Chapter 12: Grimmauld Place

Draco

They put him up in the top bedroom of the old Black house, which Draco had never been to until now; Walburga Black, his mother's aunt and the last respected occupant of the home, died while he was still in nappies. Anyway, that whole side of the family was always pitied for their ill luck, with the oldest son prematurely dead and Sirius Black denouncing his own parents and running away from home. He was later thrown into Azkaban for a crime he apparently did not commit and escaped after years of torment, only to be killed by his own cousin.

Draco frowns, considering for the first time that his own choices are leading him down a similar path.

The room allotted him has a film of dust on every surface and more than a few spiders, but it's airy and uncluttered. There's a large window that opens wide to the street below. The sounds of drunken brawls and screaming babies float up into his room in the evenings. He lies on the stiff bed and stares at the ceiling. His mind rolls over the same thoughts: What did Snape tell the Dark Lord? What did he tell Mother, and does Father know, and will they forgive him or is Draco effectively dead to them now? Will he ever see his room and his things again? Will every one of his friends abandon him now?

Draco turns over on his side, watching the wooden shutters tremble in the evening breeze. The truth is, he doesn't have any true friends, nobody whom he misses terribly, and nobody who'd stick their neck out for him. Except Ginny Weasley. Maybe that's why he's gone and thrown his life upside down. Even Ginny's scorn and her anger is somehow more intimate, more real, than any of his so-called friendships.

Draco closes his eyes, listening to the rush of wind and the rumble of voices from below, feeling lonely and out of sorts.

A shrill voice booms from the darkness: Mudblood filth and blood traitors sullying my house!

His eyes shoot open. The cries of Mrs. Black ricochet off the wooden beams, and he can hear footsteps scurrying downstairs to pull the curtains shut. It means someone new has arrived.

Members of the Order of the Phoenix have continued to slip in and out of the house at all hours of the day. Draco has tried his best to remain invisible even though every one of them must know that he's hidden up here. When McGonagall first brought him to Grimmauld Place three days ago, he was questioned by Mad Eye Moody and Kingsley Shacklebot for two straight hours. Since then, nobody has asked anything of him. An old house elf brings him food, but he's otherwise left alone.

Still, without fully acknowledging why, he feels the need to check on every new arrival.

Draco pulls himself out of bed and steps into the dim corridor, lingering on the top landing. He looks down the stairwell to see several people crowding into the entranceway. He recognizes most of them. There's Lupin, the werewolf professor who was sacked in third year, and a young woman with vivid green hair who must be his cousin Nymphadora; he'd heard she was a metamorphmagus. The elder Weasleys are there of course. Ginny is not among them.

He's about to turn away when he hears his name. They're talking about him, in hushed tones, at the foot of the staircase. He descends a few steps, softly, taking care not to make a sound.

"...unexpected, of course, but he did elect to stay at the castle."

"Snape left him behind..."

"Do you think he's a plant?"

"For Merlin's sake, Remus, he's just a boy..."

"He managed to get Death Eaters into the castle, Molly. Let's not kid ourselves."

Draco descends another stair, and another, his face hot. Before he fully realizes it, he's out of the shadows and halfway down the staircase. The Weasleys and Lupin are facing each other, talking quickly. They stop when they see him.

"Draco dear," says Mrs. Weasley, looking flustered.

Arthur Weasley turns to look at him. "Draco Malfoy," he says. "Speak of the devil." Their eyes lock for a moment, and Arthur frowns. "You look extraordinarily like your father," he murmurs. There must be some shift in Draco's expression because his features soften. "But we know that you are not like him, Draco."

Draco scowls, backing away. "Don't talk about my father," he whispers. "I look like my father because I am his son. I'm proud to be his son. Don't ever presume otherwise." He is breathing quickly, his cheeks burning. He needs to leave. He turns around and hurries back up the staircase, back up to his empty room.

"He still loves him so fiercely," he hears Mrs. Weasley say, her voice ringing up the staircase.

Pity. He's drowning in all their pity. Draco rushes into his room and slams the door.

He spends his days wandering in and out of the disused rooms. In one room, he traces the Black family tree with his fingertips. There's a similar one at Malfoy Manor. In fact, the Manor is similar in other ways. It has old portraits on the walls, the smell of old Wizarding pride entrenched in the wallpaper. But the Manor is sprawling and bright; this house has clearly gone to seed. The corridors are too narrow, the rare sliver of daylight muted by dust and darkness. The whole place reeks of disappointment.

