Black Alnair wrote 'And the Twilight Sounds' for elle_blessing
Title: And the Twilight Sounds (Part 1&2)
Author: Black Alnair
Rating: PG-13
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Books 1-6
Summary: The ghosts that haunt Ginny Weasley after the Second War lead her to Sierra Leone where she seeks escape but instead, learns of hope and the endurance of innocence from the unlikely figure of Draco Malfoy. Excerpt: “Ginny lets out a sigh and turns to face her savior. But they are close and he is a tall. She has to lean back to see the stubble on his chin but it is his lips that her eyes fixate on. There is something familiar about their sensuousness.”
Author's Notes: I think I did a fair amount of research on Sierra Leone for this fic (look at the appendix! I read fact sheets, news articles and even blogs and of course, looked at a lot of pretty pictures), but any inaccuracies are entirely my own and my betas are in no way accountable for them. Speaking of my wonderful betas (dragonlilleth, fallenwitch and jandjsalmon), I am infinitely grateful for all the help they’ve given me. And furthermore, thanks to the person who requested the prompt! It really inspired me and I can only hope you like this!
Betas: dragonlilleth, fallenwitch, jandjsalmon
And the Twilight Sounds
“To live is to choose. But to choose well, you must know who you are and what you stand for, where you want to go and why you want to get there.” ~ Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations
Part I - Freetown
Aerial Photos of Freetown
It is noon when Draco Malfoy comes to her rescue.
Earlier that day, Ginny had landed at Freetown International Airport in Lungi, Sierra Leone, her nose pressed against the rectangular window of the plane as it descended through the clouds and revealed a place of painful beauty. It is just as the brochures promised, she had marveled. But even when she’d deplaned and stepped into the hot, humid air, she did not entirely understand what she had found or what she would find.
Oh, she did see the river, blue and sparkling in the sunlight, twist along the landscape. And the endless horizon like a painter’s dream. And she had felt it, that requisite stab of pain as the scene unfolded before her, unparalleled in its beauty. But she didn’t know just how painful this beauty could be. Would be.
***
Ginny stares at the sign before her. “Welcome to Sierra Leone. If you cannot help us, please do not corrupt us.”* It is not the greeting she expects. “Ow,” she whines as she swats her arm. Nor is this. A mosquito half the size of her palm has bitten her and she scrunches up her nose in displeasure as she pulls it off by one spindly leg.
But she is learning. We all learn.
“Thank God for malaria shots!” A voice to her left exclaims.
Before she even turns, Ginny knows who it is. And what she will see. It is Tobias. And he waddles when he walks, even in the narrow aisles of a plane. He had waddled toward her from his seat up near the front. Past the dozen or so men in suits that had barely given her a glance. She is petite; all freckles and red hair and they are not interested. “Them UN types,” he had said, chuckling as he seated himself near her. Close to her. “Can’t make time for anything good.”
Ginny doesn’t understand what he is saying most of the time. After all, she is a witch and he is a Muggle. There are inherent communication problems. She thought this would be refreshing. Isn’t this why she’s come? Sure, she is on holiday. The first holiday she has taken - has received - in three years. But really, what had attracted her more than the white sandy beaches on the coast and the emerald mountains in the east was this chance. A chance. To get away. To escape. To leave her wand and the whole bloody magical world behind. Just for a little while.
But she is confused. She doesn’t understand what UN types are. Or why everyone else is wearing a suit. Why she is the only woman. Why she does not know how to be happy anymore.
She doesn’t understand what malaria shots are either. “Ma-laura?” she asks uncertainty.
Tobias only chuckles, his toupee falling forward a little. “Oh, Ginny-girl, you’re just trying to take the mickey out of me, aren’t you?” He reaches up to adjust his borrowed hair but it will not stay put and falls over his eyes. Ginny thinks it looks ridiculous. Like an animal has nested on his scalp. There is always a better option.
He grabs her luggage but she holds on tight. And she smiles just as tightly. “I’m fine. Really. I just want to get to the terminal.”
“What terminal?” Tobias asks, his eyebrows coming together in his confusion. But they part as he exclaims, “Oh, you must be traveling by helicopter, too! That’s splendid. So am I.” And he walks her towards a line of strange olive-green boxes with a long rotating tail, that take off into the air but have no wings, just large, loud spinning blades.
Harry had once told her that he nearly got sick the first time he used the Floo. But at least the Floo wasn’t loud or shook so forcefully that your teeth rattled. But it does not matter what the Floo was like. The network doesn’t exist anymore.
Ginny has her eyes tightly closed as the helicopter rises and falls while it transverses the river that separates the airfield from the main part of Freetown. Tobias tells her this helicopter is an old Russian MI8. Whatever that is. She just nods and clenches her teeth and she tries not to think about the word ‘old’ as the sound of the spinning blades above echo in her head. Things will be better when they are on the ground again.
