The Perfect Plan

Chapter Fifteen

The Perfect Plan

Talking it Over

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"He loved you, you know that don't you?" Chayse said as he watched Ginny looking out of the window. Draco had gone outside to talk to Cordelia after she had declared that she wanted nothing to do with her mother and wasn't ready to speak to Chayse yet.

"What?" she said turning.

"He loved you," he repeated sitting on the living room chairs. "He's told me about it hundreds of times." He turned to the fire. "Of course I never knew it was you but I knew you existed. My father, unlike you, doesn't keep things from his children." His eyes continued to stare coldly into the fire, the heat unable to melt them.

"Well sometimes you'll find that not everybody is able to face the truth as well as your father."

"Well, yeah," he said getting up, "I knew that already. Besides, the only reason he told me was because I asked him if he ever liked anyone other than my mother. I have a feeling that he would not have told me otherwise."

Ginny's mind recalled on what Draco had told her a few days ago. If he wants to know then yes I'll tell him. No point in lying to him, he's a smart boy he'll probably figure it out for himself anyway. She looked at him, he had become closer than before and he had a determined look in his eyes. She watched them for a second. He probably would have figured it out sooner or later.

"Sure they were betrothed but not every arranged marriage starts out with love, half the time neither party has even met." He leaned against the window and crossed his arms.

"How much has he told you?" she asked.

"Well, "he sighed. "He told me that he was in love with someone else when he married my mother and she too had someone else but they couldn't do anything about it. He said that he didn't start feeling anything more than friendship between them until it was closer to my birth." His eyes, as much as she could tell, then began to reflect pain as they stared deep into the flames of the fire that coloured the gray in his eyes. "Just before she died she told him to look after me like he said he would look after her and -." His voice faltered a little. She had found it strange at the time but then she was reminded that he was still a boy. "She told him never to lie to me. If there is anything he has proved to me constantly it's that." He turned to her. "I trust him with everything that I know."

She almost shrank back from his eyes and looked down to the ground. She shifted her feet and then began to watch the fire, realising what it was that he had found so interesting. The flames licked the logs and danced in the air disappearing up into the chimney. The light had become brighter as she continued to stare and she felt she needed a barrier between them to stop them from burning.

"Did you love him?" she heard.

Her gaze snapped to his. As hard and as heated as they were from the fire, her eyes softened on his. She smiled warmly. "With everything I know."

He smiled and turned toward the window. "Then I can understand why you left, for that I will always thank you. He may not have understood but the second he told me, I did."

She surveyed him with a considering look. "He said you were smart," she said as she passed a hand through his hair.

He pointed with his eyes behind her. "So is she." She turned around to face the other two outside. They were still sitting on the ground but Cordelia was lying down. "And for all the reasons he told me, you should have trusted her to handle it too. If anything that's the one thing she's upset about."

***

"Does she think that I'm too dense to understand the concept? I mean, she couldn't even trust me enough to handle it, how is it that after fifteen years she couldn't even tell me I still had a father?"

He stared at her at her sudden outburst. When he had come outside she had seemed closed so he hadn't pushed her. He guessed she was used to her mother trying to talk to her and so had taken a leaf out of her book. He sat there in silence waiting for her to respond. It had taken her a while to become comfortable with him there. She still saw him as Chayse's father and it still frightened her after everything that she'd heard about him, especially when he had gone to school. She stole glances at him when she thought he wasn't looking and that had made him smile. Seeing him that way had settled her a little and she dropped her tense shoulders. Leaning back on her hands, she stared up at the sky opening her mouth once or twice to speak and trying to find the right words to start off with. He gathered that her temper had mixed in somehow due to her current outburst.

"You always had a father, Cordelia."

"Yeah, but not a live one!" she said in an overreacting voice. "At least that way I could've - we, we could've - Aargh!" She raked a hand through her hair getting bits of dirt in it that had stuck to her hands. She sighed in frustration picking up a small broken twig on the ground.

