She sensed him behind her - not a perceptible movement, but the scent of him, the smell of his lemony cologne and the smell that was uniquely Draco. He rested his hands on her shoulders briefly before moving to her left and following her gaze to the same stars she was focused on.
"Look," she pointed vaguely at the vast glittering space. "Out there, they're looking at the same sky I am. The same stars."
"Think the stars are brighter here though," Draco said critically, tilting his head.
She smiled a little. "You're probably right."
"I'm always right."
"I'll disregard that last statement in honor of the occasion that Will has finally gone to sleep after spending the better part of today in a constant state of hysterics." She covered a yawn with her hand and shivered. "Switzerland is quite beautiful."
"Yes, it is." His eyes were focused on her face. "Very beautiful."
"Yes," she agreed dreamily. "All this pretty white snow and bareness that isn't really barren. Strange how I don't feel alone."
"You have Will," he said. "And me."
"Yes," she said again. "How nice to have the both of you here…"
"Ginny, you're tired." He nudged her in the side. "You're exhausted, in fact. You're not making sense."
"Concerned, Draco?" Her voice was offhand, and she turned away from the stars.
He was tall and pale and glittering, like a sharp, sharp diamond that would have blinded her if not for the darkness of the night. She shivered as the frigid wind swept her body.
"Hardly." His voice was equable, and he seemed to straighten as he turned back into the cabin. He held the door open at an angle so that the warm light from within dropped a few feet outside onto the porch. "Just an observation."
She looked at the rosy glow and back at him. "Hold the door, I'm coming in."
"By the way," he added as an afterthought as he held the door for her and she walked past him inside, "I forgot to mention this - we're leaving in the morning."
"Leaving," she said bewildered. "Where?"
"Yeah, I haven't decided that yet." He frowned as he latched the door - more so out of unconscious habit than planned necessity. "What do you think: Athens or Venice?"
"I don't know. I've never been to either place before."
"I have. They're both nice. I considered Paris, but it's not really my cup of tea, so that'll be among our last stops. Or maybe it won't be a stop at all. No, never mind, I've decided. We'll go to Athens. That'll be fun."
"I'll take your word for it."
He gazed at her placidly. "You won't have to. Tomorrow you can decide for yourself how well you like it. Good night, Ginny," he added politely over his shoulder as he walked away to his room.
--------------------
The owl interrupted him at a most inopportune moment, but the message it carried was so incredible, so awesome, so advantageous that he stopped the Cruciatus Curse on the worthless Mudblood wizard, who collapsed unconscious on the ground, limbs twitching spasmodically.
No…he couldn't believe it. The Dark Lord would be thrilled; the Dark Lord would reward him graciously and lavishly…
Harry Potter had a son. He sneered at the thought. The great Harry Potter had a son…who had conveniently disappeared around the time Potter himself had gone into hiding. He'd heard rumors that the youngest Weasley had also gone missing, but that wasn't any of his concern. It made sense that they would go underground; they were the key players.
He knew right away that he would go and hunt after the child himself, of course. Trained Death Eaters were on the trail of Harry Potter, for he was an easier target to sight, but the child - the child would be more difficult; it would be easier to hide. But he was more than adequately suited for the task.
Even as a child, his own son had shown potential, and he had been pleased by it, pleased by all that his son's untapped power promised. As he matured, Draco had shown insight, skill, and natural talent for the Dark Arts. Lucius never knew what made his son turn against him - son no longer - all he knew was the rage that had ate his insides when he was trapped under Draco's powerful and unbreakable Imperious curse for nearly a year before Draco commanded Lucius to say the wrong thing…
He would have sent Draco after Harry Potter's child, if he could.
Harry Potter's son would be something Lord Voldemort held dear, and Lucius Malfoy would make a personal investment in the cause. And he would garner the rewards in spades.
He was so close to being happy that instead of uttering the word, "Crucio," he lifted his wand idly, leveled it at the crouching Mudblood, and kindly said, "Avada kedavra..."
--------------------
Athens was not fun. Athens did something to her, something unspeakable and indefinable. Athens was splendidly magical in its simplicity, and she marveled at it. The people were hard working laborers, tanned from their physical toils, but they smiled cheerily as she and Will and Draco walked by. Draco looked as pristine as ever, and she wondered at the curiousness of him liking Greece.
