Warning: Some strong language.
Chapter 4: Better
If I kiss you where it's sore
If I kiss you where it's sore
Will you feel better, better, better
Will you feel anything at all
Will you feel better, better, better
Will you feel anything at all
"This is shite."
Ginny rolled her eyes at the comment; after all, she'd heard commentary of that nature for days. At least it felt like days. Time didn't really pass in this place, at least not in any measureable fashion. There wasn't even a sun in the sky, just a general brightness. Of course, neither had materialized with watches or datebooks or even their wands, so keeping track of the time was nigh upon impossible.
Unfortunately, that little train of thought only ate up about eight seconds of time, so she was still bored and still listening to Draco complain. Letting out a short sigh of frustration, she sat up abruptly from her nest of yarn.
"Seriously, Malfoy, I know. We've already talked about the easy topics, and neither of us wants to talk about the hard ones. However, we're both bored senseless, so we need to do SOMETHING."
She stood then and walked over to the rock he was sitting on and poked him in the arm, surprised when he hissed in pain.
"Don't," he said sharply, pulling his arm away. Ginny, never being one to listen to stuck-up spoiled-rotten prats, poked him again, to have the same reaction.
"What is it?"
She knew that if they were at Hogwarts she wouldn't get an answer unless, of course, you counted a skillfully cast Conjunctivitus. However, they were in Hippie-Swirly World (Ginny admitted, the name needed some work), and he couldn't just not respond.
"A mark of honor." Ginny could see that he had thought that answer out carefully.
"Show me," she urged. "Please, Draco, may I see?"
Ginny had a pretty educated guess as to what he was hiding there on his arm, but there was definitely a corner of her heart that was hoping he was referring to a scar or school pride tattoo or something, as long as it wasn't a Dark Mark. She held her breath as he swore under his breath and shoved his sleeve to his elbow, baring the stark black tattoo against alabaster skin. She unconsciously bent closer to get a good look, reaching out with fingertips toward but carefully not touching it.
Swallowing heavily, she caught his eyes. "Why? Draco, I know you're an insensitive bastard, but bloody hell, why would you go and join up with him?"
His eyes fell shut and he turned his face away, pushing himself down off of his perch and pulled his sleeve back into position. He started walking down the edge of his hemisphere, not even looking to see if Ginny was following. Of course she was, and she managed to catch up to him after only a few steps.
"I figure that if we have to talk about this," he began, "We may as well go to the Dark Lord's icon, that way we know when we can drop it."
"Draco, we don't…" she started, but was cut off.
"Yes, we bloody well do have to talk about this. I don't fucking want to, I'm fucking sick of having to fucking explain myself to you, but the sooner we get all of these fucking topics over with, the sooner I'm done with you."
She stopped in her tracks while he kept storming forward, shell-shocked by his violent reaction. Hell, she knew it was a touchy subject for them both, but never once had she seen him lose his temper like that. She took a few deep breaths to calm down and moved to catch up to him when she saw something moving out of the corner of her eye. She turned toward the movement and let out a squeak. Draco kept moving, but whirled around when the squeak turned into a yell.
"MALFOY!" She was pointing toward a rocky outcropping on his side, but he couldn't see anything. Rolling his eyes, he retraced his steps until he was standing beside her again and could see what she was yelling about. His eyes grew wide when he saw what was unmistakably (and inexplicably) a Death Eater gliding across the plateau. Ginny came to her senses and turned and ran for the safety of her yarn-grass, but Draco was frozen to the spot. She couldn't tell if he was scared, holding his ground, or simply waiting to converse with the Death Eater, but frankly, she didn't care that much; she was more concerned with hiding. She had no wand, no way of protecting herself, so therefore had zero interest in playing hero. Once safely ensconced in her field, she parted the yarn just enough that she could watch the goings-on.
The Death Eater had made it to Malfoy, who still hadn't budged, but she thought she might have noticed a bit of shaking on his part. Slowly and silently, the Death Eater reached one cloaked hand into the breast of his robes and retrieved his wand. It leisurely took aim at Malfoy and this seemed to be what made him sit up and take notice, for the shaking stopped, and he turned tail and ran along the join-line. The Death Eater flew after him, and after a brief internal debate, Ginny ran after as well. When she caught up, the Death Eater had Draco curled in a ball on the ground, alternatively screaming and crying for mercy. Ginny watched for a moment, waiting for Malfoy to rise up and fight back, or for the Death Eater to back off, but quickly came to the realization that the only thing that would stop the attack would be for Malfoy to be dead or comatose. Since neither of those conditions were conducive to her escaping this hell-hole, Ginny made a decision.
It would be up to her, and her alone, to rescue Draco.
