Chapter 18: Questions with No Answers
“Why don’t you just sod off, Malfoy?” Ginny spat back at him, jerking free of his grasp and storming blindly down the hall. “I must have been a fool to think I could trust a bunch of Malfoys!”
“What the hell are you talking about, Virginia?” he asked, his voice ringing with authority, following behind her.
“You suckered me in, made me become quite fond of your family, spill your family secret and charm me with your notions of duty and this great sense of sacrifice that all of you are willing to make and this whole time, one of them has been here all along!” she raged. Draco reached out and grabbed her arm, and she swung around to face him, but avoided meeting his eyes.
“How did you know about Darien?” he demanded, baffled.
“And what’s worse! I agreed to help you! I actually believed you! I played right into your hand!” she hissed, pulling her hand away from Draco’s grasp.
“Shut up, Virginia and answer my question,” Draco ordered softly. She finally looked into his eyes, and her anger subsided slightly as she met the sparkling silver eyes, glittering in the light.
“It’s an after effect of my first year…” she said quietly, looking away.
“Your first year?” he questioned.
“Yes, my first year! That’s what I said, isn’t it? And I have your bloody father to thank for it, too, you know. You should have told me! I never would have agreed to help you if I knew that he was one of them!” she cried.
“That didn’t give me much incentive to tell you, now did it?” he asked, with a wry smirk that held no triumph and wasn’t the slight bit smug. It looked rather sad…
“Ron was right,” Ginny whispered, glaring back. “He told me I couldn’t trust you, that it was a mistake to come here, and yet here I am!”
“Just because you cannot trust Darien does not mean that you cannot trust me,” Draco said simply.
“You’re all the bloody same to me! You are all Malfoys and I should have known better than to get involved in this mess! You’ve trapped me in this ploy of yours with him!” she cried. Draco reached out suddenly, taking her shoulders, forcing her to look up at his dark and dangerous eyes.
“I am not my family, Virginia. In the same way that you are not yours.”
“Of course I am my family, Malfoy! Don’t forget the way you chose to remind me of that every single day at Hogwarts! You never chose to look past what you saw – the red hair, the secondhand books and the temper. Why the sudden change of heart about the littlest weasel, as you so fondly called me?” Ginny yelled.
“We can dance around in circles about this for hours if you’d like and you can rant and rave about my cousin as much as you please, but I have not forgotten what you just did there a few minutes ago. I will not stop questioning you about it until you explain it to me,” he said, with the tiniest hint of boredom in her voice that infuriated her even more. But his return to the subject that she was instinctively desperate to avoid startled her, and the fire of her anger was doused rather abruptly. She stepped back; retreated.
“That was just…accidental magic. You know the like, things that happen when witches and wizards let their emotions take control. Harry blew up his aunt once, most wizards do things accidentally before they even have a wand. And in this case, perfectly justified to get that filth you call a cousin away from me,” she stammered, her answer gaining in confidence as she defended it with any example she could think of.
“It was a burst of pure magic, Weasley, very powerful magic.”
“Only because I lost control! There’s nothing else to it, Malfoy so drop it!” she said, turning away from those searching eyes, desperate to be away from his scrutiny. She stormed down the hall, practically running, seeking her escape.
“It wasn’t a loss of control, Virginia, and you know it. I saw what you did; it was a calculated defensive use of magic. You intended to do it, and it worked just the way you intended it to.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she called angrily over her shoulder.
“You are afraid of it. Afraid to use it because in your narrow little view of the world, that power you used tonight is exactly the kind of magic you wish to see outlawed all across the wizarding world,” he said. With that she stopped. Draco was fully expecting her to be furious with him over his accusation, but the emotions reflecting in her dark eyes as she turned to face him caused him to recoil inwardly, wholly unsure of what kind of force was about to be unleashed on him.
“You call my view of the world narrow? Could this possibly be the same Draco Malfoy who occupied his time torturing Muggle-born and Gryffindor because they were different from him?” she asked in a hard, cold voice.
“What are you hiding from? What was it that made you decide to throw away everything you could have been and put on your mask of ice that you wear so desperately?” Draco asked softly.
