Opening the Gate

Opening the Gate

~ Chapter 7 ~

You Don't Know Me like You think You do

-MXPX (my mom still cleans my room)

"What did you see?" Draco repeated.

"Just," Ginny quickly tried to think up something that she could have possibly seen other than what she did see, "Lucius and Narcissa's wedding day."

"Oh," he said, tonelessly, and then turned to look at his mom.

Narcissa was wearing a blank expression as she stared at the ceiling, one of her hands hung lifelessly over the side of the bed. Draco picked it up and held it in his own. Even his pale skin was darker in comparison with Narcissa's. Ginny looked at Draco, he was wearing an expression she had never seen him use, a sort of blank stare but in his eyes you could see that they were full of compassion.

"Would you like me to leave?" said Ginny timidly.

"No," he said placing one hand on her knee. She tenderly put her own hand on top of it and he didn't pull back at all.

"Hello mother," he started softly, "I'm sorry about father, but you'll be pleased to know he's dead. Well maybe not as much as I am, I see you have some of his pictures up," Draco let out a long unsteady breath. "So, I've been put in custody of, um, well I can't say, but all of the Weasleys are there, and Potter, and Serverus comes and goes. I know how you liked him."

Ginny wondered whether there was a double meaning in that last sentence seeing how Narcissa's love towards Lucius was limited. Draco's hand moved from beneath her own and he held her's instead.

"Mother, this is my friend, Ginny Weasley," he said. "She has been really kind to me since this all happened-"

"Here you go!" said a wildly smiling Lockhart as he dumped a stack of autographed pictures on Ginny's lap.

She picked up the pictures as she got up and reluctantly let go of Draco's hand.

"How about I keep him busy?" offered Ginny.

Draco simply nodded and turned back to his mother.

"Come on," said Ginny to Lockhart and she led him back to his bed. "If only he knew," she muttered as she looked back over her shoulder at Draco.

***

He had completely lost track of time. Draco looked at his now sleeping mother. The whole thing was so mind numbing. His mother had always been a meek person, but she usually showed signs that she was listening. To see his mother, the person who put him on this planet, in this state created a surge of hate in the pit of his stomach. His mother was the only person he ever cared for.

No, not the only person.

Draco looked over at Ginny who was helping Lockhart read some fan mail. She was so different from everyone he had ever known. She captivated him. She could make him smile in such a way, a way no one ever had before. She could make him feel. Ginny didn't simply make him feel happy or any other emotion, she made him feel things, she made him have a heart. She could drain his anger, she made him whole. He'd never admit this, but he'd do anything for her.

Ginny looked up and waved at him. Draco smiled back.

"She's asleep," he said gesturing to his mother's bed as he got up. "I'm ready to go. I'm sorry take up your time for this."

Ginny shook her head. "You didn't take up my time, this was interesting. Anyway it was for you, if I really didn't want to come I would have said so."

As they walked out of the ward side by side Draco had to resist the urge to put his arm around Ginny, but he resisted. She has already stated with their kiss awhile back that they were only friends.

They walked up the last flight of stairs the entered the tearoom. It was a busy little room filled with worn out adults and wound up children. Draco spotted Lupin at a small table up against a giant glass window.

"So are you ready to go?" asked Lupin.

Draco nodded and Lupin got up. As they all left he gave Draco a reassuring pat on the back to which Draco responded,

"Why do you keep trying to touch me?"

***

Draco bolted upright in his bed. He had just had a horribly vivid dream, but now that he tried to remember it, he couldn't. Except for one part, a pair of red eyes, with slits for pupils, like a cats'.

He looked at his watch; it was a quarter to seven, he had about an hour before he had to leave. Draco could hear Kreacher pounding on his bedroom door, seeing as how he was too short to reach the doorknob, wanting Draco to answer it so that he could come in. Draco simply ignored the house elf's grumbles and pounding as he picked out his clothes. Kreacher's pounding got louder and louder, why did he want to come in anyway?

Draco opened the door and Kreacher stood there grinning broadly. Draco blocked his way into the room and closed the door firmly behind him. Kreacher waddled off, dejectedly, narrowly avoiding an angry Harry on the way.

