When Draco appeared in the doorway of Severus's playroom at his normally scheduled quitting time, Ginny about fell over from shock. She'd slept terribly, barely catching an hour of sleep, two at the most, and when she'd dragged herself miserably from one of the guest rooms to apologize, he'd already left for work. As he stood slumped against the door frame, almost for support as if he would collapse from exhaustion, Ginny thought about apologizing then and there. But her stupid, silly pride reared its ugly head. "Dinner will be ready in a few minutes," she told him instead, relaying the message Daisy had brought up only a few minutes before.
Draco answered with a curt nod. "I'll go shower and change."
They reconvened in the dining room, Draco appearing just as Ginny settled Severus into his high chair, much to his protest. They had attempted on several occasions to let him sit at the table 'with the grown-ups' but each attempt had managed to be worse than its predecessor. So despite her son's wailing in resent, Ginny got him settled in, using a silent charm to help root him in place after the climb, grope, and fall incident from a few weeks past.
With Severus seated at the end of the table, Ginny took the seat to his left, and Draco took his place on her other side. The table stretched on down the room, seemingly endless, but they hadn't even attempted to fill it since the wedding. While Daisy brought the plates to the table, they both reflected on just how massive the Malfoy Manor was. It was wasted, really, on the three of them. But it had been put to far worse uses in the past so they stayed, as if to prove that it would never be used in such a way again.
Ginny thought about inquiring as to how his day went, but one look at him told her it had been dreadful, so she held her tongue. The pair ate in miserable silence, Ginny pushing her food around her plate more often than consuming it.
Severus, oblivious to the tension at the table next to him, chattered endlessly about the broomstick he wanted for his birthday. "Pleaseeeeee, Papa. Please, please, please, can I have one? I want one! You have one! I neeeeed it."
"Ask your mother," was all he said.
Again, Ginny bit her tongue. Why was it always left up to her to make these kinds of decisions? Why did she always have to be the villain, telling their son he couldn't have what he neeeeeeded. "We'll see," she answered vaguely. "Eat your squash." She was aware of the irony of how much she'd hated her own parents' similar responses when she was young.
"Gross!" Severus exclaimed, making a show of picking up a handful and pitching it to the floor. Ginny's hand tightened around her fork as she forced herself to count to five - a trick she'd learned from Hermione, who had about lost her mind by the time James reached his terrible two's phase. Unfortunately, Severus was taking longer to plateau on the other side of his.
Daisy scurried to pick up the discarded food before anyone could ask, and Ginny thanked her lucky stars for the house elf. She didn't know what she would have done without Daisy's help.
Severus continued to prattle on, but most of what came out of his mouth was a monologue intended for no one in particular. Half of it Ginny tuned out. The other half barely made a lick of sense. She would have to get him out socializing with kids his own age again, as soon as his ban was officially lifted.
Silence befell them again until Draco was picking at the last of his meal and could take the quiet no longer. He kept waiting for her to broach a subject. Something, again, so he could gauge where she was at both mentally and emotionally. But she'd barely spoken a word to him, even after he'd pulled a serious number of strings and made more than a few threats at work in order to get home on time. His eye twitched in irritation.
"I asked the ward supervisor for the weekend after next off," he finally said, having to raise his voice to be heard over Severus's non-stop incessant talking. Unfortunately it appeared that, so far, Severus had picked up both of his parents' annoying traits instead of their favorable ones as hoped. Ginny kept swearing up and down that Hermione insisted that their son had gone through the exact same thing, but had calmed down soon after. Draco ventured her infuriatingly saintly like kid had never spoken a word in his life, and that she'd only read about this type of behavior with her bushy head shoved in a book.
His comment did not elicit the reaction he was hoping for, which only grated on his nerves further. He had realized, as she'd made her big production of storming out of the bedroom the previous night, that he had to do something. He'd stayed up all night, tossing and turning and contemplating the possibilities. At each turn, it pointed to the same, hopeless option that he dreaded. And yet, when he'd finally given up on sleep entirely, resigned to the fact, he's gone into work and asked for, or really demanded, the weekend in question off. In all his years at St. Mungo's, he'd never dared such a thing, which was probably why they agreed and spent the day reworking schedules.
