Stealing Him Back

Chapter Two

Stealing Him Back

~*~~*~~*~

Ginny slammed the door behind her and stared straight ahead at the man who was now watching her in a strange sort of concern.

"Aren't you meant to be at work?" he said.

Ginny didn't feel the need to answer that question. "I need to speak to you."

Blaise raised an eyebrow. "Okay," he said as he set down the book he was reading. "I'm listening."

Ginny walked into the room beating the magazine in her hand against her leg. She sat down on the nearest chair she could find as walking had suddenly become quite exhausting. "What if I were to tell you something - something that we have been waiting for forever, even if by finding this something I may have cocked things up a bit?" she said avoiding the topic as much as possible.

"Erm," Blaise said. "Well, I suppose if it were really important, it wouldn't matter. Why?" he said and then suddenly he smiled brightly. "Oh my god, did you get the tickets to the concert?" His smile widened. "Oh, Ginny I love you to bits. Wait, what did you do to get them? Did you kill someone? 'Cos if you did - I mean - thanks and all but you really shouldn't have. I don't like the band that much -."

"Blaise, shut up!" Ginny said to his rambling. "I mean, hold on," she said calmer. "I did not get tickets of any kind. I am talking about something much, much, much more important."

Blaise narrowed his eyes. "What's more important than the concert?"

Ginny rolled her eyes. "Look, I did something today. Something I'm not particularly proud of but never the less I feel I have a right to it."

Blaise crossed his arms. "Will you cut the crap and just tell me?"

Ginny took a deep breath before spurting out, "I pushed a guy out of the way of a truck outside of Bruce Corp."

Again, Blaise raised an eyebrow. "I'm sorry, I don't get it. You saved a life, how are you not proud of this?"

Ginny winced and hid her face behind the magazine. "He thinks I'm his fiancée."

Blaise tried to hide his smile. "Ah," he said to the face, on the magazine, of a well known witch that muggles liked to call Matilda.

"Now the hospital in muggle London has assigned him into my care." Her voice sounded muffled behind the magazine.

"Oh dear."

Ginny took a long shot. "And he's Draco."

"Oh my - WHAT?" He stood up with wide eyes ripping away the magazine from her face. "Wh - wh - what do you mean? Are you sure it's him?"

She stood up slowly taking it back. She nodded. "I'm very sure," she said slowly. "I found him, Blaise."

"Y - you found... oh I need to sit down." He did sit down and breathed in mighty breaths before continuing. "Where did you say he was?"

"He'll be discharged tomorrow but it's up to me where he goes."

Blaise nodded because he didn't particularly trust himself to speak. That is, until he remembered one tiny thing that he had shrugged off and even laughed at moments before. "Wait - wait a second. Did you say that he thought you were his fiancée?" Ginny nodded. "So... that would mean he actually has one then? I mean - other than you?"

Ginny nodded again and looked to the floor. She had been wondering just who this other girl was that he had fallen in love with.

Blaise noted her sudden change in mood and went to sit next to her as she started to cry. "Oh Gin. Merlin, I'm sorry, I never even thought - wait - did you say you were?" he asked.

Ginny looked away from him avoiding all areas of the room in which he occupied.

"Ginny, you didn't."

"Erm -," she began but was cut off by Blaise standing up.

"Ginny, what have you done?" He began to pace around the room. "Do you know where she is, if she's going to turn up and visit him? What will - what's her name?" he suddenly asked.

"Well, that's strange because he called me Cynthia, but when I told him my name was Ginny he apologised and said he always called me Cynthia."

Blaise pondered on that for a moment. "So, her name's not Cynthia then?"

Ginny shook her head contemplating. "I don't think so."

Then Blaise came upon a thought. "Have you told any of the others?"

She looked up at him and smiled wanly. "I can't face my brother with this on my mind, he'll know I'm hiding something and I don't want to tell them yet. Can you...?"

"Can I, what?" he said to her face which was suspiciously putting on a puppy dog expression.

***

"Harry, mate. I mean, we love you and all but please stop trying to kill us. We meant it when we said you could stay for no charge, you really, really, don't have to cook." Hermione couldn't help smiling at the burnt pieces of toast, flat hard pancakes and matchstick-black sausages that lay on the kitchen table.

"Harry, Ron's right. Please, please, let me do it."

"Hermione, Ron, I don't want to stay here as a freeloader. I just want to help."

