Did the stars shine brighter on the night we met
Were the blossoms sweeter in the trees
Did a songbird sing in your heart when we kissed,
Did you fall in love with me?
- Did You Fall In Love With Me, Prairie Oyster
~*~
November, 2010
Draco ran one hand over his hair and pressed the elevator button again. He debated just taking the stairs, but decided that, impatience aside, his immaculate suit wouldn’t stay that way if he ran up 5 flights. The lift doors finally slid open and Draco waited with rather bad grace as a group of teenagers piled out, flowing around him and giggling. He stepped in and punched the button for Ginny’s floor, leaning back against the rear wall as the doors slid shut and the elevator started to rise. He wasn’t late, exactly...at least, no more than 5 minutes. Maybe 10.
The lift stopped at the 5th floor, and Draco made his way to Ginny’s door. He knocked, then paced in a small circle, waiting for Ginny to answer, running his hand over his hair again, silently wishing he had a mirror. Not that he was being vain, he just had the horrible feeling that his hair was out of place. He patted it again, then tugged at the lapels of his suit jacket to straighten them. Ginny seemed to be taking an awfully long time to answer the door. He wasn't nervousper se; after all, it wasn't as though they hadn't gone out before, for coffee or gone to the park, semi-neutral meetings chaperoned by her children and a score of other people. Of course, going to the park was not the same as going to the theatre and out for dinner. And it would be the first time they'd be alone together, without the kids around. But he wasn’t nervous. Malfoys did not get nervous when picking up gorgeous women and taking them out on the town, and he was a Malfoy. Therefore, he was not nervous. Draco nodded to himself and marked out another small circle on the truly ugly carpet. Not nervous at all.
Draco was about to knock again when he heard a muffled voice on the other side of the door, then the sound of the bolt sliding back, the door opened, and he found himself face to face with Ron Weasley.
Draco froze, eyes wide. Oh shit.
Ron extended a hand, smiling. "Hi! You must be Ginny’s date. She’s almost ready, I’m her brother. Just here baby-sitting," he said.
Draco gingerly shook Ron’s hand, silently hoping he could avoid telling Ron who he actually was. For once, being almost unrecognizable as his 17-year-old self was a definite blessing. "Hello," he said cautiously, and stepped forward into the small foyer as Ron moved back to let him in.
Hermione appeared behind Ron’s back, gesturing frantically at Draco. He wasn’t sure exactly what she was after him to do, but assumed it had something to do with not revealing his true identity to Ron. Since Ron was 4 inches taller than Draco and outweighed him by a good 40 pounds, Draco figured it would be prudent to go along. He cleared his throat uncomfortably and tried not to feel like Ron was looming. "Um...is Ginny almost ready?" he asked.
"Ron, dear, why don’t you go check?" Hermione said immediately.
Ron shot his wife a look. "Why don’t you go check on her? She’s probably doing girl stuff," he said belligerently. "Makeup or hair spells or wha - oh, there you are."
Ginny appeared in the hall entrance, looking stunning in black woolen dress pants and a green turtleneck sweater. A gold pendant hung on a chain just above her breasts, and her hair was swept up in copper ringlets, with a few stray curls drifting across her forehead. "Hello! Sorry I’m running late, let me just say goodbye to the kids!" She slipped through the kitchen into the living room, and Draco heard her talking, then a chorus of young voices in reply. She came back into the kitchen and gave Hermione a quick hug. "Thanks so much for babysitting you two, just let me get my coat and we can go."
She grabbed the coat in question off the back of one of the kitchen chairs, slung her purse over her shoulder and grabbed Draco by the hand, pulling him out the door as fast as she could. She ignored Ron’s protests, and their escape was conveniently aided by a distraction from a pair of small red-headed boys who bore a startling resemblance to Ron.
Ginny waited until they’d got into the lift before bursting out: "I am so sorry! Harry decided at 5 this afternoon that he couldn’t take the kids this weekend, and I couldn’t find a sitter. I had to call Hermione, and of course she had to bring the twins with her, then when Ron found out that she was going to come sit for me, he decided to poke his great ugly nose in and tag along...I’m so sorry."
She looked distraught, and Draco touched her shoulder, smiling. "It’s alright," he said soothingly. "No harm done, he didn’t kill me. Actually, he didn’t even recognize me, and Hermione seemed quite intent to keep it that way. So we’re safe."
Ginny laughed, her face brightening. "Much as I love my brothers, they’re a bunch of nosy, overprotective brutes at times. Thank heavens this isn’t a night that Fred or George show up at Ron’s place for food, or they’d all be here. And I am sorry...I could kill Harry right about now, he always does this."
"What happened, that he couldn’t take the kids?"
"One of his players is getting married, and they’re doing the stag party tonight. I guess he figured I wouldn’t be doing anything, so I wouldn’t mind having him not take the children. Not like I have a life of my own, or anything," Ginny scowled. Then she shook her head sharply. "But I’m not going to think about it. It’ll only make me angry, and that would spoil the evening." She beamed at Draco as the lift door opened at the ground floor.
"Well, we should hurry a bit, or we’ll miss the start of the play. I must apologize too, since I was late as well," Draco replied, helping Ginny into her coat before they
stepped out into the cold.
"What are we going to see?"
"Shakespeare, the old standby. They’ve renovated the old Globe theatre, and I thought it’d be interesting to see what it’s like." Draco opened the passenger side door and handed Ginny into the car, then came around and slid into the driver’s seat. "The Merchant of Venice is playing, which I haven’t seen yet, and I didn’t think you had, so I thought we could check it out."
Ginny’s eyes lit up. "I’ve never been to a real Muggle theatre...this should be exciting!"
Draco laughed. "Well, I hope it lives up to your expectations."
~*~
Inside the apartment, Hermione and Ron had established calm amongst the children, and settled on the couch to watch them playing. Hermione was silently blessing Brendan and Adam, who like their uncles could always be counted on to provide a convenient
distraction. She leaned back and closed her eyes, hoping Ron had been sufficiently distracted. Her hopes were dashed, unfortunately.
"Hermione," Ron said slowly once he’d got his breath back. "What are you not telling me?"
"What makes you think I’m not telling you something?" she asked squeakily.
"The fact that you are studiously not mentioning the subject of Ginny’s date was my first clue," Ron replied, eyeing his wife suspiciously. "And that you, for some reason, seemed to not want me to talk to him. Now...why wouldn’t you want me to talk to this
mystery man?"
"I don’t know what you’re yammering on about!" Hermione got up from the couch and bustled into the kitchen. Ron watched her quietly, his suspicions confirmed. Hermione never fidgeted, she never squeaked, she never bustled for no reason, and she never avoided subjects. Something was up. Ron’s eyes narrowed.
"So. Let’s examine this, shall we?" Ron said, settling back into the couch and watching Hermione’s back as she made tea. "Ginny has a date with a tall, muscular, blond man who appeared out of nowhere. You know this man, or so I assume, since you were doing that talking with gestures thing behind my back - that I hate, by the way - to get him out of here before I could speak to him for any length of time. Ginny seemed determined to drag him out of here by the ear so I couldn’t talk to him. Although you seem to know him, you have never mentioned this man before, to me or to Harry, and you tell Harry and me everything. You won’t tell me his name, Ginny wouldn’t tell me his name, he didn’t tell me his name..."
