Mea Culpa, Confiteor

INFINITE thanks to DazLindz, Charon, Melstar, AdoniaRiddle, Insanityria (get chapter four out!), BlackDog, CLS, TrixiP, and PheonixRoseofHope. Y'all inspired me to add much more content to chapter three, and I think it's better as a result.

Chapter Three.
The Sum of Their Choices

We judge writers of fiction… by the kind of fighter they fix the fight in favor of… But the chief argument for fight-fixing is to show one's readers what one thinks of the world around one-whether one is a pessimist, an optimist, what you will. So I continue to stare… and see no reason this time for fixing the fight upon which he is about to engage. That leaves me with two alternatives. I let the fight proceed and take no more than a recording part in it; or I take both sides in it. I think I see a solution; that is, I see the dilemma is false. The only way I can take no part in the fight is to show two versions of it. That leaves me with only one problem. I cannot give both versions at once, yet whichever is the second will seem, so strong is the tyranny of the last chapter, the final, the "real" version.
--John Fowles, The French Lieutenant's Woman.

Choices: Path One.

Draco traced the smooth skin of Ginny's wrist. They were lying in a stasis between bouts, their breathing slowing to normal. "Pretty Polly, pretty Polly, come along with me, before we get married, some pleasure to see," he sang softly, under his breath.

"She went up beside him and along they did ride,she went up beside him and along they did ride, down by the mountains and the valley so wide." Ginny completed the verse.

"Professor Binns taught that ballad when you took his class as well?"

"He's been teaching the same class for the past two hundred years," said Ginny, turning her arm up to the touch of Draco's fingers.

"Didn't have a happy ending, did it? I think he held Polly's head under water once they got to the riverside. Never could figure out why."

"That's not how it ended, though. The murderer had a harp at his saddle and whereever he went, it hummed, 'There rides Tom Lin, who drown-ed me.'"

"You're right." said Draco. "He got caught that way, I think. Tom Lin."

They were both silent for a moment. The howling and blowing of the outside world was beginning to calm. The fury of the storm was subsiding. Draco said nothing for so long that Ginny wondered if he had fallen asleep again.

"Do you think that when something terrible happens," he finally said, "it will be brought to light? Like Tom Lin's murder of Polly?"

"No. I think that if the ballad had been a true story, only Tom Lin could have heard the harp. No-one else."

"Do you think that he could have been forgiven for what he did?"

"Some people say that true confession wipes out all sin."

"D'you think there's any truth to that?"

"No," said Ginny. She rolled over and stared up at the ceiling. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the blowing snow against the windowpane, lessening in intensity now. The storm was over.

The vision of another snowfall drifted past her inner eye. A light, fine dusting, like white sand sifted over the Quidditch pitch just before dawn, the tentative October snow of the border country. Harry and Draco walking out of the changing rooms, straightening each other's woolen robes, checking for stains or wrinkles where the material had been wadded up and thrown on the tiled floor minutes before. An unselfconsciousness between them. "Wait-there's a little dirt-" "Yeah, I think you've got it." And Ginny, hiding in the shadows of the overhung roof, watching.

Their laughter chiming together in the frosty air, one voice deeper in pitch, one a little higher, more silky. They clasped hands briefly before moving out into the open, where they could easily be seen. Draco's slender white fingers rubbed along Harry's thumb for an instant, and then let go. Ginny wondered how on earth anyone could not see what she saw. The bond between them seemed to hang in the very air. But then, nobody else felt her obsession crawling over their skin. Her twin obsessions. One dark, one light. She wondered if they knew. No. Surely not. That doom was hers alone. More mercilessly than any ghost it haunted her, even as she haunted them. Now she was triply haunted by what she had seen.

