It was almost strange, how blue the sky seemed to be. Grass seemed greener, the dirt deeper and darker, the trees taller. The air smelled cleaner, somehow, and the vague sense of doom and gloom seemed to be gone. Or it could simply be that Draco Malfoy had been locked away in Azkaban for the past five years, and he only now appreciated the world for what it was.

Most of the Death Eaters he knew were still in Azkaban. Draco had no idea how he had gotten out so early; everyone else had been sentenced to life imprisonment with no hope for parole, let alone release. He absently rubbed at the curse scar on the back of his right hand; every Death Eater in Azkaban had been given one along with the horrid gray prisoner's uniform and the identification number that had been used instead of a name while he had been imprisoned there. It was a black X on his right hand, easily observable no matter what he did. The Punishment Marks had been used because it was too easy to conceal the Dark Mark during everyday activities, and the Ministry of Magic wanted it clear who had been involved in Dark Arts and the upheaval of recent times. The Dark Mark on his left forearm was faded and gray, no longer as intense looking as it had when Voldemort was still alive.

His mind shied away from that name. He was uncomfortable using it, even if the Prophet and all of the Order of the Phoenix members gloried in using the name once the Dark Lord was dead. Draco was still too afraid of it, still wondering if some remnant of the bastard was still around somewhere and just biding his time until everyone thought he was gone for good. He'd risen like an evil phoenix often enough in the years before he had come to power. Draco didn't put it past him to do another resurrection from the dead.

In Azkaban, it had been an almost exquisite kind of torture to think that the world existed beyond the tall gray walls. The very light there had been dim, visitors discouraged and contact with the outside world was minimized. You are being punished, the guards always said, the mantra drilling itself into his mind from the regularity of the words. You must pay for what you've done to the world. You will learn humility and you will learn your place in the new order of things.

The memory of the guards' faces would have been enough to turn his stomach, if anything had been in it.

"Draco?"

He turned from the window in the drawing room of Malfoy Manor. It was the only property left to the Malfoy name; everything else had been taxed to the hilt and then seized in the intervening years. Narcissa Malfoy had done what she could with the Malfoy properties, managing everything in his absence. There was only so much she could do with the Ministry so dead set against them. He had lost what little appetite he had left when he had seen the black circle cursed into the palm of her right hand. It hadn't been just Death Eaters that had been cursed; all known family members and associates had been cursed as well. Ostensibly it was to monitor their actions in and around Knockturn Alley, but Draco knew better. The Ministry didn't trust any of them, and wanted them all to suffer.

Draco tried to smile at his mother, but she knew what his strained smiles looked like. She had seen plenty of them before he had been sentenced to Azkaban. She crossed the room and wrapped her arms around him. "Come outside, Draco," she murmured. "It's lovely outside today. You can sit in the rose garden with me."

It was too bright in the rose garden, the colors too vivid, the scents too strong. He couldn't sit there and avoid the memories that would inevitably come. Ginny.

"I'll be out in a moment," Draco murmured when Narcissa seemed to expect a reply from him. She sighed and nodded; they both knew he wouldn't leave the drawing room anytime soon. "I will, Mother. I promise."

Narcissa played with his hair a bit, not quite meeting his eyes. She didn't want to see his inevitable wince at the sight of the black circle on her palm. He blamed himself, as if it was all his fault. He seemed to have forgotten that they both would have been marked by a circle because of Lucius' involvement. Or Bellatrix's, or Rodolphus, or any of the distant cousins that had been caught up in the Death Eaters' need for blood purity. Fully half of the Wizarding World was likely marked; even Nymphadora Tonks would have been marked if she survived. If Narcissa was a braver soul, she might have owled Andromeda Tonks to see if she and the baby had been marked.

"It will get better, Draco," Narcissa murmured. "We'll be all right."

She couldn't have possibly known, but she echoed one of the last things Ginny had said to him at Hogwarts. It will get better, Draco, I know it. Fight with me, and we'll be all right. He hadn't been able to believe her then, and he absolutely couldn't believe her now.

Draco pasted a smile onto his face and smiled at his mother. "Of course, Mother. Of course." As if they didn't rattle around the Manor like two knuts in a pauper's purse. As if they could avoid the incredulous stares on the streets, the whispers and recriminations that lay on the tip of everyone's tongues. As if anyone would ever believe that a Malfoy could amount to anything.

But he lied to his mother to help her smile, and watched her leave the drawing room with an absent look on her face. He closed his eyes and leaned against the glass of the window. The morning light seemed to stain the insides of his eyelids red, and almost unwillingly he thought of Ginny Weasley. It had been an odd sort of thing that happened his seventh year. He could feel the hate falling over him from the gazes of the golden Gryffindors, could feel the others stare and wonder just what happened in the tower that fatal night. I didn't do it! he had wanted to shout, but he kept his lips shut and his thoughts to himself. The Carrows were vicious, Snape unyielding and Voldemort held his parents captive. What else was he supposed to do? He had to go along with what was expected of him. He had to do as he was told and he had to try to stay two steps ahead to keep his family safe. He hadn't expected to fall apart in a deserted hallway, let alone have the littlest Weasley find him there.

"So you're human after all," she had said, taking in the sight of him sobbing. She had her wand loosely held in her hand, livid bruises on her face. She had been fresh from the Carrows' detention.

"Go laugh somewhere else," Draco had snarled, pointing his wand at her chest.

"Who's laughing?" she had asked. And she hadn't seemed to be taking any kind of vicious joy in his pain, didn't seem interested in making him feel worse.

They had stared at each other for a while, and then Ginny had left. Draco thought of calling her back, but there had been nothing for him to say. It hadn't mattered. They bumped into each other at odd times, and he had supervised a detention session the Carrows had been too busy to attend personally. With no one else there, Draco had simply had her sit in silence. He had parchment in front of him, though he couldn't even contemplate what he was supposed to see.

"You aren't a very good Death Eater, are you?" Ginny asked suddenly. Draco's head snapped up and he took in her blank expression. "You don't take pleasure in hurting anyone seriously. Your Crucio isn't as strong as the others' and you don't hold anyone under as long as they do. This isn't what you wanted to do, is it?"

She was right, damn it all.

"Just keep your mouth shut, Weasley," Draco snarled at her, balling up the sheets of parchment. This was impossible. There was no way to make a defensive shield for his parents that the Dark Lord wouldn't know about. His Occlumency was good, but it wasn't that good.

Ginny got up from her seat and came directly in front of him. Almost hesitantly, she reached out and touched his face. Draco caught her wrist in his hand, squeezing tightly. There was a flare of panic in her eyes that she tamped down on almost immediately. She was better at hiding her emotions than he was, and the knowledge rankled. "What are you playing at, Weasley?" he asked, voice more raw than he wanted it to be. "Aren't you concerned I'll just kill you?"

"You would have before if you wanted to," Ginny told him confidently.

Draco spun her around and pressed her up against the wall, her arm twisted up behind her back. He could smell her scent, something like roses, something that made him feel alive. He was pressed tight against her, the tremors rolling through her. "Who says I won't now? Who says the Carrows won't approve?"

"That's not you," she said, her voice sounding more confident than than the tremors would have indicated. "You're not a ruthless killer."

"Shows what you know," he snarled against her ear. "You're just a Weasley. You don't count for anything in the new order of things."

He didn't know how it happened, but somehow Ginny spun out of his grip and pushed him into the wall. Her hands pinned his arms at his sides, and he faced her blazing eyes. "You're that sure it's going to happen? That Tom is going to push all his little toy soldiers into the right places and watch them go?"

Draco had looked at her in confusion. "Who's Tom?"

She had pulled back away from him, almost in disgust. "It's not important anymore." He didn't know who she was upset with, him for not knowing or herself for mentioning it.

"You're still in here?"

Draco started at the sound of Narcissa's voice. He had been lost in the memory, something that was only too easy to do. It was all he had left, really.

Narcissa sighed and entered the drawing room. "That's it. You have been moving around the house like a ghost. You have to do something more than simply look out of the windows. You're coming with me to Diagon Alley. I have some errands to run..."

"I won't be squired around like a child," Draco replied in a surly tone. "I'm a grown man that just spent five fucking years in Azkaban."

Narcissa's lips thinned. "Language, young man," she said, voice sharp. "Imprisonment is no excuse for bad manners."

He snorted, but acknowledged the point. "Just give me the list and I'll do them for you."

It was a short list; Narcissa needed embroidery supplies and bulbs for her flower beds. Draco wasn't sure how he would be received in Diagon Alley, but there was no way around it any longer. He would have to show his face sooner or later. He might as well know what he was in for if he went out in public.

At first, it was like he was invisible. He arrived in the public apparition point at the end of Diagon with no fanfare. No one noticed him as he walked along the street. He could feel the cobblestones beneath his feet, the shadows from the buildings falling in patches along the way. He had remembered this, but the memory had been somewhat blurred and indistinct compared to actually being back in Diagon. He saw a flash of vivid red out of the corner of his eyes; it wasn't Ginny, no matter how much he half hoped it would be.

He purchased the needles and thread for his mother, the shopkeeper's eyes boring holes into his chest as soon as the black X on his hand appeared. He was Marked, in more ways than one, and it burned. The sickles he received in change were heavy in his palm, his tongue thick in his mouth. I was just a boy, he wanted to say. I even fucked up killing people, all right?

But he stepped back out onto the street with the words unsaid. They wouldn't have been appreciated anyway.

For a moment, he had an odd sensation of being watched. That someone was looking at him specifically, that someone was keeping an eye on him. He wanted to turn in the direction of the sensation along his spine, wanted to see if warm brown eyes and vivid red hair were standing there. But he didn't want to turn around and see empty air, didn't want to know for certain that she had moved on and had forgotten him. Why should she care? He was just another Death Eater, just another student that had pushed at her family and said awful things. He was just another stupid boy playing at being a man and failing at everything he tried to do.

