“Ginny.” There was a whisper and a low thud as her mind tried to center itself on reality again. “Ginny, please be okay.”
I'm going to die now. Despite her shallow and panicked breathing, her body refused to comply with her mind. For some reason her body was insisting that she fight to live. She could feel the tears leaving tracks through the dirt on her face as the blinding-white pain that was too great to comprehend washed through her body.
“I'm gonna pick you up, okay? It's going to hurt, but I have to get you inside so we can get you better, okay?”
Ginny tried to open her eyes, but all she saw was Victorine's form, still as stone, sprawled where she had fallen.
“I want you to put your arms around my neck so you don't fall, Ginny. Can you do that for me?”
It was Malfoy. Why was he talking to her, she wondered. Shouldn't he be in the cottage, pouting because she wasn't fixing his dinner? The only noise she could make in response was a small gurgle.
“I'm going to take that as a yes,” he told her, and she thought she could detect panic in his voice.
He pushed his arms underneath her body and rolled her to her side, and Ginny's vision went dark again, although she was certain her eyes were still open. He was pressing against her back and once more she could feel hot tears falling down her face. No! she wanted to tell him. Just leave me here and let me die.
“I know it hurts. I need you to put your arms around my neck.” It was getting harder to concentrate on his voice; he sounded so far away.
Draco pressed on, placing one arm under her legs and apologizing profusely as his other arm secured itself underneath her back. He was ignoring her silent pleas for death that grew more desperate with each step he took across the yard. Despite the pain, she felt weightless in his arms, and again hoped she would die sooner rather than later.
He carefully placed her on her stomach and she could feel him staring at the wounds on her back. The pain was so consuming that her body did the only thing it could to survive – she was going into a state of false numbness and her mind refused to focus on anything for more than a short moment, which almost tricked her into forgetting about it.
As her vision came back, she could make out clean rags, his week's worth of drinking water and the soap she had made all laying beside his bed. He had laid her on his bed.
“I have to get your shirt off, okay?” he whispered to her.
He carefully lifted the shirt from the wounds on her back, and she felt him cringe when she let out a choking sob. “Lift up just a little and we can get it off,” he told her.
She did as he asked and he lifted it over her head, tossing it to the floor. He let out an audible groan and she knew that they were as bad as they felt. She was going to have horribly thick, ropey scars crisscrossing the skin of her back and arms.
“Gin, I'm gonna start cleaning them, okay? It might hurt a little, but it's gonna be okay.”
“Hold my hand,” she croaked.
“I,” he started to say. “Okay.” He allowed her to grip one hand tightly as he used his free hand to pour a small measure of water over her back. She could feel the water stinging its way into her open wounds. She felt his one handed movements, gently rubbing soap into the lash marks.
Pain ripped through her again and a loud cry exploded from her throat.
“I'm sorry,” he whispered. “I know it hurts and I'm so, so sorry.”
Silent tears slipped from Ginny's eyes, but she managed to look up long enough to focus on him. “Please don't. Just let me die.”
“No,” he hissed and Ginny saw a tear fall from his own eye, mixing with the soap on her back.
A high-pitched wail filled all the empty spaces in the small room, momentarily distracting Ginny from her own pain. “I have to go out there! Please let me go to my sister,” Jeanne-Marie cried. “I have to see if she's okay!”
Suddenly Tyger was kneeling before Ginny, her eyes carefully averted from Ginny's back. “Ginny baby,” she crooned, holding up a sludgy yellow liquid. “Is that what I should give her?”
It took all her will to focus on the bottle before her and nod, as Draco's fingers worked the exposed lesions on her back.
“I'm going to move you closer to the fire,” he told her as he rinsed the soap from her skin, his voice low and rough, “so you can dry. I'm sorry if it hurts you.”
“I can walk,” she tried to tell him, her voice brittle as if she hadn't used it in years.
But she couldn't even push herself out of the bed.
