A/N: Thanks to all readers and reviewers, especially brianaangel, boogum, dwellingindreams, PlutoniumBunny, R3.0, and all the rest! :)
CHAPTER SEVEN
But Ginny did not speak immediately, and Draco began to feel some pangs of real anxiety. He finally decided that letting the silence drag on was worse than saying something, but he kept his voice as careful and low as he was able to do. "What are you talking about, Ginny?"
She laughed again, a short, sharp, bitter sound. "Why should I explain? It's not as if you're telling me anything."
"But you want to tell someone, don't you?" Draco asked with a sudden, shrewd realization. "Or you wouldn't have said anything at all."
Ginny took several seconds to reply. She sat up fully and crossed her legs so that she was sitting opposite him, and she wrapped the coverlet firmly around her chest so that it looked like a red sleeveless dress. Her eyes were challenging when they met his. "Tell me one thing about what's really going on with you right now. Just one, Draco. Then I'll tell you."
Oh, Gods. Draco pulled the blanket around his shoulders, searching his mind for the least incriminating detail he could think of. "My mother is desperately unhappy just now," he said. It was certainly the truth.
"Because your father's in Azkaban?" Her voice had softened just a bit.
"That's part of it," said Draco. "But it's more." He would not tell her everything that made up his mother's unhappiness, of course, or even close to it. "Not all of my father's… er… acquaintances are in Azkaban, and they won't leave us alone, or go away. They're' filling our home." He shuddered.
"So you don't like that?" asked Ginny. "Because it's an inconvenience, I suppose."
Her tone stung him. "What, do you think that the Manor doesn't have enough guest rooms, or they're using too many towels? No. It's because I despise all of them."
"Really?" Her voice was softer now.
"Really. I want to cast an Incendiary hex on each and every one. My mother hates it as well; she's retreated to the west wing of the house and scarcely comes out. I want them all gone because I loathe them."
When Ginny spoke, her voice was very soft. "Are they Death Eaters who didn't go to Azkaban."
"Some of them, and the rest are sympathizers." Draco stared into the near-darkness of the room, seeing not the dark wooden panels but the tight, cold face of his mother, like a piece of fine china barely held together and on the point of shattering. "I hate them all. I would be happy to never come within miles of any of them again."
"So you don't want to be like them?" Her voice was like a small, gentle piece of his buried conscience.
"No," he said honestly.
Ginny was silent then, her head bent so that he could only see the golden highlights in her hair when the firelight flickered. That gave him time to think about what he had said. It was much more than he'd intended.
He had planned to say nothing meaningful; it had all begun as a way to convince her to tell him what she knew, but as he spoke, the meaning of the words changed. Draco had never been sure that he really did want what the Death Eaters offered; there was a time when he had almost managed to convince himself that he did, but as time passed, he understood that he would have much rather had nothing to do with any of it. But what Ginny had asked him was something quite different. He might not have wanted to serve the Dark Lord, but did he actively want its opposite? Draco now understood that he had never believed he did. Even when he had got over being tempted by the possibility of power, even when he had realized that its price was too high, he had concentrated only on surviving the ordeals forced on him. And he was not at all sure that he would succeed at that goal.
But what would I actually choose, if the choice were truly mine? he wondered.
Draco no longer knew what he wanted or didn't want. Except the beautiful, troubled girl sitting on a bed with him. He wanted her in some way that he could not define, something far more elusive than sexual desire.
Ginny gave a long sigh. "All right. I'll tell you."
He tuned his head to look at her. He could just see the outline of her profile as she spoke.
"I wasn't actually told any of this, and I certainly didn't see it. So I suppose I can't be completely sure how accurate any of it is, but I think I've at least got at most of the truth."
A cool finger seemed to lay itself on the back of Draco's neck. "What truth is that, Ginny?" he asked.
Ginny did not quite answer his question right away. "I overheard Ron and Hermione whispering to each other in a corridor after breakfast, so I followed them and cast a Silencing charm so they wouldn't hear my footsteps. I was able to hide in a broom closet, and luckily they stood just outside it for several minutes—long enough for me to hear everything they had to say to each other."
Draco could not help smiling. "Sneaking and spying, eh? How very Slytherin of you."
She smiled very faintly in return. "Yes, well, I don't know about that, but I'm quite sure that they didn't know I was there. They'd 'never have carried on talking if they had. So…" She twisted the bottom of the coverlet between her fingers, distorting the elaborate embroidery. With a jolt of alarm, Draco recognized the Malfoy crest, worked in red and gold thread. Not that Ginny seemed likely to notice it, he reassured himself. But there was no reassurance for him just then, and a ripple of dread was rising into his throat.
"So?" he prompted, his voice thinner than he would have liked.