Draco's heart stopped at the florist's shop. He had to be imagining things, had to be hallucinating. Only, the world was so very bright, so very detailed. Everything stood out in sharp relief, every detail indelibly etched into his memory. It almost hurt to feel again, almost hurt to realize that this was, in fact, the wide world he had once pined for.

Ginny Weasley was behind the counter, laughing at something Harry Potter was telling her.

Draco turned abruptly, nearly careening into a basket full of lilacs and upsetting a delicate orchid perched on an ornate glass pin. He was being sliced to ribbons, bleeding from the inside out. He had known that Ginny could do better than him, had always known that she couldn't possibly care for him. Not that way. But seeing it with his own eyes, after carefully burying his hopes deep inside, burned him more than the humiliation of being Marked. Of course things never went his way. Of course the universe hated him. Of course everything went to rot where he was concerned now.

They noticed him right away, and of course they wanted to help him extricate himself from the lilac blooms that clung to his robes. Of course he would rake his eyes across Ginny's pale face, would take in the fact that she wasn't wearing a wedding ring, that she still kept her wand tucked into a messy bun at the top of her head if she needed both hands free, that she still worried her bottom lip with her teeth, that she still had exactly twenty-seven freckles across the bridge of her nose. He cursed himself for a fool for noticing these things, for allowing himself to want even for the briefest of moments.

"I'd heard you got released," Harry was saying amiably, plucking the last lilac from Draco's sleeve and handing it to Ginny. "I'm glad. I thought the Ministry was going to foul that up for you after all."

Draco blinked at him, but Harry was already looking over at Ginny. "I think she'd like these, actually. They're just the right shade of blue to match her eyes."

Ginny laughed. "Draco always did have good sense about color."

It was surreal. He had to double check that he in fact did have his curse mark on his hand.

"Well, then, a dozen of these and some of the sunflowers," Harry said cheerfully. "Luna will love them."

Draco wound up following them back to the counter, watching incredulously as the two carried on, clearly friends, clearly engaged in a perfectly platonic relationship. He had to blink and refocus to realize he was supposed to be paying attention to what Ginny was actually saying. "You look... Well, not healthy, exactly. But not as bad as I'd heard Azkaban would be on people." Her hands went still for a moment before she finished bundling the flowers together, the paper crinkling under her hands. "I suppose they really did make it something less terrible?"

"No," he rasped before he could stop himself. "No, they hadn't." It was gray and hopeless and awful, the endless days of nothing. It didn't matter if Dementors were gone. The ghost of them still lingered.

Harry frowned, flowers in hand. "That's not right. They assured me that there were changes to it. That it was more humane. I should look into that, then." If anything, his expression darkened, and his right hand tightened into a fist. "It wouldn't be the first time they lied about something like that." Harry nodded at Draco, who stood there, stunned speechless.

Ginny shook her head, but waited until he had left the shop before speaking. "He needs something to fight for, you understand. It's always been that way for him."

For an impossible moment, Draco almost felt seventeen again, wishing he could take her hand as they sat together in a deserted classroom or the Room of Requirement. She'd talked of Harry's hero tendencies then, how left behind she had felt. She had tried to do so much, but always seemed to remain in his shadow somehow. At the time, he had wondered if their odd friendship had developed simply because he was the opposite of Harry Potter, and she was desperate to become someone other than the girl he left behind.

Then the moment passed, and there was pain in her smile. "Well, you must be here for your mother's bulbs. She doesn't ever trust them to owl delivery. She's convinced that the owl will eat them or something."

He wanted to ask her why she was talking to him, why she didn't seem to hate him the way everyone else did. He wanted to ask why she didn't glare at the black X on his hand, why she didn't demand that he leave her shop. He wanted to ask what had happened in the five years he had been gone, what he had missed. He wanted to ask if maybe they were still friends, or if they had ever been. He wanted to ask why she'd left.

But she passed him the box of bulbs and the moment was lost. "Tell your mother I said hello," Ginny told him with a soft smile as he turned to leave. "Welcome home, Draco. It's a different world, but you'll do all right in it, I'm sure. You always seemed to manage to take care of yourself."

"What about you?" he asked, then clamped his lips shut to keep himself from asking anything else.

Her smile was sad. "We all lose something, Draco. It's just that for some people it's harder to see." She straightened slightly and waved him of. "Go on, give those to your mother. You shouldn't keep her waiting."

Draco took the dismissal for what it was and went home. It was only when he handed the box of bulbs to his mother that he realized Ginny hadn't charged him for them. Thief, his mind told him harshly. It's just one more thing for them to call you, one more thing for them to blame you for.

It was too tiring to worry about. He would simply have to take care of it the next time he went to Diagon Alley.

***

Ginny didn't acknowledge the lack of payment, just as she used to ignore all the little details that didn't suit her back at Hogwarts. Little things like rules and propriety hadn't mattered then. She had an inner fire, she had the strength of her beliefs. It was what made her stand out so much, why she had always been a target. She was a Weasley, to be sure, but more importantly, she didn't have the good sense to sit back and refrain from making herself known in her own right. Draco had nearly despaired of her, certain she would get herself killed by the end of the year. It was a welcome relief that she hadn't.

But now it was almost torture.

Narcissa had been heartened by Draco's successful outing, and came up with errands for him to do on a regular basis. She needed more cloth, more thread, more flowers, more books to read. There were letters to write, magazines to pick up, vaults to check on and household goods to purchase. Narcissa had done these things herself or by owl post before Draco's release. Now that he was back, it was a good way to get him out and about in a controlled manner. She could see that he was discomfited by space and people and loud noise. It didn't do him any good to remain closeted in the house, skulking about corners like a ghost. Draco had become a shadow of the boy he had once been, and it broke her heart to see it.

Draco dutifully did her errands, dutifully endured the stares and the wondering looks that the black X brought him. There weren't many of those about, but he did catch sight of more than a few black O's on palms. Those made sure to give Knockturn Alley a wide berth, sure that it wasn't worth the inquiry it would cause.

He found himself wandering into Ginny's flower shop, even if Narcissa didn't want a new bouquet for the dining room. He watched her interact with the customers, his hands stuffed into his pockets. She knew the mark was there, had to know even if she hadn't seen it, but Draco didn't want her looking at him in loathing.

But then, she had never really loathed him. She had called him all sorts of filthy names, hexed him soundly, but she had never seemed to give him the kind of intense hatred he thought she would. Eventually Ginny had shown him an empty corridor in Hogwarts he hadn't known about, and they sat after hours together more often than not. Sometimes they sat in perfect silence, each doing homework next to each other. Sometimes she asked to see his Dark Mark; her fingers never actually touched the branded skin, but hovered somewhere above it as if afraid to actually feel the Mark writhing just beneath the surface.

Once, they had even kissed. It was a tentative thing, an awkward tangle of lips and teeth and tongue, hands firmly set on robes and away from any bits that might have appreciated the groping. Draco thought perhaps he would have tried again, tried to assure her he wasn't a complete idiot. But the kiss had been just before Easter hols, and she hadn't come back.

He had been afraid she was dead, and too afraid to ask about her.

"You've done well," Draco managed to say. He'd been skulking about her shop for days, making idle conversation over the different names of flowers or what kind of bouquet his mother would like.

"It's a lovely little shop," Ginny agreed.

"I didn't know you liked flowers," Draco murmured, then wanted to kick himself. There were so many things he didn't know about her, had never known about her. It hadn't been important at the time, but he had felt the loss so keenly while he was in Azkaban. If only had been a sharper knife than the shame of seeing his father crumble before his eyes.

Ginny laughed, though. Her laugh had always been full of life, a concerto of sound when she was truly happy. He'd heard it a few times, when he managed to startle it out of her. "So many things you don't actually know, Draco," she had replied, shrugging. "But to be fair, I didn't know it myself back then." She reached out and touched a lily's white petal delicately. "It was after. Someone had to make the funeral arrangements... And they're such calming, pristine things."

Draco dimly remembered talk of losses on the Order's side, of a Weasley numbering amongst the dead. "I'm sorry."

Her smile was wan. "It's all right. It's been five and a half years."

"I'm still sorry," he murmured. Impulsively, he reached out and grasped her hand. He wanted to curse himself for a fool when he saw the black X winking up at him. Though honestly, his left wouldn't have been any better, the ghost of the Dark Mark still hovering beneath his skin.

Ginny squeezed his hand back. "Let's get your mother her namesake flower, shall we? And some snapdragons to stand in for you."

Draco found himself smiling at her. "I don't often snap, do I?"

"Oh, I don't know. On occasion you actually do say something witty."

He had joked with her about holidays. Or homework. Or some stupid firstie antic in the hall. For months, they seemed to talk as if they lived in each others' skin, sometimes touching hands or exchanging looks. For some reason, he had been hesitant to push his luck any farther, to see if she shared those same feelings.

"Yeah," Draco agreed, his voice feeling like a shadow of itself. "Sometimes. Not too much to joke about nowadays."

"Sometimes there is," she assured him, reaching for a snapdragon. She looked at the purple blossom and then lifted it up. "Sometimes it's the only way to make it through the day."

"Are you happy?" he asked after a moment. "Really happy?"

She looked up with luminous eyes. "Sometimes I can be," she replied. He remembered the look on her face when they discussed the Dark Arts, when she said that such things had to be controlled. He remembered the hint of secrets in her eyes then, that something horrible had happened that she wouldn't say. "What about you?" she asked, as if none of that had ever happened.

"I'm trying," Draco replied, serious. "I'm learning, I think."

