CHAPTER TWO

They walked into the lodge. Draco cast quick, surreptitious glances around the main front room with its fireplace heaped with logs, its walls paneled in dark knotty wood. One door led to a small kitchen on one side, he knew, another to a small but luxurious washroom, and a third to a bedroom with a canopy bed draped in red hangings. He did not want Ginny to know that *he* knew what all those rooms were, or that there were so many of them. He needed to look as surprised as she did, although when he saw her flushed face upturned to his, he wasn't so sure that he had succeeded.

But then, everyone knew that Malfoys didn't show their emotions on their face, so perhaps it wasn't suspicious.

But then again, Ginny was able to read him as nobody else ever had, so perhaps it was suspicious, after all.

The room was still and chilly; the inner space almost felt colder than outside. Draco drew his wand and cast a swift Warming charm. But he felt no spark of magic, and the air remained icy. He frowned.

"Let me try," said Ginny. She had no more success. "What's going on?"

Draco was wondering about that question himself, and he would have liked to have known if it had anything to do with the fact that it was a Malfoy lodge, although he was not about to share that speculation with Ginny. "I don't know," he said. "But it's quite possible that we're in a structure associated with a more ancient magic than anything you'll find at Hogwarts. Remember the oak."

Ginny nodded. "We'll have to do this the old-fashioned way, then. Don't worry, I know how to light a fire." She moved to the cold hearth, wrapping her arms around herself, disengaged from him. He felt the spot of coldness where her warm body had been. "So you didn't know anything about this cottage?" she asked.

"Lodge," Draco answered without thinking. She tended to have that effect on him.

Ginny turned back to him from where she knelt before the hearth, her dark auburn eyebrows raised. "Oh?" she asked. "it sounds like you *do* know something about it, Draco."

He shrugged. "I knew that there were a number of hunters' lodges in the forest at one point. Mostly near the ancient trees. It was only logical."

"Hmmph," she said, heaping tinder on the logs. "We'll be lucky if this chimney isn't blocked." She reached for a long match in the holder next to the hearth, struck it, and began the process of getting the kindling started. "You shouldn't think I'm doing this for you, you know. It's just that I know you won't have any idea how to get a fire started. You probably have house elves at home specifically for the purpose."

She was more or less right, so he just shrugged again. "I hoped we'd find something like this, Ginny. It's far preferable to freezing to death, would you agree?" It was best to stick as close to the truth as possible while still bending it; that was a point he had learned long ago.

The corners of her mouth quirked up. "Okay. It's better than that, I'll agree."

The fire caught then and began to blaze, rewarding her painstaking work. She moved back from the hearth and immediately began to shiver again. "It's still so cold. I don't know how long it'll take for this fire to really warm up the entire space."

Draco was sitting on the couch now, and he wondered exactly how to segue into the next phase he'd planned. He had considered a number of phrases to say at that moment, but had quickly discarded them all as either too stupid or too obvious. *I'll keep you warm, Ginny*? No. That sounded like an idiotic pickup line, and no matter how fragile and indefinable their relationship was, they were past that. *Yes, I know, it takes some time. The bedroom warms up much faster.* Oh, no; that sentence made it more than clear that he knew the layout of this lodge.

Not that he'd been here before. He'd only been told about its location and use. But it had belonged to the Malfoys for a very long time. He knew that he could easily summon house-elves with fur rugs and warming drinks, but that action would give away the truth like nothing else.

In the end, he wordlessly held out his arms to her. After a moment's hesitation, she got up and sat next to him, cuddling against him, letting her warmth seep into his body as he tried his best to warm her.

"My family used to have a hut that was a bit like this," she whispered against his shoulder. "It was on our property, and I think it was meant for hunters, too. It burned down, of course. When our house did, I mean. But you wouldn't know about that."

He'd known, all right, but not until after the fact, when he'd found out that his crazy aunt Bellatrix was involved. His head had been filled with a whine of panic he'd done his best to conceal, until he found out that Ginny was all right.

"I'm sorry," he said, quite honestly.

Ginny smiled faintly. "Draco Malfoy, apologizing for something he didn't even do. Who would believe it? But I'll never tell anyone, don't worry."

She was speaking about more than his apology, and he knew it. He bent his head down to hers, brushing his lips softly against the top of her hair, feeling the fine silky texture.

"My family has a number of lodges like this as well, on our property," he said, deciding, again, to stick as closely to the truth as possible. "They're very like this one. It's a standard design." He hoped that fact would cover him just in case he slipped up and revealed that he knew a bit more about this particular lodge than he ought to.

"Did you ever go to any of them?" asked Ginny.

"Yes, with my grandfather, Abraxas," said Draco. That was true, too. He'd been taken on hunting trips as a child with his grandfather, that tall giant of a man who always seemed to be laughing, merrier than any other Malfoy he'd ever known… until it came time to be serious, when his grandfather could be more imposing, more sinister, than Draco's own father could ever dream of being.

Abraxas Malfoy had told him about this place the last time that Draco had ever seen him, when he lay dying, when he'd whispered the secrets that Malfoys passed on to each other on their deathbeds. The locations of certain secret manuscripts, valuable treasures, priceless blackmail material on other pureblood families and government officials, and the like. Near the very end, he'd told Draco about the hunter's lodge in the Forbidden Forest.

