Sometimes when Ginny woke from her restless slumbers, she would find paper hearts shoved under the door. Draco had found an old stack of paper someone had discarded in the back of the cupboard. Although he wouldn't tell her, Ginny could see that he cut them into the shape of a heart either using a sharp stone or maybe even his fingernails. As more time passed, the paper hearts grew more elaborate, with drawings on them made from the ashes of their fires.

The days began to blur together and Ginny's food ran low. She could easily count the ribs beneath her skin. Her elbows and knees seemed abnormally large in comparison to her grossly skinny legs. If her now flat chest was any indication of how the rest of her looked, she was better off not knowing. More than anything, she was relieved there was no mirror, so that she couldn't see her face or her awful scars. The dim light that pushed its way through the dirt on the small window hurt her eyes so she had to resort to keeping the thick draperies closed, resulting in her having no concept of night or day.

“How long have I been in here?” she asked him, wiggling her fingers as far as she could under the door, and waiting as he did the same so that their fingertips could touch, cherishing the smallest bit of contact.

“Just over two weeks,” he told her, his skin stroking hers ever so lightly.

The drying Venohex leaves lay on the nightstand, taunting her.

Sometimes she was glad Draco couldn't see how ugly she was.

She was completely aware of when her sanity started fading away, obliterating itself into the dust particles and ashes.

It was the dreams. She dreamed about Draco, but sometimes about Tom too. They would usually blend into one person. Dark hair with silver eyes, pale hair with red eyes. Tom's low, sinister voice or Draco's shiver-worthy, occasionally arrogant one. In her dreams, she often found herself writhing in bed with him, and she didn't mind it – in fact, she enjoyed it – when it was Draco. When it was more Tom, she woke up screaming. That's how she knew she was going mad. She hadn't dreamed of Tom Riddle since the summer after her first year, and it had never been about sex.

“Another nightmare,” Draco whispered through the closed door.

It wasn't the first time the volume of her own screams had woken her. “I'm okay,” she panted, rubbing her throat.

“Why won't you tell me what you dream about?”

“I don't remember.”

“Sometimes you say my name.”

Ginny pressed her dry hands to her cheeks and stared in the darkness at the ceiling. “I have to get out of here,” she told him finally.

“I'm going to get you out,” he said, his voice strong and confident. “Soon. Don't worry.”

But she did worry, even though it was pointless.

When she ran out of the bitter crisps and sweets, she just slept. Eventually she stopped feeling so hungry all the time, but it was getting hard to keep her eyes open. She preferred to sleep, even though Draco insisted on talking to her.

“What's the first thing you're going to do when we get out of here?” he would ask.

“Take a bath,” she told him. “A really long and hot one. What about you?”

“That sounds good,” he told her. “But I think I'd like to properly brush my teeth first.”

She managed to laugh. “You mean my toothpaste isn't good enough?”

“It's great,” he assured her. “But I'd like a proper toothbrush too.”

Ginny slept and woke, but most slept. Even Draco's attempts at talking to her didn't work once her body realized that it would no longer get food. So she slept.

She could hear him calling to her sometimes, interrupting her sleep and her dreams. “Ginny, are you okay? Talk to me, Ginny. I need you, Gin.”

When she finally did wake, it was from loud noises coming from the other side of her door.

She pressed her ear to the heavy wood, even though that simple act took most her strength, just in time to hear Draco yell for her to get away from the door.

The door blew open before she'd had a chance to scramble very far away, and she curled into herself ball to protect her skin from the shards of wood that flew everywhere.

“Ginny!”

Squinting her eyes into the bright light, she wondered if she dreams had managed to creep into her waking hours.

But Draco was putting his arms around her and she was weightless as he gently placed her on his bed. “Look at me, Ginny. Look at me!”

His hands were on her face but she was terrified of waking up. Yes, dreams about shagging him were nice, but she didn't think she could wake up from a dream about being rescued. It was just to awful to think about, because she had come to the realization that she wasn't ever going to leave the room, not unless she was taken to be killed by a Death Eater or someone was carrying out her lifeless body.

“Ginny!”

“Just lay with me,” she whispered to him, struggling to open her eyes against the brightness. “I don't want to wake up.”

“It's not a dream, damn it!” he shouted at her, shaking her by her shoulders. “Look at me.”

