Breaking All the Rules

Chapter Five

Breaking All the Rules

A Stroll through the Park

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Where are you taking me, let me go!" Ginny called as they crossed through the park. People had started to look in their direction as Draco dragged her along.

"Just having a lover's tiff, nothing to worry about," Blaise ensured as he walked carefully behind them. Some of them looked away but were still eyeing them curiously.

"Will you stop struggling it's for your own good dammit!" He pulled her even closer to stop her from running away.

"I said, Let me go!" She pulled at his arm and bit down on it hard.

"Ow! Bloody - Merlin - bitch!" he yelled as she ran straight for an exit.

"Oh no," Blaise said as she ran away from them.

"I know, she bit me." Draco examined his hand.

"No mate, that, oh no." He pointed to where she had run off. She was looking behind to see if they were following her. She didn't see that in front of her there were a group of men in wizarding robes. With beige masks on their faces.

"They wouldn't attack in broad daylight would they? Not in the middle of muggle London." He watched as they reached into their pockets.

"Draco." They withdrew their wands.

"Oh shit."

"Draco, you have to get her out of there."

"Oh shit." He began running straight for Ginny, but when she saw him follow she only began running faster and directly into the direction of the group of men.

He had almost reached her, damn she was fast. "Ginny slow down, you have to stop!" He ran past some more muggles that were sitting on the grass in the afternoon sun. They watched with playful eyes as an apparent couple ran through the park.

Suddenly an idea happened upon Blaise, he smiled knowing what would get her to stop. "Draco! Hurry up," he called. The men raised their wands to her and began chanting.

Abruptly, Ginny stopped running and turned. "Draco?" Had she heard that right?

He, on the other hand, hadn't and couldn't stop in time. "Ginny get down!" Her eyes widened as he crashed into her knocking her to the ground just in time for the curses to sail over them.

Draco looked up and saw them assembling into some sort of order. He turned back toward Blaise. "Zabini, a little bit of help here if you can!" He looked back at Ginny. "Are you alright?" She nodded quickly still registering what was going on. "Good, are you willing to listen now because if you aren't you're going to get killed." She looked up at the men who were trying to kill her. She instantly nodded again. "Right," he sighed. "When I say go." He looked at her expectantly waiting for her to comprehend. She nodded again lost for words. "Blaise, how's it coming?"

"Just say when!"

"When!" he yelled as he took out his wand. "Please Merlin don't let us get caught. Expelliarmus!" he pointed his wand to the group and every wand went flying away from their owners. He looked down at Ginny. "Come on, we have to go." He pulled her up and they ran.

"Machaera luminum," Blaise said as multiple orbs of green light shot out of his wand and hovered above him in a circle. "Appropinquate." He pointed his wand toward the group and the orbs moved forward quickly advancing on each member. Blaise waited until every orb reached their opponent, some of them had begun following the attackers as they ran after the pair. When he was certain, he made two large swoops with his wand arm as if fencing with a sword and the orbs copied his movements. Like a blade they cut through the robes and large gashes came through on their backs and on the fronts of those who had not dared to run. They fell instantly as others in the park screamed and ran in every which direction. Blaise watched them fall then blew the top of his wand as if it had emitted smoke.

"Oh yeah, I still got it," he said before realising he had just used his wand again, in broad daylight and in front of muggles who were now running away and screaming. He had to get out of there before ministry officials came down on him. Not wanting to risk apparating, he began to run after Draco and Ginny who had just reached the outside of the park. They waited for him at the gate.

"Took you long enough, you just had to show off didn't you?" Draco smirked.

"What are you?" Ginny finally managed through ragged breaths.

Blaise smiled. "Oh, she talks then," he laughed. "Come on we have to get out of here before they arrive. Leveret will have your head when he finds out."

"Who's Leveret?"

"Later," Draco said as he pulled on her arm to cross the street.

They ran through numerous alleyways and roads before coming to an old abandoned warehouse, unnoticeable unless you were looking for it. Ginny gasped as she took in the sight of it, it was huge. Blaise disarmed the wards and went inside holding them open for the other two to step in before arming them again.

As she walked inside, Ginny noted the sudden warmth before looking around. Draco dropped her hand and walked off behind Blaise to go up the stairs. Once again, Ginny gasped at the surroundings. Inside was nothing like the outside at all. Whilst outside was dingy and full of dirt, rotten wood and metal and countless bad odors, inside was the most beautifully decorated home she had ever seen. She was standing in a great entrance hall, which could have been a room of its own it was so large. Everywhere Ginny looked, was polished stone in the most beautiful pastel colours. The white walls throughout the room added a maximum of light, from the great chandelier above that hung with valor, which complemented the texture of painted stone ceilings. Intricate vines weaved their way throughout the room, threaded through the pillars, fused in the walls that suspended the ceiling above.

