Chapter 42: Prodding a Sleeping Dragon
Draco awoke the next morning, to see her brown eyes, still showing the evidence of last night’s breakdown by their red tinge and the way that they were swollen, staring at him with a serious look reflected in them. He sighed, and braced himself for the question that he knew was going to come. It was only a matter of time before she would need to ask it.
“I have to ask you something, and I know that you may not want to answer it, but I have to know,” she said, her voice soft and quiet. He looked down at her, sitting in the sunlight on the grass in front of him, the wind softly blowing her loose hair about and thought about how much she had been changed in a relatively short amount of time. At the beginning, he’d been curious about her – the façade she maintained, the fiery spirit she kept buried underneath all that ice and her shrewd abilities as a diplomat. How he had wanted to see a crack in that mask; and now it was completely demolished, and she was sitting in front of him, trusting and vulnerable, and he wasn’t certain that he was prepared for it.
“What is it?” he asked, bracing for the question that he knew would threaten the fragile relationship they’d developed.
“Why does Darien have the Dark Mark?” she asked, with the air of someone who had been deep in thought, and had been wondering this for a while. “I could tell when he first arrived that there was something off about him, and the night of your uncle’s party, I found out about it. But after that night with Neville, and I discovered that it was Danika who was helping him…”
“My family isn’t all evil, little Weasley. It’s easier to believe that, especially for a Ministry witch like you, but the evil ones are just a few bad apples,” Draco said with a slight smirk, as relief flooded through him as the question wasn’t the one that he had expected. “Danika, when she was really young, somehow found her way into a group of Death Eaters. No one knows for sure if they found her, or if she went looking for them, but when Darien found out what she was up to, he wanted to get her away from them as quickly as possible. He did it to save her life.”
“They were going to kill her? Even as young as she was?” Ginny asked, horrified.
“She lied about her name. She made up some other last name to hide the fact that she was a Malfoy, because then they would have asked my father about her, and then Vincent would have found out. When they knew that she’d lied, they thought that she was a spy…They were rather angry with all Malfoys in general – my father excluded. Vincent wouldn’t participate in any of their schemes and I…well, I decided to ‘study abroad’ for a few years, instead of joining them.”
“How did Darien’s joining them save her then?”
“One of his friends from Durmstrang found out that his little sister was about to branded a traitor, and told him. Darien went straight to their leader, and joined. A Malfoy heir, joining them against his father’s wishes, couldn’t be passed up and he was immediately admitted into the inner circle. Then he was able to edge Danika out, make it so that she was no longer involved in any of their plans, and refused to approve her taking the Dark Mark. He did and saw a lot of horrible things during that time, but it was the only way to keep her out of harms way,” Draco explained.
“She didn’t want to be saved, did she? She wanted to be a part of them.”
“Yes. My father had a lot of influence over her. She always saw him the way that I did when I was young – the tall, powerful wizard fighting against inferior wizards in a way to make our world much better, free of Muggles. He always seemed so powerful; it took a lot for me to see through it all, and I was his son. I saw him on a daily basis. Danika only saw him rarely, and then only at his best, and I guess when she compared him to her own father – the academic, Lucius won out.”
“But Darien didn’t want to have anything to do with the Death Eaters and…You-Know-Who? He only joined to edge Danika out?”
“There were other advantages with having him on the inside. That’s how I found out about my father’s betrayal, that he had told Voldemort’s supporters about the sanctuary and he was going to let them destroy it. As he was Vincent’s older brother, the land was rightfully his, and our protection would fail without his support. He gave me the information I needed to make sure that never happened, along with other things…who the major players were, what their movements were going to be. But he didn’t do it out of any desire to rid the world of Muggles, or to gain any power,” Draco explained, avoiding meeting her eyes as he mentioned his father’s involvement. Ginny sighed, as she absorbed all of the information Draco had just given her.
“Years after his death, and he still haunts our lives,” Ginny whispered, with a shiver.
