tudorrose1533 wrote 'Under' for softlyforgotten (Part 1 of 2)
Title: Under (Part 1/2)
Author: tudorrose1533
Rating: Hard R
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Character death, violence, language, brief scene of sexuality.
Summary: “His body lies cold and still beside her; his mouth is open, an O, and his hair is drying, feathery, in wisps, over his closed eyes. That fair skin; that nearly white hair. Dead, he looks so young.”
Author's Notes: Based loosely on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, with many references to Greek mythology as a whole. Acknowledgement to Philip Pullman and the third book in his His Dark Materials trilogy for my depiction of the dead, and I directly quoted Betty Smith’s beautiful book A Tree Grows In Brooklyn in describing Ginny as she describes the Rommely women-“made of thin, invisible steel.” I hope the one little declaration of love isn’t too flowery for the requester’s taste; I tried hard!
Beta: The ever-amazing Kaneesha.
Then comes the plunge; the water is warm and wet and thicker than he remembers from a moment before. He feels the heavy pressure of depth as his ears pop, and then a quiet emptiness, and his hair swishes in the water around his face and he can hear his heart pounding in his ears like a war drum, and then he starts to choke, to gasp; there are bubbles, there is a throbbing, the drums are beating a furious tattoo and-
The trees in this forest are dense; she can’t see farther in front of her than a yard or so. But there are logs, and she piles them, and within moments they are lit.
Her heart has stopped racing. She can breathe again; in fact, she feels oddly calm as she sits huddled in the firelight, the flames flickering over her red hair, bringing out the copper strands, which shine like rusty jewels.
His body lies cold and still beside her; his mouth is open, an O, and his hair is drying, feathery, in wisps, over his closed eyes. That fair skin; that nearly white hair.
Dead, he looks so young.
The fire crackles around her. She is dressed in a wool cloak and sturdy boots, but the month is December, the night is cold, and she shivers. She hears the howl of a wolf and shudders; she has no idea where she is, but she hopes that by daylight somebody will come for her… She cannot see the moon, and on the heels of a second howl, she wonders if she should fear for werewolves; is this a magical forest? She could almost laugh, though, at her anxiety over a creature she is no longer afraid of; there are worse enemies. She killed one today.
She casts her mind back over the day’s battle. She thinks of the frozen, sick feeling when she met her companions’ eyes over the small, battered Portkey. How to describe the nausea of placing your finger on an object that will whisk you away to a battlefield located somewhere your army can only crudely guess at, using what little is left of Harry’s connection to Voldemort’s mind, and the trickling of information from your weak spies. How to explain how it feels to land in a strange clearing by a dark forest, a mass of hooded Death Eaters awaiting you, wands at the ready? And how to describe the shivery feeling she felt when he strode towards her, wand extended, eyes flashing like silver coins…
Somehow, Ginny is not dead. No, the body at her side is dead, instead-pale-haired Draco Malfoy, who looks as though at any moment he will choke out the water in his weak lungs, and wake up, spluttering indignantly.
As she flung spell after spell at him, the cries of battle all around her, Ginny felt terrified, cornered; she despaired. She watched Ron kill three men at once, his face flushed and covered in soot, and watched Neville fall to Bellatrix Lestrange in a bloody heap. As Malfoy backed her away from the midst of the battle, towards the raging river and the edge of the forest, she knew she was done for-
Now, she suspects, somehow, that he wasn’t trying very hard to fight her. But how can that be? He flung at her the most difficult hexes Hogwarts had taught them, and a few she’d only heard about from Shacklebolt; she has a jagged scar from temple to jaw, now, from a curse she barely dodged. And yet, she was able to finish him off, as he pushed her farther and farther away from the others, and almost into a tree trunk. She was able to scream out a final, throat-slashing curse with the shriek of a banshee, and watch his perfect face contort and then crumple; watch the blood spurt from his neck and land like crimson tears beneath his fading eyes; watch his body fall with a thud into the river at the edge of the forest. He disappeared beneath the water without protest; he twitched as he died, and his face contorted in agony, but he barely struggled.
And when she looked up, the battlefield was almost empty; there was a storm cloud overhead, and her army was gathered around the Portkey, running away, and the Death Eaters were Disapparating one by one, and then she was alone…All alone, except for Malfoy’s corpse, which she ran downstream to find, and then tugged onto the shore, into the beginning of the woods, desperate for company of any kind.
The rainstorm stopped two hours ago, though, and still no one has come for her. Do they think she was killed? Do they think it’s her body, lying on moss and dirt, no longer breathing? As the fire dances before her eyes, hypnotizing her and causing her to yawn, and then stretch out across the ground, wrapped tightly in her cloak, she wonders what will become of her, and how she will get home…
+++
She wakes to the cold, sharp toe of a black boot digging painfully into her ribs. It’s dawn, and freezing; her breath escapes her mouth in small, misty clouds, and for a moment she can’t recollect where she is, or what’s happening-until an icy hand grabs the collar of her robes and drags her upward into a standing position. Her legs, numb, nearly give out.
“You killed my son,” the voice that belongs to the hand growls, and Ginny looks up, struggling and failing to appear brave, at the snarling face of Lucius Malfoy, who has glittering grey eyes to match his son’s. “You killed my son.”
She can’t even find the right words-what would they be, anyway? She can barely breathe. She hears a scuffling noise, and turns her head: there is a small, beady-eyed man, with thinning blonde hair and sniveling features, gathering up the younger Malfoy’s body. He breathes through his nose, like a trapped animal, and she is about to squint, and look closer-is he missing a finger?-when Lucius Malfoy slaps her across the face, hard, so that her eyes meet his again.
“He is dead because of you,” he whispers, and Ginny can only stare at him, unable to speak. The hatred burning in Malfoy’s eyes is immeasurable; she senses herself trembling, and then, suddenly, a warm liquid trickles down her thighs and legs, into her boots and socks and onto the already wet leaves below her. Her cheeks redden in shame, and the fear she feels makes her head swim. The scent reaches Malfoy’s nostrils in moments, and he wrinkles his nose in disgust, dropping her robes at once, so that she collapses to the ground roughly,.
“Filth,” he hisses, and with a flick of his wand she is bound in ropes that rip at her skin, a cloth stuffed in her mouth to keep her from speaking. Any silencing spell would do, but Ginny knows the purpose of the muddy handkerchief in her mouth is to cause suffering. When the beady-eyed man tosses her into a rickety wooden cart next to Draco Malfoy’s body, she finds herself face-to-face with the dead boy, his mouth frozen wide and slack, and passes out at once.
+++
He expected fire and brimstone, but it’s just a mucky marsh. The rivers flow around him in unison-the red of the Phlegethon sharp in comparison to the pure white Lethe. The others are all murky brown, but he knows instinctively which river he must take-he and the others all converge towards the muddy bank together.
He doesn’t like it, this feeling that another consciousness, a group consciousness, is guiding him. He is being tugged along by invisible chains, and he doesn’t like it.
It is the cold, hard cobblestones against her skinny face that slams her out of the blackness. She is lying on the slimy floor of some dark and dreary cavern, still bound and gagged, her arms and legs in indescribable pain.
The sharp toe of Lucius Malfoy’s boots jabs at her back, and she is rolled onto her right side, so that she can see where the cobblestone stops, and rich carpeting begins. The back of an immense armchair is before her, turned to face a roaring fire just beyond it; before Ginny has time to notice the incongruity of the setting-the dungeon that becomes a parlor- a voice that sends chills down her spine emanates from the armchair. She can see a skinny, bony, bent elbow on the chair’s armrest; she knows without needing explanation that she is being addressed by Lord Voldemort-“Hello.”