"Ron - "
"No, no, don’t interrupt me! I’m going to figure this out. Let’s see. How many tall blond men do I know that I wouldn’t want my sister to date?" Ron started ticking names off on his fingers. "Chris Brown, from my office, but it wasn’t Chris, obviously. Michael Van Buren, from Foreign Magical Affairs. Nick Sorenson, who has that shop in Diagon Alley. Never met him, but he’s a blond, and any man who runs a flower shop is suspect. Doug Mackenzie, who works for Witch Weekly. Hmmm...who am I missing? Someone I haven’t seen in a long time, maybe? Since I didn’t recognize him."
Hermione sighed silently as Ron thought aloud. Ron might not be the quickest thinker she knew, but he’d work at a problem he was interested in until he’d come up with a satisfactory answer. Horribly stubborn, was her husband.
"Now who do I know who’s blond that I haven’t seen in a long time? Kip Wilkenson? No...too short to be Kip. Bob Ketchum? Although he’s married. Hmmm...." Ron sank into silence, pondering and searching his memory. Hermione eyed him warily, hoping like hell he wouldn’t make the connection.
Ron continued to spring names on her all evening, as he thought of them, or when he thought she was distracted enough that she’d answer honestly without thinking about it. Finally, after Ron followed her into the kitchen while she dried the dishes to pester
her some more, Hermione reached the end of her patience. She slammed the pot she was holding onto the counter and glared at her husband. "Ron, stop it! I am not telling you. If Ginny wanted you to know, she’d have shared that information with you."
"So you know!"
"Yes, but I am still not telling you."
Ron did his best lost-puppy face. "You mean, you’d hide something like this from your own husband? Keeping secrets from me with my own little sister? I’m hurt. Crushed. Terribly wounded."
"I’m not buying it."
"Won’t you give me even a small hint?" Ron asked pleadingly. "Please?"
"Ron..."
"Just a little one," Ron said, wrapping his arms around her waist. "Doesn’t even have to be an obvious one. Something simple, like...have I met him before?"
Hermione sighed, trying to wriggle away from him. "Ron, I meant it. If Ginny wanted you to know, she’d tell you herself."
Ron frowned and let Hermione go. "She told you, though."
"She didn’t tell me - well, alright, she did tell me, but she didn’t mean to. I sort of put two and two together when she let something slip."
"Come on Hermione. Why wouldn’t she want me to know?"
"Because if you find out, you’ll over-react."
"Me?" Ron said innocently. "Over-react? Why would I over-react?"
"Because over-reacting is what you do best, dear."
Ron looked hurt, and wandered back into the living room, flopping down on the couch to watch Jamie and the twins playing. Hermione breathed a sigh of relief and went back to doing the dishes.
Five minutes later, she turned around, a plate in hand, and bumped into Ron, who was standing right behind her. "Ron, honestly, don’t - " She started, but stopped when she saw his face. He looked murderous. "Oh dear."
"I asked Jamie."
"Oh dear."
Ron closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath, before saying, very, very quietly. "Draco Malfoy?"
"Now, Ron - "
"DRACO MALFOY?"
"Ron, keep your voice down!"
"He’s supposed to be DEAD!" Ron stomped around in a circle, waving his arms. "NOW I know why you didn’t want to tell me! That - that - that - ferret has the gall to show up here and date my sister - "
"Ron!" Hermione waved her towel at him. "It’s none of your business what Ginny does. For God’s sake, she’s an adult, in case you’ve failed to notice, and she can take care of herself."
"She’s my sister! And you knew! You knew, and actually stood there and refused to tell me! That my own sister was gadding about, slumming with some evil, back-from-the-dead, two-faced, stuck-up - "
"Why are you yelling, Uncle Ronnie?"
Ron froze, mid-sentence and turned around. Sarah was standing in the hallway entrance dressed in a frilly pink nightgown and holding a stuffed yellow bunny rabbit. "Sarah, sweetie, what are you doing up? You’re supposed to be in bed," Ron said softly.
"You woke me up. Why are you yelling?" Ron shrugged helplessly, looking to Hermione, who glared at him. Sarah padded into the kitchen and raised her arms to Ron, waiting expectantly. He finally bent down and scooped her up, and she wrapped her arms around his neck to give him a kiss, knocking his ear with her bunny rabbit. "Why are you mad?"
"Uncle Ron just found out something and he’s not very happy about it, is all," Ron said to her. He shot Hermione another pleading glance but she just frowned and shook her head, as if to say you’re on your own.
"What did you find out?"
"Well, your mommy is spending a lot of time with someone that I don’t particularly like," Ron said.
"You mean Draco?"
Ron cleared his throat. "So you’ve met him, I take it?"
"Yes. I like him," Sarah said coolly. "He’s nice."
Ron opened and closed his mouth a few times. He glanced over at Hermione, who just shrugged. "How’s he nice?"
"He buys us ice cream. He took us to the park once. And he really likes Mommy."
"And how do you know that?" Ron asked with interest. Sarah looked at him, brushing a tangled black curl off her cheek.
"I just do," she said, and bent her attention to her bunny rabbit. Ron looked at Hermione over Sarah’s head. She shook her head at him and motioned him to carry Sarah back to bed.
Ron shifted Sarah’s weight. "Well, I’m sorry I woke you up, sweetheart. How about we go back to bed, hmmm?"
"Will you stop yelling?"
"Yes, honey, I will," Ron said guiltily.
"Alright," Sarah said agreeably, and let him carry her off to the bedroom she shared with William.
Grateful for the reprieve, Hermione finished putting away the last of the dishes and went out to gather up the twins and Jamie, who were hovering near the archway to the living room and trying to pretend they weren’t listening in. "Right, you lot, time for bed for you too!"
Amidst much groaning from Brendan and Adam, and a resigned sigh from Jamie, she herded the boys into pajamas and off to their respective beds, Jamie in his own room, and the twins bunking down in Ginny’s room until it was time to take them home. Ron came to help her get everyone settled, after he’d put Sarah back to bed and checked on William, and it was half an hour before they managed to flop back down on the couch.
Ron was silent for a while, draping one long arm around Hermione’s shoulders and leaning back. She curled up against his side and rested her head against his chest, listening to him breathe. She could tell he was thinking hard about the whole Malfoy
situation, and decided to let him think himself out. When Ron finally spoke, she could hear his voice rumbling through his chest. It was comforting. "I still want to know why you didn’t tell me."
"I didn’t tell you because of exactly what you said when you did find out," Hermione replied. "Because you never liked Draco, and I knew you’d be mad."
"And why shouldn’t I be mad? Ginny going ‘round hiding things from me, dating Malfoy of all people...it’s just bizarre." Ron frowned pensively and shook his head. "I thought Malfoy was dead, anyway."
"Well, obviously not. He just left the country and let everyone think he was dead. Did you know he’s been living as a Muggle?" Hermione asked, leaning back to catch the disbelieving expression on Ron’s face. "Strange, no? I could barely credit it myself."
"That’s just...too weird to think about," Ron replied. "That...well. Sort of shakes one of the foundations of what is normal and right, doesn’t it?"
"Oh, Ron. People can change, you know," Hermione pointed out. Poking him in the chest. "We all have, including you, Mr. Calm and Cool."
Ron blushed slightly. "Yes, well, but Malfoy? A Muggle? It’s just fundamentally wrong," he said, shaking his head. He sat quietly for a few more minutes. Finally, he sighed. "D’you think Sarah’s right? That he does like her?"
Hermione shrugged. "I have no idea. I really haven’t spoken to Malfoy since he got back, and Neville says he won’t talk about it."
Ron craned his neck to look down at her. "Neville? What’s Neville got to do with it?"