But then, they get on a bus that is slow and bounces her against a metal wall and Tobias’ round stomach. Somehow Tobias manages to look oblivious to their situation. And they reach the East Street Market: the heart of chaos. Ginny wonders if this is what suffocating feels like, or drowning, as Tobias tugs her through the dark sweaty bodies while vendors, lined up on each side of the dirt path, sell fish and produce, animal skins and straw baskets, bushels of cloth and strange rocks under canvas tents and an eternally beating sun. One man sticks a flopping croaker under her nose. “Fish? Fish?” he asks in heavily accented English. The smell of it tastes raw in her mouth and she feels nauseated.
She turns away. Only to be assaulted by a man selling fried croquettes. The oil splashes and pops. And she jumps a little.
“Young girl in a brave new world!” Tobias laughs. He winks at her and Ginny can only look down. Because she does not know what he means and all this noise and color is too much for her to process. She closes her eyes briefly, only to find that it heightens the unfamiliar sounds around her. And she realizes, in that moment, in that blink of an eye, that this is not what drowning is suppose to be like. That it is supposed to be calm and she is supposed to let go and everything will just fade, f a d e... , into muted colors and muted sounds until nothing remains but a gray silence. Like England has become to her.
Ginny runs into Tobias’ back, not realizing that he has stopped. He has been perspiring heavily. They all have been. But unlike the people around her, who smell of earth, of spice, of air, of Sierra Leone (if only she knew what Sierra Leone really smelled like), he, he reeks. She must step back but there is no place to go.
“You know, you haven’t told me where your hotel is.” The sweat is dripping off his face the way rain runs down a windowpane. It is fascinating and disturbing at the same time. “We should probably head there first and drop your luggage off. Then,” he says smiling, “we can go to the beach.”
He is pulling at her arm again.
But Ginny does not move. Instead, she bites her lip in consternation. She does not want to go to the beach with Tobias, much less spend her entire holiday with him. Which, she gets the impression, he expects or wants her to do. But more than that, she does not want to be dependent on him. On anyone. For anything. She does not want to need anything.
But need and want are often times different.
“I thought English is the official language here,” she says to him instead, remembering the man that tried to sell her a live fish.
He frowns at her. This is the first time he has done this. “It is.”
“But it doesn’t sound like it.” There are words that catch her attention. Like fish. Buy. Cheap. Please. But they sort of dissipate in the hot air and other sounds, sounds she does not understand, cannot understand, fill up the space left behind.
“Well, what did you expect?” he asks, laughing and clutching his belly. It shakes on its own momentum.
Ginny does not know. That most people, some people, would speak the official language of their country, she wants to bite back. But her growing frustration cannot compete with the rise of depression that is starting to poison her, consume her. Because it had been there. From the beginning. So, she lets her shoulders slump instead as she says, “Look, I didn’t book a hotel.”
She didn’t do anything. She just came. Because when she had arrived at the office for the Department of International Travel and Transport, panting from her run down the stairs, her leave for a ten day mini-break, effective immediately, clutched in her hand, the first thing she had seen was a map of the world, spread along the entire back wall and color-coded based on wizarding activity. Nearly all of Britain was violet, like the ill-fitting robes she wore. Each day. Every day. To work. But sub-Saharan Africa was different. A great band of white expanded from its western end, across its mysterious middle and reaching down towards the tip but hovering above what Ginny presumed, if her memory served her well enough, was Zimbabwe. Hell, it could have been Timbuktu and she wouldn’t have been the wiser. But she didn’t care. She didn’t care. She could imagine herself in this place of pure white and it did not matter how nebulous her vision was; it was the first time she had looked forwards in a long time. Without any hesitation, she walked up to the desk and put her notice for vacation down. “Is English spoken in any of those countries in Africa?” she asked as she pointed to that white heart.
And it seemed perfect as she rifled through the brochures on Sierra Leone while waiting for her plane to depart. Though, perfection is often a lie and she should’ve known better - did know better - but sometimes, it was just easier. Easier to read the black-and-white print: “The name of the country is derived from the Portuguese Serra Leoa, meaning ‘Lioness Mountain.’” She was a lion once. And now, she thought, as a small pool of excitement stirred in her, she was going to head into the heart of this lion land. To Freetown. To the capital of this untouched place. She eagerly read the history of the city - “founded in the 18th century by Britons for freed slaves that fought loyally for the Crown during the American Revolution.” Freedom. Loyalty. And maybe a different kind of magic to breathe fresh life into her again.
And now, she is. Here. In Sierra Leone. Not quite halfway around the world. But it feels like it. And it figures that English, the only language she knows, is nearly worthless to her.