Draco lifted her, and despite everything, Ginny wondered if she should be humiliated she had no top on. Maybe if it had been months ago, back when she'd thought nothing of the three meals a day she was served and she actually had something to fill out her bra with, then she would have been more humiliated. She felt as flat chested as Draco, so she let him half carry, half drag her to the fireplace.
“I'm sorry,” he whispered in her ear so that only she could hear as he eased both of them to the floor. “I don't mean to hurt you.”
“Tyger,” she heard him say, “can you get a clean blanket?”
She felt something gently being draped over her back, and she motioned for Tyger. “Give me the rest of that potion,” she managed to choke out.
She gagged as the slippery yellow liquid went down her throat, but sleep took over too quickly to think about it.
*~*
For three days, Draco insisted that Ginny lay in her cot still and unmoving while he tended to things. “Draco,” she said crossly, “I think I can get up and help you with dinner.” Her back still hurt terribly, but the boredom of laying face down in her cot all day overshadowed that.
“Nope,” he shook his head. “I've got it.”
“Where's Tyger? She should be helping you.”
“She is helping. She's got the kids outside. It's a nice day.”
“As in not snowing?”
“Exactly.”
“What day is it?”
Draco looked up from the cauldron where he was attempting to cook dinner for everyone. “Um, February 23rd.”
“How do you know?”
“I've just kept track of the days.”
“Hmmmm.” Ginny wondered how he managed to do it when she could barely tell one day from the next.
“I'm glad you're speaking to me,” he told her, avoiding her gaze.
“I've spoke to you since you arrived.”
“But you always called me Malfoy,” he pointed out. “And now you remembered that I have a first name.”
If Ginny didn't know any better, she would have thought the curve in Draco's lips meant he was smiling. “Don't be ridiculous,” she told him. “I've always known your first name.”
*~*
Queens didn't spend all day and night there like Zipes did, which gave Ginny a small measure of pleasure, in spite of everything that was going on around them. She showed up on occasion, terrorizing them with her anger and harsh words, but mostly she was gone. In the month that had passed since her back had been ripped to shreds, Ginny had slowly recovered enough to resume her place as mother of the cottage. Her back hurt, no doubt. The scars that were forming were tender and tight, making it hard to stand up straight, but she did, knowing she needed to stretch her new skin so that she wouldn't end up crooked.
She still hadn't found the proper words to tell Draco thank you for everything he'd done. He'd taken care of her, taken care of the children... It was far more than she'd ever expected from him. But thanking him was hard. Every time it was on the tip of her tongue to tell him how much she appreciated it, he would make some sarcastic comment and she changed her mind.
He would be doing something useful, like searching for edible plants or creating rabbit traps, and she would start to speak, ready to let him know that she was grateful for all his help, but he didn't want to hear it.
“Draco?”
“What?” he demanded, his tone always carrying a sharp edge.
“I just wanted to let you know that I-”
“Weasley. Do you mind? I'm trying to work here.”
Ginny finally decided that he didn't want to be thanked. He wouldn't know how to accept it.
That night at dinner, Jeanne-Marie was more subdued than normal. Not that Ginny could blame her – her twin was gone. Draco and Wilhelm had dug a hole at the very edge of their boundaries to bury Victorine in. Jeanne-Marie spent every day there, crying as she stretched her small body across the fresh grave.
Ginny knew something was wrong, but she couldn't quite pinpoint what it was. Even with Queens gone that day, it had still felt wrong.
And then Jeanne-Marie fainted away while eating.
“No,” Wilhelm gasped, dropping his bowl and scooting to where Jeanne-Marie now lay. “She was touching those leaves.”
“What leaves?” Draco asked sharply.
“That Venohex.” Wilhelm said, grimacing. “She said you told her not to touch them.”