Grabbing his wrists, she squinted up at him. “Then what happened?” As her eyes slowly grew accustomed to the light, she let them roam his body. He was skinny, just like her. Too skinny, and it made his eyes look darker, as if they were sinking back into his skull. But he was beautiful. She had never realized how perfect his features were, and she had never wanted to see anyone more in her whole life. Then she noticed his hands, right there in front of her. He tried to pull them away when he saw she was staring, but she kept her grip on his wrists. “Oh Merlin, Draco. What happened to your hands?” Some of the skin looked freshly blistered, but it was on top of round pink scars and scabs and dried skin.

He stared at her. “Queens is lying over there on the floor and you want to know about my hands?”

It took several moments for Ginny to realize that maybe it wasn't a dream after all; maybe she was out of the room. Keeping her grip on his wrists, she forced her eyes away from him and sucked in a deep breath as she took in the form of Queens, sprawled face first on the floor. It looked as if she'd fallen off the edge of the bed and there was some sort of pale liquid seeping out from under her. “Is she... dead?”

Draco nodded. “Dead.”

“Tell me everything that happened. Even about your hands.” The moment was too surreal, and she was afraid of losing her grip on reality. It was like riding a carousel that had begun to spin too fast, out of control; there were colours and noises but things began to blur together, one long line of movement.

Somehow, clinging to Draco's wrists kept her grounded.

“I knew she would return, eventually,” he said, the words spilling out of him, “or that someone would, so every day I rubbed the insides of all the bowls except one with the Venohex leaves. I knew who ever came would want to eat. And she did.”

“That's it?” Ginny asked, afraid to believe it had been that simple.

He nodded. “She told me to fix her a bowl of stew and then she said she'd fix it herself. One bite and she was gone, so I grabbed her wand.” He motioned his elbow in the direction of his dirty, too big trousers. “We have to get out of here. But I think you should eat first. You can use my bowl.”

“I don't want to eat,” she told him automatically. “I'm not hungry.”

“I don't give a shite if you're not hungry,” he snapped. “You can barely hold your head up or keep your eyes open.”

“What about your hands?”

Guilt passed over his face, looking out of place despite his haggard appearance. “Those Muggle fire starters you slipped under the door, well, I didn't realize they had to be kept dry. I didn't really think about it. They fell in the snow one day and I couldn't use them.”

“How did you keep the fire going?” she asked. There had been a fire almost every moment.

“When you told us that one fairy tale, back when everyone was here, about how the man rubbed the two sticks together...”

Horrified, Ginny stared at his hands. “You rubbed sticks together? And it worked?”

He nodded. “It took a long time.”

“I'm so sorry,” she whispered.

“Listen to me,” he hissed at her, ignoring the looks she was giving his damaged hands. “I'm sure she was here to take one of us and someone is going to notice when she doesn't return. I'm going to get you some food and then we're leaving.”

“What about her?”

“You have to let go of my arms.”

Slowly Ginny convinced herself that it was all real. “Okay.”

Draco rushed to grab a bowl that already had food in it, bringing it to her. “Eat it, Gin. You're going to need it.”

Ginny held the hot bowl between her hands, smelling the stew, which could have been amazing if it didn't make her stomach roll. “What about you?”

“I've been eating. Obviously you haven't.”

He scowled at her so she tentatively lifted the spoon to her lips. Ginny's eyes darted back to Queens' body. She expected her to jump to her feet at any moment. “And her?”

“We can just leave her.” Draco was gripping Queens' wand tightly.

“I don't think we should,” she grimaced, slurping down the first swallow of stew and letting it burn its way down to her stomach. “If they come, it'll be clear we killed her. I'd rather them not know.”

“So what should I do?” For just a moment, Draco looked as weary as she felt, and she wondered if he too had started to believe that she would never leave that room.

“Can you transfigure her? Like Zipes used to do?” The stew wasn't sitting well in her stomach, but she kept lifting the spoon to her mouth.

“The only thing I am good at is transfiguring things into a cigar box.” His shirt swung baggily on him. He was right; they had to leave.