"Oh, Neville and Draco are partners. They’re working together for the Ministry on some case, Neville says."
"Neville knew?" Ron sounded indignant. "Why am I always the last person to find out about these sorts of things?"
"In this case you’re not, actually. I don’t believe anyone’s mentioned it to Harry as of yet," Hermione said wryly. "And don’t you go running and tell him either, you can leave that particular task to Gin. And Neville only knew because Ginny told me she’d run into Draco, and I was worried, so I asked Neville about it. So Neville asked him, because he works with him."
"Poor Neville."
"Ron!" Hermione elbowed him in the ribs. "Neville says he’s not so bad, actually."
"He’s a git! Once a git, always a git. What I really want to know is what the hell Ginny is thinking."
Hermione snorted. "You saw him...what makes you think she’s thinking at all?"
"What, Malfoy got tall all of a sudden, and Ginny goes and falls all over him?"
"No, Malfoy got gorgeous. If he were going ‘round buying the twins ice cream and being nice to me, I’d probably throw all my thinking about the standard definitions of good and evil out the window too."
"He’s not all that," Ron grumbled.
Hermione raised an eyebrow at him. "Actually, Ron, he is all that. And a bag of crisps." She giggled as Ron scowled, and snuggled into his chest. "But all told, I think you’re much cuter."
"Well that’s something."
Hermione hummed happily, nestling her head against his shoulder. "If it makes you feel better, the girls ‘round at the library think you’re cute too."
"You talk about me with the women you work with?" Ron asked, aghast.
"Well, of course. What do you think we talk about, Quidditch?" Hermione grinned. "We talk about you. And everyone else’s husband too. So far you’re leading the poll for cutest husband in England, though Dean Thomas is running a close second." She paused thoughtfully. "Of course, I still haven’t managed to think up a subtle way to get Neville to bring Draco ‘round..."
She had to muffle her laughter so as not to wake the children when Ron pushed her off the couch.
~*~
The play, as it turned out, left a great deal to be desired. After much whispering and nudging (and enough muffled snickering to earn them glares from their neighbours), Draco and Ginny decided to leave at intermission. They stopped to eat at a tiny Italian restaurant, complete with checkered tablecloths and truly excellent food.
"So what was it that caused the reformation of Draco Malfoy?" Ginny asked, smiling at him over the plate of kahlua ice cream cake they were sharing for dessert. They had exhausted the topic of the play’s merits, or lack thereof, sometime around the middle of the meal. "Since you have reformed. No one recognizes you, and you cause awe and wonderment wherever you go."
"I don’t know about the awe and wonderment," Draco snorted. "It wasn’t any one thing, really. I guess. More a series of realizations on my part."
"Realizations?"
Draco nodded. "You know, when things happen and you really start to wonder if everything you’ve ever believed up to that point is actually true."
Ginny smiled faintly. "You mean, like an epiphany."
"More than one," Draco shrugged.
"What sort of epiphanies, then?" Ginny asked. "You don’t have to tell me - I mean, I know it’s terribly forward of me, and I’m being horribly nosy."
Draco smiled at her across the table. He wondered if she had any idea that she could ask him anything and he would tell her. Whatever he had been expecting to find when he returned to England, Ginny Potter wasn't it. She had taken him completely by surprise, and he didn’t think he could explain it if he’d tried. Hell, he had tried to explain to Neville once, after their brief and non-constructive chat in Neville’s office, but had the feeling that he’d failed miserably. It was as though spending time with Ginny was the only thing that made this whole trip worthwhile.
His attraction to her, his desire to spend all the time he could with her, his willful disregard of the fact that she was Harry Potter’s ex-wife and he was being a monumental fool to even think about having a relationship with her - he couldn’t explain those things, or didn’t want to explain them, not even to himself. He mentally shook himself. One of these days, he’d have to sit himself down and figure out what the hell he was doing, but not right now. "I think the first one came the summer after the Triwizard Championship." Ginny blinked in surprise and Draco smiled faintly at the look on her face. "When Harry and Cedric were portkeyed off to meet Lord Voldemort, and Cedric came back dead. Not because he’d done anything particularly heroic, just because he was inconvenient."
"The spare," Ginny whispered. Draco raised his eyebrows inquiringly. "Harry...he told me once, that that was what Voldemort had said to Wormtail when Wormtail killed Cedric. To ‘kill the spare’."
Draco’s lip curled. "Exactly. He was expendable, not important. At first, I was of the opinion that Cedric had got what he deserved, but over that summer, I started to realize what it would really be like under Voldemort. It used to be my goal in life, to meet Voldemort. And Cedric Diggory - brave, handsome, upstanding, fair,pure-blooded Cedric Diggory - met Lord Voldemort and died. My father used to go on and on about how wonderful it was in the ‘good old days’, and how great it would be when Voldemort returned, but after it actually happened, he was scared. Real, true, bone deep fear of what Voldemort could do. I’d never seen my father afraid of anything, but he was afraid of the Dark Lord. And it just got worse as Voldemort got more and more powerful. And I started wondering then, why on earth Lucius followed him. Then from there, wondering why on earth I should follow him. The idea looked less and less attractive every year."
"So you never became a Death Eater?"
Draco gazed at Ginny consideringly, then shrugged off his jacket and unbuttoned the cuff of his left shirtsleeve. He pushed it up and held his arm out to Ginny over the table, face impassive. There was a long scar running from his wrist almost to his elbow, silver against the pale flesh of his forearm. Ginny gasped sharply, looking from the scar to Draco’s face. "What...?"
"My father," Draco said steadily, "wanted me to take the Dark Mark the summer before seventh year. I was going to turn 18 in February, and he thought that Voldemort would let me, although I was young for it, because it would be useful to have a Hogwarts student who was bound to the Dark Lord." His mouth twitched. "I...disagreed."
"Your father did that?" Ginny asked, shocked to her core, reaching out involuntarily to touch his wrist, where the scar began.
Draco gave a little laugh and shook his head. "Most people think that the best way to slit one’s wrists is to cut across the wrist, where the veins are," he said quietly,
and drew a finger lightly across his arm, just below the heel of his hand. "But to be really effective you have to slice up the arm, deeply, in order to hit the arteries." And he traced his finger along the path of his scar.
Ginny went white. "Oh God," she whispered.
"Mother found me; one of the house elves told her, and she got to my room before I bled to death," Draco laughed softly again. "I failed quite spectacularly at what I’d intended, but I was too weak to undergo the Dark Mark that summer. Father was...rather
disappointed." Disappointed didn’t quite cover it, Draco reflected. Narcissa had later told him that while he was recovering from his wound, Lucius had calmly and steadily broken every single smashable object in the house, then repaired them with magic and calmly broken them all again. Several times. The fight that had occurred once Draco had recovered enough to get out of bed was one of his less pleasant memories. "He placed a spell on me so that I couldn’t try it again, so I made up my mind that if I had to live, then I wasn’t going to do it near him. I stayed at Hogwarts that Christmas, and left right after the war ended."
"Why? Why would you want to...to..."
"Because I didn’t think I had any other choice. I could take the Dark Mark, and get caught up in the war, and die, or be captured and get sent to Azkaban and die, or I could not take the Mark, and let Voldemort and my father realize that I wasn’t loyal to ‘The Cause’, and die. As far as I could see, my options were rather limited. If I was going to be doomed, I wanted it to be on my own terms." Draco gently removed Ginny’s fingers from his arm and pulled his sleeve back down, fastening the cuff. "A bit melodramatic, I realise, but I was only 17 at the time."
