The Laws Have Changed - Chapter 20
He couldn't sleep.
Not when she was covered in so much gauze it was hard to tell where the thin fabric ended and her skin began. Not when her breaths came out in constant shallow bursts due to her body fighting for her literal life. Not when it took him almost an hour to finally feel clean — his skin just now turning pink from being scrubbed red and raw and bloody because drawing his own blood was the only way to atone for how much of hers he'd siphoned away from her by force.
So he did the only thing that made sense: he watched over her.
He let his eyes scan her in a nearly endless loop. Once he got to the top of her bandaged head, he'd start all over again. He was surprised to see how well Luna had cleaned her up, ensuring that his girlfriend's skin had an almost ethereal glow despite her injuries. Each freckle stood out amongst the milky flesh, making Ginny look as though each little sun spot was flicked onto her purposefully. Like nature had painted those flecks of cocoa and burnt umber with intention on what it was trying to replicate.
Despite his previous use of it, he had once thought it cliché to describe her freckles as constellations. He'd heard that description from one of the older Slytherin boys back in his third year. His Housemate had been hopelessly besotted by some Hufflepuff and thirteen-year-old him thought such flowery language to be incredibly silly. They were just smudges of skin, enhanced by how often she was outside. But sitting next to his girlfriend, his mind so intent on memorizing every bit of her because it was his only way of ensuring that she was alive, made him realize how apt the description actually was.
Just like their home galaxy, filled with the stars he and his family were named after, she too had freckles that stood out like bright, guiding lights. He was fascinated by how these stars on her skin seemed to form triangles. They were always in a set of three, maybe convalescing into a hourglass shape, or close enough to smaller bright marks that they resembled the Ursas.
He carefully lowered himself until he was lying down on his side next to her. The longer he gazed at her, the more he couldn't stop the impulse to run a finger across the temporarily-sharpened planes of her face. His touch skimmed over her brow bone, then traced her occipital bone, fascinated by how relaxed she looked. He brushed along her cheeks, grateful that her face was left unmarred by the curse. Her nose was next; the small upturn a graceful slope that ended in the cutest wee button. Not that he would ever admit to using such a description. He, of course, had to gently press down on the lips he had kissed innumerable times. They were rough; drier to the touch than he was used to and the pale pink that normally tinted them was barely discernible.
He shimmied down until he could rest his head against her shoulder, his arm draped across her lower abdomen where he'd seen the least amount of bandages. He focused on the subtle rise and fall of her chest, trying to convince himself that she was going to be okay. He had done the countercurse exactly as Severus had taught him and Longbottom's knowledge of medicinal herbs was a literal lifesaver.
But all of the skill in the world couldn't change the fact that he was the one who was responsible for her current state.
For the briefest of moments, he thought that him harming Ginny was going to end up as one of those ridiculous prerequisites. He briefly thanked Frey as she was probably the one who would've put a stop to this kind of torture. Because that's what it was.
It was torture, it was hell being in his situation. His next thought was that the Dark Lord had somehow figured out that he was keeping his relationship with Ginny hidden and this was yet another way to test his loyalty. But they had been so careful. They never acknowledged each other in the halls or during meals. If he was forced to, he'd simply threaten to hex her to get her out of his way and she would do the same. There had even been some instances where they had laughed over how ridiculous their displays were.
He closed his eyes, trying to get his brain to just stop thinking for one bloody moment. He needed one moment of peace that didn't involve his girlfriend's near-lifeless body constantly appearing every time he closed his eyelids that night.
"I —"
He sat up at the barely audible murmur, unable to stop the fear that settled over him.
"I can hear you thinking."
She was squinting in his general direction, trying to discern where he was.
"Don't blame yourself."
Her voice was stronger that time, her tone trying to press upon him her feelings in place of physical touch. He shook his head, noting the way his fresh tears made the blood in her bandages almost shift like watercolor paints. "I can't help it, Gin. It's because of me that you're like this."
She gave him a wan smile — how could she smile at a time like this? Why wasn't she insisting he leave her alone? — and slowly placed her hand on his knee. "Draco, if it wasn't for our relationship, I might've died."
"That's not true."
"Yes, it is." She paused, her words making her chest rise while her body shuddered. He could see the strain she was putting herself through for him and he couldn't fathom why. "It's because of your consideration," another pause to pace her breathing, "and affection for me that you even thought to tell Carrow," a slow inhale and exhale, "that the countercurse should be used on me."
He still couldn't fathom why he was forced to go through with such a task considering it didn't happen in his last go at life. Which then made him wonder if he would've reacted the same even if they hadn't developed such feelings for each other.
