Unbalanced

Unbalanced

By Saskia_181

Chapter One: Blonde

Molly's kitchen was her domain, her kingdom. Once she was there, cooking, baking and mothering, the rest of the world dropped away and she was just Molly again, rather than a poor, ragged woman with seven children barely out of adolescence and a husband fighting in a dark and terrible war. She didn't mind interruptions by friends, she didn't mind throwing a small feast out on the table, she actually enjoyed bustling about the kitchen as she listened to the latest gossip.

What she didn't expect, one cool November afternoon, was to find someone who wasn't a friend, who was perhaps even an enemy. She announced her presence with a gentle tapping on the front door. Molly peered out the window to the side of the short, little door that all of her family but herself had to duck to pass through. Narcissa Malfoy was standing in their little garden, her crimson cloak fluttering as if the mossy ground she stood on offended it. In normal circumstances, Molly would have thrown the secondary wards up as quick as she could, but the annoyingly beautiful woman had penetrated the primary wards, and that was a bit of a worry. If she could have penetrated the primary wards with no fanfare at all, there was no reason why the secondary would prove much of a problem. Did she have time to Floo Bill, Charlie or Arthur? She should probably even try to contact Harry and Lupin, too. Lupin was supposed to have known her once upon a time.

She would have at least attempted in normal, sane circumstances. It was the expression on the other woman's face that gave her pause. That there actually was an expression on her face was a shock. Whenever Mrs Malfoy ventured outside her palace of a house, her face was always carefully expressionless, and if not that, then disdainful of whatever it happened to be that crossed her path. A princess could and would be made to feel ugly from the disgust and contempt that the other woman showed. She did not look disdainful that day though, as she stood among the weeds and the rampant daisy bushes. She looked sort of confused and disorientated, as if she were a young child who had lost her mother. Or a mental patient that had inadvertently escaped. That was the most likely. Gossip suggested that lovely Narcissa had spent a good deal of time in the mental wing of St. Mungo's last year.

Molly slowly opened the door a fraction, her wand behind her back. "What do you want?"

"I'm sorry, but I don't quite.... I'm not sure..." she trailed off, staring at a dandelion that had sprung up between the cracks in the foot path.

"Why are you here?" Molly reminded after a long moment. As if her words had snapped the other woman out of a trance, she looked up and began to talk. Not her usual barbs. That would have been comforting; instead she continued to talk like a mental patient.

"I think I may be lost. This is a cute little house you have here. All crooked, like a man whose had too much to drink. Oh! That looks a bit sharp!" she pointed to some torn guttering, and promptly reached up to touch it.

"I think you had better come inside Narcissa," Molly muttered feeling an inexplicable blush rise up her face. Why hadn't Arthur cleaned the garden yet!

"May I?" Narcissa asked with pleasure as if nothing in the world could please her more.

Molly had managed, very quietly to get herself in a wretched state as she ushered the woman into the kitchen, and had her sit on one of the hard wooden chairs. Her heart was thumping painfully, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps. She couldn't help thinking; I could die in a few moments, at the hands of Narcissa Black Malfoy.

Blacks were renowned for lying. They were the best thespians that had ever deceived. That was why it was so easy for Sirius Black's best friends to believe he had turned over to Voldemort's side, they had seen him working as a double agent and found it hard to be convinced themselves. Molly wasn't fooled by the name change, but that Narcissa was a Malfoy too made it more and more likely that this was some sort of plot by the Dark Lord. Narcissa had a reputation for being as being quite empty headed these days, but how much of it was an act? Had she ever been in society for long enough for it to actually be a strain to convince anyone of her complete idiocy?

Molly didn't really know the woman though. She had glared at her once or twice, and envied her alabaster skin, a figure so pretty it seemed to be untouched by child birth or time. All the more reason to hate her. She needed some help. She wasn't a fighter. But an owl would take too long, and while Molly had her bum sticking out of the fireplace as she was Flooing, what havoc could this beautiful deceiver cause in her dear house?

