Chapter 5:
"Progress Report," Voldemort announced as Draco entered the living room for his regular meeting with the Dark Lord.
"Yes My Lord. She's eating regularly-"
"We've been through that."
"A-and as a result her figure is greatly improved, she is shapely your greatness, I think Harry Potter will like it."
"Obviously. What else?"
"She-"
"There is nothing else?"
"She was making good progress sir, but I'm afraid the article about her in the Daily Prophet has set her back a little. She's terribly saddened-"
"What did you say to her when you gave it?"
"Pardon?"
"When you gave her the newspaper Draco, what did you say?"
"I said erm… 'you might want to read this' I think."
"And then?"
"I believe that was it My Lord."
"You fool," Voldermort forcefully said, "That was your chance. That was your chance to comfort her, to motivate her to get better. Why didn't you do it?"
"I-I don't exactly understand, sir."
"Just like your father, you can achieve nothing on your own. You Malfoy's you are like sheep, you need to be guided all the time, one simple task you cannot do on your own. I laid it out for you, I set the track down, I gave you the equipment and still you went in the wrong direction. Tell me Draco, how is this meant to help your case?"
"I'm sorry sir."
"Let me make this clear to you Draco. She will never concede to helping us if she is not happy here. How can we keep her alive if all she wants to do is die?"
"But sir, we have her; we don't need to be nice to her."
"BUT NOTHING. Listen here, I want her looking beautiful and youthful, same as she was when Harry Potter first saw her. I want her to remind him of what he lost, to distract him from how much he loathes me. I WANT YOU TO MAKE SURE IT HAPPENS."
"Yes sir," Draco replied tightly.
"Now what will you do?"
"I'll work on it."
"Don't work on it Draco, do it. Get it done."
"Yes My Lord."
"Now go."
"Yes My Lord."
XX
Draco cursed himself as he entered Ginny's cell and saw her sitting there arranging some stray twigs on the floor. He could not believe the Dark Lord had ordered him to be nice to a Weasley. He could not believe he had to bear her company much less pretend like he cared. And yet there he was standing in front of her waiting for her to acknowledge his presence.
She didn't.
He cleared his throat, "Listen, I know you're torn up about your family…" She didn't look up. "I-I know what you're going through." He sighed as if the mere utterance of this sentence took all the strength he stored within.
She lifted her eyes from the floor and looked at him. Still she said nothing.
"I know it's hard to believe but -"
"What do you know about it?"
"What do I know about it? Weasley, in case you haven't noticed I've been living in this situation since I've left Hogwarts. I know it's not easy, and I know you're hurting but there's always a brighter side."
At this she chuckled, "Oh Draco Malfoy ever the optimist. Of course, the brighter side. What side is that? The side where I sit here day after the day knowing that my family is at home thinking of every possible thing that could have happened to me? The side where I worry that maybe the next time I read the papers it will be to announce that my father, my mother, my brothers, my friends are missing? The side that knows that the reason I am here is to help him succeed, that the pain my parents are experiencing now will be nothing compared to the pain they will experience when he is finished with me?" Tears had started trickling down her cheeks now, "Forgive me, Malfoy, if I fail to see the bright side of the situation."
Draco ran his fingers through his blonde hair, "Is there anything I could do to make you feel better?"
This time she burst into all out laughter, "Cut the shit Malfoy. You must think I'm a right ass to fall for your act. He put you up to this didn't he? Tell me, what is it he wants with me? What is it that I could be so important for so as to help him win a fight against Harry?"
"It's not an act Weasley," he lied. "Listen, if there's something I can do just tell me. You're no good to anyone sitting here sulking day after day."
"You know what you can do? You can let me go, right now. That would make me happy. That would make me very happy."
"I can't do that."
"Then you can't do anything to help."
"You must be lonely, maybe you need a companion."
"That won't make me happy."
"I'll stay with you-"
"That won't make me happy," she persisted.
"Instead of playing with twigs you can enjoy my company."
"I like my twigs."
"It's settled then, I will be with you from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep, from the time the sun goes up to the time it goes down-"
"From the time you start my punishment to the moment I kill myself."
"Weasley, I will take care of you until you feel better."
She looked at him earnestly in the eye, "why are you doing this to yourself?'
Draco uttered the only words of truth he had spoken that day, "I have to."