Somehow, in the muddled dreams that occurred during her unconscious journey in the wagon, Ginny imagined she would be tortured and killed. She would be whipped with chains; she would be hexed with unimaginable curses; she would have her throat slashed just as swiftly and brutally as she’d ripped open the Malfoy heir’s.
But, no. Instead, there are others paraded before her, in shackles, victims of the treatment she expected to receive. She tries to cry out, when she sees them-her father, her mother, Luna, and Ron-but the gag strangles any sound. She blanches at the sight of them; her mother is battered and bruised, and her father and brother both bear broken noses as they limp forward, crooked and beaten. But it is serene Luna who terrifies her the most; an enormous gash at her scalp still oozes blood through a sticky, unfinished scab; her blonde hair is stained a pinkish sheen.
They all breathe like the effort costs them a second off their lives, and they are all blindfolded. Ginny is pulled upright by Lucius Malfoy for the second time that day; she still reeks of urine and sweat and absolute terror, but he is wearing gloves, now.
“They are so pretty, covered in blood, are they not?” asks the Dark Lord, though he is not facing the victims, though they stand on the opposite side of his luxurious armchair. Does he have eyes in the back of his head? wonders Ginny-does he know what horrors I am being forced to witness?
“So beautiful, brutality. Viciously intense. Ah, but I am sure you do not value any of that; the ‘good’ never do. I am sure looking upon their broken bodies does not thrill you as it does me…”
He cackles, high and shrill, and Ginny shudders.
Lucius Malfoy’s grip tightens on her collar; the soft leather of his gloves against her neck is like a dangerous caress; she fights to keep from bending towards it. Her skin aches for a soft touch, though, and she lets out a moan as she tilts backwards. Lucius snaps her head upright, and she is forced again to stare at the four tortured victims before her, each of their injuries like a stab to her heart. Voldemort continues to laugh, and her toes curl.
When he is done, his tone is flat, and ruthless. He is not taunting her any longer. He snaps his fingers, and a cloaked man arrives to lead the four prisoners away from Ginny’s view. She struggles to cry out to them, again, but fails miserably. Ginny’s mother chokes on tears as she hobbles away; both Arthur and Ron moan piteously. Only Luna seems unaffected, staring ahead like a mannequin drained of all life.
“It might be the time to tell you that if you do not do as I say, they will be dead by morning.”
And she is not surprised.
“You are aware that you have murdered our finest soldier, our bravest of the New Generation,” Voldemort continues, with a measured glance at Lucius Malfoy.
“That’s war,” says Ginny, the first words she has spoken since before she killed the boy in question. There is no tremor in her voice; her cheeks flush red with anger. She no longer feels fear, though adrenaline continues to churn through her body; she simply has adjusted to the sensation of being on edge. She cannot sense her nerves at all, and thinks herself the better for it-until she feels, again, the painful crack of Lucius Malfoy’s palm against her cheek.
“Silence,” he hisses, and Ginny closes her eyes, and swallows hard. After a moment’s pause, throughout which she is certain she will be banished to the chain gang with her parents, brother, and friend, Voldemort speaks again.
“Thankfully, his death need not be permanent. There is hope that the young Malfoy may be rescued from his untimely fate. Hope that he may be revived. There is, you see, beneath this manor, a series of stone steps…which lead, so fortunately, to the junction of the five rivers of Hades-the Acheron, the Lethe, the Cocytus, the Phlegethon, and the Styx.”
Ginny knows these names; she knows the purposes of these rivers. The Acheron is the river the dead take on their journey to the underworld; the Lethe is the river of forgetfulness, in which they are all bathed before rebirth. The Cocytus and the Phlegethon she always confuses, but one is the river of lamentation, and the other a river of fire. This fire-river runs parallel to the last, and mightiest river, of which the first four are all tributaries: the Styx. The very boundary between this world and the next. The Styx, she remembers, from her earliest lessons with Mum, is also known as the river of hate.
“We have not killed you-yet,” continues the Dark Lord, with a teasing edge to his shrill voice. “And we have not killed the others-yet. We are depending upon you to travel down these stone steps, and retrieve the Malfoy boy. You were responsible for banishing him into the next world, and you are now responsible for returning him to us.”
“You must be joking,” says Ginny, hard and flat, when her head swims at the enormity of the task. Her limbs seize up, as she awaits a punishment from the Malfoy who holds her hostage, but none comes. There is only a long, painful silence, and then Voldemort speaks for the last time.
“I am not. I repeat to you: your inability to return with the Malfoy heir will result in the death of your family-and your loony little friend. I do not suggest you turn this offer down, Miss Weasley,” he says, the Ss drawn out like a snake’s hiss.
“Why me?” asks Ginny, even as Lucius Malfoy leads her away, knowing her reply before she even need voice it. “Why me?”
The armchair begins to turn, slowly, and Malfoy stops short, Ginny’s heels screeching on the dungeon floor. He holds her head high, the collar of her robes cutting in to her neck and chin, as she stares at the swiveling armchair with apprehension. She tries not to gasp when she sees him-as small as a six-year-old boy, with a white face missing a nose, and cruel red eyes. His fingers are long and skinny, and he twiddles his wand playfully, though there is nothing playful in his demonic expression.
“Because, I have reason to believe you will succeed-and I do so dearly want him back,” the Dark Lord murmurs, and then he laughs again, shrill and high.
+++
The door is in the bottommost dungeon, and creaks upon opening, as though it has not been unbolted in centuries. Puffs of mist begin to fill the chamber, and Ginny can only see vaguely yellowish light beyond the doorway.
“Move,” Malfoy orders, and she steps forward, through the entrance to the underworld. She inches forward, slightly, and her toes are suddenly jutting out over empty air-is she on a stair, or will the next step forward send her plummeting to death?
Lucius Malfoy leans out into the mist, to hiss into her ear a threat.
“You will retrieve my son, you little wretch, or I will personally assure the death of not only our four prisoners, but the rest of your filthy family, and the Potter boy, too. Do you understand?”
She nods, and takes a tentative step downward. Her feet meet solid stone-she is truly on a staircase-and the beads of sweat across her forehead fade. She turns, to ask him who will unlock the door when she returns, but all she sees is a blur of white-blond. The door slams shut.
She looks out into the mist, and takes a deep breath before descending further.
+++
“Name?”
“Draco Malfoy.”
“Profession?”
“Death Eater.”
“Cause of death?”
“Suicide.”
The steps are eternal. Accompanying her is that same dirty mist, which swirls around her like sentient smoke. When she reaches the bottom, she is exhausted, sweaty, and hungry. She is in a fog-filled marsh, and can hear, all around her, the sounds of trickling water. She cannot see a thing.
She turns, and finds herself confronted with a face-a dingy, gray-brown, misty face-and then she understands the clouds that have been following her. Closer to the rivers, now, they have taken on their former human shapes. The souls of the dead crowd around her, nearly translucent but many in number, obscuring her view of the rivers.
“The Acheron,” she murmurs to herself. She mustn’t follow the wrong river. The thought of stepping into the Lethe-the river of forgetfulness-chills her to the core…and she can’t imagine a river of pure fire being pleasant, either.
But she needn’t have worried about wading through a river, because there comes, out of the fog and mists, a light-yellow, and swaying-and the sound of a bell.
The eerie light draws closer, and closer, until she can hear the hushed sound of boat gliding through water, almost entirely silent. The bell grows no louder, but suddenly she finds herself staring into the bright blue eyes of a man she did not expect to see for some time yet-Charon, the boatman. The conveyer of the dead.
