II

LUGHNASADH - 1st August

Bright, brown eyes stared into grey, a fire dancing in them as her flowery scent overwhelmed and consumed him. It couldn't end. He didn't want it to end. He wanted to hear her sighs, feel her beneath him, feel her magic intertwining with his own for an eternity. But he couldn't resist for much longer, he couldn't think, and he couldn't stop...

Draco awoke with a sharp intake of breath, and became aware of how fast he breathed, along with the thin layer of sweat that dampened his skin. He turned to look at the small, ticking clock beside his bed and groaned.

It was three o'clock in the morning.

Ever since that night in May, ever since he had allowed himself to be overcome with lust and magic, he had dreamed of nothing else. He always saw her eyes, like the colour of honey, gazing up at him with fiery desire but mingled with fear and confusion. And then he'd hear her, oh no, this is wrong, no... don't stop, kiss me...

Draco sat up with a sigh, swinging his legs off the bed, and held his head in his hands. It had been three months since then, since he had left her sleeping amongst the torn up, overgrown grass, their skin streaked with mud, her throat adorned with the marks of his kisses. He'd conjured up a blanket to cover her with and left her slumbering.

Why?

Draco had asked himself that many times, and the answer was always the same. After he'd woken up beside her, a chill in the air, the madness that had possessed him was gone. The blind lust he had felt and poured into her had vanished. And in the cold light of the weak, rising sun, Draco knew he could not bear for her to wake up and look at him with horror and disgust at what they had done. The fear of her rejection was too great, too plausible. And so he left.

Yet, he still yearned for Ginny Weasley. With every part of him, he burned for her and he couldn't bear it any longer.

With resolve, Draco stood and began to ready himself for the day ahead. He sent an owl to the Ministry, explaining that he had a nasty case of the Black Cat Flu and wouldn't be able to attend work. Then he made his way downstairs to the dining room.

"What are you doing up so early?"

Lucius Malfoy was sitting at the opposite end of the dining table, eating his usual porridge and reading last night's Evening Prophet. Currently, his eyes were narrowed at his son in suspicion.

"I couldn't sleep," Draco muttered as he pulled out a chair and sat down.

Lucius continued to eye him with suspicion. "You know, you've been acting very odd lately, Draco," he said slowly as he put the paper down beside his glass of pumpkin juice. "Your mother keeps asking me if you have a new witch!" he said, laughing softly.

Draco said nothing, instead he spoke to the empty plate in front of him and ordered his breakfast.

"Do you have a new witch?" Lucius pressed on.

"No, I don't," he replied curtly. If Draco was very honest with himself, this was all his mother and father's fault to begin with. They forced him to attend these blasted celebrations in the first place.

"Hmm," Lucius murmured and he took a few more spoonfuls of his porridge just as Draco's bacon and eggs appeared. "Did you meet someone at Beltane?"

Draco paused the progress of his bacon to his mouth and stared at his father, his blood pulsing in his ears, and Lucius raised an eyebrow and smirked.

"So you did meet someone," Lucius said in a smug tone.

"I didn't meet anyone," Draco finally said, though he knew the damage was done.

Lucius scoffed. "Don't forget how well I know you, Draco," he drawled. "I know when you are lying. Who is she?"

"I met no one," he replied, curbing his annoyance for this would only confirm his father's suspicions even further.

Lucius merely laughed and shook his head, but said nothing else. Then Draco felt something reaching into his head, a twitching hand...

"Get out!" Draco growled, repelling his father who he could now see had his right hand hidden under the table. "I'll hex you if you do that again!"

Lucius pursed his lips and had the good grace to at least look ashamed. "You are hiding something," he said knowingly, tapping his own temple. "If you've connected with someone at Beltane, they're your soulmate and that cannot stay hidden forever. Bring her to Lughnasadh tonight."

After much thought about where he would go, Draco settled upon the only place he could think of where he knew any Weasley's would be. Of course, he could go to her childhood home, but he did not much fancy having to face her parents if it could be avoided.

This is how he found himself staring up at the violently purple storefront of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Objects whirred and popped in the brightly coloured windows, posters advertising various insane products flashed and whistled at passers-by, and it was packed with kids of all ages.