Ginny closed her eyes against the remembered images of the two bodies, one pale, one still tanned from the summer; one tall and muscular, one shorter, far more slender; both irregularly framed by the half-open doorway of the boys' changing rooms. But they only imprinted themselves more firmly on the inside of her lids. When she had slipped from the Gryffindor dormitory at gray dawn that morning, seeing Harry far below on the lawns, had she known where he was going, and why? Well, it made no difference now. There was something truly damned about the role of voyeur, whether willingly chosen or no. She squeezed her eyes shut more tightly still. But the memory only shifted into a more disturbing vision. Harry and Draco turned their heads to look at her, their faces curiously blank, then turned away and towards each other again, shutting her out permanently, irrevocably, and thoroughly. She'd felt her knees sway and buckle. The chill ground had rushed up to meet her. She had lain there for a long time, the soft sound of snow sleeting against her ears, and she could only feel a dim gratitude by the time someone at last found her and she was taken up to the hospital wing. Because Harry and Draco had never truly known.

In the present, Draco sighed, a long, curiously final sound. "That's what I thought. Some stains can never be washed out."

Unsure what to say to that, Ginny remained silent, feeling his finger continuing to trace the smoothness of her arm. When he spoke again, his voice was distant and closed.

"There's no-one to forgive me for all I've done, is there? And for all I'm going to do. Will you pretend? Just for now? Tell me that you forgive me. Act as an intermediary for everyone I've sinned against. For…"

She put a hand over his mouth. "No," she said.

"And your friends said I was cruel."

"No," Ginny repeated, shaking her head.

"All right then," Draco said. "Don't forgive me. Just fuck me." He reached for her again. Their mouths and bodies collided with savage need, driving past shame and past thought, two damned sinners grasping frantically at their last morsel of pleasure before the dawning of Judgment Day.

"Yes," panted Ginny, "oh God yes, do it to me, almost, almost, oh yes-"

"I'll never stop," growled Draco behind her, "never, never, never, ah-"

A loud knocking came at the door.

Ginny paused for a moment. Then she kept on, her face a mask of sensual pleasure, licking her lips with her small pink tongue.

The knocking grew louder, more frantic. "Open that door! Right now! What the hell is going on in there? Malfoy, you'd better open that door or I'll-"

"The hell I will," muttered Draco. He clutched onto Ginny's shoulders and pulled her back at him. She threw her head back, her hair spilling over his hands. He dug his fingers into her skin; she gave a wordless scream as the white hot tide of release swept over her, and heard his cry of almost painful ecstasy.

The door was kicked in with a splintering sound.

The tableau froze into position like a museum waxwork. Harry stood in the door, staring at the couch. Draco turned to look at him. Ginny knelt in front, hands braced against the wall, her head down, her hair covering her face. For long, long seconds, none of them moved or said a word.

Then Harry began to laugh. "The promise we shared," he said at last, wiping his eyes. "I should have known that's what you meant. Your promise was that you'd pay me back someday, wasn't it, Malfoy?. And you have. You have. But at what a cost… You'll never make it to Kent, to the Malfoy estate, to meet with your father and Voldemort. Ron'll kill you first for what you did to his sister. You do know that, don't you? Then he'll go to Azkaban happily. But you'll have your revenge. You have it already." Draco didn't raise his head.

Harry moved forward and made as if to throw a sheet over Ginny. But she darted out of his grasp. She stood at the far end of the room and looked at both of them quite deliberately, hands on her naked hips. Then she, too, began to laugh in silvery peals.

"You thought I was a fool. Both of you. But I'm not a fool."

"I don't understand what you mean," said Harry. He tried to catch Draco's eye, but the other boy curled up into a small ball on the couch.

"He didn't send that letter," she said. "I did. I signed his name."

"No," Draco whispered. "No, no, oh, no…"

She padded over to the fireplace, stared into the flames. "I regretted it as soon as I sent Hedwig off to you, Harry. But it was too late then, wasn't it? Too late for him. Too late for you. Too late for me."

Harry's wail of agony and loss echoed through the small room. He slumped against the doorframe, one hand on either side, barely holding himself up.

