A/N Thank you for the continued support. I am painfully slow with updates, but I am making my way through this story and I do plan on finishing it! Enjoy the next chapter :)
Ginny
The room at the inn is smaller even than the room at Grimmauld Place. The bed is covered with a yellow bedspread worn thin with many washes. There is a wooden nightstand with a vase of fresh flowers, and four paintings, one on each wall, all of floral themes.
Ginny grimaces as they step inside, the floor creaking. It's quite tacky and rundown, but Draco doesn't say anything. He pulls his trunk out of his pocket and places it on the floor. It grows back to its original size with a thump.
"I'll contact my mother tomorrow morning as soon as I can find owl-post someplace in town."
"Ok," she says. There must be something in her expression that reflects her uncertainty. Ginny's reluctant to leave him here. The tracking charm is tied to Grimmauld place; it won't work again.
"I'll stay in touch," he promises. "I won't disappear on you." When she doesn't respond, he rolls his eyes. "I won't betray the Order."
"What if you don't find an owl? It's a Muggle village for the most part, and I don't think you should go walking around in broad daylight advertising your presence. You never know who's watching."
Draco's jaw grows tight and he looks down at the floor. "We're in the middle of nowhere. Isn't that the point of this place? You're just determined to keep me locked away in some dark room, aren't you?"
"Don't be an idiot." Ginny tries to keep her tone light. She steps closer, nudges him gently on the arm. "You know I'm right. You can't take foolish risks."
He sighs. Then, he nods. Draco removes the other scroll and hands it to Ginny. He finds her eyes as she takes the scroll from him. "I can trust you, yeah? You'll send this to my mum? You won't just hand it over to the Order as soon as you Apparate out of here?"
"I'll send it as soon as I get back. I'll use Errol, our own owl. He's old, but he's reliable." She tucks the scroll away into the pockets of her cloak, next to the other scroll meant for her. It's time to leave, to Apparate back to her bedroom before anyone misses her. But Ginny continues to stand in the same spot, a few feet away from him, next to the bed with the pale, worn-out bedspread. In the sudden silence, her breathing seems too loud. In and out, noisy inhales and exhales. She makes no move to leave, and he's watching her carefully. Her eyes flicker over his face, to his pale lips, to his questioning gaze.
"So Granger spoke to you?" he finally asks, breaking the silence. "And you were going to come back? To see me?" Draco's stare is intense. Like he's asking her a different question: Do you want to be with me now? Have you changed your mind?
Ginny's heart begins to pound. "Hermione told me what you said. Not that I didn't know it before. You've already said it to me, in bits and pieces. I could see you figuring it all out when we were back at school."
"So," he says. "Do you still...I mean...?"
"Hermione apologized to me. She said maybe she'd been wrong about you."
Draco looks away, his reflection pale on the dark window. "So that's why you've changed your mind? Because of Granger?"
Ginny frowns. "I came here because of the charm."
"So you haven't changed your mind?"
"Merlin, Draco. Why does this have to be so complicated?" Ginny closes her eyes.
"You're the one making it complicated," he begins to say, but Ginny closes the space between them and kisses him hotly on his pale lips.
Draco goes rigid for a moment. "Are we not broken up anymore?" he asks against her lips.
"No," she says. "Not anymore. Not right now."
His arm snakes around her waist, and he grips her against him, kissing her deeply and slowly. As if they've got all the time in the world. And maybe they do. There is nobody to burst in on them, no Professor Lupin or her parents in the downstairs kitchen. Nobody to worry being silent about. The old wizard minding the pub downstairs probably wouldn't hear them if they shouted from the rafters.
Draco's body is firm against hers. She can feel him through her thin purple pyjamas.
He backs her against the wall, his body flush against hers. Over his shoulder, she can a painting of a yellow garden spout filled with wildflowers on the opposite wall. "Ah..." Ginny sighs as his hand reaches beneath the hem of her pyjamas to slide against her bare skin, and her eyes flutter shut. She focuses on the feeling of his mouth, his tongue on hers, their gasps mingling. Her own hands are sliding too, jerking his shirt out of his trousers, pulling at the buttons.
She feels his fingers trail higher, to ghost across her stomach, catching the underside of her breast. He moves his hand across her skin, brushing a taught nipple, and settles wide on her bare back.
Then, he stops. His chest rises and falls against hers. She listens to their breaths. Inhales and exhales. "Wait," he says. "Let's not rush into this."
Ginny makes an impatient noise. "Why not? What are you waiting for?"
He pulls away and looks down into her eyes. His brow is furrowed, his own eyes shining, with two bright spots flaring on his cheeks. His fine hair has fallen into his eyes, and Ginny resists the urge to brush it away. "I can't do this if I don't know what you want," he says.