It would have to be an owl. She gave Pig a little Pepper-Up Potion and sent him on his way with a letter and a brief note to a neighbour with instructions on who to forward the letter to. In the meantime, Narcissa kept up a lively monologue about all the little trinkets in her kitchen. Molly put her hands on her hips, uncertain of what to do. A malicious smile came to her lips that would have done her twins proud. "Why don't you help me in the kitchen dear?" Whatever Narcissa was up to she was going to have to work for it, and Molly wouldn't be at a total loss.

~~~

Remus Lupin had received a Floo from a strange wizard, with a letter that 'yon Weasleys' had asked him to pass on as there was apparently something wrong with their Floo connection, and his house was only nearby. Almost as soon as he had read the message in the familiar, cramped writing, he had contacted Mad-Eye Moody, as was procedure, and he would contact others. Right now, Molly would need some back up.

It was getting dark in The Burrow as he shot out of the fireplace. "Just me, Molly!" he called reassuringly, brushing himself off and taking out his wand as he ventured into the brightly lit kitchen. Molly was cooking as she often was. A pot roast surrounded by golden potatoes sat in the middle of the table, a salad was tossing itself nearby, and Molly was putting together her famous apple and damson crumble. Narcissa was enthusiastically mixing something in a bowl, her elegant, dove grey dress was looking very out of place in the Weasley kitchen, amid all the mess of Molly's cooking madness. Molly really loved cooking, otherwise she wouldn't be setting out a feast where there was only herself, her husband and Ginny to feed, now that she was out of school and beginning training in the Auror Headquarters and Ron practically lived at Harry's place. Remus suspected that cooking, Molly's therapy, was the only thing keeping her from weeping.

"Oh, hello!" the blonde woman chirped when she spotted Remus. She had a quite deep voice for a woman, and that she could sound like a brainless fourteen year old girl struck fear into Remus' very soul. She even had a smudge of flour across her cheek for Merlin's sake!

"What are you doing, Narcissa?" he asked incredulously.

"Why, I'm cooking!" she replied brightly. "Do you know this stuff it going to be bread?" she said, raising some of the beige goo from the bowl.

"What did you think it was?" he asked, unsettled. He walked past her casually, trying to be inconspicuous as he slid her wand out of the sash at her waist.

"When Molly was putting it in the bowl, I thought it was cocaine! Lots and lots of cocaine!" she said pleasantly, expertly making a neat line of the flour that had fallen on the bench in her vigour. Remus wouldn't be surprised if she did it all the time, that is, all the time when she wasn't obviously insane or up to something, as she had to be as she stood there, cooking in Molly Weasley's kitchen. She hadn't even made said something about how it couldn't have possibly been cocaine, because there was no way that Weasleys could afford it. For his own security, he sort of wished she would go back to old, horrible Narcissa. The one he would only see when Sirius was miserable and needed someone more wretched than him who could hold their liquor. He shuddered as she resumed her frenzied mixing. He sidled up to Molly.

"What's to be done about her?" she whispered.

"Moody knows for a fact that her son is in the last day of three days worth of psychological testing in the Auror headquarters, so he'll probably be sent to collect her when they finish."

Molly clicked her tongue disapprovingly. "Psychological testing? What has he done now?" Molly asked acidly, knowing that the 'Malfoy boy' had once had some sort of attachment to her daughter, and she was eager for dirt. This 'attachment' had been sadly mutual, although Ginny insisted they had never done anything apart from kiss and she swore passionately that she would never do it again after their messy parting.

"Nothing. He's got five relatives that are either in, or have recently been in a mental institute or prison. They thought it would be best, especially considering how powerful he seems to be."

Molly sniffed loudly and mumbled something about 'distractions' and 'wastes of time' as Remus rolled his eyes. It was as if she had been offended by not having her boys go through the same process. Or maybe it was the thought that someone like him would be considered powerful when none of her boys were (though Bill came very close) that offended her. Ginny was considered to be one of the most powerful witches in England, and she was still only a teenager. In Molly's romantic, backward mind, this didn't count. He wondered if she ignored it because someone as powerful as Ginny couldn't possibly have been ensorcelled to fancy a Malfoy.

"He doesn't need a wand to do magic, Molly," he hissed, with something close to anger. "We couldn't afford to underestimate someone like that. Especially a Malfoy." He glanced over at Narcissa who was humming happily as she put her bowl down, and suddenly did a few pirouettes.

"Don't you think this is a lovely little house?" she asked Remus, making a vague gesture at the naked plumbing. Remus almost shook his head, but didn't for fear of Molly's reaction. It wasn't that he didn't like the house, it was just that Narcissa had been born into a rich family and had married straight into wealth. She had even been engaged in her seventh year, much to the envy of every other female student. She would never have exclaimed that anything was lovely unless it cost at least one year of the Weasleys' combined gross income. Remus didn't presume to understand this woman but he was much closer than anyone else in the Order. Except Sirius, that is. If this didn't resolve itself, they were going to have to get him; he would certainly know what to do. As it was, the only reason Remus could presume to know her at all was through him, rumours and a couple of strange, almost frightening experiences which had proved that not only did she have something resembling emotions, she was probably smarter than Sirius and Remus put together. Then again, whenever he saw her away from Sirius he wondered if those experiences were just dreams. How could the vapid society queen she presented to the world ever have a brain or a heart?