"You can be clever if you put your mind to it," Ginny told him, pushing the bouquet at him. "You'll pick up the knack sooner or later."

He thought of this bouquet in the empty stillness of Malfoy Manor, the suffocating quiet that made him think. "You think I'm clever?"

Ginny snorted indelicately, just the way she used to. It was eerie how he remembered that so keenly. "Still with an ego, I see. Stop in next week and see if I still think you're clever."

Draco grinned at her. His reply was cut off by the jangle of bells over the door, announcing a new customer. He didn't want to have this conversation in front of someone else. Too much meaning behind the words, too much history tangled between them that would be hard to explain. And she was happy, he could tell. She smiled widely at the customers, she touched the plants lovingly and she seemed content with the life she had built for herself. She was whole, and he was an empty shell pretending to be.

He took the bouquet home, remembering her smile every time he looked at it.

***

It was deep winter, with the snow thick and deep and even all around. He had been released in autumn, just when the colors were the sharpest and the air the crispest, just when life was about to die. Now it was cold and stark white, as lifeless as half of his old Death Eater acquaintances were. The other half were stuck in perpetual gray of a half-life that imprisonment had become. Draco sometimes thought that he hadn't really left Azkaban behind, that the endless shades of gray were simply lurking around the corner. His dreams were still in shades of gray.

The highlight of his life was his daily trips to Diagon Alley. It may or may not have had anything to do with Ginny Weasley... Well, he would have denied it if asked, but no one ever did. He enjoyed the quiet in the flower shop, the bright colors and the reminder that life still existed even if he seemed to have the memory of Azkaban clinging to him like a second skin.

Ginny liked roses and lilies, chatted with various customers and liked Thai takeaway for lunch. Potter was completely hopeless at getting flowers for Luna, who Draco assumed was his girlfriend. Ginny kept referring to Potter's "latest cause," whatever that was, though they both were suspiciously silent about it in Draco's presence. Potter even tried to be polite to Draco, and ask after his family awkwardly to make small talk. After the first few attempts, Draco stopped trying to needle him to reestablish the dynamic they'd had at school, but it was like trying to get a rise out of a blancmange. After a few attempts, he stopped trying. Everything else in the world had changed, so this was just one more.

Ginny was the brightest thing in his life. She didn't even seem to mind it if he hung about the shop looking at flowers in silence. It was almost like his seventh year at Hogwarts again, that odd friendship rekindled as if time hadn't passed at all.

"Have dinner with me?" he asked one afternoon.

Ginny smiled and handed him a red rose. "You know better than that, don't you?"

The red of the rose was different from the red of her hair, but it all seemed to blur together. "I don't mean in front of everyone," he said slowly, the syllables like ash in his mouth.

She snorted and rolled her eyes at him. "Yes, that's obvious. I meant there are nicer ways to ask me."

Draco blinked and let out the breath he hadn't realized had frozen inside his lungs. "Oh."

"Right. Oh. Honestly, Draco, you didn't used to be this thick."

"It kept me alive this long," Draco replied without thinking, and Ginny frowned at him. "It's all right if you don't want to," he told her quickly. He didn't expect her to say yes. He didn't expect her to really want to spend time with him.

She lofted an eyebrow at him. After a moment contemplating him, she reached out and gave him a hard shove on his chest. Draco staggered backward a step and frowned at her. "That was uncalled for," he said, disappointment coloring his tone. "I haven't done anything..."

"Yes, and that's the problem," Ginny replied, rolling her eyes. "What's with this mealy-mouthed routine? That's not you."

He bit back the impulse to snarl right back at her. That sort of thing had always been punished severely, and part of him still tensed in preparation for the pain that accompanied any show of spirit while in Azkaban. He'd gotten good at hiding his emotions, tamping down his instincts until even he couldn't tell what they were. This was Ginny, though, and she was throwing him off, making him feel again, her clear eyes seeing through him just as they always had.

"There you are," she said, and he liked her smile even as he thought she looked smug.

"What are you on about?"

"Just let me lock up the shop," Ginny told him with a soft smile. She looked sixteen again, innocent in some ways yet worldly and dangerous in others. I want to be here, she had told him once. You look at me like I'm real.

His hand was cold and his heart thudded in his chest when they apparated to Malfoy Manor. Dinner was quiet; Narcissa was out for the evening with one of her friends and the dining room was far too large for just two people in it. But the elves put together a dinner for two as if it was a banquet, and the bouquet of fresh hyacinths was a bright spot of color on the table.

Draco felt as if he was suspended in time. Some things were different, too starkly different and painful. The stillness and the echoes in the empty rooms, the curse marks, the knowledge that he was a pariah on all sides, and the terrible feeling that it was better than he deserved. He was bitter and humble, ground down to pieces, lost within the cracks of the world. But some things were the same. The tilt of her head, the slip of a smile between her words, the way she threw back her head when she laughed, too long and too loud to be ladylike. The way she reached out to grasp his hand when he felt his worst, the way her eyes told him that even this would pass as well.

"I'm not..." he began slowly, anxiety plain in his voice even if his features were schooled to perfect impassivity. "I'm not good at this anymore." He took in her earnest expression and sighed. "They broke us, Ginny. It's what they wanted to do, what we were sentenced to. I don't know if I can be who I was, who you think I should be."

"You talk as if you'd died!" She threw up her hands in frustration. "I don't know. I'm no head healer, but I know you, and this... This cringing, fearful coward is not you. You might have changed, but not that much! You fought them at their own game and tried to play both sides."

"I had a reason then," he snapped, bristling at her implication.

"And you don't now?" she snapped back.

"Thank you," he murmured softly, reaching for her hand. She felt like she was on fire, as if she exuded the warmth he didn't allow himself to feel.

"Don't thank me," Ginny replied.

"Why not? You're still here."

"Where else would I be?" Ginny asked. She cupped his face with one hand almost tenderly. "We never finished what we started."

But they couldn't, not really, not the way he wanted. Her palms were clear, and he couldn't make her take a mark just for his sake. He wasn't worth that kind of pain, wasn't worth the effort. He wouldn't allow her to sully herself that way.

"Ginny, I..."

She leaned forward and kissed him. There was nothing awkward or tentative about this kiss, nothing childish about the way her tongue caressed his or how his heart hammered in his chest with all the needs and wants he had tried to keep from dreaming about.

Ginny smiled impishly at him when she pulled back. "There. That's how it should have been five and a half years ago."

"You didn't come back," he said, in spite of himself. "I thought... Well, it doesn't matter what I thought."

"Things happened. No one really had an easy time of it."

He thought of the empty, gray eyes in the mirror every morning, the way that it never seemed to change. He thought of how hopeless his friends had become, how dreary life was while living within the constraints the Ministry had put forth. "No, I don't suppose anyone has."

"So we start again," Ginny murmured, that half smile on her face. "Well, you more than me, really. You do realize that standing in the corner waiting to talk to me isn't helpful, right?"

"Look, this isn't comfortable..."

"No, but life isn't," Ginny replied. She leaned forward and kissed his cheek softly. "I liked it better when you had plans. When you talked about the future as something worth fighting for. When we were worth fighting for."

He ought to save her from herself, really. But he was no Gryffindor, and he was an even worse Slytherin, it seemed. He should do the right thing by her, keep this thing from starting again, keep her from making a tragic mistake. But he missed her, he felt alive around her, like he could even live again near her.

He'd been half dead for five years, and he couldn't return to that now that he knew better.

"They did a good job of taking away every dream I had," Draco told her plainly. "You think I can bounce back that easily?"

Ginny crossed her arms over her chest. "Why couldn't you? You're not dead."

But he had wanted to be for a long time, and it was like an old habit that was hard to break. "It's not that easy, Ginny," he said softly.

She gave him a push on his chest. "It can be, you giant prat. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. What did you used to tell me? You're Draco fucking Malfoy and you're not even scared of the Carrows?"

He laughed at the memory. He had been such an idiot. "I was lying, you bint."

Ginny laughed along with him. "I know you were. But you did a great job of it then. Why can't you now? What are you so afraid of?"

Seeing a mark on her palm. Seeing her hate him for it. Seeing everything he wanted die before his eyes.

"I shouldn't have..." He stopped and swallowed the painful words. "Look, Ginny. I shouldn't have asked you to dinner. I can't do this to you. The world is better off without me."

"No, it's not," Ginny said fiercely, her hands balled into fists and her eyes blazing with that spark he had missed dearly. "This world is an awful place without you in it. This world is empty."

He looked at her in wonder, reaching out for her hand. He stopped just short of touching her fingers, just short of making contact and being sure that this was real. He was still half convinced reality would shatter and he would find himself back in his cell at Azkaban, six foot square and eight feet tall. He was still half convinced he had gone mad.

"I missed you, Draco," Ginny whispered. "Why do you find it so hard to believe?"

Because then it would be real. Because then every failure, every triumph, every blasted moment of his existence would have to be real. Because it would hurt, and it would be painful, and he would have to own up to every last bit of it.

And he was afraid.

She grasped his hand tightly, so tightly the nail beds in her fingers went white. He looked at it in dismay, then back up at her face. "You can't."

"I do," she murmured softly. She lifted his hand slightly, then pressed her lips to his knuckles. "I told you. You're the only one that saw me. Even if you didn't know why, you saw me. And I see you, too. I always have." She ran her thumb across the ridges of his knuckles gently, as he had once done to hers. "I missed you. I care about you."

He wanted to lie to her, to say he didn't care for her, it was just a way to make Harry Potter jealous, just a schoolboy's stupid antic that backfired royally, that she was a silly bint that didn't know what she was talking about.

The lie refused to leave his lips. He couldn't do that to her. "I'm sorry," he said, voice raw as it scraped past his throat. "You shouldn't."