"You are one worthless piece of scum, Malfoy," Harry growled.

"What did I do this time, Potter?" said Draco lazily. "You do realize that this whole 'blaming' thing is getting old, why can't we go back to making fun of each other's families, seeing as we're in the same boat there."

Draco could see Harry's anger somewhat disappear for a second, but when he spoke it was filled with hate again.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well your parents are dead, my father's dead, and my mother's as good as dead. I have to admit I was a bit surprised that you haven't mentioned anything about that. But now that I think of it we aren't all that different after all. We're both orphans staying with the Order, we both come from rich families, and we both," Draco grinned, knowing just what words would tick Harry off, "have the love of a Miss Ginny Weasley."

Harry's face was contorted in a nasty snarl.

"Let me tell you, Malfoy," he said in a deadly whisper, "we are not alike, and the only reason why Ginny even talks to you is because of whatever power you have over her."

"Malfoy Charm," shrugged Draco. "We're just born irresistible." And with that he went into the bathroom on his left.

It was very small, especially compared to the extravagant Malfoy Manor bathrooms. Draco hung his clean clothes over the towel rack and stripped as he let the shower water run. He stepped into the shower letting the steam engulf him and the warmth of the drops run down his face.

Yesterday was a strange day. He had seen hurt people, disfigured people, people who had lost all hope, people who had betrayed, people who double-crossed, and other assortments of people who were in bad situations, before. The one thing he had never seen though was his mother in a situation like that. Seeing her disfigured like that was different when he saw Surgeo Plentis disfigured, and he was seven when his father tortured Surge. Those screams had haunted Draco's dreams for weeks. Seeing all those people in his house had become so routine that he got use to it, but never once was it his mom, depressed, maybe, but never distraught.

Then there was the fact that Ginny had seen another vision. She was so jumpy afterward; there was always the possibility that she had lied about what she saw. Draco shook his head. There was the possibility, but he'd trust Ginny, for now at least.

He finished up in the shower and got out. The room seemed to have a slight chill in it after he was in the hot shower for so long. He quickly dried himself off, got dressed, did what he needed to do in the bathroom, and then he went downstairs to the kitchen.

Ginny, Ron, Hermione, and Harry were already waiting around the kitchen table for breakfast. Draco carefully sat down as far as he could from Ron and Harry. Hermione did slap him once in the third year, but she still wasn't a threat.

Mrs. Weasley cheerfully set down plates of breakfast food in front of them, and gave Draco an obviously forced smile. As he chewed on a piece of toast he figured that no matter how much Mrs. Weasley tried to pretend, she still didn't like him one bit.

Remus Lupin came in cheerfully and fashionably late as he always did. He took a plate and sat down next to Draco and unfolded the Daily Prophet. Draco was able to see the last page, and outdated picture of Gilroy Lockhart looked back at him with "the Wonderful Wizard is making a Ravishing Recovery" written in bold letters above it. The short article talked about how he was doing and "how he could write his name clearly now!" Lupin peered over the top of his paper to see what Draco was looking at.

"Interested in Lockhart's recovery?" he asked.

"No," spat Draco, "not that stupid fraud."

"Well, I guess you have to give him credit, he put a whole lot of thought into his scam," said Lupin.

"Oh, do you always have to look at the bright side of things?" sneered Draco.

Lupin just smiled one of his mysterious smiles and folded up his paper.

"Ready to go?"

Draco handed his plate to Kreacher and got up. Ginny did the same, but Kreacher refused to take her plate until Draco gave him a hard slap on the back of his head.

"What do you think you're doing, Malfoy?" said Hermione defensively. "Kreacher never did anything to you."

"No wonder Dobby was a nutter," Ron whispered loudly, obviously wanting to be heard.

"What?" said Draco, a bit offended, and a bit confused. "The stupid elf wouldn't take her plate!"

Lupin stood up and looked down at Draco. He was probably only six inches shorter than the ex-professor, but the way Lupin managed to position himself made him seem much larger.

"Draco, Kreacher has never served anyone since Mrs. Black did, that is, until you came here, so we just get along without him. We don't punish him for not respecting us, he knows too much to be let go, so we just ignore him. Understand?"