'What the hell do these people do?' she thought as she watched Blaise and Draco ascend the stone stairs.

"Draco," she whispered to herself. She couldn't believe she had run into him again. He had saved her life twice and had risked his own and Blaise's to do it. She still wasn't sure how they had but they kept on talking about people after them and such, which gave her the feeling that she had gotten herself into something huge.

"Excuse me?" she called to them as they reached the top of the stairs. They turned to face her. "Where exactly am I and why have you brought me here?" Blaise apparated down the stairs and stood to face her as she jumped. "I thought-," she began before he cut her off.

"Wards love. It's my home, I wanted to have at least some kind of magical life in this damn place we call London." He began to walk up the stairs and gestured for her to follow. Draco waited for them at the top. "I tell Draco all the time that we could just stay in the states and have a life but he always wants to come back to England cos he was born here. He doesn't listen of course and just keeps getting himself into trouble that he can't possibly get out of with out my help." As he reached the top he faced Draco. "I used powerful magic for you today, I hope you can pay me back."

"I am, as I have always been, in your debt Zabini." He bowed for good measure.

Blaise smiled at him. "Hmm. No need for gestures, Malfoy, sarcasm gets you nowhere with me." He laughed as he walked to the left staircase. "Come on, we have to get out of this country." Draco made to follow but stopped when Ginny wouldn't. Blaise, sensing the sudden change in atmosphere turned to her from the stairs. "He'll explain everything to you, Ginevra. I promise he will but now we need to leave. It's a matter of your own security as well as ours." She slowly started to walk up behind them.

"Where are we going?" she asked as she followed them down a broad corridor.

He opened a door to a bright room full of maps of the world all over the walls. There were old looking maps that looked as if they had gone through hell and back, some new ones and smaller more detailed ones underneath them. It was quite a collection. She looked at each one as she passed them, in front of each map on the wall stood a podium with a small item on display at the top. Nothing in particular but they were all seated on a cushioned pillow of their own. She guessed that he traveled a lot like he had said and brought back souvenirs from each trip. However, after what she had seen she wondered if what he said about his job was true.

"You've been decorating, Zabini," Draco said as he made his way along a map of China.

"Just a little something here and there," he shrugged as he studied the large world atlas that stood in front of him. It covered the whole wall as if it were wallpaper.

"What is this place?" Ginny asked in wonderment.

Draco looked at her awestruck face and smiled. "You've heard of the floo network?" She nodded as she looked at him. "Well, this is Blaise's personal port-key network. He has a house in every country on these walls." Ginny looked at the large room, it stretched far down to what she was sure to be the end of the warehouse outside, maybe even larger. Her attention then turned to the world map that Blaise was studying.

"So the world map must mean you have a home in every country in the world then?" she laughed.

"Well, no, not one in every country. I have two in Borneo and three in Hawaii, an estate in Brazil and two condos and a house in Australia. There may be a few around the States too. Can't stay in one place can I, where's the fun in that?"

Ginny gave him an 'are you serious?' look before Draco stopped her from talking.

"Some people collect art." Was all he said. She nodded and followed him to the map of England. There was no port key in front of it like the others. There were detailed road maps and tube maps pinned to the walls neatly and she watched them.

"What do you do for a living? Really do. People, who can conjure up 'The Blade of Light,' do more than just transport valuable items." Blaise looked at her and then dragged his gaze to Draco before returning to the Atlas in front of him.

"I'm not sure if I can tell you," Draco started.

She turned to him. "Well then why didn't you tell me who you were?" She watched him imploringly. "All the time in the restaurant it seemed as though you were hiding your face from me. Didn't you want to talk to me at all after all these years? Why not, have I done something?" He fell silent.

"Draco, please tell me."

"Will you bloody tell the woman? My head is killing me already and the damn feelings in this room are going to make my head burst!" Blaise shouted from the other side of the room.

Ginny looked at him in wonder. "He's an empath," Draco said.

"Ah." It was all she needed to know.

"I think you need to sit down."

"Why?"

"Because what I tell you will either make you want to pass out or run off and I would rather have some leverage to be able to stop both from happening."

Ginny chose a small cushioned bench near the tube map of London. Draco joined her and he sat thinking where to start.

"How about from the beginning," she suggested sensing he was having trouble.

"Okay," he breathed. "A few years ago-."

"Seven years ago," Blaise inserted.