~~~

The first off these experiences was in her last year at Hogwarts. He had been sitting quietly in Gryffindor Tower, reading while his friends and fellow Marauders were having a spirited argument over how it would be best for Snape to die. A stupid, dull but none the less pretty and willing girl was sitting under Sirius's arm. Her only contribution to conversation was to agree that Snape was indeed 'icky.' It was she that went to answer the calling of the Fat Lady, who announced that someone was there. It was easy to hear her declaring proudly to the visitor that they could not speak to Sirius, he was her man and she couldn't seduce him even if she tried. She marched back in, chin in the air.

"The nerve of that idiot. She's so in love with my Paddy-foot-foot that she's even changed her name to Black. As if she had a chance, when he loves me!" she turned her face up to him for a kiss just as a feminine, but deep voice came drifting through the portrait hole.

"Sirius, you lazy man-whore, do try and get off of your foolish trollop and come out here!" a voice called imperiously. Sirius glanced at the girl under his arm and then to James and Lupin, recognising the voice as Narcissa's. Could the girl really be that stupid? Sirius did as she said anyway, making the girl whine loudly, tears pulling in her great, big, vacant eyes.

"She's my cousin, darling. Don't get your knickers in a twist," he grinned, "or I'll have to insist you take them off." Before she could make her vulgar, flirty reply, he had dashed to the corridor and James and Remus had followed to eavesdrop. Peter was occupied by the girl, who was busy chatting him up so that he might tell her if Sirius was with a girl other than her.

Remus and James could just peak out and see Sirius, arms crossed as he stood before her slender form. She really was unfairly pretty. Sirius looked very impressive, Remus had to admit, as his friend became cold and Black. He seemed very tall and broad shouldered, and now looked more of a man than a boy, and every bit as unfairly attractive as she. "What do you want Narcissa?" he asked somewhat coldly. "What do you have to do with me now that I'm no longer a Black?" he asked bitterly, more hurt than he cared to admit about being disowned.

She waved her fingers dismissively, "Your mum's a slag, Sirius, and you're more a Black than she is. Why so melancholy? Have I ruined your chanced for a shag?" she seemed to think the idea ludicrous.

"With that particular girl, probably."

"What's a smart little thing like her doing with you, anyway?"

"I'm handsome and I pay attention to her. I must love her!" he exclaimed with equal sarcasm.

"I bet she says the cleverest things," she encouraged with a sly, crooked grin.

Sirius put one boot on its tip and played with a strand of his long black hair. "I sooo failed at that test today," he mocked, "I, like, totally forgot what the levitating charm was..." for a moment the two exchanged a fond smile. "But she gives the best blow jobs!" Sirius suddenly exclaimed, making James smack his head on Remus' shoulder with exasperation.

"So do I, and yet I do not think like I was dropped as a baby. I wouldn't blame her parents for doing so if her cry was anything as annoying as her screech. Did she honestly think I was here for some romantic rendezvous?" Narcissa snorted scornfully.