“Things like what happened in the hallway, Malfoy. That…kind of magic hurts people. It tears families and futures apart, and I will do everything in my power to ensure that it is stopped,” she vowed, her voice echoing the inner strength that he had glimpse so many times in the past few days, hinting that she would never break for anything. She was too strong. The strength of will that seemed to infuse her very being was one of the forces that kept drawing him to her – and yet, in order for everything to work out as planned, that will would need to bend.
“And if it helps people? If the kind of magic you so despise is actually not only doing good, but preventing a greater harm from occurring, is it still wrong in your books, Virginia?” he asked.
It was the very question that had been torturing her ever since he revealed what was hidden in the depths of the labyrinth. Everything she had been taught was fighting a terrible battle with her internal instincts, and she was unsure of how it would turn out.
Draco watched her eyes as she digested his question. The war that she was fighting within was obvious as he watched – and the façade was shattered as her beliefs and her morals conflicted, and much of the stable ground she had built her life upon began to shake. Seeing her unstable and shaky was something he’d once thought impossible, but the further she was trapped in the plot – that not even he knew the full extent of – the more this became a common occurrence. It unsettled him, the same way he was disturbed when she had shown up that one morning with that haunted look in her eyes, and as then, he needed to put a stop to it.
She was about to say something, to answer his question. Entirely unsure of what the answer would be, and certain that neither was ready for the answer, he did the only thing he knew. Reaching forward, he gathered her body to him, and captured her lips with his.
She immediately went rigid as she felt the initial contact, and tried valiantly to break free, but as he deepened the kiss, the sensations of his touch rippled through her body and combined with the quiet loneliness she’d struggled to ignore for so long. As one of his hands softly moved for its position at her waist to softly caress his neck, she was lost.
At one moment, she was cold and froze. And he suddenly felt a change come over the woman in his arms – she had melted. The change from resistance to soft compliance fueled the heat building between them. The arm around her waist drew her body tighter, needing to feel as much contact with her as possible. When he felt her responding fervently, as her arms reached up and circled around his neck, he thought he would loose his mind.
Realization suddenly crashed through Ginny’s mind, she stiffened once again, pushing him roughly away, stumbling slightly when he unexpectedly released her.
“Stop doing that!” she cried, glaring at him accusingly. He glared back defiantly.
“It’s the only way I know how to shut you up!” he snapped back.
“I wasn’t talking!” she protested.
“But you were about to, Weasley!” he
retorted quickly. Rife with shock, she gasped, struck speechless by her indignation. He was staring back at her, the usually cold eyes blazing. When she would think back on it later, she would convince herself that it had been his eyes that had would motivate her next actions.
She lunged forward, meeting his lips with a desperate fervor fueled by her unspent anger and her inner conflict. The electrifying sensations that the feel of his lips on hers were causing sparked a need for more, igniting a passion that left them both breathless.
She broke away, her hands clutching his robes. Unable to speak or think, she buried her face in his chest, as she tried to regain her breath. His hands were wrapped around her waist, offering a sense of security and warmth that had become so foreign to her. He was nuzzling the sensitive skin of her neck, trailing soft, almost reverent, kisses along her jaw line. A soft sigh escaped her lips as she closed her eyes and allowed the sensation to overwhelm her senses.
“Ginny…” he whispered softly, just once, acknowledging that Virginia was a tool of her façade, and not the name of who she truly was. The simple sound of his voice softly whispering her name in that manner spoke of how much he knew about her – how much he saw her – and the depth of that knowledge scared her. . She moved slightly away, to look up at his face, unsure of how or why things had changed or what to do next.
“Draco,” she started to say, but he bent his head again, brushing her lips very softly, silencing her.
“When I saw Darien put his hands on you, I wanted to kill him,” he murmured, one hand brushing the hair away from her face, as his silver eyes met hers. The truth in his words was apparent, and the knowledge that those eyes held startled her. And the name, Darien, snapped reality back into place as the memory of the night’s events became clear again. She stepped back, breaking her contact with him, causing her body to scream in protest.
“Our agreement this afternoon, that I would help you protect the sanctuary, did not extend to the protection of a Death Eater,” she said shakily, watching his eyes carefully as she was unable to look away.
“Nothing is as it seems, Virginia,” he said softly, his eyes suddenly veiled and unreadable. The weight of the night, of the entire ordeal that she was inextricably caught in came crashed down around her, crushing all the strength and control she had. She took a shaky step back, away from the force pulling her towards him.
“Just…stay away from me or the deal is over,” she breathed, before she turned and ran away as fast as she could.
