The Price of Safety

Ginny walked into the dusty old sitting room Draco Malfoy was occupying and said slowly, "Tomorrow a lot of people that took you in and protected you in spite of your history are going to go out and risk their lives on information you've provided." She clenched her hands together and a look of desperation flashed through her eyes. "I'm begging you, Draco; if there is anything else you know, anything at all, that might help protect them from being maimed or killed, please tell us." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Please."

Not knowing what to say, he simply nodded, and when she walked quietly out of the room, he returned his gaze to the enchanted window.

Late that night, Draco opened the door to her room and silently padded over to her bed. For a moment, he simply looked down on the redhead, her face peaceful in slumber. He knew that peace wouldn't last.

Ginny was shaken awake. "Wha?" she yawned, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. "Whaz goin' on?" When she saw Draco Malfoy standing next to her bed, she asked quickly, "Did you think of something else?"

"I did," he replied quietly, "but I need your help."

"Of course," Ginny said immediately. "Anything."

He pointed his wand at her and whispered a swift Silencing Charm before climbing onto the bed. "Trust me, okay?"

When he tried to gather her into his arms, Ginny struggled and twisted and managed to slip from his grasp. Vaulting over the edge of the bed, she grabbed his wand and pointed it at him menacingly.

"Don't," he whispered. "I thought of one more way to help, Ginny, but no one would approve of the method, so I didn't even bother telling them. You're the only one that can help me do this."

She raised an eyebrow at him and motioned with the wand for him to continue.

"There's old magic, Ginny- old magic that's not about incantations and wand movement at all. I'm talking about the kind of magic that involves ritual and sacrifice; the kind that the magic in our bodies recognizes as a bonding."

Ginny waved impatiently at her throat, removing the Silencing Charm, and tossed him the wand. "That's Dark magic," she responded immediately. "Any magic requiring a ritual or sacrifice was banned at the end of the nineteenth century, Draco. Everyone that ever took History of Magic knows that."

"It may be categorized as Dark magic, but it's the only thing I can think of that might help protect your family tomorrow."

"Why just the Weasleys?" she asked with narrowed eyes. "Does this sacrifice include me?"

He nodded ashamedly. "Yeah."

"But a silly little girl like me doesn't deserve to know what's going on, right?" she sneered. "You were just going to pop in, knock me silent with a charm and proceed with your plan without even a by-your-leave?"

"Ginny, that's not what I meant," he sighed, trying to wave her closer. "Honestly; why would I alienate the one person in this whole place that has carried on a civil conversation with me?" He looked at her with an expression that she would have called 'shy' on anyone else. "Seeing my face didn't send you running for another wing of the house. Hell, you've shared your puddings with me when I wouldn't come down for supper."

"Yes, I have, and now you repay me by sneaking in here and hexing me. If I was any slower, you'd probably be executing your little plan already. So what is it, Draco? A potion that needs my tears? An incantation that requires my blood?"

He looked down at the covers and colored slightly around the cheekbones. "Sort of. What do you know about the relinquishment of maidenhood?"

She laughed. "Oh God, really, Draco. Don't tell me you're going to try the whole 'We may be dead tomorrow and this is our last chance to be together' routine. Harry trotted that out last week, and you know if I kicked him in the pants for that, you're going to get much worse."

He very definitely blushed at that, but he forced himself to meet her eyes anyways. "No, I wasn't aware Potter did that. He and I are not what you'd call mates." Ignoring her snort, he continued. "But that's not what this is. Deaths from Wizarding feuds have been avoided for millennia by this magic. When a woman gives her first time to a man, she effectively prevents him from harming her in the future. It was an insurance policy of sorts against Ye Olde Spousal Abuse, I guess. In any event, she has the opportunity to include her entire family in that preventative magic."

Ginny sighed and sank down to face him on the bed. "That's fine and dandy, Draco, but unless you plan on fighting with the Death Eaters, that doesn't do any good- other than getting you laid, of course."

"You're bloody hysterical, Weasley," he sneered back. "Magic's reciprocal, you cow. If you bring your family into it…"

"It automatically pulls yours in," she finished. "Great. That means out of the fifty or so Death Eaters and Voldemort, my family can ignore the curses aimed at them from your parents. Perfect. Now they'll only be killed forty-eight times out of fifty."

"There are times when I want to slap that smart mouth of yours, you know," he sighed.

"Good thing we haven't gone through with your plan, then; otherwise, you'd never get the chance!"

"Keep pushing, Weasley," he growled. Heaving a sigh to collect himself, Draco continued. "I pulled a book from the library on this- the magic is too potent to stop at immediate family. It extends further out than that.

"It will cover your whole family, as well as Tonks, McGonagall, Lupin, Longbottom and Fletcher- they're all cousins once or twice-removed of one of your parents. Conversely, it will protect against the curses of any Malfoy, Black, Lestrange, Crabbe or Nott." He grabbed her hand. "There's a catch. If Tonks, for example, battles Bellatrix, she'll be immune from Aunt Bella's spells, but those reflected curses can bounce away and hit someone that's not protected."