He is skeletal, with eye sockets hollow and repugnant, and waxy skin that stretches grotesquely over protruding cheekbones. His wrist, exposed by the oversized sleeve of his tattered brown garments, is skinnier than a child’s, as he dangles a lantern before him.
He examines her dolefully, slow eyes blinking in the yellow light, and then, shaking his head, pronounces, “You’re not dead, you.”
She bites her lip, and agrees hurriedly, “No! No-I’m not, but-”
“You are not welcome here.”
“But-”
“We make no exceptions.”
“But-”
“Living souls are not permitted. Turn back.”
“But-”
“We make no excep-”
“That’s not true!” Ginny snaps, temper flaring and getting the better of her. The boatman is silenced, staring at her with those wide, woeful eyes, his hangdog expression almost making Ginny regret her words-if only she didn’t have something to ask of him.
“It’s not,” she says sharply, sighing with impatience, and shivering in the mistiness of the dead surrounding her. She ignores the rush of fear that floods her body, and steps boldly towards the rickety boat.
“There have been others. Orpheus, for one,” she accuses him. “Persephone. I am not the only mortal to ask entrance.”
“You don’t ask,” Charon says. “You demand.” There is a hint of a smile twitching at the corner of his milk-white lips.
And he steps aside, extending a skeletal arm at the tiny space at the prow allowed for her and the multitude of souls crowding the riverbanks.
+++
He wonders where they will sort him, with a trepidation not unlike the nerves he had before his Sorting at Hogwarts, ten years prior. He does not think he has been evil enough for Tarturus; surely there have been worse than he, men with crueler desires and wickeder deeds. And he has achieved some good, as well, in his short lifetime; of that, he is certain.
But it would be foolish to hope for Elysium, the blessed fields for the heroic and the virtuous. The burning brand on his wrist is evidence alone that he does not belong with the champions, the martyrs and the virgins…
He regrets that he died a virgin.
She doesn’t know how to find him. She stands, alone, the only patch of color in the Asphodel Meadows, where those whose lives are an equal balance of good and evil come to spend eternity. She is surrounded by the swarming dead, who pick gloomily the fruits of the meadows, and then suck their formless fingers clean.
There is a craggy cliff, to the far side of the field, and she picks her way through the crowds to a shady spot beneath an overhang of rock. She supposes this is the barrier between the meadows and Tarturus, the hell in which the evil live. It is slightly warmer here, near the rock, and she sits huddled up against the cliff, arms wrapped around her knees.
If she weren’t so afraid the dead might notice her, she thinks she would cry-but Ginny is terrified of being overrun by these gruesome creatures, who bear shadowy faces with humanoid features, but have no spark of light in their eyes. Some have clearly been here for millennia; their faces are almost worn away, their noses rubbed down, cheekbones gone, their lips mere lines against wispy gray. Their hands have blurred; they have no fingers. The recent dead are recognizable as humans, at least, but even they seem lost inside their heads-if you can still call it that. They brush past each other without words. She hears only rustling, like wind, all around her.
Is it always evening here? The sky is not dark, but not light, either. Ginny wants to leave, to flee, to abandon everything-but when she disembarked, the boatman wished her luck, and somehow she wants to succeed, to show the blue-eyed Charon that she was worth taking a chance on. That her fiery temper has power to match it.
But how will she find Draco Malfoy in this mass? How will she find him, and what will she say?
She thinks of what she knows of him-tall, arrogant, with a haughty chin and pure gray eyes. A Death Eater-and a good one, too, it would seem, if he’s so necessary that he must be plucked out of the underworld to rejoin the campaign. Her lip curls; is she really rescuing a murderer from the land of the dead? Is she really risking all to bring this killer of her friends and family back to life, so he can torture and plunder some more?
But then-if she doesn’t, she knows her parents will die. And brave Ron, and serene Luna-and the rest of her family, too, and Harry, if Lucius makes good on his word. Ginny doesn’t doubt he will, and she does not want to be responsible for so many deaths. For the deaths of her loved ones. She does not want to send them here.
Sleep is overtaking her-she feels dizzy from hunger and fear. She leans her head against the craggy stone, and tries to take deep breaths, to calm herself, to relax.
When she is almost asleep, when her respiration has slowed to even breaths that sink her into a semi-conscious state, there comes a voice out of the mists.
“I didn’t kill you,” says the voice, still clipped, British, and aristocratic. “I didn’t kill you!”
And her eyes snap open to meet those of Draco Malfoy, standing above her, a thick, ropy scar marking his severed throat, his long blond hair shorn close to his scalp, and panic brewing in his bright gray eyes.
+++
He sees her before she sees him; a patch of red in the midst of all this grayish, foggy gloom. Huddled beneath a rock; the angel from the Order would seek shelter near the divider between Asphodel and hell.
He is not the only one to notice her; the oxygen she takes in is drawing the attention of the other dead. He sees Pansy out of the corner of his eye, stalking him like a cat her prey, and he sees her narrow cat’s-eyes latch onto the slender, frightened form of Ginny Weasley.
What in Merlin’s name is the stupid Weasley bint doing here? He rushes forward and hopes the crowds hold Pansy back.
When he sees the cloak she’s wrapped, in, though, he understands-a black cloak two sizes too large, with a silver pin to clasp it. His old cloak from last year; he recognizes the hem, uneven from being trodden upon, and the tassels that dangle from the neck, decoratively and uselessly.
She’s been to see Lucius, that means, and that means her business is with him-and his with her.
It feels good to have purpose. He has been consumed with apathy; has felt his mind begin to drift. He does not want to end up blank-faced like the others. He does not want to give way to drifting and moaning. He chose this, but he refuses to relinquish himself in the process.
When he sees her, he thinks for a moment she is dead. She’s too bright to be a soul, too bright to be one of them-but she’s got a vague, lost look that he identifies already with the old-timers here, and that worries him.
“I didn’t kill you,” he says, before he can stop himself. He knows he didn’t. “I didn’t kill you!”
Her eyes snap open, and he knows she isn’t dead; there’s too much sparkle mixed into the chocolate brown for her to be dead.
“I know you didn’t,” she says, and she has the mumbling tone of someone about to fall asleep. “I killed you.”
That she did.
“Why are you here, then?” he demands, eyeing the serpent-shaped clasp tucked under her drooping chin, that he’s sure she hasn’t noticed yet.
“Your-your father sent me. And…and You-Know-Who. They sent me to get you.”
He imagines she’d be far more accusatory if she were awake, far angrier; he can’t remember ever having a civil conversation with her. She’s been a thorn in his side since he was fifteen, and she hexed the life out of him with a Bat Bogey Curse; then, she was always a firebrand on the battlefield, cutting down dozens and forcing him to strategize around her presence. And then-then she was a shadowy presence in the kitchen in London, a flash of red dashing up the stairs, a peal of laughter from just inside the parlor. Always a glimpse away from noticing him, of course. The way it was meant to be-the way he’s almost glad it was.
“You’re falling asleep,” he drawls, as her head falls limply to one side and she struggles to keep her eyelids from fluttering shut.
“Am not,” she protests, like a small child. He can only stare, wishing he were solid enough to carry her out of everyone’s line of vision, to a quiet spot where the ancient ones dally, where she’d be of no interest to them. He wishes he could at least pull his old cloak up over her; he can see she’s shivering, and there are scratches and bruises lining her throat, and a nasty gash along her face that looks suspiciously like his spellwork…did he hurt her, before she killed him? He lifts two fingers to trace the matching scar on his own throat, which marks where the hex tore away his life. He can’t remember if he harmed her-he only remembers the fall, into the water, and the suffocating feeling of his throat being sliced in two.