"You're wrong, Gin," he murmured before pressing a kiss to her shoulder. "If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't've had the resolve to even keep up the act." His thumb began absently swiping at the gauze on her stomach. "If it was anyone else, I would've failed. I would've —" He hugged her as tight as he could, letting whatever tears he had left continue to fall. "How does that even make sense? How could I be okay with doing this to you?"
He felt her head softly rest on top of his, nuzzling the soft strands as much as she could.
"Because I trust you, Draco." She let out a low chuckle at the second squeeze he gave her. "I trusted that you would make sure that I was okay." Her voice was becoming steadier and he knew it was for his continued benefit. "And I am okay. Well, about as okay as I can manage right now." She let out another chuckle and he could feel her sigh at the incredulous laugh her words prompted.
"I also like to think of it this way," she continued, "now that I'm bed prone, I can finally say that a Malfoy has actually waited on a Weasley. My dad wouldn't believe that such a historic day has come."
The seriousness of her words made him shake against her; his silent laughter slowly growing louder with each giggle she tried to stifle.
Soon enough he was flat on his back beside her, enjoying how easily she was able to turn his thinking on its head; how easily she was able to force him to see the light at the end of what had been such a dark tunnel.
He propped himself up on his elbow to look down at her again.
"Do you suppose we'll make it through all of this?" he wondered, letting a finger blaze a trail against her skin once more.
"I sure as shite hope so," she replied with a small glare. "I'd hate for my boyfriend to go through all the trouble of nearly killing me just for us to not defeat Voldemort."
"He doesn't scare you?" he whispered, almost surprised at how easily the words left his lips.
"I knew him as Tom." Her voice suddenly grew small and he cursed himself for bringing up such a delicate subject. "And Tom scares me because he was so normal. He was handsome and eloquent and intelligent and it was all of those things that made it difficult to see how he could turn into such a monster." She took a hard gulp. "But the monster doesn't scare me. The monster isn't the boy I once knew."
He thought they had survived the worst of it until that fated final battle.
Though he wasn't exactly sure if anything had happened to Ginny in that tenuous space leading up to that moment, he was certain that he remembered seeing her attacking Death Eaters with every ounce of strength in her when all hell finally broke loose.
And maybe that was their first mistake.
He had been ordered to practically kill her, so what else could possibly be thrown at them to test their mettle, or to test their respective loyalties?
Ginny told him that it wasn't right to live with such paranoia all the time once she was well enough to be held by him properly.
He wanted to believe her. He was desperate to believe that her words rang true, but it didn't erase the unsettled feeling that now loomed over him like the darkest of clouds. It felt like a regression, of sorts. Like he was reverting back into the shell that he had created for himself during his sixth year. A shell that his girlfriend had patiently chipped away at because she saw something there worth exploring.
His mounting paranoia meant that Ginny could feel it too.
That constant chill that sent a tingle down their spines, that caused the hair on the back of their neck to stand at high alert. Something wasn't entirely right in the calm before the winter hols, but any time either one of them thought they could sense what was about to happen, it would slip through their fingers like sand in an hourglass.
At this point, all they could do was wait.
He had been asleep when it happened.
Blaise had taken precautions to make sure that the only other occupant joining them in their train car was Pansy; a flimsy way to keep up appearances despite the uncertainty of her allegiances.
So in what he considered to be a relatively safe space, he let his guard down, knowing that his friends would keep watch while he allowed himself one last moment of quiet before returning home to unending chaos.
It had been a moment since he had last seen Frey and her reluctant companion and, of course, they decided to show him the last thing he wanted to see. He had only just gotten the visions of Ginny's blood to stop flashing behind his eyelids whenever they had gone to bed.
"What do you have planned for our little idiot this time?" the imposing redhead asked, leaning against a desk in the Dark Arts classroom.
"For once, this actually wasn't my doing," the man replied, taking out a cigarette and, as always, using a flick of his thumb to light it. He took a drag and stared at it, clearly trying to choose his words with a kind of care that hadn't been seen before. "I was…overruled." The last word was spat out, the man's face contorting into a grimace as he continued to stare at his lit cigarette.
Frey's face went ashen, her eyes going wide at the sound of the door creaking open to let him in.
He thought he could simply make it through the whole farce on bravado alone. It had been working thus far, and he saw no need to change his tactics up until that point. But fear chilled his blood as he watched himself slowly shut down; his brain automatically working to shield him from actions his body forced itself to do.
"Who the fuck overruled you?" He heard Frey cry out. "I thought this was your project! I thought you were the one in charge of cleaning up this mess?" She dashed over to her companion and poked and prodded his chest with each word, mussing the deep blue velvet of his robe until it slipped off his shoulders; revealing a well-tailored suit in the same shade of midnight.
Her companion ignored her ire, taking another drag before looking down to blow out his smoke. "All Father and my brother got wind of what was happening," he murmured, for once showing compassion when he normally showed amusement. "They wanted to see how the boy would handle such a task since he's grown to love the girl."