Ginny smiled then, that sneaky, sly smile he hadn't dreamed could exist on a Weasley's face. "I was never fond of shouldn'ts or couldn'ts, if you recall. I never liked being shut up in a box and put aside somewhere." She stood and walked the three steps around the corner of the table to meet him at its head. "I know what I'm doing. I know exactly what I'm doing."

Draco gulped when she sat in his lap and looped her arms around his shoulders. "Don't do this, Ginny," he said, his voice suspiciously like a whimper. "Don't ruin yourself for me." I'm not worth it.

She leaned her head down, their foreheads touching. Draco let his eyelids fall shut as she laughed bitterly. "Of all the sodding times to be noble, Draco, I didn't think you'd pick this one."

"I know better," he said, his hands along her back. He could feel the bumps in her spine through her blouse, could feel the flutter of breath trapped within the cage of her ribs. She was strong, much stronger than she looked. He knew that. But he also knew he wouldn't ask this of her. He wouldn't let her volunteer for this kind of ostracism, this kind of terrible fallout. The Ministry marked everyone. Everyone. Even babies, even the innocent. No one was spared, and if he could, he would spare her this.

Ginny pressed her lips to his forehead. "I don't."

You can still be selfish, he told himself, a deceptive whisper. You can still have it all. She can meet you here, and no one is the wiser. She won't have to be marked. No one would have to know.

It was tempting. But the last time he had been tempted into something like this had been a complete and utter disaster.

No, this time he was going to do this the right way. If she was going to damn herself, then he had to make sure she was going to do it for a good reason. He had to be worthy of that sacrifice, no matter what it took.

***

"Fancy seeing you here," Blaise said, arms crossed over his chest and his tone somewhat mulish.

Draco had his hands in his pockets, head somewhat bowed. "I'm sorry for what happened."

"You think that takes it all away?" Blaise glared at Draco, not moving from the doorway to his townhouse. "You think an apology undoes everything? That I'll simply forget it?"

Draco looked at the man that had once been one of his good friends. "No, I don't expect you to forget - you can't, any more than I can. I'm apologizing because I really am sorry. I'm sorry I wasn't a better friend, I'm sorry she died and it's my fault, and I'm sorry I didn't know any better than to drag you down with me."

Blaise contemplated Draco's expression for a long moment, until Draco was tensing to turn and leave without anything further said. "Come in, then."

He followed Blaise into the townhouse, quiet as he waited for a reaction, any reaction. No one knew about the night that Blaise's mother had died, not even Ginny. He had been too ashamed of himself to even think about it before, too caught up in his own worries. He sat down across from Blaise and managed to suppress a wince at the black curse circle pressed into his palm.

"So you're throwing yourself on my mercy?" Blaise asked, eyebrow raised. "That's a new trick."

"I've been hiding a while," Draco admitted slowly. He started at the sound of voices in the next room. "Should I leave? Am I interrupting?"

Blaise thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. "You might as well come by and meet everyone."

Draco followed Blaise from the sitting room into a large, airy room. There was a young woman lying on the floor playing with a toddler and a baby, and he wondered if it was the shock of realizing Blaise had moved on with living his life that kept him from knowing who she was. She looked up, and he realized it was a girl Blaise had always fiercely defended against teasing back at Hogwarts. "Chloe, this is Draco. Draco, my wife Chloe. And that's Finton walking around and Niles on the floor."

Draco nodded in greeting and hunkered down to look at the toddler at eye level. "Hullo," he offered, not sure what else to do with a toddler. The boy laughed, rushing to his mother's side. Draco's heart sank at the sight of the circle already pressed into the boy's palm as he reached out to yank on his mother's hair. He looked up at Blaise and croaked, "Is it because I...?"

Blaise shook his head. "Don't be so vain. It's for Chloe's brother." He sat down on the floor beside Chloe and grasped her hand in a tight grip. The toddler rushed forward and grasped his father's arm tightly.

Chloe gave a bitter laugh at Draco's shock. "As if I would give up family for something so trivial."

"But the children..." He had known it was possible for children to be marked. It had made sense in an abstract sort of way, but seeing the reality of it was brutal.

"We have circles because we love going to see Uncle Devon at the work farm," Chloe said, her voice firm. Finton laughingly repeated Devon's name in an increasingly excited tone. Smiling smoothed out her features and she ran a hand over the toddler's curls. "Yes, honey. We're going there next weekend." The boy jumped up and down with delight, then raced off to get one of his toys.

Draco could feel the eyes of the adults on him as the toddler ran around and gradually slowed down. He was sorely tempted to turn tail and run, but he didn't know how. "Do you want me to go with you?" he asked after a moment. "I can try to watch the boys, maybe, so you can talk to him alone?"

After a moment's pause, Chloe nodded and smiled softly, with Blaise squeezing her hand. "That would be lovely. There's so much we don't say, in case Finton would remember," Chloe said. "He always looks so sad when we visit."

"It's probably not too different from Azkaban," Draco murmured. "Only without the high walls blocking out the sun." He should have probably kept his mouth shut, but they had looked startled by his admission. "They're getting revenge," Draco said, rubbing at the black X on his hand absently. "They don't think we suffered enough, that's all."

"You've only had five years," Blaise pointed out. "They must have thought you paid your dues."

Draco blinked in surprise. The guards had certainly been spiteful and angry, not sparing him any of the painful punishments or harsh words. He hadn't been treated any differently. He wasn't special.

So why the special treatment?

"I'm glad you came by," Chloe said, breaking into Draco's thoughts. "It's good to renew acquaintances. Nowadays, they're so few."

Yes, he supposed they were. Draco pasted a smile on his face. "I'd like it if we could be friends again," he told Blaise. "I think I know how to be a better one now."

Blaise looked at his family, then grudgingly nodded at Draco. "We'll see. Maybe."

It was more than Draco had hoped for, and he found himself smiling despite having thought he didn't remember how.

***

"How did I get off so easy?" Draco asked Ginny abruptly.

She put down her fork carefully, not answering him right away. "You served five years in Azkaban."

"Everyone else is still there. My father is a half dead wreck still there. Why am I here and not there? I'm no better than any of them. I did what they told me, same as them."

"You're not the same," Ginny said firmly, her voice brooking no argument. "You're not like that."

Draco slammed his hand down on the table, black X livid against the back of his hand. "Yes, I am."

Ginny's gaze bore through him, as if she could peel back the layers of what he had become to find the boy beneath it all. "You're not a seasoned killer. You're not a heartless bastard. You were a scared boy trying to save your parents and keep yourself alive. You were a boy caught up in something bigger than yourself. You were someone caught without any place to be. And I know you. I won't let you think you're something you're not. You're not Tom."

Tom was evil, she had said. She never said who he was, what became of him or why she hated him so much. All she would say was that Tom was evil, Tom had been stopped, but Tom in some ways would never leave her.

"Am I some project?" he asked quietly, putting his own fork down. "You took up the invitation because you feel sorry for me? You want to fix me?"

"You're long past fixing, Draco," Ginny replied in that droll tone she had. He forgot about that sometimes, how sharp her tongue could be, how her words sliced him to ribbons. "No, you're not my project."

It implied that he was someone's project, but he was too tired to ask what Harry wanted from him in return.

"Why did I get out early? It wasn't for good behavior. It wasn't because I'm that much better."

Draco had never seen her look this angry. "Yes, you are."

He never would have imagined she would be so angry on his behalf. "Ginny..."

"They couldn't keep you there for long because you didn't do half the things they accused you of," Ginny said, her voice sharp. "They never even told you what the charges were, but most of them were made up. We pointed that out, that's all."

"We?"

Ginny pressed her lips together. "You honestly didn't think it was just me that helped, did you? A good lot of us testified on your behalf."

He blinked in surprise. He hadn't expected that anyone would want to, let alone actually had. The guards had always shouted how worthless they all were, how unloved and unwanted they were in the world. He had believed it; there had never been any proof to the contrary before.

"Yes, Draco, you actually have people that care about you," she said, her tone sharp. "They do actually exist. You might want to ponder that one and maybe get out of the house a little more often. I'm not the only one that missed you," she said softly, her tone lessening the sting of her words. She reached across the table and grasped his hand.

"I didn't think anyone would but Mum. I'd hoped... I was afraid to hope..."

"Well, now you know," Ginny said, squeezing his hand. "What are you going to do about it?"

He leaned forward and kissed her lips, shoving aside the doubts he still had. They weren't his doubts, after all. They were just the ones drilled into him by the guards. "Who else should I thank?" he asked, lips quirking into a smile.

"Like that? Nobody else, you prat," Ginny replied with an answering smile.

"I should talk to them. Thank them, at least."

"Talk to whoever you need to," Ginny said, shrugging. "Most of us didn't do it for a thank you. It was the right thing to do."

The phrase echoed in his mind that night. As difficult as it was going to be, he was going to have to also do the right thing; he would have to make amends.

He owled Katie Bell the next morning. He had been the one at fault for the spell damage she had suffered from carrying the locket he had tried to send to Dumbledore. It didn't even matter if that had been revealed outside of his trial, but he needed to talk to her about it. After seeing Blaise, Draco knew he couldn't hide from his past. It was cowardly, and he wasn't going to be that scared little boy any longer.

Katie must have been curious about why he owled her, but she didn't seem to show it. She met with him at a cafe that weekend. Over tea and biscuits, Draco stumbled his way through an apology and explanation. Her expression had been neutral at first, and by the end, her jaw was clenched tight. Her hands had been clenched tightly in her lap, and Draco thought she was going to take a swing at him.

