♥ "There was Nothing About This in the Training Manual" ♥ for sarea_okelani
Title: There was Nothing About This in the Training Manual
Rating: PG-13
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: None
Summary: Ginny was supposed to be at Sunday Lunch with her family. Instead, she's called in to work to protect someone and she doesn't even know why. Needless to say, hijinks ensue.
A/N: Thank you to the mods for their patience. To my recipient, I really hope this is what you were looking for.
There was Nothing About This in the Training Manual
Ginny knocked on the door and took a step back, looking around. It figured that the place would look more like a hotel corridor than an apartment block. All of the doors were painted an inoffensive shade of pastel green, while the walls were a light peach colour and the carpets were positively springy even under the boots she wore for work. Number Seventeen certainly didn’t look like anything special on the outside. She doubted that her impressions would change much when the door was opened. After a couple of moments surveying the hallway Ginny reached out and knocked again, harder and for longer this time. Still nothing.
She was reaching for her wand to unlock the door when she heard the clipped upper class voice of the apartment’s occupant. ‘All right, all right, calm your arse.’ She was already irritated.
When the door opened it was to reveal Draco Malfoy, looking rather worse for wear. He leaned against the door, brushed his blond hair back and eyed Ginny with disdain. ‘You can’t sell door to door in a place like this,’ he said, his arm still hovering above his head. He was wearing nothing but a black silk dressing gown (Ginny assumed there was nothing underneath it anyway) which he appeared to have pulled on hastily in order to answer the door.
'I’m not selling anything,’ said Ginny. ‘Are you being serious? I’m your protection.’
‘Protection against what, exactly? If the answer is “a hangover” come on in.’
Ginny held up her palms. ‘Don’t ask me. Apparently I don’t have the clearance.’ He looked at her blankly. ‘The Ministry sent me.’
His expression darkened. ‘Oh. That. Come in, then.’ He held open the door for her and then slid on the chain when he closed it behind her, as though her appearance had been the reminder that he might be in some kind of danger.
The apartment was pretty much what she expected it would be; open plan for the most part, modern but with extravagant touches that betrayed the fact that the occupier was old money. She had entered into the kitchen area, which was on the left edge of the long apartment. To her right it stretched into the living room, and beyond that was the bedroom area; it was partly obscured from view by some wooden privacy screens, but she could still see the large, unmade bed. The only door in the place signalled the bathroom. The windows provided panoramic views out onto central London, as did the patio area they led out on to. As nice as they were, Ginny knew they could potentially cause her a lot of problems.
Far from considering many of the security issues before her though, Ginny was mainly just jealous that a man of twenty-three years could live somewhere like this without doing much of significance at all in his life. She had worked her arse off for years to get a job as an Auror, a job that she loved and many would be jealous of, but she had to share a flat with two other girls in a crappy part of town. Yes, that summed it up really. Draco Malfoy owned an apartment and Ginny Weasley shared a rented flat. Life was so unfair.
‘Nice place,’ said Ginny, eventually. ‘We’re going to have to do something about these windows, I would imagine. Unless you want to get shot.’
Draco snorted. ‘Shot? Like with a Muggle gun?’
‘A bullet will kill you just as easily as a curse,’ said Ginny. ‘I guess you’re just as arrogant as ever.’
He smirked. ‘I don’t have any reason not to be.’
Ginny could have spent all morning arguing otherwise, but she knew him well enough to know it would have no effect. Anyone passing him in the street knew him well enough to guess that. ‘So says the man with a price on his head,’ she said, in the end.
He was at the kitchen counter, now, beginning to make a pot of coffee. ‘How do you know there’s a price on my head?’ He arched an eyebrow. ‘You don’t have clearance as to why I need protection.’
‘Two and two usually makes four.’ She shrugged.
‘Well sit down,’ he said. ‘No point loitering by the door if you’re going to be here for some time, is there?’
‘No point at all,’ said Ginny, dumping her bag on one of the chairs and hanging her cardigan over it, ‘but I think I’ll take a better look around before I sit.’
‘As you wish.’
She could already tell that his smirk was for show, because as soon as he thought she wasn’t looking it fell from his face. Not that she thought that he was depressed or anything like that, just that he was so hungover that keeping up with his bravado was too much for him. Ginny would have felt sorry for him, if she wasn’t missing out on her mum’s Sunday Roast to hang around in his million-Galleon bachelor pad.
As she slowly made her way along the length of the apartment, Ginny noticed the suitcase set next to the settee, as though it had been placed there just in case.
‘Were you planning on going somewhere?’ she asked, gesturing toward it.
Draco shrugged, turning back to the coffee pot. ‘I thought about it. Decided against it.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, sounding irritated. ‘I like my own bed. Merlin, what’s it to do with you?’
‘Just trying to collate all of the information to keep you safe.’
‘You don’t need information. If you did, you would have been told what you were protecting me from.’
It was then that there was a knock on the door. Three knocks, really, quick and familiar. Ginny looked at Draco, who was frozen with his wand raised, mugs floating in mid-air between the open cupboard and the kitchen sideboard.
‘Expecting someone, Malfoy?’ Ginny asked, keeping her voice low.
He shrugged, but the look on his face gave him away. ‘Not that I recall.’
Ginny readjusted her wand in her fist, making sure she had a good grip on it, before approaching the door. She peered through the spy-hole and was unsurprised to see a girl on the other side. When she turned to look back at Draco he was drinking his coffee nonchalantly and threw her a look that said, ‘Well?’
‘Get rid of her,’ Ginny said. Draco opened his mouth to protest, but Ginny cut him off. ‘I’m not joking. She’s trouble.’ The face may have been contorted by the spy-hole, but Ginny knew the pinched features of the tiny brunette behind the door anywhere.
‘Little Maisie Chepstow?’ said Draco. ‘She’s fine.’