"By helping are you referring to the waste of such good bangers, which, on any other day, would have been a perfect smell to walk into?" Ron asked.

Hermione elbowed him from the side. "Harry you put in a good effort but -." She stopped as the doorbell rang. "I know - have you tried perhaps wanting to clean?" she offered as Ron got up to answer the door.

"Clean? Hermione, seriously, me clean?"

"Yes, you clean. You couldn't kill us with your cleaning anymore than you're cooking."

"Oh my god, you're house is on fire," Blaise said as he walked in through the door. "Potter, what the hell are you trying to do? Kill them?"

Harry looked at him in a strop. "No, I'm trying to help and cook lunch." He held out the frying pan as proof.

"Try helping to put out the fire in your pan," Blaise said with a smile.

Harry frowned and looked down only to see the black sausages he was frying in flames. He jumped and dropped the pan back onto the stove. He then ran to the sink. When he returned with water he found the flames had been put out by Blaise's quick hand with an Apagarius spell. He stood waving his wand in a disapproving manner.

"Don't you know you should never put out an oil based fire with water, Potter?" He looked at Ron and Hermione. "Are you sure he likes you? He seems to be going through extraordinary means to murder you."

Hermione stood up and went to a miserable looking Harry and hugged him with a smile. "Don't worry Harry, the best you can do is starve us to death."

"Blaise, what are you doing here?" Ron said as he sawed into a hard pancake and chewed on the only piece of non-black toast Harry had managed to make.

"I have come to tell you that your sister will not be able to make your annual Friday night dinner tomorrow, which," he said as he eyed the rundown stove, "by looks of it, is not such a bad thing after all." Harry sniffed indignantly and crossed his arms as he went to sit down in a grumpy manner, frilly apron and all.

"Why not?" Hermione said as she snapped her pancake in half like a Rich Tea biscuit.

Blaise frowned at them still wanting to eat such a disaster of a breakfast and chose his words carefully. "Well, she saved someone from getting run over earlier and has to go and take care of them because they get discharged from hospital today." He chose against telling them she had to get him tomorrow, which incidentally turned out to be Friday, the girl needed time to sort things out.

"Oh," Harry said suddenly interested. "Does she know them?"

Ooh...is that a loaded question. Blaise made a compromising face, "Yeah, I'd say so. They haven't spoken in a while but she's glad they met up again. I'm going to see her later today to see how she's coping with it."

"Oh, we could come too, right Ron?" Ron looked up momentarily distracted from his extraction of the perfect piece of brown toast in the centre of plenty of black.

"Huh? Oh yeah, sure we can, whatever you say." His head went back down with a knife and fork.

"Well that was another thing I wanted to talk to you about. See - she wants you to meet... this person but not right now. How about lunch on Monday, she says."

They all watched him warily and frowned. Blaise suddenly felt rather uncomfortable under their gaze. "Why can't we meet this person today?" Harry said.

Hermione's forehead smoothed. "Is it a man?" she asked.

Ron stopped sawing and looked up at her, as did Harry before all eyes focused once more on Blaise. Blaise swallowed. "Yes, yes it is."

"Oh dear," Hermione said very softly. She inadvertently looked at Harry who was watching the tablecloth.

Blaise followed her gaze and focused on Harry too. They all knew he had feelings for Ginny but because of Draco he had never acted upon them. Since Draco's disappearance, Ginny had never moved on, which made it even harder for Harry. Even though Draco wasn't there, he had never really left and now that she had moved on to another man he felt a little betrayed as much as he tried to hide it.

Oh if only you knew, Potter, Blaise thought.

"Okay then, Monday it is," Hermione said.

***

Friday morning, Ginny woke up early mainly because of the anxiety of having to move in with her ex-fiancé. She found it easier this way after talking with Blaise about it and deciding, after what Draco had told her about, 'herself,' that he had most likely been to his fiancées home. They figured out that though he had a mild case of amnesia, he was not stupid enough to fall for her little apartment as, most likely, his real fiancée's five-story-building mansion.

So she shrank her bags and put them in her pocket along with his wand and apparated into a stall of the ladies bathroom on the second floor of the hospital. She knew it was empty because she had been there the day before and saw the 'out of order 'til tomorrow,' sign on the door.

