Sorry for the long break in between updates, but I try to make sure everything is as it should be before I post each chapter. Thank you for waiting so patiently. I hope you enjoy this chapter please review!
Chapter 11: The Death of Innocence and the Birth of the Unknown Pt. 2
Love is when he gives you a piece of your soul, that you never knew was missing.
-Torquato Tasso
Genvieve rolled over onto her hands and knees, breathing hard. It was completely dark outside and had been for at least two hours. It was hard to focus with the lack of light.
"I need a moment," she managed to huff out in between breaths. She shivered as the cold air licked the sweat from her skin and froze her skin over at the sudden lack of movement.
"You're worse than you were last time we practiced," he argued, "you're telegraphing again. Not only is it telling your opponent what spell you're using, it's taking you longer to cast. It's as if I'm dueling a second year."
"I know I'm horrible, but you don't have to be such a bloody git about it," she spat as she rose to her feet and rubbed the dirt from her cheek with the back of her wandhand. "You almost snapped my wand in half."
"No, you did," he shot back, scowling at her just as hard, "that was a shoddy blocking spell. If your aim had been any worse, it would have shattered your wrist."
When her glare deepened, he sighed out his nose in frustration, pinching its bridge. "Look, I told you I wouldn't coddle you. This is me not coddling you. I'm not trying to kill you. I'm playing with you in essentially the same manner that they would."
She narrowed her eyes in response. "You're being unnecessarily mean."
He rolled his eyes and groaned, running his hand through his hair. "I'm mean to everyone. You tend to get special treatment. If this is going to be a problem, I can stop treating you well outside of dueling lessons as well."
"You consider this special treatment," she gaped incredulously, "Because it feels like you are trying to kill me!"
"I'm trying to protect you by showing you how to defend yourself," he yelled, pointing at her furiously, "You asked me to do this and so I'm doing it, for you!"
Genevieve reeled back and away from him as he stormed toward her until he was towering over her, eyes like liquid fire as he glared at her. "I don't have to do this for you. I don't like doing this for you, but you've shown me that it has to be done because you're incapable of defending yourself and you're so naïve that you'll continue associating with people who will get you killed."
"Are you trying to say that I should stop talking to Sirius," she asked quietly. The anger drained out of his expression, yet it remained solemn. "Yes. Unless you want to end up like your parents."
She jolted away from him as if he'd struck her. He continued on as if nothing had changed. "They'll kill you to get to him. Or just kill you because you know him. Same with Potter and all the other stupid Gryffindors who follow him around like he's some kind of god."
She tried to shake her hea to disagree and he kept on. "D'you really think they would just ignore how chummy you've been with known Order members?"
"What Order," she asked lamely and he scoffed in the same way he usual scoffed at others. It was derisive, harsh. "You really don't know anything, do you?"
She may not have been quick with a wand, but the past four years with Draco had quickened her tongue. "You think I don't know about your father? You think I never figured out the rumors were true when you didn't try to convince me otherwise? I know what he is-a Death Eater. But you're right. I am naïve because I continue to let you snog me and pretend it's completely normal that your father would like to see me dead because he thinks I'm a mudblood! Maybe you're the only person I need to stay away from!"
Draco's entire body froze in shock and as the fleeting expression of hurt flashed over his face, Genevieve finally registered how cruel her words had been. She shook her head back and forth wildly, one hand clamped over her mouth as she pleaded with him wordlessly to understand that she hadn't meant what she had said. But it was too late. The cold, unfeeling mask that Draco usually wore that guarded him so well from all others fell into place and for the first time, Genevieve couldn't read him. There was no trace of the boy she cared so deeply about.
"You're still alive because of me," he revealed and his voice was as cold as his demeanor, "because I lied for you. If I'd told them who you really were they would have been waiting for you when you got home, waiting to torture and kill your parents while you watched until you agreed to join them. If they really gave a damn about you, they would have waited for you to come home and then they would have killed you, too. Your parents dying wasn't the worst they could have done to you. Yes, they're dead and it hurts you, but you're still alive because I kept my mouth shut about you like I promised I would."
