A/N Thank you for the reviews, the favourites, and the views! It makes me feel happy when somebody out there is enjoying this little fic.
Chapter 14: Frustration
Draco
From the bedroom window, Draco watches her disappear in whirl. He glances at a Muggle woman across the street, who is leaning against her doorframe with a cigarette hanging from her lips. She doesn't seem aware that a group of people just vanished off the front lawn. The Muggles can't see the house, of course.
The woman tosses her cigarette on the stoop and grinds it with her heel. She pulls her ratty dressing gown tighter and vanishes into the gaping darkness of her doorway.
Draco frowns. How did the Blacks stand living here among the Muggles? He much prefers the seclusion of the Manor.
He sits down on the bed. It's ruffled from earlier, and he looks away. The burst of feeling he'd felt that afternoon seems dampened by everything that followed.
They'd come down the stairs, and her fingers had slipped from his grasp, his own surety waning when he saw the upturned faces of the Order members. She belongs with them, and he's an outsider awash in suspicion.
He rolls up his sleeve and stares at the Dark Mark, still pulsing, but dimly now.
In the kitchen, there was a barrage of questions from Moody. Did he contact his parents? Did he send any owls? Did he talk to anyone outside the Order?
Moody knows as well as Draco that it's not possible to send owls from a protected location, and that he hasn't left this musty house for days. But they don't trust him. They don't understand why his arm would hurt now.
Snape knew about his betrayal when he ran from the castle, so he would have told the Dark Lord that same night. Why would The Dark Lord be angry with him now, more than a full week after the Headmaster's death?
Maybe it's something else. Maybe something has happened to his parents. Draco puts his head in his hands, trying to get his bearings.
There's a knock at his door, and before Draco can say anything, Remus Lupin enters. He knew they weren't finished with him. He could tell they just wanted to talk alone before continuing to question him. And now they've sent the werewolf.
"How are you doing, Draco?" he says calmly, closing the door and leaning against it.
Draco gets up from the bed. "My arm's fine now."
"It's hard to tell what it means right now, but it's clear he's angry with you."
"How do you know?" Draco demands. There's a small chance it doesn't mean anything. Maybe it was a random pain. The Dark Mark seems to have a mind of its own.
Lupin's lips pull against his teeth. "Snape told us how it feels, how it works. When Voldemort gets a particular surge of emotion he directs it through the Dark Mark."
"Well, maybe he's just angry for some other reason. Maybe all of the Death Eaters felt it."
"You could be right," says Lupin, but he sounds unconvinced.
"Besides, don't you get that Snape was a double-agent all along?" Draco adds. "He might have been lying about everything, feeding you false information."
Lupin's placid expression tightens. There's suddenly raw anger in his eyes, and Draco remembers that the man, as ramshackle as he looks, is a monster.
As soon as the thought flits across his brain, Draco looks down at his feet. He feels an unexpected stab of guilt. It's Ginny's voice he hears in his mind. She likes the werewolf. And she's right, he isn't a monster. Not fully, anyway. Fenrir Greyback is a monster; Draco has enough sense to see the difference between the two werewolves.
"I want you tell me if it hurts again, Draco. That's very important. Will you do that?"
"Yes," he says dully. Before Lupin can leave, he stops him. "How long will I need to stay here?"
Lupin frowns. "You know you can't leave, Draco. This is the only safe place. If you leave, Voldemort will locate you through the Mark. Your life will be in danger."
"But how long will this last?" Draco persists. The room in the Black house had seemed like a lifeline when he was full of panic and adrenaline and had nowhere else to run. Now that the urgency had subsided, the days are stretching longer. "I need to contact my parents."
"You can't," the werewolf says simply.
"Just my mother, then. I need to make sure she's not in any danger. The Headmaster promised me he could protect her as well."
"Ah," Lupin sighed, "Well, I am not sure that Narcissa Malfoy wants or needs our protection."
"You don't know that! She could be in trouble; she could've been punished for what I've done." His voice breaks at the thought, his heart beginning to pound hard again. He's thought about this possibility from every angle, tried to gauge whether or not Mother would be blamed or harmed. She is alone now, with his father in prison and Draco confined to the Black House. He didn't fully realize how much he'd abandoned her in that moment when he'd refused to follow Snape.
"It's impossible, Draco," Lupin repeats. "You can't leave this house, not yet."
"Can you send an owl for me?" he asks.