He carried Will for most of the day, shifting the baby to one arm as though he weighed nothing while he signed the necessary and appropriate documents that would rent them a room at a small hotel.
"Best to let them think of us as a family," he had said.
"Why doesn't Will speak?" she asked, sitting cross-legged on the single bed, gazing at the little boy who was fascinated with the bubbles she had conjured.
Draco stepped out of the bathroom. "I don't know. He's had a hard time."
Ginny touched Will's satin cheek. "He's gorgeous, Draco."
Draco said nothing, just leaned against the mini bar. "You two can take the bed for tonight."
She nodded. Draco disappeared for three hours, reappearing for twenty minutes to call room service up for the three of them, eating, and then leaving again. She entertained Will, letting him watch the small television with twelve channels until the baby fell asleep. Feeling that their hotel was relatively safe, she locked the balcony doors and the front door as she left, after she had set up all the applicable charms and wards she could think of around the baby.
Her head ached, and she hadn't wanted Draco to notice. He'd given her a curious sideways glance at dinner, but hadn't said anything so she assumed he'd been wondering why she hadn't eaten much. She'd told him that she didn't like crab, and he had seemingly accepted her response after saying that crab was a "delicacy" and to "get used to eating it" because apparently, Athens specialized in crab.
She made her way down cobbled streets to the place where stone gave way to sand and sea grass, threading her way through celebrating tourists, laughing and dancing in the streets to music so loud she could only feel the bass and drums reverberating through her body.
Athens. A pretty, clean, coastal town. "Underdeveloped," Draco had called it, but still nice, seemingly untouched by civilization. She liked that. Athens wasn't that far from the coast; she could tell by a thousand little things - the smell, the wind, the air.
She gamely trekked her way down to the beach, following the line of partygoers. Several male teenagers stopped her, but she managed to extract herself from their attentions with a polite but frigid smile she'd once seen Narcissa Malfoy direct at a man in Diagon Alley, several years ago. She'd always marveled at the expression, and she secretly delighted in brushing off the rowdy boys.
The sand was still a little bit warm from the heat of the sun, but cooling rapidly, and she cleared a spot on the sand, smoothing it out with her foot, before sitting down. Occasionally, a particularly large surf would spray against her face, but she didn't mind. The salt seemed to clear her mind.
"What's happening back there?" she wondered softly.
"Much less than what you're imagining, I expect."
She craned her neck to see Draco standing off to the side, hands in his pockets, looking down at her amusedly. "Have you been out here the whole afternoon?"
"Mostly. I dropped by the room; by the way, did you realize you set up the ward on the door wrong?" He arched an eyebrow at her. "Imagine my surprise when I attempted to open the door, only to have bubbles explode in my face. Not very repelling, is it? Of course, I suppose your intent could have been to have a potential intruder scream in surprise. Ah." He nodded understandingly. "It all makes sense now."
She flushed red. "I was a - a little distracted."
"Sure." A pause, and then, "He's asleep, by the way."
"I expected him to be. He's not a very rambunctious kid. Sweet, though."
"Debatable, but I'll let it go."
She was beginning to feel his self-possessed stare disconcerting, so she coughed hastily and said, "Aren't you going to sit?"
"What, in this sand? No, thanks."
"How'd you know I was here?" A note of teasing slipped into her voice. "Spent some time searching for me, did you?"
"Actually," Draco's voice was humorous as he tipped his head at her, "I cast a Locating charm on that."
Bewildered, she glanced down to see a tiny gold pin with emerald studs fastened to her shirt.
"Didn't take me more than five seconds," Draco added smugly.
She glared at the pin before yanking it off, successfully adding a tear in the sweater. She chucked it at him, but his hand snapped up out of his pocket with unbelievable speed, and his fingers closed around the pin, disappointingly, several inches from his face.
He laughed at her. "Nice try."
She ignored him as she retrieved her wand from her back pocket, pointed it at the hole in her sweater, and uttered a repairing charm before jamming the wand back into her pocket. "You suck, Malfoy."
He laughed again. "You're going to have to come up with better insults if you want to get a reaction."