But instead, she pushed her dark hair back and away from her ears with her left hand. He could see a long, jagged scar along the left side of her head, just above her left ear. He had already caught the sight of the black circle on the palm of her right hand. Draco knew it wasn't polite to stare, but he couldn't help it. Katie had her jaw still clenched when he managed to look her in the eye again, and Draco wondered what she was going to do.

Katie took a sip of her tea and visibly calmed herself down. "I'd wondered who it was," she said finally. "Rosmerta said that she was told to Imperius me, that she had never meant to do it on her own."

"I didn't--"

"I was at Mungo's for months," Katie continued, interrupting Draco. "The pain was intense. You have no idea what it was like. No idea."

Ashamed, Draco gave a tiny shake of his head. He didn't really. He hadn't known what the locket would do, exactly. He had been too desperate at the time to really look at what he was doing.

"And all the rest of that year, you were going along as if nothing happened..."

"It wasn't like that," Draco corrected. "I didn't... Not like that. I wasn't glad that I'd ruined someone's life, I wasn't pleased that I'd hurt anyone. I was selfish, and I just didn't want it to be my parents."

"You didn't care who it was, right? It didn't matter who died as long as it wasn't you."

Draco stifled the wince he wanted to make at her blunt tone. It was something like that, but there was no way to make it sound better. "I was sixteen," he began slowly. "I didn't know what else to do. I didn't have anyone that could help me." He looked at her, hoping she could believe him. "I'm not excusing what I did, Katie. I want to make things right."

She gave a startled bark of laughter. "Make things right? How are you going to do that? I wanted to play professional Quidditch. There was going to be a recruiter there in the stands, and I might've been invited for open tryouts." Katie gave Draco's drawn expression a look of distaste. "And instead, do you know what I was doing?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "I didn't want to find out before."

"Trying to off myself in a particularly grand fashion," she ground out, and Draco's eyes drifted to the scar above her ear. Katie stood up, eyes flashing at him. "I don't forgive you for that. I can't forgive you."

"I'm not asking you to, exactly. I want to know how to make things right. I need to make up somehow for what I've done, even if you never forgive me for that."

Katie's lips curled in derision. "You need to? I don't need anything else from you. Your last gift was quite enough."

Draco watched her leave the cafe, feeling small and stupid. He hadn't been certain what he wanted to do with this, but it had backfired. He rubbed at his face wearily, not sure what to do next. He was startled when a heavy hand clapped down on his shoulder. He turned in time to see Marcus Flint settle into the chair Katie had just vacated, a coffee cup in hand. He took up one of the biscuits she hadn't touched and vaguely nodded at Draco. "I suppose it's a good sign she didn't hex you," Marcus began around a mouthful of biscuits. "It would've been a shame to have to memory charm everyone else here."

"I'm sorry, what?" he asked. Everyone seemed to be throwing him for a loop. He had been held in some kind of gray suspended animation over the past five years, but everyone else had moved on.

"Katie. My fiancee," Marcus said, nodding in the direction Katie had left in. "She didn't punch you either, I noticed."

"Well, I'm not her favorite person in the world." Draco looked in that direction, his expression distant. "I don't know what she told you--"

"Everything," Marcus said, finishing his coffee. "I was there from the beginning."

"You overheard us?" Draco asked, startled. He hadn't even seen Marcus in the cafe. Marcus was a towering block of a man, and should have been easy to spot in a crowd.

Marcus snorted. "And people called me thick at school? No, idiot. I was there when she was at Mungo's. I'm the reason she's still alive." He leaned back in his chair. "So why is it that you still are? I'd've thought she'd package you into pieces to owl back to your Mum."

Draco winced slightly. "I don't know how to make things up to her. I need to make things right somehow, and I haven't the foggiest idea how to start." He shook his head. "Maybe it's a lost cause. If she hates me..."

"What are you? A bleeding girl?" Marcus sneered, throwing an arm over the back of his chair. "You're still alive and she hasn't killed you yet. I'd say there are pretty good odds you can convince her you're genuine. Assuming you are, of course."

"I didn't mean to hurt her, Flint," Draco told him. "There's a lot of things I didn't mean, but they happened anyway. I'm trying to figure out how I can fix it, how I can make up for what I did." He looked over at the other man. "I don't know what she needs."

Marcus lofted an eyebrow at Draco and sat up a bit straighter. "What are you willing to do?"

"What do you mean?" Draco asked, frowning. "Kill someone?" He had been rubbish at that, though plenty of people seemed to die all around him.

"You need to start thinking, Malfoy," Marcus drawled. "You can't rely on everyone else around to do your work for you."

"But where else do I go? I'm doing this alone." Draco looked over at Marcus, only just taking in the circle mark on his palm, the tension in his shoulders. "I'm trying, Flint. I just don't know what to do."

Marcus merely stared at him, and Draco resisted the urge to squirm under that gaze. It was rather like when Marcus was captain of the Quidditch team at school. He had been heavy handed with the discipline, and had often forced Draco to stay later than everyone else for practice in order to drill it into him. Draco had the distinct feeling that Marcus would have forced him to stay an extra two or three hours on the pitch if they were back at school.

"What?" Draco asked irritably. He was tired of feeling like a recalcitrant child, though he was dimly starting to realize he was acting like one.

"You've been out for a while. What have you been doing to meet the requirements of your parole?" Marcus asked.

"I have another six months to find a job..." Draco began. He hadn't started looking, mostly because he hadn't wanted to think about it. Work? A Malfoy doing actual physical labor? That was unthinkable.

"So will they throw you back into Azkaban next fall if you don't?" Marcus asked, reaching for another biscuit.

It was a seemingly idle question, but one that made Draco wince. If it came down to working or returning to Azkaban, there was no doubt what his choice would be. "I hadn't thought that far ahead."

"Obviously."

Draco glared at Marcus. "Thanks ever so much for your help, Flint," Draco snapped at him. "You're a wonderful and upstanding part of society."

"Of course I am," he agreed, as if the words hadn't been laced with heavy sarcasm. "You know I still own the family shop?" Marcus asked, snatching up another biscuit. "Adrian's up at the desk, of course. I'm too busy to actually do most of the day to day bit. But inventory's a right mess. Last bloke I hired for that destroyed an entire shipment of vases just because he was a clumsy bugger." He stared at Draco, almost as if waiting to see if he would take the opening offered.

"Is it difficult to do?" Draco asked.

"You could probably do a better job than the last bloke," Marcus allowed. "You're marginally more clever than he was."

"I suppose I'll take it, then," Draco said grudgingly. "So what will I have to do?"

"Inventory," Marcus replied. It was that irritated tone he used to have when the Quidditch team couldn't follow one of his plays on the pitch. As much as he hated to hear it directed at him, it made Draco feel almost nostalgic. "I assume you can still do tallies? Or did prison rot what's left of your mind?"

"I can do that," Draco replied, sitting up a bit straighter in his chair. "What else am I going to do there?"

"You can start with that," Marcus told him firmly. "I'm doing you a favor, you realize."

Draco eyed him warily. "So what will I owe you for this, then?"

"I suppose I'd have to pay you something, to make this look like it's on the up and up," Marcus replied, not directly answering the question.

Draco felt like pounding his crooked teeth in. He hadn't thought about money since his release, though the amounts in the vaults were dwindling by the day. "I need the money, Flint."

"Yes, I suppose you do," he agreed, leaning back in his chair. "And you owe Katie." His eyes were hard and without pity at that remark. "Katie respects hard work. If you really mean to do right by what you did her seventh year, then you have to work at it."

"Does she still play Quidditch?" Draco asked, remembering a comment she had made about recruiters.

"Not a drop," Marcus said ruefully, shaking his head. "But we're both too busy for it, even if she wanted to."

"What are you doing?" Draco asked, curious.

"There's the wedding plans, of course. And finishing up training with the Healers' Academy." Marcus shrugged at Draco's start of surprise. "It made sense at the time, and we've grown to like it a lot." He got up abruptly. "You remember where Flint and Locke is, right?" He waited until Draco nodded at him. "Stop by Monday at nine o'clock sharp."

Draco nodded. "Thanks, Flint."

Marcus snorted. "Don't thank me yet. You haven't seen the storage rooms for the shop."

Draco's tea was cold by the time Marcus left the cafe. He finished off the last biscuit and thought about what to do next. He could do this, if he just didn't stop to think about it too much. The entire world had gone on, and he was thrown off balance at every turn. People around him weren't anything like he had expected them to be.

Perhaps it was time to let go of his expectations.

***

Ginny had wanted to go with Draco to the cemetery, but he had demurred. It wasn't even a visibility concern, though he was somewhat concerned about that. He didn't want to put her into a position where others would whisper about her, where she would be the object of everyone's stares. It was a horrid feeling, and he inwardly cringed whenever he thought about how he had treated other people that hadn't been in his year at school. He hadn't been any better than the nameless faces in the crowds, but at least he was trying. At least he cared enough to try.

He had a basket with yellow and white roses. There was really only one Wizarding cemetery in all of England, and the older families had their reserved plots or mausoleums. Very few had them on the grounds of their home, though some of the truly ancient Malfoys were in the crypt at the farthest edge of the Manor property. The old crypts were unsafe and crumbling, and sometime in the 1700s it had become a mark of distinction to try to have the gaudiest and most ostentatious mausoleum at the cemetery. In true Malfoy style, theirs was the largest and most easily recognizable one. The Blacks ran a very close second.

Draco stopped by the Crabbe plot. Vincent had been a friend, at least until the Malfoy name had stopped being as influential in Death Eater ranks. Vincent might have stuck with him anyway if he hadn't been a self absorbed prat, if he had tried harder to actually listen to him. Vincent's mother had approached him at his trials, a tiny, sickly wraith of a woman. Draco had thought that she would have condemned Draco for making Vincent join the Death Eaters with him. But the woman had clasped his hand and wished him luck. "I'm just glad you were there with him at the end," she had said. "It's a relief that he didn't die alone."