Worse yet, Tobias is next to her, facing her, smiling broadly. “Don’t worry, Ginny girl, I’ll take care of everything.” And he is holding her hand again.
She tugs at it but he only readjusts his hand to grasp her wrist. His stubby fingers grip onto it tightly, and she is almost certain her skin will bruise, the injury spreading and covering her freckles until it merges into an ugly purple and black mark. Who says her imagination is dead? Oh yes, that was Ron. But no, no, maybe... “No,” she responds, shaking her head, her flyaways sticking to the sides of her face. “I’ve been too much trouble. Can you just direct me to a proper hotel?”
...it’s changed. We all change.
She can see the glint in his eyes as he pulls her closer. “But you can stay with me.”
“No, no, thank you,” she repeats. “I’m sure I can find someplace else. Just tell me...” They are nearly the same height, even though Ginny is not tall. He barely has to lean down to kiss her. And he is coming closer and closer and Ginny feels the silent scream of protest about to emerge. It is at the bottom of her throat. And though he seems to move slowly, his chapped lips creeping forward, she fears she will not be able to give voice in time.
But then, this is when Draco comes.
*** “Tobias,” a cold voice drawls from behind her. “I should’ve known you wouldn’t have been at the meeting point.”
Tobias stumbles back but he is still holding onto her and she nearly falls forward. But a strong hand firmly grasps her hip and steadies her against a hard angular body. Even in this tropical weather, goose bumps spread across her flesh. The other hand comes up and removes Tobias’ sweaty palm from her.
“I-I was helping her out,” he stammers, gesturing towards Ginny.
“I don’t care what you were doing.” Displeasure is evident in his voice. “You should’ve been there.”
Tobias’ fleshy mouth hangs open for a moment but then without another glance at Ginny, he turns and waddles away, his short pudgy frame disappearing into the crowd within a matter of moments. Ginny lets out a sigh and turns to face her savior. But they are close and he is a tall. She has to lean back to see the stubble on his chin but it is his lips that her eyes fixate on. There is something familiar about their sensuousness.
“Thank you.”
He glances down at her, but she cannot see his eyes behind the dark shades he wears and it makes her nervous. “I’m Ginny by the way.” She places her hand in the small area between them. But he does not take her proffered hand. He only dips his head a bit lower as though he is looking at it but does not know why it is there. She drops it after a moment, embarrassed and slightly miffed that he does not have the courtesy to take it.
“I know who you are, Weasley,” he finally sneers. He takes off his glasses and hard silver-blue eyes glitter down at her.
They are eyes from a past she hardly remembers. “Malfoy?” she asks. Because she is uncertain how the man standing before her could be the thin pointy-face prat she once knew and despised. He had disappeared during the war, after his mother had been murdered. No one ever found out who did it. Maybe no one even cared. Some members of the Order, her youngest brother included, wanted to find Malfoy once the war was over. Make him pay. Rot in Azkaban with his father. But Harry had said no. Malfoy had already paid his price.
That was the last time she had even heard Malfoy’s name mentioned.
Now she is standing in front of him. Close enough that she can feel his heat separate from the heavy warmth of this tropical climate. He is taller. And though he is still thin, she can tell he is strong. The white linen shirt he wears is nearly threadbare and the muscle flexes underneath as he holds himself with unnatural stiffness. His skin, though not tanned, is not a fragile porcelain anymore and that white-blonde hair falls haphazardly but becomingly across his eyes. He has grown up well. But really, there is actually no resemblance to the Draco Malfoy she once knew. Only those eyes. Alight with anger. With hate. With whatever fuels a person like him. But Merlin, they are so alive.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he growls.
And that sneer. It is the same. Well, some things never do change, she thinks as her eyes fall from his demanding gaze to his mouth again. She idly wonders if it would be demanding too. She must physically shake herself. Heat stroke? Probably not. “I have a right to be here,” she finally says though the answer sounds flat, even to her ears.
“I’m sure you do.” And his face twists with some unknown rage. He was always angry, wasn’t he?
But Ginny does not say this to him. Because she envies his anger. And is grateful for it too. If in all this time, Draco Malfoy has remained the same, the same bitter little prat underneath this new skin, then maybe the whole world has not gone into shambles. And she can still hold onto something that is whole. She does not know what is. Still whole. But the hope that such things still exist. Maybe it will be enough. Until the next day. For the next day.
“What the hell were you doing with Tobias Worthington?” he asks when she remains silent. And he cannot keep the disgust from seeping into his voice. He probably does not try.
“Why? Are you jealous?” she shoots back. She does not know what has compelled her to say such a silly thing.
And he looks at her as though it is the stupidest thing she has ever said. And it probably is. “I don’t think that even warrants a reply,” he says with a raised eyebrow. He places a hand under her chin, tilting her head up and Ginny holds her breath as he regards her. She can feel how rough his skin has become and a feeling of surprise wars with her heightened awareness of him. The feeling of nausea rises up again but she is far from able to analyze the reason for it. “I didn’t think even a Weasley would sink that low.”