"Why didn’t you say something?" Ginny asked.
"What would I have said? And to whom?" Draco asked bitterly. "Snape was dead by then, and everyone else, from Dumbledore on down, believed that I was firmly in the Death Eater camp, that I was totally under my father’s thumb, and by extension Voldemort’s. No one would have believed me. And the very last thing I was going to do was go to any of them - go to Harry and protest my innocence and beg to be forgiven."
Ginny stared silently down at her hands folded in her lap. "You...still don’t like Harry very much, do you?" she finally asked.
"Not particularly," Draco said. "Perhaps because he’s a great, irritating git."
Ginny let out a breath that was not quite a laugh. "He’s not that bad."
"So you say," Draco said, the corner of his mouth twitching up. "You’re not exactly unbiased."
"Draco, you’re not..." Ginny stopped suddenly. She looked at him, eyes unreadable. "If I ask you something, will you answer me honestly?"
Draco cocked his head and frowned. "Of course."
"Are you doing - this - " and she waved her hand to encompass the restaurant, " - just because you know it’ll irritate him when he finds out?"
He narrowed his eyes, face shuttering. "You mean, am I using you?"
Ginny blushed, but didn’t look away. "That’s one way to put it."
"And will you believe me if I say no?"
"Are you saying no?"
Draco turned his head away sharply and took a deep breath. He turned back and caught her eyes with his, gray burning into brown. "I have spent the last two months thinking up excuses to end up in or near Barking, on the off chance I might see you, manufacturing reasons to call you so I could hear your voice. There are probably a score of people who would cheerfully string me up if I so much as look at you wrong, and surprisingly enough, I really don’t care. I am not doing this just to piss off Harry Potter." He stopped abruptly; he hadn’t meant to be quite that honest.
This time she did look away, her cheeks burning. "I’m sorry," she whispered to her hands. "It was an unfair question."
There was a long silence. "But one I can’t blame you for asking," Draco said finally.
"I’m still sorry." She raised her head and looked directly at him. "It was unfair."
"You’re the Gryffindor," Draco said, smiling. "I’ll take your word for it."
Ginny smiled back, as if relieved for the small break in tension and leaned forward to poke at the melting remains of their dessert. "Alright...shall we go for a diplomatic subject change?"
"We could. What do you want to talk about instead?"
"Um...Quidditch?"
Draco raised an eyebrow. "Don't follow it anymore."
Ginny laughed. "Don't tell anyone, but neither do I. Um...you could tell me about Canada?"
Draco leaned back and nodded thoughtfully. "I could. What do you want to know?"
"Everything," Ginny said with a grin. "I've never been to America, so you can start anywhere you like."
"Well, for starters, never call a Canadian an American, they're bite your head off," Draco said. "Canada and America are two entirely different places. Most Canadians tend to be quite fierce in their insistence on maintaining their distinction from the US."
"Really?" Ginny leaned forward and rested her chin on her hands. "I would have thought, what with them being all on the same continent, that they're basically the same."
"Well, they are. But you can't tell a Canadian that, they'll flip. Very protective of their national identity, Canadians are." Draco thought for a minute. "Canada's...big. You can literally drive for hours going east and west, and not hit the edge of a province." Draco shivered. "It's actually rather scary, to be out in the middle of nowhere and *know* that you're the only person around for literally miles and miles and miles."
"Sounds rather boring."
Draco shook his head. "No, not really. Just different. Everywhere you go in England, there’s borders. You can’t walk for any significant distance without reaching a fence or a road or a house or something, but over there you can. The RCMP training centre is in Saskatchewan, and I rather liked it there. It's pretty." He paused again. "And humbling, for lack of a better word."
Ginny raised her eyebrows. "Humbling?"
"I don't know how else to put it. It's...it's so big, and you're just a tiny little speck in the middle of this huge, huge prairie that goes on forever. It makes you feel
small and rather insignificant. It was a new experience for me," Draco said wryly. "But it is beautiful, in a way. I actually walked across probably half of Saskatchewan."
"Walked?" Ginny raised her eyebrows.
"I was hitchhiking and no one'd pick me up. It was either keep walking or starve to death on the side of the road. Walked for 2 or 3 days, I think, before someone
stopped and and gave me a lift to Regina. That was rather scary. I was getting extremely worried by that time."
"Why on earth were you hitchhiking across Saskatchewan? I don’t even think I know where Saskatchewan is" Ginny shook her head in disbelief.
"Honestly, between you and Neville, I’m going to start carrying around an atlas," Draco laughed. "Saskatchewan is in the middle of Canada, one of the three prairie provinces. It’s got a population of 2 million, which is less than the entire city of Toronto, and its principal export is wheat."
Ginny leaned back, impressed. "How do you know all this stuff?"
"Part of the test for my Canadian citizenship that I’ve never quite managed to forget. I know more boring Canadian trivia than any sane person should know. Did you know Canada didn’t actually have its own Charter of Rights until 1982?"
Ginny laughed and shook her head. "You’re a Canadian citizen?"
"Had to be, to join the RCMP," Draco said. "I like Canada. And after all, I hadn’t intended to leave, so it seemed a logical step."
"Why did you leave, then? Why’d you come back?"
Draco shrugged. "Work. We had a tag on a young man who’d been involved in some highly suspicious activities. He hooked up with another young man and the two of them shipped out for here. I did a background check, discovered that the other young
man happened to be a wizard, and a few things that hadn’t made sense became clear, so I got permission to follow, and here I am."
Ginny’s reply was interrupted by the matronly owner, bustling over with the cheque, and the thread of their conversation was lost. For most of the drive home they sat quietly; not an awkward silence, but comfortable, as though words weren’t needed. When they arrived at Ginny’s apartment block, Draco walked her up to the front door of the apartment block and waited while she dug her keys out of her purse. Once she had them in hand, she turned back to him and smiled. "Thank you so much. I had a good time."
Draco smiled back. "I did too. We should do this again. And pick a different play."
Ginny laughed delightedly. "Yes, definitely. I’d invite you upstairs, but..."
"Perfectly all right. I’d rather not have to dodge around Ron right now, anyway."
Ginny grimaced and rolled her eyes. "This part, I’m not looking forward to. If ‘Mione’s said anything, I’m sure I’m in for quite the lecture."
They stood for a moment in silence, then Draco reached out slowly and touched her cheek, turning her face up to his. He moved slowly, giving her time to back away if she wanted to, touching his lips to hers in a gentle kiss. Ginny sighed softly and leaned toward him. She wound her arms around his neck, kissing him back, her lips parting under his.
He had intended it to be a chaste goodnight kiss, a simple close to a pleasant evening, but the taste of Ginny’s mouth was intoxicating to him, and Draco was feeling anything but chaste all of a sudden. He curled one hand into the mass of curls at her neck as his other hand drifted down to rest against her waist, beneath her coat. She pressed herself against him, gasping breathlessly as his fingers slipped out of her hair, drifting along her ear and down her neck. Draco forced himself to raise his head at long last, aware that if he didn’t stop kissing her now, he never would.
Her eyelashes fluttered up, and she looked up at him with sleepy brown eyes. "Goodnight," she finally whispered huskily.
Draco took a step back, sliding her arms from around his neck and clasping her hands in both of his. "Goodnight," he replied, and raised both of her hands to his lips. She smiled and he forced himself to take another step back, and then another, letting her fingers slide through his own.
He waited until she’d unlocked the door and walked through the lobby, stopping once to turn back and wave at him through the glass door, before he turned and started back to his car.