He took in a deep breath, dragged a hand through his hair, and stepped through the open door.

The noise was almost unbearable. Pops, bangs, and whistles rang overhead where miniature fireworks were exploding. Toy figurines whirled and whined along a small track suspended in mid-air. To his left, a cage full of chittering pink balls of fluff rattled. All around, stacked high on shelf upon shelf, were boxes displaying a vast assortment of pranks and jokes, fireworks, and toys. Further into the shop, was a harried-looking witch with brown hair serving customers.

Draco moved further into the shop, forcing past a bunch of giggling prepubescent girls staring at a fluorescent pink display filled with beauty potions. Just as he managed to get past them, he bumped into someone hard and had to catch their a fistful of their magenta robes before they fell. Unfortunately, the boxes the person had been carrying scattered onto the floor and they quickly bent to pick them up with a frustrated sigh.

Draco's heart skipped a beat as he saw that this person had a long mane of coppery-coloured hair, which clashed terribly with the robes she was wearing. He bent beside her to pick up the other fallen boxes, and their eyes met. Brown on grey, just as they did in his dreams.

The colour drained from Ginny's face as she drew in a sharp breath and stood abruptly. Draco followed and opened his mouth to speak, but she turned from him and pushed past a throng of children towards a dark curtained archway, which she disappeared through.

Draco steeled himself and followed her, dumping the box he had picked up onto a nearby shelf, and flinging the curtain aside. She was facing a set of shelves stacked even higher with merchandise, her back to him with her head in her hands.

So she remembered...

"Ginny -."

She whirled on him, fury in her gaze. "What are you doing here?" she hissed at him.

Draco paused. He had come to seek her out, but beyond that... She was evidently adverse to him right now. "I came to find you."

Her nostrils flared for a moment. "Why?"

Why? Draco could have laughed. "Because I can't stop thinking about you," he replied evenly, honestly.

Ginny scoffed and crossed her arms. "You can't stop thinking about me?" she said in a mocking tone. "What, you can't stop thinking about how you... ravaged me and then abandoned me?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper but there was no denying the obvious contempt in her tone.

Draco raised his brow at this. "Ravaged you? I didn't ravage you," he said firmly, stepping towards her now. Though this didn't seem like a good idea because she backed away from him, her eyes widening the closer he got. "You were begging me to -."

"Keep your voice down, will you?" she whispered sharply, her cheeks tinged pink as she stared past him. "Please go, my brother is here and -."

"No," he said, cutting across her and closing the distance. Her back was pressed against the shelves behind her now and she stared up at him, eyes so wide. Her flowery scent invaded his nostrils, and he remembered her in the forest, and the remembrance of their lust ignited the flame within him once more. "I've thought of nothing else since..." he murmured, reaching up to touch her face, but she caught his hand with surprising speed.

"Let me go, Malfoy," she ground out, eyes darting past him fearfully. But then he touched her and that surge of magic passed between them again and her eyes met his, her lips parted in surprise. "Oh no..." she whispered, "not again..."

Draco smirked down at her and knew she had felt it, knew that this was his only opportunity to convince her... Convince her of what, he did not know, he hadn't really had any plan in mind when he arrived. He bent his face close to hers, so close he could count the freckles across her nose, and, ever so slowly, he kissed her.

It was like a beam of sunlight had erupted onto him as that forgotten warmth he had felt with her permeated every part of his body. It was right, she was right. She belonged to him and he belonged to her. Nothing else could tell him otherwise.

"No, no, no!" she gasped out, turning her face away from him.

Draco bristled at this interruption, and tried to make her face him again, but she wriggled out of his grasp.

"You're not doing that again," she said quietly though firmly, as though trying to convince herself more than him. "I don't know what kind of spell you've put me under but you're not -."

"I've not put you under a spell!" he growled. "I told you before, it's the magic of our ancestors. It's the magic of Beltane."

Ginny scoffed but held up a hand to stop him as he tried to get close to her again. "I said no! I'll hex you," she warned, pulling her wand out from a pocket in her skirt and pointing it at him.