There was another, less patient knock on the door. Ginny gave him a hard look. ‘We both know that’s not her last name. We both know who her father is. Get. Rid.’
He rolled his eyes, giving Ginny a glimpse of the entitled twelve year old she had always pictured him as, even as they grew up. The mention of the name ‘Malfoy’ brought that sneering, snobby expression straight back to her mind even when a picture of Draco accompanied an article in the paper. It didn’t matter if he was opening a new ward at St. Mungo’s or falling out of a nightclub, the bully he had been at Hogwarts lingered like the remnants of a spell gone wrong. As Ginny had grown up and grown as an Auror she had learnt not to judge people by the labels they had forged for themselves at Hogwarts, or by the rigid qualities assigned by house. After school - or perhaps after the war - people changed quickly. Draco should be no exception. Yet, she could not shake the feeling that he was just as loathsome he had always been and that the only manner he had changed since the war was that he had got better at hiding it.
Ginny moved backward, standing in the space behind the door as Draco opened it. It occurred to her that if Maisie was aware enough to look, she would probably see Ginny’s reflection in the window. She suppressed a sigh as Draco greeted the girl. Leave nothing to chance, she told herself, sliding out of her top. Bloody Aurors.
‘What took you so long?’ Maisie was saying. Draco was no good under pressure and he always had been a bad liar. He was overplaying the hungover angle, now. She was bound to see through it. ‘Who were you talking to before?’
Ginny threw her head forward and messed up her hair. Then, she pulled off her boots as quietly as she could. For the finishing touch she licked her thumbs and then rubbed them underneath her eyes in an attempt to smear her eye liner. Draco’s eyes slid over to where she stood in nothing but her bra, skirt and socks. The look he gave her told her she was probably on the right lines. With a deep breath she started off across the apartment, not looking at Maisie, but going straight for the coffee.
The apartment seemed silent all of a sudden. Ginny assumed that Maisie and Draco had fallen into a stunned silence, since she had her back to them. When she turned back to face them she was proven correct. Maisie’s jaw had dropped so far that Ginny thought she had to have recognised her; there was just not other reason to be surprised by a half dressed girl in Draco Malfoy’s apartment on a Sunday morning.
Ginny groaned, clutched her coffee and then her head. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked. The feeling of her wand in the back pocket of her skirt was comforting, though Mad Eye would be spinning in his grave.
Draco’s eyes were very much south of her face. She so wanted to slap him. ‘Maisie was just leaving,’ he said, tearing his eyes away to face the girl at the door once more.
‘I can’t believe you, Draco, I really can’t,’ she said, her eyes filling with tears.
‘Sorry,’ he said, his voice void of emotion. ‘I can honestly say it wasn’t my idea.’
With a barely concealed sob, she was gone. It happened so fast that Ginny couldn’t tell whether it was magic or just good old running away. Not being in the mood to have a Malfoy talking directly to her chest, Ginny took the moment to grab her cardigan from the living room and throw it on over her bra.
‘That was harsh,’ said Draco. ‘I had hoped to spend a lovely Sunday in bed with that girl.’
‘It’s probably better for both of you that I intervened, in that case.’ She was pulling her boots back on now. ‘You wouldn’t want to be murdered by the head of a Muggle gang and I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t want to be riddled with whatever diseases you’ve got.’
‘I’m not diseased,’ said Draco, indignant. ‘Do I look like a person who is uninterested in personal hygiene to you?’
‘People are always too trusting of their partners,’ Ginny said. ‘I doubt you’re any exception.’ He was looking at her in a way she liked even less than the one from a few moments before. It was a look that said he saw through her words to something underneath. She ignored him, ignored the situation and mentally berated herself for being paranoid. ‘Get dressed,’ she said in an attempt to push on. ‘We need to get out of here.’
‘Are you joking? We’re staying here.’ He sat on the sofa as if to prove it.
‘Did I mention the windows that were just begging for someone to take a shot at you? I believe I did. And since you are clearly messed up in something involving Muggles, I think that the presence of Maisie Walden on your doorstep is enough for me to demand that we leave here. For your protection.’
He sighed and headed for the bedroom area. Ginny could see his bare feet underneath the privacy screens. She took the opportunity to dress herself properly and tidy her make up as best she could using the compact mirror she carried in her handbag.
‘Just so you know,’ said Draco, his drawl carrying across the room from behind the screen. ‘I think that you’re putting two and two together and making five. You’ve probably come up with some silly scenario in your head that is much more exciting than the truth.’ He reappeared, dressed in a crisp white shirt and black trousers, his feet still bare. ‘The Ministry may want me protected but that doesn’t mean anything interesting is going on.’
‘I know my department, thanks,’ Ginny said, annoyed. ‘I don’t need some silver spoon toff telling me what goes on there.’
‘I thought you Weasleys were against prejudice and all that?’ he asked, arching an eyebrow at her as he adjusted his cuff links. ‘And I think you do. Since you don’t have clearance. Ready?’
‘I’m an Auror,’ Ginny said. ‘I’m always ready.’
*
They had not spoken for well over twenty minutes. Ginny nursed her drink silently, not looking at Draco, trying to think of something to say just to pass the time. He sat beside her, staring out ahead of him as though he had a lot on his mind. They were in the corner of the room, their backs against the wall so that all of the people coming and going in The Leaky Cauldron were within their field of view. Ginny had thought it a good idea to go to a public place, but to stay in the shadows. Still, they did not go unnoticed.
'Working, are you, Gin?’ asked Hannah, as she wiped down the next table over.
‘Couldn’t possibly say,’ said Ginny, her glum voice giving it away. ‘Maybe I’m on a date.’
Hannah laughed, shook her head and walked away with six glasses floating alongside her. She was a nice girl, but she had a big mouth, everyone in the place would know they were there soon enough.
