This Isn't Hogwarts
*****Draco*****
Ted and Andromeda talked for a long time after Andromeda came home from work.
Dora and Remus had spent almost all of it in Dora's room, with silencing charms up, but Draco knew that several patronuses had been in and out from different directions, including a lynx.
"The hospital is government funded, and it has been said… that Muggle-borns should not be paid with government funding. So, I don't have a job, and it might get worse. We don't know what it will mean for a Hogwarts without Albus Dumbledore," he said. "It might be the safest place in the country, or it might… amount to a prison or worse," Uncle Ted explained.
"Thank you for telling me," Draco said, like a reasonable, responsible adult-like-person. He was still used to complaining to his father about anything he found objectionable, and the powerful, rich man he idolized fixing it. It hadn't worked as well since going to Hogwarts- hadn't worked at all since fourth year, for too many reasons.
*****Ginny*****
"Severus Snape will be the Headmaster," McGonagall's voice sounded… old.
Ginny walked into the kitchen. They hadn't even put up silencing spells.
"If Tom Riddle's controlling everything, I would say that is the best case scenario," Ginny said.
"Ginny, you don't need to hear this," her mother said, clench a cloth.
"I disagree. I'm going back to the place in a few weeks just as much as Professor McGonagall is. Our family is in a precarious enough situation as it is without me going in more blindly than needed. And I trust Professor Snape," she said. McGonagall was going back to Hogwarts, wasn't she? How many of the Order of the Phoenix member's identities were known? Had McGonagall been a member when Peter Pettigrew had been? Ginny's parents hadn't been. How many of those original members were still alive?
"And what are your grounds for that assessment, Miss Weasley? Severus Snape is a very talented man, deception high among those talents," Professor McGonagall said. She was tired.
"Because he used Legilimency on Draco- a really deep look, and nothing bad happened to Draco afterwards, and no one knows where he is. No one's tried to kill Draco," she said. Yet, her unhelpful thoughts added. No.
"I believe that… Professor Snape has known young Mr. Malfoy closely since he was born. It is possible that he has a familial tie with the boy and still could assist and allow horror to befall the other students." True, and it wasn't like Ginny hadn't considered that. But he didn't really seem that much less trustworthy now than before, so why was everyone doubting him now. He probably hadn't been in communication, but he didn't exactly have the easy excuse of the school year. It would be easier in September. And also Dumbledore wasn't around to constantly remind people that the wisest, strongest man in the world trusted Snape. Dumbledore was dead. At the hands of a Slytherin teenager, one of Snape's students.
"So, what are we going to do about it? Students are still going to arrive at Hogwarts if the train runs on September 1st. Are you going to be there?" Ginny asked her Head of House. She felt like an adult warrior and also a petulant child.
"Of course, I will be there," Minerva McGonagall said.
"I'll be there too. And students of any house will know that they can talk to me," Ginny promised. Slytherins too. At least, Ginny would try to make that true. Even if Slytherins had never acted more warmly than a neutral nod to her, and she hadn't done anything more to them.
Her birthday that year felt less mommentus than any that had come before it, when it didn't have any visible reason to.
Her mother made a cake. There were small presents. The twins came over, and attempted to bring cheer.
Nothing from Draco, but she had known not to expect it. They couldn't risk revealing Draco's location. It was tentative enough as it was, surely? They were blood relatives, even if Draco had supposedly never met them. They'd almost not even gone to the wedding.
*****Draco*****
The house felt empty when Ted left.
Why didn't they leave with him? Draco didn't have any idea how Ted would live without a house, but did Ted himself have any better idea?
Ted and Andromeda thought that Andromeda had an obligation to her patients, for as long as she could work at Saint Mungo's without interference from… her sister, essentially, because surely that was who they needed to be most worried about?
The woman had killed their first cousin and targeted Dora twice now, but hadn't done anything against her sister.
Muggleborns were to surrender their wands, possibly go to Azkaban if they were found 'guilty' of whatever imagined wrongdoing. Would he have been so stupid, so cruel, if his… fate were different? If he hadn't been forcibly betrothed to Ginny… and given the opportunity to fall in love with her.
"You'll be fine, because they won't be trying to detect you. The charms around your room will hold," Ted said, for the second time, but it felt like the tenth.
"And if they are looking for me?" Draco asked. He hadn't asked that the first time. Hadn't known if he wanted to show the most obvious flaw with the plan.
"Then you apparate away, and send me a patronus, and I'll find you," the man said.
What if the people coming were better prepared? What if the warning spells didn't work? What if it wasn't a now routine inspection by some minion of Umbridge, but all of Riddle's inner circle? What if Draco's patronus came to Uncle Ted during a dangerous time for the man?