"I don't care," he replied, finding it hard to disguise his anger now but he kept his distance all the same. "I didn't believe in it either, until that night. But I dream of nothing else, I think of nothing else... It's real and you can't fight it. I can't fight it."

Her wand still remained aloft, but Ginny's brow had knitted together in a hopeless expression as she stared back at him. "Then why did you leave me?"

But before Draco could answer, the curtain was wrenched back and her brother, George Weasley, strode in. Evidently, he had not heard any of the commotion for he stopped, a startled look on his face as he stared between them. Then he scowled deeply at Draco.

"Get out," he snarled.

"I am dealing with it, George," Ginny said firmly.

"I don't want Death Eater scum in my shop!" he growled.

Ginny's eyes widened at this, as though she had forgotten about that detail. "He's- he's not a Death Eater anymore," she said quietly, her wand falling to her side as she dropped her arm. "Are you?" she said, looking at him with an imploring gaze, as if begging him.

George Weasley looked at her as though she had just sprouted two heads and started singing the national anthem.

"I'm not a bloody Death Eater!" he snapped. "No one is anymore. I'm not -." Before Draco could finish saying he wasn't the boy he had been at Hogwarts, George rounded on him with his own wand.

"Get out of my shop, Malfoy!" he growled. "And don't come back."

Draco stared at Ginny, but she said nothing else. She could only look back at him, cheeks pink and eyes wide, and so he left with a heavy sigh.

Later that evening, Draco sat alone amongst the crowds of people at the Lughnasadh celebrations his mother and father were hosting in the grounds of Malfoy Manor. It was another balmy evening, very like the one in which he had taken Ginny Weasley amongst the grass in the forest, but this time there was no happy ending.

He nursed a cup of half-drunk mead and glared unseeing at the festivities before him. Various stalls had been erected in the grounds for people selling their exotic fruits and vegetables, potions, and various other magical objects. A live band was playing inside one of the brightly coloured tents lining the path further into the grounds, and children ran amok with sparklers and little toys they'd no doubt bought from the shop he'd been in earlier.

Thinking about it made him wallow even more. The look in her eyes when she had been reminded of his past as a Death Eater was hard to forget. She'd looked disappointed and scared and confused. Draco gulped down the rest of his mead and tried to shake it from his mind, but only scowled even more upon seeing his mother and father weaving through the crowds, laughing and mingling.

It was their fault after all. Their fault that he was tarnished with that label of Death Eater. If they'd never involved themselves with the Dark Lord, if they'd never raised him to believe muggles were scum...

Then he saw a stooped old witch beckoning to him from a small, striped tent. Draco frowned and turned around, but saw no one behind him. She was looking directly at him, gesturing still. He briefly thought about turning around and going to bed, but then something about the twinkling look in the old woman's eyes intrigued him.

Finally, he got up, left his empty cup, and went to her begrudgingly.

"You are troubled, young man," she said in a wheezy voice as he approached.

"Considering I've probably got a face like a slapped arse, that wouldn't be difficult for anyone to deduce," he replied curtly.

The old woman merely smiled at him, her wrinkles giving her skin the appearance of old parchment. "Come, come inside," she said, taking his arm with one of her claw-like hands with surprising force. "Sit down."

Inside, the tent was filled with smoke from a sickly sweet incense burning in the corner. A small, spindly table sat in the middle along with a glowing orb filled with mist.

"Ah, no," Draco muttered. "I don't want my fortune told, woman. I don't need that thing to tell me it isn't looking good."

The woman simply chuckled again as she settled herself in one of the chairs and lowered her shawl to reveal a bush of wiry, grey hair surrounding her lined face. "It isn't looking good, is it?" she said with a smile. "But the Green Man must be satisfied."

Draco narrowed his eyes at her. "Look, I'm not in the mood for this rubbish," he said, turning to leave.

"Sit down, boy," the woman said forcefully. So forceful and unexpected it was that, to his amazement, Draco obeyed. "I see him in you. The Green Man."

Draco stared blankly at her, wondering what foolishness was this.