“Well, he was the most powerful Dark wizard in our world since Grindelwald.”
“I was talking about your father.”
“Oh. I see.”
“I keep thinking about Neville, and wondering if he was always so…corrupted and evil, but when I think back, all I can remember is the shy, sweet little kid who took me to the Yule Ball so I wouldn’t have to miss it because I was only in Third Year. He wasn’t evil; he was twisted into what he became by someone like your father…who saw his weakness and used it. The promise of power, of greatness, must have been too strong for him to resist. It’s all he ever wanted, and couldn’t get unless it was with Dark Magic. Shades of gray, or not, Malfoy, it hurts people,” Ginny said bitterly.
“It all depends on the purpose. If you intend to do harm, then it will hurt people. But if it’s to save someone, or to make something better, than it is the right thing to do. You’re thinking about Danika,” Draco said flatly, staring down at her troubled eyes. She nodded.
“I can’t get her out of my mind…the way she looked when he carried her towards the rest of us…” she cut herself off with a shudder.
“Darien stopped her that night, before she killed one of the unicorns. Because she was his sister, he let her go with the promise that she would never come near them again. As soon as he was distracted by something else, she crept back into the forest, intending to finish what she started. She was going to hurt them, and she would have hurt you if she had the chance. She is the person who told Neville about your powers, told him that you were there, and helped him plan the ways to get you under their spell to do what they wanted you to as soon as she knew what you were capable of. Darien gave her the chance to redeem herself, and she didn’t take it. She got what was coming to her,” Draco said solemnly. Ginny gasped in horror.
“How can you be so calm and cold about your own family?” she asked, disgusted. “Whatever she may have done did not justify her death!”
“What greater crime is there than to betray your family?” Draco asked, his tone cold. Ginny jerked her hand, which had been resting in his since she’d awakened, away from his as if she’d been burned and jumped to her feet.
“You killed your own father, didn’t you?” she asked, half in shock and half horrified. He’d mentioned that he’d ‘stopped’ him before he could do any harm to the unicorns, but she never believed that he would have been capable of that. Draco didn’t answer, he just stared at her calmly with veiled eyes that betrayed nothing. “You found out about what he was up to and you killed him!”
“I had a greater duty to fulfill that superceded my duty as a son. Would it have been better to let him destroy them?” he asked. Ginny turned away from him, unable to comprehend what he was saying and how calm he was about it. He hesitated for a moment, until he couldn’t stand the way she was looking at him any longer. “No, I didn’t kill him. But if I had been given the chance, I would have.”
“But you made sure that someone else had the opportunity to do it for you, through your connection to the Death Eaters,” she said, finally beginning to understand the way that his Slytherin mind worked. He nodded slightly, and he looked away from her. She shook her head, trying to absorb what she had been learning about him.
Shades of gray…Nothing was black and white to her, not anymore. She’d seen too much, she’d learned far too much. But to live in his world of perpetual gray areas, where nothing was absolute, nothing completely defined…The way that he saw the world was without lines that couldn’t be crossed. He’d refused to join Voldemort’s cause; yet he didn’t hesitate to use his followers to his own purposes. He wasn’t evil, but he didn’t shy away from evil acts. A thought struck her mind, and she froze. She turned back to him, and saw that he was standing now.
“You found out what he was up to…Darien had inside information about what they were doing, and who the major players were. Did he have this kind of information even after Voldemort was defeated?” she asked, her eyes narrowing suspiciously.
“Yes. The plan to kill the unicorns wasn’t thought of until after their leader was killed – and they wanted to bring him, or another equally powerful wizard, back into our world,” he answered, cautiously.
“You knew what he was up to…you knew who the major players were…Did you know that Neville was still alive?” she asked, her face reflecting so much pain that he found it difficult to look at her. She watched his face desperately, searching for denial, for outrage for daring to suggest such a thing, anything that would dispel her suspicions. And she saw nothing but a cold, blank expression. An expression that she recognized from the faces of the many politicians who had tried to deny one of her accusations, the look of someone who didn’t want to betray anything when they knew they were caught in a trap.