Draco wasn't ready to make those objections, because he didn't have a better idea. He would just be a greater liability going with him. He was highly recognizable as a Malfoy, and didn't have any idea how to fit in in the wilderness or the muggle world- and he believed Ted would go to both. Though Draco didn't know any specifics, just… in case that could be dangerous to Ted. If Draco's aunt found Draco, essentially, and wanted to rid all the blights in her family.
He did know how to send a message patronus. He'd perfected it at the house after seeing enough of them. He'd tried to help his aunt and uncle as well. He wasn't much of a teacher. His aunt never managed more than mist, and his uncle sometimes made his- a squirrel- but he couldn't make it talk. Draco Malfoy's voice coming out of a shining unicorn was about the least subtle thing in the planet, but it had been his first priority to learn. And then he'd looked closer at the healing books the Tonkses had. Because some of these idiots that Draco cared about would probably get themselves hurt.
"Okay," Draco said, only half knowing what he was agreeing to.
"Look after Andromeda for me?" he asked, hand squeezing Draco's shoulder. "But not before yourself and Ginny," he clarified.
"I don't know that I can look after anyone," Draco answered. "Dora asked me the same thing for the rest of you, and I can't," he said.
"Ah, well, we all worry. It's not your responsibility to do anything specific, and I don't want to burden you, son- Draco. I didn't mean- well, I suppose I did, really. Just keep yourself safe when you can, and show the others you care about them staying alive and well, and that's all anyone can do."
Draco initiated the hug that time. He didn't do that often. And then he had to be the one to pull away first, because he knew well that Uncle Ted never would.
Draco made dinner each day now, usually had it almost ready when Andromeda got home. When he'd hope that she had some sort of good news, or at least not bad. A hospital seemed like the most wrong place for Death Eaters to control. Even worse than a school.
Draco knew that Andromeda had stayed for her patients, but for Draco as well, so this would still be his home. They didn't talk about Hogwarts directly, didn't say the name. They'd say 'September' occasionally.
Draco was always going to go back to Hogwarts, if only because he knew that Ginny was going to. And what else could he do?
*****Ginny*****
Enough students didn't return to Hogwarts that it was easy to get a compartment to themselves. Small mercy. She wanted to see everyone else, but if they thought their position was delicate last year, surely it was nothing to this. And when they closed the curtain, no one bothered them the whole trip. It had only really been Draco and his bodyguards making the full round in the past- or full rounds until they found Harry Potter's cabin.
They spent a lot of the trip kissing, when they had caught up on each others lives in quiet tones. And more kissing, because they could, and sometimes it was easier than words.
Ginny's father was still going to work. They needed the money, and he was maybe the chief informer of Ministry activities for the Order- though Ginny didn't get to see much of that. She couldn't see Kingsley still having a prominent place though, and she knew that Tonks wasn't going to work anymore.
She didn't know where Ron, Hermione, and Harry were, or how long they'd be doing whatever they were doing.
*****Ginny*****
The day that Ginny first saw Neville with a black eye and a split lip, she wondered what the hell they were doing there. What any of them were doing here.
This wasn't Hogwarts. She could pretend, in the Gryffindor Common room, that nothing was different, but everything was.
Ginny had never been close to the girls in her year, but they were even quieter than usual, those who had come back. Colin wasn't there, and Dennis. The seventh years were practically non-existent. The younger ones looked up to Neville more than ever, and he took the role very seriously. And some of them, especially the girls, looked up to Ginny too.
It felt wrong to see Seamus all the time without Dean. To see Lavender without Parvati. Lavender was the only seventh year Gryffindor girl who came back. Neville and Seamus were the only ones of the boys. Ginny was pretty sure that Lavender hadn't been sleeping in the empty room, that she slept in the seventh year boy's dorm- and Ginny didn't even think there was anything romantic going on- positive that it wasn't with Neville, and didn't really think at all. Just comfort. Though maybe Seamus and Lavender would work- Ginny didn't know either well.
Charms and Transfiguration were the best. Ginny… would have considered taking even History of Magic just for some normalcy.
The Slytherins in her year weren't like those in Draco's, no Death Eater children among them. Ginny thought they mostly looked tired and scared. Professor Slughorn looked tired and scared. He'd wanted to avoid the war, and now it had come to here.
This wasn't Hogwarts.
Except Neville thought it was.
"This? It's nothing. You know the staircases in Hogwarts." He was bleeding from his face, and obviously hadn't been to the hospital wing, or even to any professor.
"And I'm pretty sure you haven't had any problem with them since your second year."
"Fourth," Neville corrected sheepishly. "I didn't get to be this amazing overnight," he said, smiling. Which would have had some chance of looking smug if his lip wasn't split and the smile clearly pained.
