The Caretaker Wife

"Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets."

-- Arthur Miller

Chapter Two - In The Morning

Ginny hadn't really been paying attention to the tall silent man standing beside her, if anything, she had simply grown accustomed to his brooding nature, and accepted the fact that very few words would ever be exchanged between them. In the beginning, when they had been assigned on the same mission, she was resentful, and had quite a few strong words to share with Remus, none of which actually managed to get past her lips. Not after she had seen the expression in Draco's eyes when he walked in the room, ready to leave on their assignment. It wasn't anything concrete, and if she had been more like Hermione, she would have laughed at the thought of feeling sorry for the icy blond, but she did. The pale scar on his face was still vividly pink and raw looking in those days, puckered at the edges, and his eyes had such a dead look to them. Against all reason, she felt that obnoxious part inside her that insisted on rescuing baby mice and the like melt into a puddle of Ginny-feeling-sorry-ness. She had honestly been shocked to see the silver band on his left hand, having forgotten the fact that he had married almost immediately after graduating school. Not to Pansy Parkinson, as had been expected - she ran off with some German bloke right before graduation - but instead to a certain Daphne Greengrass. In Ginny's opinion, it was a much better match. Daphne, what little she knew about her, was much nicer than Pansy. Daphne had always been one of those enigma types, silent and beautiful, but not completely above chuckling softly at a joke thrown her way. Pansy on the other hand ... well, that was a different story.

Her attention was grabbed by the sudden act of Draco taking her left hand in his, his hands surprisingly cold. Her first reaction was to take his hands in hers and clasp them together, to try and leech some of her body heat into his chilled skin, but the look on his normally impassive face stopped her. He repeated her name in his inflectionless voice, and then sank down to one knee. If she had been more prone to fancy, Ginny would have reached out and pinched herself, but she knew that this was no daydream to be dissipated with a small burst of pain. No, it would appear that Draco was in deadly earnest about this whole venture, for he remained on one knee, his face blank of any emotion, though his eyes were showing her something she wasn't sure she could understand.

"Virginia Weasley," he said, a trace of apprehension in his voice - was she imagining it? She must have been, for Draco Malfoy was famous for his complete lack of outward emotion in any sense of the word. He must have been feeling something underneath his stony outer layer, but she knew he was much too proud to admit to anything like that. She forced herself to pay attention to him as the next few words fell from his lips; words she never expected to hear from him of all people. "Will you marry me?"

All she could do was stare at him. She could feel her eyes growing as wide as saucers, her red-gold brows shooting towards her hairline, her fingers limp in his grasp. Her eyes searched his face, looking for any sign of ... anything really, but she was disappointed. His face was as blank as ever. Finally she forced her voice to obey her, though it took a couple goes, since the first time she opened her mouth, the only thing to come out was a strangled croak. Did she just see his lips twitch in a slight smile? She hoped so, since the small part of her that wasn't trapped inside her shocked body thought that he had a very nice smile and this situation certainly warranted one.

"That's not my name," she said, somewhat hoarsely, her mind going into over-drive all of a sudden, trying to come to grips with this impossible situation.

That stopped him. If she hadn't been so shocked, she would have laughed.

"I'm sorry?" he said hesitantly.

"Virginia. It's not my name."

He arched one eyebrow slightly, not moving from where he was on the hard floor. "Does it really matter?"

Her mouth set into a determined line. If this was going to happen, as it appeared it would, it was going to be done right. "Ginerva." And then a small smile warped the McGonagall-esque set of her lips. "Molly's the middle name."

She was amused to see Draco roll his eyes, but he took a deep breath and started again. "Ginerva Molly Weasley. Will you marry me or not?"

She was pleased to hear the exasperation in his tone. It meant that he was back to being human again. Also, she just loved to annoy people. Within reason, of course. It was a sad by-product of being a Weasley. Annoying people was too much fun. Although Draco didn't turn that particularly satisfying shade of puce that her brother did. It was more of a challenge though, to see if she could get him to show some kind of reaction. Being so stony couldn't be good for you. "Just one question," she said, arching an eyebrow slightly. When he simply looked at her instead of answering like she was expecting, she took it as her cue to carry on and nodded slightly. "Why?"

Why. The single most asked question in the world, and most of that was probably done by children. But this wasn't the why of 'Why can't I just eat ice cream?' or 'Why does my pet have to die?', this was a why of 'Why the hell are you asking me to marry you when we aren't even friends?' She had no idea why he asked her that question, since she had always imagined herself marrying someone who was madly in love with her or something along those lines. Not Draco Malfoy. He was handsome, that was a given, even with the long scar bisecting the left half of his face, and rich, that much was obvious, but they had barely spoken ten words to each other in the time she was living in his house.