“Why don’t you just sod off, Malfoy?” Ginny spat back at him, jerking free of his grasp and storming blindly down the hall. “I must have been a fool to think I could trust a bunch of Malfoys!”
“What the hell are you talking about, Virginia?” he asked, his voice ringing with authority, following behind her.
“You suckered me in, made me become quite fond of your family, spill your family secret and charm me with your notions of duty and this great sense of sacrifice that all of you are willing to make and this whole time, one of them has been here all along!” she raged. Draco reached out and grabbed her arm, and she swung around to face him, but avoided meeting his eyes.
“How did you know about Darien?” he demanded, baffled.
“And what’s worse! I agreed to help you! I actually believed you! I played right into your hand!” she hissed, pulling her hand away from Draco’s grasp.
“Shut up, Virginia and answer my question,” Draco ordered softly. She finally looked into his eyes, and her anger subsided slightly as she met the sparkling silver eyes, glittering in the light.
“It’s an after effect of my first year…” she said quietly, looking away.
“Your first year?” he questioned.
“Yes, my first year! That’s what I said, isn’t it? And I have your bloody father to thank for it, too, you know. You should have told me! I never would have agreed to help you if I knew that he was one of them!” she cried.
“That didn’t give me much incentive to tell you, now did it?” he asked, with a wry smirk that held no triumph and wasn’t the slight bit smug. It looked rather sad…
“Ron was right,” Ginny whispered, glaring back. “He told me I couldn’t trust you, that it was a mistake to come here, and yet here I am!”
“Just because you cannot trust Darien does not mean that you cannot trust me,” Draco said simply.
“You’re all the bloody same to me! You are all Malfoys and I should have known better than to get involved in this mess! You’ve trapped me in this ploy of yours with him!” she cried. Draco reached out suddenly, taking her shoulders, forcing her to look up at his dark and dangerous eyes.
“I am not my family, Virginia. In the same way that you are not yours.”
“Of course I am my family, Malfoy! Don’t forget the way you chose to remind me of that every single day at Hogwarts! You never chose to look past what you saw – the red hair, the secondhand books and the temper. Why the sudden change of heart about the littlest weasel, as you so fondly called me?” Ginny yelled.
“We can dance around in circles about this for hours if you’d like and you can rant and rave about my cousin as much as you please, but I have not forgotten what you just did there a few minutes ago. I will not stop questioning you about it until you explain it to me,” he said, with the tiniest hint of boredom in her voice that infuriated her even more. But his return to the subject that she was instinctively desperate to avoid startled her, and the fire of her anger was doused rather abruptly. She stepped back; retreated.
“That was just…accidental magic. You know the like, things that happen when witches and wizards let their emotions take control. Harry blew up his aunt once, most wizards do things accidentally before they even have a wand. And in this case, perfectly justified to get that filth you call a cousin away from me,” she stammered, her answer gaining in confidence as she defended it with any example she could think of.
“It was a burst of pure magic, Weasley, very powerful magic.”
“Only because I lost control! There’s nothing else to it, Malfoy so drop it!” she said, turning away from those searching eyes, desperate to be away from his scrutiny. She stormed down the hall, practically running, seeking her escape.
“It wasn’t a loss of control, Virginia, and you know it. I saw what you did; it was a calculated defensive use of magic. You intended to do it, and it worked just the way you intended it to.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she called angrily over her shoulder.
“You are afraid of it. Afraid to use it because in your narrow little view of the world, that power you used tonight is exactly the kind of magic you wish to see outlawed all across the wizarding world,” he said. With that she stopped. Draco was fully expecting her to be furious with him over his accusation, but the emotions reflecting in her dark eyes as she turned to face him caused him to recoil inwardly, wholly unsure of what kind of force was about to be unleashed on him.
“You call my view of the world narrow? Could this possibly be the same Draco Malfoy who occupied his time torturing Muggle-born and Gryffindor because they were different from him?” she asked in a hard, cold voice.
“What are you hiding from? What was it that made you decide to throw away everything you could have been and put on your mask of ice that you wear so desperately?” Draco asked softly.
“Things like what happened in the hallway, Malfoy. That…kind of magic hurts people. It tears families and futures apart, and I will do everything in my power to ensure that it is stopped,” she vowed, her voice echoing the inner strength that he had glimpse so many times in the past few days, hinting that she would never break for anything. She was too strong. The strength of will that seemed to infuse her very being was one of the forces that kept drawing him to her – and yet, in order for everything to work out as planned, that will would need to bend.
