The Lion and the Serpent

Chapter 3

Angels

I sit and wait
Does an angel contemplate my fate
And do they know
The places where we go
When we're grey and old
'cos I have been told
That salvation lets their wings unfold
So when I'm lying in my bed
Thoughts running through my head
And I feel the love is dead
I'm loving angels instead

And through it all she offers me protection
A lot of love and affection
Whether I'm right or wrong
And down the waterfall
Wherever it may take me
I know that life won't break me
When I come to call she won't forsake me
I'm loving angels instead

When I'm feeling weak
And my pain walks down a one way street
I look above
And I know I'll always be blessed with love
And as the feeling grows
She breathes flesh to my bones
And when love is dead
I'm loving angels instead

And through it all she offers me protection
A lot of love and affection
Whether I'm right or wrong
And down the waterfall
Wherever it may take me
I know that life won't break me
When I come to call she won't forsake me
I'm loving angels instead

And through it all she offers me protection
A lot of love and affection
Whether I'm right or wrong
And down the waterfall
Wherever it may take me
I know that life won't break me
When I come to call she won't forsake me
I'm loving angels instead

It was night when he remembered. It was when Madam Pomfrey had blown out the candles and taken away his empty cup of chamomile tea that he shivered under the blankets as he tried to sleep. Not that he really wanted to sleep. When he slept, red eyes glowed through a misty darkness and he saw his father's furious, ashamed face. His father's hands - hands that hadn't been there to help with him this first step, but had handed him a broomstick not too long after - clenching in anger.

But not sleeping was almost worse. He had to think when he wasn't sleeping. Think about what he had done. Why had he done that?

Draco wasn't exactly sure, but it may have been the revulsion he felt when looking upon Voldemort's tight, serpent face. Or the nausea when those eyes were upon him. Most of all, it was the feeling of wrongness. Why should he have to bear a mark which showed his allegiance to Voldemort? He was a Malfoy, and Malfoys should kneel to no one. Above that, he had been trained to be a lord ever since he gave his nurse his first dirty look when she told him to get in the bath. No one told him what to do - he was to be the next Lord Malfoy, over the estates that his father's family had held for generations. True enough, they were only still theirs because of his father's precipitous marriage to the wealthy Lestrange heiress, Narcissa - but his mother was the jewel in their crown. These thoughts had rushed through his head as he had followed his father towards the group of Death Eaters, towards what he thought was to be his destiny.

Until that night, he had never really thought about whether Voldemort was going to win. He had always been told that the Dark Lord would rise again, his father pounding his fist into the breakfast table when he was thirteen - once he had risen and Lucius had rejoiced, Draco had just assumed that Voldemort would be victorious. His father wouldn't pick a losing side.

He had dismissed Potter. So what if the boy had had a lucky break once. He had no more mothers to give their lives for him. He had discounted Dumbledore - the man was getting senile, he was so old, always with his candy. How could the Professor with the twinkle in his eye be a threat?

Dumbledore's Army, tossed aside as a group of wannabe adolescents. The Order of the Phoenix, only rumours - couldn't possibly be real.

It had seemed dreadfully real to Draco that cold winters' night.

What if they lost? What if Potter and his friends had gotten lucky again. Grudgingly.... what if they lived up to the promise they showed.

These thoughts had been in Draco's mind but one came to the forefront. I will not serve. I will not kneel.

I will bear no mark.

Draco's eyes closed tightly as he remembered.

He had seen his father's mark only occasionally, upon the times when his father sat in his study, reading papers and smoking. He would sometimes roll up the sleeves of his silk shirt, and the dark mark would be stark against Lucius' white skin.

Draco had asked to touch it once. He had been six. He was told quite succinctly, that it was not for children to touch - but for men to bear.

Draco had no intention of bearing anything against his will. Least of all a tattoo to show his allegiance to a perhaps crazed madman.

And he honestly thought his father would understand. That Lucius would spare his own son from such a servitude. So he didn't feel the physical pain when Lucius struck him with his wand, the fury and hate in his father's eyes was painful enough. He knew from that moment, he was disinherited: no longer his father's son. And it hurt. Hurt more than he had ever thought it would.

Yet, as he lay in this hospital bed, the rough cotton against his skin so different from the four hundred thread count sheets at home, that pain was ebbing. It was being replaced by an anger Draco had never known. How dare Lucius.