"We're not here to talk about my poor taste in bedfellows, 'Cis. Though if we are, can we please get some vodka to go with it?"

"I got a letter from Daddy today," she said suddenly, before pausing again. "Do you have any vodka on you?"

"I was hoping you did," replied Sirius, looking deflated. "What did Tyr have to say?"

"Grandma died a few days ago," she said, her eyes wet and glassy, as if she could cry. Sirius ran a hand through his hair; the only sign that showed he was very upset.

"Why didn't you just owl it to me, if you didn't come laden with alcohol?" he muttered.

"I need a hug," she said shamefully.

"Why didn't you get one off a Slytherin bloke. I'm sure they'd be more than willing." Even as he said this, he moved a few steps forward and let his arms fall around her. Her tiny hands grasped at his waist.

"They're all scared of Lucius," she replied

"Why aren't you with him then? He's certainly rich enough to afford Floo powder."

"I needed a proper cuddle. From a man, even if not in a sexual sense, gods forbid. He views any deliberate physical contact like lying down with my legs in the air." Neither Remus nor James could fail to notice how they danced around the real subject. They later learned that their grandmother was little more than a vegetable. He told them that Narcissa was more crying for what it represented, for herself because their grandmother had been like her, very pretty and marrying into wealth at a young age. She had always liked the old prune, Sirius had said fondly. They used to help her have her soup which she would always slurp at so loudly, that both of them were helpless with laughter before the end of it.

After they had stood in the comforting embrace for several minutes, Narcissa sniffed delicately and leaned away a little. "Did I tell you that since we've been engaged he's discovered his discount in that brothel that your family owns?"

"How lovely," Sirius muttered, with a look of utter disgust.

"I had them give him syphilis," she said dreamily.

"You know that's going to come and bite you in the arse on your wedding night," he replied, grinning.

"He'll have found a way to cure himself by then. It's the thought that counts though, right?"

"Why are you bothering with him?" Sirius said with a sigh. "So many other blokes would treat you like a queen, rather than a prostitute as he does."

"He is the biggest toff, and quite possibly queer, but he's the richest pureblood that isn't related to me. I have this vain, delusional hope that he'll turn out like Abraxas in the end," she spoke fondly of her future father-in-law, her father's best friend who very much liked to wear leather, yell and charge about with a claymore on a dragon.

"Why bother with blood? Andromeda seems happy enough. Have you seen the child?"

"Very briefly. She's a Metamorphmagus, the little girl. Nymphadora."

"Mmm," Sirius murmured, smiling.

"Bellatrix would murder me, if mother didn't," she said in a sigh, knowing that Bellatrix's threats weren't idle.

"Then why not a poor pureblood?"

"Are you bonkers? At the rate I consume resources? Fat chance. Though I'd give your friend Lupin a go."

Sirius laughed, "I really hope he's eavesdropping."

She peered around Sirius' embrace to the crack through which his friends were spying.

