Diligite Inimicos Vestros

Chapter 2: Ego Sum Qui Sum

Recovering from her surprise, Ginny forced herself to calm down. During her training she had realised that the famous Weasley temper was a hindrance rather than an asset, and so had vigorously trained herself never to be anything but calm in these kinds of situations. Besides, it really annoyed the enemy, who would love to get a rise out of her.

"So," Draco smirked at her, "what is a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?" he mocked her, looking mighty pleased with himself. "Very careless of you, allowing yourself to be captured like that. But I suppose it's the Gryffindor in you," he ended and closed the space between them, until he stood some five feet from her.

"We're not in school anymore, Malfoy," Ginny spat, still trying to control her temper, "but if you want to go down that road, fine. I should've known you were behind this. Only a Slytherin would attack someone while they slept. At least a Gryffindor would have been brave enough to do it while I was conscious. Scared, were you?" she finished and matched his smirk with a scowl of her own.

For a moment Ginny wasn't sure what he was going to do. At first it seemed he was going to strike her, but then to her amazement he burst into laughter. The sound of it made shivers run down her spine.

"Touché, little Weasel. I am impressed. You seem to have...matured since we last saw each other," Draco said, and lazily surveyed her entire form, scanning her up and down. Ginny wanted to slap him. "Not bad, for a Weasley," he drawled, and turned to the desk behind him.

Ginny watched him walk. Some things never change, she thought. He was dressed all in black, as he usually did. But, as she begrudgingly had to admit, he had also improved with age. As much as she hated him, she could see what years of training had done to his physique. His black designer jeans and button-up shirt left little to the imagination.

Bloody self-obsessed show-off, she scoffed silently.

His hair was longer than it had been the last time she'd seen him. He could have easily tied it back in a ponytail if he'd wanted to. To her surprise the colour hadn't darkened at all, as light hair usually did. It was still silvery blonde, and so soft-looking that it instantly made Ginny want to curl up in a nice, soft bed and sleep for days.

"Do sit down," Draco drawled, bringing Ginny back from her thoughts with a start.

Without a word she complied.

She looked at him, and found her gaze locked straight into his silver grey eyes, which betrayed no emotion. As usual.

Ginny had enough determination for an entire village, and Draco was not one to be intimidated either. So neither of them wanted to be the first to break eye contact.

"Excuse me, Master Malfoy," came a small voice out of nowhere, making both Ginny and Draco jump in surprise. It was a house elf, who was bowing his head so low it brushed the floor. "So sorry to bother you, Master Malfoy, Sir, but there is an urgent message for you, Sir. From you-know-who," the elf said, and bowed even deeper, if it was possible.

To Ginny's surprise Draco reacted almost hastily. "Where is it?" he demanded.

"In your private quarters, Master Malfoy Sir," the elf squeaked, not looking up.

"Very well, dismissed," Draco promptly said, and the elf fled. Then Draco turned back to Ginny. "I do apologise, but it looks like you shall have to wait. Here," he said curtly, and with a quick flick of his hand he magically sealed the double doors. Another flick and Ginny's shackles vanished and Draco strode to the door, through which the elf had just left.

"Oh and try not to break anything," he smirked without looking at her, and then he, too, was gone. Ginny could hear him sealing the door behind him as well.

Now what? she thought, and then decided to search the room.

********

A full half hour later, Ginny sat back down on the chair she'd vacated before. Nothing. There was absolutely nothing interesting in this office, or if there was Ginny couldn't find it. And that's unlikely, she mused to herself, knowing she was good at what she did.

No, all she could do was wait.

She scanned the room with her eyes and couldn't believe how barren it was. There was not a single personal item to be seen, not a photo, novelty mug or even a plant. This was obviously not where the important stuff was kept, she decided and allowed herself to relax against the back of the chair.