Vincent's tombstone was marked with a large X over the top of it. Even in death, the Ministry had gotten to him. Even in death, he couldn't simply lie in peace like everyone else. Draco placed a white rose down in front of the stone. "I'm sorry," he murmured, tracing the letters of Vincent's name.

The grass was cold beneath his knees, and the edges of the carved letters were sharp beneath his fingertips. Not enough time had passed to wear away the edges. The large X at the top of the stone was a deep, angry gouge, an ugly reminder that Vincent wasn't acceptable to the current regime.

Draco rose stiffly, leaning on the stone beside Vincent's for balance. He recoiled when he saw that it was Vincent's mother. She had died mere months later, no reason left to go on. She was buried beside her son, next to her husband.

A large circle was carved into the top of her headstone.

Hands shaking with anger, he traced the gouged circle. She had been a sweet woman, a tiny Hufflepuff that had fallen for the charms of Vincent's father. Draco remembered joking with Vincent that he had none of his father's charm and all of his mother's devotion to details and family. He remembered how Vincent flushed with anger at first, until Draco had covered himself and said it was a compliment. Vincent's mother had always included him in her care packages, including a kind word and a tin of homemade biscuits for being one of Vincent's friends.

If he had eaten anything that morning, Draco would have been sick.

Draco put a yellow rose at her headstone, and one for Vincent's father. His X wasn't a shock; he had been a follower in the first war against Voldemort. Vincent had some misguided idea he had to avenge his father's death at the hands of an Order member, and Draco had encouraged it so he wouldn't be alone in his tasks.

He stalked through the rows of headstones at the cemetery, bile and anger rising in equal measure within him. If Ginny stayed with him, if she insisted on being seen with him, this would happen to her someday. The Ministry would gouge a circle onto her headstone, would mark her for future generations to think she was unworthy in some way. He couldn't allow that to happen to her.

It was no surprise to see the X for Bellatrix Lestrange, for the other Lestranges, for Regulus Black. He shouldn't have been surprised by the circles carved into other headstones of vague relations he dimly remembered from the family tapestry. Draco dropped roses wherever he went, yellow and white and some with blood covered thorns where he had clutched them too tightly in his fist. His grandmother had been marked with a circle, even though she was long since dead and had nothing to do with the current war. It looked as though the Ministry had combed through family trees, had gone back at least three generations for every confirmed Death Eater.

Circles and X's gouged into crumbling stone, fresh edges sharp and more easily discernible than the names themselves.

Draco came to a stop in front of the headstone for the Lupins, Remus and Nymphadora - the name "Tonks" carved underneath, set in quotation marks to show it'd been the name she was called. She had been his cousin, not that they had ever spoken.

He hadn't even been aware of her existence until he was fourteen years old and had gone through the Manor attics. Some of his mother's old correspondence was there, and she had been looking through things while searching for something Bellatrix had wanted. She had apparently stopped to read old letters, and that was when Draco had found the letter from Andromeda Tonks telling Narcissa about her baby girl. Draco had never heard his mother mention it before.

After that, he had devoured whatever mention of her he could find, hoping to find out more about the family he had never known about. She was an Auror, and after a while he had been able to figure out she had been a member of the Order of the Phoenix as well. He had seen her talking to Harry Potter once, and it had all clicked into place.

A circle had been carved into the headstone she shared with Remus Lupin.

Cold rage flooded Draco then. This was too much. His cousin was a fucking hero for the other side, dying to serve the Order and their cause, and they still marked her as if she was a common criminal. She had given more than anyone could possibly give, and it meant nothing.

He deposited the rest of his flowers on their graves, his palms riddled with scratches. He left the cemetery, seething.

Something would have to be done. He didn't know what yet, but this could not be borne.

***

Draco's distaste for Harry Potter was easily overcome by his utter loathing for the Ministry and its bureaucratic bullshit. Before he could think twice about what he was doing, he owled Harry and requested a meeting. The rest of the afternoon was spent trying to read in between constantly checking to see if he'd gotten a reply and cursing Harry Potter for being an ill-mannered cretin. Even if the answer was no, etiquette demanded some form of response.

Business hours drew to a close and Draco scowled, resigning himself to waiting at least another day. He was pouring himself a drink when Ginny apparated in, dressed more elegantly than he had seen her. "So? How do I look? And why aren't you ready?"

"Ready for what?" he asked, his heart frozen in his chest as he waited in dread for her response.

"I thought Harry was going to owl you – I guess he got caught up in things once he got back to work." Ginny shrugged, which did nothing to reassure him. "He'd gotten your note just as I delivered some flowers from Luna. We agreed to meet up for dinner, to talk about everything and plan what happens next."

"What in Salazar's name are you talking about?" Draco asked, his voice harsh. "You're not going," he said flatly. He'd risk Potter and even Lovegood, but not Ginny. Never Ginny.

"Of course I'm going," she said, looking at him with surprise. "You're acting as if you're ashamed of me. It's past time you actually took me out somewhere, instead of us always staying home."

"I'm a former fucking Death Eater," Draco replied with his jaw clenched. "People will hate you just for associating with me. You're not going."

"Emphasis on former," Ginny replied, taking hold of his right hand. Her fingers covered the glaring X on the back of his hand easily. "And if they would hate me for that, they're not worth knowing anyway."

Draco pulled his hand away from her. "No. You're not going to destroy your life like this."

"Draco, you're being unreasonable..."

"Stop it," he snarled, lip curling the way it used to when he teased her or her brother at school. "You don't understand what it's going to be like for you. Your business will die. You won't have any friends. You'll be isolated and stared at and mocked. You're going to be marked, you're going to be shunned, and you have no fucking idea what that's like, no clue what you're getting into."

He was shaking her by now, his grip bruising her shoulders until she broke away from him. "You're being a self centered arse! Has it ever occurred to you that I know all this? That I can make choices of my own?"

"You won't be reasonable about this," he said, feeling a sick despair rising in his throat. "You're going to be a fucking Gryffindor and turn this into some kind of crusade."

"So? You're worth that."

"You're not listening!" Draco rubbed his hands over his face, trying to calm down. "Why are you the only one who can make choices? Why can't I say anything about what I want and have you pay attention?"

Poking him in the chest, she said, "I'd listen to you if you talked sense. I'm a capable witch in my own right, I fought in the war, and—"

"And you're too fucking stubborn to live!" He shook her again, practically nose to nose as he glared at her. "What's so bloody hard to understand about my wanting to protect the woman I love from paying for my fucking crimes?"

Ginny had opened her mouth to argue, but stopped as his words sank in. "Draco?"

They were both silent for a moment, his words hanging in the air between them, and he felt the fire of anger ebbing, leaving him empty and cold. "I couldn't bear it if you hated me because of what they will do to you if they know I love you."

"You love me?" she asked, looking stunned. She stepped closer to him and placed her hands on his chest, looking up at him with a tender expression. She smiled suddenly, as if everything made sense. "I love you, too, Draco. That's why I want to do this. Not just because it's the right thing to do, but because I want to be able to go out and do things with you. I don't want you acting as if you're ashamed of me, as if we have to hide what this is."

He closed a hand over one of hers. "I don't want you hurt," he murmured. "They're vicious and cruel and they want to break everyone. If anything happened to you, I don't know how I'd recover. I've only been able to get this far because of you."

"But this isn't your choice," Ginny said firmly. "This is mine. You can't take it away from me. That's just as demeaning as those marks are."

Draco sighed and cupped her face with his hand. "I don't want this to be something you'll regret," he told her softly.

"Never," she told him with a smile. She pressed her palm against his cheek. "We'll work this out together. I promise, it's going to be all right."

"I'm holding you to it," Draco said, pulling her tight against him. He bent down and kissed her, hoping this was the right thing. He had to take the chance that she really wouldn't have regrets, that she really was strong enough to hold up under the strain it would produce. "Let's go to dinner."

The restaurant was posh, the maitre d' haughty, the waitstaff fidgety and the food delicious. Potter was somewhat awkward, less an impossibly important or lofty figure and more a young man caught up in things outside of his control. Draco couldn't help but wince when he mangled the pronunciation of the wine he peremptorily ordered for the table, and seized hold of his dinner fork to eat his salad. Draco tried to point out the obvious, but Luna merely smiled at Harry and picked up the same fork on her own place setting.

"Why bow to convention?" Luna asked sweetly. "I never did understand the fuss about what kind of fork to use with which part of the meal. The food all goes to the same place, after all, and forks don't alter your enjoyment of the meal. It would be a great deal of difference in which part of a whittled blacksnake you want to eat, but even then I'm sure it wouldn't matter overmuch."

With his usual lack of grace, Harry started talking over the entree. "So what did you want to talk about when you owled me?" he asked.

Draco sighed. There was no point in subtlety with this one, he supposed. He simply had never learned it and didn't know any better, and everyone around him was indulging him. "These marks," he began slowly, reaching out to grasp his wine glass. The wine didn't match his entree at all, and it didn't have very good legs. Still, it wasn't a completely shoddy wine choice. "They're in the cemetery, on the headstones."

Harry frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Have you visited the cemetery at all?" Draco asked him, gaze sharp. The other man shook his head, confused. "They put these marks on the graves of the dead. Everyone, three generations back, more in some places. They're not always accurate, either."

Harry had gone very, very still with Draco's words. "I wasn't aware of that," he said finally.

"The memorial for Sirius Black has one," Draco told him. He watched Harry flinch without any degree of pleasure. He would have cheerfully throttled someone back at Hogwarts to be able to do this to Harry, but now it was hollow. It meant nothing, and it only caused the other man pain. "They need to be stopped," Draco said simply.