XX
Draco had stayed true to his word. He had, in fact, stayed with Ginny from the moment she opened her eyes – the moment the sun went up. They sat in silence for the first two days with Ginny refusing to acknowledge his presence, hoping that if she ignored him long enough he would give up and go away. She was wrong, he seemed to relish the silence, and was always amused when he asked a question only to be greeted with silence. This angered Ginny even more and by the fourth day she had given up. If Draco had submitted himself to her company who was she to make it easier on him? If he asked a question she would gladly answer, knowing that deep inside it killed him to be talking to a Weasley. She had decided to kill him with kindness. Truer to his word still, Draco left as soon as Ginny's lids fluttered – as soon as the sun's last rays disappeared beneath the horizon. He spent no more time with Ginny than he had promised, no more time than he had to.
But in those hours that Draco had spent with her he had grown curious. How could someone miss their family so much that they become physically sick? What was it that made her so miserable here, where she was bathed in the finest bath salts, clothed with the most expensive clothes and (even though it was just recently) slept in a bed with the softest cottons and smoothest silks.
"Weasley," he called from across the room where he had been observing her.
She raised her head in response.
"Explain to me why you miss your family so much."
"What?" she asked confused.
"I don't understand you. You have everything you need here; you have food, clothes, and no responsibility. Anyone would be quite content to live here. In fact, there are people who probably wish to be whisked away from the problems of their daily life to be taken care of as you have been. So why are you such a miserable bitch all the time?"
"I wouldn't expect you to understand Malfoy, but some of us are loved at home and that's what I miss, the love of my family."
Draco folded his arms, "What do you mean you wouldn't expect me to understand?"
She looked at him in the kind of way that says 'isn't it obvious?'
"For your information, I received plenty of love from my parents."
She huffed.
"What? Surprising as it may be but the Malfoy's are a very loving family."
"Correct me if I'm wrong but your father didn't seem like he had love for anyone but money and your mother seemed too high on coke to feel a pin stuck through her arm much less emotion of any kind."
"My mother cared for me with all her heart," Draco tried to control the anger in his voice, "She was as loving and perfect a woman as any other - Even more considering our circumstances."
"And your father?"
The truth was Lucius Malfoy had been more of a dictator than a father to Draco. He was more concerned in training his son to follow in his footsteps, always correcting Draco's every move, never congratulating him or letting him know how proud he was. "What makes your family any better?" Draco returned instead.
"We might not have had a lot, but we had each other."
Draco chuckled, "That's about all you had."
"It might have been, but it was enough. It was more than enough. It was worth more than any Manor or fancy clothes of any sort."
Draco remained silent for a moment before asking with pure curiosity, "But didn't you ever wish that you weren't so poor, that you did have fancy clothes and could afford good food."
"Honestly? Yes, but not for me. For my parents maybe, so it would stress them out less, or for my brothers since they work so hard, but never for me. I would have done anything to make them happy. That's why I hate the fact that they don't know where I am, they must be worried sick, I hate not knowing."
"Then why did you leave?"
Ginny's voice was tense and angered but not without a guilty twinge, "I've told you already Malfoy, because I couldn't stand to be apart of this."
"So you don't care as much as you say you do," he adjusted himself more comfortably on the chair he sat lazily in.
"Pardon?" she sent him daggers with her eyes warning him not to go where they had gone many times before. Draco ignored them.
"Well, if you really cared about your family and you really hated not knowing then you wouldn't have left. You wouldn't have been able to stand being all the way in the muggle world while they suffered here."
"I told you, they sent me letters, every week."
"Letters that they chose what to write to you about. Your mother have a terminal illness and choose not to tell you, or your father could have been fired for ages and you wouldn't know, simply because they left it out of a letter."
"My parents wouldn't do that." But now Ginny worried that maybe they had, maybe her parents chose to protect her as they saw fit and only told her what they thought she could bear. Images of her mother lying on her bed at home sick and close to death writing her letters saying that everything was fine clouded Ginny's mind.
"Why? They want to protect you don't they? You're obviously not interested in what's happening here or you wouldn't have left."
"Some of us aren't evil like you Malfoy. Some of us can't sit here and watch members of our family get killed, and kill other people's loved ones. Some of us can't stand to be apart of this."
Smoothly Draco got up from his seat and brushed his dark brown trousers off, "Congratulations Ginny, everyone you know and love, even your dear Potter, is evil." And he left, for the first time since he made his promised, a couple hours before he was meant to.
XX