He doesn’t care to relive it, but it looks as though her presence may mean he will have to.
+++
She wakes.
Her neck is sore, her limbs aching. She turns, and yawns, and stretches, and meets the eyes of scores of dead souls, all standing as though placed on a line-there is exactly a five foot berth around her in all directions, but just beyond that point are crowds and crowds of the dead, gazing at her.
She feels panic bubbling in her chest, but a hasty glance about reveals the guardian keeping the dead away from her-Draco Malfoy. He sits beside her, his elbows on his knees, head in his hands, glaring out at the gathering of dead beyond them. He frowns menacingly at a little girl, who is peeking at Ginny and her fiery hair with wide, envious eyes, smoothing her grayish head jealously.
Ginny’s heart twinges with sadness, but Draco tosses his head angrily, a get-out-of-here motion, and the little ghost-girl flees at once, terrified.
Something shifts in the onlookers’ faces, which must alert him to Ginny’s wakening, for Draco turns abruptly towards her, taking in her unfurling body with pressed lips and a steady expression.
“Slept well?” he asks. His voice is so like his father’s, but without the steel behind it-or perhaps the difference is simply that he’s not threatening her. Intention changes so many things.
“Yes,” she lies. Her back is cramped, and her legs sore. She does not want to try that ever again. She catches sight of the scar across his throat and looks away suddenly, shame spreading throughout her body.
“Good. Then get up, we have some talking to do,” he says, and he stands brusquely, before running a translucent hand over his bristly short hair. Her eyes trace his hand’s movement, taking in the change in his whole appearance and demeanor without his aristocratic locks.
“They shave all of us,” he says, his voice not lacking bitterness. “Didn’t you notice?”
And now, now that she is fully awake and somehow less terrified than the night before (if you can call it the night before; if there is time, and nights, and days, down here), she can see that he speaks true. Everyone, even the women and children, have haircuts resembling those of war victims on Muggle television-short, and stubbly, and ugly. Terrifying in their uniformity.
She could weep, but Draco cuts off her sentimentalism with a terse, “Get up, would you?”
She glares at him fiercely, and stands-because she wants to, not because he said so.
“Who put you in charge of me?” she replies, tossing her head angrily. “It’s me who’s in charge-you’re just lucky you spotted me first. I’m here to retrieve you, and look, here you are-where’s the exit to this bloody place, I’m ready to go!”
She strides forward to grab his hand and pull-but her fingers slip right through his, and she stops, mouth gaping.
“Come on,” he mutters, and he glowers at her. Are all the Weasleys so dim, he wonders? He pushes through the crowd, right past pug-faced Pansy, and she follows in the path he creates, trying not to notice the prickling of her neck hairs with the way she’s been stared at.
They walk across the meadows for a long time, and then stop in a particularly mossy area, with a few rocks and a rotting tree branch. There is more fog here than anywhere else, and she glances around curiously, before he sighs with frustration and explains shortly, “This is where the oldest of the dead live. They’ve stopped caring much about form and matter; they’re content with being mist. Would you sit down, for Merlin’s sake?”
Even angry, he sounds proper. If only he didn’t have that famine-victim haircut; she might be intimidated by him, as she was back when he strutted about at school.
“I’ll sit when I want to,” she says, and then she wants to, naturally, and is forced to shift from right foot to left, cocking one hip and then the other, crossing and uncrossing her arms impatiently.
“I don’t have the faintest clue of what you’re doing here, but you’re getting out now,” he says, without preamble, and without looking at her.
“Yes-agreed-and you’re coming with me,” Ginny replies sharply.
“No.”
“Yes! Don’t be ridiculous about it, you childish prat. Don’t you want to be alive again?” she demands, her eyebrows flying a mile high. “I’m offering the opportunity to you.”
“I don’t, actually. I see no proft in it for me, truth be told.” He examines his fingernails, as though they matter at this stage in his existence, and Ginny furrows her forehead.
“Well, if I told you there was a good deal of profit in it for me, would you reconsider?”
“What’re you to me?” he asks, and she rolls her eyes.
“Your bloody savior, you fool! Look-would you just let me drag you out of here, preferably in one piece? What kind of-of idiot would want to stay here?”
“One with a death wish.”
“I suppose that’s you?”
“Absolutely.”
“Are you saying you want to be dead?”
“Why do you think I am?”
“Because I killed you!”
“Because I let you kill me.”
“You-you arrogant fucking bastard! I killed you, flat-out!” Ginny squashes all thoughts from directly after his murder-thoughts that he hadn’t been struggling very much, or trying very hard.
“I let you do it. What kind of wizard do you think I am, to be killed by the likes of you?” He chuckles at that one.
“I swear-I swear, if you weren’t dead already, I’d-!”
“Kill me? How convenient. So you agree I’m better off down here? Lovely. Now let’s send you on your way.”
“Malfoy, you are coming with me.”
He turns abruptly, and his eyes meet hers with sudden force. There is a pang of sadness in her chest, at the thought that his vibrant gray eyes are going to burn out like all the others’ down here.
“I’m not coming with you. I refuse. I’m here because I want to be-this is a choice I made for a reason.”
“Coward,” Ginny spits out, crossing her arms.
“What did you call me?”
His tone is like ice, and she lifts her chin proudly, countering it.
“Coward. Suicidal, bloody, fucking coward. You’re just too afraid of life to go back with me, aren’t you?”
He bites down on his bottom lip with sudden ferocity, and then stalks forward, like a lion hunting its prey. She knows-knows-he’s nothing but smoke and mist-but he is so intimidating, she backs up, anyway, and trips over the rotting log, which sends her sprawling onto the ground in a muddy heap.
“I-am not-a coward!” he growls, gray face inches from hers. “You waltz down here with your pretty red hair and your lively brown eyes-what do you know about life and death, you stupid little girl? I made a decision seven months ago to serve as a double agent for the Order’s side, and I stuck to it like a man! I chose to die because my life was too much of a fucking liability for the Order-Voldemort was days from discovering me, and rather than letting him pry into mind as easily as knocking down a door, and filching out every stupid secret of your doomed little army, I killed myself!”
His voice is a raging roar, now. Ginny’s wrists ache from holding up her sprawled body on the soggy ground, but she is too overwhelmed to stand, too scared of his vehement expression.
“So if you think I’m going to return to life, you’re dead wrong!” Draco snarls, lip curling with cruel amusement at the pun. “They don’t want me back for anything but the information trapped in my head, and I’m not going to let you hand-deliver it!”
“They’re going to kill my family,” Ginny croaks out, and his eyes dart to hers with frustration.
“They’re going to kill them regardless,” he informs her, swiftly, and he ignores the cry she emits and sweeps away, fading into the rest of the mist in seconds.
+++
( Under Part 2 )
ORIGINAL REQUEST:
BRIEFLY describe what you’d like to receive: A story sticking as close to the canon forms of Draco and Ginny as possible. I don't like first person stories.
The tone/mood of the fic: Anything but fluff or humour (although elements of both are greatly appreciated). I love angst but it's not necessary.
A theme/element/line of dialogue/object you want in your fic: Scars.
Canon or AU? I'm fine with either.
Rating of the fic you want: Anything from G to R (Obviously not NC-17.)
Deal breakers (what don’t you want): First character narratives, characters that aren't true to canon (re their personality - obviously the ship isn't canon at all =P), long declarations of love and/or flowery speeches,non-con.
