I'll Be...

Chapter Three

If it hadn't been so good I wouldn't feel so sad
If we hadn't been so happy baby,
It wouldn't hurt this bad
If you had told me this last summer
I'd be on the floor laughin'
Instead of standing round breakin' down
Wonderin' what happened

What am I suppose to do
Without my very best friend
Boy you left me in shock and tied up in knots
Then it hits me again

~Gretchen Wilson, What Happened?

~*~

"Achoo!" Ginny froze as both heads whipped around to look at her sitting near the fireplace from their place near the bookcases.

"How the bloody hell did you get in here?" Blaise asked surprised. He was looking at her as if she had started dancing a jig. The only emotion she could see on Draco's face was anger.

"It was an accident?" she said not sounding sure at all.

"How much did you hear?" Draco asked ignoring the snort from Blaise.

Ginny jolted in her sleep and woke up on the floor of her bedroom tangled in sheets. She looked around wondering why she was there and thinking about that dream. Why was she dreaming about the past? It was only the past. She hadn't had one dream like that since she had left Hogwarts. Not even when she had started healing Lucius. She had been surprised at this considering she had blamed him for everything. It was his fault that Draco had disappeared, that Draco was to become a Death Eater, the Diary... Now she couldn't blame him for anything and she had to remind herself of what had happened.

He left you Ginny. It wasn't anyone's fault.

Trying to shake off the remnants of the dream she dropped back into the sheets of her bed and forced her eyes closed. He wasn't coming back and she would do better to forget him. He wasn't important and he had never cared for her. She had just been there.

~*~

Ginny rolled out of bed on Tuesday morning. She had been so upset about her family's reaction that she hadn't been able to sleep very well for the past two nights. They hadn't tried to contact her yet and she wanted to calm herself a bit more before facing them. Except for the few hours se had slept and had that dream. She had been even more disappointed in her reaction though. She was usually calmer than that. She should have been able to control her anger a bit more. It wasn't like it was new; she had had a lot of practice. She didn't get how they could have such a perfect view on what her life should be. What they thought it should be anyway. She was supposed to marry Harry or Seamus or some nice Gryffindor boy when she graduated and stay at home with her fifty kids while the man went out to earn a living for them. Quite frankly, she loved kids to death, but having more than two or three wasn't going to happen.

She trudged into the kitchen and hit the button on her magical coffee machine. After making sure it had turned on she blinked her eyes and rubbed them until she was fully awake before she started searching for her wand. Suffice to say her apartment wasn't quite clean. She had a completely organized office, organized purse and anything related to work was put in alphabetized file folders and then placed into colour-coded areas of her filing cabinet. Yet her little rancher just outside of Ottery St. Catchpole, on the opposite side of the Burrow, was a disaster.

Her jade green bedroom had a queen-sized bed with black sheets and pillows with a grey comforter that was never made. Her floor was covered in clothes until Sunday night when she would do her laundry. Her blue-grey bathroom was clean for the most part besides the various bottles and tubes scattered across the counter and the towels that weren't always folded or hanging for that matter. Her guest room, painted burgundy wit mahogany furniture, was clean because she had various friends and brothers dropping by and sometimes not going home. Then came her laundry room as well as the exit to her backyard. It had shoes scattered around the floor near her shelf where they were supposed to be. The small room usually had clean clothes folded and sitting on the dryer and various shelves she had for cleaning supplies. They stayed there until her drawers were empty and she decided to actually put them in her drawers.

Then came her yellow dining room, which doubled as a kitchen. She was good at doing dishes, with the help of her dishwasher. She did put them into organized cupboards. It was her sketches and books and magazines that she couldn't seem to organize. She had set up her easel in the kitchen and everything from charcoals to paintbrushes were scattered over shelves, counters and her table. She often decided to eat in the living room because she hadn't any room to in her kitchen. Last came her living room, which contained black leather couches and it was painted a beige almost light coffee colour. A TV with a VCR sat in there but she hardly ever used them and didn't bother to pay for cable or any programs. Her table was covered in some more books and magazines about various things. The cushions on the couch were flung in various directions and a blanket hung off the end of the couch half in the floor. She liked to say her house was clean it just wasn't tidy.

As her coffee machine beeped alerting her that it was done she got a mug out of the cupboard and shuffled over to her easel. She had started a sketch last night. She wanted to turn it into a painting she would eventually give to Lucius but she wasn't sure what to draw. All she had accomplished so far was a bold line across the page. Ginny hadn't been able to figure out why she had made the streak but she hadn't been able to bring herself to erase it.

Ginny looked up to tapping at her window and got up to open it her sheer white house robe trailing behind her. When she settled back into her chair with a few letters the owl had picked up from the post office for her she noticed a bright red envelope. A small frown appeared on her lips as she took it out from the back of the pile. The frown disappeared as she gasped and tossed the letter to the ground as it burst into flames. Her mother's amplified voice caused her house to shake, as the letter began to yell at her.