"Do you not know what I speak of?" she asked, her tone sharp. Suddenly, she reminded Draco of Professor McGonagall.

"No," he replied. "I've never heard of this nonsense..."

The woman gazed at him with a withering look. "The Green Man is not nonsense, and you cannot ignore him," she said firmly. "If you do not claim your May Queen before the babe's birth on Imbolc then she will be lost forever."

Draco blinked. "What in Merlin's name are you talking about? What 'babe'?"

The woman pursed her lips, looking more like McGonagall than ever. "The babe you and your May Queen conceived on Beltane," she replied, as if this made any sense at all.

"There is no baby," he replied steadily, and he scoffed at her as he stood to leave again. "I don't have a May Queen, she rejected me as I knew she would."

"The Green Man chose you, the ancestors chose you and her," the woman said, her tone insistent now. "They choose one lucky couple every year and bless them with a babe, a babe who will be born on Imbolc. Did you not feel his presence at Beltane when you found your May Queen?"

Draco did not answer for his heart began to beat very fast, and he felt rooted to the spot. He remembered the voice guiding him that night, the voice urging him to catch Ginny, to kiss her, to take her. It had told him she was ready, it had told him to...

"You do remember, don't you?" she whispered. "You must claim your Queen before it is too late."

Draco swallowed hard. "She isn't pregnant," he said quietly, eyes wide as he looked at the crone. "I saw her today, she would know by now."

The woman nodded, her expression serious. "She knows," she replied in a definitive manner and she closed her eyes for a moment, a small frown knitting her heavy brow together. Finally she looked at him again. "There is a barrier. I don't know why... it is most unusual. But she carries your child, that is certain. Claim her before Imbolc, otherwise your misery will last forever and so will hers."

Draco stood still, shock permeating through him. How could he not have given that a thought at all? He remembered now with such sharp clarity the voice in his mind that night, whispering in his ear as he tried to hold back, tried to make their sex last for as long as possible. But the voice had whispered at him, telling him to finish for it would be a pleasure beyond all pleasures. And it had been, when he had finished inside her, his body had shuddered with the force of it, his entire being felt the wave of heat overcome him and he'd moaned his release into her throat as she cried out to the still air.

There'd been no time to ask about protection.

Draco fell back down into the hard seat and raked a hand through his hair, before holding his face.

"Child, all is not lost," the woman said soothingly. "The ancestors did not choose you and her for no reason at all."

Draco clenched the side of his head, certain he must have looked mad to the old woman and heaved a deep sigh. "Our families do not... get on," he finished lamely, unsure as to why he was telling her any of this. But she seemed to know, she seemed to understand the predicament he was in. "But I think of nothing else, only her," he muttered, still looking down at the wooden table.

"Of course you don't," she replied, giving a wheezy sort of scoff. "You must claim her or you will live in this misery forever. As will she."

Draco looked up at the woman, hopelessness flooding every part of his being. "She does not live this misery," he said. "She was angry to see me, she thought I'd... ravaged her," he spat out bitterly.

"Oh, dear child," she said, tittering. "She is not above Beltane, she is not above the ancestors. She feels it too. She burns for you. Whatever is causing this barrier between you two must be overcome."

Draco swallowed hard against the lump that had formed in his throat. "But how? How do I do this?"

She gave a small shrug. "Only you can know," she replied. "If it is a family feud, you must convince her that this can be resolved. If it is some perceived slight, you must make it up to her. Whatever it is, it must be done before the babe is born on Imbolc."

Draco had been staring down at the table again, his fingers clenched into his hair, but now he looked sharply back up at the woman. "And you are sure about this baby?"

"Without a doubt," she said with a smile. "It is the way of Beltane."

"Then why would she hide it from me? You said she must know!"

Again, and infuriatingly, the old woman shrugged. "You must discover what is causing this barrier and then you will have your answer."

Draco growled in his throat and stood up again. If this was really true, then how could he have been so careless? He was not ready to be a father... He had envisioned marriage first, at least. But now this weighed heavier upon him. Heavier than the unfulfilled passion he carried for her and now, more than ever, he did not know what to do.