Dark Before the Rising Sun

"Weasley?"

Ginny stared at him in incomprehension.

"Mal - Malfoy," she stammered, wrenching her elbows out of his grasp, thereby losing her balance and nearly crashing into an orderly that was rushing by. The orderly gave her a poisonous look before hurrying on.

Ginny turned back to Draco, flushing. She had a swift conviction that there were no words in the English language that could fully express her feelings of shock and that it would be a waste of time to try to find any. Therefore she laid hold of the first baldly commonplace ones that came handy and said lamely, "Long - long time no see."

Draco lifted one eyebrow. It was an expression that, in the old days when they had worked together during the war, had made Ginny long to smack him in the jaw. Just now, however, she was too exhausted to consider that option, even if she really, really wanted to.

"Long time," he agreed. "You've been okay these years?" But he knew the answer even before she opened her mouth; read it in the bitter lines of her mouth and the way her eyes remained somber even when she tried to smile. The keen eyes he remembered had softened, and in her downcast face he read the story of many empty, unhappy years.

"Yes," she lied. She swallowed visibly and gave him a weak smile. "I'm - I'm glad to see you again."

"I know you don't like me, Malfoy. I don't like you either. In fact, I violently dislike you. So why don't you get out of my sight and stay out of it?"

He smiled dryly. "Sure. Good to see you too."

Ginny's eyes flew from his collarbone, visible through the unbuttoned collar of the shirt he wore, to his guarded, impassive face. He stood motionless, casual, at ease, his tie hanging around his neck.

"I - I trust you've been well?"

"Quite." His voice was as indifferent as his stance, his smile as effortless as hers was careful. She drew myself up, trying to match his arrogance, but he was a good foot taller, and the effect was rather lost. Draco smiled. He opened his mouth, not knowing what he was going to say. The words came out as, "Would you like to have dinner with me?"

"Dinner?"

He nodded as though it was what he meant to say all along, improvising as he went. "Yeah. As in, the evening meal. There's a nice restaurant next to the park across the street."

"Dinner." She still looked slightly dazed. "Yes, I suppose so."

He offered her his arm, and she took it without thinking, following him mindlessly as he strode slowly down the corridor. "You've been very lonely these past few years, I'm afraid," he said.

The question slipped before she could stop it. "Does it matter to you?"

He hesitated. "It matters."

She looked away. "It's bitter, being alone with Mother when once we lived in a house that once held seven others."

"You gave up a good deal, didn't you?" His eyes seemed inexplicably tender. Ginny blinked.

"What do you mean?"

"Your mother. You gave up everything for her, didn't you?"

She forgot they were walking down a very public hospital hallway. "If you mean money, I'm not sorry I used it all on her. The only thing I'm sorry about is that I haven't got anymore to spend for her."

"She's still very ill?"

"Chandler's," said Ginny briefly and bitterly.

"My God," said Draco, blankly. Chandler's! It was a death sentence without the operation. And even with there was only a fifty-fifty chance of survival. "But the operation costs thousands!"

"Sixty thousand," said Ginny, choking. The thought broke her down. Tears rushed to her eyes again. The whole story spilled out, their poverty, her hopelessness and despair, her helpless rage at a fate that had taken from her everything she loved most. It did not matter that this was Malfoy, Malfoy that she had once hated and despised. She was so tired, so tired of fighting, so tired of putting up a brave front for her mother's sake. "It's not fair," she concluded passionately. "I've already lost five brothers and a father, haven't I given enough? But I can't get sixty thousand Galleons in a month's time, I simply can't."

The estate goes to your cousin Terence unless you marry by the end of the year.

"I think," said Draco quietly, "that I have a solution to both our problems."

***

Ginny could not remember the last time she had had enough to eat. She applied herself to her meal, forcing herself to eat with tiny bites, chewing slowly and delicately on first her dinner roll and salad, and then her steak.

Furtively, she studied the face of the man who sat opposite her. The slim, pale boy she had known and disliked was gone now. This Draco Malfoy was a man, large and gloriously golden. Physically, he was not particularly big, though he stood at nearly six feet; well-built and lithe, but not in the overdone way of wrestlers and boxers. It was the air of authority he exuded that made him seem so superhumanly large. His movements were powerful and assured; his speech arrogant, his eyes hard and far-seeing. Like a panther, she thought, with a shiver. Sleek, lazy, but still deadly.

She knew a great deal about his life these days, from things Harry and Ron told her. He was doing quite well. Rich and successful as ever, poised at the top of the business world. The Malfoy industries stretched to all corners of the globe. Wealthy, dynamic, powerful, and handsome, women fought over whom got to swoon at his feet.

