The window was cold. Draco placed his hand carefully against the glass and then watched as the heat seeped from his hand – heat that turned into mist against the translucent pane. The mist crawled away from him, spiderwebbing out, and it was like he could watch the heat crawl from his entire body, leaving behind only that ice he knew so well. But he could still feel the heat sitting like something sour in the pit of his stomach.
Draco sighed and peeled his hand away from the cold of the window. He missed its chill almost immediately as the heat flared up, reminding him that he was losing control. He snorted, unsure of when he had turned so damn dramatic, but he knew the answer. It came to him with the flash of red hair against his blinking eyelids. He knew it all started with her, years ago. It seemed unnatural to Draco that she could have changed him so much while he had had no effect on her.
Until tonight.
He almost smiled as he remembered her irrational anger in the dungeon, but the smile quickly died on his lips. He had tortured her. A flash of red hair again, this time sprawling along the dungeon floor and then the echo of a scream – Draco slammed his palms against his ears childishly. Two seconds later his hands pressed against the cushion he perched on, clutching tightly to the fabric to keep from clawing at his face, his ears, his eyes. He was frustrated, angry, crazed.
It was all her fault, Ginny Weasley. Her fault for being in the dungeon. Her fault for digging into this. Her fault for angering him. She should not have angered him.
She should not have angered me Draco, the poisonous voice slithered across his mind and Draco froze. No. No, this was not the same. He was not Lucius. That memory had been different, and he had sworn to never think of it again. But the memory came forward anyway, his mother slapped so hard she fell into a table, the terrible crack of skin on skin. Lucius had just stood there afterward, looking down at Narcissa coldly, and then he had turned to Draco and delivered his lesson – that he was the master, and no one had any right to anger him. Draco had been unable to take his eyes from his mother as she gracefully rose again and then decimated the table without any warning. She never looked at Lucius as she left, never did anything against him. Draco had never understood how or why his mother took the life she had with no complaint, but then Draco had done the same, hadn't he? He had stayed, desperate for his father's approval.
But not anymore. Draco stared with hard unblinking eyes at the ghost of his reflection in the glass. He was not Lucius, beating his wife. He was not. Ginny Weasley had forced his hand when she replaced her friend in the dungeon. Even if he had not tortured her – and Merlin he had been so certain that he would not, no matter how dangerous that was – she would have been tortured by somebody, eventually. It was logical to torture her tonight, even Ginny had seen that. He could still see her so clearly telling him to torture her. Her lips had just barely trembled as they framed the words, the only indication that she was even slightly afraid of him.
Well, she would be terrified of him now. He had not wanted to torture her, had been seconds away from walking away, and then she had taunted him. Draco's temper was no secret, and he did not pretend with himself. His temper was the bequeathal of his father, the only trait Draco could never seem to shake. The curse had slipped from his tongue as easily as a meaningless insult, terrifyingly easy, and then she had been on the floor and that Merlin-awful scream had left her mouth. It was the scream that did it – the scream that snapped Draco out of his rage. The rage had come on unexpectedly, sparked with her careless comment but the rage had not been truly about that. His rage came from his helplessness and situation, her helplessness and situation, but it had blackened his mind and eyes all the same and he had not seen what he was doing. But that scream had cut through everything.
Draco had heard women scream before and though the sound was never pleasant, it had never affected him so greatly. Truthfully, he had always been more stirred by men screaming, brought up to believe that men should never scream. But Ginny Weasley's scream had been something else entirely. It was pure fear, cutting against his eardrums like glass. The curse had died immediately and before he had even known it, Draco had been hovering over her, waves of concern washing over him. Hurting Ginny Weasley had been like hurting an animal, cruel and pointless and so painful. Torturing her may have kept him safe, it may have been logical, but he could never claim it had been or would ever be right. And he would never do it again.
He did not make that promise in a flash of foolish courage like Potter would've done. He made the promise because he knew he would never be able to raise his wand against her again. Every time he tried, Draco knew he would hear that scream again. No, Ginny Weasley was safe from him, though she would never believe that.
Draco punched the pane of glass almost absentmindedly. It delivered the desired flare of shock and then pain that always alleviated the stress in his body, but it did nothing to clear his thoughts. Ginny Weasley would never trust him again.
Her trust truly should not matter. Draco had never earned it. Sure, when he had been playing pen pal, she had trusted him, but that had never been him – not in her mind. But tonight, she had said it. I trusted you. Her innocent eyes had widened in surprise, and Draco had known that she meant it. For one second there, Ginny Weasley had trusted Draco Malfoy with not only her life but the lives of her loved ones. And he had destroyed that trust.