~*~
Were the blossoms sweeter in the trees
Did a songbird sing in your heart when we kissed,
Did you fall in love with me?
- Did You Fall In Love With Me, Prairie Oyster
~*~
November, 2010
Draco ran one hand over his hair and pressed the elevator button again. He debated just taking the stairs, but decided that, impatience aside, his immaculate suit wouldn’t stay that way if he ran up 5 flights. The lift doors finally slid open and Draco waited with rather bad grace as a group of teenagers piled out, flowing around him and giggling. He stepped in and punched the button for Ginny’s floor, leaning back against the rear wall as the doors slid shut and the elevator started to rise. He wasn’t late, exactly...at least, no more than 5 minutes. Maybe 10.
The lift stopped at the 5th floor, and Draco made his way to Ginny’s door. He knocked, then paced in a small circle, waiting for Ginny to answer, running his hand over his hair again, silently wishing he had a mirror. Not that he was being vain, he just had the horrible feeling that his hair was out of place. He patted it again, then tugged at the lapels of his suit jacket to straighten them. Ginny seemed to be taking an awfully long time to answer the door. He wasn't nervousper se; after all, it wasn't as though they hadn't gone out before, for coffee or gone to the park, semi-neutral meetings chaperoned by her children and a score of other people. Of course, going to the park was not the same as going to the theatre and out for dinner. And it would be the first time they'd be alone together, without the kids around. But he wasn’t nervous. Malfoys did not get nervous when picking up gorgeous women and taking them out on the town, and he was a Malfoy. Therefore, he was not nervous. Draco nodded to himself and marked out another small circle on the truly ugly carpet. Not nervous at all.
Draco was about to knock again when he heard a muffled voice on the other side of the door, then the sound of the bolt sliding back, the door opened, and he found himself face to face with Ron Weasley.
Draco froze, eyes wide. Oh shit.
Ron extended a hand, smiling. "Hi! You must be Ginny’s date. She’s almost ready, I’m her brother. Just here baby-sitting," he said.
Draco gingerly shook Ron’s hand, silently hoping he could avoid telling Ron who he actually was. For once, being almost unrecognizable as his 17-year-old self was a definite blessing. "Hello," he said cautiously, and stepped forward into the small foyer as Ron moved back to let him in.
Hermione appeared behind Ron’s back, gesturing frantically at Draco. He wasn’t sure exactly what she was after him to do, but assumed it had something to do with not revealing his true identity to Ron. Since Ron was 4 inches taller than Draco and outweighed him by a good 40 pounds, Draco figured it would be prudent to go along. He cleared his throat uncomfortably and tried not to feel like Ron was looming. "Um...is Ginny almost ready?" he asked.
"Ron, dear, why don’t you go check?" Hermione said immediately.
Ron shot his wife a look. "Why don’t you go check on her? She’s probably doing girl stuff," he said belligerently. "Makeup or hair spells or wha - oh, there you are."
Ginny appeared in the hall entrance, looking stunning in black woolen dress pants and a green turtleneck sweater. A gold pendant hung on a chain just above her breasts, and her hair was swept up in copper ringlets, with a few stray curls drifting across her forehead. "Hello! Sorry I’m running late, let me just say goodbye to the kids!" She slipped through the kitchen into the living room, and Draco heard her talking, then a chorus of young voices in reply. She came back into the kitchen and gave Hermione a quick hug. "Thanks so much for babysitting you two, just let me get my coat and we can go."
She grabbed the coat in question off the back of one of the kitchen chairs, slung her purse over her shoulder and grabbed Draco by the hand, pulling him out the door as fast as she could. She ignored Ron’s protests, and their escape was conveniently aided by a distraction from a pair of small red-headed boys who bore a startling resemblance to Ron.
Ginny waited until they’d got into the lift before bursting out: "I am so sorry! Harry decided at 5 this afternoon that he couldn’t take the kids this weekend, and I couldn’t find a sitter. I had to call Hermione, and of course she had to bring the twins with her, then when Ron found out that she was going to come sit for me, he decided to poke his great ugly nose in and tag along...I’m so sorry."
She looked distraught, and Draco touched her shoulder, smiling. "It’s alright," he said soothingly. "No harm done, he didn’t kill me. Actually, he didn’t even recognize me, and Hermione seemed quite intent to keep it that way. So we’re safe."
Ginny laughed, her face brightening. "Much as I love my brothers, they’re a bunch of nosy, overprotective brutes at times. Thank heavens this isn’t a night that Fred or George show up at Ron’s place for food, or they’d all be here. And I am sorry...I could kill Harry right about now, he always does this."
"What happened, that he couldn’t take the kids?"
"One of his players is getting married, and they’re doing the stag party tonight. I guess he figured I wouldn’t be doing anything, so I wouldn’t mind having him not take the children. Not like I have a life of my own, or anything," Ginny scowled. Then she shook her head sharply. "But I’m not going to think about it. It’ll only make me angry, and that would spoil the evening." She beamed at Draco as the lift door opened at the ground floor.
"Well, we should hurry a bit, or we’ll miss the start of the play. I must apologize too, since I was late as well," Draco replied, helping Ginny into her coat before they
stepped out into the cold.
"What are we going to see?"
"Shakespeare, the old standby. They’ve renovated the old Globe theatre, and I thought it’d be interesting to see what it’s like." Draco opened the passenger side door and handed Ginny into the car, then came around and slid into the driver’s seat. "The Merchant of Venice is playing, which I haven’t seen yet, and I didn’t think you had, so I thought we could check it out."
Ginny’s eyes lit up. "I’ve never been to a real Muggle theatre...this should be exciting!"
Draco laughed. "Well, I hope it lives up to your expectations."
~*~
Inside the apartment, Hermione and Ron had established calm amongst the children, and settled on the couch to watch them playing. Hermione was silently blessing Brendan and Adam, who like their uncles could always be counted on to provide a convenient
distraction. She leaned back and closed her eyes, hoping Ron had been sufficiently distracted. Her hopes were dashed, unfortunately.
"Hermione," Ron said slowly once he’d got his breath back. "What are you not telling me?"
"What makes you think I’m not telling you something?" she asked squeakily.
"The fact that you are studiously not mentioning the subject of Ginny’s date was my first clue," Ron replied, eyeing his wife suspiciously. "And that you, for some reason, seemed to not want me to talk to him. Now...why wouldn’t you want me to talk to this
mystery man?"
"I don’t know what you’re yammering on about!" Hermione got up from the couch and bustled into the kitchen. Ron watched her quietly, his suspicions confirmed. Hermione never fidgeted, she never squeaked, she never bustled for no reason, and she never avoided subjects. Something was up. Ron’s eyes narrowed.
"So. Let’s examine this, shall we?" Ron said, settling back into the couch and watching Hermione’s back as she made tea. "Ginny has a date with a tall, muscular, blond man who appeared out of nowhere. You know this man, or so I assume, since you were doing that talking with gestures thing behind my back - that I hate, by the way - to get him out of here before I could speak to him for any length of time. Ginny seemed determined to drag him out of here by the ear so I couldn’t talk to him. Although you seem to know him, you have never mentioned this man before, to me or to Harry, and you tell Harry and me everything. You won’t tell me his name, Ginny wouldn’t tell me his name, he didn’t tell me his name..."