‘Can’t we go somewhere a little bit more … anonymous?’ said Draco once Hannah was out of earshot. He kept is gaze trained on her as she chatted with someone at the bar. A moment later and the patron was turning in her stool to get a look at Ginny and Draco in their corner.
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ said Ginny. 'This might not be fun, but my priority is your protection. You’re relatively safe here.’
‘Relatively. Wow. Should I live until tomorrow afternoon, I’m going to give you a smashing evaluation.’
‘I’m not your waitress, Draco. But it’s nice to hear that you’re taking the situation a little more seriously.’
‘Well, if you knew what I know.’ He whistled. ‘You would be kind of scared, too.’
‘Then let me do my job,’ Ginny said, turning her head to look at him properly now.
‘We can’t stay here all day.’ He didn’t turn to face her, but dropped his eyes away from Hannah and began to pick at the label on his bottle. ‘Theoretically, we could, I suppose. But I really don’t have the patience or inclination. And when you’re on the run, staying in one place makes you feel like a sitting duck.’
‘Theoretically,’ Ginny repeated, mocking his accent. ‘I wasn’t planning on staying here all day. There’s cafés out on Diagon Alley we can go to for a couple of hours, maybe, then back here for a bit. I’d take you to the Auror Office if I thought you’d go.’
‘I wouldn’t,’ said Draco, confirming it for her. ‘Then what?’
Ginny shrugged. ‘I’ll think of something. I’ve got to get you to the Ministry for nine tomorrow, right? That’s less than twenty-four hours. It shouldn’t be too hard to find places to hide out ‘til then.’
‘Oh Merlin,’ said Draco, apparently ignoring her. He shifted his weight so that his whole body was pointed toward her, his back to the rest of the room. ‘We are leaving. We are going somewhere Muggle or something.’
‘I’m in charge here.’ She was tired of having him argue about it. ‘I’m the one who had to pass all the exams and do all the training. You’re just some boy who?’ A piercing cackling carried across the room. Draco gave her a significant look. It was Pansy Parkinson, sat on a stool at the bar talking animatedly to the barman whilst Hannah avoided looking at them. ‘I thought you were friends,’ Ginny said. ‘More than friends, even.’
‘We are,’ said Draco, ‘sort of. But if she sees me then things get complicated. So can we please, please, get out of here?’
Ginny sighed. ‘This was my decision,’ she said, ‘not yours. Understood?’
‘Fine. Yep. Whatever you like.’ He was already on his feet.
‘Go, go, go,’ Ginny said, her voice low. It was difficult to cross the room at speed and still survey the whole thing for potential threats, but Ginny managed it and soon enough they were out on to Charing Cross Road, the fresh air brushing their faces like a sigh of relief.
After a moment she grabbed Draco by the wrist, pulled him into the nearby phone box and Disapparated. When they arrived at their destination, he pulled away from her violently, gagging. He leaned on the barrier that was in front of them, looking down to the river. Ginny pretended not to notice the fuss he was making and leaned against the barrier, pulling her hair out of her eyes as she watched Tower Bridge raise to let a boat load of tourists pass through.
‘What did you do that for?’ Draco asked. He gripped at the metal, his knuckles white to the point of transparency. ‘I hate that. Hate it.’
‘I wanted to avoid another argument.’ She sighed. ‘I see now that no matter what I do, it’ll be met with protests.’
‘That’s public service,’ said Draco, his voice tinged with bitterness.
‘Cheer up, Draco.’ She pushed him lightly, as though to nudge him out of his pity party. ‘Let’s get a coffee.’ She started off toward one of the cafés that lined the riverside. Normally she wouldn’t consider the place, since it would doubtlessly be overpriced, but she’d claim it back on expenses from work. Draco did insist on going somewhere Muggle, after all.
‘I can’t drink milk at the moment,’ he was saying as he followed behind her. ‘I don’t know if I can keep it down.’
Then, as if the heavens broke on a sunny day and torrential rain crashed down, something felt wrong. It was the sort of change that was practically imperceptible to most people - certainly to Draco since he was still moaning - but that Ginny was trained to pick up on. A hint of magic in the air in a decidedly Muggle place, the feeling of eyes on her back, of someone skulking through a crowd.
She picked out the culprit just as he let his first curse fly - tall, dressed in black, alone on a street full of tourists he should have been visible even before Ginny felt something amiss. She turned, shoved Draco in the chest, sending him flying into an alley way, then she shot off a curse of her own. ‘Shit,’ she said, when the spell only succeeded in sending a sandwich board backward by thirty feet. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’ She was not the Obliviators’ favourite person on the best of days, never mind on a Sunday afternoon.
She reached out for Draco, who gave her a pleading look. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘No choice.’
They were barely in the docks for thirty seconds when they had to begin running. This time it was a woman, one Ginny vaguely recognised. She was dodging curses left and right, barely having chance to throw back any of her own. She screamed at Draco to go left, but he just kept on going as though he didn’t hear her.
‘Draco!’ she called. ‘Left!’ He came to a halt, sending her crashing into his back. ‘What are you doing?’
He grabbed her arms. ‘We are not doing this your way again.’
It was like she was being pulled head first down a slide; Ginny had forgotten how awful side-along Apparition felt. When she landed, flat on her back on hard concrete, she decided that perhaps Draco’s earlier reaction hadn’t been totally over the top. Still a little over the top, but not totally. Not that she was going to say anything. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes.
The room was dark, lit only in wand-light. It wasn’t even a room, really, but a platform. They were deep underground, in what was clearly a disused Tube platform. The posters on the walls were faded or peeling away and there was no seating. There was only Ginny, the light of the wand, and Draco, sat on the floor against the wall, his head in his wandless hand, breathing heavily.
‘What time is it?’ Ginny asked. Her voice was quiet, but it echoed in the darkness.
