Chapter 12; An eventful night
"Ginny! GINNY!" Draco was screaming, stretching his voice capacity to maximum.
"I hear you! I'm awake! What's happening?" Her voice was panicked, mirroring his own feelings without fault. They were stumbling around in the window seat, half standing and half sitting, both of them too freaked out to know what they were doing.
"It's a fire… I don't know how… Merlin…"
"We need to get out. Immediately. "The flames were closing in on them, everything alit. Draco could hear unnerving sounds of neighbours screaming, floorboards breaking, flames rattling. He felt the panic rise in his chest, a familiar feeling, and knew that it was for real this time. Not a very reassuring thought.
"Ginny, we need to jump!"
"I figured". She'd already opened the window. "You're not afraid of heights, are you?"
"It's not like we have any other option." Sweat was dripping from his forehead, from every part of him. "Do you have your wand?"
"Back pocket." Ginny's voice was shaking. She was terrified, a feeling he'd never seen in her before.
"Let's go." He reached out his burning hot and much too sweaty hand, grabbing hers. They took a unified step forward.
And jumped.
xxxxx
Francesco Holden had been looking forward to a calm night as a fireman.
Yeah. He knew. He knew that he should've picked another job if he wanted calm. But a hazardous, action-filled profession where he saved lives – it had been his childhood dream. To save lives. To be a hero. And he had loved it at age 25. Risking your own life to save others gives you plenty of self-esteem. His work days were never boring, never dull. He was strong, fast and a hero. He was everything his young self ever dreamed about.
Then Francesco Holden met a girl, proposed and got married. Then he became a father. Twice. And suddenly, he lacked the energy to be a hero. He had a three year old daughter and a five months old son, and his role as a hero grew smaller as his role as a father grew bigger.
Francesco Holden didn't need any more action. He wanted a calm night, a night when his services were non-mandatory. He wanted to be half-asleep in a sofa, pretending to listen to his colleagues muffled discussions. He did sure as hell not want to be where he currently was, riding in a fire truck with blinking lights and the ear-splitting alarm blasting through the silence of the night.
"The police are already there", his co-worker James leaned over to tell him. "They think they might've found who started it."
"Who?"
"Young woman, was all they said. I guess we'll see soon." They were nearing the burning apartment building.
A bunch of people had gathered outside the building, stumbling around in shock as if they couldn't believe what they saw. A fire does that to you.
"My cat… my cat… my cat… Rosalinda…" An older lady was the first one to greet Francesco. "You need to save my cat!" She was rocking back and forth to calm herself down.
"We'll see what we can do, miss. Do you know if anyone's still in there?"
"My cat, Mister Fireman! My cat!"
"You said that." He tried to talk to her soothingly as his co-workers begun to spray the building with water. "Anyone else?"
"They would be dead by now then, wouldn't they?"
Ginny and Draco were fine, all thanks to Ginny's brilliant but illegal use of the Arresto Momentum-spell. Both of them were catching their breath at a relatively safe distance from the fire, observing the inferno and trying to understand what could not be understood.
"This is fiend-fyre", said Ginny quietly.
"I was thinking the same thing."
"This is intentional."
"This is Astoria", Draco corrected her. "Nobody else would do this."
As the fire-men worked their hardest to put out the fire, they thought it to be an unusually stubborn one. They had no idea that this - this was a weak fiend-fyre, since it was possible to put out with muggle methods. Luckily so, because the whole city of London in flames? Not a great idea.
Astoria was a beginner with fiend-fyre, and her weakness saved London that night.
But the fire-men didn't know that, and neither did the police. They knew nothing about the young woman they'd caught. She could've been beautiful, if it weren't for the ripped clothes and her hollow look, or the unwillingness to mouth a single word to any of them.
"Psychotic?" asked one of the police officers, a bald man in his late fifties.
"Very likely. She's going to need a psych evaluation first thing – hey, what is this weird stick in her pocket?" His co-worker showed Astoria's wand to him.
"Maybe she thinks it's a magic wand or something like that. She seems as mad as a hatter." The police officer snorted.
Astoria barely flinched as the officer threw her wand, 13 inches walnut with a core of dragon-string to her, a random worthless stick to him, in a trash bin nearby.
Francesco had eventually gotten word that, in fact, a young girl from the fourth floor had not yet exited the burning apartment building. He was used to this process, had done it countless times before. It would all work out just fine.
He entered the building thinking about the dress he was going to buy his daughter for her fourth birthday. A black one, with coral dots and puffy arms. She'd fallen in love with it at their last visit to Marks and Spencer's. He was going to remember to buy it tomorrow. Oh, he could already picture the joy in his daughter's face when she unwrapped the gift paper…
But Francesco Holden never exited the building.
xxxxx
"I'm going to kill Astoria, I'm going to kill her, I'm going to kill her!" Ginny was in a rage, pacing back and forth while cursing wildly. "Attempting to murder me wasn't enough? She has to go burn my house and all my belongings to the ground while she's at it to be satisfied?"