"Ron - "
"No, no, don’t interrupt me! I’m going to figure this out. Let’s see. How many tall blond men do I know that I wouldn’t want my sister to date?" Ron started ticking names off on his fingers. "Chris Brown, from my office, but it wasn’t Chris, obviously. Michael Van Buren, from Foreign Magical Affairs. Nick Sorenson, who has that shop in Diagon Alley. Never met him, but he’s a blond, and any man who runs a flower shop is suspect. Doug Mackenzie, who works for Witch Weekly. Hmmm...who am I missing? Someone I haven’t seen in a long time, maybe? Since I didn’t recognize him."
Hermione sighed silently as Ron thought aloud. Ron might not be the quickest thinker she knew, but he’d work at a problem he was interested in until he’d come up with a satisfactory answer. Horribly stubborn, was her husband.
"Now who do I know who’s blond that I haven’t seen in a long time? Kip Wilkenson? No...too short to be Kip. Bob Ketchum? Although he’s married. Hmmm...." Ron sank into silence, pondering and searching his memory. Hermione eyed him warily, hoping like hell he wouldn’t make the connection.
Ron continued to spring names on her all evening, as he thought of them, or when he thought she was distracted enough that she’d answer honestly without thinking about it. Finally, after Ron followed her into the kitchen while she dried the dishes to pester
her some more, Hermione reached the end of her patience. She slammed the pot she was holding onto the counter and glared at her husband. "Ron, stop it! I am not telling you. If Ginny wanted you to know, she’d have shared that information with you."
"So you know!"
"Yes, but I am still not telling you."
Ron did his best lost-puppy face. "You mean, you’d hide something like this from your own husband? Keeping secrets from me with my own little sister? I’m hurt. Crushed. Terribly wounded."
"I’m not buying it."
"Won’t you give me even a small hint?" Ron asked pleadingly. "Please?"
"Ron..."
"Just a little one," Ron said, wrapping his arms around her waist. "Doesn’t even have to be an obvious one. Something simple, like...have I met him before?"
Hermione sighed, trying to wriggle away from him. "Ron, I meant it. If Ginny wanted you to know, she’d tell you herself."
Ron frowned and let Hermione go. "She told you, though."
"She didn’t tell me - well, alright, she did tell me, but she didn’t mean to. I sort of put two and two together when she let something slip."
"Come on Hermione. Why wouldn’t she want me to know?"
"Because if you find out, you’ll over-react."
"Me?" Ron said innocently. "Over-react? Why would I over-react?"
"Because over-reacting is what you do best, dear."
Ron looked hurt, and wandered back into the living room, flopping down on the couch to watch Jamie and the twins playing. Hermione breathed a sigh of relief and went back to doing the dishes.
Five minutes later, she turned around, a plate in hand, and bumped into Ron, who was standing right behind her. "Ron, honestly, don’t - " She started, but stopped when she saw his face. He looked murderous. "Oh dear."
"I asked Jamie."
"Oh dear."
Ron closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath, before saying, very, very quietly. "Draco Malfoy?"
"Now, Ron - "
"DRACO MALFOY?"
"Ron, keep your voice down!"
"He’s supposed to be DEAD!" Ron stomped around in a circle, waving his arms. "NOW I know why you didn’t want to tell me! That - that - that - ferret has the gall to show up here and date my sister - "
"Ron!" Hermione waved her towel at him. "It’s none of your business what Ginny does. For God’s sake, she’s an adult, in case you’ve failed to notice, and she can take care of herself."
"She’s my sister! And you knew! You knew, and actually stood there and refused to tell me! That my own sister was gadding about, slumming with some evil, back-from-the-dead, two-faced, stuck-up - "
"Why are you yelling, Uncle Ronnie?"
Ron froze, mid-sentence and turned around. Sarah was standing in the hallway entrance dressed in a frilly pink nightgown and holding a stuffed yellow bunny rabbit. "Sarah, sweetie, what are you doing up? You’re supposed to be in bed," Ron said softly.
"You woke me up. Why are you yelling?" Ron shrugged helplessly, looking to Hermione, who glared at him. Sarah padded into the kitchen and raised her arms to Ron, waiting expectantly. He finally bent down and scooped her up, and she wrapped her arms around his neck to give him a kiss, knocking his ear with her bunny rabbit. "Why are you mad?"
"Uncle Ron just found out something and he’s not very happy about it, is all," Ron said to her. He shot Hermione another pleading glance but she just frowned and shook her head, as if to say you’re on your own.
"What did you find out?"
"Well, your mommy is spending a lot of time with someone that I don’t particularly like," Ron said.
"You mean Draco?"
Ron cleared his throat. "So you’ve met him, I take it?"
"Yes. I like him," Sarah said coolly. "He’s nice."
Ron opened and closed his mouth a few times. He glanced over at Hermione, who just shrugged. "How’s he nice?"
"He buys us ice cream. He took us to the park once. And he really likes Mommy."
"And how do you know that?" Ron asked with interest. Sarah looked at him, brushing a tangled black curl off her cheek.
"I just do," she said, and bent her attention to her bunny rabbit. Ron looked at Hermione over Sarah’s head. She shook her head at him and motioned him to carry Sarah back to bed.
Ron shifted Sarah’s weight. "Well, I’m sorry I woke you up, sweetheart. How about we go back to bed, hmmm?"
"Will you stop yelling?"
"Yes, honey, I will," Ron said guiltily.
"Alright," Sarah said agreeably, and let him carry her off to the bedroom she shared with William.
Grateful for the reprieve, Hermione finished putting away the last of the dishes and went out to gather up the twins and Jamie, who were hovering near the archway to the living room and trying to pretend they weren’t listening in. "Right, you lot, time for bed for you too!"
Amidst much groaning from Brendan and Adam, and a resigned sigh from Jamie, she herded the boys into pajamas and off to their respective beds, Jamie in his own room, and the twins bunking down in Ginny’s room until it was time to take them home. Ron came to help her get everyone settled, after he’d put Sarah back to bed and checked on William, and it was half an hour before they managed to flop back down on the couch.
Ron was silent for a while, draping one long arm around Hermione’s shoulders and leaning back. She curled up against his side and rested her head against his chest, listening to him breathe. She could tell he was thinking hard about the whole Malfoy
situation, and decided to let him think himself out. When Ron finally spoke, she could hear his voice rumbling through his chest. It was comforting. "I still want to know why you didn’t tell me."
"I didn’t tell you because of exactly what you said when you did find out," Hermione replied. "Because you never liked Draco, and I knew you’d be mad."
"And why shouldn’t I be mad? Ginny going ‘round hiding things from me, dating Malfoy of all people...it’s just bizarre." Ron frowned pensively and shook his head. "I thought Malfoy was dead, anyway."
"Well, obviously not. He just left the country and let everyone think he was dead. Did you know he’s been living as a Muggle?" Hermione asked, leaning back to catch the disbelieving expression on Ron’s face. "Strange, no? I could barely credit it myself."
"That’s just...too weird to think about," Ron replied. "That...well. Sort of shakes one of the foundations of what is normal and right, doesn’t it?"
"Oh, Ron. People can change, you know," Hermione pointed out. Poking him in the chest. "We all have, including you, Mr. Calm and Cool."
Ron blushed slightly. "Yes, well, but Malfoy? A Muggle? It’s just fundamentally wrong," he said, shaking his head. He sat quietly for a few more minutes. Finally, he sighed. "D’you think Sarah’s right? That he does like her?"
Hermione shrugged. "I have no idea. I really haven’t spoken to Malfoy since he got back, and Neville says he won’t talk about it."
Ron craned his neck to look down at her. "Neville? What’s Neville got to do with it?"