Harry had managed to get along just fine with Draco ever since the war started and Draco had agreed to being a double spy. As to Ron, the two had hated each other as much as ever until her brother, ever gallant, had rescued the other boy from an untimely death, and in return, Draco had saved him from the Malfoy dungeons. Though Ginny had helped him in that mission.

She thought back to the days of the war. For a brief second, her eyes drifted shut and her fork remained poised mid air as she remembered. Days when she had been younger, and happier. There had been danger, yes, but she had always thrived on danger, danger and adventure and the sort of things that her brother and Harry and Hermione were permitted to experience, but which she was excluded from. As the youngest of seven and a daughter to boot, she had always been a delicate porcelain doll to protect: something to put on the shelf, to cherish.

Well, she thought, with a grim smile, she had proven that she could be more. In the years since her father and brothers' death, she had nearly single-handedly cared for her ailing mother. Ron had helped of course, but his own finances were limited; he was married, and he had children, and his research company (which he had pretty much established for Hermione alone) hadn't been particularly successful. It had shown signs of promise when Hermione and his wife Anna had reached the verge of a major breakthrough in Chandler's, but then the economy had crashed, and the company had gone bankrupt. Ginny had invested all her savings in her brother's stocks a few years back, and the Weasleys were once again very, very poor.

Heaven knew she had tried. She had tried everything. Before the days when her mother had been so dependent on her, she had done everything. Worked as a nursery school teacher, a secretary, a sales clerk. Time and again she had been laid off, as the economy became more and more unstable. It seemed that the poor just became poorer, and perversely, the rich had gone on being rich.

It didn't seem very fair to her.

***

By the flickering light of the candles on their table, Draco studied the face of the girl who had once, at the height of war, brazenly walked into Malfoy Manor and offered him her help. He couldn't resist a wry smile as he thought of that night; she hadn't gone away, as ordered, but instead had been waiting for him when he returned.

"I'll just pretend I didn't hear you say that. I'm not going anywhere, Malfoy, so you may as well shut your trap and stop trying to get rid of me."

They had rescued Ron from the dungeons together. He would never forget the reunion of the big brother and small sister - for one fleeting moment, watching them, he had felt a wistful ache in his heart, knowing at last the name of what he had lacked all his life. Such a simple word.

"You've never loved anyone or anything in your life, Malfoy. You don't understand."

Something very sweet had vanished from her face since then, and a little shadow had come into her eyes that no amount of time had succeeded in blocking out. She had learned to smile like a queen, with her lips and not her eyes. Her face was very thin, too thin, making her look very childlike and vulnerable, though her eyes were bright and fierce.

For a minute, he reconsidered the decision he had come to an hour ago.

Was marriage with Weasley what he wanted? He didn't know her very well; they had hated each other for years; she could be terribly stubborn and willful; she had red hair and he had never really liked red hair.

It would horrify his grandmother, he realized with a sudden smile, if he married a Weasley. Sabrina Malfoy was prejudiced and narrow-minded. Yet she had never specified what sort of woman he was to marry. Just that he marry.

Well, why not the Weasley girl? She was young, she was pretty, she was pureblood, she was in desperate need of his money. And she was good with children; he remembered her once telling him that she liked them. She'd be a good mother. After they married and there were heirs to the Malfoy name, they could each go on with their lives as they had done before. There was a villa in south Italy, he recalled, that he'd acquired a few years back. He'd give her that as a gift upon the birth of their first son, as well as a yearly salary, and they could go their separate ways. He'd continue having his liaisons, and she could have hers, provided both were discreet. They'd both be contented, and everything would just be fine and dandy. He had money for her to spend; she, being a Weasley, could give him the sons he needed. And last but certainly not least, he would definitely not mind having her in his bed.

A marriage of convenience was what both of them needed. Surely she'd see that.

"It's actually very simple," he said, finally bringing up the subject of their respective problems again, while she picked at her desert. She was pretending disinterest in the food, he realized, even though she had been starving. Well, who was he to quibble with pride? He wondered when was the last time she had gotten a decent meal. He remembered the feel of her thin arm in his. Probably not for months. "You need sixty thousand dollars. I can give that to you."

She paused, her forkload of pumpkin pie poised midair. "In return for what?" she asked, warily. She had suffered too much to not know that nothing came without a price.

He caught her gaze and held it. "I need a wife," he said, simply.

The fork dropped with a clatter into her wineglass. She didn't even notice.

"What?"

"I need a wife, or I lose Malfoy Manor."

"You're asking me to marry you?" she demanded, albeit weakly. There were splatters of wine on her face, which she didn't bother to wipe away.

