanks the headmaster again, and walks back down the winding staircase to the ugly gargoyle. She thought she would feel better after speaking to Dumbledore, but she feels the same: worried and restless.

After a quick detour to the library (Concepta would want to see the book that Ginny allegedly borrowed), she hurries back up the stairs to the seventh floor. She's out of breath by the time she climbs into the portrait hole. She takes a few steps into the common room, and stops short in surprise. "Katie!" Ginny exclaims. Katie Bell is sitting on an armchair with a group of seventh years, a thick stack of books and scrolls scattered around them. She looks just fine – smiling and chatty, her cheeks reddened from the heat in the fireplace. "You're back! It's so good to see you back!"

"Hi Ginny! I got back this morning. I can't believe nobody's told you yet. Harry's already scheduled Quidditch practice first thing tomorrow morning."

"I've been a bit preoccupied, I guess." Ginny stares at Katie. "But you're OK?" she asks, though she can glean the answer from the other girl's energetic demeanor.

"I'm fine now, and before you ask, I don't know who sent me that necklace. Everyone's been asking me, but I have no memory of it at all." She sighs. "It's really a drag. I've missed so much school for nothing. I've got loads of homework of course, and I'm gutted that I missed the last Quidditch match. I heard McLaggen was a disaster."

Ginny makes a gagging noise, and Katie laughs. "It's so great to have you back, Katie. It really is."

"I can't wait to get back on the field tomorrow morning," Katie says.

"Now that you're back, and Ron's healthy again, we're going to be unstoppable!" Ginny feels suddenly full of energy. The thought of possibly winning the Quidditch cup fills her with excitement, with purpose. She runs up the stairs to the girls' dormitory and scoops the pile of neglected study books into her arms. Her first OWL exam is less than a month away. It's time to stop putting her life on hold for Draco Malfoy.

He doesn't completely leave her mind. She still watches him out of the corner of her eye during mealtimes, as Pansy Parkinson drapes herself all over him and makes him fruit plates at breakfast, and Crabbe and Goyle laugh at his (probably) banal jokes during dinner. Since he is a year ahead, they don't share any classes, but in the corridors she'll catch him looking at her when nobody else is near.

He never approaches her, and though she wants to go to him sometimes, to ask him about the growing shadows beneath his eyes, she walks resolutely onward and pushes Draco from her mind. He is not a part of her life. She will not be friends with a willing Death Eater. She has told Dumbledore what she knows, and she needs to trust that the headmaster is better equipped to handle the situation.

As she delves fully back into her life, Ginny wonders how she ever had the headspace for anything else. Alarming piles of homework, OWL study sessions, and early morning Quidditch practices overwhelm her free time. Now that the Gryffindor team is whole again, everyone is in good spirits.

The game with Ravenclaw is on Saturday, and even though a 300 point victory is a long shot, everyone on the team feels the win is within their grasp. On the pitch, Ginny is buoyed by the cold spring winds, infected by the team's optimism.

She laughs easily and often.

She laughs often with Harry.

She notices that his gaze is becoming less tentative and more forward, his affection spilling out in his jokes and his lopsided grins. Unsure how she feels about this, Ginny keeps her distance. She surrounds herself with friends when Harry is near, when he has that soft look in his eyes. She isn't ready to face him alone, unable to fully recall that feeling of wanting Harry Potter so badly that she could think of nothing else.

If Harry does ask her out, she isn't sure how she'll respond. Thankfully, Ron is committed to discussing Quidditch strategy at every waking moment and refuses to leave Harry's side.

It's a few days before the big match with Ravenclaw, and Ginny spends the afternoon in the library surrounded by dusty tomes, researching an essay for Professor Slughorn. As she and Concepta finally make it out into the light of day with ink-stained fingers, Alicia and Katie intercept Ginny on the way to Great Hall with the news that Harry has earned detention with Snape and won't play Seeker in the final match.

"You can't be serious!" cries Ginny, furious. "That's not fair! Snape just has it out for us, the greasy bastard."

"What did Harry do to get detention?" Concepta asks, sitting down at the Gryffindor table.

"Nearly killed Malfoy in the boys' bathroom," says Alicia nonchalantly, filing her plate with Yorkshire puddings and roasted meat. "Moaning Myrtle won't shut up about it. She's been coming up through the pipes in all the girls' toilets, telling anyone who will listen how Harry Potter is a murderer, and how gory and bloody the whole affair was."

"Is he OK?" Ginny asks. Her insides squirm.