"Come down and ask for me if you like, dear," she purred and Sirius laughed some more as there was a scuffle behind the painting as James tried to push him out into the hallway. Remus escaped back up into the common room, a little frightened.

~~~

Remus came back to himself as Ginny and Arthur happened to come home. Ginny could only gape, and Arthur fiddled nervously with his wand, the same way Ron did when Hermione was looking particularly pretty. "Is she drunk?" Ginny asked.

"Snorted too much flour?" Remus wondered to himself aloud. "I suspect that she has a habit of being drunk most of the time. She might be sober and that's why she's so...odd."

"That's not very nice!" Narcissa cried playfully, tapping him on the nose with a carrot she had picked up, before she caught sight of Ginny. "Well! Aren't you a pretty young thing! You have such gorgeous hair! Molly, she's adorable!" Narcissa walked over to Ginny and tilted her chin this way and that. "You know, I have a son who rather likes red-heads. He liked one in particular. I can't quite remember what her name was. He only called her 'her' at any rate, so he might not have been able to remember either, but you'd have thought he was in love, he would talk of nothing but 'her'. Not even Quidditch. Perhaps you can help him forget the other one, you must certainly be prettier!" Ginny blushed prettily. Remus was glad that he thought of her too much like a student to think of her as anything else. It was bad enough he was reminiscing about Narcissa, the most unbalanced person that could exist inviting him to her bed. "Don't be shy now! He's very handsome. I wonder.... I wonder where he is...." Her eyes became unfocused again.

"Why don't you sit down Mrs Malfoy?" Ginny suggested and would meet neither of her parent's gazes, after what had been said. Everyone but Narcissa seemed to know just who her son had so adored.

"No, its all right dear, I'm cooking!"

"Why don't you sit down for just a minute? I certainly need to!" Ginny paused as she pushed her gently into a chair. "Hold still a minute, you have something in your hair."

Narcissa froze, "Is...it...a bug?" she asked fearfully. "Get it off!"

"No, no, just a burr. Got it!"

"Great!" she jumped up in the same moment and after a second or two, turned to face them all with a bewildered expression. "Whoops!" she said and promptly fainted, back first, legs up in the air long enough for her skirt to slide all the way up to her hips.

"Arthur, don't look!" Molly screeched while Ginny hurriedly threw herself to the floor, pulling the material down. Narcissa sat up slowly like someone else was pulling her by a string in the middle of her ...heaving chest... Remus followed Arthur's example and averted his eyes briefly.

"I.. I ... excuse me, I've gone a bit daft. Uhh. Who are you?" she focused on Ginny, her voice gaining some of that imperious command so that Remus breathed a sigh of relief.

"Ginny Weasley. You're in our house, remember?" she said, helping her up.

"Ginny. That sounds familiar," she murmured, holding the back of her neck where Ginny had plucked the burr from. "Your house. The Weasley house?"

"Sorry to say," Molly said, tight lipped.

"May... may I sit down for a moment please? Then I'll go, you need not worry that I'll stay..." she trailed off and fell quite heavily back into her chair.

"I'm afraid, Mrs Malfoy, that we're going to keep you here until your son comes to collect you," Remus said politely.

Her brow furrowed briefly in annoyance. "How did I get here in the first place?"

"You came tottering up to the door," Molly said.

"And began saying how lovely everything was and then helped her cook this dinner," Remus added.

"I did not," she said indignantly. "I do not 'totter' when I'm drunk. I swan."

"You did. What was the last thing you remember?"

"I was poking around my father's old house, the one in the woods over there. Bellatrix is awfully interested in Malfoy Manor these days, and I'm keen to make myself scarce." She flicked her cold eyes up to Remus and then to Arthur. "Is that a nice enough titbit of information to get me out of whatever the Order finds the equivalent of beheading? Are you sure I wandered here by myself or did you kidnap me or something to get Draco here? He's honestly got nothing to do with the Death Eaters anymore," she said crossly, but the rapid darting of her blue eyes betrayed her anxiety.

"We don't sink to those standards," Arthur said, coldly.

"Well, you had better think about it if you hope to win," she said knowingly. "You wouldn't have anything to drink would you? Alcohol, I mean. My liver is starting to heal, I don't at all like the sensation. No? Then may I have my wand and a glass of water?" She was given both but both Remus and Arthur stood over her with their wand pointed at her forehead. She rolled her eyes at them, gave one flick of her wand and handed it back. Nothing seemed to have happened but the large glass of water was slowly turning a rich plum colour. She sipped at it appreciatively before looking up at them. "Well? Am I meant to entertain you?"