"Yeah. In other words." Draco frowned as he stared at her. Damn fool girl wasn't going to fight him, was she? Couldn't she see that it was best for them both?

For one moment, Ginny was so overwhelmed that she could not speak. Then -

"You - you - you insulting - you rotten - you poisonous - you - " She sprang to her feet, her face pale with rage. "You think I would sell myself for money?"

Draco took a deep breath and counted to ten. Mustn't lose his temper before the chit even agreed to marry him.

"You haven't much of another choice, do you?" The flickering candlelight made him look almost sinister. Ginny shivered. "From what you just told me, you already owe Gringott's a huge sum. They would never lend you another sixty thousand."

She froze, the droplet of wine on her nose rolling off. Her eyes flashed with hate as she stared at him. Why, she wondered piteously, as generations of women had wondered before her, oh why was the world so unfair to the weak? Hadn't she suffered enough without this? It was the final insult.

"Cheer up, Weasley. It won't be so bad. I'm not such a hard pill to swallow. Think of it as a business proposal. I need a wife and an heir. You need sixty thousand dollars, plus the twenty-five thousand for follow-up treatment and whatever you owe those nasty little goblins."

"An - an heir?" She sank back into her chair. "Did you just say you need an heir, too?"

"Yeah. A kid would do wonders for my tax deductions." He smiled without humor.

She did not appreciate his wit. "But - but why? Why - why do you need a wife?"

"I asked that, too. Grandmother wouldn't tell me. Just said I needed one, or I'd lose Malfoy Manor to my cousin Terence."

Ginny sucked in her breath sharply. He was mad. That was the only explanation. She remembered Ron once saying that you needed to humor lunatics. She swallowed carefully.

"But why me? No one else will marry you?"

Draco smiled like a cat. "Since I'm going to marry, I will choose whoever I damn well please for my wife. And I've decided that I want to marry you."

"The presumption!" exploded Ginny. She was on her feet again. Draco looked at her hair and wondered if she'd start spitting fire. Her eyes narrowing, she hissed, "Why don't you just marry one of your little whores? Pansy? Blaise?"

"Well," said Draco easily, leaning back comfortably on his chair, "since apparently Grandmother wants an heir from me, the least I can do is pick a good mother for him."

This shut Ginny up for a second.

"And what," she asked feebly, after a long silence, "makes you think that I'd be a good mother?"

"I figured since you had so many brothers you'd be good with children. And didn't you work at a wizard day care center before your mum took ill? Listen, I'm tired of your little tantrum. I'm offering you your mother's life, and maybe one of your own, too. In return, I'm asking you to be my wife, and the mother of my children. That's my offer. Take it or leave it."

Hope - desperation - anguish flickered through her eyes. Whatever he had said had worked.

She swallowed. "I need to know," she said at last. "What does being your wife entitle?"

He eyed her coolly. "You'll have my name," he said. "Everything that is mine will belong to you as well. My money, my business, my property. I will ask nothing of you except that you give me a son. For the most part, it will be a marriage of convenience. You would be free to do as you choose." He paused for a minute. "You wanted to be an artist, didn't you?" She froze, anguish closing her throat as she thought of the youth she had wasted, the years that had gone by and left her behind. She thought of all the pictures she had never drawn, all the paintings she had never done, all the statues she had never sculpted.

"I'm nearly twenty-eight," she said, the ache in her heart unbearable. "Twenty-eight, and I have nothing to show for it."

"You're still young."

"Yes. But that's so different from being young."

He closed his hand over hers, gently. Oddly, she found comfort in his touch. "If you marry me," he said, "you can fulfil your old dreams. Survival won't be such a struggle anymore. You can save your mother's life."

She closed her eyes. He was offering her the youth she had lost, her mother's life, all the dreams she had had to give up . . . and children. Oh God, how she wanted children of her own.

Draco's children.

She thought of the life she had once planned for herself. A husband that loved her (Harry, it had been in her dreams, though those dreams were long faded with her girlhood). A family. A home. And every year, she and her brothers and their wives and children would get together for Christmas and they'd all live happily ever after.

She choked back a bitter sob at the memory. That dream had gone when she was eighteen. She was older now, and wiser. Dreams were for the foolish and the weak. Life wasn't a fairy tale. Happily ever after didn't happen for anyone. Not even for Harry and Hermione, who loved each other so passionately.