He looked away from her, and she was shaken so much that she sat down on the ground. It took everything out of her – any fight, energy or even anger that she had was all gone, leaving her empty and cold.
“You knew what his death meant for me, and you didn’t tell me that you knew he was alive?” she whispered hoarsely, her eyes burning painfully as she fiercely blinked back tears.
“When you aren’t sure who you can trust, don’t trust anyone.” Ginny flinched as he said that as though she’d been slapped.
“Does your humanity ever interfere with being a rotten, scheming Slytherin?” she gasped.
“I had to consider a lot of different things. I didn’t know if I could trust you. Your whole goal when you came here was to convince me to help you pass a law that would have destroyed everything! You were an adversary, Ginny, there were certain things I couldn’t tell you!” he explained, trying to reason her. There was a slightly hysterical look in her eyes that was concerning him. She stared at him with a horrified look, mingled with confusion, on her face, as she stood up and began to back away from him.
“You certainly got everything you wanted, didn’t you?” she asked coldly.
“Ginny, please understand,” he tried to say, but she cut him off.
“I was wrong this whole bloody time…I’m the one that couldn’t see. I’ve been blind to what you truly are,” she cried, as her tears spilled over. As her sharp tone echoed in the silence, Draco flinched as she turned and ran away.
* * * *
“Ginny, where have you been? I’ve been really worried about you, disappearing in the middle of the night with everything as it is! They still haven’t found Neville yet, you know!” Ron cried, as he saw his red-faced sister storming up the hallway. He did a double-take as he noticed two very important details: she was dressed, as he was accustomed to seeing her, in one of her favorite black business suits, and that her eyes were red-rimmed and tear-streaked, something he hadn’t seen on his sister in almost a decade.
“I’m leaving, Ron. I have very important work to get back to at the Ministry,” she said, dismissing him over her shoulder as she continued down the hall, with a barely a second glance at him.
“Oh bloody hell, she’s back,” Ron muttered angrily under his breath. “Oi, Ginny! Hold on a minute!”
“I’m really pressed for time. I need to get back to London; I’ve a pile of post to catch up on, and a few meetings scheduled. You know, the deadline for the International Cooperation Act for the Removal of All Dark Arts is fast approaching, and I still have a few countries to get on side,” she said impatiently.
“You’re just going to leave? Like this?” he asked, dumbfounded.
“What else is there to do here? The sanctuary is quite safe now, the enemies aren’t attacking anymore, I would have thought that an Auror like you would at least be able to figure out that your work here is done,” she said, her tone gaining the edge that she generally reserved for ‘politely’ warning her political adversaries to back off.
“But…well, what about Malfoy? Are you just going to leave him? And what about all those changes you were going to make to the Act, for Bulgaria’s sake?” he asked, following her down the hall.
“What about Malfoy? You, of ALL people, should be more than pleased that I’m leaving him behind. I have important work to get back to, Ron. Look at what happened here! The international wizarding community needs to come together so that things like this can never happen again!” Ginny said passionately, her voice breaking slightly. Ron stepped away from her, as if afraid that he would be scorched by the fire in her words. She glared at him, before she continued down the hallway, her heels clicking authoritatively on the polished floor.
“Ginny! Bloody hell, Malfoy, what the hell did you say to her?” Ron cried, spotting the blond Malfoy standing in the foyer, as if to see his guest out. His icy stare was enough to freeze a fire, but it wasn’t enough to stop the youngest Weasley when she had a mission.
“Excuse, Malfoy, but I’d like to be going now,” she said, barely meeting his eyes, as her voice took on her long-practiced, neutral tone.