"Seven years ago," he started again, "when the war began there was a group of us who didn't want to choose sides. We didn't like the thought of servitude if you must. Well, we were happy for a few months until some clan came in and murdered one of our friends. When I returned with Blaise, after retrieving a call about someone who wanted to join, we found him slaughtered on the ground of our hideaway."

"Oh my god," Ginny said through watery eyes.

"Naturally, even though we were meant to be neutral, we went after the bastards. We found them - about a hundred or so - and we killed them all in the same way, just leaving them on the ground for all to see. When we left, this man called Leveret caught us."

"The guy that will have your head?" she asked.

"Yeah, him. He told us we had great potential for a business he was creating. Of course, we told him to shove it because we weren't interested. Then he told us of the value for our services."

"What?" she said not believing what she was hearing.

"Money was tight back then, we needed it. There were things to pay for that we couldn't get, we were stealing from the bases to get food and supplies. We-." He gestured to Blaise who was fiddling with some orb he had decided to become enraptured in. "- thought that if we did those few things then we would be able to survive."

She sat back on the bench and sighed. "So what did you do?"

"Well, erm." He swallowed not knowing if he should continue.

They didn't notice Blaise walking up to them. He was standing right above them when they noticed he was there. He crouched down so that Ginny could see him levelly. "We made people stop moving." He then gave Draco two sheets of paper which he folded and put in his pocket.

"Don't give me that... Wh - what?" she said shakily.

"Gin." He sighed. "We - I was hired to kill your husband, Mr. G Thomas. At least I thought it was your husband I was supposed to kill. Leveret's secretaries are the most workably challenged people you will ever come across."

"You were hired to do what?" she said in raggedy breaths as tears escaped her eyes.

"Listen to me." He reached forward to hold her hand, anything, but she pulled away.

"You were hired to do what? Don't touch me, you - both of you disgust me! Don't touch me!" She rose quickly and made for the door. She only just made it before Blaise sealed it shut.

"Dammit, she's a fast one."

"Don't get me started," Draco said as he remembered their run through the park.

Blaise opened the door and followed Draco out as he ran down the corridor after Ginny calling her name.

"Stay the hell away from me!" she screamed as she made it to the stairs.

"Ginny listen to me. I thought it was your husband but it wasn't."

She spun around on the stairs and faced him. "Oh and that makes it better does it? As long as it has nothing to do with me its fine is it? Think again, Malfoy. What you're doing is wrong, can't you see that?" she spun again but he grabbed her arm. "You're no more than a murderer."

"Assassin. There's a difference."

"Really," she laughed emptily.

"Yes. Murderers, like our clients, have reasons. We just do as instructed."

She scoffed. "Let go of me, murderer."

"What about your husband," he said squeezing tighter, the nerve of her. "Prey tell what does he do for a living? Do you even know or were you too blind to go past his conniving and see that he left you for another whore every night." She gasped and he mentally hated himself for shooting so low.

She pulled away from him as if his touch burned her. "How dare you?" she said in a dangerous whisper. "How would you know anyway? Have you been stalking us or something?"

"Something." Blaise came down the stairs to meet them. "We were tracking you, your husband anyway because we had to get to know his schedule. That's a very dangerous man you married, Ginevra. I hope you know what you've gotten yourself into."

"I know my husband thank you very much."

"Did you know that he is the director of an elite group that rules the dark magic streets of the wizarding world? Sure, they're not as bad as a Deatheater, but they certainly cut it close to the line," Blaise said.

"You're lying," Ginny retorted through watered down eyes.

"You're a liability to him now and he wants you gone. From the sights of things he has already replaced you."

"You're lying. Stop it!"

"Is this lying?" Draco said sternly as he thrust two pages at her from his pocket. She took them slowly and began to read. She looked up at them both with contempt before turning the page. At the sight of her picture on the top of the page, she broke down. She read the details of her hair and eye colour, her build and height down to her name and the relation to the client. "Like I said, we do as instructed. You're husband is the murderer, not us."

She looked up at him. "My husband wants me killed?" she said disbelievingly. "Why?"

"We already told you, you're a liability to him, the secretaries in the office mixed up the name of the client with the name of the mark. That was why there was no picture of him in the records, we're not supposed to know who they are. When we asked for information on him it was given to us by means of-." He looked towards Blaise. "-persuasion." He smiled. "It was there we found out what he did and how he was known in the community. He hired us, Ginny." She shook her head not wanting to believe it. "Mr. G Thomas was put under the mark's name instead of Mrs. G Thomas. Read on if you still don't believe us."

She kept reading, when her eyes stopped again at her name.

Name: Mrs. G Thomas.

Relation to client: Wife.

Reason for termination: Witness, liability.

"Witness? Witness to what?"

"That's what we want to know."