"I think that should be rather obvious." Her heart is beating fast, her whole body too hot. She reaches out to grasp his waistband, and her fingers dip below the hem of his trousers. But he stills her hands with his own. He pushes away from the wall, away from her.
"No, actually. It's not obvious."
Ginny feels her whole face flush, her stomach swooping uncomfortably. Could he be rejecting her? She feels suddenly self-conscious, crossing her arms across her chest, questioning his signals, his words. He'd said he loved her, hadn't he? It was more than a week ago, and maybe it didn't mean much. Fred and George are always talking about the crazy shit they tell girls to get a hand up their skirts. Maybe she misread him. She basically ordered him to say it. Tell me you love me. "I thought you wanted this," she finally says.
Draco's expression is hard to read, but his face is still flushed. He takes one step towards her, but doesn't touch her again. "Last time I saw you, you said it was over between us."
"Yes, but that was after...and then I talked with Hermione..." Her voice drifts off.
Draco's eyes narrow. "I see. So if Granger approves, you're willing to lower yourself to my level?"
Ginny scoffs. "Excuse me? You're a Malfoy. If anyone's lowering themselves..."
"I just mean," he cuts her off, "that you're willing to be with me, dark wizard that I am?"
Ginny feels uncomfortable. "It's something I'm struggling with, Draco, I won't lie. But you're not a dark wizard. Hermione says..."
"Yeah, I got it. Everything we've been through together, that doesn't matter. Lowering my wand, going against the Dark Lord, putting my parents in danger – that doesn't matter. But as long as Granger doesn't think I'm slime, you're willing to give me the time of day again?"
Draco
Draco doesn't know where the anger is coming from, when a moment ago he was hot all over. But before that, there was nothing but cold fear and uncertainty.
His trousers are too tight, and his face is too hot, and some urgent part of him wants to undress her right now. He wants to jerk down her purple pajama bottoms. He shouldn't be bringing up reasons to push her away, reminding her why she wanted to end things in the not-so-distant past. But he can't help it. He doesn't want this thing between them to spiral out of control. He doesn't want her to second-guess things once its done, to regret letting him touch her.
She's already tried to end it, to push him away. How many times has she told him that she wanted to do the right thing? The right thing that does not include Draco Mafoy and his dubious morals. She's eager enough to kiss him now, but that's just a burst of hormones. What happens when Granger changes her mind and withdraws her support? What happens when Potter wants to get back together? What happens when Ginny takes a good look at him, at the Dark Mark on his arm, and remembers what kind of choices he's made?
The moonlight shifts, and the light in the small room wavers.
"I don't want to do this right now," Draco says, his voice soft. "Not like this."
"Fine," she whispers. "I'll go then." The anger in her voice is ridged with hurt.
"I just don't want to be angry when we..."
"Yeah, got it. I said I was leaving."
Draco looks away from her, out the window, his heart still beating fast. "But you'll come back?"
She nods. "And I'll send your owl. I'll send it right away."
He takes her hand and squeezes it. When he lets go, she grips her wand and disappears with a crack.
After she's gone, Draco shrugs off the travelling cloak and sits heavily on the little bed. He closes his eyes and wonders if he's just the biggest idiot to ever walk the earth.
He wakes up the next morning disoriented, his room smelling sickly-sweet from the blooming flowers on his nightstand. There's a shared toilet in the hallway. Draco pads down the worn floorboards, trying not to touch anything any more than he has to. It was bad enough staying in the Black's decrepit home. If his mother knew he was staying in a cheap room above a pub, she'd really be disgusted.
It's a cloudy day in Wales. Conversations from the pub below drift up through the floorboards, but Draco stays where he is until mid-afternoon, pacing and worrying, oscillating between frustration and fear.
He finally decides to risk heading down for some food when an owl knocks against the window, startling him with the sudden thump. Draco opens the latch, and a ruffled old thing collapses on the rug. It picks itself up, a few grey feather floating in the air, and perches on the windowsill. Ginny wasn't joking about the owl being old. He takes the scroll from its leg and scans it hungrily.
Today at 4. There's a tea house up the road.
He reads it again. Weeks and weeks with no contact from his parents, and suddenly a meeting with his mother is mere hours away. He'd been desperate to speak with her, but now his mouth is dry. What will she think of him? Will she blame him for deserting her, for bringing the wrath of the Dark Lord even more soundly on the Malfoy name?
Worse, what if the werewolf has been right all along, and he's foolishly setting up a trap for himself and for the Order. Anyone could have intercepted his letter.
Draco reads the note again. His eyes narrow-in on Ginny's messy handwriting, the ink bleeding into the parchment. He needs to see his mother. That's all there is to it, risks be damned. Draco turns over the parchment and writes: I'll be there. The old owl fumbles back out the window, swooping lopsidedly before soaring higher into the sky. He watches it fly further and further away, until it's nothing but a speck against the clouds.