"A very good place to take certain… friends," Abraxas had whispered when the two of them were alone in his elegantly appointed chambers, Lucius and Narcissa and various cousins all ordered away. "Friends that one might wish to keep secret, that is."

Draco had broken out in a cold sweat he devoutly hoped was not obvious. "Oh?" he'd squeaked.

"Yes," Abraxas has said. "Friends such as… the Weasley girl, for instance."

"She's no friend to me; none of the Weasleys are," Draco managed to say.

"Ah. But she will be, and soon. I have forgotten that the Sight did not descend to your father, nor to you," said Abraxas. "Suffice it to say: I have seen. Not everything that will or could be, but enough to know that the two of you have destinies that may become intertwined. Will she become far more than a friend to you, I wonder? The future is strangely obscured on that question."

Draco could have said that there was nothing between himself and Ginny Weasley as of yet, that the few times they'd spoken to each other their words had been angry, or that he'd been watching her since she was thirteen years old but she despised him and every other Malfoy on earth. But he did not. He knew that Abraxas was not speaking of what now was, but of what could be. And he hadn't even bothered to deny that, not when his grandfather's shrewd old eyes were on him, measuring, weighing, judging, and seeing far too much of the truth. But he was not sure what his grandfather was asking.

"Will she be only your plaything, and nothing more?" Abraxas had asked then. "Or will there be more between you? What is your desire, Draco?"

"Uh…" Draco hadn't known whether to lie or tell the truth. More than that—he hadn't known, himself, what the truth actually was, or would ever be.

"The Weasleys are purebloods, from time out of mind," Abraxas had said then. "A respectable family indeed. Their stock will ride very high after our side loses the war."

Draco had given a violent start. "We… you really think we'll lose it, grandfather? How can you say that?"

Abraxas had laughed soundlessly, a laugh that ended in a cough. "Oh, I know. I have seen more than your father could ever imagine, and he is living in a bit of a fool's paradise. The Dark Lord will fall, and a good thing too. But the Malfoys must protect themselves…" He beckoned for Draco to lean down close to him, and Draco did.

Even in this sickroom, on this deathbed, his grandfather had still smelled of woodsmoke and leather and the outdoors, a vigorous smell. "There is very little time," Abraxas had whispered. "So listen closely. Protect the Malfoys. Do not become more involved in the affairs of the Dark Lord than you can help. If you are compelled to do so, then you must act cunningly, performing the required tasks half-heartedly, pretending to be far more dedicated to the cause than you in fact are. Trust no-one. A Malfoy can trust no-one… or close to it. Perhaps you can trust Ginny Weasley, however… take her to the lodge in winter, near the ancient oak, and then you will learn… take her beneath the mistletoe…"

Abraxas had gone into another coughing fit then, and the door had opened, Lucius Malfoy striding in, looking furious. The moment of confidence and secrets had ended, and Draco had been pushed aside.

But he had heard, and he remembered.

"I never went to our lodge," Ginny said in his ear, breaking the memory and pulling him back to the present. "I never had the chance to. George only told me about it. I wish I'd gone, while… while it was still there." She shivered again, although he thought that she must be warming up by now. "I don't want to think about things like that," she said. "I don't want to talk about them."

"Neither do I," said Draco quite truthfully.

"It's still not very warm," said Ginny, which was true as well. "Let's move closer to the fire." She got up and walked to the fur rug on the hardwood floor, sitting down and looking back at him. Draco joined her, trying to conceal the surge of excitement that had gone through him at her suggestion. He'd been wondering exactly how he would get her to manage to do that exact thing.

She lay down on one side, elbow propping up her head, and she studied his face. He looked back at her, the flushed pale skin scattered with freckles, her full pink lips and high cheekbones, her dark golden eyes that studied him now, seeming to look too closely into his soul. Even though he wasn't entirely sure he had one. He reached down and caressed her face, and she closed her eyes in pleasure. His other hand skimmed along her ribs, her side, the curve of her waist, and then came to rest on her hip. For the moment, Draco decided to go no further. That would be the obvious move.

Ginny grinned up at him after a few moments. "So you *didn't* lure me here to seduce me, Draco?"

"No, but I might change my mind; it all depends. Would the attempt work, do you think?" he asked.

She only giggled at him, and he was not sure what to say. He found that he didn't want to seduce her at the moment, although he rather thought that a number of Malfoys had done exactly that with unsuitable girls they'd brought to this very lodge. On reflection, Draco realized that he hadn't been sure, himself, of his own motives in bringing her here. Except that his grandfather had told him that he should, had shared that secret with him, or had begun to do so. Whatever Abraxas Malfoy might have meant when he said that Draco would learn whether or not Ginny could be trusted by bringing her to this lodge, he had not had the chance to explain it. Draco couldn't even be sure that this was what his grandfather had meant in the first place.

"How was your day?" he blurted, knowing that he sounded a bit thick.

She smiled, but a faint shadow seemed to fall over her face, and she did not respond at once. Draco felt a sudden chill of unease. Nothing ought to have happened as yet. Nothing might ever happen, in fact. Even in his own mind, he did not dare to shape the idea more clearly, the details of what had happened, and what was happening, and why. Ginny always saw too much of him as it was.

And she *couldn't* know. He was sure of that. But as the silence stretched on past the moment it ought to have lasted, he began to be afraid that he might be wrong.