How dare Lucius take away his birthright, his name - his life? Draco was a Malfoy, with better breeding than either of his parents. His father had been from a poor noble family with vast tracts of land, useless for sale though. Narcissa had been an heiress of a family that had been founded by a middle class merchant wizard in the eigheenth century. It had crawled up the social scale, climbed its own ladders of gold until Narcissa won them their greatest prize yet: the Malfoy name. Lucius had been entranced by her pale blond hair, so like his own, and the promise of Galleons in her golden eyes. Draco was the cumulative better of his parents - the better of his father.

Draco would not be turned away from his birthright. He couldn't. The rage was so great it was choking him and he took in a deep gulping breath, wrenching his eyes open. Looking into the brandy brown gaze of Ginny Weasley.

"Draco?" she whispered, extending a hand to brush over his forehead.

"Weasley...." he whispered and took her hand, pulling him towards him, on top of him. She gave a surprised squeak but settled against him.

Draco breathed in the scent of her hair - was it lavender? - and breathed again. Easier.

She turned her head slightly to look at him. "Are you all right?" Draco nodded tightly. She gave him another look. "Really all right?"

He tried to look brave but couldn't. He averted his eyes. "I was... thinking."

"I see," she replied noncommitally. "And you couldn't sleep."

"I don't like sleeping."

"It's good to sleep," she murmured, brushing a hand over his forehead again. Draco closed his eyes at the feeling. It felt.... right. Righter than anything else had felt in his memory. How did Ginny Weasley have this effect on him?

"Not when you have my nightmares." He gave her a glare which set many an ickle firstie shaking in their boots.

Her eyes only darkened as she returned his glare soberly. "We all have nightmares, Draco."

"Oh really?" his voice dropped. "And what exactly do you have nightmares about, Weasley? Another ugly sweater from your mother? Spiders - just like your ever so brave brother?"

She didn't even blink. "I have nightmares about blood, Malfoy, drawing letters with it. I have nightmares about giant snakes. About chambers I opened that are dark and cold - and a man who talks to me in whispers - in my diary, in my mind. And I can still hear him..." she trailed off and bit her lip.

Draco stared at her. He had forgotten the part little Ginny Weasley had played in the opening of the Chamber of Secrets his second year. Looking at her, you'd never think she'd seen that kind of horror - had personally spoken and communicated with the young Lord Voldemort. During the day, she was a laughing, smiling sprite, who tossed her long red hair and giggled among her little Gryffindork friends. He knew. He had watched Ginny Weasley for a long time now. And now, in the dark, she seemed so vulnerable and scared - yet her eyes held a darkness he couldn't quite understand.

He reached for her. "Weasley..."

She shook her head and sat up slightly. "Why is it I call you Draco and you call me Weasley. I do have a name, you know, I'm not defined by my family, distinctive as we may be."

He gave her a lopsided smile and reached for her. "Ginny." The name slipped off his lips - like he'd always been meant to say it.

The smile she gave him was worth every syllable as she let him pull her against him. She frowned up at him. "Why couldn't you sleep, Draco?"

There was no lying to her now, not like this, when the feel of her body and the scent of her hair were washing over him like a tidal wave. "I was thinking, about my father. About... this." He raised one pale arm and dropped it back down onto the mattress.

She ran a finger down his scar, gently. Not light enough to tickle, but enough to give him shivers. Pomfrey had removed the bandages that afternoon, and so the black line was dark against his skin.

"I think I knew," she finally quietly told him.

"Knew what?"

"That you couldn't sleep. I was lying up in bed, but I was restless. And I had Quidditch practice today, so I should have been exhausted. Ron's even worse than Angelina was last year. But I was lying there, and thinking about you.... and I kind of felt that you weren't sleeping either. So I decided to come down here." As if the words had been to great an admission she sat up from Draco, wrapping her arms around her legs. Her bare legs. Draco suddenly realized that she was sitting in front of him in nothing but a pair of extremely short tartan shorts and a black sweater that tied around her waist. Draco couldn't even think about what she might be wearing under the sweater. He shifted slightly, onto his side, reaching out a hand to run down her shin.

"I'm glad you came." The admission from him was probably as difficult as her own had been.

She smiled at him, and caught his hand in hers. "I am too."

They were quiet then, as they sat. Draco lay there, on a thin, lumpy hospital bed. And he began to heal, there with his red-haired angel.