"No, whatever it was that brought you here was amusing enough," Remus muttered and retreated to the corner of the room, but his wand was still out. "Sirius would have laughed his arse off at you," he couldn't help but saying.

Her eyes went glassy for a brief moment. "Sirius has the shits with me," she muttered, looking wretched.

Ginny was quick to distract her, "Was your father's house nice?"

"It needs fixing up, but it has a nice, big, dry library, and that's enough for me."

"A library? You'd get on well with Hermione."

"Who is Hermione?"

"A good friend of mine. I suppose you'd call her a Mudblood." Molly spun around to reprimand her foul language, but stopped when Narcissa began to laugh. It was a seductive, husky sound and it made the frumpy house wife scowl as her husband fumbled with his wand and the werewolf bit his lip.

"You know, I have a son who very much likes red heads. I'm sure he'd take to a clever girl like you and get all thoughts of that other one he's mooning over out of his head..." Ginny blushed for moment before her eyes widened.

"You're teasing me!" she gasped.

"I'm ever so glad you realised, dear," she sighed contentedly.

"May I ask Mrs Malfoy," Ginny began tentatively, "why do you and your son drink so much?"

"Escape reality?" she said with a shrug and took another sip.

"And is reality so terribly?" Ginny wondered wistfully.

"No. The problem with reality is it has no background music," she said thoughtfully, making Ginny laugh. "It is too easy to get confused with what reality is and what people think reality should be. Then everyone worries about what should be done and what they should want if they were the person they think they should be... When I have alcohol, it all runs together, and it's all good. It's the same reason why I don't have morals."

"That doesn't make any sense," Lupin interjected. Ginny began to pout a little. Narcissa's twisted logic made her miss Draco. She didn't want to miss him.

"Of course it does. They all have one thing in common: inconvenience. That and stress lines." Her lip curled cruelly as she turned to look at Molly and her friendly, creased face.

Before anyone could think of another question to avert what would surely be a homicide if Narcissa was to open her mouth, she turned to Ginny again. "And if I may ask, Ginny," she returned. "If we're going to be asking personal questions, why did you and my son have such a spat?"

"What did he tell you?" Ginny asked, blushing up to her ear tips. "Let me see. You two were asleep in your room when your parents were away-"

"Fully clothed, after having done nothing suspicious at all," Ginny was quick to interrupt.

"Fully clothed and ever so innocently," Narcissa said with an indulgent grin that said she didn't believe a word. "When one of your brothers happened to look in on you, he promptly stabbed Draco with a letter opener," she added a glare in Molly's direction for this, a glare that could have set her apron on fire. Only Remus saw that for a moment the Weasley clock changed. Ron's hand swung between 'visiting' and 'mortal peril'. He hoped it was just coincidence and the boy had almost stepped in front of a car or something. It was a nice and yet horrible thought and Remus felt immediately guilty. The hand went right back to 'visiting' and that's the important thing. "And Draco woke up, held the 'weapon' at your brother's throat, annoyed that he hadn't even bothered to check that there was no way you could have been hurt. Well, a little more than annoyed really. The number of times I've heard him yell 'her arm was not two inches from mine! The overzealous bastard could have slit her wrists!' Anyway, you happen to wake while he was threatening your brother, thought my Draco was a psychopath. As I understand it, everything fell apart from there, with both of you being too stubborn to admit you miss each other." Ginny's blush announced that that was exactly the case, although her glare suggested that it was more his fault than hers. A Malfoy wouldn't take a full scale break-up gracefully. "Don't worry about thinking Draco is a psychopath dear, it seems to be fashionable these days." Just as she had finished speaking and looked back up at Ginny she had disappeared. There was a little scuffle, as the Floo spat out some visitors.

"Mum! We brought a snake home!" George's voice called. The twins appeared with Draco Malfoy trailing after them. Just as Narcissa got to her feet, the burr she was playing with attached to the back of her hand.

"Draco!" she squealed and reached up on her tip toes to kiss him on the cheek. "Oh! You're all sooty!" she pulled a handkerchief from somewhere, spat on it, and proceeded to clean his face.