"It could be intercepted. We have reason to believe Malfoy Manor is being used to house Voldemort's servants; perhaps even Voldemort himself."
Draco feels the blood rushing to his face. "But that's even worse! Then she could be in real danger! I have to find out. I won't put anything incriminating in the letter. I'll write it in a way that only she will understand."
But the werewolf is shaking his head. "I'm sorry, Draco. It's too dangerous right now." He does sound apologetic. His voice is measured and calm. Draco has an urge to whip out his wand and hex the man.
He's trapped here while Death Eaters are swarming all over his home. He pictures the Dark Lord's great snake slithering across his sitting room. His frustration bubbles up and over, and he kicks the old desk in the corner. It bounces and hits the wall. This may as well be a prison cell.
Lupin watches him mildly. "I'm sorry, Draco," he says again. "We'll talk more later." He reaches into this robes and pulls out a bar of chocolate. "Here, eat this. I find it helps."
Draco stares at the chocolate and makes no move to take it. The werewolf places it on the desk. "Come to me if you feel any change in your arm," he says, and then he leaves.
Draco watches the door shut. He feels anger pulsing through him, stupid futile anger. Draco kicks the desk again, harder, but it just bounces uselessly against the wall.
Ginny
Ginny is itching to get back to Grimmauld Place, but two days have elapsed with no opportunity. Bill and Fleur are arriving at the end of the week, and suddenly talk of their wedding is overshadowing everything else. Or maybe they are all just using wedding talk as an excuse to push Ginny out of more pertinent discussions.
Her parents have certainly blocked any inquiries about the Order, or any new information about Voldemort or Draco, or even goings-on at the Ministry of Magic. Harry, Ron and Hermione are no better. They huddle together and stop talking when she approaches, changing the subject. She is sick to death of it. There is no one on her side, nobody who is willing to take her seriously enough to include her. At this rate, the Daily Prophet is her only source of information. And there's nothing good there: more Muggle attacks, more vague references to Death Eater activity. An outbreak in Azkaban; Death Eaters on the loose. Ginny wonders if Draco's father is free now. The thought unsettles her.
It's a bright, breezy day and she's taken her broom out to chase Fred's old Snitch around the patch of worn grass behind the Borrow. Its wings are bent after a decade of use, so it's an easy target. After a little while, the boys stumble out in to the sunshine and join her for a quick scrimmage. Hermione sits off to the side of the field, reading a book.
When they all get tired, her mum brings out a jug of lemonade and they collapse onto the grass and turn their faces towards the sun. It would be an idyllic day if her mind wasn't constantly turning elsewhere. What is Draco doing? Pacing around his dim little room? Staring out the window? Is his arm burning? Is he worried?
Harry is first to pull himself up, off the grass. "Well, I'd better head inside," he says. He shoots her an awkward, longing look which she ignores. The twins and Ron follow him into the house, but Ginny stays on the grass with Hermione, who puts down her book long enough to chat with her.
"Have you heard anything about the Azkaban breakout?" Ginny asks.
"Not really. You know they don't tell me anything."
"They tell you more than me." Ginny doesn't try to hide her irritation, but Hermione just shrugs.
They're quiet for a beat before Hermione speaks again. "I wonder how Malfoy is doing."
Ginny doesn't dare meet her eyes, rolling the grass between her fingers. "I'm sure he's fine. He's in a safe place. I hope his arm is all right now. I wish I knew why it started to burn in the first place, what it could mean."
"You seem worried about him," says Hermione.
"I'm not!" Ginny says, looking up, alarmed. Hermione frowns at her. "I mean...I'm curious and...yeah maybe I don't want him to get hurt or anything. He did switch sides; he's fighting with us now, isn't he?"
Hermione's frown deepens. "I wouldn't say he's fighting anybody. He's just hiding out, using the Order's protection because he's scared for his life."
"Because he switched sides," Ginny persists.
"Maybe he was just scared because he didn't get a chance to...he didn't do what he was supposed to do on the tower that night, and maybe he was afraid of punishment, and that's why he refused to go with Snape."
"That's not what happened. That's not what Harry said."
"Ginny! He led Death Eaters into the castle! He's the one who's responsible for Professor Dumbledore's death! How can you defend him?"
"I'm not defending him!"
"I think you obviously are!" Suddenly, they're both standing, the lemonade and blades of grass forgotten at their feet.
Ginny feels something between panic and anger coursing through her. "I've just decided to give him a chance," she says, trying to calm down. "Maybe he's changed or... Maybe he's had a change of heart."