"Oh, Neville and Draco are partners. They’re working together for the Ministry on some case, Neville says."
"Neville knew?" Ron sounded indignant. "Why am I always the last person to find out about these sorts of things?"
"In this case you’re not, actually. I don’t believe anyone’s mentioned it to Harry as of yet," Hermione said wryly. "And don’t you go running and tell him either, you can leave that particular task to Gin. And Neville only knew because Ginny told me she’d run into Draco, and I was worried, so I asked Neville about it. So Neville asked him, because he works with him."
"Poor Neville."
"Ron!" Hermione elbowed him in the ribs. "Neville says he’s not so bad, actually."
"He’s a git! Once a git, always a git. What I really want to know is what the hell Ginny is thinking."
Hermione snorted. "You saw him...what makes you think she’s thinking at all?"
"What, Malfoy got tall all of a sudden, and Ginny goes and falls all over him?"
"No, Malfoy got gorgeous. If he were going ‘round buying the twins ice cream and being nice to me, I’d probably throw all my thinking about the standard definitions of good and evil out the window too."
"He’s not all that," Ron grumbled.
Hermione raised an eyebrow at him. "Actually, Ron, he is all that. And a bag of crisps." She giggled as Ron scowled, and snuggled into his chest. "But all told, I think you’re much cuter."
"Well that’s something."
Hermione hummed happily, nestling her head against his shoulder. "If it makes you feel better, the girls ‘round at the library think you’re cute too."
"You talk about me with the women you work with?" Ron asked, aghast.
"Well, of course. What do you think we talk about, Quidditch?" Hermione grinned. "We talk about you. And everyone else’s husband too. So far you’re leading the poll for cutest husband in England, though Dean Thomas is running a close second." She paused thoughtfully. "Of course, I still haven’t managed to think up a subtle way to get Neville to bring Draco ‘round..."
She had to muffle her laughter so as not to wake the children when Ron pushed her off the couch.
~*~
The play, as it turned out, left a great deal to be desired. After much whispering and nudging (and enough muffled snickering to earn them glares from their neighbours), Draco and Ginny decided to leave at intermission. They stopped to eat at a tiny Italian restaurant, complete with checkered tablecloths and truly excellent food.
"So what was it that caused the reformation of Draco Malfoy?" Ginny asked, smiling at him over the plate of kahlua ice cream cake they were sharing for dessert. They had exhausted the topic of the play’s merits, or lack thereof, sometime around the middle of the meal. "Since you have reformed. No one recognizes you, and you cause awe and wonderment wherever you go."
"I don’t know about the awe and wonderment," Draco snorted. "It wasn’t any one thing, really. I guess. More a series of realizations on my part."
"Realizations?"
Draco nodded. "You know, when things happen and you really start to wonder if everything you’ve ever believed up to that point is actually true."
Ginny smiled faintly. "You mean, like an epiphany."
"More than one," Draco shrugged.
"What sort of epiphanies, then?" Ginny asked. "You don’t have to tell me - I mean, I know it’s terribly forward of me, and I’m being horribly nosy."
Draco smiled at her across the table. He wondered if she had any idea that she could ask him anything and he would tell her. Whatever he had been expecting to find when he returned to England, Ginny Potter wasn't it. She had taken him completely by surprise, and he didn’t think he could explain it if he’d tried. Hell, he had tried to explain to Neville once, after their brief and non-constructive chat in Neville’s office, but had the feeling that he’d failed miserably. It was as though spending time with Ginny was the only thing that made this whole trip worthwhile.
His attraction to her, his desire to spend all the time he could with her, his willful disregard of the fact that she was Harry Potter’s ex-wife and he was being a monumental fool to even think about having a relationship with her - he couldn’t explain those things, or didn’t want to explain them, not even to himself. He mentally shook himself. One of these days, he’d have to sit himself down and figure out what the hell he was doing, but not right now. "I think the first one came the summer after the Triwizard Championship." Ginny blinked in surprise and Draco smiled faintly at the look on her face. "When Harry and Cedric were portkeyed off to meet Lord Voldemort, and Cedric came back dead. Not because he’d done anything particularly heroic, just because he was inconvenient."
"The spare," Ginny whispered. Draco raised his eyebrows inquiringly. "Harry...he told me once, that that was what Voldemort had said to Wormtail when Wormtail killed Cedric. To ‘kill the spare’."
Draco’s lip curled. "Exactly. He was expendable, not important. At first, I was of the opinion that Cedric had got what he deserved, but over that summer, I started to realize what it would really be like under Voldemort. It used to be my goal in life, to meet Voldemort. And Cedric Diggory - brave, handsome, upstanding, fair,pure-blooded Cedric Diggory - met Lord Voldemort and died. My father used to go on and on about how wonderful it was in the ‘good old days’, and how great it would be when Voldemort returned, but after it actually happened, he was scared. Real, true, bone deep fear of what Voldemort could do. I’d never seen my father afraid of anything, but he was afraid of the Dark Lord. And it just got worse as Voldemort got more and more powerful. And I started wondering then, why on earth Lucius followed him. Then from there, wondering why on earth I should follow him. The idea looked less and less attractive every year."
"So you never became a Death Eater?"
Draco gazed at Ginny consideringly, then shrugged off his jacket and unbuttoned the cuff of his left shirtsleeve. He pushed it up and held his arm out to Ginny over the table, face impassive. There was a long scar running from his wrist almost to his elbow, silver against the pale flesh of his forearm. Ginny gasped sharply, looking from the scar to Draco’s face. "What...?"
"My father," Draco said steadily, "wanted me to take the Dark Mark the summer before seventh year. I was going to turn 18 in February, and he thought that Voldemort would let me, although I was young for it, because it would be useful to have a Hogwarts student who was bound to the Dark Lord." His mouth twitched. "I...disagreed."
"Your father did that?" Ginny asked, shocked to her core, reaching out involuntarily to touch his wrist, where the scar began.
Draco gave a little laugh and shook his head. "Most people think that the best way to slit one’s wrists is to cut across the wrist, where the veins are," he said quietly,
and drew a finger lightly across his arm, just below the heel of his hand. "But to be really effective you have to slice up the arm, deeply, in order to hit the arteries." And he traced his finger along the path of his scar.
Ginny went white. "Oh God," she whispered.
"Mother found me; one of the house elves told her, and she got to my room before I bled to death," Draco laughed softly again. "I failed quite spectacularly at what I’d intended, but I was too weak to undergo the Dark Mark that summer. Father was...rather
disappointed." Disappointed didn’t quite cover it, Draco reflected. Narcissa had later told him that while he was recovering from his wound, Lucius had calmly and steadily broken every single smashable object in the house, then repaired them with magic and calmly broken them all again. Several times. The fight that had occurred once Draco had recovered enough to get out of bed was one of his less pleasant memories. "He placed a spell on me so that I couldn’t try it again, so I made up my mind that if I had to live, then I wasn’t going to do it near him. I stayed at Hogwarts that Christmas, and left right after the war ended."
"Why? Why would you want to...to..."
"Because I didn’t think I had any other choice. I could take the Dark Mark, and get caught up in the war, and die, or be captured and get sent to Azkaban and die, or I could not take the Mark, and let Voldemort and my father realize that I wasn’t loyal to ‘The Cause’, and die. As far as I could see, my options were rather limited. If I was going to be doomed, I wanted it to be on my own terms." Draco gently removed Ginny’s fingers from his arm and pulled his sleeve back down, fastening the cuff. "A bit melodramatic, I realise, but I was only 17 at the time."