Ginny forgot about her own dinner as she crawled to where Jeanne-Marie lay. There were torn bits of a Venohex leaf floating in her stew. She picked up her wrist, and then pressed her ear to her chest. “She's gone.” She bit her lip and looked blankly at the room. “Merlin, she's gone.”
Draco was the one who finally moved Jeanne-Marie's body outside that night, burying her next to her twin. Ginny helped him wash the dirt from his hands as best she could when he returned, hours later.
When they woke the next morning, Tyger was gone, as if she had never been at the cottage to begin with.
“Leave me alone,” Ginny whispered, when Draco tried to talk to her.
“Stop this,” he hissed. “What about Wilhelm?”
Ginny glanced across the room at the boy who was sleeping. “What about him?”
“Aren't you supposed to be the one taking care of us?” he snapped.
Before Ginny could think up a reply, he shook his head.
“I didn't mean that,” he said quickly.
She wondered if his body ran on auto-pilot sometimes, saying hateful things when he didn't mean them.
“Be strong, please,” he begged. “Even if it's just for him.”
“What about you?” she shot back.
“I'm trying,” he told her, “but I don't know if I can be strong enough for the two of us.”
But when Queens came for Wilhelm, Ginny could stand it no more.
“Let him go,” she screamed, rushing the woman. Ginny didn't slow down, even as Queens aimed her wand at her.
And when she awoke, she was alone, inside a small room. There was a cot and a fire, but that was all.
“Ginny?”
She bit her lip, glancing around the small room. There was a tiny window at the top of her room, too small to be of any use, except for letting a small, gray stream of sunlight in. Her head hurt.
“Ginny? Please.”
The walls were the same faded yellow colour of the cottage walls. There was a cot, similar to what she was used to sleeping on, but far more blankets than she'd seen in a while.
“Damn it, answer me. Ginny!”
She climbed onto the cot, her head pounding, and slept.
“Ginny?”
When she woke her head still hurt, but she could focus enough to see a heavy wooden door. Her head spinning as if she'd drank several bottles of wine, she let herself fall out of the cot and crawled to the door.
“Who is it?” she croaked, pressing her hand into the door.
“Ginny! Merlin, is that you?”
“Draco?” Her head was still spinning.
“It's me. Are you alright?” She recognized Draco's voice, but the compassion and concern she heard felt foreign.
“I'm tired,” she whispered. “And everyone is gone.”
“I'm still here. Listen to me, Ginny. Do you have any food in there?”
“I don't know.” Why, she wondered, was Draco Malfoy still talking to her? She wanted to sleep. That was all. Not live, not fight, not survive, she just wanted to sleep.
“Ginny, talk to me!”
When she woke again, her face was pressed into a cold hearth, and she was shivering so hard her teeth rattled.
“Draco.” Her voice came out such a low squeak she doubted that even the mice had heard her. She pushed herself to her feet and pulled the blankets from the bed, wrapping them around her body and then stumbled back to the closed door. “Draco?” Silence met her and panic began coursing through her veins. What if he was gone? She had no idea how long she'd been sleeping or even been in the small room. What if Queens had taken him and she was the only one left? Merlin no! She'd go mad. She lifted her hand and let it fall against the door. “Draco?”
Instantly there was shuffling noises from the other side of the door, and she saw a shadow pass beneath it.
She held her breath, a fresh wave of terror passing over her, threatening to drown her as it occurred to her that it might not be Draco on the other side.
“Ginny?” Draco's voice was muffled, but it was there.
She swiped at the hot tears that sprang to her eyes before remembering that no one could see her. “How long have I been in here?”
“A while,” came his reply. “The sun's been up a while now.”
“Did she take Wilhelm?”
Draco's silence said it all. “I need you to search that room,” he told her, “and see if there's food or anything. I've been working this door but it's not budging. I'm pretty sure I've seen Zipes with food.”