“Don’t go like this, Ginny,” he said quietly, dangerously. His face was dark and there was a lot of anger in it, Ron could tell. He caught up to his sister, and stood behind her, arms crossed, hoping to seem protective. There was far more hostility in the air between the two than when there’d been back in Hogwarts, when she’d hit him with that glorious Bat-Bogey Hex.
“I’m actually rather eager to get away from this place, Malfoy. London is awaiting me, I have a lot of work to do if I’m going to get the new Cooperation Act ready to be made into Wizarding law in time,” she said with a wry smile.
“I hoped this trip helped you to consider the special case that exists in Bulgaria,” he said, echoing her cold, yet courteous tone.
“Actually, quite the contrary, Mr. Malfoy. I’m more convinced now more than ever, of the need for this kind of pact to be made by the entire international community. Dark magic is something that needs to get stopped, completely and without exception. It causes harm, no matter the intent,” she said, her words curt and clipped with a hidden anger.
“That is most unfortunate. Of course, I’m going to do whatever I can to make sure that it fails, unless those special considerations are made in Bulgaria’s case.”
“I’m afraid that this will not be possible. You almost had me, but then I opened my eyes,” she said pointedly. Ron watched with a strange fascination as his sister and former nemesis, who, not a day before, had been very familiar with each other, suddenly reverted to the formalities that he was used to seeing Ginny use on a rival politician.
“I hope you understand that I will be doing everything in my power to make sure that this does not pass, the way that is it written. I’ll come at you with everything I’ve got,” he said, his voice containing a lot of threat, and a little tinge of regret.
“I welcome it, Malfoy. The world will see reason – Dark magic is dangerous, it hurts people and it need to be stopped,” she said, before she walked out the door.
“Bugger, Malfoy! What the hell did you do to set her off like that? I thought she had finally gotten her head out of her arse about all this Ministry business, and suddenly she’s back at it! What the hell happened?” Ron demanded. Malfoy groaned, as he pressed his head against the door she’d just walked out of.
“I’ve prodded a big, scary sleeping dragon, that’s what I’ve done,” he groaned.
Draco awoke the next morning, to see her brown eyes, still showing the evidence of last night’s breakdown by their red tinge and the way that they were swollen, staring at him with a serious look reflected in them. He sighed, and braced himself for the question that he knew was going to come. It was only a matter of time before she would need to ask it.
“I have to ask you something, and I know that you may not want to answer it, but I have to know,” she said, her voice soft and quiet. He looked down at her, sitting in the sunlight on the grass in front of him, the wind softly blowing her loose hair about and thought about how much she had been changed in a relatively short amount of time. At the beginning, he’d been curious about her – the façade she maintained, the fiery spirit she kept buried underneath all that ice and her shrewd abilities as a diplomat. How he had wanted to see a crack in that mask; and now it was completely demolished, and she was sitting in front of him, trusting and vulnerable, and he wasn’t certain that he was prepared for it.
“What is it?” he asked, bracing for the question that he knew would threaten the fragile relationship they’d developed.
“Why does Darien have the Dark Mark?” she asked, with the air of someone who had been deep in thought, and had been wondering this for a while. “I could tell when he first arrived that there was something off about him, and the night of your uncle’s party, I found out about it. But after that night with Neville, and I discovered that it was Danika who was helping him…”
“My family isn’t all evil, little Weasley. It’s easier to believe that, especially for a Ministry witch like you, but the evil ones are just a few bad apples,” Draco said with a slight smirk, as relief flooded through him as the question wasn’t the one that he had expected. “Danika, when she was really young, somehow found her way into a group of Death Eaters. No one knows for sure if they found her, or if she went looking for them, but when Darien found out what she was up to, he wanted to get her away from them as quickly as possible. He did it to save her life.”
“They were going to kill her? Even as young as she was?” Ginny asked, horrified.