Draco shrugged. ‘Not late enough.’
‘What on earth is going on, Draco?’
‘You don’t have security clearance.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘I think we’re beyond that, don’t you? Those people might have been shooting curses at us, and we might have been running, but you know what I noticed?’ Draco lifted his head to look at her, interested. ‘They had guns, too. In holsters. So, I guess I was right about you being mixed up with Muggles. I just didn’t know that the rest of the wizarding world was getting in on it too.’
‘Don’t exaggerate, Weasley,’ he sneered. ‘This is all the Ministry’s fault. I came to them. I told them. I was ready and the answer they gave me? We can’t until Monday. The person we need to OK it is out of the country and we can’t get a fucking owl to them so we’ll send you some protection until then.’
‘You’re an informant?’ Ginny asked. She had suspected he might be; she had protected informants in the past. Though they had always been a less wealthy and well-dressed.
‘I’m a secret keeper,’ he said, his voice cracking over the words. ‘Only, at this rate all the information I shared is going to be moot. It’ll be a couple of guys who breached the International Statute for Wizarding Secrecy, who are about to blow the doors off the thing, but who you’ll never be able to find because you gave them enough time to relocate.’
‘That’s government,’ said Ginny. ‘The red tape always seems to stop us from saving lives, instead of helping us.’
‘I suppose you had no choice about being an Auror,’ Draco said. ‘I bet it’s like your family business.’
‘I’m the first Auror in our family. For a long time, anyway.’
‘But you Weasley’s make a habit of saving lives.’
‘And Malfoys look out for number one. Except for this is your weekend off, apparently.’ She gave him a sympathetic look.
‘Yes, and look what it results in. Let me tell you, I’m not going to to be unselfish ever again.’
‘I don’t believe that,’ Ginny said. ‘It’s not that I think you’re secretly a good person or anything, because I don’t. But I believe we all have the capacity for change, and that doing good things is kind of addictive.’
‘That’s … deep,’ Draco said, looking as though he had zoned out already. ‘Any ideas for where we can go next?’
‘One,’ Ginny said. ‘The safest place I know. But you have to promise to be good.’
‘I’ll do no such thing.’
*
She used three physical keys and four spells to unlock the door and even more to close it behind them. Briefly, she could hear the music and the bell as a customer entered the Chinese downstairs, but then the spells took hold and the flat was in silence. Draco stood less than a foot from her, as though afraid to move.
‘Sit down,’ she said. ‘I’ll get us a drink.’
He took a seat at the cheap wooden table, looking about the room. None of the chairs matched. The walls were white, but greying, spruced up with posters of Quidditch teams and bands the girls liked. One of the cupboard doors opened slightly no matter what they did. On the fridge was a note from one of her flat mates, saying she had been called in to work, too. The other had gone to visit her parents for the weekend. Ginny and Draco were very much alone. Finally her heartbeat, which had been raised since the moment she got the call, began to slow.
‘Do you usually bring men back here on the first date?’ Draco asked, as she handed him a can of beer.
Ginny thought about this for a moment. ‘Yeah, usually.’
‘Lucky me.’ He arched an eyebrow at her and opened the can.
‘Some of them get further than others. And this isn’t a date. It’s work.’
‘Surely you shouldn’t be drinking then.’
‘As long as I do my job, they won’t mind.’
‘And I guess holing up in your little fortress of sad is doing your job.’ He cast his eyes about the room to emphasise his point.
‘Exactly.’ Ginny smiled.
It seemed to Ginny that she had been right about Draco. He was still very much that spoilt, sneering boy she remembered from Hogwarts. That person would always be the core of him, or at least the core of the man she saw him as. That wasn’t to say that there wasn’t layers, though, or that the bad part of him was the biggest part. It probably was, but Ginny was becoming more willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Plus, no one had ever looked quite as good as he did, tired and tousled though he was, in the harsh lights of her kitchen.
‘Listen,’ she said. ‘It’s not all that comfortable in here, and this is all we have as far as communal areas go. Would it be weird to go and hang out in my bedroom?’
‘Only if you don’t let me bring the bottle of Firewhiskey I saw in your cupboard,’ said Draco, gesturing toward it.
‘I told you to be good,’ said Ginny. Draco looked her up and down, causing her heart rate to pick up speed for very different reasons to the rest of the day.
‘This is me being good,’ he said, getting up. He moved around her, skirting just a little too close, then grabbed the bottle from the cupboard. ‘After you.’
‘This is my house,’ Ginny said, heading toward her room. ‘You don’t know where anything is, of course it’s after me.’
‘I know where the booze is,’ he said, as she opened the door, ‘and now I know where your bed is. So I have all the information I need.’
Then his lips were on hers. For a moment she was extremely aware of the door frame pressed into her back and the cold bottle against her thigh, but then his tongue crept forward and made her forget. She found herself reaching for him, reciprocating and deepening the kiss, only for him to pull away.
‘I think I have Stockholm Syndrome,’ he said, his face more serious than he had seen it. ‘Or maybe poverty turns me on.’
‘Maybe you’re bored,’ Ginny said. ‘Or scared.’
‘Maybe it’s all of that. Maybe it’s…’ his brow furrowed. Ginny pulled on his shirt, bringing him in to the room and kicking the door closed.
‘If I have to keep you safe until tomorrow morning, I’m going to have to keep you close.’
Original Prompt that we sent you:
Briefly describe what you'd like to receive in your fic: Post-Hogwarts era story where either Draco or Ginny is with the Ministry and the other is an important civilian who needs to be protected. For that reason they need to go on the run (at least for a bit).
The tone/mood of the fic: Any tone.
An element/line of dialogue/object you would specifically like in your fic: Nothing specific.
The rating of the the fic you want: PG-13 and up!
Canon or AU? Either.