Draco scowled back at the professor; he didn't like being told what to do. Also if the House elf couldn't be disowned, why didn't they demand some respect rather than let it do whatever it pleased and insult whomever it wanted to?

"Understood?" Lupin asked again.

"Understood," Draco muttered

"Okay then," said Remus stiffly. "Well I guess we should be going. Bye everyone."

Draco just stormed out of the house and sat, fuming, in the back seat of Lupin's car. Draco didn't like being told off, especially in front of Potter and his friends. His train of thought was broken as Ginny opened the car door and sat down next to him.

"Hey, it's okay-" she started.

"Shut up," Draco snapped, he half hoped that Ginny would snap back, but she didn't, leaving him feeling even guiltier.

The car ride was uncomfortably silent, Lupin didn't even try to start a conversation, and Ginny just stared out the window. When the car stopped outside the Alleyway Lupin just said "see you at six" and Ginny and Draco both got out.

Draco wanted to say something to Ginny, but she was already pushing the gate open so he rushed after her.

It was, once again, a delightful day in Edrid's Block, almost cheerful. Everyone was outside it seemed and lots of shopkeepers wheeled around carts outdoors.

"Ginny," Draco ran after her and then grabbed her wrist. "Ginny, stay close."

She glared back at him.

"Now why are you mad at me?" sighed Draco.

"All I tried to do was apologize, and you just - you just snapped at me."

Draco tried to stop himself from rolling his eyes. He knew Ginny was looking for an apology, but Malfoys don't apologize.

By the time they opened the door to Malfoy Manor Ginny had stopped ignoring Draco, but there was still an uncomfortable tension between the two of them.

"So," Ginny said, shutting the door, "Where should we start today?"

"Well, you could tackle the kitchen and I think I'm going to," Draco paused a moment, "clean out my father's desk."

Ginny just nodded, Draco turned and walked up the stairs. He trusted Ginny to know her way around the Manor by now. As he was halfway up the stairs there was a knock at the door. Draco spun around but Ginny was already opening the door and there stood -

"Crystilla Feildswamm," she did a silly little curtsy, "Is Mister Draco Malfoy home Miss -?"

Draco ran down the stairs as quick as he could before Ginny could say anything.

"What do you want, Crystilla?" Draco said as he grabbed the edge of the door.

"Oooh, taking a page out of dear old daddy's book?" Crystilla said as she eyed Ginny.

"Get out," Draco growled.

"Who is she?" she continued, completely ignoring him. "Pretty little thing, a bit on the scrawny side though. Where did you find her?"

"I don't need to answer any of your questions," he hissed.

"Well I see I caught you at a bad time," Crystilla seized Draco's face and kissed him on the cheek. "Good day Master Malfoy," and she shut the door behind her.

"Who was that?" Ginny snapped.

"Some, village person," Draco simply waved his hand as if Crystilla was nothing.

She was nothing to Draco, nothing but seduction and trouble. The way Ginny looked at him though, showed that she didn't believe that Crystilla was "nothing" to him.

"Well if she's just 'some village person' I'd hate to find out what I am," Ginny spat.

"Do we really have to fight again?" he asked trying to sound playful.

"Draco, some attractive girl shows up on your doorstep, obviously you know her, and then she kisses you good bye. I, then, ask a simple 'who is she' question and you say 'no one'. She is obviously someone Draco, or else this is a pretty friendly town if they have door to door hookers!"

Draco gripped both of Ginny's shoulders, and looked at her. How did he get involved with her? He hated Weasleys, and here he was in his house with one. Draco mentally shook his head, he needed to stop bringing that up, he wasn't the same as his father. He should stop dwelling on the whole Weasley thing.

He looked at Ginny, she was wearing a black tank top and a sugar pink skirt. He noticed that Ginny was a skirt person, she usually wore them and they looked good on her.

Draco noticed these little things about her; how she tugged at her hair when she was nervous, how she loved the rain, and the way she looked at Potter and his friends longingly, wanting to belong.

"What?" said Ginny, impatiently.

Draco sighed and gave Ginny's shoulder a squeeze.