"Idiot," he muttered crossly to himself, annoyed endlessly that this whole situation bothered him so much. He was undoubtedly an idiot, and he had no desire to hear what Blaise would say when he found out, but of course, Draco needed to tell him. Zabini had known Draco cared for Ginny before he even had realized it himself. Draco needed his insight, but he hated it, and he feared what Zabini would tell him. Was it possible that Draco-?
But no. With a furious shake of his head, Draco tossed that thought away. He was being ridiculous, like a lovesick prepubescent boy. He cared for Ginny Weasley, yes, but no more. He wanted her to survive this bloody war, and that was the extent of it.
Draco heaved a sigh, knowing he should leave and return to his room. He would need to face Blaise eventually, as the boy already knew about the detention. Zabini had been oddly concerned about what Draco was going to do to Lovegood. But Draco did not want to leave the quiet of the library just yet. Nobody was there this late at night. Draco stood and cast a speculative look around. Yes, he liked it here. Perhaps he would come back.
Two nights later and Draco had certainly kept his promise to himself. Both promises actually. He had not raised his wand against Weasley again, had not even looked at her, and he had also kept returning to the library. The library offered solace, but it also offered far too much time to think. At least by wandering the halls Draco had distracted himself with mapping out where he would go and with listening for others so he could avoid them. No one came into the library, and he did not walk around it. He sat in his window, and he thought.
His mind drifted down dark paths every night, and he let it for the most part. What was the point in ignoring the darkness? Half of his life had been nothing but dark and evil, he may as well address it. Wasn't that some Muggle belief, that it was better to confront something than ignore it? Maybe if he ignored it, he'd find himself at one of those silly Muggle head doctor's. Now that would be interesting.
Draco snorted, slightly amused with himself, and then he heard it. The slight shift of material rubbing against material. His snort turned into a sigh. "Go away, Blaise," he called without looking back. He much preferred the view from the window over the pensive set Blaise's face had taken to lately. "I am in no mood for your concerns and theories tonight."
"How about my concerns and theories?" a quiet and unexpected voice called out.
Draco turned his eyes, completely disbelieving even as he saw her. Ginny Weasley, looking reasonably spectral in the moonlight from the window. She stood about five meters away, dressed in of all things an old nightie and looking pale and terrified. Draco just stared, not wholly convinced she was not a ghost come to haunt him for his misdeeds.
She certainly did not act like the Weasley he was used to confronting. That Weasley had been energetic, and she had fidgeted when he stared at her in silence. This Weasley was pale, her hair a darker red than he remembered it but no less stunning. She looked almost ethereal as she stared back at him, and her eyes. Her eyes were dark pools of mixed emotion that Draco could not decode. She hardly seemed to be breathing as she stared back at him.
Draco cleared his throat. "No one used to surprise me," he murmured, unsure why he was telling her that, "and yet you have managed to do so countless times in the past weeks." He wanted to wince at how ridiculously formal he sounded, but his mannerisms had kicked in with a vengeance.
She looked uncertain of how to respond to such a comment, and Draco could not blame her. They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence, different than the silences in the dungeon. It was the first time Draco could truly think of nothing to say to her. Usually he was full to bursting with anger and snappy comments, but he was not angry with Ginny now. He felt guilty. "You've surprised me too," she finally replied, voice polite and distant, eyes wary. She moved no closer.
"Why are you here?" Draco could not help but get to the heart of his unease. He had never been one for avoiding anything uncomfortable. "I thought…" he trailed off, unsure of what he could say to her that would not sound wildly inappropriate. He had been afraid she would never look at him again. He had been afraid she would fear him. He had been afraid she would hate him. But none of that sounded right, not after what he had done.
"I have some questions," she was still talking in a measured tone, carefully controlled. Draco noticed that her hands were balled into fists, scrunching the material of her nightie in a white-knuckled grip. "And I have never run from my fears."
Those words hit like a blow, the first time in years Draco could remember being hurt by words. She feared him. Well, of course she did! Anybody would after what he had done, and he and Ginny had not been on solid ground to begin with. "You should run from me."
She said nothing to that, but Draco could read the silent agreement – the promise that if he did anything to scare her tonight, she would run, and that would be the end of it. "I would have, if you hadn't sent Filch to me," she replied slowly. "That's part of the reason why I'm here, one of my questions."