Ginny stretched her arms overhead, clasping her hands on the top of the mantel, staring at her haunted self in the mirror. "You were right, Malfoy. Some sins can never be forgiven."

And there they stood, three figures in crucifixion, as the snow wailed around them, and the light, quick footsteps of the rescuers moved towards them.

THE END OF THEIR CHOICES: PATH A
CHOICES: PATH B

Draco traced the smooth skin of Ginny's wrist. They were lying in a stasis between bouts, their breathing slowing to normal. "Pretty Polly, pretty Polly, come along with me, before we get married, some pleasure to see," he sang softly, under his breath.

"She went up beside him and along they did ride, she went up beside him and along they did ride, down by the mountains and the valley so wide." Ginny completed the verse.

"Professor Binns taught that ballad when you took his class as well?"

"He's been teaching the same class for the past two hundred years," said Ginny, turning her arm up to the touch of Draco's fingers.

"Didn't have a happy ending, did it? I think he held Polly's head under water once they got to the riverside. Never could figure out why."

"That's not how it ended, though. He had a harp at his saddle and wherever he went, it hummed, 'There rides Tom Lin, who drown-ed me.'"

"You're right." said Draco. "He got caught that way, I think. Tom Lin."

They were both silent for a moment. The howling and blowing of the outside world was beginning to calm. The fury of the storm was subsiding. Draco said nothing for so long that Ginny wondered if he had fallen asleep again.

"Do you think that when something terrible happens," he finally said, "it will be brought to light? Like Tom Lin's murder of Polly?"

"No.I think that if the ballad had been a true story, only Tom Lin could have heard the harp. No-one else."

"Do you think that he could have been forgiven for what he did?"

"Some people say that true confession wipes out all sin."

"D'you think there's any truth to that?"

Ginny paused. "No" was the word that wanted to spring to her lips, but for some reason she felt strangely reluctant to say it. "I really don't know," she said.

Draco sighed, a long, curiously final sound. "That's what I thought. Some stains can never be washed out."

Unsure what to say to that, Ginny remained silent, feeling his finger continuing to trace the smoothness of her arm. When he spoke again, his voice was distant and closed.

"There's no-one to forgive me for all I've done, is there? And for all I'm going to do. Will you pretend? Just for now? Tell me that you forgive me. Act as an intermediary for everyone I've sinned against. For…"

She put a hand over his mouth. "No," she said.

"And your friends said I was cruel."

"No," Ginny repeated, shaking her head. "But-" Again, she paused. She could not shake the odd feeling that her words, at this moment, had weight. That they might be the fulcrum on which something turned. "Don't tell me. I don't want to be told anymore. Just show me."

"Show you?" His brow furrowed. "How?"

"Well, if you don't know…" she murmured, moving closer to him, feeling the warmth of his body, her lips tasting the saltiness on his shoulder.

"Ohhhh." He lifted his eyebrows. "Like that."

Her eyelashes moved on his cheekbones. "Feels like the wings of butterflies…" he murmured. "What is this that you do to me?"

She shook her head. "Shhh."

He had been gentle with her, the first time, but not like this. That was a studied gentleness, meant to pull her into his sensual net, to lull her virginal fears. This was an awkward gentleness, almost clumsy, hesitant, breath held. Draco's face was very serious as he caressed her. His hands seemed almost afraid to touch her. Ginny caught her own breath when he brought her to new peaks of seething sweetness. Something about this time was different from all the other times.

"I can't get close enough to you," he murmured. "I'll never be able to get close enough. Never."

Ginny ran her hands over his forehead, and it seemed to her that her fingers left silver trails through his hair, and wove a mist around his silvery eyes. He looked down at her wonderingly. She smiled faintly. "Who are you?" he asked. "Shhh," she said.

Afterwards, there was no need for words between them. She laid her head against his chest. He sighed, his hand playing with her hair. Ginny reached up suddenly and grabbed his wrist. Draco flinched and tried to pull away. She shook her head.