"She is nothing, Ginny. She just came up to me one day when I was going to clean out the Manor. Like today, I told her to leave me alone, and she didn't. She kissed me, viciously and passionately, but it was nothing, Ginny. The kiss was hollow and empty, it had no meaning."

He leaned in a delicately kissed Ginny. Their lips barely touched, but it was enough.

"That," he continued, "was something. That had more passion more - more everything than Crystilla could give me."

***

Ginny looked back at him. She couldn't possibly be hearing these things from Draco Malfoy. And even more mind-blowing was that she loved him, she wanted to be with him.

She mentally shook herself. There was no way she'd fall for a Malfoy without the help of a couple of Mai Tais and having him and her the only two people in the room.

Then again, they were the only two people in the room...

***

Draco could almost see her mind process this information as she avoided eye contact with him.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said cheerfully. "Well, maybe we should start cleaning so that we get something done before lunch."

"You're right," Draco nodded. Ginny began to turn towards the kitchen but he stopped her. "How about you come help me upstairs instead, I shouldn't send you off by yourself."

Ginny smiled back and followed Draco's lead up the stairs. Draco felt something brush up against him, then felt Ginny's hand close around his. He looked over at her and smiled.

They finally broke apart inside the study. Most of the books were already gone but a few trinkets, paintings and the desk were still left. Ginny walked over to the shelves and Draco cautiously went over to the desk.

It was an ornate pine desk with many drawers. His father kept all of his important documents inside of it. Draco quickly opened up the bottom right drawer, half expecting the Drawer to snap back. Inside were an almost empty vodka bottle and a few glasses. Draco shook his head, his father always liked to drink. He shut that drawer and opened the one above it.

This one was filled with potion bottles, labeled in his father's neat script. There were also recipes for these potions in the drawer too. They were mostly medical potions, painkillers and sleeping draughts. Draco knew his father had troubles sleeping but he never knew that he used potions to cure the problem.

The next couple of drawers were journals of the meetings he had with the Death Eaters, lost of them were uninteresting entries, "Today we discussed potions we could use..." "Marybeth was late again stupid girl..." "We talked about whether Miss Sexy Sorceress 1998 was hotter than Miss Sexy Sorceress 2001..."

Draco stifled a laugh; everyone knew that Miss Sexy Sorceress 1998 was better, hands down.

It was the top drawer that had the most interesting things. There were lots of envelopes and scraps of paper in it. There was one stack bound with a rubber band, Draco took it off and shuffled through the papers, they were all very cryptic drawings of little blond boys lying, dead on the street, people writing notes in blood, and haunting eyes in the darkness. In the middle of the stack there was a letter, addressed in his father's handwriting. Draco carefully opened it and began to read it.

Dear Thom,

The dreams, they're getting worse, I believe our Master has something to do with them. He wants payment now but there's still a long way before it's done. I'm not going to use a growth potion on it Thom so don't even suggest it. It needs to be done properly or it won't work out.

I've been drawing pictures of my dreams like you told me, but a bloody lot of good that did me! Do you have any strong sleeping Draughts that I could take?

Lucius

Draco folded the letter and set it aside. He looked trough the pictures one more time, amazed that his father drew them, then put them down too.

There were a lot of letters in the drawer, mostly unfinished drafts from his father to the Death Eaters. Draco wondered why his father didn't just burn them, because if any of the people from the Ministry saw these letters they could have enough proof to sentence Lucius and many others to Azkaban for life.

Draco looked up and saw Ginny quietly gathering books off the shelves and putting them into boxes. She looked up and waved, then went back to work. Draco smiled to himself as he looked back down at his work.

There was only one more letter in the drawer. He picked up the milky white envelope. On the front written in very elaborate, red lettering was "Lucius Malfoy" when Draco turned the envelope over there was a green seal with the Dark Mark imprinted on it. As he carefully opened the envelope flap he looked around, half expecting to see his father behind him.

The letter inside was written on the same white parchment and red ink as the envelope was. Draco slowly began to read it.

Lucius,

I know about your claim of faithfulness but that doesn't pay me back. You are in my debt, Lucius, and that is not a good place to be so I'll just make this easy for you. Give me the perfect servant and we're even.

Lord Voldemort

Draco folded up the letter. Suddenly everything made sense