"I should tell them," Harry said, nodding his head decisively. "They'll listen to me, I'm sure. They listen better now than before."

Without the house rivalry and the continual feelings of rejection and frustration, Draco could see that Harry was an average sort of bloke. He wasn't particularly nasty or special or even all that bright, and Draco felt as though some of his old hate simply drained away. What was there to hate? Harry seemed genuinely happy with Luna Lovegood, pleased with his work as an Unspeakable and frustrated with his attempts to make the Ministry a better place. He was still somewhat idealistic, despite knowing full well how twisted the Ministry employees could be.

"Potter," Draco began, making sure his voice carried no trace of the derision he felt toward the Ministry. "That isn't going to work."

"Why not?" he asked, getting defensive. "It's not as bad as it was five years ago. I wouldn't work for them if it was."

"No offense, but you're the fucking Boy Who Lived. You saved their collective asses more times than you should have. Of course they'd be nice to you! Someone like me, someone with this kind of a mark, and all I'd get is hatred. They're getting revenge, Potter. They're trying to isolate us, have us kill ourselves off, something. They don't want us about, they don't want us mixing in with the rest of the unsullied masses. That's what they want, and it's never going to be some kind of ideal world you think it should be."

"No ideal world would be a place I want to live in," Luna replied when Harry was unable to speak. "Being afraid to love someone isn't ideal, and neither is being afraid to lose. That's the way of things." She looked at Draco, her gaze frighteningly sharp for a moment. "So what are you going to do about this?"

Draco could feel Ginny's hand on his knee, and she gave him a soft squeeze of support. He dropped his hand to cover hers, fingers on top of his. She made her choice to be with him. They both knew what that meant, and he had to rise to the occasion. "We need to prove that they're wrong. We need to change them from the inside out."

"How far are they going with friendships and relations?" Harry asked, brows knit in thought. He was absently rubbing the side of his hand, looking more disturbed than Draco thought possible.

"Judging by the cemetery? Three or four generations of relations, any known close associates, all extended family." He paused. "Didn't you see what they did to Lupin's stone? Weren't you close with him?"

Harry startled almost violently. "They did what?"

"They marked it with a circle. Nymphadora was my cousin; she had several aunts and uncles as Death Eaters." Draco took in Harry's expression, focused on something distant and unseen. "What are you thinking, Potter?"

"Most of the Wizarding World is all intermarried."

"Especially if you look at Pureblood families," Ginny murmured, finally getting into the conversation. "There are even Prewetts and Malfoys or Blacks intermarrying several generations back."

"So where does it end?" Harry asked.

"That's rather why I asked to discuss the topic, Potter," Draco drawled. Harry blinked at the sound of his voice, and for a moment Draco thought he would have to be on the lookout for Ron Weasley to try to throw a punch. But the only ginger at the table was Ginny, and she was smirking at the comment right along with Draco.

"It has to stop. Someone's gone nutters with the marking, and it's going to ruin us all." Ginny finished off her entree with a flourish. Draco was pleased to notice that she had used the correct cutlery all throughout dinner so far, and hadn't guzzled the wine, either. "They ignore petitions if they're not popular causes. I don't think that's the way to go."

"Do you have any friends in the legislature?" Draco asked Harry.

He seemed stymied for a moment, but Luna smiled. "I have many friends and associates. I am, after all, the one of the Undersecretaries to the Minister of Magic. I can get you an audience with Minister Hopkirk, if you'd like. He's quite reasonable."

"Of course he is," Draco replied, managing to keep a straight face. "He employs you, doesn't he?"

Luna smiled at him and turned to Harry. "See? Perfectly reasonable fellow. Nothing to worry about at all."

Ginny managed to cover her snicker with a cough. Harry shot her a look, but nodded at Luna. "But I don't see how meeting Hopkirk would help you in the long run. If we all show up and refuse to take the mark..."

"They'd expect that kind of thing," Ginny told Harry. "And they wouldn't give it to us anyway. How would it look for their hero to be associating with Death Eaters to the point of taking a mark on his hand?"

Draco smiled. "I think you should take it, Potter. Show them that even their great hero consorts with the enemy."

Luna snorted before Harry could even open his mouth to protest. "I'm the only one he consorts with, and there's no need to add a third to our relationship right now. I keep Harry very satisfied, thank you."

The table fell silent. Luna was smiling and Harry was mortified. Ginny and Draco looked at each other for a moment, then started laughing. They couldn't help it. "What I meant," Draco began when he got his breath back, "was that he thinks Death Eaters can still be worthy of friendship."

"Of course they are!" Luna replied, just as Harry glowered at Draco and said "I'm starting to rethink that idea..."

"It's a wonderful idea," Ginny said with a nod. "And I'll help you look up Hopkirk's family tree." She grinned at Draco's start of surprise. "If a Prewett and a Black can marry, I wonder who married a Hopkirk."

It turned out to be a Rookwood that had married a Hopkirk, exactly three generations past, though the current Minister Hopkirk wasn't a descendant of that marriage. Augustus Rookwood was, however, and that made Augustus Rookwood and the current Minister Hopkirk were cousins, and he therefore was closely related enough to have to take the circle curse mark.

Luna had arranged for Draco to show up to a public meeting that Minister Hopkirk was holding with various community leaders. They talked about Muggleborns not appropriately holding the old parks in high enough reverence, graffiti along Knockturn Alley and then the conversation circled to the former Death Eaters actually trying to obtain jobs to comply with their parole requirements. Draco had initially been surprised to hear that there were others who had been released after five years, and still more slated to be released in another five to ten years. One of the community center owners lamented about the number of marked individuals coming into his center every day.

"This isn't a terribly fair practice, is it?" Draco pointed out to the group politely, interrupting the Minister's reply. Heads turned, taking in who had spoken. Some of the crowd edged away from him, not wanting to sit next to the former Death Eater in their midst.

"What are you doing here?" the Minister replied, face pale. Did the man think that Draco was going to do something untoward there?

"I'm part of the community," Draco replied, looking at him with a placid expression. "I'm concerned about this practice of marking all the relatives and associates of former Death Eaters, however."

"Of course you would be--" someone began to say nastily.

"I was paying my respects to the dead, and Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin and her husband Remus Lupin were marked," Draco said, talking over the other man. "They were Order members. They gave their lives to protect everyone in this room, and they're marked as if they had done something horrible."

The Minister looked uncomfortable. "Now, see here, there are reasons for these practices..."

"I realize that you can't exactly repeal this practice on your own. But I'm sure that other such alliances, however unintentional, also exist. I'm concerned about that."

Minister Hopkirk looked vaguely ill. "I'm sorry, young man. You seem to mistaken," he said firmly, shaking his head.

"Isn't Augustus Rookwood your cousin?" Draco asked politely.

Minister Hopkirk sputtered uselessly, and some of the crowd began to yell. They seemed to be divided on the matter, but all seemed to agree that they thought Draco Malfoy was a rabble rouser and a dirty Death Eater that should return to Azkaban. Minister Hopkirk looked to his bodyguards, and they moved at once. Draco was seized by two of them, and the third held a wand right in front of his nose. He lofted an eyebrow at that third bodyguard; what could he do with both arms firmly grasped at his side? "Is something the matter?" he asked calmly, though his heart hammered in his chest. Azkaban was the last place he wanted to go to. Five years had been more than enough.

He was dragged out of the meeting room, and there was so much yelling he couldn't tell what upset everyone the most-- his veiled accusations or the unceremonious arrest without provocation. The bodyguards threw him into a holding cell, and it was all too familiar. His head spun and he thought he was going to be sick. Not again! he thought, feeling the walls of the cell closing in. I won't go to Azkaban!

He didn't have a good sense of time, so he had no idea how long he was in the tiny holding cell. There was the noise of the outer door opening, and the voice of one of the Aurors saying "Right this way, ma'am. He's in the last cell on the left."

Draco stared at the brunette standing on the other side of the bars, familiar and strange all at once. She looked so similar to Bellatrix, but with brown hair and softer lines on her face. Draco leapt to his feet, immediately recognizing who was standing in front of him. "Aunt Andromeda?"

She smiled at him and nodded. "I was listening to the wireless this morning," she began with a laugh. "It seems as though you didn't quite plan for this eventuality."

He should have been upset that she was laughing at him, but couldn't quite care. "Are you all right?"

Shaking her head, she smiled again, and suddenly Draco wished he had known her growing up. That smile was so much like his mother's, the kind of smile that said Draco was being an idiot but she loved him anyway. Ginny had her own version of that smile, too. Just thinking of her was an ache. Had Ginny heard about the incident over the wireless?

Andromeda grasped the bars of the cell, and Draco saw clearly that neither of her palms were marked with a circle. She was the grandmother of Harry Potter's godson, sister to one of the most fanatical Death Eaters and relative to a slew more.

But it made perfect sense, too. If she was marked, if Teddy Lupin was marked, then Harry would have known about how far the Ministry was going. It would have been more than enough to touch off his savior complex. The Ministry couldn't have that.

"I've posted bail. They charged you with disturbing the peace and creating a riot as well as threatening Minister Hopkirk."

"But I did no such--"

"I know, Draco," Andromeda told him soothingly. "That's why I'm getting you out of here."

"Well, my plan was ruined," Draco said dryly. They paused as an Auror came to unlock the bars, and Draco waited until he was outside of the Ministry jailhouse. "So now what?"

"Now, you go home to your mother and your incredible girlfriend." Andromeda laughed at Draco's startle. "Oh, she and I had a lovely talk this morning after you were seized and no one would say where you were taken. Quite the spitfire you found for yourself."

Draco smiled, thinking of Ginny. "Yeah. She is. She's more than I ever expected to have in life."