She nodded, placing one hand on her churning stomach. “That will be good. Then we can throw her in the fireplace.” She watched as Draco did just that, and instead of feeling relief that Queens' body was no longer on the floor – it was becoming ashes and the smoke was curling up the chimney – she leaned over, retching up all her stew. “Let's go,” she gagged, wiping her mouth. “I can make it. We can Apparate, right?”

Draco stood frozen to his spot on the floor momentarily. “We should go to your parents' house. You said they'll take us in, right? Plus, it's well protected. It was a constant source of annoyance that none of the Death Eaters could ever find it.”

She appreciated the fact that he was rambling away, pretending like there wasn't something seriously wrong with her. Ginny set the bowl aside and pushed herself to her feet. She stood still, trying to gain her balance before stepping towards him. “I need something out of that room.”

“What?” he demanded, grabbing linens off the bed and wrapping them around her shoulders.

“I want my hearts.”

“Hearts?”

“The ones you made me.”

He looked surprised, and then pleased. “I'll get them for you.”

When the paper hearts were securely in her pocket and Draco was satisfied with the number of linens he'd draped over her shoulders, they left the cottage. Ginny didn't look back.

The sun was setting – or maybe it was rising, she didn't know – as they made their way to the edge of the property. Draco gripped the wand tightly in one hand, holding her with the other.

“Ready?” he asked. “I'm going to use all the ward deactivating spells that we use at home, just to be safe.”

She nodded. Home wasn't far away.

“When the wards are down we'll Apparate to your place.”

She'd never seen him look so unsure of himself, but then again, she never imagined that she would be clinging to him as if he were her saviour.

But an hour later, they were back in the cottage. Draco paced the floor until Ginny finally grabbed him. “Please,” she begged. “Just stop.”

“I'll think of it!” he hissed. “There's got to be a spell that undoes this ward.”

“I'm sure there is,” she told him, trying to sound reasonable, despite the fact that she was ready to fall apart. “The Death Eaters get in and out. But we don't know what it is.”

“I'm going to figure it out,” he told her, pressing his fingertips into his forehead.

“Draco,” she said wearily. “Just come to bed. We can't get out tonight.” She was as disappointed as he was, but exhaustion was taking over her body. “I'm so tired.”

He stared at her for a moment, his dark silver eyes shining as the firelight bounced off them. “They're going to come for us.”

“I know,” she whispered. “But us standing outside in the cold isn't going to change that fact.” She leaned back into her bed, amazed at how good it felt. When she'd first arrived at the cottage, she hadn't been able to sleep because she missed her bed. Now, the cot felt wonderful compared to sleeping on the floor.

“Fine.” Draco dropped down in his bed and held out his hand.

She fell asleep with her fingers touching his.

The days passed and Draco couldn't break through the wards. They tried every spell, jinx, hex and charm they knew, but nothing changed. Ginny tried to eat, tried to keep food in their stew cauldron, but it was growing scarce. She tried to feed Draco, but he noticed and insisted that she feed herself, resulting in neither of them eating much. Even having a wand didn't help keep food on their plates. As Draco grew angrier and more frustrated, Ginny became quieter, not bothering to leave her bed unless Draco was going outside. Panic exploded in her chest if she couldn't see him, leaving her crying and useless.

“Do you think you'll ever want kids?” Draco asked her as they carefully rationed out their dinner.

“Kids?” Ginny thought for a moment. “If the war ends, I think I'd like one or two.”

“Isn't your family required to have a dozen?” He winked as he asked his question.

“Very funny.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Didn't you just ask me something?”

“How do you feel about me?”

Her heart jumped erratically and she wondered if that was bad for her, considering the state she was in. “You mean besides the fact that you are obnoxious and a snob? Oh, and mean?”

“Besides that.” She didn't miss the hurt than ran through his silver eyes.

“Sorry,” she apologized quickly. “You're not really like that any more.”

Draco pushed his bowl aside and picked up her hand, holding it in his. “What am I like?”

“Would you be angry if I said you were nice?”

“I am not nice,” he insisted. “Anything but nice.”

She laughed, a noise she hadn't heard in a long time. “Fine. Let's just say I might fancy you a small bit.”

“Just a small bit?”

“I refuse to elaborate on that any more. Except that maybe I could tell you how much I need you.”

Draco drew her hand up to his mouth and gently kissed her knuckles. “What if I told you I fancied you a great deal?”