“And if it helps people? If the kind of magic you so despise is actually not only doing good, but preventing a greater harm from occurring, is it still wrong in your books, Virginia?” he asked.
It was the very question that had been torturing her ever since he revealed what was hidden in the depths of the labyrinth. Everything she had been taught was fighting a terrible battle with her internal instincts, and she was unsure of how it would turn out.
Draco watched her eyes as she digested his question. The war that she was fighting within was obvious as he watched – and the façade was shattered as her beliefs and her morals conflicted, and much of the stable ground she had built her life upon began to shake. Seeing her unstable and shaky was something he’d once thought impossible, but the further she was trapped in the plot – that not even he knew the full extent of – the more this became a common occurrence. It unsettled him, the same way he was disturbed when she had shown up that one morning with that haunted look in her eyes, and as then, he needed to put a stop to it.
She was about to say something, to answer his question. Entirely unsure of what the answer would be, and certain that neither was ready for the answer, he did the only thing he knew. Reaching forward, he gathered her body to him, and captured her lips with his.
She immediately went rigid as she felt the initial contact, and tried valiantly to break free, but as he deepened the kiss, the sensations of his touch rippled through her body and combined with the quiet loneliness she’d struggled to ignore for so long. As one of his hands softly moved for its position at her waist to softly caress his neck, she was lost.
At one moment, she was cold and froze. And he suddenly felt a change come over the woman in his arms – she had melted. The change from resistance to soft compliance fueled the heat building between them. The arm around her waist drew her body tighter, needing to feel as much contact with her as possible. When he felt her responding fervently, as her arms reached up and circled around his neck, he thought he would loose his mind.
Realization suddenly crashed through Ginny’s mind, she stiffened once again, pushing him roughly away, stumbling slightly when he unexpectedly released her.
“Stop doing that!” she cried, glaring at him accusingly. He glared back defiantly.
“It’s the only way I know how to shut you up!” he snapped back.
“I wasn’t talking!” she protested.
“But you were about to, Weasley!” he
retorted quickly. Rife with shock, she gasped, struck speechless by her indignation. He was staring back at her, the usually cold eyes blazing. When she would think back on it later, she would convince herself that it had been his eyes that had would motivate her next actions.
She lunged forward, meeting his lips with a desperate fervor fueled by her unspent anger and her inner conflict. The electrifying sensations that the feel of his lips on hers were causing sparked a need for more, igniting a passion that left them both breathless.
She broke away, her hands clutching his robes. Unable to speak or think, she buried her face in his chest, as she tried to regain her breath. His hands were wrapped around her waist, offering a sense of security and warmth that had become so foreign to her. He was nuzzling the sensitive skin of her neck, trailing soft, almost reverent, kisses along her jaw line. A soft sigh escaped her lips as she closed her eyes and allowed the sensation to overwhelm her senses.
“Ginny…” he whispered softly, just once, acknowledging that Virginia was a tool of her façade, and not the name of who she truly was. The simple sound of his voice softly whispering her name in that manner spoke of how much he knew about her – how much he saw her – and the depth of that knowledge scared her. . She moved slightly away, to look up at his face, unsure of how or why things had changed or what to do next.
“Draco,” she started to say, but he bent his head again, brushing her lips very softly, silencing her.
“When I saw Darien put his hands on you, I wanted to kill him,” he murmured, one hand brushing the hair away from her face, as his silver eyes met hers. The truth in his words was apparent, and the knowledge that those eyes held startled her. And the name, Darien, snapped reality back into place as the memory of the night’s events became clear again. She stepped back, breaking her contact with him, causing her body to scream in protest.
“Our agreement this afternoon, that I would help you protect the sanctuary, did not extend to the protection of a Death Eater,” she said shakily, watching his eyes carefully as she was unable to look away.
“Nothing is as it seems, Virginia,” he said softly, his eyes suddenly veiled and unreadable. The weight of the night, of the entire ordeal that she was inextricably caught in came crashed down around her, crushing all the strength and control she had. She took a shaky step back, away from the force pulling her towards him.
“Just…stay away from me or the deal is over,” she breathed, before she turned and ran away as fast as she could.
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