She stepped out unto the ward and looked around for door number eleven. She had expected him to still be in bed but he was already fully dressed and ready to go. She seemed just a little surprised at first until he told her they let him go earlier in the morning and he had had time to get ready for her. They walked out the front entrance and across the street before apparating out of an alleyway a block down the road. Ginny held onto his arm just enough so that he could lead them to his home as she had no idea where it was. She had been curious to where he had been living all this time, and when she saw the large house with what could only be described as a garden the size of Kew Gardens set around it, she began to wonder just how hard she could have been searching for him if the land he lived on took up half of England.

They walked up to the house, briefly pausing when Ginny saw some flower or plant she just had to stop and take a look at. If he had found it strange, he didn't say anything and just smiled at her answering whatever questions she had about them. The rest of the journey went uninterrupted and they remained in a comfortable silence until they reached indoors.

"I didn't know you were so interested in plants, Ginny." She watched him pause for the umpteenth time that day. Whenever he said her name he would seem surprised that he got it right. She wondered just how well he knew the woman he was marrying. "I would never have taken you as a lover of plants." He sat down in his living room.

Ginny followed suit. "Well my mum is like a landscape gardener, really. She planted loads of plants all over our garden at home and she did it all herself."

Draco visibly frowned. "Your mother?" At Ginny's nod he frowned even harder. "Your mother?" Then he laughed. "A gardener? Your mother?" He laughed even harder at her earnest stare. "Oh, you're too much." He stood up and walked out of the room. Promptly, Ginny got up and followed him. He was still laughing. "I don't believe it. Not only is your mother afraid of soil, Ginny, but judging from the size of your family home, I doubt she even knows where to start." He reduced his laughter to a slight chuckle before sighing contentedly and smiling. "You mother a gardener of that palace she calls a humble home," he said quietly. "Oh, you're a riot, Ginny." He chuckled once more before walking out one of the glass doors to the back of his house.

He sat on a wrought iron bench situated near the banister of the wide veranda. It was decorated with intricate timber fretwork over-looking the back half of the land his house was on and what Ginny could only describe as a park. As she sat down next to him she said quietly, "What hell have you been doing?" in an awe-inspired voice. Surely if he was this rich - again - someone would have heard of him.

"What do you mean?" he said next to her.

Ginny snapped her gaze to him and then silently reprimanded herself for not remembering that though he wasn't hers anymore he still had those dog's ears that could hear a whistle from three miles away. "When you're not at work or anything," she said with sudden inspiration. "What do you do when you're not at your work-place?"

"Work-place?" he said as though this were the strangest word he had ever come upon.

Ginny wondered why he said it like that. "Erm, yeah?"

He frowned at her again and then he smiled shaking his head. "Well, I suppose I... actually I don't do anything when I'm not... at my work-place, as you say," he said with a slight smile.

Ginny had to ask it. "So, um, what do you do?" she asked knowing this would produce yet another questioning frown.

And there it was. "Do?" he asked perplexed.

"Yes, Draco. Tell me what you do. If we are starting over and you're calling me by my actual name and I'm staying back from my one week trip with my bosses to look after you, let's pretend for a second that we have only just met and I'm trying to get to know you."

He seemed to find all of this terribly amusing. "Alright," he said with a smile. "Though I must say, this is moving very fast as we've just met and we're getting married on Friday. It's a coincidence that we met the same way we met two years ago. Save a few physical details." He looked back out into the garden trying to figure out where to start his life story, or at least the part that he could remember.

"I saved your life two years ago?" Ginny asked.

He looked at her as if she were crazy. "Well don't sound so surprised, you haven't let me forget it since. How you pulled me out of the water dirtying up your high priced yacht, using that unknown spell to empty my lungs and whatnot - I was surprised actually, when you said yes, because I had thought up to that point that you were only tolerating my existence. My mother always said that you Martin women are fickle creatures." He looked at her. "I'm beginning to understand what she means."

Ginny suddenly thought of Mrs. Malfoy and how she had gone sick with worry when he disappeared. Of course, that wasn't the mother he was talking about. "Mrs. Malone?" she said remembering the name on his wand.

"Yes, I haven't got another mother, unless you've found the original," he laughed.

Somehow Ginny didn't want to engage in that conversation. "Well? Come on then. What do you do?"

"Well I go to restaurants and eat their food, then I talk about the food," he said in a very impassive manner.

Ginny had to get her head around it. "You're a food critic?" she said in disbelief. She tried to hide the smile that was spreading on her face.

