Chapter Nine: Loose Ends
Ginny's entire world wavered and then slowly collapsed when she took in the expression on Draco's face. The cold, hard lines of his jaw were clenched tight, no longer smiling lazily at her. His fists were clenched tight and Ginny's breath wavered shakily. She fell against the doorjamb and avoided his eyes. He radiated so much anger and power that Ginny – for the first time – was actually terrified of him. He stood in the middle on her Firestarter lair, all evidence of her illegal hacking around them and the cold, cold truth of her actions as bright as the sun. She saw recognition in his eyes that had gone the color of stormy skies and as cold as frost. Ginny's hands begun to shake and her stomach clenched tightly. It didn't matter that he stood naked in front of her. She was much too scared of him to notice it.
Right there, by his foot, written clearly in her clumsy handwriting was the password to his account – the proxy portal she had used to get into his company and Fudge's password in the black binder Ginny had thrown over her shoulders when she had completed her quest to hack into Malfoy's company. Ginny didn't have to lie to herself. She hadn't meant for any of this to happen.
Ginny swallowed. Her mind blanked and she couldn't meet his eyes, but she didn't have to. The accusations thrummed in the air and Ginny shrank before him. All her edge was gone, ripped away by the intensity of his black glare.
"Mistake?" His voice was low and so cold it cut through the air and made her shiver. Her body felt tight and light and her mind whirled. Excuses and explanations died on her lips when she panicked and looked up at his face for the first time and saw the utter rage.
"I…" Ginny motioned helplessly around the room, filled with Mac and Alienware towers. They were all off, but they were evidence against her. They seemed to point at her and taunt.
"Was it all for a laugh, Ginevra? Was all this some kind of sick fucking joke?" Draco snarled and Ginny cringed.
"No!" Ginny protested and she took a deep shaky breath. Tears stung in the back of her throat and the lump in her throat was painful. "It was all an accident, I didn't mean to – I was just… I was trying to help!" Ginny cried and she immediately regretted it. It was the absolute wrong thing to say.
"Guilty conscience, Weasley?" Draco's voice was low.
"I wanted to fix it," Ginny whispered, her insides breaking as she saw the cold resolve on his face.
"You won't be needed at the office anymore," Draco said abruptly and brushed roughly past her. Ginny didn't move an inch when she heard the rustling of clothes and the tell-tale pop that said he was gone from her apartment.
Ginny walked slowly, numbly into her room. His cold rejection hurt worse than she thought. She curled on the sheets, closed her eyes, and felt the abandonment deep in her heart.
She couldn't erase the cold expression from her mind. She saw it behind her lids and knew very well that she deserved worse than that.
Ginny hadn't quite grasped the consequence of her actions – accidental or not – they stared at her in the face now and Ginny's eyes finally overflowed. The sobs shook her shoulders and made her breath hurt her throat.
The phone rang – as it usually does at the worst moments in history and Ginny's hand crept towards the slim black phone. It beeped and Luna's voice rang into her ears.
"Luna?" Ginny wept quietly. "I really messed things up."
"I know," Luna said, very softly.
……
The entire office was aware of the change in their boss when Draco walked in at seven in the morning, and immediately – as if by a telepathic signal – they knew Ginny Weasley was involved. Murmurs echoed around the office and Draco was immune to them. Jake stared worriedly at his friend and knew that the shit had hit the fan.
Jake could only imagine what the tall red-head had done to make Draco's jaw clench and his eyes cool to subzero temperatures at the mention of her name or of the program she was restoring. He took it upon himself – as a friend and partner of Malfoy Securities – to find out what had happened. He looked out for any sign of Ginny but at ten forty, it finally sank in that she wasn't coming in. Her office still looked cluttered with her things, and her computer was still running. There was a picture of her and boy-who-lived taped to the bulletin board along with several post-its and scraps of paper with her scrawl in black pen.
He walked as casually as possible to Draco's office, pausing briefly when he entered the lounge. Jake knocked on the door to Draco's office and only received a very curt 'I'm busy' in a deathly cool tone.
Jake sighed. He went in anyway, bearing the annoyed and look on Draco's face when he walked forward to sit on the high backed chairs.
"Jake, I said I was busy," Draco growled.
"I know, and I really want to go home to my wife, but I have this to think of. Now what happened?"
It was one of the lower points about being friends with someone for so long they knew every nook and cranny of you, Draco mused. Jake was very perceptive and he proved it today by looking into Draco's face and waiting patiently.
"She did it," Draco finally said. The betrayal that burned in his stomach boiled against his iron control. He gritted his teeth and his face hardened.
"Did what?" Jake asked slowly, although he had an idea that he feared was right – and Jake was very rarely wrong.