“Okay,” Ginny called to him. “Give me a few minutes.” She pushed herself away from her spot on the floor and tugged back the heavy curtains, letting muted sunlight come through the round, dirty window. There weren't very many places to look in the room, but she searched under the bed, along the hearth and all through the tiny nightstand. “I don't see anything,” she started to call to him, but then noticed that one of the floorboards was curved more than the others. “Oh wait.” She knelt down to the ground and tugged at the board. When it gave way, it flew from her grasp, knocking Ginny to her bum and leaving splinters in her fingers.
“Are you alright?” His muffled voice caused a funny twinge in her chest.
“I'm fine. I found some things.” Reaching into the narrow hiding space, she pulled out several small bags of crisps, a few sweets, three tea bags and a box of Muggle matches. She couldn't believe her good luck. If her dad hadn't been such a Muggle fanatic, she probably would have never known what they were for or how to use them.
“What did you find?”
“Some crisps and sweets.” She scooted back to the heavy door.
“Good.” His relief traveled clearly through the door. “That'll work until I get you out of there.”
“I found matches too. And I'm pretty sure the fireplace is enchanted to be double sided. I just need some papers. Or maybe you should get some wood and I'll slip them under the door to you.”
“Some what?” he asked.
“It's what Muggles use to start fires.”
There was hesitation when he spoke again. “Okay. I'm gonna go get wood and then you can tell me how to use them.”
A short time later, the fire was magically warming the small room she was locked in to the point of it being too hot, but Ginny didn't mind. She hadn't been warm enough in ages.
“I thought about breaking the window,” he called to her, “but it's too small and high. I don't think you could get out of it.”
Ginny glanced up at the tiny window. “No, I don't think so.”
Time began to blend into grotesque entanglements of talking and sleeping followed by talking and eating. The door refused to budge, but they didn't stop prying at it. When she slept, it was with her body pressed against the door, the way he said his was. When she could hear him slurping on his stew, she would feel a moment of jealousy – something she never thought would happen over their pathetic stew – because the salt and oil of the crisps made her stomach burn with painful nausea, but she didn't want to tell him. No point in making him worry even more.
“What are you afraid of?” Ginny asked him.
“You mean besides being here?”
Ginny never thought she would enjoy hearing his dry, sarcastic words. “Yeah. Besides that.”
There was a long silence before he answered. “Of not getting you out of that room. Or being taken before you and leaving you here alone.” There was a small thud and Ginny imagined him leaning against the door. “Mostly of just not being able to save you.”
Ginny stared at the open bag of crisps that she couldn't bring herself to eat, wondering if the foreign feelings in her belly weren't just from the food. “I don't want you to go before me,” she said slowly. “But I don't want to leave you here either.”
“I've been thinking about that,” he told her, his voice hard and serious. There was a rustling and something slid under the door. “Keep these, just in case.”
She looked down at the Venohex leaves he had pushed under the door. “Draco,” she choked out. “Don't do it.”
“I won't,” he said quickly. “It's only for emergencies. I just don't want anything... terrible to happen to you.”
Her small room was quite warm, but a chill rolled down her spine. The pause in his words told her clearly that the rumors of tortures and rapes she'd heard were true. She imagined that 'emergencies' could range from Queens coming to get them to no one ever showing up again, causing them to choose between starving to death or taking their own lives.
“We're not going to commit suicide,” she told him. “We're going to get out of here. We're going to live and be happy.”
“I know,” he told her, his voice strong and certain. “I just want to make sure that in case anything goes wrong with our perfect plan, I'm not going to be stuck living without you.”
“What plan?”
“Exactly my point.”
“But I don't want you to kill yourself if something happens to me,” she told him honestly. “What about your family?”
“Don't change the subject.”
Ginny could easily imagine him rolling his eyes on the other side of the door.
“Here's how it is,” he told her dryly. “I would die for you. If Tyger hadn't forced me inside that day Queens was lashing you, I certainly would have tried. I'm not going to live without you.”