"GINEVRA ARELA WEASLEY! I DID NOT BRING YOU UP TO TALK ME LIKE THAT! THE ONLY REASON WE SAY ANYTHING IS BECAUSE WE CARE. YOU ARE ONLY TWENTY YEARS OLD. YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU WANT AND YOU LIVE ALL ALONE! YOU SHOULD HAVE A MAN AROUND THE HOUSE FOR PETE'S SAKE! I MEAN REALLY GINEVRA! What about that nice man down the street...Mr. Lucas was it?"

Ginny rolled her eyes as the voice quieted and Molly started naming possible husbands. She banished the envelope to the garbage can after dousing it with water. She needed to get back to work and her mother's letter wasn't going to help her do either of those things.

"A howler at six a.m. on Monday morning...its inhuman," she muttered as she travelled to her bathroom.

~*~

Ginny's morning didn't get better. She couldn't find her shirt at first and when she did it was stained with blue paint so she had to use several scouring charms. After that she tripped over her feet while trying to put her shoes on and hit her shin on the table causing her leg to bruise. She hopped around the room cursing for a few minutes before limping towards her robes and bag. When she had acquired both she Apparated to her office where Collin Creevey was leaning back in his chair. She had shared an office with him since she had come to St. Mungo's. They got along well enough and went for a drink as friends every now and then but they didn't talk about personal matters a lot. This morning however, Ginny was going to break that boundary.

"Why do mothers have to be so damn nosy? I mean wasn't it enough to live their lives? Why must they dictate everything in ours?" Ginny growled as she slammed her bag down. She hadn't been mad at first but over the events of the morning had helped to start a simmering temper and now she was part way to livid.

"Are you ok Ginny?" Collin asked carefully.

"No," she snapped. "My mother sent me a howler at the crack of bloody dawn yelling at me about not being married and how I shouldn't tell her when she's out of place. I am twenty years old. Why the hell would I want to be married? I have a whole life ahead of me!"

Collin looked a bit taken aback by the burst of anger from the normally composed woman. "I'm sure she means good."

Ginny looked at him in surprise for a few seconds before a stricken look came over her face. "Oh, I'm sorry Collin I didn't mean to snap at you."

Collin would have politely told her that it was perfectly all right but he didn't have any time to. A junior healer came rushing into the room. "Healer Weasley! Thank god, Lucius Malfoy has had a lapse. We had an unauthorised visitor in the room. I told him not to say anything because it was important that the patient remembers on his own but he didn't listen. I wasn't even going to let him in but he forced his way."

Ginny shot out of her chair and ran through the halls and up stairs until she reached the room. She didn't even bother to look around the room and instead headed towards the bed. A different junior healer, who she thought might be Abby, was trying to encourage Lucius to breathe. Ginny gently pushed her aside but as she gave the girl a smile Lucius lost consciousness. She immediately lifted his head slightly making sure his airway was clear before putting her fingers to his neck and watching a clock. She found his pulse and calmed as it began to slow. She didn't register anything around her besides the clock until his pulse was even. He was sleeping.

"Should we wake him?" Abby asked.

"No it will be easier for his brain to comprehend anything he's learned if he is asleep" Ginny replied. "Now who is the idiot who came in here?"

"That would be me," a figure stood in the corner and spoke from behind a cloak.

"Do you realise what you have done?" she hissed. She was angry but a part of her brain was sending off a red light. She knew that voice from somewhere. She had listened to it only two nights ago...

"I don't care." His voice conveyed that all by itself.

"You should." She walked over and stood her ground in front of him. "He is your father."

She watched with a face of stony anger as he pulled back to reveal the white blonde hair, grey eyes, and arrogant smirk. It was definitely Draco Malfoy. He looked different though. His features were sharper and his eyes almost looked sad. She had no energy to wonder though, she was too irate with him.

"You should know that he doesn't remember anything that is related to Voldemort. He feels he is solely responsible for your mother's death and he doesn't talk to me about you because he feels he deserved your hatred. I can see it though his days are spent happily he is haunted by the fact that he couldn't help either of you. I use the past tense when I say this because he thought you had died. He cried for you both. It killed me a bit inside every time, to watch him waste away. I knew I could have said something anything to make him feel better but I was bound by the need to heal him and didn't. I can't help him remember all I can do is encourage him," Ginny ranted in a firm voice. She was trying not to cry as she poured out her thoughts. "If you aren't going to take him home with a nurse after he is stable then I suggest you leave Malfoy. He doesn't need set backs right now. He needs help."

"I'll take him home but I will not care for him," Draco answered. "It is my duty as his only son to take him in. Otherwise I would gladly let you adopt him Weasley."

Ginny only glared in response as she went to find the Head Healer. She would let him deal with Malfoy and his misplaced 'duty'. He hadn't changed all that much from his irritating self. As long as she got to say goodbye before Lucius left she would be happy to be rid of the younger Malfoy despite the fact that he had only been there for five minutes. She hoped for his own sake he got a good healer for Lucius as well because if he didn't she would have something to say about it. Oh yes, and it would be a painful something.