Author: tudorrose1533
Rating: Hard R
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Character death, violence, language, brief scene of sexuality.
Summary: “His body lies cold and still beside her; his mouth is open, an O, and his hair is drying, feathery, in wisps, over his closed eyes. That fair skin; that nearly white hair. Dead, he looks so young.”
Author's Notes: Based loosely on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, with many references to Greek mythology as a whole. Acknowledgement to Philip Pullman and the third book in his His Dark Materials trilogy for my depiction of the dead, and I directly quoted Betty Smith’s beautiful book A Tree Grows In Brooklyn in describing Ginny as she describes the Rommely women-“made of thin, invisible steel.” I hope the one little declaration of love isn’t too flowery for the requester’s taste; I tried hard!
Beta: The ever-amazing Kaneesha.
Then comes the plunge; the water is warm and wet and thicker than he remembers from a moment before. He feels the heavy pressure of depth as his ears pop, and then a quiet emptiness, and his hair swishes in the water around his face and he can hear his heart pounding in his ears like a war drum, and then he starts to choke, to gasp; there are bubbles, there is a throbbing, the drums are beating a furious tattoo and-
The trees in this forest are dense; she can’t see farther in front of her than a yard or so. But there are logs, and she piles them, and within moments they are lit.
Her heart has stopped racing. She can breathe again; in fact, she feels oddly calm as she sits huddled in the firelight, the flames flickering over her red hair, bringing out the copper strands, which shine like rusty jewels.
His body lies cold and still beside her; his mouth is open, an O, and his hair is drying, feathery, in wisps, over his closed eyes. That fair skin; that nearly white hair.
Dead, he looks so young.
The fire crackles around her. She is dressed in a wool cloak and sturdy boots, but the month is December, the night is cold, and she shivers. She hears the howl of a wolf and shudders; she has no idea where she is, but she hopes that by daylight somebody will come for her… She cannot see the moon, and on the heels of a second howl, she wonders if she should fear for werewolves; is this a magical forest? She could almost laugh, though, at her anxiety over a creature she is no longer afraid of; there are worse enemies. She killed one today.
She casts her mind back over the day’s battle. She thinks of the frozen, sick feeling when she met her companions’ eyes over the small, battered Portkey. How to describe the nausea of placing your finger on an object that will whisk you away to a battlefield located somewhere your army can only crudely guess at, using what little is left of Harry’s connection to Voldemort’s mind, and the trickling of information from your weak spies. How to explain how it feels to land in a strange clearing by a dark forest, a mass of hooded Death Eaters awaiting you, wands at the ready? And how to describe the shivery feeling she felt when he strode towards her, wand extended, eyes flashing like silver coins…
Somehow, Ginny is not dead. No, the body at her side is dead, instead-pale-haired Draco Malfoy, who looks as though at any moment he will choke out the water in his weak lungs, and wake up, spluttering indignantly.
As she flung spell after spell at him, the cries of battle all around her, Ginny felt terrified, cornered; she despaired. She watched Ron kill three men at once, his face flushed and covered in soot, and watched Neville fall to Bellatrix Lestrange in a bloody heap. As Malfoy backed her away from the midst of the battle, towards the raging river and the edge of the forest, she knew she was done for-
Now, she suspects, somehow, that he wasn’t trying very hard to fight her. But how can that be? He flung at her the most difficult hexes Hogwarts had taught them, and a few she’d only heard about from Shacklebolt; she has a jagged scar from temple to jaw, now, from a curse she barely dodged. And yet, she was able to finish him off, as he pushed her farther and farther away from the others, and almost into a tree trunk. She was able to scream out a final, throat-slashing curse with the shriek of a banshee, and watch his perfect face contort and then crumple; watch the blood spurt from his neck and land like crimson tears beneath his fading eyes; watch his body fall with a thud into the river at the edge of the forest. He disappeared beneath the water without protest; he twitched as he died, and his face contorted in agony, but he barely struggled.
And when she looked up, the battlefield was almost empty; there was a storm cloud overhead, and her army was gathered around the Portkey, running away, and the Death Eaters were Disapparating one by one, and then she was alone…All alone, except for Malfoy’s corpse, which she ran downstream to find, and then tugged onto the shore, into the beginning of the woods, desperate for company of any kind.
The rainstorm stopped two hours ago, though, and still no one has come for her. Do they think she was killed? Do they think it’s her body, lying on moss and dirt, no longer breathing? As the fire dances before her eyes, hypnotizing her and causing her to yawn, and then stretch out across the ground, wrapped tightly in her cloak, she wonders what will become of her, and how she will get home…
+++
She wakes to the cold, sharp toe of a black boot digging painfully into her ribs. It’s dawn, and freezing; her breath escapes her mouth in small, misty clouds, and for a moment she can’t recollect where she is, or what’s happening-until an icy hand grabs the collar of her robes and drags her upward into a standing position. Her legs, numb, nearly give out.
“You killed my son,” the voice that belongs to the hand growls, and Ginny looks up, struggling and failing to appear brave, at the snarling face of Lucius Malfoy, who has glittering grey eyes to match his son’s. “You killed my son.”
She can’t even find the right words-what would they be, anyway? She can barely breathe. She hears a scuffling noise, and turns her head: there is a small, beady-eyed man, with thinning blonde hair and sniveling features, gathering up the younger Malfoy’s body. He breathes through his nose, like a trapped animal, and she is about to squint, and look closer-is he missing a finger?-when Lucius Malfoy slaps her across the face, hard, so that her eyes meet his again.
“He is dead because of you,” he whispers, and Ginny can only stare at him, unable to speak. The hatred burning in Malfoy’s eyes is immeasurable; she senses herself trembling, and then, suddenly, a warm liquid trickles down her thighs and legs, into her boots and socks and onto the already wet leaves below her. Her cheeks redden in shame, and the fear she feels makes her head swim. The scent reaches Malfoy’s nostrils in moments, and he wrinkles his nose in disgust, dropping her robes at once, so that she collapses to the ground roughly,.
“Filth,” he hisses, and with a flick of his wand she is bound in ropes that rip at her skin, a cloth stuffed in her mouth to keep her from speaking. Any silencing spell would do, but Ginny knows the purpose of the muddy handkerchief in her mouth is to cause suffering. When the beady-eyed man tosses her into a rickety wooden cart next to Draco Malfoy’s body, she finds herself face-to-face with the dead boy, his mouth frozen wide and slack, and passes out at once.
+++
He expected fire and brimstone, but it’s just a mucky marsh. The rivers flow around him in unison-the red of the Phlegethon sharp in comparison to the pure white Lethe. The others are all murky brown, but he knows instinctively which river he must take-he and the others all converge towards the muddy bank together.
He doesn’t like it, this feeling that another consciousness, a group consciousness, is guiding him. He is being tugged along by invisible chains, and he doesn’t like it.
It is the cold, hard cobblestones against her skinny face that slams her out of the blackness. She is lying on the slimy floor of some dark and dreary cavern, still bound and gagged, her arms and legs in indescribable pain.
The sharp toe of Lucius Malfoy’s boots jabs at her back, and she is rolled onto her right side, so that she can see where the cobblestone stops, and rich carpeting begins. The back of an immense armchair is before her, turned to face a roaring fire just beyond it; before Ginny has time to notice the incongruity of the setting-the dungeon that becomes a parlor- a voice that sends chills down her spine emanates from the armchair. She can see a skinny, bony, bent elbow on the chair’s armrest; she knows without needing explanation that she is being addressed by Lord Voldemort-“Hello.”