"Why didn’t you say something?" Ginny asked.
"What would I have said? And to whom?" Draco asked bitterly. "Snape was dead by then, and everyone else, from Dumbledore on down, believed that I was firmly in the Death Eater camp, that I was totally under my father’s thumb, and by extension Voldemort’s. No one would have believed me. And the very last thing I was going to do was go to any of them - go to Harry and protest my innocence and beg to be forgiven."
Ginny stared silently down at her hands folded in her lap. "You...still don’t like Harry very much, do you?" she finally asked.
"Not particularly," Draco said. "Perhaps because he’s a great, irritating git."
Ginny let out a breath that was not quite a laugh. "He’s not that bad."
"So you say," Draco said, the corner of his mouth twitching up. "You’re not exactly unbiased."
"Draco, you’re not..." Ginny stopped suddenly. She looked at him, eyes unreadable. "If I ask you something, will you answer me honestly?"
Draco cocked his head and frowned. "Of course."
"Are you doing - this - " and she waved her hand to encompass the restaurant, " - just because you know it’ll irritate him when he finds out?"
He narrowed his eyes, face shuttering. "You mean, am I using you?"
Ginny blushed, but didn’t look away. "That’s one way to put it."
"And will you believe me if I say no?"
"Are you saying no?"
Draco turned his head away sharply and took a deep breath. He turned back and caught her eyes with his, gray burning into brown. "I have spent the last two months thinking up excuses to end up in or near Barking, on the off chance I might see you, manufacturing reasons to call you so I could hear your voice. There are probably a score of people who would cheerfully string me up if I so much as look at you wrong, and surprisingly enough, I really don’t care. I am not doing this just to piss off Harry Potter." He stopped abruptly; he hadn’t meant to be quite that honest.
This time she did look away, her cheeks burning. "I’m sorry," she whispered to her hands. "It was an unfair question."
There was a long silence. "But one I can’t blame you for asking," Draco said finally.
"I’m still sorry." She raised her head and looked directly at him. "It was unfair."
"You’re the Gryffindor," Draco said, smiling. "I’ll take your word for it."
Ginny smiled back, as if relieved for the small break in tension and leaned forward to poke at the melting remains of their dessert. "Alright...shall we go for a diplomatic subject change?"
"We could. What do you want to talk about instead?"
"Um...Quidditch?"
Draco raised an eyebrow. "Don't follow it anymore."
Ginny laughed. "Don't tell anyone, but neither do I. Um...you could tell me about Canada?"
Draco leaned back and nodded thoughtfully. "I could. What do you want to know?"
"Everything," Ginny said with a grin. "I've never been to America, so you can start anywhere you like."
"Well, for starters, never call a Canadian an American, they're bite your head off," Draco said. "Canada and America are two entirely different places. Most Canadians tend to be quite fierce in their insistence on maintaining their distinction from the US."
"Really?" Ginny leaned forward and rested her chin on her hands. "I would have thought, what with them being all on the same continent, that they're basically the same."
"Well, they are. But you can't tell a Canadian that, they'll flip. Very protective of their national identity, Canadians are." Draco thought for a minute. "Canada's...big. You can literally drive for hours going east and west, and not hit the edge of a province." Draco shivered. "It's actually rather scary, to be out in the middle of nowhere and *know* that you're the only person around for literally miles and miles and miles."
"Sounds rather boring."
Draco shook his head. "No, not really. Just different. Everywhere you go in England, there’s borders. You can’t walk for any significant distance without reaching a fence or a road or a house or something, but over there you can. The RCMP training centre is in Saskatchewan, and I rather liked it there. It's pretty." He paused again. "And humbling, for lack of a better word."
Ginny raised her eyebrows. "Humbling?"
"I don't know how else to put it. It's...it's so big, and you're just a tiny little speck in the middle of this huge, huge prairie that goes on forever. It makes you feel
small and rather insignificant. It was a new experience for me," Draco said wryly. "But it is beautiful, in a way. I actually walked across probably half of Saskatchewan."
"Walked?" Ginny raised her eyebrows.
"I was hitchhiking and no one'd pick me up. It was either keep walking or starve to death on the side of the road. Walked for 2 or 3 days, I think, before someone
stopped and and gave me a lift to Regina. That was rather scary. I was getting extremely worried by that time."
"Why on earth were you hitchhiking across Saskatchewan? I don’t even think I know where Saskatchewan is" Ginny shook her head in disbelief.
"Honestly, between you and Neville, I’m going to start carrying around an atlas," Draco laughed. "Saskatchewan is in the middle of Canada, one of the three prairie provinces. It’s got a population of 2 million, which is less than the entire city of Toronto, and its principal export is wheat."
Ginny leaned back, impressed. "How do you know all this stuff?"
"Part of the test for my Canadian citizenship that I’ve never quite managed to forget. I know more boring Canadian trivia than any sane person should know. Did you know Canada didn’t actually have its own Charter of Rights until 1982?"
Ginny laughed and shook her head. "You’re a Canadian citizen?"
"Had to be, to join the RCMP," Draco said. "I like Canada. And after all, I hadn’t intended to leave, so it seemed a logical step."
"Why did you leave, then? Why’d you come back?"
Draco shrugged. "Work. We had a tag on a young man who’d been involved in some highly suspicious activities. He hooked up with another young man and the two of them shipped out for here. I did a background check, discovered that the other young
man happened to be a wizard, and a few things that hadn’t made sense became clear, so I got permission to follow, and here I am."
Ginny’s reply was interrupted by the matronly owner, bustling over with the cheque, and the thread of their conversation was lost. For most of the drive home they sat quietly; not an awkward silence, but comfortable, as though words weren’t needed. When they arrived at Ginny’s apartment block, Draco walked her up to the front door of the apartment block and waited while she dug her keys out of her purse. Once she had them in hand, she turned back to him and smiled. "Thank you so much. I had a good time."
Draco smiled back. "I did too. We should do this again. And pick a different play."
Ginny laughed delightedly. "Yes, definitely. I’d invite you upstairs, but..."
"Perfectly all right. I’d rather not have to dodge around Ron right now, anyway."
Ginny grimaced and rolled her eyes. "This part, I’m not looking forward to. If ‘Mione’s said anything, I’m sure I’m in for quite the lecture."
They stood for a moment in silence, then Draco reached out slowly and touched her cheek, turning her face up to his. He moved slowly, giving her time to back away if she wanted to, touching his lips to hers in a gentle kiss. Ginny sighed softly and leaned toward him. She wound her arms around his neck, kissing him back, her lips parting under his.
He had intended it to be a chaste goodnight kiss, a simple close to a pleasant evening, but the taste of Ginny’s mouth was intoxicating to him, and Draco was feeling anything but chaste all of a sudden. He curled one hand into the mass of curls at her neck as his other hand drifted down to rest against her waist, beneath her coat. She pressed herself against him, gasping breathlessly as his fingers slipped out of her hair, drifting along her ear and down her neck. Draco forced himself to raise his head at long last, aware that if he didn’t stop kissing her now, he never would.
Her eyelashes fluttered up, and she looked up at him with sleepy brown eyes. "Goodnight," she finally whispered huskily.
Draco took a step back, sliding her arms from around his neck and clasping her hands in both of his. "Goodnight," he replied, and raised both of her hands to his lips. She smiled and he forced himself to take another step back, and then another, letting her fingers slide through his own.
He waited until she’d unlocked the door and walked through the lobby, stopping once to turn back and wave at him through the glass door, before he turned and started back to his car.
~*~
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