She only lifted her shoulders in the faintest semblance of a shrug. "I did get a reaction."
He stared at her, half unaware that he was doing so. Her slim frame shivered, and he finally moved towards her, dropping his coat around her shoulders.
"Why are you being so nice?"
Her voice broke the silence and washed over the both of them. He didn't break his gaze, only rolled his shoulders backwards.
"Don't mistake practicality for concern, Ginny," he said shortly. "I think you'd better return to the room. Will might wake and find you gone."
"He's down for the night. Draco - "
"Good. I've rented another room in another hotel…so don't wait up for me."
"Draco," she said sharply, before he could, she suspected, Disapparate. "I thought we agreed to trust each other."
"I fail to see the point of that in this conversation."
"You - " She fumbled for the words and settled for, "You can't be that cold."
"Trust and like can be kept separate, you know," he told her. "I trust Potter, but I don't like him. And vice versa."
"And that's applicable in this?"
"Haven't the faintest idea. Good night, Ginny." He touched her cheek with the back of his hand, and to anyone who might've been watching, they would have assumed it was a caress.
Yes, his touch had been warm enough, gentle enough, but it was simply that - a pat on the head or shoulder. A touch that promised nothing, that was nothing except a movement to fill some empty space. A gesture made for lack of anything else to do.
She wanted to catch his hand and turn it so the palm faced her. She wanted him to hold her and tell her that everything would be all right. She wanted him to tell her that Harry was safe, that her family was unharmed, that her friends were alive. She wanted him to reassure her because, goddamn, he knew more than she did. She wanted someone else to know how she felt - how bloody useless when she knew for a fact that she wasn't. She wanted to give some of her hopelessness away; she wanted someone to ease the weight that pulled her under.
She looked from his shoes to his face, startled at the knowing look in his mercury eyes. Draco knew. He knew what she wanted from him, and he wasn't going to give it to her. Whether it was because he didn't know how, or couldn't afford to, or didn't want to - she didn't know - it mattered little.
He looked at her, his gaze clear, his voice crisp, and his words simple.
"Sorry."
"For what?" she whispered.
"For not having Potter's hero complex, I suppose."
His hand fell away from her and he Disapparated.
"Look," she pointed vaguely at the vast glittering space. "Out there, they're looking at the same sky I am. The same stars."
"Think the stars are brighter here though," Draco said critically, tilting his head.
She smiled a little. "You're probably right."
"I'm always right."
"I'll disregard that last statement in honor of the occasion that Will has finally gone to sleep after spending the better part of today in a constant state of hysterics." She covered a yawn with her hand and shivered. "Switzerland is quite beautiful."
"Yes, it is." His eyes were focused on her face. "Very beautiful."
"Yes," she agreed dreamily. "All this pretty white snow and bareness that isn't really barren. Strange how I don't feel alone."
"You have Will," he said. "And me."
"Yes," she said again. "How nice to have the both of you here…"
"Ginny, you're tired." He nudged her in the side. "You're exhausted, in fact. You're not making sense."
"Concerned, Draco?" Her voice was offhand, and she turned away from the stars.
He was tall and pale and glittering, like a sharp, sharp diamond that would have blinded her if not for the darkness of the night. She shivered as the frigid wind swept her body.
"Hardly." His voice was equable, and he seemed to straighten as he turned back into the cabin. He held the door open at an angle so that the warm light from within dropped a few feet outside onto the porch. "Just an observation."
She looked at the rosy glow and back at him. "Hold the door, I'm coming in."
"By the way," he added as an afterthought as he held the door for her and she walked past him inside, "I forgot to mention this - we're leaving in the morning."
"Leaving," she said bewildered. "Where?"
"Yeah, I haven't decided that yet." He frowned as he latched the door - more so out of unconscious habit than planned necessity. "What do you think: Athens or Venice?"
"I don't know. I've never been to either place before."
"I have. They're both nice. I considered Paris, but it's not really my cup of tea, so that'll be among our last stops. Or maybe it won't be a stop at all. No, never mind, I've decided. We'll go to Athens. That'll be fun."
"I'll take your word for it."