Draco found himself sitting perfectly still, making certain he would not frighten her. "What exactly would you like to know?"
She hardly hesitated. "Why did you send Filch to me?"
Draco laughed lightly, an image of the old man looking frightened rising in his mind. "Filch? He actually went then?" Ginny nodded tightly and continued to look at him questioningly. "Good. I was not certain he would," Draco looked away, back out the window to put Ginny at ease. He sensed that she did not like his staring at her.
"Why?" Ginny demanded again. "Why did you send him and why did you think he wouldn't go?"
"I was not sure he would go because I was rather abrupt with him. He looked a bit frightened." That was an understatement, but Draco did not want to tell Ginny the extent to which he had frightened Filch. "As for why I sent him, you were unconscious on a cold floor, and I was uncertain about how much damage I had caused."
She winced, and Draco noticed. "You were angry when you went to Mr. Filch. He told me you were. You frightened him."
It was Draco's turn to wince. "Yes, well I already said I was frightened for you, and I was angry. I was angry that I had snapped and lost control."
"You were frightened for me." Ginny sounded as though she was weighing the words on her tongue, tasting them for the truth. "Why? How long did you… How long was I under?"
Draco was profoundly grateful that she had not said the words. He did not know if he could stomach hearing Ginny Weasley say that he had tortured her. "A few seconds, but I was not concentrating when I cast the spell. I was… I wasn't even thinking really." The mad urge to apologize gripped him then, and the words were perched on his tongue when Ginny interrupted.
"A few seconds?" She looked shocked, wounded. Clearly she had thought it had been longer, and Draco pitied her. Whatever she had experienced, he knew it had been hellish. It could not have been any less, coming from that dark, twisted place in his mind and tainted with his unbridled rage. The curse had been strong, much stronger than he had intended. Stronger than he ever would have used on anyone. He told her so, but Ginny was shaking her head, face screwed up in anger. "I went unconscious so quickly. It's pathetic."
Draco whipped around, planting his feet firmly on the ground as he faced her in shock. Her wand was in her hand before he focused on her, and she had jumped back another yard. Draco tried not to let her apparent fear bother him. She had every right to fear him. He pushed through his ridiculous hurt though. "It was not pathetic. What I unleashed on you was pure emotion, and it would have felt the same to anyone. That is not how the Cruciatus Curse is meant to be done."
She did not look comforted by his words, and Draco wanted to shake the girl. The Gryffindors were mad, always berating themselves for what they perceived as lacking courage. He could see Ginny becoming more and more disappointed with herself for not being stronger. It was cruelly ironic, and Draco wanted to laugh and rip out his hair in equal amounts.
But he could do neither without sending her running. She was slowly lowering her wand, but she was perched to run. He was struck by how fiercely he wanted her to stay. "I had meant to leave," he blurted. She raised an eyebrow in question, and Draco ran an errant hand through his hair. "I was going to leave. I was going to walk out and not torture you, everyone be damned. I meant to, truly. But then you spoke, and I just snapped."
"I did it on purpose." When Draco looked at her in horror, Ginny smiled slightly. "I provoked you on purpose because I was afraid of what it meant if you walked away."
"What it meant?"
She nodded and chewed her lip pensively. "You've said before how dangerous it would be for me, and for you. You've always protected yourself, Malfoy. Always. I was afraid of what it would mean if you put yourself in danger for me, not once but twice. The only people I know who put themselves in danger for me are the people who love me."
"You think I love you?" Draco nearly laughed, even as his head spun. He did not love the Weasley girl. Merlin, he knew that much at least. He could not love her; he hardly knew her. But the notion, the very idea that he could love her set his mind into a frantic tailspin.
Ginny blushed slightly but maintained eye contact. "No. I just don't understand your motivation. I never have. Why did you protect me the first time? Why did you send me the notes? Why are you helping me?"
It always came back to the notes. Draco was not surprised that she was still bothered by that, but he heaved a sigh. This time it was a sigh of defeat. "I owed you." That was the simple version, the bare bones of the truth.
"Owed me? For what?"
This was the part that was nearly impossible to explain. It was a duty driven into Draco since he was young, part of his pureblood heritage. Malfoy's repaid their debts. They made amends. Honor above all else. If somebody did something disgraceful, something dishonorable, they created a debt owed to the person who they had dishonored and it was the family's duty to remedy that debt. But how would he explain that to someone who had not been raised to uphold such a rule? Draco lowered his eyes and glared at the floor, struggling for a way to phrase it that would not sound crazy.