~ooOoo~
"Madame Pomfrey! MADAME POMFREY!"
The nurse came quickly when she heard Ms. Parkinson screeching and stopped beside the bed that held Mr. Malfoy and Ms. Weasley. Malfoy had begun to shake, his features scrunching up, clearly in pain. He was letting out whimpers and groans and couldn't seem to decide if he wanted to be in the fetal position or stretched out convulsing. Pansy Parkinson was standing at his side, trying to hold his hand, but it kept getting pulled from her grasp.
"Back away, Ms. Parkinson," she said offhandedly, as she tried to figure out what to do. If a normal student was having a nightmare, she'd wake him. That obviously wouldn't work here, so she'd have to be creative.
"Accio Dreamless Sleep!" she said, and when she had caught it, she carefully opened Malfoy's mouth and poured a few drops onto his tongue. She'd seen that work in comatose patients; just enough Dreamless Sleep could sometimes calm the nightmares. However, Malfoy continued to shake and scream.
"Ennervate!" No such luck, not that she'd had much faith that it would work.
"Aguamenti!" Now she had a writhing, screaming, soaking wet unconscious student. Great.
She then put her hands on Malfoy's shoulders and tried restraining him; he just screamed louder. She tried shaking him, and that only made the convulsions worse.
By this time, a small crowd had gathered; the Trio and Blaise had joined Pansy and Madame Pomfrey and were watching, trying to offer up suggestions.
"Try a loud noise, that always startled me out of sleep as a kid," Ron suggested. Hermione only rolled her eyes.
"Seriously, Ron, if that worked, don't you think his screams would've woken him up by now?"
"Isn't there a spell to make him gotta piss? That always wakes ME up!" Blaise decided to chime in then.
"Won't work," Madame Pomfrey said. "They've got spells taking care of all that."
They were drawn out of their discussion by new movement from the bed, however. Ginny, who had been laying flat on her back beside Draco, their arms touching, was now on her side, facing him, with one arm thrown casually across his chest. His convulsions slowed down to quivering, and the screams dampened until only quiet groans and whimpers were heard.
"Seriously, Draco, really?" Pansy sneered, only to earn a glare from Harry.
They watched as Ginny practically snuggled with the boy she was trapped with, until Ron got fed up.
"That's it, this is bollocks, he's done crying!" He stormed to the bedside and grabbed Ginny, rolling her back onto her back. "I don't care if he's in pain; my sister is not going to cuddle that git!"
"No, Ron!" Hermione scolded, seizing his wrist and pulling him from his sister's side. Draco's whimpering grew louder again, so she gingerly reached down and replaced Ginny's arm around his waist. The three Gryffindors and two Slytherins all watched in dismay as the shaking and whimpering ceased and the unconscious duo fell into a mutual state of relaxation.
~ooOoo~
Internally, however, Ginny's rescue of Draco was only mildly impressive. She snuck back over to his side of the world, found a roughly grapefruit-sized stone, and clobbered the Death Eater over the head with it. It hadn't even noticed her presence, and dissolved away into a puff of smoke once hit, despite feeling incredibly solid under the rock. Draco was still curled on the ground groaning and quite obviously not going anywhere anytime soon, at least not under his own speed. Cursing her lack of a wand for what must be the twelfth time in the last minute, she grabbed him by the armpits and heaved.
Twenty minutes later, Draco started coming more to attention, and noticed that he was lying on a pile of yellow yarn, with soothing piano melodies twisting through his brain. He sat up slowly and looked around, seeing Ginny sitting only a few feet away, a concerned look gracing her features.
"The hell happened?" He managed to get out the one sentence before laying back on the yarn, exhausted and aching from whatever the hell it was that had gotten hold of him.
"I don't know exactly," Ginny began, "but I do know that it didn't give a flying rat's arse that I was there." She told the whole story, not that there was much to tell, and at the end, noticed that Malfoy was nodding resignedly.
"I know what it was," he explained. "It was a nightmare. You said it yourself, back when we first got here. We're trapped in us. Well, that thing is trapped in me. Has been since I can remember. Some children are haunted by bogeymen, but the lucky children of the Dark Lord's followers know that there are scarier things out there. It didn't care about you because it literally did not know you existed—I think you were able to destroy it for the same reason. It was impossible for a nightmare to be dreamed by two different people, so when you proved to it irrefutably that you were real and existed, it no longer could."
~ooOoo~
I just wanted to give a big "Thanks!" to those of you who reviewed: missmyrtlemay, Ava-Potter gal, HinaLyka, and Hanako. And also, thanks to all of you who put this story on your favorites or your alerts; however, please remember that reviews make the world go 'round!