"Like Harry," Ginny breathed.

"Yes, like Potter," he grumbled.

"All right, so if we do this, then we go right downstairs after and tell my parents who's protected from whom so they can know where to focus during the battle."

"You're willing to go through with it?" he asked in astonishment. "You'd give me your virginity?"

"To possibly save lives?" She looked at him in astonishment. "Of course I would. It's not like I'm throwing myself into a volcano or anything. You're not as hideous and forbidding as you'd like to think." She cleared her throat. "I'm a modern girl- it's just sex, right?"

Draco opened his mouth, but quickly closed it when she yanked her dressing gown off and climbed up to sit next to him. He coughed and tried again. "Listen, Ginny, there's more to it than that. If we do this, we'll be-"

"Alright, I'm in. You can stop talking now." She pulled the old t-shirt she slept in over her head and turned to him. "Now's not the time to do your impersonation of a statue, Malfoy. Get naked."

"But you need to know that-"

She sighed, folding her arms over her naked breasts. "I need to know what?"

"If there's any true, erm-" He cast around for a word. "- romantic feelings involved, it gets decidedly more complicated."

"How complicated?"

"Wizarding marriage complicated- an old school binding, with no-take-backs and all."

She eyed him closely. "Good thing neither one of us is in love with the other then, isn't it?"

"Yeah," he replied with a half-hearted smirk. "That'd be a disaster."

***

After it was over, Ginny pushed her sweaty hair back from her face and heaved a sigh. "That was nowhere near as bad as everyone said the first time was going to be; in fact, it was halfway pleasant. That barely hurt at all!" She chuckled as she rolled on her side to face the boy staring at the ceiling intensely. "Who'd have thought I'd give up my virginity -and enjoy it- to a would-be Death Eater that got in over his head and ran to the good guys for protection?" At his snarl, which was far from intimidating with his upper lip beaded with sweat and his hair falling in his eyes, Ginny laughed. "I'm just having a go at you, Draco. Relax. Now what do we do?"

Without replying, he swept a hand beneath the covers and between her legs, eliciting a gasp. Carefully, he brought his hand back up.

"I'm bleeding?" she shrieked. "What went wrong?"

He looked at her. "Don't be dense. You're supposed to bleed the first time. Now be quiet and hold still."

Ginny watched silently as he used her virgin's blood and his seed to draw a rune on her stomach.

"Now you do the same to me," he instructed. When she complied, he took her wrist and guided her through the rune. "Now repeat after me, making the appropriate changes. I, Draco Malfoy-"

Ginny gulped. "I, Ginny Weasley-"

Draco stared into the eyes of the girl next to him and wondered why his stomach was clenching so painfully. "- have accepted your virginity."

She couldn't tear her gaze from his when he looked so spellbound by her. "- have gifted you with my virginity."

Reaching out, Draco grasped her hand. "I use my body's seed-"

His movement made her jump a little, but she twined her fingers through his. "I use my body's blood-"

The urge to reach out and caress her face was nearly overwhelming. "- to offer you protection from harm at my hand-"

Ginny wanted to snuggle into his chest and lay her head over the beating of his heart. "- to accept your offer of protection from harm at your hand-"

"- and from the hand of those of my blood." He closed his eyes, but was assaulted with an image of him shielding her from his father.

Tears pricked the back of Ginny's eyes as she thought of how much it meant to her that Draco's actions could save the people she loved in tomorrow's battle. "- and to extend that protection to those of my blood."

They looked at one another as the furniture in the room shook momentarily and the pressure shifted, causing their ears to pop.

"I guess it worked then," Ginny said with a shaky grin as she looked around for her nightshirt.

"Yeah, I think so," he replied quietly as he watched her yank the flimsy garment over her head.

His trousers smacked across his shoulder. "Get dressed," she ordered. "We've got to go tell everyone, and if you think I'm going to swan in on an all-night Order meeting and announce that everyone related to me is safe now because I shagged Draco Malfoy, you're loonier than I'll sound saying that." His shirt was whipped at his head. "Come on, Malfoy."

Draco dressed slowly and wondered if they'd gotten in way over their heads. The reaction to the ritual as described in the book was supposed to be a puff of white smoke, not a pressure change that could rattle an armoire heavy enough to pin a hippogriff. From what little he knew of Dark rituals, pressure shifts occurred only when destiny was altered.

His stomach clenched again as he followed the softly-swishing hips of Ginny Weasley out of her room, and the sudden thought that it might be Ginny Malfoy now speared through his skull, making him stumble hard into the wall.

Ginny turned and offered a hand to the paler-than-normal boy huddled against the wall. "Come on then. It's just my family and the rest of the Order members- nothing to be afraid of. It's not like we're bound now or anything."

He had the sudden urge to laugh hysterically. Maybe she was right. They'd know soon enough.

***