Running on a high of exhilaration, he'd taken it a step further. He'd demanded something be done about the staffing. He wasn't the only one in the department dead on his feet half the day, and it was beginning to show. They were working on it, they assured him, though he'd believe that when he saw it.
"I hope you'll be able to enjoy the peace and quiet," she finally acknowledged him.
Was she really that dense? Was she going to make him spell it out for her? Did she truly not understand, or was she making this whole ordeal as insufferable as possible for him in retribution? He almost gave into the challenge rising within him. He'd gone out of his way, bent over backwards, to do what she'd asked, and now she wanted to act indifferent. He had half the mind to throw down his spoon and head straight back to work, where his efforts were at least appreciated.
But then he remembered the look on her face the previous night. He remembered the tears in her eyes. And Ginny Malfoy nee Weasley never cried. Not when Severus dive bombed her head with his ridiculous toy dragon, not when her mother made her go shopping with her sister-in-laws during the holidays, and not even when Looney Lovegood went off on one of her asinine tangents that made no sense to anyone with half a brain. She screamed and hexed and cursed at him, quite frequently at that, but she didn't cry. He remembered that now as he sat at the table, and his hold on the spoon loosened.
"I doubt there's going to be any peace and quiet at the reunion. Children may be banned, but most of those gits don't know how to shut their mouths for a single second. I will not be boarding that train until I have a cauldron's worth of head potions packed." There was no earthly way she could misinterpret that. Yet still, she said nothing. Draco gave up, stabbing the last of his squash so hard the fork grated against the fine china.
Ginny didn't speak. She didn't know what to say. Part of her thought it was a ruse, retaliation for her demeanor the previous night. But even Draco wasn't that cruel. At least, not anymore. And so she finally let herself believe it. That she had won this small battle. That there was still some give in their relationship. That he was home at a decent hour and wasn't planning on heading directly back to work after dinner.
Perhaps all was not lost. Maybe it was just a phase, the phase that followed after the honeymoon phase that ended abruptly at the arrival of a child. Her eyes darted over to Severus, who had finally stopped talking long enough to swallow a few bites of food. Fuel to feed the next installment of his half formulated rants to get a racing broomstick, the one Draco had brought him the week his was born that was hidden somewhere in the house until they thought he'd be old enough to ride.
Now stunned into speechlessness, Ginny reached under the table. Resting her hand on his knee, she gave it a gentle squeeze, hoping it could convey every thought racing through her mind at the moment. It was impossible, she realized, as she couldn't even understand half of what she was feeling. Her hand remained there for a long moment before she returned to picking at her food.
He soon returned the favor. When his hand touched her knee, it did not stop. Sliding up her leg, his long, dexterous fingers only stilled once they reached the inside of her upper thigh. Even through the fabric of her pants, it was almost too much. Eyes fluttering shut, her spoon clattered to the plate. And in a way only Malfoy would, he took that as a sign to resume movement of his flexible digits.
She gasped aloud in surprise, her knee jerking involuntarily. He hadn't attempted such an act since the last great Weasley holiday gathering. Then, it had been a game of torture, to see which one of them would crack the mask in public first. There was no teasing, no game behind the way his fingers gently ran up and down the inside of her thigh now. It was a promise of something much more real and desperate.
"Mama, what's wrong?" Severus asked.
Ginny's eyes snapped open and her hands reached to clutch the edge of the table as Draco's hand pulled away, as if caught. "N-nothing," she stumbled over the word, flushed and embarrassed and yet strangely aroused. Shame surged through her at the thought.
"Ok," Severus said, as if it was all the explanation he needed. Then he tried to repeat a joke Roxanne had told him, but he could only remember half the words and the punch line never came. He got distracted about halfway through and bailed out of it completely.
Ginny couldn't help but glance over at Draco. She half expected his hand to return, but then realized he was probably just as embarrassed and ashamed as she was. Still, as she cast a sideways glance, she found him looking back from the corner of his eye. His face did not reveal any emotion, and yet Ginny's stomach flipped with anticipation.