“She lied about her name. She made up some other last name to hide the fact that she was a Malfoy, because then they would have asked my father about her, and then Vincent would have found out. When they knew that she’d lied, they thought that she was a spy…They were rather angry with all Malfoys in general – my father excluded. Vincent wouldn’t participate in any of their schemes and I…well, I decided to ‘study abroad’ for a few years, instead of joining them.”
“How did Darien’s joining them save her then?”
“One of his friends from Durmstrang found out that his little sister was about to branded a traitor, and told him. Darien went straight to their leader, and joined. A Malfoy heir, joining them against his father’s wishes, couldn’t be passed up and he was immediately admitted into the inner circle. Then he was able to edge Danika out, make it so that she was no longer involved in any of their plans, and refused to approve her taking the Dark Mark. He did and saw a lot of horrible things during that time, but it was the only way to keep her out of harms way,” Draco explained.
“She didn’t want to be saved, did she? She wanted to be a part of them.”
“Yes. My father had a lot of influence over her. She always saw him the way that I did when I was young – the tall, powerful wizard fighting against inferior wizards in a way to make our world much better, free of Muggles. He always seemed so powerful; it took a lot for me to see through it all, and I was his son. I saw him on a daily basis. Danika only saw him rarely, and then only at his best, and I guess when she compared him to her own father – the academic, Lucius won out.”
“But Darien didn’t want to have anything to do with the Death Eaters and…You-Know-Who? He only joined to edge Danika out?”
“There were other advantages with having him on the inside. That’s how I found out about my father’s betrayal, that he had told Voldemort’s supporters about the sanctuary and he was going to let them destroy it. As he was Vincent’s older brother, the land was rightfully his, and our protection would fail without his support. He gave me the information I needed to make sure that never happened, along with other things…who the major players were, what their movements were going to be. But he didn’t do it out of any desire to rid the world of Muggles, or to gain any power,” Draco explained, avoiding meeting her eyes as he mentioned his father’s involvement. Ginny sighed, as she absorbed all of the information Draco had just given her.
“Years after his death, and he still haunts our lives,” Ginny whispered, with a shiver.
“Well, he was the most powerful Dark wizard in our world since Grindelwald.”
“I was talking about your father.”
“Oh. I see.”
“I keep thinking about Neville, and wondering if he was always so…corrupted and evil, but when I think back, all I can remember is the shy, sweet little kid who took me to the Yule Ball so I wouldn’t have to miss it because I was only in Third Year. He wasn’t evil; he was twisted into what he became by someone like your father…who saw his weakness and used it. The promise of power, of greatness, must have been too strong for him to resist. It’s all he ever wanted, and couldn’t get unless it was with Dark Magic. Shades of gray, or not, Malfoy, it hurts people,” Ginny said bitterly.
“It all depends on the purpose. If you intend to do harm, then it will hurt people. But if it’s to save someone, or to make something better, than it is the right thing to do. You’re thinking about Danika,” Draco said flatly, staring down at her troubled eyes. She nodded.
“I can’t get her out of my mind…the way she looked when he carried her towards the rest of us…” she cut herself off with a shudder.
“Darien stopped her that night, before she killed one of the unicorns. Because she was his sister, he let her go with the promise that she would never come near them again. As soon as he was distracted by something else, she crept back into the forest, intending to finish what she started. She was going to hurt them, and she would have hurt you if she had the chance. She is the person who told Neville about your powers, told him that you were there, and helped him plan the ways to get you under their spell to do what they wanted you to as soon as she knew what you were capable of. Darien gave her the chance to redeem herself, and she didn’t take it. She got what was coming to her,” Draco said solemnly. Ginny gasped in horror.
“How can you be so calm and cold about your own family?” she asked, disgusted. “Whatever she may have done did not justify her death!”
“What greater crime is there than to betray your family?” Draco asked, his tone cold. Ginny jerked her hand, which had been resting in his since she’d awakened, away from his as if she’d been burned and jumped to her feet.