"Well-all right then-if you're really so keen on seeing it-" Defiantly, he thrust his arm at her. "There."

Ginny ran her fingers over the border of the mark. "Why's it so scarred? I saw the mark Professor Snape has once-well, he didn't know I saw it, of course-and it wasn't nearly so raised and black-looking."

"Because I tried to cut it out. With a knife." He gave a short, bitter laugh. "Didn't work too well, did it?"

"Oh, Draco, no!" Suddenly, she bent and kissed it, feeling the hot twisted scar under her lips.

"Don't! God, don't. Don't pollute yourself that way. You've already let me at you all afternoon; isn't that enough?"

"Draco," she said quietly, "I already saw it. When you were asleep."

He looked at her, his face shocked. "And you still…"

She nodded.

"That's twice now, you know, that you've called me by my first name. You've never done that before."

"You've never called me by my Christian name either; it's always been 'Weasley' in that nasty drawling tone of voice you have."

"It's powerful magic, or can be. I told you. After what we've done…" Draco looked down, playing with her fingers. "After what you gave to me… well…it's safer for us to call each other out of our names, really… but would you?"

"Would I what?" asked Ginny, knowing.

"Would you really let me call you Ginny?"

Ginny stroked his scar again, more firmly this time. "My real name is Gwenhyfar."

"Ah," he said, moving into an embrace. She felt the hardness of him against her once more. "Gwenhyfar. My Gwenhyfar."

"Draco," she whispered. And they melded into each other once again.

Her touch gave him, if not forgiveness, the absolution he had craved. His touch reconsecrated her brokenness. When they both cried out their pleasure, they knew that they had received grace. Then they drifted into a shining world beyond time, beyond pain, beyond grief, knowing only that they lay clasped in each other's arms.

The door opened. "Malfoy, I know you're in there, so just-" Harry stopped. He saw Draco's fair head, the slight outline of his body under a sheet. His arm holding a wild mop of fiery hair, and a girl's body pillowed against him. She stirred, woke, and stared at him. Harry recognized Ginny.

"Oh God," he said, inadequately. She looked up at him with a faint air of mutinousness, of defiance, but also of resignation to the inevitable. The web flew out, and opened wide, the mirror crack'd, from side to side, My doom is come upon me, cried the Lady of Shallot. Tennyson echoed mockingly in Harry's head.

He looked at her more closely. She was flushed and tousled, hair messy, the skin of her face and neck and shoulders covered with the red marks of passion (and ah, how well he remembered those,) but there was something else, something strange. The fingers of her right hand were lightly stained with ink. His eyes went to those fingers. She blushed. Her eyes became even more desperate, even more defiant.

"The quill leaked," she said quietly, flatly.

"He didn't send that letter at all, did he? You did. You signed his name."

"Yes," she said.

He stood awkwardly in the doorjamb, stealing a glance at Draco. Still asleep. All of Harry's other memories of Draco in a bed drifted through his head, feeling oddly disconnected in space or time. Like flickering shadow shows against a wall.

"He's not yours anymore," said Ginny.

"He never really was," said Harry.

"Whose fault was that?"

"Mine." Harry shifted position, leaning against the door.

Ginny laid one hand lightly against Draco's chest. He stirred slightly but didn't wake. "D'you think regret ever does any good?" she asked Harry.

"Maybe," he answered. He bit his lip. "Sometimes. You know-I thought I didn't have a choice. But I do. I do." Abruptly, he turned to leave. "Put some clothes on," he said over his shoulder, "and get him up and dressed too. Other people are going to be here any minute. The car's been found." He could not resist one last look back at Draco, who was rubbing his face and sitting up, his silvery eyes seeking out Ginny, holding her in their gaze. Then, without a backward glance, Harry left.

He wandered aimlessly down the corridor, hands clasped behind his back. His mind was nudging round a memory. It was after the very last time; they'd been walking on the Quidditch pitch… that light snow was falling, the sort that was sure to burn off later in the day, and it was still so early in the morning that the sun was barely peeping over the horizon. Malfoy had been asking him something. Begging him, really. Harry's mind shied away from it. He forced it into shape and form.