Deal Breakers (anything you don't want?): Don't want either Draco or Ginny to die; that's about it.
Rating: PG-13
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: None
Summary: Ginny was supposed to be at Sunday Lunch with her family. Instead, she's called in to work to protect someone and she doesn't even know why. Needless to say, hijinks ensue.
A/N: Thank you to the mods for their patience. To my recipient, I really hope this is what you were looking for.
There was Nothing About This in the Training Manual
Ginny knocked on the door and took a step back, looking around. It figured that the place would look more like a hotel corridor than an apartment block. All of the doors were painted an inoffensive shade of pastel green, while the walls were a light peach colour and the carpets were positively springy even under the boots she wore for work. Number Seventeen certainly didn’t look like anything special on the outside. She doubted that her impressions would change much when the door was opened. After a couple of moments surveying the hallway Ginny reached out and knocked again, harder and for longer this time. Still nothing.
She was reaching for her wand to unlock the door when she heard the clipped upper class voice of the apartment’s occupant. ‘All right, all right, calm your arse.’ She was already irritated.
When the door opened it was to reveal Draco Malfoy, looking rather worse for wear. He leaned against the door, brushed his blond hair back and eyed Ginny with disdain. ‘You can’t sell door to door in a place like this,’ he said, his arm still hovering above his head. He was wearing nothing but a black silk dressing gown (Ginny assumed there was nothing underneath it anyway) which he appeared to have pulled on hastily in order to answer the door.
'I’m not selling anything,’ said Ginny. ‘Are you being serious? I’m your protection.’
‘Protection against what, exactly? If the answer is “a hangover” come on in.’
Ginny held up her palms. ‘Don’t ask me. Apparently I don’t have the clearance.’ He looked at her blankly. ‘The Ministry sent me.’
His expression darkened. ‘Oh. That. Come in, then.’ He held open the door for her and then slid on the chain when he closed it behind her, as though her appearance had been the reminder that he might be in some kind of danger.
The apartment was pretty much what she expected it would be; open plan for the most part, modern but with extravagant touches that betrayed the fact that the occupier was old money. She had entered into the kitchen area, which was on the left edge of the long apartment. To her right it stretched into the living room, and beyond that was the bedroom area; it was partly obscured from view by some wooden privacy screens, but she could still see the large, unmade bed. The only door in the place signalled the bathroom. The windows provided panoramic views out onto central London, as did the patio area they led out on to. As nice as they were, Ginny knew they could potentially cause her a lot of problems.
Far from considering many of the security issues before her though, Ginny was mainly just jealous that a man of twenty-three years could live somewhere like this without doing much of significance at all in his life. She had worked her arse off for years to get a job as an Auror, a job that she loved and many would be jealous of, but she had to share a flat with two other girls in a crappy part of town. Yes, that summed it up really. Draco Malfoy owned an apartment and Ginny Weasley shared a rented flat. Life was so unfair.
‘Nice place,’ said Ginny, eventually. ‘We’re going to have to do something about these windows, I would imagine. Unless you want to get shot.’
Draco snorted. ‘Shot? Like with a Muggle gun?’
‘A bullet will kill you just as easily as a curse,’ said Ginny. ‘I guess you’re just as arrogant as ever.’
He smirked. ‘I don’t have any reason not to be.’
Ginny could have spent all morning arguing otherwise, but she knew him well enough to know it would have no effect. Anyone passing him in the street knew him well enough to guess that. ‘So says the man with a price on his head,’ she said, in the end.
He was at the kitchen counter, now, beginning to make a pot of coffee. ‘How do you know there’s a price on my head?’ He arched an eyebrow. ‘You don’t have clearance as to why I need protection.’
‘Two and two usually makes four.’ She shrugged.
‘Well sit down,’ he said. ‘No point loitering by the door if you’re going to be here for some time, is there?’
‘No point at all,’ said Ginny, dumping her bag on one of the chairs and hanging her cardigan over it, ‘but I think I’ll take a better look around before I sit.’
‘As you wish.’
She could already tell that his smirk was for show, because as soon as he thought she wasn’t looking it fell from his face. Not that she thought that he was depressed or anything like that, just that he was so hungover that keeping up with his bravado was too much for him. Ginny would have felt sorry for him, if she wasn’t missing out on her mum’s Sunday Roast to hang around in his million-Galleon bachelor pad.
As she slowly made her way along the length of the apartment, Ginny noticed the suitcase set next to the settee, as though it had been placed there just in case.
‘Were you planning on going somewhere?’ she asked, gesturing toward it.
Draco shrugged, turning back to the coffee pot. ‘I thought about it. Decided against it.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, sounding irritated. ‘I like my own bed. Merlin, what’s it to do with you?’
‘Just trying to collate all of the information to keep you safe.’
‘You don’t need information. If you did, you would have been told what you were protecting me from.’
It was then that there was a knock on the door. Three knocks, really, quick and familiar. Ginny looked at Draco, who was frozen with his wand raised, mugs floating in mid-air between the open cupboard and the kitchen sideboard.
‘Expecting someone, Malfoy?’ Ginny asked, keeping her voice low.
He shrugged, but the look on his face gave him away. ‘Not that I recall.’
Ginny readjusted her wand in her fist, making sure she had a good grip on it, before approaching the door. She peered through the spy-hole and was unsurprised to see a girl on the other side. When she turned to look back at Draco he was drinking his coffee nonchalantly and threw her a look that said, ‘Well?’
‘Get rid of her,’ Ginny said. Draco opened his mouth to protest, but Ginny cut him off. ‘I’m not joking. She’s trouble.’ The face may have been contorted by the spy-hole, but Ginny knew the pinched features of the tiny brunette behind the door anywhere.
‘Little Maisie Chepstow?’ said Draco. ‘She’s fine.’