Draco traces his fingers along the family lines, pausing at the marred, blackened space of Sirius Black's name. Again, he dwells on the similarities between Sirius and himself. He walked away from his pureblood status, from his family values. But Sirius Black, if accounts were true, was never a true Black. He was always a blood traitor, always the black sheep of the family. Draco, though, had never stepped out of line before now.

"You're more like Regulus, you know."

Draco looks up with a start. Granger is lurking in the doorframe. He jerks away from the wallpaper and glares at her. Potter's crony. "What do you want, Mudblood?"

She frowns and tugs at her bushy hair. "Really, Malfoy? Are you still using that kind of language? I thought you were on our side now?"

Draco frowns. "I'm not on any side," he says. "And I just don't like you." He pauses, but his curiosity gets the better of him. "What do you mean by that, anyway? What do you know about Regulus Black?"

"He was Sirius' brother, wasn't he?" Granger doesn't walk into the room, but lingers at the doorframe, twisting her appalling hair around one finger.

"I know that," Draco says.

"He was always very haughty, very proud of his family."

Draco looks at her, waiting.

"Well, we found out recently that he'd switched sides in the end. Before he died. He tried to destroy something of Voldemort's, something very important to him. Nobody knew what he had done, not even Sirius. But he was a hero in his own way."

Draco doesn't say anything. He didn't know that. He was taught about Sirius of course, just as he was told about the other blood traitors in his family that had been subsequently disowned. Not worthy. "Maybe he was not worthy of his family, of his pure blood," he hears himself saying.

Granger grimaces, looking annoyed. She's about to leave when he stops her. "Wait, Granger. Who are you here with?"

She looks confused by the question. "Harry and Ron are with me. We're just here for a few hours, and then we're heading back to the Burrow for wedding preparations. We're here for the Order," she clarifies, but uncertainly, like she's still not comfortable with revealing too much in front him, still unsure of his allegiances. "Look, Malfoy. I don't understand why you did what you did, when you don't seem to have changed at all. I mean, when I heard, I thought maybe you'd..." She makes a vague gesture with her hand.

Draco's heart beats faster. He feels uneasy, and lost. "Look," he says. "I shouldn't have said that. It's just...old habits, you know? I guess we are on the same side now."

She nods curtly. "Ron still thinks you're a slimy git, by the way."

"The feeling is mutual," Draco replies. He hesitates, then asks "What wedding?" He almost doesn't ask; he hates how little he knows, how little power he has here, but his curiosity gets the better of him.

"Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour. You remember Fleur? From the Triwizard Tournament?"

Draco shrugs, looking back at the faded family tree. "And the...other Weasleys?" He asks quietly. "They're not here?"

Granger obviously doesn't know what he's getting at. "Just Ron," she says. She studies him a moment, curious. Then she's gone, and he's alone in the room, with the family tree winding all around him like a weed.


Ginny

"Can I come with you?" she asks her mother.

Molly Weasley is tidying the kitchen with a wave of her wand, the breakfast dishes floating from the table into the soapy sink. "I don't know why you'd want to go Ginny," she says, a little plaintive.

"Ron is going."

"I know, and I'm not altogether happy about that either." Molly Weasley stops waving her wand, and pauses to look Ginny in the eye. "All right, if you want, you can come along. I don't want you in the meeting, though. That's just for the Order."

"Ok, mum."

"Now, Ginny, I mean it." She comes forward and takes Ginny's two hands in her own. Her palms are damp and warm. "You know, I wish this wasn't something that you had to deal with now. You should be thinking about school, about friends and boys," she grins at her, and Ginny looks away. "I just don't want you to miss out on your childhood, Ginny. That's all. You're fifteen! Just hold on a bit to your youth, sweetheart. You'll have your whole life to be an adult."

Ginny squeezes her mother's hands, not really listening. She hasn't seen Draco since the funeral, and she's still livid, still so angry with him. But if she's honest, she also can't stop thinking about him. It's all very... complicated. She just wants to see him once, see what he's like now that he's been holed up in Grimmauld Place for several days.

Her mother is still talking, but Ginny is feeling impatient. "Yes, mum, all right," she says, and removes her hands.

"You're not to join the meeting, Ginny. You can wait for us in the other room. Maybe talk to the Malfoy boy, he seems a bit lonely."