"Who? Harry? Yeah, he's fine. He's choked up about the game, though. Merlin, I really thought we were going to win this time," says Katie.

"Don't talk like we don't have a chance!" Alicia retorts. "Dean is a decent Chaser, and Ginny, you'll fill-in as Seeker."

"What happened to Malfoy?" Ginny asks. "Does he have detention too?"

"He's in the hospital wing," Alicia says. "I think he's hurt pretty bad. Myrtle says Harry did some kind of dark magic on him, but I don't believe that. Harry wouldn't do that."

"No," Ginny agrees faintly. "He wouldn't." She looks around, but doesn't see Harry at the dinner table. Ron and Hermione aren't there either. It's still early in the day for dinner, and the Gryffindor table is mostly empty.

Lee Jordan leans over to join their conversation. "I heard Malfoy was the one who started the whole thing. He was trying to curse Harry. With an Unforgivable Curse," he adds, pausing for emphasis. "Harry was just defending himself."

"That sounds like Malfoy," Katie agrees. "Trust a Slytherin to use an illegal curse at school."

"Too bad we can't prove it," says Lee Jordan. "Myrtle was the only witness, but she's not exactly a reliable narrator, what with all the wailing and the overflowing toilets."

Ginny makes a show of moving the food around on her plate while Katie and Alicia begin to talk Quidditch strategy. She leaves the Great Hall with her food half-eaten. Concepta shoots her a concerned look, but Ginny doesn't stop to explain.

She wants very much to go the hospital wing to have a look at him. Myrtle does like to exaggerate, but even Alicia said he was hurt pretty badly. But the hospital wing is probably full of Slytherins. Ginny isn't prepared to be seen visiting Draco Malfoy's sickbed, and she's sure Draco wouldn't appreciate her making an appearance in broad daylight. It's not her place, anyway. He's not her friend.

He's not her anything.

A dislocated feeling of anger and worry rises in her throat like bile. He probably deserved it, she thinks.

Ginny climbs the staircase to the Gryffindor Tower. She steps through the portrait hall in time to see Hermione berating Harry about his Potions textbook.

Hermione is fully indignant, waving her arms for emphasis. "How can you still stick up for that book when the spell - "

"Will you stop harping on about the book!" Harry interrupts, sounding cross.

Ginny frowns and listens in. The tension in the room fuels her own frustration, and it feels good not to push it back down for once. She pieces together details of the bathroom duel and the spell in the textbook written by the unidentified Prince. Hermione won't let it go, and Harry won't quit defending his textbook, and the anger is tight in Ginny's chest as she watches them argue, back and forth.

"Oh give it a rest, Hermione," she finally exhales, and Harry's eyes whip up to catch hers in surprise. How can she go on and on about some stupid book when Harry and Draco nearly murdered each in the boys lavatory. "By the sound of it, Malfoy was trying to use an Unforgivable Curse." Just like the bloody Death Eater he is, she almost adds. Instead she says, "You should be glad Harry had something good up his sleeve."

"Well of course I'm glad Harry wasn't cursed," says Hermione, sounding both surprised and hurt at Ginny's intervention. "But you can't call that Sectumsempra spell good, Ginny. Look where it's landed him! And I'd have thought, seeing at what this has done to your chances at the match- "

"Oh, don't start acting as though you understand Quidditch, you'll only embarrass yourself." Ginny snaps.

Hermione is too shocked to respond. Harry and Ron stare from her to Hermione without saying a word, until Ron grabs a book from a nearby coffee table and disappears behind it.

Harry is trying to catch her eye. He looks surprised, but pleased – he is barely containing the grin that's threatening to erupt all over his face.

In the awkward, silent aftermath of the argument, Ginny finds an empty armchair and takes out the essay for Slughorn that she should have been working on all afternoon. She feels bad, but not bad enough to apologize. The anger in her chest has liquefied and cooled into a pool of worry. She wants to ask Harry for all the details, from the moment he spotted Draco Malfoy in the bathroom, to the moment Snape found Draco bleeding all over the floor. Was he breathing? Was he conscious? But Ginny doesn't think she can formulate the questions without sounding abnormal.

Instead, she waits for the evening to pass, finishes her essay, and goes up to the girls' dormitory at ten o'clock only to lie on her blankets in her pale blue nightgown and stare at the canopy of her bed.