“You killed your own father, didn’t you?” she asked, half in shock and half horrified. He’d mentioned that he’d ‘stopped’ him before he could do any harm to the unicorns, but she never believed that he would have been capable of that. Draco didn’t answer, he just stared at her calmly with veiled eyes that betrayed nothing. “You found out about what he was up to and you killed him!”
“I had a greater duty to fulfill that superceded my duty as a son. Would it have been better to let him destroy them?” he asked. Ginny turned away from him, unable to comprehend what he was saying and how calm he was about it. He hesitated for a moment, until he couldn’t stand the way she was looking at him any longer. “No, I didn’t kill him. But if I had been given the chance, I would have.”
“But you made sure that someone else had the opportunity to do it for you, through your connection to the Death Eaters,” she said, finally beginning to understand the way that his Slytherin mind worked. He nodded slightly, and he looked away from her. She shook her head, trying to absorb what she had been learning about him.
Shades of gray…Nothing was black and white to her, not anymore. She’d seen too much, she’d learned far too much. But to live in his world of perpetual gray areas, where nothing was absolute, nothing completely defined…The way that he saw the world was without lines that couldn’t be crossed. He’d refused to join Voldemort’s cause; yet he didn’t hesitate to use his followers to his own purposes. He wasn’t evil, but he didn’t shy away from evil acts. A thought struck her mind, and she froze. She turned back to him, and saw that he was standing now.
“You found out what he was up to…Darien had inside information about what they were doing, and who the major players were. Did he have this kind of information even after Voldemort was defeated?” she asked, her eyes narrowing suspiciously.
“Yes. The plan to kill the unicorns wasn’t thought of until after their leader was killed – and they wanted to bring him, or another equally powerful wizard, back into our world,” he answered, cautiously.
“You knew what he was up to…you knew who the major players were…Did you know that Neville was still alive?” she asked, her face reflecting so much pain that he found it difficult to look at her. She watched his face desperately, searching for denial, for outrage for daring to suggest such a thing, anything that would dispel her suspicions. And she saw nothing but a cold, blank expression. An expression that she recognized from the faces of the many politicians who had tried to deny one of her accusations, the look of someone who didn’t want to betray anything when they knew they were caught in a trap.
He looked away from her, and she was shaken so much that she sat down on the ground. It took everything out of her – any fight, energy or even anger that she had was all gone, leaving her empty and cold.
“You knew what his death meant for me, and you didn’t tell me that you knew he was alive?” she whispered hoarsely, her eyes burning painfully as she fiercely blinked back tears.
“When you aren’t sure who you can trust, don’t trust anyone.” Ginny flinched as he said that as though she’d been slapped.
“Does your humanity ever interfere with being a rotten, scheming Slytherin?” she gasped.
“I had to consider a lot of different things. I didn’t know if I could trust you. Your whole goal when you came here was to convince me to help you pass a law that would have destroyed everything! You were an adversary, Ginny, there were certain things I couldn’t tell you!” he explained, trying to reason her. There was a slightly hysterical look in her eyes that was concerning him. She stared at him with a horrified look, mingled with confusion, on her face, as she stood up and began to back away from him.
“You certainly got everything you wanted, didn’t you?” she asked coldly.
“Ginny, please understand,” he tried to say, but she cut him off.
“I was wrong this whole bloody time…I’m the one that couldn’t see. I’ve been blind to what you truly are,” she cried, as her tears spilled over. As her sharp tone echoed in the silence, Draco flinched as she turned and ran away.
* * * *
“Ginny, where have you been? I’ve been really worried about you, disappearing in the middle of the night with everything as it is! They still haven’t found Neville yet, you know!” Ron cried, as he saw his red-faced sister storming up the hallway. He did a double-take as he noticed two very important details: she was dressed, as he was accustomed to seeing her, in one of her favorite black business suits, and that her eyes were red-rimmed and tear-streaked, something he hadn’t seen on his sister in almost a decade.