He gazed at her placidly. "You won't have to. Tomorrow you can decide for yourself how well you like it. Good night, Ginny," he added politely over his shoulder as he walked away to his room.
--------------------
The owl interrupted him at a most inopportune moment, but the message it carried was so incredible, so awesome, so advantageous that he stopped the Cruciatus Curse on the worthless Mudblood wizard, who collapsed unconscious on the ground, limbs twitching spasmodically.
No…he couldn't believe it. The Dark Lord would be thrilled; the Dark Lord would reward him graciously and lavishly…
Harry Potter had a son. He sneered at the thought. The great Harry Potter had a son…who had conveniently disappeared around the time Potter himself had gone into hiding. He'd heard rumors that the youngest Weasley had also gone missing, but that wasn't any of his concern. It made sense that they would go underground; they were the key players.
He knew right away that he would go and hunt after the child himself, of course. Trained Death Eaters were on the trail of Harry Potter, for he was an easier target to sight, but the child - the child would be more difficult; it would be easier to hide. But he was more than adequately suited for the task.
Even as a child, his own son had shown potential, and he had been pleased by it, pleased by all that his son's untapped power promised. As he matured, Draco had shown insight, skill, and natural talent for the Dark Arts. Lucius never knew what made his son turn against him - son no longer - all he knew was the rage that had ate his insides when he was trapped under Draco's powerful and unbreakable Imperious curse for nearly a year before Draco commanded Lucius to say the wrong thing…
He would have sent Draco after Harry Potter's child, if he could.
Harry Potter's son would be something Lord Voldemort held dear, and Lucius Malfoy would make a personal investment in the cause. And he would garner the rewards in spades.
He was so close to being happy that instead of uttering the word, "Crucio," he lifted his wand idly, leveled it at the crouching Mudblood, and kindly said, "Avada kedavra..."
--------------------
Athens was not fun. Athens did something to her, something unspeakable and indefinable. Athens was splendidly magical in its simplicity, and she marveled at it. The people were hard working laborers, tanned from their physical toils, but they smiled cheerily as she and Will and Draco walked by. Draco looked as pristine as ever, and she wondered at the curiousness of him liking Greece.
He carried Will for most of the day, shifting the baby to one arm as though he weighed nothing while he signed the necessary and appropriate documents that would rent them a room at a small hotel.
"Best to let them think of us as a family," he had said.
"Why doesn't Will speak?" she asked, sitting cross-legged on the single bed, gazing at the little boy who was fascinated with the bubbles she had conjured.
Draco stepped out of the bathroom. "I don't know. He's had a hard time."
Ginny touched Will's satin cheek. "He's gorgeous, Draco."
Draco said nothing, just leaned against the mini bar. "You two can take the bed for tonight."
She nodded. Draco disappeared for three hours, reappearing for twenty minutes to call room service up for the three of them, eating, and then leaving again. She entertained Will, letting him watch the small television with twelve channels until the baby fell asleep. Feeling that their hotel was relatively safe, she locked the balcony doors and the front door as she left, after she had set up all the applicable charms and wards she could think of around the baby.
Her head ached, and she hadn't wanted Draco to notice. He'd given her a curious sideways glance at dinner, but hadn't said anything so she assumed he'd been wondering why she hadn't eaten much. She'd told him that she didn't like crab, and he had seemingly accepted her response after saying that crab was a "delicacy" and to "get used to eating it" because apparently, Athens specialized in crab.
She made her way down cobbled streets to the place where stone gave way to sand and sea grass, threading her way through celebrating tourists, laughing and dancing in the streets to music so loud she could only feel the bass and drums reverberating through her body.
Athens. A pretty, clean, coastal town. "Underdeveloped," Draco had called it, but still nice, seemingly untouched by civilization. She liked that. Athens wasn't that far from the coast; she could tell by a thousand little things - the smell, the wind, the air.
She gamely trekked her way down to the beach, following the line of partygoers. Several male teenagers stopped her, but she managed to extract herself from their attentions with a polite but frigid smile she'd once seen Narcissa Malfoy direct at a man in Diagon Alley, several years ago. She'd always marveled at the expression, and she secretly delighted in brushing off the rowdy boys.