Genevieve couldn't bear to look at him, hanging her head in disappointment and shame as she let her tears stream down her face. Nobody had ever hurt her so much with their words, broken her heart the way he was at that moment. But she couldn't blame him. What she had said had been just as heartless and unforgivable.
Draco began to fix his clothing, lifting the dirt stains from his clothing easily with a wordless scourgify as he readied himself to return to the castle. He refused to look at her as he held his head high and it looked for all the world as if everything in Draco Malfoy's life was as it should be. Without a word, he started away from her and Genevieve's mouth and her feet began working again. "Wait!"
She didn't see him slow his steps or even acknowledge he had heard her as she slammed into his back and wrapped her arms around his waist tightly. She shook her head against his back, her face pressed in between his shoulder blades as she cried. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it. It was such an awful thing to say and I'm so very sorry, Draco. I shouldn't have brought up your father. I really didn't mean it. I didn't. I didn't. I don't why I would say anything like that. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
Draco had gone completely still and had yet to move, and though she couldn't see his face, she could feel him, staring at the ground as unable to move as she was to let go of him. They stayed motionless for several tense minutes. She slowly pulled away from him and wiped furiously at her face as her tears continued to leak down from her face. She couldn't stop crying-not after what she'd said to him and how he'd reacted.
"He'll never want anything to do with me now," she thought forlornly. She stepped around him and started back to the castle when he reached out and grabbed her wrist, stopping her. Draco still wouldn't look at her as he continued to stare at the ground with that infuriatingly blank expression he always wore that made it impossible to understand what it was that was going on in his mind. His hair had fallen in his eyes and that was making it even more difficult. Genevieve watched him, unaware of the breath she was holding until he pulled her into him and held her pinned against him.
She couldn't recall any instance where he'd quite reacted the same way when they fought. He had tended to carry on as if they hadn't just had a nasty spat and he never brought it up again. It had always been his way of saying it was over and done with and they were to move on with their lives accordingly. If he did something particularly kind it meant he was also apologizing. If she were to apologize, it was always accepted with an eager kiss and teasing words. This was not at all normal and it scared her.
Luckily, she had enough presence of mind to bring her hands up to his sides and curl her fists into his shirt and nuzzle her face into his chest. And maybe she should have apologized again, but she knew that he didn't want to hear it. Instead, she let him hold her for as long as he needed, which was quite a long time. When Draco finally pulled away, he looked much more serious than she had expected and there was a tinge of worry in the way his brow furrowed as he looked down at her. He cupped her face in his hands that were perpetually cold and kissed her gently. When he pulled away, his expression was guarded and she could feel her face begin to crumple in confusion when he said quietly. "My father is a Death Eater. And he does think you're a muggleborn. I told him you were."
Genevieve pulled away from him immediately and he let her, watching her with a look that foretold that he knew this would be her reaction. "Why?"
Again, he refused to look at her and instead chose to stare off into the inky darkness of the forest. "Because it was better than the alternative. If I had told him that yes, you're a pureblood, they would have been waiting for you when you got home. They'd have tortured you and your parents until you joined them and killed you if you had refused no matter what it cost you. Or they would have just killed you no matter what because you're Sirius Black's daughter and whatever hurts Sirius hurts Harry Potter. So, I told him you were muggleborn and you're still alive because of it."
"Because I'm not worth killing," she choked out as her throat closed up at the hurt knowing such a thing caused. His father hated her and he didn't even know her. Genevieve peeked up at him from the curtain of her hair that had fallen in her face to see him staring at the ground, his face full of shame. His hands were balled into fists in his pockets. It was something he did when he was too upset to control himself. It kept his hands from shaking.