"So, they talked about what had happened the day before. They didn't give all the details, of course. But I could figure it out well enough. Ron was poisoned. He drank some wine that had been meant for Slughorn, or something, and he nearly died. Harry saved him." Her mouth twisted, her lips almost the red shade of the coverlet. "That's what he does best, after all. But I'm glad he was there, more glad than I can say."
Draco could not even react to the mention of Harry's name. He could only sit very still, aching as if his veins were flooded with a worse poison than the one he'd been forced to add to the wine.
That was it. That was what she had been hiding. And he ought to have known.
Her brother, her brother had been caught in that web. He'd had no idea. Draco had known the poisoned wine wouldn't get to Dumbledore, and wouldn't kill him if it did. He'd subtly altered the poison so that it would cause intense discomfort and perhaps illness, but would not prove fatal to anyone. And he'd bet that Slughorn would be the one to divert the wine and drink it himself. He'd enjoyed the thought of the trouble that might cause. The Dark Lord would likely blame Slughorn in that case, the professor who had worked so assiduously on staying out of the conflict entirely, who had dissociated himself from the Death Eaters in every way he could. Draco knew very well that this was the real reason why he hadn't been included in that club of his.
But somehow, Ron Weasley had got hold of it instead.
Ginny was turning to face him. He had been silent too long. Draco realized that his knowledge must show in his face; the careful mask had slipped, as it only seemed to do around Ginny. He knew it, but not in time to stop it, even if he could have, which he later thought was not possible.
"You knew," Ginny said slowly. She pulled back from him, towards the edge of the bed, dragging the coverlet with her like a shield.
"That's mad," said Draco. He could barely get out the words. "How could I have known anything about what happened to your brother?"
"I don't know. But you did know something." She stopped and narrowed her eyes at him. "Do you know who was responsible? That's it. Isn't it. Was it Blaise Zabini? Or Daphne Greengrass? Who?"
There was only one way to fool her, he realized in a flash. He had to convince himself that Blaise or Daphne or someone else, anyone else, really had been responsible. He had to believe it. He conjured the image of someone else's guilt as fast as he could, pretending that he had known and had not dared to tell anyone, and then he let it show on his face.
But he could not. He could not fool her. Whether he couldn't bring himself to do it, or whether he could not manage to do it, he was never sure.
Ginny swallowed hard, her hands clutching the edge of the coverlet. "It's you. Isn't it? You were responsible, Draco. I don't know quite how, but you were."
"I…" He could not finish the sentence. There was nothing to say. There was no way to fool her, so he did not try. He simply sat on the edge of the bed and kept looking at the wall.
"And you're the one who got that cursed necklace to Katie Bell, too," she said flatly. "That's right, isn't it? Nobody could ever figure out how it happened, but that's the answer."
His silence was all the answer she needed.
"It can't be," she murmured. "This can't be true. It… but it is, oh gods, but it is…"
He reached out a hand towards her. She flinched back. "Where's my wand? Where is it?" She scrabbled in the bed but came up empty-handed. "You have it, don't you, Malfoy, you stole it!"
"I haven't touched your wand," he retorted, feeling the sting of his last name on her lips after they'd long moved past the stage of formal address. "It's probably on the floor. You were a bit distracted a few minutes ago, remember?"
Ginny gave a short, sharp laugh. "Oh, I remember, all right!" She kept retreating across the bed, continuing to watch him like a wild animal that she was sure would attack at any moment. She grabbed her blouse and pulled it on, shoving the buttons crookedly through their buttonholes, yanking her sweater back over her head. She pulled her skirt back down to her knees.
Silently, he reached behind him, found his own shirt, and put it on, feeling for his school tie before giving up the search as a bad job, and then took a great deal of time to draw his trousers back up his legs and button them.
At last, she turned to face him. "Oh, gods. Why, why? Can't you just tell me that?"
He could have snapped back at her, could have returned contempt with anger. But the disappointment in her eyes was almost more than Draco could bear.
"I didn't have any choice," he said. "I never did, not at any point. I had nothing against Bell; I wouldn't have seen her hurt. The necklace was never supposed to reach her. And I never thought your brother would be caught up in it."
"Really? I didn't know you cared about either of them. Or anyone except yourself," she flung back at him, starting to get up. He put a hand on her shoulder, trying to hold her back. In response, she reached for her wand, which was, in fact, lying on the tiny bedside table Her eyes blazed. "You'd better let go of me right now, Malfoy!"
He did, of course. But he could still feel her warm skin beneath the fabric; the sensation still tingled on his palm.
"I'm leaving right now," she said. But she did not. She simply stood, looking at him. A word from him now could tip the balance either way, Draco realized.