Ginny in the meantime was hiding under the stairs. She couldn't face him. Especially when he looked so handsome, even covered with soot and ash and his mother spitting on his face. Despite the soot, his hair was still beautifully blonde, and she longed to run her hands through it again. He used to love it when she did that because he was so tall that she would have to lean against him, pressing her body to his. She could still remember the mischief dancing in his stormy eyes. She wished he would pick her up like she was a bride -his bride- and they were about to cross the threshold. She promptly felt stupid for her romantic delusions. Be strong. Good looks mean nothing.

"What are you doing?" his damned voice rumbled, as bewildered as the rest of them at the sudden change in his mother.

"Cleaning a bit dear. I can't have you letting any dirt into Molly's house. It's a lovely house, don't you think?" The fireplace was the lowest point in the house, and he had to stoop slightly to stop his head from scraping a low beam. Although he hadn't said anything or so much as sneered, the rigid set of his body made it abundantly clear that he thought The Burrow the exact opposite of lovely.

"Are you sober?" he asked incredulously.

"I have actually been a bit naughty, and had a teensy bit of wine-"

"What did you do to her?" he snarled at the Weasleys. "Did you remove her brain, or smash her head with a brick a few times?"

"She wandered in here like this, had a brief bout of sanity before she went like this again just now," Arthur said coldly. "I can assure you that no blame lies with us."

"I don't know what on earth you mean," Narcissa said, making an expansive gesture. Her son caught her hand by the wrist and picked something off it. "Whoops!" she exclaimed again. This time, Draco caught her, and slung her over his shoulder like sack of potatoes as he inspected the offending spore.

"Blonde Burr," he said in disgust. As it lay on his palm, it suddenly went up in a puff of red-purple flame.

"I say!" Arthur exclaimed, despite himself, he was impressed with the little show of power. The boy didn't even need to make an incantation!

"May I go now or do you want something else?" Even as he said this, he was scanning the room.

None of them had the doubt that it was for Ginny.

"She doesn't want to see you today, Malfoy," Remus said genially. "Give my regards to whichever force of evil you happen to be residing with."

"She's waking up now, why don't you tell her yourself?" he said, swinging her down deftly, just as his eyes locked onto the stair case.

"Draco, what on earth-" his mother exclaimed.

"Hold this," he commanded Lupin, dumping his mother's woozy form in the werewolf's charge, so that she grasped at him desperately to stay upright.

Sirius would have laughed his arse off.

Meanwhile, Malfoy ran under the stairs, and Arthur looked miserable enough to die, but didn't stop him. His daughter had been miserable enough to die since she had last seen him, despite all her denials and declarations of hate. Not two minutes later, the uncomfortable silence was broken by Draco's re-entry. He looked more miserable than when he had left, and there was a hint of a red mark around his eye, as if someone had hit him. Remus smiled, knowing that Ginny had one hell of a right hook. With a thunderous look on his face, he picked up his mother again, even though she could quite manage it herself.

"Goodbye. Oh, and thankyou and all that," he muttered, still scowling and promptly Disapparated. Fred and George ducked back into the fireplace looking very pleased with themselves.

"Arthur, I'm surprised you don't have wards around to prevent Apparating," Remus said with disapproval.

"I...I do," he said, startled. He looked in Ginny's direction, or at least in the direction of the hysterical laughter under the stairs. The sound faded quickly and Ginny climbed out of her hiding place, sitting down heavily.

"Ginbug, I-"

"I don't want to talk about it," she snapped, crossing her arms and glaring at the pot roast.

Remus sighed with exasperation, and gave Arthur a comforting thump on the shoulder. He ducked into the fireplace, planning to go straight home and have a cold, cold shower.

______________________________________________

A/N

A lot of thanks to my betas and helpers, Alexa, unwritt3n xx, Mina and Jackie. I both encourage and thank reviewers. Feedback is always welcome.

To explain the time line, it is basically linear, just after Ginny graduates from Hogwarts, I'm just ignoring any canon I find inconvenient or distressing. I wrote this shortly after OotP when I was in denial about Sirius whom I love, hence why I included him. Whilst polishing this up to be posted, I incorporated some of the stuff from HBP because I felt like it. I suppose it's a little AU then.

And I'd just like it to be noted that I posted this story under another user name, but the internet ate a couple of the chapters and I can't seem to delete it and repost so I thought I'd just do it again under another name.

And I'm prepared to offer my services as a beta on D/G stories (especially one-shots). Although gramma and spelling aren't my strong suit, I can do a lot with plot and writing style. E-mail me on [email protected].