"Neville, this is me. We need to know what's wrong. Other than…" Everything. Other than everything. "Other than the Dark Arts and mandatory muggle studies course," she said. "I haven't had either yet but…" It wasn't like they could be good.
"Yeah, it's as bad as you're thinking. I've had both. I actually need to learn enough about muggles to refute what Carrow says, but I hope everyone knows that normal teachers don't act like them. Merlin, it's like two Umbridges with no inhibitions."
"Did class have to do with your face?" she asked.
"Nah, not this time. Probably wouldn't be so visible from a teacher. And I think they still have hope of convincing me. Sacred Twenty-Eight as I am. Nah, this was Crabbe and Goyle. A first year Ravenclaw was trying to reason with them by asking a question. And the kid was is smarter than both of them combined so… they got flustered, turned to fists, and I availed myself as a more acceptable outlet, I guess," he said.
"What was her question?"
"I believe his question was something to the effect of… if purebloods are better, what about squibs?"
"First year?" Ginny repeated. Could have been a Gryffindor was her first thought- a thought she wasn't especially proud of. She was working past house stereotypes and prejudices. Mostly, she wished she'd been like that in her first year. In a different set of circumstances, maybe.
"Yeah."
"Good boy," Ginny said, nodding.
Neville smiled a more ral smile. "The eleven-year-old or me?" he asked.
"I don't think I have to pick."
*****Draco*****
"I haven't seen you in our room much, Draco," Theo said, three days into term. Nott. Murderer of Albus Dumbledore. He still saw the other wizard often. They still had several classes together… the ones that could still be called classes. He had never been more grateful to go to Transfiguration and Charms than to have a real class away from all of the Slytherin boys besides Blaize. And he still spent time in the Slytherin Common Room, mostly immersed in books hoping no one would talk to him, but he had to put in time being there. Ginny would want him to be available to the younger students. He even wanted that, but wasn't sure at all what that meant, or how he would do it. Malfoys weren't approachable.
"It wouldn't be proper to bring my betrothed into such a room, and our contract is so… accommodating," he said. That was to be his answer if anyone asked. Ginny had approved it, even. Everyone in the castle that wasn't very close to Ginny already thought they were having sex. Probably some of those close to Ginny did too, actually. Even though they weren't. Even though they hadn't even discussed the possibility of actually doing so. Even though it was explicitly allowed in their weird old contract. But, Draco wasn't about to sleep in the seventh year Slytherin dormitory. And who was really going to question a seventeen-year-old taking advantage of the opportunity to have regular sex?
"Are you sure the Weasleys are people you want to associate with right now?" Theodore asks. "I said you had two choices, but surely by now you see that one of them is a really shitty choice," he said.
"I'm associating with Ginny, not the rest of the Weasleys. And the Weasleys pretend to not care of blood purity, but you know that their blood is as free of muggle influence as ours is."
"The father works with muggle artifacts," Theodore pointed out.
"He thinks them a curiosity, like animals. And he reacts in kindness to them as a lesser being, a novelty. And what the man thinks is none of my concern or Ginny's. In a year, she will be a Malfoy, not a Weasley, and the only relevant piece of her family will be that her blood is pure, and not closely related to mine to make strong future offspring."
"Another generation to follow our Lord," Nott said.
Draco wanted to vomit. He... wanted kids, not pawns. What were the proper, unselfish motivations for offspring? Was that even possible? His mother… and his father loved him, but they had undeniably wanted an heir for societal reasons.
Draco hadn't responded. He was good at this. He could say pretty words, and turn the subject slightly, anything away from thinking of his future possible children taking the Mark. They were supposed to still be children themselves, dammit. "May we all be so lucky in the future. You have always been my closest ally. We were equals as children, and I respected you as such while I surrounded myself with minions. Now, I admire you, as a step above me, and I hope to learn from your dedication to the cause. I would like you to bring me forward, as you mentioned on the day of your great victory, after I graduate," Draco said.
He would run. He would take Ginny and run. Maybe she knew a way out of the castle. There were rumours that her brothers would sneak out for firewhiskey. They would run. Maybe they could find Uncle Ted. Maybe it would be safe to hide with Aunt Andromeda, like she claimed it was. They would be with someone. They would have each other, and Draco wouldn't have to talk to these people again.
"Good. It's not quite accurate, but I will call you a friend," Theodore Nott said.
"Thank you," Draco responded.
Maybe they could leave that night. But Ginny wouldn't want to. And Draco didn't know where would be safer for them to go.
A/N: We've been moving, and I haven't had access to my Harry Potter books (my precious reference materials) for… three weeks… So, I've actually been in the mood to work on this, and it's been very difficult (even though it feels like I should need it less with it being very apart from what the trio was doing, I still want to have it on hand), so this is short. Encouragement please!