"I didn't want you to die," he mumbled and he sounded like the boy she had met five years earlier, so much smaller and unsure of himself, of the young man he had become. It made the ache in her heart grow. "And then Mother saw you at Gringott's and swore she heard the goblin address you as 'Black' and so I stopped writing you and burned all your letters. They kept asking and asking and I had to say the most awful things about you and they were things I had said about Granger, Potter's Mum, just so many other people, and it just-"
Silence settled between them along with the weight of his words. "I'm not like them, Vivvy."
He sounded so upset, so disappointed in himself and in them. "I'm not like them," he moaned, shaking his head frantically, "I said those things and I wanted to hex myself. I wanted to-I don't know. I wanted to do something awful to myself for what I said. Because it was about you and none of it was true and it could never be true but I know that there are others in Slytherin who say those things about you and I know they'll say them again. And I can't do anything about it."
"I'm not like them," he repeated as he looked at her then, his voice determined to make her understand. "I don't think you're a mudblood or a blood traitor."
"I know," she replied quickly, reaching for him. He grabbed onto her as if she were his life-line and she winced at the strength of his grip, but didn't stop him. She simply held his hand in hers. "I know, Draco. It's okay." She pulled on his hand, just enough to get him to move with her. "Let's go back to the castle, okay? It's much too cold out."
"Do you hate me now," he asked bluntly as he followed her. She shot him an astonished look. "Why would you think that? That's rubbish. I could never hate you for what your parents think."
"You're upset though," he pressed and she looked away then, trying not to let the hurt show on her face. "I guess I always thought that maybe, one day...they might like me, you know? But I guess that's a pipe dream now, isn't it?"
He didn't laugh at her weak attempt at a joke and she winced even as it left her mouth and they continued into the castle without another word. Once inside, Genevieve turned to look to face him. "I'll see you tomorrow? For potions tutoring?"
He nodded, swallowing thickly. They stood before one another awkwardly and Genevieve hesitated as she turned to leave. "My parents would have liked you, you know?"
Draco looked up in surprise as he watched her disappear in the direction of the Gryffindor dorms. She could feel his eyes on her as she disappeared from view. They weighed down her limbs, which were exhausted from dueling as she trudged up to the portrait. "Higgledy-Piggledy," she murmured and the portrait swung open and she climbed through, wondering idly as she managed to climb the stairs to the girls' dormitory without having to crawl as she thought she would. She had had grown more exhausted the further away from Draco she had gotten.
She didn't bother to undress and, instead, she threw herself onto her bed and pulled the blankets over herself. She stared in the darkness of the cocoon she had created and let herself cry freely. She awoke the next morning with a face tracked by tear-streaks, but no one questioned it. Even when she slumped down at the table in the Great Hall, everyone had the decency to ignore it. She pushed her eggs and the chopped up bits of her smiley face pancakes around on her plate, with minimal attention.
She just couldn't get over the fight she and Draco had had, nor the confession he had made the night before. The whole situation was making her feel wretched once again. It seemed as though their entire relationship was a minefield they were trying to cross without letting go of one another. She was beginning to believe that they weren't going to get out of it unscathed-whether they held on to each other or not.
Genevieve looked up from her plate and across the Great Hall to see Draco flipping absently through his book with a bored expression on his face. He was starting to scowl. Genevieve sniffled. For some reason the sight of him was making her want to cry. She shoved her plate away and Katie shoved it back at her with a hard look. "You just got out of the infirmary, Gen, and I'll not be having you go back. Eat your bloody breakfast."
She sniffled once more and bit into a piece of toast. Katie frowned but said nothing more and went back to listening to Ginny Weasley harass her brother about some time recently when he lost to Hermione in a duel. Fred elbowed her when Genevieve glanced their way and she rolled her eyes. "I don't care one wit about your stupid little club. I'd rather not know what you do. That way I don't get tortured along with you."
"You know, having good marks isn't going to protect you from Voldemort," Hermione said quietly. Genevieve shrugged. "No, it won't. And a half-assed dueling club focused on defending ones self from jinxes and hexes won't protect me much from a killing curse either, will it?" She looked over at Hermione then. "We're all ridiculously outmatched."