While it was strange to hear him say it, and she certainly didn't want to admit it, she felt the same way. There would be no moving on without him.
I'm going to die now. Despite her shallow and panicked breathing, her body refused to comply with her mind. For some reason her body was insisting that she fight to live. She could feel the tears leaving tracks through the dirt on her face as the blinding-white pain that was too great to comprehend washed through her body.
“I'm gonna pick you up, okay? It's going to hurt, but I have to get you inside so we can get you better, okay?”
Ginny tried to open her eyes, but all she saw was Victorine's form, still as stone, sprawled where she had fallen.
“I want you to put your arms around my neck so you don't fall, Ginny. Can you do that for me?”
It was Malfoy. Why was he talking to her, she wondered. Shouldn't he be in the cottage, pouting because she wasn't fixing his dinner? The only noise she could make in response was a small gurgle.
“I'm going to take that as a yes,” he told her, and she thought she could detect panic in his voice.
He pushed his arms underneath her body and rolled her to her side, and Ginny's vision went dark again, although she was certain her eyes were still open. He was pressing against her back and once more she could feel hot tears falling down her face. No! she wanted to tell him. Just leave me here and let me die.
“I know it hurts. I need you to put your arms around my neck.” It was getting harder to concentrate on his voice; he sounded so far away.
Draco pressed on, placing one arm under her legs and apologizing profusely as his other arm secured itself underneath her back. He was ignoring her silent pleas for death that grew more desperate with each step he took across the yard. Despite the pain, she felt weightless in his arms, and again hoped she would die sooner rather than later.
He carefully placed her on her stomach and she could feel him staring at the wounds on her back. The pain was so consuming that her body did the only thing it could to survive – she was going into a state of false numbness and her mind refused to focus on anything for more than a short moment, which almost tricked her into forgetting about it.
As her vision came back, she could make out clean rags, his week's worth of drinking water and the soap she had made all laying beside his bed. He had laid her on his bed.
“I have to get your shirt off, okay?” he whispered to her.
He carefully lifted the shirt from the wounds on her back, and she felt him cringe when she let out a choking sob. “Lift up just a little and we can get it off,” he told her.
She did as he asked and he lifted it over her head, tossing it to the floor. He let out an audible groan and she knew that they were as bad as they felt. She was going to have horribly thick, ropey scars crisscrossing the skin of her back and arms.
“Gin, I'm gonna start cleaning them, okay? It might hurt a little, but it's gonna be okay.”
“Hold my hand,” she croaked.
“I,” he started to say. “Okay.” He allowed her to grip one hand tightly as he used his free hand to pour a small measure of water over her back. She could feel the water stinging its way into her open wounds. She felt his one handed movements, gently rubbing soap into the lash marks.
Pain ripped through her again and a loud cry exploded from her throat.
“I'm sorry,” he whispered. “I know it hurts and I'm so, so sorry.”
Silent tears slipped from Ginny's eyes, but she managed to look up long enough to focus on him. “Please don't. Just let me die.”
“No,” he hissed and Ginny saw a tear fall from his own eye, mixing with the soap on her back.
A high-pitched wail filled all the empty spaces in the small room, momentarily distracting Ginny from her own pain. “I have to go out there! Please let me go to my sister,” Jeanne-Marie cried. “I have to see if she's okay!”
Suddenly Tyger was kneeling before Ginny, her eyes carefully averted from Ginny's back. “Ginny baby,” she crooned, holding up a sludgy yellow liquid. “Is that what I should give her?”
It took all her will to focus on the bottle before her and nod, as Draco's fingers worked the exposed lesions on her back.
“I'm going to move you closer to the fire,” he told her as he rinsed the soap from her skin, his voice low and rough, “so you can dry. I'm sorry if it hurts you.”
“I can walk,” she tried to tell him, her voice brittle as if she hadn't used it in years.
But she couldn't even push herself out of the bed.