She thought of Ron, who carried the burden of a wife and two children, a sister and a mother. She thought of Harry, struggling to raise a family. She thought of her mother, sixty years at her father's side. They deserved more after all they had gone through. With Draco's money, she could find a way to help them all. She'd never have to work again. There'd be no poverty. There'd be canvases and paintbrushes and charcoal, medicine for her mother, toys for Ron's children, new shirts for Harry, maybe even funds for Hermione and Anna's studies. The Burrow needed fixing, and Harry and Hermione were currently getting their water from the well behind their house. There was so much she could do. She'd find her own happiness.

She never thought she'd find an escape in marriage. Ginny had given up all thoughts of marriage nearly ten years ago, that beautiful December night so like this one that had shattered all her girlhood dreams. Marriage!

She pushed away thoughts of love. Love was only for some people. The lucky ones. She may as well learn to accept that it would never be hers. She'd known that since she was eighteen. The narrow path that had so long been set at her feet now offered her a fork, a choice of roads to take.

She would not forgo this chance.

Her eyes sprang open again. There was a steely spark in their depths. Her voice was cold and devoid of any sentiment or emotion when she answered.

"It appears that I have no choice but to accept."

"Good." Draco looked so smug that Ginny clenched her fists in her lap.

"But on my conditions."

The smug look was gone so quickly that it might have been wiped off with a washcloth. "What?"

"On my conditions."

"What are your conditions?" asked Draco, warily.

"I'll make a bargain with you, Draco Malfoy. I'll marry you, and I'll give you the children you want. I'll run your house for you, make it the biggest showcase in the country, if that's what you like. And in return . . ."

She stood. The chair pulled itself back, even bending down to pick up the napkin that had slipped to the ground from her lap. Ginny did not notice. Clever furniture was common in the wizarding world.

"Let's walk," she said, abruptly.

Throwing down a handful of Galleons on the table, Draco took her arm and together they walked out of the restaurant to the park outside. But before Draco could get the door for her, it swung open, and a tall, spare man with golden hair stepped into the restaurant, a buxom brunette clinging to his side.

"If it isn't the . . . delectable Miss Weasley," said the man, his eyebrows going up. His features were even and clear cut. It was a face that set hearts a flutter all over London - and which made Ginny recoil in revulsion.

Blue eyes she had once thought beautiful and now found a shade too pale swept over her from head to foot. Feeling almost as though he had actually reached out and touched her, Ginny clutched Draco's arm very hard and tried not to faint. Draco, sensing something amiss, slid his arm protectively around her waist. She was grateful for the support.

"Luke," she choked out, barely able to say the name.

"How long has it been, my dear? Eight years? Or is it nine? Far too long, I think."

Ginny swallowed past the tightness in her throat. "Not nearly long enough." She turned to Draco. "Let's go."

"There was a time, Virginia, when you weren't so eager to run from me. Do you remember?"

He was taunting her. Of course she remembered. She would never be able to forget. "I was much younger then. And I was a fool. Good night."

Nearly dragging Draco behind her, she hurried out the door. She felt his pale eyes following her. Ugly memories of her and Luke on her brother Percy's wedding day filled her thoughts. Nausea rolled in her stomach.

Ginny did not see the chill December beauty of the night. Dear God, Luke was here. He'd been away in France for years, and she hadn't had to see him. She had almost forgotten him, forgotten the humiliation she had suffered at his hands. But now he was here, making her remember. Making her loathe herself again.

But this was not the time for it. She had things to settle with Draco. Mindlessly, she walked down the flower-rimmed pathway of the park. She forced her mind to concentrate on him and him alone. At the moment, he was her whole world. Her future laid in him.

The past receded.

"In return for marrying you and giving you children," said Ginny, her voice brisk, "I want a yearly allowance."

"I thought about that one already. I'll give you two million in pocket money annually. Your mother's illness, and any expense in the Malfoy name will not count towards it."

Ginny nodded swiftly. "Thank you. That will suit me very well. I ask that you will do nothing to keep my children from me, no matter what the case."

Draco blinked at this. "I never meant to keep them from you. I wanted them to have a good childhood."

Ginny let out the breath she had been holding. "Thank - thank you. I was afraid . . . I was afraid you would want to hire someone to look after them."

"If I wanted to do that, Weasley, I would have married Pansy," said Draco dryly.

Ginny chose to ignore this. "I don't care about your liaisons, provided you remain discreet and our children do not become aware of it. I want my children to have a happy childhood, just as you do, and it would be best for them."

"Very well. And you can do whatever you bloody well like, so long as you don't taint the Malfoy name." Odd, why was it so hard for him to say that? Surely he felt nothing for the Weasley chit. Just basic human possessiveness, Draco, calm down. Mustn't be a hypocrite.

Ginny looked at him coldly. "I don't know about you, Malfoy, but I intend to take my marriage vows seriously."