Hermione huffs like it's the most ridiculous thing she's ever heard. "He called me a Mudblood the last time I spoke to him, and he looked at me like he's always looked at me, like I'm worth less than the dirt on the soles of his shoes."
Ginny doesn't know how to respond to that.
Hermione is staring at her like she wants to say something else, but isn't sure how. Ginny hopes she doesn't say anything at all.
She's a moment away from heading back into the house when Hermione takes her arm and forces her to stay. "What's going on between you and Malfoy, Ginny? I know something's going on," she says even before Ginny can protest. "You're suddenly all worried about him, talking about him like he's not Draco Malfoy, like he's some kind of decent human being and not a bigoted asshole."
Ginny swallows. She can continue to deny it, but maybe there's no point in doing so any longer. There's something between her and Draco and it's just getting bigger and harder to back away from. It's not something that she can keep lying about. "I like him, Hermione," she says quietly.
The other girl stares at her. "What does that mean, you like him?"
Ginny tries to meet her eyes, to find the courage to give voice to some of the things that have been happening over these months. But she can't quite do it. "He's not so bad," she says lamely.
Hermione shakes her head. "He looks at you like...I don't know. Ginny, he stares at you sometimes. And when the two of you came down the stairs together the other day, there was something there. Something between you. I don't know what it is."
"Yes, fine! There's something. I don't know, Hermione. I really like him," she says helplessly.
"What do you mean you like him?"
Ginny feels like they're talking in circles. "I kissed him. We kissed. I want to be with him, I think."
Hermione's brown eyes have widened in shock. Whatever she'd been expecting, this was not it. "You kissed him? You kissed Malfoy?" she shakes her head in disbelief. "What about Harry?"
"Harry? We're broken up."
"But not forever. I thought it was only temporary, until it's safer to...I don't know. Don't you love him, Ginny?"
Ginny grimaces. "Yeah, of course I love Harry. I just. I don't know if I love him like that."
"But you love Draco Malfoy like that?"
"No, not like that! I mean, maybe...I don't know, Hermione." Ginny runs her hands over her face, her eyes feeling sore. She feels like she might start crying, like some stupid little girl who can't handle her emotions. She wishes she could Apparate herself out of this conversation.
There is a moment of silence between them. Hermione's brow is furrowed like she's trying to process a particularly difficult Arithmancy equation that just wont' add up.
"Look, Hermione," says Ginny, pulling herself up a bit. "I didn't plan on any of this, obviously, but I have these feelings. I've seen a side of Draco that you haven't seen."
Hermione scoffs, and Ginny ignores her.
"It's not even that. I'm not saying he's some kind of saint. He's a prat, sure. But I like him. I'm not exactly a saint, either." She tilts her chin up, ready to be on the offensive.
"Ginny..." Hermione sighs, shaking her head. "You're worth a thousand Malfoys. You've just got so much goodness in you, Ginny. He's rude. He's prejudiced. Also, he might be using you. He might be lying to you. The way he's always talked about us, about Muggleborns and Weasleys, do you really think he'd change his mind so easily?"
Ginny frowns, wishing Hermione would just stop talking. "He's not using me," she says stubbornly.
"How do you know?" Hermione demands. "You're better than him. He's barely decent. I mean, he's borderline evil."
Something about her tone makes Ginny pause, makes her heart beat louder.
What if she's right? "Oh, Merlin..." Ginny whispers, running her hands through her hair. What if Hermione's right and she's just falling for Malfoy because there's something wrong with her. What if there's a shard of evil in her heart that Tom Riddle placed there when she was eleven years old? What if she doesn't know the difference between good and bad? What if she's just drawn irrevocably to darkness?
"I don't know Hermione," Ginny groans, sinking down into the grass again. "What if you're right? What if I only like him because he reminds me of..." She doesn't even want to say it. It's too horrible.
Hermione's eyes widen. "Oh, no, Ginny. That's not what I meant. He's not that evil. But...I don't know. Maybe it's something worth thinking about?" She pauses, looking towards the Burrow. "Harry loves you. I can see how much he loves you, Ginny. And he's such a good person. He's so kind, and so brave. He's such a good friend."
"Yeah, I know," Ginny whispers. She feels beaten down, like she barely has any energy left to stand up and make her way across the field for dinner. "You're right, Hermione. It's not Harry. It's me. There's something wrong with me."
A/N Thanks for reading everyone! Comments always appreciated.