The sand was still a little bit warm from the heat of the sun, but cooling rapidly, and she cleared a spot on the sand, smoothing it out with her foot, before sitting down. Occasionally, a particularly large surf would spray against her face, but she didn't mind. The salt seemed to clear her mind.
"What's happening back there?" she wondered softly.
"Much less than what you're imagining, I expect."
She craned her neck to see Draco standing off to the side, hands in his pockets, looking down at her amusedly. "Have you been out here the whole afternoon?"
"Mostly. I dropped by the room; by the way, did you realize you set up the ward on the door wrong?" He arched an eyebrow at her. "Imagine my surprise when I attempted to open the door, only to have bubbles explode in my face. Not very repelling, is it? Of course, I suppose your intent could have been to have a potential intruder scream in surprise. Ah." He nodded understandingly. "It all makes sense now."
She flushed red. "I was a - a little distracted."
"Sure." A pause, and then, "He's asleep, by the way."
"I expected him to be. He's not a very rambunctious kid. Sweet, though."
"Debatable, but I'll let it go."
She was beginning to feel his self-possessed stare disconcerting, so she coughed hastily and said, "Aren't you going to sit?"
"What, in this sand? No, thanks."
"How'd you know I was here?" A note of teasing slipped into her voice. "Spent some time searching for me, did you?"
"Actually," Draco's voice was humorous as he tipped his head at her, "I cast a Locating charm on that."
Bewildered, she glanced down to see a tiny gold pin with emerald studs fastened to her shirt.
"Didn't take me more than five seconds," Draco added smugly.
She glared at the pin before yanking it off, successfully adding a tear in the sweater. She chucked it at him, but his hand snapped up out of his pocket with unbelievable speed, and his fingers closed around the pin, disappointingly, several inches from his face.
He laughed at her. "Nice try."
She ignored him as she retrieved her wand from her back pocket, pointed it at the hole in her sweater, and uttered a repairing charm before jamming the wand back into her pocket. "You suck, Malfoy."
He laughed again. "You're going to have to come up with better insults if you want to get a reaction."
She only lifted her shoulders in the faintest semblance of a shrug. "I did get a reaction."
He stared at her, half unaware that he was doing so. Her slim frame shivered, and he finally moved towards her, dropping his coat around her shoulders.
"Why are you being so nice?"
Her voice broke the silence and washed over the both of them. He didn't break his gaze, only rolled his shoulders backwards.
"Don't mistake practicality for concern, Ginny," he said shortly. "I think you'd better return to the room. Will might wake and find you gone."
"He's down for the night. Draco - "
"Good. I've rented another room in another hotel…so don't wait up for me."
"Draco," she said sharply, before he could, she suspected, Disapparate. "I thought we agreed to trust each other."
"I fail to see the point of that in this conversation."
"You - " She fumbled for the words and settled for, "You can't be that cold."
"Trust and like can be kept separate, you know," he told her. "I trust Potter, but I don't like him. And vice versa."
"And that's applicable in this?"
"Haven't the faintest idea. Good night, Ginny." He touched her cheek with the back of his hand, and to anyone who might've been watching, they would have assumed it was a caress.
Yes, his touch had been warm enough, gentle enough, but it was simply that - a pat on the head or shoulder. A touch that promised nothing, that was nothing except a movement to fill some empty space. A gesture made for lack of anything else to do.
She wanted to catch his hand and turn it so the palm faced her. She wanted him to hold her and tell her that everything would be all right. She wanted him to tell her that Harry was safe, that her family was unharmed, that her friends were alive. She wanted him to reassure her because, goddamn, he knew more than she did. She wanted someone else to know how she felt - how bloody useless when she knew for a fact that she wasn't. She wanted to give some of her hopelessness away; she wanted someone to ease the weight that pulled her under.
She looked from his shoes to his face, startled at the knowing look in his mercury eyes. Draco knew. He knew what she wanted from him, and he wasn't going to give it to her. Whether it was because he didn't know how, or couldn't afford to, or didn't want to - she didn't know - it mattered little.
He looked at her, his gaze clear, his voice crisp, and his words simple.
"Sorry."
"For what?" she whispered.
"For not having Potter's hero complex, I suppose."
His hand fell away from her and he Disapparated.