As Draco frowned, apparently coming up with a reply that would make sense, Ginny found her mind wandering. He must be uncomfortable, kneeling on the hard floor like that, but his face and bearing showed none of this discomfort. His face was as impassive as ever, the firelight casting his features into sharp relief. He looked a lot like his father at that moment in time, though there was obviously quite a bit of Narcissa in there too. Lucius was more apparent in the straight line of his brows, his aquiline nose, the shape of his chin. The rest, the almond shaped eyes, the quirk of his lips, the pallor of his skin - that was from his mother. And yet ... that scar. She hadn't dared to ask him how he came by it. It was simply there the day he suddenly showed up on the doorstep of number 12 Grimmauld Place. She had been the one to open the door to his persistent knocking. Assuming it would be someone like Tonks coming home from a scouting mission she had been assigned, she didn't even think to look out the peephole in the door. She had just unlocked it and pulled the heavy wooden door open. She remembered that day like it was yesterday: the way she froze, her eyes wide, her mouth open, the greeting she had started to utter dying on her lips. The way he watched her, his hair loose about his face, a vividly red cut traversing his pale face, the way his cloak shrouded his body from the sun. She had started to close the door, drawing a breath to shout a warning, when she found his foot in her way, and he pushed past her. As soon as he was safely inside, he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Get whomever you consider in charge," he told her, his voice cold and heavy. She was indignant at being told what to do in such a tone, especially after she had worked so hard to get where she was then. And to be told by none other than Draco Malfoy! The one who had practically betrayed the whole school into Voldermort's hands! She was livid. How dare he tell her what to do? When she demanded to know what the hell he thought he was doing, he simply looked at her, not saying anything. She still remembered that look vividly. If nothing else about the war remained in her memory, the look on his face when he turned his stony gray eyes to meet hers would remain burned into her brain. While the rest of his face remained impassive, Ginny could see every emotion she had felt over the years since graduating reflected back at her through a pair of dead eyes. She was truly frightened of him then. And perhaps it had been the point in time when she first started to feel pity for him -

"There's been an outbreak in the Americas," he began, cutting off her train of thought, his voice as inflectionless and cold as ever. He didn't give any indication on what the 'outbreak' was, but she figured she could guess pretty well what he was talking about. He levered himself to his feet, though she noticed he was graceful in that motion, and didn't place any undue weight on her hand which he held in his. Standing stiffly for a few seconds, he inclined his head to her in a slight bow and turned away, letting go of her hand and reaching out for the drinks he had banished to the sideboard. Returning hers, he walked over to the chair he had been sitting in when he had received the bad news, and picked the letter up. He handed it to her with a careless gesture, as if it meant nothing to him. "It's all outlined in there, but the basics of it are thus: they need as many experienced Aurors as they can get." He cleared his throat slightly, watching her as she sank down into the leather chair, her eyes quickly skimming the letter in front of her. She could feel him watching her, but she was currently trying to focus on what was being presented to her. Beneath all the flowery language and obvious attempts at flattery, Ginny could read what was being said. It was a desperate plea for help. For all their bluster, the Americans hadn't experienced a true war like this since their Civil War. And that was back when the country still believed in magic. Now that people were so skeptical, it was easier in one sense to fight each other, but harder in another. Anyone who witnessed true magic would spend all their time rationalizing it away, which made ridding them of their memories much easier, but it also meant that news traveled much too fast. One simply couldn't afford to be caught out at doing magic.

"Is the whole Order going?" she asked, glancing up at him.

He frowned slightly, only a little bit, and shrugged. "Not that I know of. But a large part will." He resumed his pacing, arms crossed across his chest, his Firewhiskey practically untouched on the mantle. He was standing in front of the fire, his body obscuring the flickering light, leaving the rest of the illumination of the room to the candles along the walls and the dim lamps placed here and there. Having read the letter through, Ginny leaned back against the leather of the chair and watched him silently, having learned when not to speak. Sometimes waiting for a few minutes could work wonders. While he paced and thought, Ginny took the time to examine him without having to come up with an answer to a life-changing question. He was tall, much taller than she would have expected from knowing him as an adolescent, and his shoulders had broadened considerably, giving him the stature of one of those romance book heroes that her mother had secretly loved so much. Passionate Trousers indeed. Ginny had shuddered when she had found one dogeared copy in her mother's room. Too much information, thank you very much. The soft thud of Draco's boots on the wooden floor was comforting in it's mindless rhythm, and she found herself pondering the proposal he had just offered. There were certainly worse things she could imagine than being married to Draco Malfoy, even though that thought made her smile; her school-age self would have been hard-pressed to come up with worse things than marrying Draco Malfoy. The Ginny of now was a bit more realistic, however. She would have the whole run of his house - not that she didn't already, but it would be more sanctioned - and the importance of his name attached to hers. Ginny, while she loved her family, was tired of being 'the youngest Weasley', one in a long line of do-gooders. She wanted something more than what she could get on her own. All through their assignment together, Draco had been incredibly courteous towards her, almost excessively so. She hadn't been sure what to make of it in the beginning, since she had grown so accustomed to him being snarky around her and her family, but this was completely different. Every now and then she'd catch the exasperated death-glare in his eyes that she had seen at Hogwarts, but he had simply stopped talking. The teenager she knew and hated had spouted off some ridiculous drivel at every opportunity, usually insinuating that he was amazing and that Hermione should be put down because she was a 'filthy Mudblood'. In the past few years though, as the war dragged on, and more and more people died, Draco simply withdrew into himself. He would no longer insult Hermione at every opportunity, and he even passed up goading Ron on a couple occasions. It was almost as disconcerting to Ginny as it was to Ron, who had been left spluttering slightly the first few times. Ginny secretly thought that he had been trying to come up with a good comeback before Draco said anything, and was disappointed to find that his efforts were in vain. If she hadn't been trying to be the good little sister, she would have laughed. Draco had also developed a habit of opening doors and pulling out chairs, and even once helped her into her coat after she had hurt her arm. Small things, they may be, but it was a step in the right direction.