"And you don't want to try to level the playing field," Harry asked, though he wasn't looking at her. He was scowling over at the Slytherin table. Genevieve followed his line of sight and tried not to frown when she saw Draco laughing along with Crabbe and Goyle.
"How many people before us have tried leveling the playing field," she asked quietly, watching at Draco surreptitiously flicked a healthy smattering of egg yolk onto Goyle's robes. She snorted out a laugh and then covered her mouth when Harry whipped his head around to look at her. She dropped her gaze to her plate and picked at the last bit of toast she had. "It didn't work out so well for them. You've been fighting him since your first year and you've managed to do nothing but put him off for a few years, but he finally outsmarted you and Dumbledore. It's only a matter of time before he does it again."
"What makes you so sure," Hermione asked and she gave Genevieve a searching look. Genevieve simply looked away, off toward the head table. She blinked in surprise when she realized Umbridge was watching them. "Umbridge is watching us, so now might be a good time to talk about Quidditch."
"Anything to improve the dismal mood you've put us all in," Katie grumbled, giving her best friend a reproachful look. Genevieve blushed and sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm not over...everything that's happened yet."
Silence fell over the group as they watched her fight to keep herself together. She gathered up her book bag and slowly stood. "I think I'll go and return some books from the library. I'll see you in class Katie."
Katie nodded and they watched her go with sympathetic expressions on their faces. She hated it. She'd never been comfortable with the level of attention they seemed to give her. She even found it overwhelming at times when Draco paid her more attention than usual.
When Genevieve reached the library, she passed Madam Pince and headed straight for the table in the very back of the library, where her mother and father had carved their initials. Where she and Draco had taken their first steps toward friendship and then toward something much deeper.
Genevieve stood staring at the table, book bag clutched in one hand, violet eyes unblinking and studied the way the light shone on the scuffed surface. One day, she and Draco would no longer be able to sit at that table. It was possible that one day they wouldn't be able to sit at any table together. It was an unbearable thing to think about. She sank heavily into one of the chairs and covered her face with one hand.
"I thought I might find you here." Genevieve refused to look up, even when he pulled a chair up in front of her. "What's got you so out of sorts now?"
"It just feels like everything's about to come crashing down, you know," she asked him quietly, and he nodded more to himself than to her as he reached forward to wiped a tear from under her left eye. She blushed at the intimate contact, but continued on. "Next year is my last year here. Then I leave Howarts. And you. Then what?"
"Then I come visit you at your flat," he said confidently as if it were the most obvious thing in the world to him. "And we spend the summer together and then Christmas and then once I leave Hogwarts, all this business is over and done with, we'll move in together-"
"Draco," she breathed out, hardly able to believe what he was saying. He sat up at her disbelieving tone. "Well, don't you want to? It seems a bit silly to have to flue or apparate to see one another when we can just live together instead. Don't you want to?"
"I don't know whether that's the most romantic thing I've ever heard or the least romantic thing I've ever heard," she responded and he scoffed. "Vivvy, I'm trying to be practical-"
Genevieve mirror his annoyed expression with one of her own. "Yes, that's the problem!"
"Why can't practicality be romantic," he whined, sounding just like the spoiled and petulant pureblood everyone believed him to be. "I want to spend all my time with you. I don't want to have to go home to go to sleep or change clothes or eat dinner. It just seems much more practical if we move in together. That way, if I have to go take a shower, I can just walk into another room rather than apparate across the bloody country."
And Genevieve felt something inside her swell and then wilt as she realized the implications of his words. While it made her feel proud and immensely cared for, it also made her feel immeasurably guilty. Draco sighed in exasperation and fell back in the chair, rolling eyes as he let out a huff. "Well, this has got to be the most idiotic argument I've ever had."
"Is it really idiotic for me to have any sort of qualms with what this would mean for you," she asked quietly, feeling her voice waver as she threatened to break down in tears again. Draco's jaw clenched visibly as he looked away from her, off toward a bookshelf against the back wall of the library. Genevieve let the tense silence surround them and settle along with the weight of her words. "You would be giving up your family for me. Your reputation, your friends, your home, money. Everything, Draco, it would all be gone. You could live with that?"