Ginny looked up at him, wishing he still looked as perfect as he did when they were in school. The dark circles under his eyes and the bones that protruded through his skin were all reflections of how she looked. “I would believe you.”

At night, he pushed his bed against hers and slept with one arm around her to keep the nightmares away.

“We're going to die in here,” she whispered to him one night, her thoughts a drowsy mixture of hunger and pain.

“Ginny...”

“We are. You can kill every Death Eater who comes through that door, but we will in the end. We're already dying now.” It wasn't just her own ribs she could count; Draco's shown through his skin also and she would use her finger to count each one and trace his collar bones before falling asleep. The shirt she had been wearing since her lashings – Draco's undershirt – had become so thin and worn, it was useless to her, so Draco insisted that they trade. He wore the holey undershirt, less concerned for his own modesty, and she wore his button down dress shirt. Still, she thought they looked like poster children for those Adopt a Starving Orphan signs that sometimes hung around Diagon Alley.

“I think I'm okay with dying,” he told her finally. “Because I have you.”

“Me?” She tried to laugh, but it stuck in her throat. “You must be joking. You had everything before you came here. What would you need me for?”

“Because I never had anything worth giving up everything for. Now I do.”

He leaned over to gently kissed her temple, and Ginny was struck by how soft his dry lips managed to feel.

“Do you believe in Heaven?” he asked.

“I'm not sure,” she told him. “There's got to be something out there, don't you think? But I can't imagine that if there is, they would allow humans to suffer so much. So maybe there isn't.”

“I don't think death can possibly be the end,” he told her. “If it is, what's the point?”

“I think there's something,” she said finally, recalling the Department of Mysteries and the strange curtained archway Sirius had fallen through. “I'm just not sure what.”

“Where ever I go, I just want to be with you.”

Ginny thought about his words, letting them expand within her until she felt safe and content for the first time since she had been taken to the cottage. “Me too.”

“I'll tell you a story tonight.”

“You know fairy tales?”

“Sure. Doesn't everyone?”

Her laugh was real this time. “I suppose.”

“It's about death,” he told her, “or maybe the lack thereof. It's about people on an island who are frozen in time so that they can never die, but they come up with these ways to pretend to kill themselves.”

“It's fine,” she told him. “I'm not scared anymore.”

“Here,” he began, speaking into the darkness of the room, “where the darkness closes over me, like canal water or the grave, I tell this story. They used up their future as they used up their past, taking everything in one long day, over and over. The Count, to whom the palazzo belonged, had decided that it was his desire to be crushed to death by a bull elephant, between two beautiful virgins, at the moment of orgasm.”

Ginny let out a giggle. “Draco, please tell me your mum didn't tell you this story when you were a little kid.”

“Nope.” The fading firelight allowed her to make out his lopsided grin. “My aunt did. She never believed in holding back.”

“I wouldn't imagine she did,” Ginny told him seriously, not wanting to think about his horrid aunt.

“It was an immediate joke,” he continued the story, “made by all on the island that the virgins were harder and more expensive to procure than the elephant, although, in fact, the reverse was the truth.” He continued the story, telling of the count 'dying' while his guests watched and commented on what wonderful art it was; the story told of a little boy, who once explored the island and tried to open the gates to the palazzo, not knowing it was enchanted. He ran into a beautiful, black haired lady who told him she was waiting for the day the gate opened.

Back in the palazzo, the Count and his guests all continued on, living, loving, fighting, gambling, yet always untouched by time and tomorrow and death.

The boy who had visited the island grew up, became a soldier and fought in his country's wars, and finally believed that his time on the island with the dark haired beauty was only a dream. But she haunted his dreams to the point that it ruined his relationships, so one day he journeyed back to the island. He immediately saw the woman, who looked exactly the same and remembered him. She asked him if he wanted to try opening the gate and this time it opened. She told him the year was 1751 in the palazzo and that she had business inside.

As they walked through the palazzo, the woman began pointing to people. “She died in childbirth,” she said, pointing to a little girl. “As an old man he choked on a bone in a bowl of fish soup,” she said about another.

When the woman finally reached the Count, he pulled a sword on her and her companion, demanding to know how they got in and threatening them with death. He asked who she was and she responded to him, “Don't you know me?”