There'd been nothing interesting behind the screen except for a large gold-framed mirror. Ginny had looked into it and despaired after seeing her bedraggled appearance. She'd gone to bed in a t-shirt and a pair of sweats, as she'd been too tired to change, but the lack of nightwear had not consoled her much at the sight of herself. Her hair, matted and tangled, her clothes filthy and ragged, and she felt exactly like she looked.

This must be the slovenly image Malfoy has of the Weasleys, she thought and couldn't help but smile.

Odd though, the way he jumped to action at the mere mention of Voldemort, she then thought, recollecting the strange look on his face at the house elf's words.

It's almost like he'd felt fear.

But that wasn't possible, she cast the thought away. Malfoys are never afraid. How many times did I hear him say that back in school!

Bang! Somewhere not so far away a door was slammed so hard that Ginny was sure it was no longer intact.

Then she heard familiar footsteps and knew it was Malfoy, coming back to the office.

And sure enough, the door he'd left through earlier swung open and he walked, no, strutted in, his face a dispassionate, unreadable mask.

Ginny felt her mischievous side emerge. She wasn't so closely related to Fred and George for nothing.

"Bad news, Malfoy?" she jeered. "I'm not sure that the poor door quite deserved what it got."

But to her immense surprise he didn't take the bait, but simply shrugged, walked over to the desk and said: "It was easy enough to Reparo. The door will forgive me in time, I'm sure."

Ginny didn't quite know how to respond to this. She felt quite lost for words.

Draco, however, seemed to mentally shake himself from the stupor he'd been in and turned his piercing, if guarded, gaze on Ginny.

"So, Weasley, where were we? Ah, yes, your visit, that was it," he said without giving her a chance to reply. His silver grey eyes gained a hard glint as he continued. "So sorry to inconvenience you, but we are going to have to keep you here for the time being."

"But why?" Ginny burst out before she could stop herself, jumping to her feet. "What possible use could I be to you? All right, so you know I'm in the Order, being the treacherous bastard we both know you are, but so what! I don't know anything! I'm still very much the baby as far as everyone else is concerned. They like to keep me out of the loop," she finished, slightly out of breath, and crossed her arms across her chest.

Draco sat down on the desk, leaned back a bit and smiled.

"Yes, all that is true. But you seem to have forgotten about something," he said and paused for dramatic effect.

Ginny needed to know and was growing impatient.

"Well?"

Draco smirked at her expectant expression and leaned towards her, giving her a conspiratorial look. "Haven't you figured it out yet, little Weasel? You just happen to be the youngest child and the only daughter of one Arthur Weasley, who just happens to be the Minister of Magic as well as a key member of the Order of the Phoenix. Don't you see that having you here gives Voldemort a sort of...leverage, if you like, a bargaining chip. The Order, or the Aurors wouldn't dream of doing anything stupid while you are here. Do you understand better now?" he finished, with a patronising look on his face.

Ginny was dumbfounded. The thought had never occurred to her. I am getting so bigheaded, she thought, thinking they kidnapped me because of me. Oh, my poor parents!

Not wanting to show his words were affecting her, Ginny drew herself to her full height of five feet, three inches, and looked Draco squarely in the eye when she said:

"There is not a more cursed man among the living than you, Malfoy! Your mother must despise the day she brought you into this world."

Draco didn't seem affected by her words, but asked casually:

"And how is Mother? And my dear stepfather?" As he spoke he walked over to the desk and opened the middle drawer, took out a bell, rang it, but no sound came out. Then he put the bell back in the drawer and walked to where Ginny was again. "Ego sum qui sum, Weasley. I am what I am. Mother has always known that."

The smaller door opened once again and the same house elf Ginny had seen before came in and scraped his head against the floor.

"You rang, Sir?" he squeaked, not looking up.

"Yes, Servus, I rang, you half-wit. Now stop groveling, you're making me nauseous."

"Yes, Sir, Master Malfoy Sir," the elf squealed and looked up.

"I want you to take miss Weasley here to her new quarters," Draco said, looking distracted as he sat down behind the desk and opened the left hand drawer, took out some papers and a quill before looking up again. "And make sure she stays there."