Draco lifted her, and despite everything, Ginny wondered if she should be humiliated she had no top on. Maybe if it had been months ago, back when she'd thought nothing of the three meals a day she was served and she actually had something to fill out her bra with, then she would have been more humiliated. She felt as flat chested as Draco, so she let him half carry, half drag her to the fireplace.
“I'm sorry,” he whispered in her ear so that only she could hear as he eased both of them to the floor. “I don't mean to hurt you.”
“Tyger,” she heard him say, “can you get a clean blanket?”
She felt something gently being draped over her back, and she motioned for Tyger. “Give me the rest of that potion,” she managed to choke out.
She gagged as the slippery yellow liquid went down her throat, but sleep took over too quickly to think about it.
*~*
For three days, Draco insisted that Ginny lay in her cot still and unmoving while he tended to things. “Draco,” she said crossly, “I think I can get up and help you with dinner.” Her back still hurt terribly, but the boredom of laying face down in her cot all day overshadowed that.
“Nope,” he shook his head. “I've got it.”
“Where's Tyger? She should be helping you.”
“She is helping. She's got the kids outside. It's a nice day.”
“As in not snowing?”
“Exactly.”
“What day is it?”
Draco looked up from the cauldron where he was attempting to cook dinner for everyone. “Um, February 23rd.”
“How do you know?”
“I've just kept track of the days.”
“Hmmmm.” Ginny wondered how he managed to do it when she could barely tell one day from the next.
“I'm glad you're speaking to me,” he told her, avoiding her gaze.
“I've spoke to you since you arrived.”
“But you always called me Malfoy,” he pointed out. “And now you remembered that I have a first name.”
If Ginny didn't know any better, she would have thought the curve in Draco's lips meant he was smiling. “Don't be ridiculous,” she told him. “I've always known your first name.”
*~*
Queens didn't spend all day and night there like Zipes did, which gave Ginny a small measure of pleasure, in spite of everything that was going on around them. She showed up on occasion, terrorizing them with her anger and harsh words, but mostly she was gone. In the month that had passed since her back had been ripped to shreds, Ginny had slowly recovered enough to resume her place as mother of the cottage. Her back hurt, no doubt. The scars that were forming were tender and tight, making it hard to stand up straight, but she did, knowing she needed to stretch her new skin so that she wouldn't end up crooked.
She still hadn't found the proper words to tell Draco thank you for everything he'd done. He'd taken care of her, taken care of the children... It was far more than she'd ever expected from him. But thanking him was hard. Every time it was on the tip of her tongue to tell him how much she appreciated it, he would make some sarcastic comment and she changed her mind.
He would be doing something useful, like searching for edible plants or creating rabbit traps, and she would start to speak, ready to let him know that she was grateful for all his help, but he didn't want to hear it.
“Draco?”
“What?” he demanded, his tone always carrying a sharp edge.
“I just wanted to let you know that I-”
“Weasley. Do you mind? I'm trying to work here.”
Ginny finally decided that he didn't want to be thanked. He wouldn't know how to accept it.
That night at dinner, Jeanne-Marie was more subdued than normal. Not that Ginny could blame her – her twin was gone. Draco and Wilhelm had dug a hole at the very edge of their boundaries to bury Victorine in. Jeanne-Marie spent every day there, crying as she stretched her small body across the fresh grave.
Ginny knew something was wrong, but she couldn't quite pinpoint what it was. Even with Queens gone that day, it had still felt wrong.
And then Jeanne-Marie fainted away while eating.
“No,” Wilhelm gasped, dropping his bowl and scooting to where Jeanne-Marie now lay. “She was touching those leaves.”
“What leaves?” Draco asked sharply.
“That Venohex.” Wilhelm said, grimacing. “She said you told her not to touch them.”
Ginny forgot about her own dinner as she crawled to where Jeanne-Marie lay. There were torn bits of a Venohex leaf floating in her stew. She picked up her wrist, and then pressed her ear to her chest. “She's gone.” She bit her lip and looked blankly at the room. “Merlin, she's gone.”