She can hear the fifth-year girls sleeping all around her: even breathing, occasional hiccoughing coughs, irregular snores. She doesn't know what time it is, but it's pitch black in the room when Ginny gets out of bed and slips on a jumper over her nightgown. The floor is freezing. She tiptoes out of the room, down the staircase, and out of the portrait hole past the sleeping fat lady.

Keeping one eye out for Peeves, and the other for Filch and Mrs. Norris, Ginny makes her way through the silent castle, sticking to the shadows. The Bloody Baron floats up the corridor, and Ginny hides behind a suit of armour, then hurries into a secret passageway that Fred and George discovered in their second year, behind a large painting of a jolly monk. It takes her down several flights of stairs and just a stone's throw from the hospital wing.

Moonlight trickles from the high windows, casting patterned shadows on the covers of the empty hospital beds. Madame Pomfrey is nowhere to be seen – probably in her own chambers for the night. Ginny steps inside, her bare feet silent on the stone tiles.

Draco is asleep in the only occupied bed. He is ivory-coloured in a room made of shadows. As Ginny approaches, she can see his bare chest wrapped in bandages where his blanket has fallen away, some of them dark with seeping stains. Her own breathing sounds too-loud in all the stillness.

She leans down and watches him sleep. His white-blond hair is plastered to his forehead, and his eyelids quiver from time to time without opening. His breath is even. Ginny can see the lean muscle in his bare arms, and she can see thin, silver scars below his collarbone, snaking across his ivory chest where the bandages have already come off.

He wakes with a start, seemingly from nothing at all. Recognizing Ginny, he tries to sit up too quickly, and grimaces. His eyes are wide and grey, and Ginny thinks he looks just like a ghost in the moonlit room. Like he's already died, and come back to haunt her.


Draco

When he opens his eyes and sees her kneeling at the foot of his bed, he thinks at first that it's Pansy come back to check on him. Very quickly, though, he realizes who it is. Even in the darkness her orange hair is unmistakable.

"I still think you're an evil prat," she says. "I've only come to see that you're alive."

Still groggy from sleep and from the potion Madame Pomfrey had given him for the pain, Draco stares at Ginny for a long moment. She really is lovely in the moonlight, otherworldly.

Thin trickles of pain still course through his body where the scars are healing. Draco wants to sit up fully, but doesn't think he can manage it. "Your boyfriend tried to kill me," he says instead.

"I don't have a boyfriend," she says. "And you probably deserved it." She lifts herself up to sit on the edge of his bed. Ginny is wearing a fuzzy mauve Christmas jumper and a nightgown that doesn't quite reach her knees. Draco watches as she folds her long, pale legs beneath her. "Anyway, it was an accident. Harry didn't know what that spell would do."

"I kind of figured," says Draco. "I didn't think Potter knew any spells that cool, and if he did, he would never have the balls to use them."

"It's actually a good sort of spell for your complexion," Ginny says with a smirk. "All that blood spurting out against your pale skin must have looked really dramatic." She reaches over and traces the thin scars visible above his bandages, as if she can't quite help touching him. Then, she lays her palm flat against his bare chest to feel his heartbeat.

Draco doesn't say anything. He doesn't want to scare her away. Something occurs to her, and she turns to look at his left arm. There is a thick bandage all around his forearm where the Dark Mark is burned into his skin.

"Snape did that before he took me into the hospital wing. Lucky he was the first one to find me."

"So Snape knows, then," says Ginny.

Draco realizes he's given the Potions Master away. Would Ginny tell Dumbledore that he's not really a double agent, that he's on the Dark Lord's side after all? It's another thing he's got to worry about, but not now. He is too tired now to think about anything but Ginny Weasley running her fingers all along his chest, his arms, his face.

"I should go," she says finally. "I'm sorry you got hurt," she adds.

If Draco had the strength, he would lift his arms up to encompass her and draw her into him. "Stay with me," he says instead. "Just lie down here for a moment longer."

"I should let you rest," Ginny whispers. "You don't look so good."

"You should have seen me earlier," he says with a grin. He finds her hand with his own and lattices their fingers together. "Just for a little while," he whispers.

At first, it looks like she's going to leave. But then, carefully, she lies down next to him on the narrow hospital bed which really is only meant for one person. Her ridiculous jumper tickles his chest. After a moment, she slips her bare legs inside his blanket. "It's cold in here," she explains somewhat bashfully. Her legs press against his pajama bottoms, and Draco stifles a yelp as her ice-cold toes find his own.

"Where are your shoes?" he asks.

"There wasn't time for shoes," she says.