"She's the Firestarter, Jake! Ginny Weasley broke into my company and destroyed everything. Everything, goddammit. She had everything: my password, my portal; she had my whole company mapped out in her fucking house!" Draco seethed. Draco's fist clenched and Jake didn't move.
He didn't tell Draco that he had his own slight suspicions of her. After all, why would a Weasley of all people want to suddenly help? How would she know about what happened? He hadn't believed her excuse that she had known the Firestarter, but he liked Ginny. She was good for Draco. And she had helped immensely. Jake didn't say anything to Draco's rants.
"You don't look surprised," Draco said. He had been brought out of his enraged reverie by the thoughtful look on Jake's face.
"I'm not," Jake admitted.
"Why the hell not?" Draco demanded; his eyes were narrowed.
"You don't have to demand anything of me, Draco. I just didn't believe what she said about knowing the Firestarter. I'm actually pretty surprised you did. Or did you know it, and didn't want to believe it?" Jake mused and Draco's face froze.
Draco himself was a master of self-deception. He had perfected the art of lying to himself at Hogwarts and it had continued through the years to become a perfect blank face. Draco swallowed. He had known. He was intelligent enough to see through Ginny's pitiful lies about the whole situation. Ginny's story had so many holes and mismatched truth that a person with an IQ of ten would have figured it out that all her computer knowledge wasn't because she knew the Firestarter – that it was because she was the Firestarter. Ginny's knowledge and guilty expressions gave her away every time and yet Draco had ignored it. Because he loved her
The rage welled up inside him again, but behind it the terrible pain she caused burned with no end and Draco brought his hands up so the heels of his palm rubbed against his eyes.
"Jesus, Jake," Draco whispered.
It was so obvious now and Draco wanted nothing more that to hurt her.
"I know, Draco," Jake said and recognized three very simple facts about Draco at that exact moment: Draco loved Ginny Weasley and vice versa, Ginny Weasley had hurt Draco Malfoy and they both were now at a point where it was all or nothing. Jake thought that it resembled some sort of sick Muggle soap opera. He kept his observation to himself and settled comfortably.
"She's got us ahead. We'll finish in two weeks – maybe less," Jake said and Draco threw him a sour look.
"I know she got us ahead. So what?"
"So, she really tried to help," Jake said easily and didn't feel the tremble most people did when Draco unleashed his full death glare.
The look died quickly. "She said she didn't mean to," Draco said softly.
Jake nodded. He may not know Ginny personally but he knew she wasn't vicious like Jessica. She was kind and way too feisty for his taste – but she wouldn't tear Draco down on purpose. He could see that Draco was coming to the same resolve.
A brief, but hesitant knock on the door brought them both out of their stupor and Jake's assistant – Maria – poked her head in, looking dubious about something.
"Er. There's someone out here that wants to collect Miss Weasley's things," Maria said and waited. Draco's face shut down and he stood to his full height and walked around the desk to Maria. She opened the door wider and Draco braced himself to face her.
It wasn't Ginny.
Pale blue eyes looked fearlessly back up at his and a completely serene expression made her face smooth and blank. No trace of any emotion showed on Luna Lovegood's face and Draco was thankful. No accusations or hate glared for her eyes. Draco visibly calmed and nodded. He knew Luna was Ginny's best friend and he expected some degree of viciousness. He followed Luna's slow, purposeful steps to Ginny's deserted office where Luna pulled out a black tote bag from the brown leather bag she carried and began to place each of Ginny's possessions in the bag. She took the tack off the moving photo of her and Harry, smiling toothily into the camera and slid into her pocket. She didn't seem to mind that Draco and Maria were watching her every move. Luna dropped the Sneakoscope into the tote bag along with Ginny's favorite pencil and several knick knacks and Ginny's personalized coffee mug.
"It'll be nice – going back to Dad's Quibbler headquarters," Luna said serenely and Draco didn't say a word. Maria's eyebrows lifted and she stared confusedly at the blonde woman who looked as if she didn't have a care in the world. She wouldn't be the first one to look at Luna with what particular expression. "Ginny's taking over the shop again, thank goodness. Running a business is a lot harder than it looks, but you would know that," Luna continued and dropped the last thing – a framed photo of herself and Ginny holding a silly pose.
She smiled. "Thank you for letting me take her things," Luna murmured and moved past Draco to follow Maria outside again. Draco was frozen on the spot, staring at the now blank walls and empty desk. Ginny's presence was now stripped off his office building – and for once Draco didn't know what to feel.
He couldn't muster the cold-heartedness that would have usually allowed him to brush her off without a second though. A deep sorrow was churning deep in his gut, but Luna's words rang in his ears. She was in Diagon Alley.