Though he refused to look at her, he swallowed thickly and she continued. "And what if...what if you-know-who does win? I'm already in danger, but you? You'd be willing to run and hide with me and hope that just maybe we'd get a few good years with each other before the Death Eaters found us? Because they would come after us so that they could make an example of you. And I don't think I could live with myself if I was the reason you were dead."
"I promised I would keep you safe," he replied just as quietly, his voice firm and determined, though he still kept his eyes trained on some distant object. "My mother and father have made their choices and I'm free to make mine. I choose to keep mine. I choose you." Draco cast one fleeting yet heated look at her before he went back to gazing back at the bookshelf. "I'll always choose you."
"I love you."
Draco's head whipped around to look at her and he looked as shocked as she felt. While Genevieve had suspected for some time the true depth of her feelings for Draco, she had been nowhere near ready to tell him, but somehow, it had seemed the only proper response to the declaration of unwavering devotion he had made to her just moments prior. As if things hadn't been confusing and complicated before.
It was her turn to look away as he scrutinized her mercilessly and she trained her eyes on the well worn red rug below her feet. She flinched when he placed his hand over hers. "Vivvy, you're going to be late to class and as part of the Inquisitorial Squad it would be my sworn duty to report you, which, I'd rather not do."
Genevieve let out a long sigh of relief which caused her shoulders to sag. Draco watched her, clearly amused. He kissed her knuckles and then stood, pulling her with him. "I think that's enough emotional vulnerability for today, don't you?"
"Yes, you've managed to make the day more than sufficiently awkward."
"I have," he asked incredulously, one eyebrow raised. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and gave her a look so full of condescension a lesser woman would have cowered. "You're the one making heart felt declarations of love in the middle of a pseudo-argument about whether or not I should or should not become a blood-traitor."
"Yes, well, you managed to side-step it with all the grace of a tap-dancing toad," she retorted, not at all bothered by his seemingly acidic words. His tone was becoming more and more playful by the moment. His smirk grew. "A toad? I'd much prefer to be a frog. Aren't they the ones muggle princesses like to snog?"
"With all this side-stepping you've managed to do, I'm beginning to think you're trying to ask me to dance," she said playfully as she picked up her book bag and straightened out her robes while Draco gave an impolite snort. "Now who's side-stepping? Here I am, practically begging you to snog me and you'd rather make yourself presentable for-"
"I thought you said you didn't want to report me," she countered and his smirk grew decidedly devious. Genevieve bit her lip as he pushed her up against a bookshelf. "I don't and I promise not to if you snog me."
She let out and indelicate snort. "Oh, how generous of you, you blackmailing little snake."
He chuckled as he brought his mouth down on hers, "Vivvy, do us both a favor and shut up."
She couldn't stop herself from giggling into his mouth when he finally brought his lips down upon hers. Genevieve buried her hands in the folds of his robes and let him press her up against the bookshelf even further. Only when a book dropped from a shelf on the other side did they come to their senses and they were both equally horrified by the compromising position they were in. Draco quickly dropped Genevieve's leg from over his hip and she just as quickly pulled her hands from his hair in order to straighten out her robes and run her fingers through her hair. As Draco straightened out his tie, he rounded the corner and stepped around to the other side of the book shelf.
Genevieve scooped up her book bag and clutched it to her chest as she peered around the corner as well. There was a solitary tome on the brief history of medieval alchemy that did not look brief at all by the size of it. Draco picked it up slowly and Genevieve plucked it from his hands. "Oh this looks fascinating. I wonder if there's anything about-"
"Really, Vivvy, you don't wonder how it got there," he asked in a bored tone, not at all surprised by her enthusiasm over discovering a book in the library she hadn't yet read. Still eying the cover, she shrugged her shoulders, "Maybe we bumped the shelf a bit too roughly while we were...you know. What's it matter? Nobody caught us."