There was another, less patient knock on the door. Ginny gave him a hard look. ‘We both know that’s not her last name. We both know who her father is. Get. Rid.’
He rolled his eyes, giving Ginny a glimpse of the entitled twelve year old she had always pictured him as, even as they grew up. The mention of the name ‘Malfoy’ brought that sneering, snobby expression straight back to her mind even when a picture of Draco accompanied an article in the paper. It didn’t matter if he was opening a new ward at St. Mungo’s or falling out of a nightclub, the bully he had been at Hogwarts lingered like the remnants of a spell gone wrong. As Ginny had grown up and grown as an Auror she had learnt not to judge people by the labels they had forged for themselves at Hogwarts, or by the rigid qualities assigned by house. After school - or perhaps after the war - people changed quickly. Draco should be no exception. Yet, she could not shake the feeling that he was just as loathsome he had always been and that the only manner he had changed since the war was that he had got better at hiding it.
Ginny moved backward, standing in the space behind the door as Draco opened it. It occurred to her that if Maisie was aware enough to look, she would probably see Ginny’s reflection in the window. She suppressed a sigh as Draco greeted the girl. Leave nothing to chance, she told herself, sliding out of her top. Bloody Aurors.
‘What took you so long?’ Maisie was saying. Draco was no good under pressure and he always had been a bad liar. He was overplaying the hungover angle, now. She was bound to see through it. ‘Who were you talking to before?’
Ginny threw her head forward and messed up her hair. Then, she pulled off her boots as quietly as she could. For the finishing touch she licked her thumbs and then rubbed them underneath her eyes in an attempt to smear her eye liner. Draco’s eyes slid over to where she stood in nothing but her bra, skirt and socks. The look he gave her told her she was probably on the right lines. With a deep breath she started off across the apartment, not looking at Maisie, but going straight for the coffee.
The apartment seemed silent all of a sudden. Ginny assumed that Maisie and Draco had fallen into a stunned silence, since she had her back to them. When she turned back to face them she was proven correct. Maisie’s jaw had dropped so far that Ginny thought she had to have recognised her; there was just not other reason to be surprised by a half dressed girl in Draco Malfoy’s apartment on a Sunday morning.
Ginny groaned, clutched her coffee and then her head. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked. The feeling of her wand in the back pocket of her skirt was comforting, though Mad Eye would be spinning in his grave.
Draco’s eyes were very much south of her face. She so wanted to slap him. ‘Maisie was just leaving,’ he said, tearing his eyes away to face the girl at the door once more.
‘I can’t believe you, Draco, I really can’t,’ she said, her eyes filling with tears.
‘Sorry,’ he said, his voice void of emotion. ‘I can honestly say it wasn’t my idea.’
With a barely concealed sob, she was gone. It happened so fast that Ginny couldn’t tell whether it was magic or just good old running away. Not being in the mood to have a Malfoy talking directly to her chest, Ginny took the moment to grab her cardigan from the living room and throw it on over her bra.
‘That was harsh,’ said Draco. ‘I had hoped to spend a lovely Sunday in bed with that girl.’
‘It’s probably better for both of you that I intervened, in that case.’ She was pulling her boots back on now. ‘You wouldn’t want to be murdered by the head of a Muggle gang and I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t want to be riddled with whatever diseases you’ve got.’
‘I’m not diseased,’ said Draco, indignant. ‘Do I look like a person who is uninterested in personal hygiene to you?’
‘People are always too trusting of their partners,’ Ginny said. ‘I doubt you’re any exception.’ He was looking at her in a way she liked even less than the one from a few moments before. It was a look that said he saw through her words to something underneath. She ignored him, ignored the situation and mentally berated herself for being paranoid. ‘Get dressed,’ she said in an attempt to push on. ‘We need to get out of here.’
‘Are you joking? We’re staying here.’ He sat on the sofa as if to prove it.
‘Did I mention the windows that were just begging for someone to take a shot at you? I believe I did. And since you are clearly messed up in something involving Muggles, I think that the presence of Maisie Walden on your doorstep is enough for me to demand that we leave here. For your protection.’
He sighed and headed for the bedroom area. Ginny could see his bare feet underneath the privacy screens. She took the opportunity to dress herself properly and tidy her make up as best she could using the compact mirror she carried in her handbag.
‘Just so you know,’ said Draco, his drawl carrying across the room from behind the screen. ‘I think that you’re putting two and two together and making five. You’ve probably come up with some silly scenario in your head that is much more exciting than the truth.’ He reappeared, dressed in a crisp white shirt and black trousers, his feet still bare. ‘The Ministry may want me protected but that doesn’t mean anything interesting is going on.’
‘I know my department, thanks,’ Ginny said, annoyed. ‘I don’t need some silver spoon toff telling me what goes on there.’
‘I thought you Weasleys were against prejudice and all that?’ he asked, arching an eyebrow at her as he adjusted his cuff links. ‘And I think you do. Since you don’t have clearance. Ready?’
‘I’m an Auror,’ Ginny said. ‘I’m always ready.’
*
They had not spoken for well over twenty minutes. Ginny nursed her drink silently, not looking at Draco, trying to think of something to say just to pass the time. He sat beside her, staring out ahead of him as though he had a lot on his mind. They were in the corner of the room, their backs against the wall so that all of the people coming and going in The Leaky Cauldron were within their field of view. Ginny had thought it a good idea to go to a public place, but to stay in the shadows. Still, they did not go unnoticed.
'Working, are you, Gin?’ asked Hannah, as she wiped down the next table over.
‘Couldn’t possibly say,’ said Ginny, her glum voice giving it away. ‘Maybe I’m on a date.’
Hannah laughed, shook her head and walked away with six glasses floating alongside her. She was a nice girl, but she had a big mouth, everyone in the place would know they were there soon enough.