Draco was the one who finally moved Jeanne-Marie's body outside that night, burying her next to her twin. Ginny helped him wash the dirt from his hands as best she could when he returned, hours later.
When they woke the next morning, Tyger was gone, as if she had never been at the cottage to begin with.
“Leave me alone,” Ginny whispered, when Draco tried to talk to her.
“Stop this,” he hissed. “What about Wilhelm?”
Ginny glanced across the room at the boy who was sleeping. “What about him?”
“Aren't you supposed to be the one taking care of us?” he snapped.
Before Ginny could think up a reply, he shook his head.
“I didn't mean that,” he said quickly.
She wondered if his body ran on auto-pilot sometimes, saying hateful things when he didn't mean them.
“Be strong, please,” he begged. “Even if it's just for him.”
“What about you?” she shot back.
“I'm trying,” he told her, “but I don't know if I can be strong enough for the two of us.”
But when Queens came for Wilhelm, Ginny could stand it no more.
“Let him go,” she screamed, rushing the woman. Ginny didn't slow down, even as Queens aimed her wand at her.
And when she awoke, she was alone, inside a small room. There was a cot and a fire, but that was all.
“Ginny?”
She bit her lip, glancing around the small room. There was a tiny window at the top of her room, too small to be of any use, except for letting a small, gray stream of sunlight in. Her head hurt.
“Ginny? Please.”
The walls were the same faded yellow colour of the cottage walls. There was a cot, similar to what she was used to sleeping on, but far more blankets than she'd seen in a while.
“Damn it, answer me. Ginny!”
She climbed onto the cot, her head pounding, and slept.
“Ginny?”
When she woke her head still hurt, but she could focus enough to see a heavy wooden door. Her head spinning as if she'd drank several bottles of wine, she let herself fall out of the cot and crawled to the door.
“Who is it?” she croaked, pressing her hand into the door.
“Ginny! Merlin, is that you?”
“Draco?” Her head was still spinning.
“It's me. Are you alright?” She recognized Draco's voice, but the compassion and concern she heard felt foreign.
“I'm tired,” she whispered. “And everyone is gone.”
“I'm still here. Listen to me, Ginny. Do you have any food in there?”
“I don't know.” Why, she wondered, was Draco Malfoy still talking to her? She wanted to sleep. That was all. Not live, not fight, not survive, she just wanted to sleep.
“Ginny, talk to me!”
When she woke again, her face was pressed into a cold hearth, and she was shivering so hard her teeth rattled.
“Draco.” Her voice came out such a low squeak she doubted that even the mice had heard her. She pushed herself to her feet and pulled the blankets from the bed, wrapping them around her body and then stumbled back to the closed door. “Draco?” Silence met her and panic began coursing through her veins. What if he was gone? She had no idea how long she'd been sleeping or even been in the small room. What if Queens had taken him and she was the only one left? Merlin no! She'd go mad. She lifted her hand and let it fall against the door. “Draco?”
Instantly there was shuffling noises from the other side of the door, and she saw a shadow pass beneath it.
She held her breath, a fresh wave of terror passing over her, threatening to drown her as it occurred to her that it might not be Draco on the other side.
“Ginny?” Draco's voice was muffled, but it was there.
She swiped at the hot tears that sprang to her eyes before remembering that no one could see her. “How long have I been in here?”
“A while,” came his reply. “The sun's been up a while now.”
“Did she take Wilhelm?”
Draco's silence said it all. “I need you to search that room,” he told her, “and see if there's food or anything. I've been working this door but it's not budging. I'm pretty sure I've seen Zipes with food.”
