The Redemption of Draco Malfoy

Chapter 8: Out of Control

At their first meeting, Draco told Ginny about his mother's efforts to get him matched up with Cecilia Nott, which sent her into giggle fits. He told her, too, that his father was pressuring him to join the Death Eaters. That was sort of true: it had always been an unspoken understanding between him and his father that it would happen. And his father had asked how long it would be before he was ready.

After that they didn't want to talk any more, but spent a while enjoying being close to each other again after so much time apart.

And then Ginny spoke up softly. "I've said it before and I'll say it again. We've got to get you away from your father."

"Yes, love, I know. But how? Murder is out. Going to Azkaban would be far worse than living in terror of my father..."

They spent a few minutes coming up with increasingly preposterous ideas for disposing of Lucius Malfoy, but none seemed like a real solution. (Sending a group of rampaging hippogriffs through Malfoy Manor?)

"Draco?" said Ginny abruptly.

"Yes, Gin?"

"If your father left you alone...but disinherited you...how would you react?"

"I've been thinking about that for a long time," Draco sighed. "And so I save most of my allowance. I have over eight hundred Galleons in my personal Gringotts vault."

"Wow--eight hundred Galleons!" Ginny looked shocked. "That would be enough to live on for a few years anyway...and if you got a job..." Her voice trailed off and she blushed before adding, "And of course, if you found someone to share your flat with you, you could each pay half of the rent, and it would last even longer."

Draco drew her close. "Ginny, love, if I found the perfect person to share my flat with, I wouldn't want her to be out working. I'd want her to stay home and take care of our children."

They kissed passionately for a while before Ginny said: "Do you think you could fit all of the children you're going to have in a flat?"

Draco grinned. "Probably not. I'll probably need to buy a ramshackle house out in the middle of nowhere and keep adding on every time I have another child."

They giggled and kissed some more but Draco's heart was no longer in it.

Bloody hell, what am I thinking? I'm not even sixteen and...and I'm hinting to a girl that I want to marry her and have children...Patience, Draco, patience.

"Draco, it's getting late, don't you have to start your rounds?"

"Yes, I do. Why does this time of night come so quickly?"

He left her side then, but they met every night after that, talking of how to get rid of Lucius once and for all. By the end of January they were convinced that he would have to die. The best idea was Ginny's (Merlin, but she would make a good Death Eater).

Her idea was to make up several bottles of after-shave that looked just like the ones in Sensara's Wizard Scents, and taint them with a mild contact poison. Those would be swapped for real after-shave bottles in Sensara's. Draco and Ginny would buy one, add a more potent contact poison...and Draco would send it to his father as a birthday present.

Draco couldn't possibly be convicted of poisoning his father--since others would buy the same scent and be poisoned. The only thing that worried Ginny was that some of the older Hogwarts students might end up with rash. She doesn't worry about murdering my father, but she worries about students itching, thought Draco. Now that makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

On the twelfth of February, Draco went to Hogsmeade alone. Ginny was out in the woods around town gathering potion ingredients (they didn't dare buy or steal them, which would leave a trail for Aurors to follow). Draco decided to get her a Valentine's Day present.

As he turned from Main Street onto Goblin Alley, heading for the jeweler's, he felt a familiar hand on his shoulder. "Father?" he said, without turning around.

"Yes, Draco. I need the information now."

"But Father, I'm not sure...I thought I had another week..."

Lucius Malfoy's gaze darkened briefly. Then he smiled politely and said, "No matter, Draco. Come, have a drink with me."

He steered Draco toward the Three Broomsticks. Handing a few galleons to Madam Rosmerta, he said, "Private room, please." Madam Rosmerta nodded and indicated a small parlor to the right of the entrance. "Go on in, Draco. I'll get the drinks."

Draco sat down and within a minute Lucius reappeared holding a mug of butterbeer and another of mulled mead. He set the drinks down on the table and closed and locked the door.

"So, Draco, how are classes going?" His father took a sip of his mead while waiting for the answer.

"Oh, fairly well," replied Draco, sipping his butterbeer awkwardly.

His father watched him for a while, then said, "So. Down to business. Who is your, ahem, correspondent?"

"Ginny Weasley." (Now why, thought Draco, had he been so eager to give out her name?)

His father smiled. "How appropriate. Is she close to Harry?"

"Not particularly. But she's close to her brother, Ronald, who is one of Harry's best friend. And she's the only female friend of Miss Granger, who is Harry's other best friend."

"I suppose that's good enough. And do you have information on when I can find Harry out of Hogwarts?"

"Yes. He's worried about Ginny. He wants to meet her in the woods behind the Shrieking Shack during the next Hogsmeade weekend." (Oh hell, why had he told his father that? He didn't want Ginny mixed up in this mess.)

"And why would he be worried about her?"

"Because she's never around. Because she's usually around me." (Good grief, why the hell couldn't he keep his mouth shut?)

"Aha. And are you two, you know, intimate?"

Draco blushed. "Not in the way you mean, sir. I wouldn't let myself get that involved with her." (Why couldn't I just tell him to mind his own business?)

"But you're pretty sure that she's telling the truth?"

"Of course. Ginny lies--all the time, in fact--but not to me." Now was the time to say it. "I think she'd make a pretty good Death Eater, father."

Lucius smiled as he stood up from the table. "Yes, she does seem rather susceptible to the influence of the Dark Lord, doesn't she?" He ruffled Draco's hair affectionately and Disapparated.

Draco got up from the table without finishing his butterbeer. Why, oh why, hadn't he been able to stop talking to his father? He went down the hill towards Hogwarts, berating himself for not watching what he said.

It wasn't until he neared the gates of Hogwarts that it struck him. When he was home for the holidays, he'd overheard his father telling his mother that Mr. Borgin had sold him an extra-strong Veritaserum. Oh, shit.