"You'll get money back from your insurance." Draco tried his best to calm her down, but his efforts were fruitless, because he was just as angry himself. The fear he'd once had for his spouse was disappearing progressively, hatred replacing it. He was furious now, not afraid. The sudden change of emotions confused him, but he didn't mind. To, for once, be furious at anyone else but himself, was a nice feeling.
"I don't want money! I want – I want to not have to deal with any of this!" She broke down into a sob, collapsing in a pile of autumn leaves. "I don't have the energy to."
"I'm sorry, for all it's worth", Draco said as he sat down next to her. "This is my fault, more or less."
"No, Draco." The look she gave him was full of compassion, perhaps even the slightest hint of love. "It's not your fault. It's never been."
The fire-men were almost done, but the house still reeked of smoke. And the air still smelled of it, a horrid smell that made Draco's eyes water and his lungs burn.
"We need to find shelter for the night", said Ginny as they watched the fire-men finish their work. "Do you have any ideas?"
"I used to sleep on the streets, remember?" He shook his head. "I'm afraid we'll have to count on your connections. Any suggestions?"
"One, but it won't be popular."
"This is not a good idea, Ginny." Hermione Granger looked like she hadn't slept in weeks. Her hair was even messier than Draco remembered it, and her face expression completely shone of exhaustion.
"It's an emergency, Mione."
"I know." Hermione stepped aside with a sigh, letting them enter. "You better come in."
Draco had never really thought much about what Hermione Granger's home would look like, but as he stepped inside, he knew that he would never have pictured it like this.
It was messy. Hermione was an excessively organized person, but her apartment seemed to be the opposite. Bookshelves lined the walls, to little surprise, but they were demonstratively unorganized. The rustic wooden floor was dressed with varicoloured rugs, and the living room housed no less than three maroon couches of plush. The fireplace, the heavy curtains, the paintings occupying every available centimetre of wall – it reminded of Hogwarts common rooms. He adored it.
He was just about to compliment Hermione on her amiable interior, when he heard something else.
"You…" Ron Weasley had joined them, and he was eyeing Draco with eyes full of fury. "How dare you enter this house, you evil little cockroach?" He spit out the words. "Get the hell away from my sister". Before Draco could react, he'd been punched in the face.
He could've just stood there, taking it. But he'd done that enough in his life. And he was tired, but he was also angry, and he couldn't resist the urge to punch back.
And suddenly, a full-scale fight had broken out in the Granger-Weasley hallway at 3 am in the morning.
"I can't have this." Ten minutes later, everyone had, if a little unwillingly, taken their seat round the kitchen table. Hermione was the one talking, simultaneously giving her husband and Draco evil glances.
"I can't have him in my house", Ron protested.
"He's a friend of mine." Ginny had her arms crossed, and looked at her brother with burning hatred.
"You have every right to kick me out", Draco insisted.
"Stop it!" Hermione raised her voice. "Ron, I'll talk to you later and explain what Ginny has told me. Ginny and Draco, you're our guests and you're both welcome in our apartment. There's a bed in the guestroom. Harry's… out."
"I'm not having that creep sleep with my little sister! I'm not having it! He sleeps on the floor!"
"Ronald Weasley, if you don't shut up now and go to bed, I swear I will hex your bits off!"
"I don't think I've had an evening this eventful since The Battle of the Hogwarts", Ginny said as she buried herself under the magically renewed covers. She had magically wiped off her makeup and undressed fast as lightning, but Draco was still hesitating.
"I… I'm not sure if I should… I mean, I can sleep on the floor if you want me too."
"Don't be stupid."
"It's… It's a small bed, Ginny." And he had to undress unless he wanted to sweat through the night. And he hated the sight of his naked, fragile body with its ugly scars and too visible bones. And he wasn't worth it. He wasn't worth sharing a bed with an attractive girl.
She was perfect, and he was a mess.
"It fits two. Come on. You need the sleep just as much as I do. I'm not getting into a debate over whether you're allowed to sleep in my bed or not." She sat up straight and moved as close to the wall she could get without melting into it.
"Ginny."
"Draco."
"Okay." His voice was barely audible. "If you turn off the light." She did as he said, and he started undressing, his hands shaking through the whole process.
He was still shaking as he lay down next to her, but her presence never failed to calm him.
In one part of London, Draco and Ginny fell asleep next to each other, so close they might've been one single body.
In another part of London, Astoria woke up.
Her mind was spinning, twisting, turning. Her thoughts were a jungle of reality and fantasies, and she was barely conscious that she was in the hands of forensic psychiatry. Wherever she was, she would be able to break out of it soon, right?
That's when she realised her wand was missing, and the whole building could hear the scream that came afterwards.
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this chapter is so not the best thing I've written and I'm sorry. Lots of stress in my life right now. But THANK YOU for reading! I'll try to make up for this chapter as soon as possible.