"The fact of the matter is this, Weasley," he said suddenly, turning towards her, a faint frown on his face. "I have two children." She knew this already. She had spent a fair amount of her time already in the nursery with the children and their nanny. "What with this war brewing in America, I need someone to look after them. As you can see," he indicated the map on the wall with a wave of his hand and a self-deprecating laugh, "I don't have many relatives left, and that means I really need all the help I can get." His gray eyes watched her steadily, waiting for a reaction of any kind. "I don't know if I'll come back ...." There was something in his eyes now, though she wasn't sure what it was. Later, upon reflection, she would realize that it was an emotion somewhere along the lines of a resigned hope. Draco didn't want to come back from the war. Even with children, he was almost looking forward to dying. The realization boggled Ginny's mind. He cut into her thoughts again, rather abruptly. "Someone needs to look after the estate, and make sure bloody Blaise Zabini doesn't spend all of my money." At that, he cracked an infinitesimal smile, and she saw him shrug a little. She knew the Zabinis were supposed to be family friends of the Malfoys, but Blaise Zabini had dropped out of school and moved to America right before VWII broke out. Apparently his mother had married some rich American businessman, and had packed up their belongings and hopped the pond. It would appear that he was back though, judging from that comment. She never knew if Draco and Blaise were friends when they were at school, since Blaise was cast in much the same mold as Daphne: silently graceful in that arrogantly aristocratic aloof way. As far as she knew, the Zabinis weren't members of the nobility, just filthy rich, but that hardly mattered anymore. No one really paid attention to that sort of thing any more. What little she could remember about Blaise from school was that he was ridiculously handsome, and had given Draco a run for his money in the eyes of the more vapid girls in school. While he may have been a right prat as a teenager, Draco was always one of the most coveted boys at Hogwarts. Blaise was a close second, and it devastated many a young girl when he moved. It was quite a shame to let those uncultured Yanks get all the attractive ones.

"Zabini?" she inquired, latching onto the one thing in that last sentence that made the most sense.

"Yes, Zabini. He's returned." A small shrug, and Draco started pacing again. Ginny noted that he didn't seem too pleased about the fact, but he appeared to be fine with it, or at least resigned to accepting something he couldn't change. Which in and of itself was odd enough. The Draco she once knew would have railed against a situation like this, threatening to throw his weight around until he got his way. Well, if anyone had changed over the years of the war, it was Draco. Even Ron had grudgingly become resigned to his presence, even if they weren't friends and would probably never be.

A sudden bark of laughter startled her, so much so that the almost-full glass of whiskey in her hand sloshed slightly. "Look, I'm not going to try and make this out to be something it isn't." Draco spun to look at her, his eyes pools of darkness in his pale face. "I'm only asking you because I have absolutely no one else to turn to. All of my friends from school are either dead or in hiding, and everyone else hates me enough to be able to transfer that distate to my children. I'm hoping, for the sake of them if not for me, that you would be willing to look past all the years I spent making you and your family miserable. After I return, the marriage can be annulled, I'll even give you a pension of sorts, if you want." He sighed, seeming to deflate slightly. "You won't have to endure any ... unwanted advances. I assure you." He peered at her in the rather dim light of the study, his expression intense, as if he was trying to get her to understand that he wasn't going to rape her.

As disconcerting as this whole situation was, Ginny felt she had to reassure him somehow, even if it was just that she understood that she wouldn't be forced for sex. She nodded once, hesitantly, then again, this time with a bit more conviction. "Alright," she croaked.

He seemed a bit thrown off balance. Perhaps he had been anticipating more of a struggle? He probably had a whole list of perfectly reasonable reasons why she should marry him, and was now unsure of what to do with the list.

"I'll marry you," Ginny clarified, smiling in spite of herself. "If only for the children."

With a small smile, Draco inclined his head towards her in a courtly bow, silently thanking her. She found herself smiling back.