"Malfoy?" she had come closer. He could see her pale, white toes against the stone floor, curling and uncurling. She had not even put on shoes, and Draco knew her feet must be freezing. She could have been wandering the halls for an hour or more, looking for him. For some reason the fact that she had not thought about shoes made him smile.
"Do you know who was responsible for putting you in the Chamber of Secrets?"
She froze, just as Draco knew she would. He knew Ginny Weasley's reactions, and she never spoke about the Chamber. Never. She was tense, frozen, whenever anybody mentioned it. "I was taken," she replied stiffly.
Draco met her eyes, his own hard and unyielding. "We both know that isn't true." She stared back at him, uncertainty creeping into her eyes. Draco drew breath, and then plowed on, admitting what he had known for years now. "My father gave you a diary, a diary from Voldemort, and you were used as a tool to open the Chamber of Secrets. My father put you in that Chamber, we both know it."
All of the color drained from her face, and Draco watched as anger made her eyes snap, the brown turning almost red. "You knew?" she nearly hissed the words.
Draco made himself stay calm. "Not until the summer afterward. My father bragged about it," he winced. "He never gave details, but he said enough. I know he gave you that diary and I know you almost died."
She was silent, but the anger had left her eyes. She believed him. Draco almost could not believe that himself. He had been sure for so long that if he ever told her what he knew, she would blame him. After all, it seemed unlikely that his father wouldn't have told Draco of his plan beforehand. But of course, Lucius never told Draco anything about his plans.
"So you owed me because your father nearly got me killed?" she sounded skeptical. "Why would you even care? I thought I was just a dirty blood traitor."
Draco ran a hand through his hair again, irritated. "It's not about that."
"No?" she snapped. "You used to care about that, only about that. I remember all of the times you've called Hermione a mudblood Malfoy."
"I still believed in that when I came back for my third year," Draco admitted grudgingly. "But that didn't matter. It's hard to explain, but owing a debt is serious in pureblood families. My father committed a dishonorable crime against you, and the family had to fix it, to restore our honor."
"Honor? Really, you did this for honor?"
"It's important," Draco snapped, irritated that she was questioning his beliefs. "Honor is necessary for pureblood families. My mother taught me what is expected of us, and I have always upheld that. Always."
"And what, being a bigoted bully is part of that?"
"No!" She fell silent, arms crossed and pensive. Draco took a deep breath so he would not continue to shout at her. That never worked, their previous encounters had proven that. "No, all of this blood purity has been taken out of hand. It is important to us, yes, but this idiocy started with Voldemort. Some of the purebloods don't care anymore. They would do nothing if Voldemort was gone. Hell, some of them might even be grateful."
"And is that what you want? Voldemort gone?" she was studying him, staring him down with unflinching eyes. She was measuring his worth, and Draco could feel that keenly. So he told the truth.
"Yes." He held her eyes. "I no longer care about blood status. I want no part of my father's life, and I do not want that maniac in control."
She looked at him for an endless moment longer, eyes evaluating but not cold. She believed him; he knew it. "Fine, so you aren't on his side, but you aren't on ours."
"No," he affirmed, mindful to keep his lip from curling in disdain. "I'm on my own side. I only want to live, and then leave."
"On your own side," she said slowly, "and mine."
Draco hesitated. He didn't want to confirm that. It sounded too permanent. Was he honestly on her side? The answer was glaring him in the face. He was. "Yes."
"Why? I understand why you wrote me the helpful notes, for this debt or whatever, but I don't understand much else. Why did you do it for years? Why did you help me? And not all of those notes were about homework," she blushed slightly as she said it. "Risking yourself goes beyond owing a simple debt. If you save my life, Malfoy, that's a wizard's life debt."
Draco's heart was in his throat at the mention of life debts. That was serious business, and Merlin he hoped he was never in a position where he could save Ginny's life. "It was only meant to be the one note, honestly, but it felt inadequate." She still looked hesitant, though, and so Draco took the plunge. "And I enjoyed helping you."
The look of shock on her face was almost worth admitting that. Draco nearly chuckled as her eyes widened. "You enjoyed helping me?"