"Exactly, what would it have achieved? This way, if you didn't know, you couldn't have been hurt by seeing something everyday that you wanted but couldn't have."

"Couldn't have? You mean if you had known you wouldn't have tried to find me?"

"No, like I said to your mother I would have hunted you both down -." He stopped when she laughed and he smiled at her. "-But she wouldn't have let me. She would probably have disappeared again like she did with her parents." She began to snap the twig into small pieces and distributed them in a little pile beside her. She looked up at him when he stopped talking and found him staring at the small pieces she had in her pile. She furrowed her brow and picked one up handing it to him.

"You want one?" she asked.

"No," he said quickly feeling embarrassed. "No, sorry, where was I?"

"Mum ran away from Grandma."

"Yeah, her parents-."

"No just Grandma, Uncle Ron and Harry. She told me to stay away from them too. I suppose if I knew about you she'd have told me to do the same."

"Well, she knew that if I knew then I would spend my time looking for you."

He could see the cogwheels turning in her head. She nodded slowly. "But what about the time you're meant to spend with Chayse," she finally said. "I would have been a distraction," she said understanding. She lay back on the ground and stared up at the sky once more.

"I love Chayse, as you well know, but for your mother to sacrifice so much for him and me took a lot of strength. If she told you then that would be more to dish out and judging by her nerves right now, she doesn't have a lot left."

She sat up and looked at him. It seemed as if she were surveying him. Finally she got onto her knees and crawled over to him holding his head in her hands. He let his head relax as he moved it from left to right.

"Is there something you're looking for?" she said as she snapped it to the right running her fingers over his skin.

She squinted into his eyes and opened his lids further with her fingers, he felt as if he were in a medical examination. She smiled as she let them go. "I have your eyes," she said nodding and tilting his head backwards. "Thank Merlin I don't have your chin."

"Hey," he said as he snapped his head down.

"Sorry," she said in an apologetic way. "No offense but I prefer non-pointed," she said not so apologetic but more relieved. She let go of his head and held up one of his hands and entwining his fingers with her own. She inspected them with her other hand. "Ha! I have your hands," she said proudly. "I love my hands, and my hair. I thank both you and mum for them. I always said I'd thank him for that."

"Who?"

"Him - well - you I guess." She sat back down again and immediately brought a hand to her eyes. "Sorry but it'll take a while for me to get used to this."

"Don't get me started." He matched her nervous tone. That silence came again but this time it was more comfortable than it was before. He looked at her. "You know, you have a lot more of me in you than just physical attributes," he said.

She turned to him, her hand still at her eyes. She gave a confused look. "Like what?" she asked.

He laughed, "Like that," he said pointing to her eyes. She furrowed her eyebrows and watched him confused. "Your mother hated it when I did that. I'm surprised you still have your hands, mine were hexed on a daily basis."

She lowered her hand and looked at it, there was a lose eyelash on her finger. "Oh," she said laughing, "yeah, she tells me that all the time. It's always 'You're just like your father,'" she said pointing her finger angrily. "Most of the time I'd just reply with a thank you." She shrugged. "It drives her crazy." She stuck her tongue out through her teeth and grinned devilishly.

"Prime evil," he laughed.

"She says that too." She joined in.

When they simmered down, Draco caught her glancing back at the cabin window. Ginny was watching them.

"Are you ready to go back inside now?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. What do you think I should do?"

"She's still your mother; technically you're not allowed to hate her."

She laughed. "You don't get it, do you?"

He cocked his head to the side and gave her a questioning look as she stood up. "I don't hate her." She gave a small laugh. "I can never hate her." She dusted herself off and then looked toward the cabin as he stood to join her doing the same. Her voice went low and he detected the sadness laced in her words. "I'm just... disappointed."

She began to walk towards the cabin but paused when he didn't follow. "You're not coming?" she asked. He didn't answer, he didn't say a word. He just looked at the ground in thought. She held out her hand to him.

"Father," she said trying in on for size.

His head snapped up and she smiled at him. He looked at her outstretched hand and took it allowing her to lead him inside.