"Okay then. Usually when I answer anyone who asks me that question I get faced with a, 'so what does that entail?' but since you recognise the term, yes, I am a food critic." He was smiling and Ginny began to laugh.

"Well you were always good at criticising everything."

He turned to her. "You said we haven't met before, so you can't tell me what I was always good at. You're ruining the game."

"Sorry." She didn't look very sorry, Draco noted. Ginny shrugged.

"So what about you?" he asked.

"Me? Well, erm... okay, I was born in nineteen eighty-one to... my parents. I work at that new department store in muggle London." She got up and walked to the banister before hopping up unto it. "I like moon lit walks on beaches and holding hands in the moonlight," she laughed jokingly. She laughed even harder when he rolled his eyes. She continued seriously. "I was joking but I do like walking a lot, it's the reason I like parks. So much space." She smiled contently as she remembered all the times she sat on her own just relishing in the silence around her. "If it's any sound I do love, though, it's the sound of rain hitting a roof when it's really heavy, which is actually why I rent a small flat south of the Thames -." Her eyes opened wide at that and she swore silently.

"Since when?" he said and leaned forward with his forearms on his upper legs.

Ginny thought quickly. "Erm... Just to get away from everything. Especially since the wedding plans got into full swing." She looked at him hoping the lie sank in.

He was watching her with great interest. Like he use to when he found out something new about her. She couldn't help the smile. "You've never told me that before," he said regarding her.

I don't doubt that. "No, I haven't," she said and looked out over the garden. She began playing with the wooden banister, picking at it with her nails. "I haven't told anybody." Not when I first got it anyway. I just told Blaise. That is until Ron found out I wasn't staying by Blaise anymore.

She turned back when she heard the rustle of clothes. He had stood up and was standing in front of her. He smiled and kissed her. She almost cried when he just stood there holding her. "I like this game," he said. "We need to play this more often." She laughed into his shoulder.

***

"Mother, please tell me you didn't?"

"Well, you take absolutely no initiative in these things and up to a few minutes ago I thought your lovely bride to be was out of town. Where is Cindy?"

"Who?" Draco said.

Mrs. Malone rolled her eyes. "Oh honestly, Draco. Cynthia, then."

"Oh," he said laughing. "Ginny is upstairs taking a shower, we're going to dinner."

Mrs. Malone frowned at this foreign name but just shook her head at her son's really bad memory when it came to Cindy Martin. Nothing else ever escaped the boy's mind for the two years she had known him and taken him in. He had the memory of an elephant, for lack of a better example, and could lock people up with the things he knew. When Cindy Martin comes into view, however, he forgets the name, age and whatever else comes with her. She had wondered why he even proposed to the girl and had a suspicion it was because she wanted grandchildren and was just trying to shut her up. She narrowed her eyes at her son.

"Oh where are you taking her?"

It was Draco's turn to narrow his eyes. "Why?" he said in suspicion. She never wanted to know where he went, just trusted him to come home.

"Is it against the law to want to see you?"

"Mother, you are not going to join us for dinner. Just do whatever it is you have to do, whatever colours you want to make the day special. Just leave me out of it. All I want to do is show up and get married."

"And Cindy?"

"Ginny, feels the same way. We trust you to make all the right decisions."

His mother raised an eyebrow. "Alright. I suppose I could live with that. So you want no input at all."

"You're my mother, I trust you to know me well enough to make my decisions for me."

Mrs. Malone scoffed. "You weren't saying that when you were nineteen."

Draco rolled his eyes in a very melodramatic way. "Well I'm not nineteen anymore, mum."

"And thank Merlin for it," she smiled.

Draco laughed and said goodbye to her. He watched as her face disappeared from the fireplace and walked outside to see Ginny walking down the stairs. When she reached the bottom of the stairs and he still hadn't said anything, she smiled to herself. She had worn the dress on purpose. She had worn it on their first date and had garnered the same facial expression and silence that he was giving now.

"What's wrong?" she asked fighting back her smile.

"Have - have you worn that before?" he asked with a slight stutter. His face had the look of someone who was fighting a large wave of déjà vu.

Ginny smiled. He was remembering, he had to be. "No," she said, "why? Does it look familiar?"

He shook his head still trying to figure it out. "You haven't? Well, maybe I saw it in your store or something. It reminds me of something, I know it does." He took her hand with a slight shrug and walked to the fireplace.

Ginny's heart sank. He hadn't remembered. She sighed and followed him into the fireplace stating the name of the restaurant.