‘Can’t we go somewhere a little bit more … anonymous?’ said Draco once Hannah was out of earshot. He kept is gaze trained on her as she chatted with someone at the bar. A moment later and the patron was turning in her stool to get a look at Ginny and Draco in their corner.
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ said Ginny. 'This might not be fun, but my priority is your protection. You’re relatively safe here.’
‘Relatively. Wow. Should I live until tomorrow afternoon, I’m going to give you a smashing evaluation.’
‘I’m not your waitress, Draco. But it’s nice to hear that you’re taking the situation a little more seriously.’
‘Well, if you knew what I know.’ He whistled. ‘You would be kind of scared, too.’
‘Then let me do my job,’ Ginny said, turning her head to look at him properly now.
‘We can’t stay here all day.’ He didn’t turn to face her, but dropped his eyes away from Hannah and began to pick at the label on his bottle. ‘Theoretically, we could, I suppose. But I really don’t have the patience or inclination. And when you’re on the run, staying in one place makes you feel like a sitting duck.’
‘Theoretically,’ Ginny repeated, mocking his accent. ‘I wasn’t planning on staying here all day. There’s cafés out on Diagon Alley we can go to for a couple of hours, maybe, then back here for a bit. I’d take you to the Auror Office if I thought you’d go.’
‘I wouldn’t,’ said Draco, confirming it for her. ‘Then what?’
Ginny shrugged. ‘I’ll think of something. I’ve got to get you to the Ministry for nine tomorrow, right? That’s less than twenty-four hours. It shouldn’t be too hard to find places to hide out ‘til then.’
‘Oh Merlin,’ said Draco, apparently ignoring her. He shifted his weight so that his whole body was pointed toward her, his back to the rest of the room. ‘We are leaving. We are going somewhere Muggle or something.’
‘I’m in charge here.’ She was tired of having him argue about it. ‘I’m the one who had to pass all the exams and do all the training. You’re just some boy who?’ A piercing cackling carried across the room. Draco gave her a significant look. It was Pansy Parkinson, sat on a stool at the bar talking animatedly to the barman whilst Hannah avoided looking at them. ‘I thought you were friends,’ Ginny said. ‘More than friends, even.’
‘We are,’ said Draco, ‘sort of. But if she sees me then things get complicated. So can we please, please, get out of here?’
Ginny sighed. ‘This was my decision,’ she said, ‘not yours. Understood?’
‘Fine. Yep. Whatever you like.’ He was already on his feet.
‘Go, go, go,’ Ginny said, her voice low. It was difficult to cross the room at speed and still survey the whole thing for potential threats, but Ginny managed it and soon enough they were out on to Charing Cross Road, the fresh air brushing their faces like a sigh of relief.
After a moment she grabbed Draco by the wrist, pulled him into the nearby phone box and Disapparated. When they arrived at their destination, he pulled away from her violently, gagging. He leaned on the barrier that was in front of them, looking down to the river. Ginny pretended not to notice the fuss he was making and leaned against the barrier, pulling her hair out of her eyes as she watched Tower Bridge raise to let a boat load of tourists pass through.
‘What did you do that for?’ Draco asked. He gripped at the metal, his knuckles white to the point of transparency. ‘I hate that. Hate it.’
‘I wanted to avoid another argument.’ She sighed. ‘I see now that no matter what I do, it’ll be met with protests.’
‘That’s public service,’ said Draco, his voice tinged with bitterness.
‘Cheer up, Draco.’ She pushed him lightly, as though to nudge him out of his pity party. ‘Let’s get a coffee.’ She started off toward one of the cafés that lined the riverside. Normally she wouldn’t consider the place, since it would doubtlessly be overpriced, but she’d claim it back on expenses from work. Draco did insist on going somewhere Muggle, after all.
‘I can’t drink milk at the moment,’ he was saying as he followed behind her. ‘I don’t know if I can keep it down.’
Then, as if the heavens broke on a sunny day and torrential rain crashed down, something felt wrong. It was the sort of change that was practically imperceptible to most people - certainly to Draco since he was still moaning - but that Ginny was trained to pick up on. A hint of magic in the air in a decidedly Muggle place, the feeling of eyes on her back, of someone skulking through a crowd.
She picked out the culprit just as he let his first curse fly - tall, dressed in black, alone on a street full of tourists he should have been visible even before Ginny felt something amiss. She turned, shoved Draco in the chest, sending him flying into an alley way, then she shot off a curse of her own. ‘Shit,’ she said, when the spell only succeeded in sending a sandwich board backward by thirty feet. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’ She was not the Obliviators’ favourite person on the best of days, never mind on a Sunday afternoon.
She reached out for Draco, who gave her a pleading look. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘No choice.’
They were barely in the docks for thirty seconds when they had to begin running. This time it was a woman, one Ginny vaguely recognised. She was dodging curses left and right, barely having chance to throw back any of her own. She screamed at Draco to go left, but he just kept on going as though he didn’t hear her.
‘Draco!’ she called. ‘Left!’ He came to a halt, sending her crashing into his back. ‘What are you doing?’
He grabbed her arms. ‘We are not doing this your way again.’
It was like she was being pulled head first down a slide; Ginny had forgotten how awful side-along Apparition felt. When she landed, flat on her back on hard concrete, she decided that perhaps Draco’s earlier reaction hadn’t been totally over the top. Still a little over the top, but not totally. Not that she was going to say anything. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes.
The room was dark, lit only in wand-light. It wasn’t even a room, really, but a platform. They were deep underground, in what was clearly a disused Tube platform. The posters on the walls were faded or peeling away and there was no seating. There was only Ginny, the light of the wand, and Draco, sat on the floor against the wall, his head in his wandless hand, breathing heavily.
‘What time is it?’ Ginny asked. Her voice was quiet, but it echoed in the darkness.
Draco shrugged. ‘Not late enough.’