Somehow, in the muddled dreams that occurred during her unconscious journey in the wagon, Ginny imagined she would be tortured and killed. She would be whipped with chains; she would be hexed with unimaginable curses; she would have her throat slashed just as swiftly and brutally as she’d ripped open the Malfoy heir’s.
But, no. Instead, there are others paraded before her, in shackles, victims of the treatment she expected to receive. She tries to cry out, when she sees them-her father, her mother, Luna, and Ron-but the gag strangles any sound. She blanches at the sight of them; her mother is battered and bruised, and her father and brother both bear broken noses as they limp forward, crooked and beaten. But it is serene Luna who terrifies her the most; an enormous gash at her scalp still oozes blood through a sticky, unfinished scab; her blonde hair is stained a pinkish sheen.
They all breathe like the effort costs them a second off their lives, and they are all blindfolded. Ginny is pulled upright by Lucius Malfoy for the second time that day; she still reeks of urine and sweat and absolute terror, but he is wearing gloves, now.
“They are so pretty, covered in blood, are they not?” asks the Dark Lord, though he is not facing the victims, though they stand on the opposite side of his luxurious armchair. Does he have eyes in the back of his head? wonders Ginny-does he know what horrors I am being forced to witness?
“So beautiful, brutality. Viciously intense. Ah, but I am sure you do not value any of that; the ‘good’ never do. I am sure looking upon their broken bodies does not thrill you as it does me…”
He cackles, high and shrill, and Ginny shudders.
Lucius Malfoy’s grip tightens on her collar; the soft leather of his gloves against her neck is like a dangerous caress; she fights to keep from bending towards it. Her skin aches for a soft touch, though, and she lets out a moan as she tilts backwards. Lucius snaps her head upright, and she is forced again to stare at the four tortured victims before her, each of their injuries like a stab to her heart. Voldemort continues to laugh, and her toes curl.
When he is done, his tone is flat, and ruthless. He is not taunting her any longer. He snaps his fingers, and a cloaked man arrives to lead the four prisoners away from Ginny’s view. She struggles to cry out to them, again, but fails miserably. Ginny’s mother chokes on tears as she hobbles away; both Arthur and Ron moan piteously. Only Luna seems unaffected, staring ahead like a mannequin drained of all life.
“It might be the time to tell you that if you do not do as I say, they will be dead by morning.”
And she is not surprised.
“You are aware that you have murdered our finest soldier, our bravest of the New Generation,” Voldemort continues, with a measured glance at Lucius Malfoy.
“That’s war,” says Ginny, the first words she has spoken since before she killed the boy in question. There is no tremor in her voice; her cheeks flush red with anger. She no longer feels fear, though adrenaline continues to churn through her body; she simply has adjusted to the sensation of being on edge. She cannot sense her nerves at all, and thinks herself the better for it-until she feels, again, the painful crack of Lucius Malfoy’s palm against her cheek.
“Silence,” he hisses, and Ginny closes her eyes, and swallows hard. After a moment’s pause, throughout which she is certain she will be banished to the chain gang with her parents, brother, and friend, Voldemort speaks again.
“Thankfully, his death need not be permanent. There is hope that the young Malfoy may be rescued from his untimely fate. Hope that he may be revived. There is, you see, beneath this manor, a series of stone steps…which lead, so fortunately, to the junction of the five rivers of Hades-the Acheron, the Lethe, the Cocytus, the Phlegethon, and the Styx.”
Ginny knows these names; she knows the purposes of these rivers. The Acheron is the river the dead take on their journey to the underworld; the Lethe is the river of forgetfulness, in which they are all bathed before rebirth. The Cocytus and the Phlegethon she always confuses, but one is the river of lamentation, and the other a river of fire. This fire-river runs parallel to the last, and mightiest river, of which the first four are all tributaries: the Styx. The very boundary between this world and the next. The Styx, she remembers, from her earliest lessons with Mum, is also known as the river of hate.
“We have not killed you-yet,” continues the Dark Lord, with a teasing edge to his shrill voice. “And we have not killed the others-yet. We are depending upon you to travel down these stone steps, and retrieve the Malfoy boy. You were responsible for banishing him into the next world, and you are now responsible for returning him to us.”
“You must be joking,” says Ginny, hard and flat, when her head swims at the enormity of the task. Her limbs seize up, as she awaits a punishment from the Malfoy who holds her hostage, but none comes. There is only a long, painful silence, and then Voldemort speaks for the last time.
“I am not. I repeat to you: your inability to return with the Malfoy heir will result in the death of your family-and your loony little friend. I do not suggest you turn this offer down, Miss Weasley,” he says, the Ss drawn out like a snake’s hiss.
“Why me?” asks Ginny, even as Lucius Malfoy leads her away, knowing her reply before she even need voice it. “Why me?”
The armchair begins to turn, slowly, and Malfoy stops short, Ginny’s heels screeching on the dungeon floor. He holds her head high, the collar of her robes cutting in to her neck and chin, as she stares at the swiveling armchair with apprehension. She tries not to gasp when she sees him-as small as a six-year-old boy, with a white face missing a nose, and cruel red eyes. His fingers are long and skinny, and he twiddles his wand playfully, though there is nothing playful in his demonic expression.
“Because, I have reason to believe you will succeed-and I do so dearly want him back,” the Dark Lord murmurs, and then he laughs again, shrill and high.
+++
The door is in the bottommost dungeon, and creaks upon opening, as though it has not been unbolted in centuries. Puffs of mist begin to fill the chamber, and Ginny can only see vaguely yellowish light beyond the doorway.
“Move,” Malfoy orders, and she steps forward, through the entrance to the underworld. She inches forward, slightly, and her toes are suddenly jutting out over empty air-is she on a stair, or will the next step forward send her plummeting to death?
Lucius Malfoy leans out into the mist, to hiss into her ear a threat.
“You will retrieve my son, you little wretch, or I will personally assure the death of not only our four prisoners, but the rest of your filthy family, and the Potter boy, too. Do you understand?”
She nods, and takes a tentative step downward. Her feet meet solid stone-she is truly on a staircase-and the beads of sweat across her forehead fade. She turns, to ask him who will unlock the door when she returns, but all she sees is a blur of white-blond. The door slams shut.
She looks out into the mist, and takes a deep breath before descending further.
+++
“Name?”
“Draco Malfoy.”
“Profession?”
“Death Eater.”
“Cause of death?”
“Suicide.”
The steps are eternal. Accompanying her is that same dirty mist, which swirls around her like sentient smoke. When she reaches the bottom, she is exhausted, sweaty, and hungry. She is in a fog-filled marsh, and can hear, all around her, the sounds of trickling water. She cannot see a thing.
She turns, and finds herself confronted with a face-a dingy, gray-brown, misty face-and then she understands the clouds that have been following her. Closer to the rivers, now, they have taken on their former human shapes. The souls of the dead crowd around her, nearly translucent but many in number, obscuring her view of the rivers.
“The Acheron,” she murmurs to herself. She mustn’t follow the wrong river. The thought of stepping into the Lethe-the river of forgetfulness-chills her to the core…and she can’t imagine a river of pure fire being pleasant, either.
But she needn’t have worried about wading through a river, because there comes, out of the fog and mists, a light-yellow, and swaying-and the sound of a bell.
The eerie light draws closer, and closer, until she can hear the hushed sound of boat gliding through water, almost entirely silent. The bell grows no louder, but suddenly she finds herself staring into the bright blue eyes of a man she did not expect to see for some time yet-Charon, the boatman. The conveyer of the dead.