"Wait, what did you say?" Ginny's focus swings back on her mother, but now Harry and Ron are pounding down the stairs, and Mrs. Weasley turns away to meet them.

They gather outside the Burrow. Her dad takes out the portkey – an old umbrella – and she takes a deep breath and places her fingers on the handle. Ginny is jerked forward, and a moment later they are all standing outside of Grimmauld Place.

She waits for her parents to hurry inside, and then Ron, Harry, and Hermione. She lingers behind them, and then enters the musty entryway. She barely catches Harry's voice floating out from the kitchen, greeting whoever is inside, before her mother firmly shuts the door in her face. Some things have shifted since Dumbledore's death, but Ginny is still seen as a child, still barred from the Order's meetings. Normally, she'd be cross about it, but today her mind is elsewhere.

She begins to climb the old staircase, which sighs beneath her footfalls. She doesn't know where he is, but assumes it's one of the bedrooms on the top floor where Harry slept last year.

She reaches the top of the landing and walks up to a wooden door, slightly ajar. Ginny pushes it open, steps quietly inside.

He's facing the open window, his shoulders drawn back in a rigid way that makes her think he knows she's coming. "Malfoy?" she says. Her hands move to door behind her, and she pushes it shut with a soft click.

He turns around. He's wearing expensive robes, black and green, and they bring out his grey eyes and the pallor of his skin. He looks at least as bad as he did in those last weeks of school, before...before it all happened. Before he brought Death Eaters in to the castle, Ginny's mind supplies, unwilling to let her soften the truth of his actions. But when she looks into his tired grey eyes, her resolve begins to crack.

"Weasley," he says. "Ginny." His expression is hard to read. His mouth is turned down into a harsh line, his face grim and angular, but eyes are soft.

Without fully meaning to, Ginny reaches out to touch him. He intercepts her hand, takes it in his own, and he draws her closer. "I was trying to decide what to say to you. You know, I've been waiting for you to come here. I didn't know if you would, but in case you did, I've spent a lot of time thinking about what I would say to you." His voice is hoarse and a bit desperate, so unlike his usual tone.

"What did you decide?" she asks.

"I want you to know that I didn't do this for you," he says quietly. "But I also don't know if I could have done it without you. I know you blame me for Dumbledore's death, and for everything else that happened that night, and you're not wrong." He leans down, and his lips linger next to hers. "But I'm sorry for what I did. And..." his breath hitches, and Ginny's heart is pounding in her ears, "And if you can't forgive me, I don't know how I'll get through this alone."

Ginny wants very much to close the distance between them, and it takes all her resolve to push him away, her palm flat on his chest. "Why didn't you listen to me earlier?" she whispers. "How could you put us all in danger like that."

He takes a step back, running an agitated hand through his hair. "I don't know," he says. "I don't know, Ginny. I thought maybe it would feel right once it happened; I thought maybe I could just do this one thing, and it would make everything else ok." He looks up at her, "I couldn't do it, though. You were right about that."

"Of course I was right," Ginny scoffs.

He begins to pace the room, growing more frenetic. "And I know this is not an excuse, but I didn't know so many of them would be there. I was so focused on Dumbledore and on myself...I just didn't think about it until suddenly they were all there, Yaxley and the Carrows and that horrid werewolf." He stops pacing, looks up at her.

There's another crack in her resolve, and Ginny struggles to call up her anger. "I've missed you," she admits instead.

He's breathing fast. They both are. Then he closes the distance between them in two long strides, and his kiss is hard and desperate. His lips trail down her jawline to her neck, down to her collarbone. "These freckles," he breathes, like he's going to devour each one of them.

Ginny half-laughs, half-gasps against him, feeling hot all over.

When she opens her eyes to look at him, his pupils are wide, his chest rising and falling. She grabs his robes, bunching them in a fist, and pulls him into her, finding his mouth with her own. Draco growls against her lips. They stumble backwards onto his bed. He's on top of her then, and all around her, and Ginny's fingers fumble up under his robes to touch his bare skin, inching up his bare back. She pushes his robes up clumsily, and he leans back, pulling them over his head and throwing them on the floor. She runs her hands up and down his chest, and he falls into her again.

"I've missed you so much," he whispers onto her parted lips.


A/N Sorry I've been so terrible at updating. If you're into the story, please review and let me know! It will surely spur me on. Stay safe everyone!