‘What on earth is going on, Draco?’
‘You don’t have security clearance.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘I think we’re beyond that, don’t you? Those people might have been shooting curses at us, and we might have been running, but you know what I noticed?’ Draco lifted his head to look at her, interested. ‘They had guns, too. In holsters. So, I guess I was right about you being mixed up with Muggles. I just didn’t know that the rest of the wizarding world was getting in on it too.’
‘Don’t exaggerate, Weasley,’ he sneered. ‘This is all the Ministry’s fault. I came to them. I told them. I was ready and the answer they gave me? We can’t until Monday. The person we need to OK it is out of the country and we can’t get a fucking owl to them so we’ll send you some protection until then.’
‘You’re an informant?’ Ginny asked. She had suspected he might be; she had protected informants in the past. Though they had always been a less wealthy and well-dressed.
‘I’m a secret keeper,’ he said, his voice cracking over the words. ‘Only, at this rate all the information I shared is going to be moot. It’ll be a couple of guys who breached the International Statute for Wizarding Secrecy, who are about to blow the doors off the thing, but who you’ll never be able to find because you gave them enough time to relocate.’
‘That’s government,’ said Ginny. ‘The red tape always seems to stop us from saving lives, instead of helping us.’
‘I suppose you had no choice about being an Auror,’ Draco said. ‘I bet it’s like your family business.’
‘I’m the first Auror in our family. For a long time, anyway.’
‘But you Weasley’s make a habit of saving lives.’
‘And Malfoys look out for number one. Except for this is your weekend off, apparently.’ She gave him a sympathetic look.
‘Yes, and look what it results in. Let me tell you, I’m not going to to be unselfish ever again.’
‘I don’t believe that,’ Ginny said. ‘It’s not that I think you’re secretly a good person or anything, because I don’t. But I believe we all have the capacity for change, and that doing good things is kind of addictive.’
‘That’s … deep,’ Draco said, looking as though he had zoned out already. ‘Any ideas for where we can go next?’
‘One,’ Ginny said. ‘The safest place I know. But you have to promise to be good.’
‘I’ll do no such thing.’
*
She used three physical keys and four spells to unlock the door and even more to close it behind them. Briefly, she could hear the music and the bell as a customer entered the Chinese downstairs, but then the spells took hold and the flat was in silence. Draco stood less than a foot from her, as though afraid to move.
‘Sit down,’ she said. ‘I’ll get us a drink.’
He took a seat at the cheap wooden table, looking about the room. None of the chairs matched. The walls were white, but greying, spruced up with posters of Quidditch teams and bands the girls liked. One of the cupboard doors opened slightly no matter what they did. On the fridge was a note from one of her flat mates, saying she had been called in to work, too. The other had gone to visit her parents for the weekend. Ginny and Draco were very much alone. Finally her heartbeat, which had been raised since the moment she got the call, began to slow.
‘Do you usually bring men back here on the first date?’ Draco asked, as she handed him a can of beer.
Ginny thought about this for a moment. ‘Yeah, usually.’
‘Lucky me.’ He arched an eyebrow at her and opened the can.
‘Some of them get further than others. And this isn’t a date. It’s work.’
‘Surely you shouldn’t be drinking then.’
‘As long as I do my job, they won’t mind.’
‘And I guess holing up in your little fortress of sad is doing your job.’ He cast his eyes about the room to emphasise his point.
‘Exactly.’ Ginny smiled.
It seemed to Ginny that she had been right about Draco. He was still very much that spoilt, sneering boy she remembered from Hogwarts. That person would always be the core of him, or at least the core of the man she saw him as. That wasn’t to say that there wasn’t layers, though, or that the bad part of him was the biggest part. It probably was, but Ginny was becoming more willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Plus, no one had ever looked quite as good as he did, tired and tousled though he was, in the harsh lights of her kitchen.
‘Listen,’ she said. ‘It’s not all that comfortable in here, and this is all we have as far as communal areas go. Would it be weird to go and hang out in my bedroom?’
‘Only if you don’t let me bring the bottle of Firewhiskey I saw in your cupboard,’ said Draco, gesturing toward it.
‘I told you to be good,’ said Ginny. Draco looked her up and down, causing her heart rate to pick up speed for very different reasons to the rest of the day.
‘This is me being good,’ he said, getting up. He moved around her, skirting just a little too close, then grabbed the bottle from the cupboard. ‘After you.’
‘This is my house,’ Ginny said, heading toward her room. ‘You don’t know where anything is, of course it’s after me.’
‘I know where the booze is,’ he said, as she opened the door, ‘and now I know where your bed is. So I have all the information I need.’
Then his lips were on hers. For a moment she was extremely aware of the door frame pressed into her back and the cold bottle against her thigh, but then his tongue crept forward and made her forget. She found herself reaching for him, reciprocating and deepening the kiss, only for him to pull away.
‘I think I have Stockholm Syndrome,’ he said, his face more serious than he had seen it. ‘Or maybe poverty turns me on.’
‘Maybe you’re bored,’ Ginny said. ‘Or scared.’
‘Maybe it’s all of that. Maybe it’s…’ his brow furrowed. Ginny pulled on his shirt, bringing him in to the room and kicking the door closed.
‘If I have to keep you safe until tomorrow morning, I’m going to have to keep you close.’
Original Prompt that we sent you:
Briefly describe what you'd like to receive in your fic: Post-Hogwarts era story where either Draco or Ginny is with the Ministry and the other is an important civilian who needs to be protected. For that reason they need to go on the run (at least for a bit).
The tone/mood of the fic: Any tone.
An element/line of dialogue/object you would specifically like in your fic: Nothing specific.
The rating of the the fic you want: PG-13 and up!
Canon or AU? Either.
Deal Breakers (anything you don't want?): Don't want either Draco or Ginny to die; that's about it.