“Okay,” Ginny called to him. “Give me a few minutes.” She pushed herself away from her spot on the floor and tugged back the heavy curtains, letting muted sunlight come through the round, dirty window. There weren't very many places to look in the room, but she searched under the bed, along the hearth and all through the tiny nightstand. “I don't see anything,” she started to call to him, but then noticed that one of the floorboards was curved more than the others. “Oh wait.” She knelt down to the ground and tugged at the board. When it gave way, it flew from her grasp, knocking Ginny to her bum and leaving splinters in her fingers.
“Are you alright?” His muffled voice caused a funny twinge in her chest.
“I'm fine. I found some things.” Reaching into the narrow hiding space, she pulled out several small bags of crisps, a few sweets, three tea bags and a box of Muggle matches. She couldn't believe her good luck. If her dad hadn't been such a Muggle fanatic, she probably would have never known what they were for or how to use them.
“What did you find?”
“Some crisps and sweets.” She scooted back to the heavy door.
“Good.” His relief traveled clearly through the door. “That'll work until I get you out of there.”
“I found matches too. And I'm pretty sure the fireplace is enchanted to be double sided. I just need some papers. Or maybe you should get some wood and I'll slip them under the door to you.”
“Some what?” he asked.
“It's what Muggles use to start fires.”
There was hesitation when he spoke again. “Okay. I'm gonna go get wood and then you can tell me how to use them.”
A short time later, the fire was magically warming the small room she was locked in to the point of it being too hot, but Ginny didn't mind. She hadn't been warm enough in ages.
“I thought about breaking the window,” he called to her, “but it's too small and high. I don't think you could get out of it.”
Ginny glanced up at the tiny window. “No, I don't think so.”
Time began to blend into grotesque entanglements of talking and sleeping followed by talking and eating. The door refused to budge, but they didn't stop prying at it. When she slept, it was with her body pressed against the door, the way he said his was. When she could hear him slurping on his stew, she would feel a moment of jealousy – something she never thought would happen over their pathetic stew – because the salt and oil of the crisps made her stomach burn with painful nausea, but she didn't want to tell him. No point in making him worry even more.
“What are you afraid of?” Ginny asked him.
“You mean besides being here?”
Ginny never thought she would enjoy hearing his dry, sarcastic words. “Yeah. Besides that.”
There was a long silence before he answered. “Of not getting you out of that room. Or being taken before you and leaving you here alone.” There was a small thud and Ginny imagined him leaning against the door. “Mostly of just not being able to save you.”
Ginny stared at the open bag of crisps that she couldn't bring herself to eat, wondering if the foreign feelings in her belly weren't just from the food. “I don't want you to go before me,” she said slowly. “But I don't want to leave you here either.”
“I've been thinking about that,” he told her, his voice hard and serious. There was a rustling and something slid under the door. “Keep these, just in case.”
She looked down at the Venohex leaves he had pushed under the door. “Draco,” she choked out. “Don't do it.”
“I won't,” he said quickly. “It's only for emergencies. I just don't want anything... terrible to happen to you.”
Her small room was quite warm, but a chill rolled down her spine. The pause in his words told her clearly that the rumors of tortures and rapes she'd heard were true. She imagined that 'emergencies' could range from Queens coming to get them to no one ever showing up again, causing them to choose between starving to death or taking their own lives.
“We're not going to commit suicide,” she told him. “We're going to get out of here. We're going to live and be happy.”
“I know,” he told her, his voice strong and certain. “I just want to make sure that in case anything goes wrong with our perfect plan, I'm not going to be stuck living without you.”
“What plan?”
“Exactly my point.”
“But I don't want you to kill yourself if something happens to me,” she told him honestly. “What about your family?”
“Don't change the subject.”
Ginny could easily imagine him rolling his eyes on the other side of the door.
“Here's how it is,” he told her dryly. “I would die for you. If Tyger hadn't forced me inside that day Queens was lashing you, I certainly would have tried. I'm not going to live without you.”
While it was strange to hear him say it, and she certainly didn't want to admit it, she felt the same way. There would be no moving on without him.
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