“I’m leaving, Ron. I have very important work to get back to at the Ministry,” she said, dismissing him over her shoulder as she continued down the hall, with a barely a second glance at him.
“Oh bloody hell, she’s back,” Ron muttered angrily under his breath. “Oi, Ginny! Hold on a minute!”
“I’m really pressed for time. I need to get back to London; I’ve a pile of post to catch up on, and a few meetings scheduled. You know, the deadline for the International Cooperation Act for the Removal of All Dark Arts is fast approaching, and I still have a few countries to get on side,” she said impatiently.
“You’re just going to leave? Like this?” he asked, dumbfounded.
“What else is there to do here? The sanctuary is quite safe now, the enemies aren’t attacking anymore, I would have thought that an Auror like you would at least be able to figure out that your work here is done,” she said, her tone gaining the edge that she generally reserved for ‘politely’ warning her political adversaries to back off.
“But…well, what about Malfoy? Are you just going to leave him? And what about all those changes you were going to make to the Act, for Bulgaria’s sake?” he asked, following her down the hall.
“What about Malfoy? You, of ALL people, should be more than pleased that I’m leaving him behind. I have important work to get back to, Ron. Look at what happened here! The international wizarding community needs to come together so that things like this can never happen again!” Ginny said passionately, her voice breaking slightly. Ron stepped away from her, as if afraid that he would be scorched by the fire in her words. She glared at him, before she continued down the hallway, her heels clicking authoritatively on the polished floor.
“Ginny! Bloody hell, Malfoy, what the hell did you say to her?” Ron cried, spotting the blond Malfoy standing in the foyer, as if to see his guest out. His icy stare was enough to freeze a fire, but it wasn’t enough to stop the youngest Weasley when she had a mission.
“Excuse, Malfoy, but I’d like to be going now,” she said, barely meeting his eyes, as her voice took on her long-practiced, neutral tone.
“Don’t go like this, Ginny,” he said quietly, dangerously. His face was dark and there was a lot of anger in it, Ron could tell. He caught up to his sister, and stood behind her, arms crossed, hoping to seem protective. There was far more hostility in the air between the two than when there’d been back in Hogwarts, when she’d hit him with that glorious Bat-Bogey Hex.
“I’m actually rather eager to get away from this place, Malfoy. London is awaiting me, I have a lot of work to do if I’m going to get the new Cooperation Act ready to be made into Wizarding law in time,” she said with a wry smile.
“I hoped this trip helped you to consider the special case that exists in Bulgaria,” he said, echoing her cold, yet courteous tone.
“Actually, quite the contrary, Mr. Malfoy. I’m more convinced now more than ever, of the need for this kind of pact to be made by the entire international community. Dark magic is something that needs to get stopped, completely and without exception. It causes harm, no matter the intent,” she said, her words curt and clipped with a hidden anger.
“That is most unfortunate. Of course, I’m going to do whatever I can to make sure that it fails, unless those special considerations are made in Bulgaria’s case.”
“I’m afraid that this will not be possible. You almost had me, but then I opened my eyes,” she said pointedly. Ron watched with a strange fascination as his sister and former nemesis, who, not a day before, had been very familiar with each other, suddenly reverted to the formalities that he was used to seeing Ginny use on a rival politician.
“I hope you understand that I will be doing everything in my power to make sure that this does not pass, the way that is it written. I’ll come at you with everything I’ve got,” he said, his voice containing a lot of threat, and a little tinge of regret.
“I welcome it, Malfoy. The world will see reason – Dark magic is dangerous, it hurts people and it need to be stopped,” she said, before she walked out the door.
“Bugger, Malfoy! What the hell did you do to set her off like that? I thought she had finally gotten her head out of her arse about all this Ministry business, and suddenly she’s back at it! What the hell happened?” Ron demanded. Malfoy groaned, as he pressed his head against the door she’d just walked out of.
“I’ve prodded a big, scary sleeping dragon, that’s what I’ve done,” he groaned.
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