Andromeda gave him a hug. "Apparate home, Draco. We're all going to be okay. You'll see."

Draco wished he had her confidence.

***

After the debacle at the public community meeting, the Ministry vowed to make the Marking and Registration efforts more public. That way, they could prove that there was no favoritism in their actions, and that they truly had the best intentions for public safety. Death Eaters were dangerous, the Ministry representatives insisted. They were dangerous and their associates were dangerous. The public was at risk every time a Death Eater was released from Azkaban, every time they were allowed to assemble with their associates. They had to be marked and monitored, registered and followed. They had to be restricted and regulated for the safety of the public.

The next Marking and Registration was scheduled for the following week. Draco intended to attend the public meeting. Ginny had dinner with him and Narcissa every night that week, and she spent the entire weekend with Draco. As much as he had been tempted, he had actually been a gentleman. Ginny had her own guest bedroom, and they never got farther than heavy petting. He complained about the mind numbing inventory work at Flint and Locke's, and she told him about the silly customers that came into the shop. Draco pulled her into his lap, fingers threaded through her hair as she wound her arms around him. He had nothing to offer her, but she didn't seem to care about that. "Things will change," she assured him. "Those charges won't stick, Draco. The Minister obviously wanted to get rid of you."

"I want to see that meeting for myself," Draco told her. "I want to see for myself that they're not doing anything underhanded. I need to see that they're not destroying anyone's lives."

"You think they are," Ginny pointed out. "You all but implied it at that meeting." She couldn't help but grin at Draco. "You got a lot of people talking about this. They never really did before."

"Don't go," Draco murmured. "Please don't. Not yet."

She merely smirked at him. "Think I can't handle a few nasty comments?"

Draco shook his head and let his fingers trail down her spine. "I don't know how the marking goes yet. I haven't asked Flint or Bell or Blaise and his family what it was like, and I wouldn't hurt them by asking. I don't know if it's painful, if it would hurt you. I don't want you hurt any more than necessary for this."

Ginny rolled her eyes. "I'm not as delicate as all that, Draco..."

"Just... Let me do something for you." He cupped her face in his hands. "This has to be done right, Ginny. I won't screw things up between us. The time for mistakes is over."

"On that, I absolutely agree," she said with a grin, leaning down for a kiss.

Somehow, it didn't surprise him that she showed up anyway.

There were three men slated to take their curse marks, none of them well known. They were dirty and scarred in places, with rough accents. They had been caught running goods from Knockturn Alley to known Death Eaters or supporters, and were just the type of character that the Ministry had warned the public about. Draco sat in the back of the room, feeling as though he was being gutted. The men were handled roughly, arms grabbed and pinned in place by burly guards so that the curse marks could be applied. They all grimaced, as if it was a painful procedure, and he didn't want to imagine Ginny squirming in pain.

Almost as if he had conjured her, Ginny went forward as the Ministry employees were starting to pack up their things. "I've come forward to be marked," she said in a loud and clear voice.

The employees were confused, not sure what to do. They looked amongst themselves as Ginny extended her right hand, palm up. "Er... Miss Weasley, you're not on the list," one of them offered. The members of the press in the back of the room seemed to perk up; they knew a story was in the making.

"Well, list or no list, I should be marked," Ginny replied easily. "After all, my fiancee is a former Death Eater."

A hush fell over the room. The Ministry employees were startled at the admission, and looked between themselves to try to figure out what to do. In the stillness, the sound of the hall doors swinging open was startlingly loud.

In walked Andromeda Tonks. She was holding Teddy Lupin by the hand; though Draco had never seen the boy before, he didn't imagine that the boy could be anyone else. He had bright turquoise colored hair and amber eyes, and he had a grin that looked like every photograph of Nymphadora Tonks that Draco had seen. "Ah, Ginevra," she said warmly, a smile on her face. Her voice was loud in the quiet room. "Are you here, too? Teddy and I are going to see if they'll allow us to take our marks today, too."

"This is highly irregular," the Ministry employee offered, shaking his head. "You're not on the list to be marked today..."

The door to the room banged open. Neville Longbottom and Daphne Greengrass walked into the room. Neville was a known hero for the Order, and was currently the head of one of the largest herbology research firms. Daphne's older brother had died in the Battle of Hogwarts, but for the wrong side. "We're here to be marked, too," Neville said. Daphne looked around the room and caught Draco's eye. She actually grinned and waved at him. Stunned, he waved back. Marcus Flint and Katie Bell were behind them, and they slipped into the back of the room to observe the proceedings. Marcus smirked at Draco's stunned expression, and Katie gave a stiff nod in his direction.

As if this wasn't strange enough, Ron Weasley walked in next. He held the door open and smiled encouragingly at the person on the other side of the door. Ron extended his hand, and Pansy Parkinson walked in, visibly pregnant. They both nodded at Draco and stood at the back of the queue forming to be marked by unwilling Ministry employees. "Good to see you, Neville," Ron said. "You know, I meant to owl you about work things. Think I would be able to stop by tomorrow at three?"

Neville nodded. "Sounds good." He watched as Daphne and Pansy greeted each other warmly. "Pansy, it looks like you're ready to go any day now."

Pansy nodded and pushed her hair behind her ears. "Oh, yes. And we'll have to come back after the baby's born to get the mark, of course."

Draco merely stared. It was completely bizarre. He had to pinch himself to be sure he was actually awake.

He decided that he must have had a hallucinogen slipped into his breakfast tea. More people made their way into the room, greeting each other as if it was a perfectly ordinary event. Some of them had been part of Dumbledore's Army at school, some had formally joined the Order of the Phoenix. Others were strangers to him but willing to stand in line. Even Mrs. Hopkirk and her five children were standing in line to be marked with the circle curse mark.

Ginny winked at Draco and grinned sweetly at the beleaugered Ministry employee. "I think you need to grab a few friends to get through this line before lunch today. Better get to work," she told him brightly.

Minister Hopkirk arrived about twenty minutes after his wife and children did. "Hester!" he hissed. "What do you think you're doing?!"

Mrs. Hopkirk merely gave him a stern look. "Our civic duty, Lawrence. Which you have apparently forgotten."

He grasped her arm. "Hester..."

She shook her head and looked down at the children, ranging in age from five to twelve. "Think of the example you're setting. It's unworthy of you."

Minister Hopkirk was uncomfortable with the comment, especially when it was obvious that the reporters in the room were taking it down word for word. "Hester, we'll discuss it when you get home. I insist that you do so at once."

"I am quite comfortable where I am." She nodded at Ginny. "Can you imagine the future she'll have endure? Or the children from those other young married couples? Oh, no, Lawrence. We'll remain right here." Mrs. Hopkirk gave him an uncomfortable smile. "You may join us. It is, after all, your cousin who is the Death Eater in Azkaban."

Minister Hopkirk blanched, and Draco suppressed the urge to snicker at the beaten look on his face. He remained where he was with his family, however, and Draco thought perhaps it would be poor form to start betting stakes with the reporters whether or not he would actually take the mark. He simply sat back in his seat, a smirk on his face and his arms crossed over his chest to enjoy the show.

The uproar was heightened further when Harry Potter and Luna Lovegood came into the room. "Oh dear," Luna remarked looking at the long queue in front of them. "So much for getting the mark on our lunch break. I had no idea the line would be so long."

"I brought lunch today," Harry told her, patting her hand on his arm. "We'll just eat while we wait."

Draco rolled his eyes. It was a showcase opportunity, and Harry missed it. He was so banal, with no sense of style whatsoever. No wonder Ginny didn't want him back.

The crowd grew restless when nothing else was happening in the room. No further Ministry employees coming, and the ones present refusing to mark anyone not on their list. Finally, the Deputy Minister in Charge for the Registry Department arrived. "What's this?" he sputtered, looking around the room. "What's the meaning of this?"

"We're all waiting to receive our curse marks," Ginny told the Minister sweetly. "The man here isn't doing his job. We've been waiting here quite a long time to receive our marks, and there's children and even pregnant women here waiting."

The Minister looked over the crowd again, and noted the reporters taking avid notes. "Well, we're obviously not prepared to do this today. I suggest everyone in the room go home."

"Will there be an emergency session scheduled for tomorrow, then?" Draco called out from his lounging position in the back of the room. "Because it really isn't fair to leave all these good people unmarked. It makes criminals of them under the law as it now stands."

The reporters in the room took this as their cue to begin peppering the Minister with questions. Most leapt to their feet and had their Quick Notes Quills poised to take down every word the Minister said. This whole event was unscripted, so they were sure they would score a few gems for the Wireless programmes or newspapers. Discomfited, the Minister dismissed the entire assembly.

Draco came up to Ginny and pulled her into an embrace. "Fiancee, hm?"

"Did I assume too much?"

"Not at all." He cupped her face in his hands. "I was planning to use my grandmother's ring to propose with."

"I'm sure the plan would have been lovely," Ginny said, grinning at him. "How about we go celebrate the occasion?"

"Is there something to celebrate?"

"Our engagement, impending birth of a new niece or nephew... Pick something."

Draco smiled and slid his arms down her arms until they came to rest at her waist. "Just the two of us, dinner tonight. I'll officially propose then."

Ginny shook her head fondly at him. "Where's the surprise in that?"

"The surprise will be whose bed the evening ends in."

She laughed. "Finally."

Draco found that he really didn't care what would happen with the curse mark legislation. They would likely get rid of it, but even if they didn't, he couldn't be arsed to care. He had Ginny in his life, he was repairing his friendships and he was gainfully employed at a post that would allow him to keep up estate taxes on the Manor. This might not have been the life he had imagined for himself when he had joined the Death Eaters, but it was infinitely better.

And this time around, he was mature enough to enjoy it.