Still, it meant nothing. Draco took the few seconds in the bare office to pull himself together and faced the timid expressions of his people. He walked purposely back to his office. Jake took one look at his friend's face and took charge.
It took a huge amount of love and pain to make someone bear the lost expression Draco bore on his face. The panicked look in his eyes did not match Draco Malfoy – but it was there. Jake looked after Draco's back for a moment and then moved on the puzzled programmers.
"Back to work," he ordered and went back to his office.
…….
After a brief pause in the back doorway of the shop; Ginny sat down on her orange computer chair and began booting up the shop's registers and computers. It felt so strange to be back in her shop again – almost as if she was coming home. She had shed the business-woman look that she had worn when she had been working for Draco and was now back to the grunge skirt, gray pumps, spiked belt and a top from her shop.
She allowed herself s brief, sentimental moment. She gazed around the shop, her eyes drifting over every bit of merchandise – from the vintage clothing to the accessories to the specialty items to the books and finally to the archway that led to her Café. She ran her hands over the dark wooden counter and sighed.
Ginny flipped the 'Closed' sign on the door so Open faced the door. Light immediately flickered to life and small gadgets followed suit. Trance music flowed of the floating speakers and Ginny spoiled herself by putting in The Crow soundtrack instead.
After nearly three months of being away from her shop, an after the fifth person that welcomed her back after an hour of being open, Ginny came to the conclusion that people had actually missed her. It hadn't occurred to her that people might actually miss her presence and her shop.
She rung up a teenager with a septum piercing and sat back down, looking around her room and realizing how that she had actually missed her shop. She had to go over the orders Luna had sent and over the stock currently stored in the storage room. Ginny's fingers flew over the keyboard once more.
Typical. It was just typical for his mother to send him to Ginny's shop to buy her a purse. Goddamn the women and their obsessions with purses! Draco cursed mentally, entering Ginny's shop and ducking away quickly. He was immediately aware of the sound of clacking keys. She was there. If he peeked over the tall rack with the headbands, he could see her red hair. He peeked over more and saw the concentrated expression on her face and the way she chewed on her lip while her fingers became blurs.
Merlin save me, Draco thought and he bolted. The bells barely rung when Ginny looked up confusedly. She hadn't noticed anyone coming in.
3 Weeks Later
Ginny's eyes fell on the latest issue of the Quibbler. A moving picture of Draco Malfoy was on the cover, standing behind a row of Macs, an arrogant smile fixed on his face. With trembling fingers, she read the article written by Dean Thomas. They called Malfoy's new upgrade a success.
So, he had done it, Ginny thought. He had covered up the fiasco she had caused by saying that he was actually releasing a new upgraded version of Malfoy Securities. A lump rose in Ginny's throat as she saw the new design – her interface design, the interface she used to hack – on the animated photo. There was a listing of all the programmers and workers that had put all their efforts into the application and Ginny felt nothing but a cold emptiness when she saw her name. At the very bottom was her name and instead of the relief she though she'd feel, there was nothing.
She had known a few days prior about the release and was aware that the Wizarding community was calling it the most successful program out there.
She was glad for him.
She couldn't muster feeling betrayed an angry because she couldn't. She loved him and didn't have the right to feel anything but self-pity and regret for all the secrecy and her actions.
She finished reading the article after contemplating crying in public and going home and crying some more, she shoved the magazine back and walked slowly back to her shop, glad for having something to do. It helped when Ginny had something to do to keep her mind of things.
Ginny decided that she needed to remodel and to expand. The shop was bigger now, and flashier with purple, silver and black lettering. It brought a smile to Ginny's face when she thought of her new shop – and it was even better when the customers doubled. She rounded the corner and stared. She stopped dead in her tracks and closed her eyes quickly at the blonde figure that stood before the display window of the shop, surveying her newest products – among them was his program.
She kept her eyes down, her feet moved forward again, and she ignored the gaze that burned the side of her face when she unlocked the door to her shop. She didn't spare him a glance.
"Ginny," he was the first to speak.
She stopped, but didn't dare move.
His face was not friendly.
"We have some loose ends we need to tie up," Draco said finally.
Three weeks had been enough. It had been enough for Draco Malfoy to convince himself that Ginny was a thing of the past, but one look at her face and his resolve was gone. It shook him to the core when he realized how much she really meant to him.
Ginny's face was carefully blank, only quick flashes of panic gave away the turmoil inside her.
"Do we? I thought it was all...done." Ginny nearly choked on the last word. Her insides relaxed fractionally when the door opened and the crowd of teenagers walked in. Ginny took that chance to move nimbly away from him and behind the counter.
"Ginevra," his voice was low, but she heard it.
"What do you want?" Ginny whispered, afraid her heart might break once more.
"Loose ends."