The Count told her that he had missed her so badly, but then the young soldier was being shaken awake and the palazzo and beautiful lady were no more. He returned to his post, knowing that he would see her again one day, one last time.

“So she was death,” Ginny whispered to him, enchanted by the story.

“Mm-hmm,” he murmured, rolling to his side.

“That doesn't seem so scary,” she told him. “He thought she was beautiful. I think he was in love with her.”

“Maybe everyone who has to fight in wars is in love with her,” he countered.

“That would make sense,” she agreed. She could feel his warm breath against her neck and she tucked herself into his body, ready to sleep, knowing that his skin against hers would keep the nightmares away.

As Ginny curled her body into Draco's, she felt his fingers trace the lines of her scars through her shirt. “Don't,” she whispered, as sleep pressed down on her. “They're ugly.”

“I think you're beautiful,” he whispered back. His fingers moved to the collar of the shirt that she was wearing, his shirt, slowly tracing the lines that led up her neck until he was cupping her jaw in the palm of his hand.

“I never really thanked you for cleaning my back, did I?”

“You did,” he said gruffly.

“Not really.”

“I had to. Any decent person would have done it.”

“No they wouldn't,” she argued. “It was hideous. No one would have wanted to do that.”

“It hurt me because I knew it was hurting you,” he told her slowly. “But I knew it was the thing that would save you. And I couldn't be here without you. You were the only one who kept things orderly and sane around here. You told me to let you die, but I'm selfish. And I'm an arse and all those other things you called me. But I had to save you.” Draco took a deep breath, letting his fingertips trace a path up her arm. “Remember after I arrived and you told me you thought there was more to everyone than what they displayed on the surface, but I had proved you wrong?”

“Yes.” She nodded.

“I know I'm a flawed person, mostly a failure at general decent human nature, but you made things different for me. I wasn't going to let you go, not that day or any day.”

“Thank you.”

“You're welcome.” His voice was as rough as sand.

“I want to go swimming,” she told him finally. “I want to lay on the beach and feel the sun.”

“It'll be summer soon,” he reminded her. “And then we'll be able to feel the sun at least.”

“Do you think it'll reach between the trees?”

“If not we can use a severing spell to get rid of a few of them.”

“When we get out of here, I think I want to move to a place where it's always warm. I never want to be cold again.”

“We're going to get out of here Gin. I swear.”

“I know,” she told him. For reasons she could explain, she believed him. Strange currents were pulsing through her body, assuring her that things were about to change for the better. While it was an unfamiliar feeling, it wasn't unpleasant.

“What about Fiji?” he asked. “Or Tahiti? Or the Galapagos Islands? We could live there.”

“That sounds good,” she agreed. “I think I'd like any of those places.”

Very carefully, he nudged her head up, so that she could see the dark shadows of his face in the dying fire light. Slowly, because time had no meaning where they were, he brought his lips to hers. They were surprisingly warm and sweet, as if he had just eaten candied fruit. His fingers traveled up her jaw line until they were wrapped loosely in her thin, messy hair.

His lips pressed gently into hers once, twice and then three times before he drew back. “I wish this could have happened differently,” he told her. “I would have liked to spend time with you in a normal place.”

“It's okay,” Ginny tried to assure him. She wasn't sure how to tell him that despite the less-than-ideal circumstances, she didn't think she would love him any more or less if they were somewhere else. “Even if we were somewhere else, I think I would still feel the same way about you.”

She could see him swallow hard as he nodded. “If we weren't brought here, I don't think I would have ever realized that I could love someone more than I loved myself.”

“Yes you would,” she protested. “You would have -”

“No,” he interrupted her with a hiss. “The only person I have ever loved was my mum and that wasn't the way I love you. I didn't know I could care about someone more than I cared about myself. I didn't know that I would wake each day determined to do whatever I could to keep you safe. I had no idea, until you, just how lonely it is to go through life only caring about yourself. I thought that kept me safe but I was just selfish. No one else could have ever done what you've done.” He took a deep breath. “I love you.”

She had known at least for a little while that she loved him, but she didn't think she would ever have the chance to tell him. “I love you too.”

As much as she wanted to kiss him again, somehow Ginny knew there would be plenty of time for that, so she tucked herself under his arm and let sleep take her away.
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