"Yes, you were always so happy about the notes. It felt good to do something good," he said it grudgingly but it was the truth, and it helped. He could see her relaxing before his eyes. Her shoulders were less stiff and her wand was nearly forgotten in her hand. Her toes were scrunching and unscrunching again. He wanted to make her blush again suddenly and so he heard himself say, "As for the life advice, I think I was doing you a favor."
She did blush, and Draco smiled slightly. She shifted uncomfortably. "So why are you protecting me at your own risk?"
Draco shrugged, uncertain about how to proceed once again. "It would have felt wrong, helping you for years and then harming you." She didn't believe that. "And," he continued, dragging the words out against his will, "I didn't want to. Hurting you felt wrong, and no matter how much I tried to reason with myself, I couldn't do it. I wouldn't."
The admission hung suspended between them. She looked as unsure as he felt about what to do with that information. "So you what? Like me or something?" Horror suddenly overcame her and her lips parted. "Oh no, you don't like me like me, do you?"
Draco choked on his breath and then coughed violently for minutes, face growing red and eyes tearing up. "Merlin, Weasley," he gasped out. His heart raced unpleasantly in his chest as his lungs constricted.
She blushed, heavier than every time before. "No, right, sorry. I just… I just don't understand."
"It just felt wrong," Draco shrugged, hoping to downplay it. "You thought of me as a friend right, when I was writing you notes?"
Ginny nodded, looking slightly ill at the notion.
Draco ignored that. "Well I thought of you as the same. I care for you," he admitted, hurrying on quickly when her mouth opened again. "Not like that, Merlin. You can care for someone, care about whether they are hurt or no,t without liking them or loving them. I don't want to see you hurt, and I don't want to see you killed. That's all, Weasley."
She narrowed her eyes at him and watched him for a moment, looking as though she expected him to burst into laughter and announce that it was all a joke. Draco ignored her. He had not planned on admitting so much, so quickly, or well, ever, to be honest. He had expected to take these secrets to the grave, but now she knew. It was an odd sort of freedom, having her know.
"Well," she sounded shell-shocked. "What do we do now?"
Draco was just as silent as she was, waiting for his answer. But he had none. Draco had never planned on any of this; if this year had followed his plan he would be leaving at the end of the war with no one the wiser and no one to care.
"Malfoy?" she was looking down at him, somehow less than a meter away. He had not noticed that she had drifted so close. Her face was purely innocent and slightly hopeful as she looked down at him with remarkably warm eyes. She trusted him. She needn't say it; Draco could see that trust now. A physical manifestation of the path he had set out on, a path he could not back down from now, not with her staring at him like that.
He sighed, resigning himself to this fate and knowing how perilous it would be, how easily he could be hurt. How easily he could hurt Ginny Weasley. "Now, I help keep you and your ridiculous friends from going crazy."
She tilted her head in confusion but a second later her lips split open with a knowing grin. She was smart. "If you're assigned to our detentions, you won't torture us."
"No."
"Not Neville or Luna?" she clarified, as though Draco thought she was referring to other friends.
"I will not Crucio you or your friends," Draco stated, "but you must also promise to control what you fight back on. You won't make it, none of you, if you keep pulling the stunts you are pulling now. The Carrows will never back down, and there is only so much I am willing to do. I will not be in your bloody Order, or whatever, and I am not on your side."
She was nodding, taking him seriously. He knew it was not what she really wanted. She was Ginny Weasley, princess of Gryffindor, and golden-hearted. She wanted him to say he was on their side, that he would fight to his last breath. But he was Draco Malfoy, snake of Slytherin, and his care for her only extended so far.
"Can I trust you?"
Draco wanted to say that she already did, but he knew that sounded self-important and presumptuous. So he answered her honestly. "You can't. I will always save myself, always. I will do what I can if it is no real risk to me, but as soon as it becomes dangerous, I will back out and claim I was never there to begin with."
Her lips twisted between a smile and a frown, but she did not look angry. "Fair enough, Malfoy." She stuck out her hand, clearly intending for him to shake it.
Draco looked at her hand, pale and white and far too small. He was being a fool, dragged down by sentiment. Blaise would call him an idiot and condemn him. If the Slytherins ever found out they would exile him. If his father ever found out he would be severely punished. If the Carrows ever found out he would be tortured. If Voldemort ever found out he would be killed. All of these were reasons to not shake Ginny Weasley's hand. There were good reasons, logical reasons. Reasons a cunning, logical Slytherin would listen to.
But in the end, Draco was no longer the cold Slytherin he had been, and so he shook Ginny's hand and made his promises and hoped that he would not have to betray her.