"Yes, Master Malfoy, Sir. Please follow me miss," the elf said and then bowed to Ginny.

Too dumbfounded to say anything Ginny uncrossed her arms and without a backwards glance followed the elf out of the room.

*****

After a long walk down endless corridors, the house elf finally stopped at a door. The elf opened it and Ginny followed him in.

It was definitely nothing like her previous room in the dungeons.

Ginny tried to take it all in. It was a suite. A huge four-poster bed, draped with forest green velvet and a matching bedspread, dominated the room. The bed frame itself was dark mahogany, as was the rest of the furniture; a large chest of drawers, a wardrobe and a coffee table by the fireplace, surrounded by two large armchairs, also deep forest green. Slytherin green, Ginny thought with a frown, but she had to admit it looked gorgeous.

There was an open door on the left. Ginny peered inside. It was a luxurious bathroom, all marble and glass. Impressive, she couldn't help but think. Whoever owns this place must be immensely wealthy.

"They put your clothes in there, miss," the elf said, pointing at the wardrobe.

"My what?" Ginny asked and opened the wardrobe, and her jaw dropped.

The wardrobe was full of clothes. Her clothes. In fact, it seemed to contain every item of clothing she had ever owned.

"But how...?" she couldn't get over it, looking at the house elf.

He smiled for the last time. "House elf magic, miss," he said and beamed at her, "it was easy."

"You wouldn't have happened to fetch my wand while you were there, now would you?" Ginny asked, not getting her hopes up.

And she was right. Servus' face fell and he shook his head. "No, miss. You is not allowed to have it. Sorry, miss."

"That's all right, Servus, it's not your fault. So this room is for me, huh?" she asked, looking around. It was bigger than her entire flat.

"Yes, miss. Mister Malfoy says you are to stay here."

"So I heard."

"Is there anything else, miss?" he asked, cocking his head to the side.

"No, thank you, Servus. I think I can manage."

"Yes, miss," he said and exited the room.

The door closed behind him. Ginny was alone.

After waiting for five minutes, she walked over to the door and tried to turn the handle. It wouldn't budge.

Unable to contain her rage, Ginny punched the door, hard.

Damn! Goddamn him! Ginny raged silently to herself, and then with a swift kick she not so silently reduced the table by the fireplace into matchsticks.

All right, Ginny, come on now, think! she urged herself. There's got to be something I can do.

She decided not to demolish any more of the obviously antique furniture and took to pacing the room instead.

After an hour she gave up and threw herself on the bed. There really was nothing she could do right now. The place was heavily warded against intrusions and escapes, as well as being unplottable, and Ginny had already felt the strength of the anti-apparition spells.

She could probably take out three or four guards in hand-to-hand combat, double that if she managed to get her hands on a wand, but there was no way she could take on all of them.

Ginny had no choice but to accept that she was going nowhere for the time being.

*****

With a start Ginny sat up. I must've fallen asleep, she thought and glanced at the window. It was pitch black outside, but it didn't feel like it was that late, probably only around 10 p.m. Ginny could feel her stomach cramping with hunger and climbed off the bed. A house elf must've been there. The candles on the wall had been lit, and there was a covered silver tray on the table by the fireplace. Eagerly Ginny lifted the cover and sighed with relief.

Food! Roasted chicken, to be precise. As hungry as she was Ginny stopped to admire the perfection of the dish. The chicken was cooked just right, not too dry and not too moist. The crispy, golden brown skin glistened invitingly, and the roast potatoes, vegetables and gravy, which accompanied the poultry, had obviously been prepared by a master chef. Or rather a master house elf, Ginny snickered to herself.

How did they know chicken was her favourite food?

Suddenly she remembered where she was and why. She wouldn't put it past them to have tampered with her food. But against her better judgement Ginny took the tray and began voraciously devouring the contents. It was divine.

And besides, if he wanted to kill her he could've done it a dozen times already.

Having made up her mind Ginny sat back and enjoyed the meal.