He is skeletal, with eye sockets hollow and repugnant, and waxy skin that stretches grotesquely over protruding cheekbones. His wrist, exposed by the oversized sleeve of his tattered brown garments, is skinnier than a child’s, as he dangles a lantern before him.
He examines her dolefully, slow eyes blinking in the yellow light, and then, shaking his head, pronounces, “You’re not dead, you.”
She bites her lip, and agrees hurriedly, “No! No-I’m not, but-”
“You are not welcome here.”
“But-”
“We make no exceptions.”
“But-”
“Living souls are not permitted. Turn back.”
“But-”
“We make no excep-”
“That’s not true!” Ginny snaps, temper flaring and getting the better of her. The boatman is silenced, staring at her with those wide, woeful eyes, his hangdog expression almost making Ginny regret her words-if only she didn’t have something to ask of him.
“It’s not,” she says sharply, sighing with impatience, and shivering in the mistiness of the dead surrounding her. She ignores the rush of fear that floods her body, and steps boldly towards the rickety boat.
“There have been others. Orpheus, for one,” she accuses him. “Persephone. I am not the only mortal to ask entrance.”
“You don’t ask,” Charon says. “You demand.” There is a hint of a smile twitching at the corner of his milk-white lips.
And he steps aside, extending a skeletal arm at the tiny space at the prow allowed for her and the multitude of souls crowding the riverbanks.
+++
He wonders where they will sort him, with a trepidation not unlike the nerves he had before his Sorting at Hogwarts, ten years prior. He does not think he has been evil enough for Tarturus; surely there have been worse than he, men with crueler desires and wickeder deeds. And he has achieved some good, as well, in his short lifetime; of that, he is certain.
But it would be foolish to hope for Elysium, the blessed fields for the heroic and the virtuous. The burning brand on his wrist is evidence alone that he does not belong with the champions, the martyrs and the virgins…
He regrets that he died a virgin.
She doesn’t know how to find him. She stands, alone, the only patch of color in the Asphodel Meadows, where those whose lives are an equal balance of good and evil come to spend eternity. She is surrounded by the swarming dead, who pick gloomily the fruits of the meadows, and then suck their formless fingers clean.
There is a craggy cliff, to the far side of the field, and she picks her way through the crowds to a shady spot beneath an overhang of rock. She supposes this is the barrier between the meadows and Tarturus, the hell in which the evil live. It is slightly warmer here, near the rock, and she sits huddled up against the cliff, arms wrapped around her knees.
If she weren’t so afraid the dead might notice her, she thinks she would cry-but Ginny is terrified of being overrun by these gruesome creatures, who bear shadowy faces with humanoid features, but have no spark of light in their eyes. Some have clearly been here for millennia; their faces are almost worn away, their noses rubbed down, cheekbones gone, their lips mere lines against wispy gray. Their hands have blurred; they have no fingers. The recent dead are recognizable as humans, at least, but even they seem lost inside their heads-if you can still call it that. They brush past each other without words. She hears only rustling, like wind, all around her.
Is it always evening here? The sky is not dark, but not light, either. Ginny wants to leave, to flee, to abandon everything-but when she disembarked, the boatman wished her luck, and somehow she wants to succeed, to show the blue-eyed Charon that she was worth taking a chance on. That her fiery temper has power to match it.
But how will she find Draco Malfoy in this mass? How will she find him, and what will she say?
She thinks of what she knows of him-tall, arrogant, with a haughty chin and pure gray eyes. A Death Eater-and a good one, too, it would seem, if he’s so necessary that he must be plucked out of the underworld to rejoin the campaign. Her lip curls; is she really rescuing a murderer from the land of the dead? Is she really risking all to bring this killer of her friends and family back to life, so he can torture and plunder some more?
But then-if she doesn’t, she knows her parents will die. And brave Ron, and serene Luna-and the rest of her family, too, and Harry, if Lucius makes good on his word. Ginny doesn’t doubt he will, and she does not want to be responsible for so many deaths. For the deaths of her loved ones. She does not want to send them here.
Sleep is overtaking her-she feels dizzy from hunger and fear. She leans her head against the craggy stone, and tries to take deep breaths, to calm herself, to relax.
When she is almost asleep, when her respiration has slowed to even breaths that sink her into a semi-conscious state, there comes a voice out of the mists.
“I didn’t kill you,” says the voice, still clipped, British, and aristocratic. “I didn’t kill you!”
And her eyes snap open to meet those of Draco Malfoy, standing above her, a thick, ropy scar marking his severed throat, his long blond hair shorn close to his scalp, and panic brewing in his bright gray eyes.
+++
He sees her before she sees him; a patch of red in the midst of all this grayish, foggy gloom. Huddled beneath a rock; the angel from the Order would seek shelter near the divider between Asphodel and hell.
He is not the only one to notice her; the oxygen she takes in is drawing the attention of the other dead. He sees Pansy out of the corner of his eye, stalking him like a cat her prey, and he sees her narrow cat’s-eyes latch onto the slender, frightened form of Ginny Weasley.
What in Merlin’s name is the stupid Weasley bint doing here? He rushes forward and hopes the crowds hold Pansy back.
When he sees the cloak she’s wrapped, in, though, he understands-a black cloak two sizes too large, with a silver pin to clasp it. His old cloak from last year; he recognizes the hem, uneven from being trodden upon, and the tassels that dangle from the neck, decoratively and uselessly.
She’s been to see Lucius, that means, and that means her business is with him-and his with her.
It feels good to have purpose. He has been consumed with apathy; has felt his mind begin to drift. He does not want to end up blank-faced like the others. He does not want to give way to drifting and moaning. He chose this, but he refuses to relinquish himself in the process.
When he sees her, he thinks for a moment she is dead. She’s too bright to be a soul, too bright to be one of them-but she’s got a vague, lost look that he identifies already with the old-timers here, and that worries him.
“I didn’t kill you,” he says, before he can stop himself. He knows he didn’t. “I didn’t kill you!”
Her eyes snap open, and he knows she isn’t dead; there’s too much sparkle mixed into the chocolate brown for her to be dead.
“I know you didn’t,” she says, and she has the mumbling tone of someone about to fall asleep. “I killed you.”
That she did.
“Why are you here, then?” he demands, eyeing the serpent-shaped clasp tucked under her drooping chin, that he’s sure she hasn’t noticed yet.
“Your-your father sent me. And…and You-Know-Who. They sent me to get you.”
He imagines she’d be far more accusatory if she were awake, far angrier; he can’t remember ever having a civil conversation with her. She’s been a thorn in his side since he was fifteen, and she hexed the life out of him with a Bat Bogey Curse; then, she was always a firebrand on the battlefield, cutting down dozens and forcing him to strategize around her presence. And then-then she was a shadowy presence in the kitchen in London, a flash of red dashing up the stairs, a peal of laughter from just inside the parlor. Always a glimpse away from noticing him, of course. The way it was meant to be-the way he’s almost glad it was.
“You’re falling asleep,” he drawls, as her head falls limply to one side and she struggles to keep her eyelids from fluttering shut.
“Am not,” she protests, like a small child. He can only stare, wishing he were solid enough to carry her out of everyone’s line of vision, to a quiet spot where the ancient ones dally, where she’d be of no interest to them. He wishes he could at least pull his old cloak up over her; he can see she’s shivering, and there are scratches and bruises lining her throat, and a nasty gash along her face that looks suspiciously like his spellwork…did he hurt her, before she killed him? He lifts two fingers to trace the matching scar on his own throat, which marks where the hex tore away his life. He can’t remember if he harmed her-he only remembers the fall, into the water, and the suffocating feeling of his throat being sliced in two.