Frey slowly turned her head, her gaze drawn to a visage so similar to her own. He wondered if she saw herself in his girlfriend and that was why she didn't seem to put up much of a fight about Ginny being his different option in this life. Did she look at Ginny's defiant face, littered with the freckles he loved so much, her lips drawn into a thin line, her eyes squinted as her nostrils flared in preparation for the worst, and see a younger version of herself? A version who fought just as hard for the people she loved and cherished?
"Kore and I did everything we could to convince them otherwise. You know she's just as invested."
"You see yourselves in them, don't you?" Frey whispered, stray tears running down her cheeks.
Her companion placed a hand on her shoulder, almost immediately shifting to squeeze her from the other side. "I think it's natural to see ourselves in mortals. They were made in our image. We entrusted them to worship us, to continue our legacies. Hell, some of us even procreate with them." Another squeeze. "But we must also understand that detaching ourselves from them is the only way we can survive."
"We also gave them our cruelty," she replied, her eyes just as vacant as she watched him utter the curse that was very nearly his undoing.
"If it makes you feel any better, Frey, I didn't set it as one of his prerequisites. Even I'm not that sadistic."
"I may have killed you if you had." Her tone was light, but her attention was still locked onto the way he scrambled to perform the countercurse.
"I had meant for them to face death in a way, but never like this. It would've always been our little idiot that was to go up against his previous fate for that was something he needed to challenge on his own." The man finally flicked the cigarette, long forgotten, off his fingers. "Come, Frey. I think we've seen enough for today."
Before he could see the pair disappear, he was shaken back to consciousness.
He let out a gasp, as though he were coming up for the air he very much thought he needed after re-witnessing his use of Sectumsempra.
"Blaise?" But as soon as he focused in on his friend's face, he wondered what the bloody hell happened while he was asleep.
"They're gone."
He whipped his head to see that instead of Pansy, Longbottom was now seated next to his friend.
"What?" he whispered, his hands clenching and unclenching against the tops of his thighs to keep from shaking.
"Neville doesn't know how it happened, Draco," Blaise began, clearly struggling with his own acknowledgement of the situation at hand. "He said he left their compartment to use the loo and when he came back, they were both gone. Gin and Luna."
"What?" he repeated, his breaths becoming shallow as that creeping fear that had been lingering in the back of his mind, that had been slowly seeping into his bones rushed to the forefront of his senses.
"I asked the other Gryffindors and Ravenclaws if-if they'd seen them. H-had Lavender check the girls lav nearby to see if maybe I missed them." Longbottom had his hands laced together while his elbows rested on his knees. It had been a surprisingly long time since any one had heard the Gryffindor seventh year stutter, so there had to be an unfortunate truth to his words.
"Astoria said she saw no one pass by the girls' loo on our side. I —"
He jerked his head up at the crack in Blaise's voice, pushing aside the curiosity he had at seeing his normally stoic friend be so affected by something happening to his new girlfriend.
"I think they took Luna and Ginny, Draco, and we need to know where —"
"I know where they were taken." His whisper was barely discernible over the roar and whistle of the train, but it didn't matter to the room's other occupants.
"Then, where are they?" Longbottom asked, his brow now set in determination.
He let out a sigh, allowing himself to lean back in his seat as his scrubbed his face. He almost wanted to laugh. Laugh at the brilliance of his girlfriend for bringing others into the fold on the off-chance that this very situation take place. Laugh at the predictability of it all, because of course this would fucking happen. And laugh at the fact that he finally remembered what happened to Luna Lovegood around this time during his last life.
He leaned forward again, meeting Longbottom's determination, and nodding for Blaise to join in. He was going to need his friend's help if he was to have even the slightest of chances of pulling off was was clearly going to be a rescue mission. They couldn't very well have Longbottom tag along and Blaise probably knew their destination as well as he did.
"They were taken to Malfoy Manor."
A/N - Thank you for reading and thank you for your patience! I was having real bad writer's block with this chapter tbh. I also got caught up in writing for different fests, so y'all have a TON of new fics from me to read through on Ao3, if you're so inclined. (They're all too spicy for this site lmao) I have some fun fics planned for this year too! One of them was already released as part of a Drinny Valentine's Day Fest - "Can We Get Even Closer?" (also too spicy for this site lol) And there will be plenty more where that came from! lol
If you're interested in reading those, you can find me on Ao3 as Alexandria_Malfoy since all of them are too spicy, or have darker elements that would not do well if posted here.
I also started working again, so I'm trying to get a feel for what my work/life balance will now be like. The good news is that before I had my bout of writer's block, I did plot out/outline the rest of this fic! I'm hoping that will help make things a little easier for me.
Thank you again for sticking with this story and for reading!