"All you have to do is tell me," said Draco.

"Tell you what?" Harry replied coldly.

"You know what. Don't play the fool with me."

"No, I don't know what."

"Yes, you do." Draco paused for so long that Harry had hoped, faintly, that the entire subject might be dropped. They kept walking. The air felt colder than it had been. "Tell me not to," Draco finally said. "Tell me not to and I won't."

Harry said nothing.

"This is the last chance before-" Draco broke off. "Please."

A strange wave of uneasiness had rolled through Harry at that. Certain words had never been spoken between them. Certain appeals had never been made. Certain acts were left undone. All trivial in themselves, but also very much like the djinn's tent in the tale of 1,001 Arabian Nights. If ever unfolded, it might loom larger than the greatest castle ever built.

"Please, Harry."

Harry forced himself to look at the other boy's face. The naked feeling on it was unbearable to see. He was almost angry for a moment, seeing Draco's face, weighing the difference between how it looked now and what it had appeared to be. All of Draco Malfoy's sneering smirks and contemptuous looks and drawling superior insults had been only a mask, after all. Beneath, he'd been human all along. It seemed a betrayal.

"No," Harry said.

"No?"

"I said no and I bloody well mean no. I'm not going to tell you not to do anything."

The other boy bent his silvery head. "I thought that you-I mean that we-I-" His voice was very low. "You would if you lov-"Harry held up a hand. The sentence went unfinished.

He could not bear to hear Draco's next words. They were a key that might open doors locked deep within Harry's mind, if they were allowed. And there would be rooms and corridors within, more shadowed than his deepest nightmares. With sudden clarity, he knew that he did not want those doors opened, not ever, not by Malfoy or anybody else. Something in him had gone wrong, had been warped too young. By a lack of love, the loss of his parents, perhaps… he did not know. But beneath Harry's sweet agreeableness and eagerness to please was a bottomless pit of something too dark to touch. He'd thought that the same cauldron of poison was in Draco, too. He now knew that it was not.

"We're going to be late for breakfast," was all that Harry said. Then he hurried off towards Gryffindor Tower, leaving the other boy staring after him, standing as if turned to stone.

I promise that I won't forget this," Draco said. "Just you wait, Potter. I promise you." His words were utterly toneless.

Harry turned those words over in his head again, now. Language is like shot silk. So much depends on the angle at which it is held. He heard the faint sounds of movement and murmuring from the room as he moved down the aisle. Hers, and Draco's. I went out to get help, but I didn't think Ginny could stand the cold and the snow. So I told her to go to Malfoy's compartment, since I knew he had a fire. Harry rehearsed the words he'd say when the rescuers found him. He could see the tiny well-wrapped figures coming towards the car already. The snow had cleared; the storm was over. But he wouldn't tell them about the nuns, or whatever they'd been, and he felt strangely sure that no-one else who'd been rescued by them and sheltered in their house would either. The serene face of the nun came back to him; that white, smooth face that seemed both more and less than human. You have a choice. Yes, he had. And he had taken it.

The wrenching human privilege and punishment of choices weighed down upon his soul. So painful, they were; they seemed a burden almost too heavy for humanity to bear, and he knew suddenly that both Draco and Ginny had felt that weight too, had felt themselves twisted into beasts of burden by the agonizing power of choice. Yet beneath this weight lay the tiny, living, quivering human soul. And it alone held that power.

He sighed softly, staring out the window at the outside world. That place all three of them must return to, no matter how they sought to avoid it. Somehow, the loss and grief and suffering they all writhed under must go to enrich the world. He remembered the crucifix swinging at the nun's belt. He staggered to his feet under the rough weight of the choice he had made. Harry turned the handle of the door at the end of the train car. It opened with a violent push from the other side. "Here!" he called. "We're in here."

~end~