He doesn’t care to relive it, but it looks as though her presence may mean he will have to.
+++
She wakes.
Her neck is sore, her limbs aching. She turns, and yawns, and stretches, and meets the eyes of scores of dead souls, all standing as though placed on a line-there is exactly a five foot berth around her in all directions, but just beyond that point are crowds and crowds of the dead, gazing at her.
She feels panic bubbling in her chest, but a hasty glance about reveals the guardian keeping the dead away from her-Draco Malfoy. He sits beside her, his elbows on his knees, head in his hands, glaring out at the gathering of dead beyond them. He frowns menacingly at a little girl, who is peeking at Ginny and her fiery hair with wide, envious eyes, smoothing her grayish head jealously.
Ginny’s heart twinges with sadness, but Draco tosses his head angrily, a get-out-of-here motion, and the little ghost-girl flees at once, terrified.
Something shifts in the onlookers’ faces, which must alert him to Ginny’s wakening, for Draco turns abruptly towards her, taking in her unfurling body with pressed lips and a steady expression.
“Slept well?” he asks. His voice is so like his father’s, but without the steel behind it-or perhaps the difference is simply that he’s not threatening her. Intention changes so many things.
“Yes,” she lies. Her back is cramped, and her legs sore. She does not want to try that ever again. She catches sight of the scar across his throat and looks away suddenly, shame spreading throughout her body.
“Good. Then get up, we have some talking to do,” he says, and he stands brusquely, before running a translucent hand over his bristly short hair. Her eyes trace his hand’s movement, taking in the change in his whole appearance and demeanor without his aristocratic locks.
“They shave all of us,” he says, his voice not lacking bitterness. “Didn’t you notice?”
And now, now that she is fully awake and somehow less terrified than the night before (if you can call it the night before; if there is time, and nights, and days, down here), she can see that he speaks true. Everyone, even the women and children, have haircuts resembling those of war victims on Muggle television-short, and stubbly, and ugly. Terrifying in their uniformity.
She could weep, but Draco cuts off her sentimentalism with a terse, “Get up, would you?”
She glares at him fiercely, and stands-because she wants to, not because he said so.
“Who put you in charge of me?” she replies, tossing her head angrily. “It’s me who’s in charge-you’re just lucky you spotted me first. I’m here to retrieve you, and look, here you are-where’s the exit to this bloody place, I’m ready to go!”
She strides forward to grab his hand and pull-but her fingers slip right through his, and she stops, mouth gaping.
“Come on,” he mutters, and he glowers at her. Are all the Weasleys so dim, he wonders? He pushes through the crowd, right past pug-faced Pansy, and she follows in the path he creates, trying not to notice the prickling of her neck hairs with the way she’s been stared at.
They walk across the meadows for a long time, and then stop in a particularly mossy area, with a few rocks and a rotting tree branch. There is more fog here than anywhere else, and she glances around curiously, before he sighs with frustration and explains shortly, “This is where the oldest of the dead live. They’ve stopped caring much about form and matter; they’re content with being mist. Would you sit down, for Merlin’s sake?”
Even angry, he sounds proper. If only he didn’t have that famine-victim haircut; she might be intimidated by him, as she was back when he strutted about at school.
“I’ll sit when I want to,” she says, and then she wants to, naturally, and is forced to shift from right foot to left, cocking one hip and then the other, crossing and uncrossing her arms impatiently.
“I don’t have the faintest clue of what you’re doing here, but you’re getting out now,” he says, without preamble, and without looking at her.
“Yes-agreed-and you’re coming with me,” Ginny replies sharply.
“No.”
“Yes! Don’t be ridiculous about it, you childish prat. Don’t you want to be alive again?” she demands, her eyebrows flying a mile high. “I’m offering the opportunity to you.”
“I don’t, actually. I see no proft in it for me, truth be told.” He examines his fingernails, as though they matter at this stage in his existence, and Ginny furrows her forehead.
“Well, if I told you there was a good deal of profit in it for me, would you reconsider?”
“What’re you to me?” he asks, and she rolls her eyes.
“Your bloody savior, you fool! Look-would you just let me drag you out of here, preferably in one piece? What kind of-of idiot would want to stay here?”
“One with a death wish.”
“I suppose that’s you?”
“Absolutely.”
“Are you saying you want to be dead?”
“Why do you think I am?”
“Because I killed you!”
“Because I let you kill me.”
“You-you arrogant fucking bastard! I killed you, flat-out!” Ginny squashes all thoughts from directly after his murder-thoughts that he hadn’t been struggling very much, or trying very hard.
“I let you do it. What kind of wizard do you think I am, to be killed by the likes of you?” He chuckles at that one.
“I swear-I swear, if you weren’t dead already, I’d-!”
“Kill me? How convenient. So you agree I’m better off down here? Lovely. Now let’s send you on your way.”
“Malfoy, you are coming with me.”
He turns abruptly, and his eyes meet hers with sudden force. There is a pang of sadness in her chest, at the thought that his vibrant gray eyes are going to burn out like all the others’ down here.
“I’m not coming with you. I refuse. I’m here because I want to be-this is a choice I made for a reason.”
“Coward,” Ginny spits out, crossing her arms.
“What did you call me?”
His tone is like ice, and she lifts her chin proudly, countering it.
“Coward. Suicidal, bloody, fucking coward. You’re just too afraid of life to go back with me, aren’t you?”
He bites down on his bottom lip with sudden ferocity, and then stalks forward, like a lion hunting its prey. She knows-knows-he’s nothing but smoke and mist-but he is so intimidating, she backs up, anyway, and trips over the rotting log, which sends her sprawling onto the ground in a muddy heap.
“I-am not-a coward!” he growls, gray face inches from hers. “You waltz down here with your pretty red hair and your lively brown eyes-what do you know about life and death, you stupid little girl? I made a decision seven months ago to serve as a double agent for the Order’s side, and I stuck to it like a man! I chose to die because my life was too much of a fucking liability for the Order-Voldemort was days from discovering me, and rather than letting him pry into mind as easily as knocking down a door, and filching out every stupid secret of your doomed little army, I killed myself!”
His voice is a raging roar, now. Ginny’s wrists ache from holding up her sprawled body on the soggy ground, but she is too overwhelmed to stand, too scared of his vehement expression.
“So if you think I’m going to return to life, you’re dead wrong!” Draco snarls, lip curling with cruel amusement at the pun. “They don’t want me back for anything but the information trapped in my head, and I’m not going to let you hand-deliver it!”
“They’re going to kill my family,” Ginny croaks out, and his eyes dart to hers with frustration.
“They’re going to kill them regardless,” he informs her, swiftly, and he ignores the cry she emits and sweeps away, fading into the rest of the mist in seconds.
+++
( Under Part 2 )
ORIGINAL REQUEST:
BRIEFLY describe what you’d like to receive: A story sticking as close to the canon forms of Draco and Ginny as possible. I don't like first person stories.
The tone/mood of the fic: Anything but fluff or humour (although elements of both are greatly appreciated). I love angst but it's not necessary.
A theme/element/line of dialogue/object you want in your fic: Scars.
Canon or AU? I'm fine with either.
Rating of the fic you want: Anything from G to R (Obviously not NC-17.)
Deal breakers (what don’t you want): First character narratives, characters that aren't true to canon (re their personality - obviously the ship isn't canon at all =P), long declarations of love and/or flowery speeches,non-con.