She kissed his clenched jaw, and his posture slackened slightly at the affectionate gesture. "It's alright, Draco, let's just get to class. We're late enough that you can walk me under the guise of escorting me, a delinquent student, to their classroom. You can even deduct points from Gryffindor and I won't be sore about it at all."
That seemed to brighten his demeanor exponentially and he followed her toward the front of the library. "That certainly makes up for the interruption."
She cast an amused grin at him over her shoulder and stopped before Madam Pince's desk. Draco strolled out of the library and Genevieve noted that he somehow managed to stroll in the most poised way possible. She shook her head at it, fought to keep from grinning further. While Draco Malfoy was the epitome of perfect by pureblood standards, she doubted he would appreciate her finding it cute.
Genevieve spent the rest of her day decidedly focused on her notes and studying, still quite embarrassed with herself for declaring her love for Draco in the middle of a disagreement. As the day wore on, she had become more and more embarrassed, which was only slightly relieved by the knowledge that tonight, Draco would be busy doing his rounds with the rest of the Inquisitorial Squad as they tried once again to catch everyone who was willingly breaking Umbridge's many decrees.
After dinner, Genevieve settled down before the fireplace in the common room and spread out all her parchment notes on the floor in chronological order. She spent the bulk of her time studying transfiguration as it seemed to give her the most trouble.
"At it again, MacDuff," the Weasley twins asked as they settled in the armchairs opposite one another, causing her to have to look back and forth between the two as if she were attending a Wimbledon tennis match.
"Of course. How do think I manage to pass all my classes each year," she asked drily.
"Hey, Genevieve," Harry greeted as he and Ron settled on the couch behind her and Ron leaned forward, "that's a lot of notes for one class."
"Well, they're my notes from first to fifth year as well."
"Bloody hell, you actually kept all that," Ron cried in disbelief, "you're just as bad as Hermione!"
Hermione who had been approaching the couch while her redheaded friend spoke, smacked Ron around the back of the head, a scowl firmly in place. "What's so bad about wanting to do your best in all your classes? You could stand to learn from Genevieve. As if you'll make anything better than a 'A' or lower on you OWLs with that attitude."
Face flushed from embarrassment at her passionate outburst, she tossed a balled up cloak into Harry's lap. "Here," she muttered, crossing her arms over her chest. Genevieve turned around fully on the floor to look at it. "I've never seen a cloak like that before."
Harry gave her a weak smile and hugged a bit closer to himself. "It was my father's. Family heirloom I guess you could say."
"Really? That's good, you know, that you have something of his," Genevieve told him. Harry nodded and Genevieve's smile faltered at his serious expression. "Sorry, I didn't mean-"
"No, it's alright," he assured her, "just nerves, you know, from-"
Genevieve nodded. "Well, if anyone asks, I have no idea where you're going or that you've even gone. And no, I'm not joining you now or any time in the near future. Good luck, you troublesome lot."
"Harry broke out in a crooked grin. "Thanks, Gen."
She waved him off and smacked one of the twins on the leg when they had the nerve to mess her hair as they stood. "So long, MacDuff," they called in unison over their shoulders as they followed a sizable group of students out of the portrait hole.
"Genevieve," Hermione said uncertainly, causing the older girl to turn and look at her. "What, Hermione?"
Hermione picked at her sweater as she chewed her lip. "Nevermind, it's not important," she said finally, seeming to decide against saying whatever it was she had wanted to say only minute beforehand. "Goodnight."
Genevieve watched her go until Casper obscured her view by jumping up on the back of the couch. "Night, 'Mione."
The gray cat jumped down from the couch gracefully and rubbed up against her leg before curling into a ball in her lap and Genevieve leaned back against the couch to stare into the fire as she pet the feline. As she stared at the fire, Genevieve wondered if she would one day be forced to give up her friends the way Draco would be forced to give up his family. The sinking feeling in her stomach offered no comfort.