Disclaimer – I don't own HP, any of the canon concepts, characters or settings. Don't sue.
III
Ginny had learned a terrible lesson in discipline and self-control, long, long ago, reinforced by basilisk venom and chicken's blood. In the years since then, she'd kept almost fanatical control over her thoughts and impulses – except once.
Once, only once, had she ever given in and let her heart overrule her mind.
And it had almost ended in disaster.
"What do you want?" she demanded abruptly, not reacting to his harsh, crude accusation.
"I want many things, Ms Weasley," he said dryly. "I want an end to this war. I want to see every single Death Eating bastard cut down like the cowardly murderers they all are. But I'll settle for your cooperation."
"You've kept silent about Florence for five years, Moody. You could have brought it up at any time – why wait until now?"
"Because I didn't need you before. And now I do." His eyes strayed to Draco's pale, unmoving form. "Malfoy holds all the secrets of Voldemort's Inner Circle – if he ever wakes from his coma, and if we can ever get him to talk."
She began to see the outline of his intentions.
"You think he trusts me so much?"
He turned back to her. "I know he will never be more vulnerable than he is at the moment. And I know that – at least for that one month – he was so infatuated with you he would have done anything you asked." The sardonic, contemptuous curl of his lip was all too eloquent. "He will wake, if you call him. And he will speak, if you play your cards correctly."
"…aco? Draco? Can you hear me?"
He could hear the voice, far, far away, the faintest thread of sound in the endless, numbing blackness. Something deep inside of him stirred…
Moody watched them both, the worn, weary mediwitch, and the broken, mostly dead Death Eater. She sat on the edge of his bed, her hand resting lightly on his, her head bent down to hear his labouring breath, and her thick, choppy hair finally escaped its restraints and fell around them both, a copper-bright curtain to shield them from the rest of the world –
Suddenly uncomfortable, he looked away.