Draco stared down at the top of her head. Something tight that had wound itself around his lungs loosened. He breathed again. "Anything else you would like to request, Weasley?"

"No, not at the moment."

"Anything else you want, just ask. I want you to be happy, too, you understand."

Ginny was oddly touched by his words. Few people were concerned with her welfare these days. "Thank - thank you, Malfoy."

She swallowed nervously. There was one last thing he needed to know. Thank God for the darkness of the night. She would not need to look at him while she told him.

"There's something I need to tell you before we clinch the bargain, Malfoy. I should not like to trick you."

Draco's senses went on alert, though he kept his expression bland. "And what is that?"

She stopped walking. Unconsciously, her hands went to her skirt, clenching and unclenching the plain material.

"I - I . . ." It was harder to say than she had expected. She swallowed again. Her tongue was too dry. "I'm - I'm no longer" - she flushed hotly - "pure."

She was trembling. Draco stared at her. She had thought that that mattered? It was the twenty-first century, for Heaven's sake, no one put a high price - or any kind of price - on a woman's virginity anymore.

He paused less than a heartbeat. "And you think I am?" he asked. "What happened in the past is unimportant."

"But - you - you don't understand. There is more to it than that. I know many women enjoy . . . a certain intimacy . . . with their spouses." Draco tried not to laugh at her prim way of putting it. "But I am not one of them. I - I find the act of submission repulsive."

"I see." Considering that he really, really needed an heir, they were hardly the words he wanted to hear. "It's highly obvious that your first encounters were unsatisfactory, but it doesn't have to be that way. Since this has all happened so quickly, after we're married, I'll give you some time. We won't . . . consummate . . . the marriage until you're ready."

I'll never be ready.

She nodded primly. "Very well."

"Then it's all settled."

She gave him a weak smile and nodded. "Thank you for understanding," she whispered. Standing there in the pale moonlight, looking so forlorn and lost and uncertain, he couldn't help feeling a wave of protectiveness sweep through him. Protectiveness, and something altogether different.

"Why not we . . . seal the bargain with a kiss?" he asked, somewhat huskily.

Ginny tensed like a frightened deer, taking an unconscious step backward.

"Do you really find me so repulsive, Ginny?" he asked, his ego considerably diminished.

She flushed, looking away from him. "Oh, you're good looking enough, I suppose," she said slowly, "and you're intelligent. When you're not being arrogant and overbearing, you can be extremely charming and thoughtful."

Not exactly high words of praise, but he supposed they would have to do. Closing the distance between them, he reached out and lifted her chin. "Close your eyes." Ginny just stared him. "Go on, do as I say."

She looked wary, but finally obeyed. Leaning forward, he very softly settled his mouth over hers. He wasn't prepared for the heat that jolted through him.

Long, interminable minutes. He deepened the kiss, but only slightly, then gently ended the contact. Taking a step away, he asked, "What about now?"

Unconsciously, her fingers came up to her lips. She was trembling - from fear. Her eyes were uncertain, but she had always been unfailingly honest and he was counting on that honesty now.

"Not . . . not repulsive. You - you have a very nice mouth."

He let the comment pass, though he desperately wanted to laugh. "Very well. I give you my word I won't do anything to you that you don't want me to do."

The terrified look had left her face, though she didn't relax. "I don't believe you. You'll want more from me than a kiss."

"Yes, I will. When the time is right. But I'm not a man who breaks his word. I won't do anything that frightens you or that you might find repulsive. All that I ask is that you keep an open mind and trust me enough to let me guide you. If I succeed, we can have the children that we both want."

Something moved across her features, a wistfulness that touched him somehow. She wasn't opposed to the idea. He knew she wanted children. He'd have to play on that if this was to work.

"Are you certain, Malfoy? Are you sure you're willing to gamble so heavily on your future?"

"I'm sure."

She nodded. She looked as pale as alabaster, but as rigid as a statue.

Draco felt oddly drained. "We'll be married in two weeks, then. I'll take care of all the arrangements. One hundred thousand Galleons will be deposited into your Gringotts account tomorrow morning; give the doctor the go-ahead for the surgery. I'll be at the hospital tomorrow afternoon, I'll try to catch you then."

She nodded again. "Goodnight then, Malfoy. And . . . thank you."

He stepped towards her and for a second she thought he might kiss her again. But it was excitement, not fear, that coursed her.

However, all he did was brush his lips gently across her forehead. "Goodnight."

She felt an odd sinking in her stomach. He turned and walked away, leaving her standing in the moonlight, but it was not until he was out of sight that she recognized that sensation as disappointment.