Once the owl's gone, there's nothing to do but wait. He goes down to the pub and picks at an order of fish and chips swimming in grease. He asks for a tumbler of Firewhisky. The barkeep eyes him with a frown. "You sure a young lad like you ought to be drinking hard liquor in the afternoon?"
Draco scowls and pushes another handful of Galleons towards him.
The old man shakes his head, but produces the Firewhisky. It's some cheap variety, and it burns like kerosene down his throat, but Draco drinks it down and asks for another. He doesn't want to be drunk when he finally sees his mother, but he needs something to dampen the wild beating of his heart.
He wiles away the next few hours upstairs in his small room. He runs over the what-ifs in his mind. What if his mother is suffering or visibly hurt? How will he save her? What if she's furious with him, meeting only to tell him what a failure and disappointment he is? What if it is a trap, and he finds himself under attack? He practices a few hexes just in case, flicking his wand. He almost doesn't hear the crack of Appartion until Ginny materializes in front of him, next to the flower vase.
"Hey!" she cries as a stinging hex fizzles against the opposite wall.
"Ginny!" He says at the same time. "What are you doing here?"
"I wanted to be nearby for the meeting."
Draco frowns, lowering his wand. He begins to protest, but Ginny cuts him off. "I won't listen in. I won't even enter the tea shop. But if something does go wrong, I want to be there. You'll need at least one person to back you up, or to alert the Order in a worst-case scenario."
Draco sighs. "She's my mother, Ginny. I know you think we're all evil, the Malfoys, but she wouldn't hurt me."
"Weren't you the one practicing hexes just now?" Draco sniffs noncommittally, and the girl rolls her eyes at him. "I'm not saying she'll hurt you," she persists, taking off her cloak and throwing it on the bed. "I just don't want you to be alone if anything goes wrong. I wanted to come earlier, but I couldn't get away without being noticed. I've told my parents that I'm not feeling well, so they think I'm taking a nap up in my room."
"You don't think your mother will be up to check on you?"
"They're all busy with the wedding preparations. Mum and Fleur's got everyone setting up the tables and putting up streamers and the like. She's been cooking for three days straight, so I don't think she'll bother checking on me. In any case, I did some charm-work on my bed to throw her off. She'll have to come real close to notice it's just a glamoured garden gnome."
Draco grins. "Ah, the old gnome in the bed trick."
She grins back, and Draco has an urge to kiss her. But then, he doesn't want to complicate things further right now. There's less than an hour before his mother's meant to meet him in a Muggle tea house in Wales. This isn't the time for snogging, especially after the way things ended last night.
"Can I see her reply?" he asks instead.
"Of course. I brought it for you." Ginny takes out a roll of parchment. His mother's graceful, looping handwriting is instantly recognizable.
Dearest Son,
Your letter has eased my worries about your well-being. I am glad to hear you are alive and well. There is little I can say in a letter, for we never know whose hands it might fall into. We must meet in person. Tell me the time and place, and I will find my way to you. Stay safe, Draco, my love.
Mother
Ginny is watching his face when he puts the letter down. "I decided to write her back on your behalf since I didn't want Errol flying out here more than necessary. The Muggle tea shop is safer somehow, don't you think? If there are wands drawn or a whole commotion, the Ministry will be alerted because of the Statute of Secrecy."
"My mother's never been to a Muggle tea shop," he says, frowning. "Actually, neither have I. And I won't tell you again to stop worrying about an attack. There won't be any attack, alright, Weasley?"
Ginny just grins again and approaches him, takes his hand slowly. "So, you call me Weasley when you're in a snit? And Ginny when you're glad to see me? Is that how it works?"
Draco didn't even notice what he'd called her. He feels his face heat up, but only shrugs. The feeling of her hand in his is distracting. He pulls her closer into him, and he inhales the clean, floral scent of her long hair.
Ginny smiles against his shoulder. "Besides, there aren't any Wizarding tea shops around here, and I didn't think you'd want to travel somewhere totally new."
"I can Apparate, you know," he mutters into her hair.
"Well la-di-da, Mr. Malfoy."
She turns her freckled face up towards him, and he takes the opportunity to kiss her lightly on the lips. Maybe just a little snogging.
Ginny kisses him back softly, and then pulls away and drops his hand. "We should get going," she says. "We'll get there early so we can keep a lookout. I won't walk with you in case someone sees us."
He takes a deep breath and nods. The warmth Firewhisky has seeped away over the last few hours, and his heart is beating erratically, along with a headache beginning to pulse at his temples. "Let's go," he says, and he leads the way out of the small room.