It takes her a moment to realize he is referring to Tobias. She steps back so he is not touching her anymore. “It’s not like I wanted him around,” she says defensively. “He wouldn’t let go of me just then when you came up.”
“That’s not what it looked like,” he replies, the doubt made evident in the tilt of his head. “The Ginny Weasley I knew wouldn’t have stood by while someone else had his way with her.”
She blushes red. And wants to bite back and ask how a self-absorbed git like him knew anything about her in the first place. But his comment makes her think about things she does not want to think about. Which are best forgotten. Because you can’t. Go. Back. But really...what had happen to the girl she used to be? That girl would have taken Tobias’ precious toupee and stuffed it into his mouth.
“Well,” he says as he shoves his hands in his pocket and rocks back a little. “I would love to reminisce about the good old days had they existed, but I have a full day. Got to catch up to a lewd penguin with a carpet on its head.” Ginny assumes he is referring to Tobias. “But Weasley?”
And she waits for his scathing good riddance.
“Be careful about the company you keep.”
His words are almost kind and it breaks her. Before she can stop herself, she has thrown Malfoy’s advice aside and is clutching desperately onto his arm. “Don’t go.” She doesn’t want to panic. Doesn’t want to let go but she feels herself unraveling and she cannot stop now that she has begun. “I-I have no place to stay. And I don’t know what to do. I have no wand. I had to leave it back in England - you know, those stupid new rules. And I don’t even have the right currency! I thought I was supposed to exchange it at the terminal but there was no terminal. And I didn’t want to but I had to, I had to stay with Tobias. No one else would help me and Malfoy, I-” Need him. But though she has gone this far already, she cannot tell him. She needs him. “I just asked for a vacation in an English speaking country,” she finishes.
He is silent and when she dares meet his eye, she finds him looking at her with something akin to shock. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Ginny thinks this is not a good look for him. But his expression neutralizes after some moments and he finally says, “That’s just the official language.”
“I figured,” she replies with a hysterical half-laugh.
It is all she needs to do to chase him away. He shakes her off and stares at her for a few moments before turning abruptly and leaving her in the dirt.
Ginny never thought she would feel disappointment while watching Draco Malfoy walk away from her. But she does. And it makes her feel sick. And pathetic. And alone as this last bit of familiarity falls away from her and when she has just realized that perhaps she needs familiarity to remain sane. And all this running she has done, has been doing for the past few years, has been all wrong.
She sinks to the ground and does not see him stop and glance back at her. Nor does she see him shake his head at himself and walk back. She is only aware of him when he grasps her upper arms and pulls her up.
Relief floods through her and she throws her arms around him. He stands stiffly and it makes Ginny feel cold in the warm air. She moves back and does not look him in the eye.
“You’re really here all by yourself?” he asks.
“No, I’m madly in love with Tobias and followed him all the way from England,” she answers darkly.
“But I chased him away,” he snorts. “My fault. I didn’t mean to scare your knight in shining armor away.” She looks up at him through her lashes and sees him run a hand irritably through his hair.
“Look, I really can’t baby-sit you today,” he suddenly snaps.
She bristles at the way he talks to her but she balls up her fists and manages to suppress her anger. At him. At herself. For having to depend on him.
“But I’ll be back later this evening. You’ll find me...” and he digs into his pocket for a scrap of paper. He comes up with a napkin instead and starts scribbling on it. “At Hotel Barmoi. It’s on Cape Road. Do you know where that is? No, of course not. Just head towards the beach and make a right. There are plenty of internationals around that area. Some will be able to speak English.” He puts the napkin in her hand and squeezes. She thinks maybe he is trying to reassure her but his hold is too tight and it is slightly painful. “But really,” his voice softens. And he looks so intently at her that she has to look away. That girl she used to know. She would’ve looked Draco Malfoy in the eye. But this is her now. “Weasley, take care. Tek tem.”
And this time, when he walks away, he does not come back.
* quoting description from Notes from Sierra Leone: http://www.greenebean.com/julie/sierraleone.html
** Tek tem: “be careful”
Part II - The White Heart
Moa River
Sunset
It is dusk when they reach the Moa River and the soft pink sky breaks in the river’s quiet ripples. Draco is standing at the shore, his hands on his narrow hips, as he stares at the sinking sun. Ginny has learned in the past day she has spent with him that he does this often. Stares steadily at the land around him. What is he looking for? She does not know. She cannot even answer that question for herself.
She sinks down onto the soft sand, her body tired and sore from having traveled all day. On Draco Malfoy’s lap. His bony knees digging into the back of her thighs. His rough hands on her hips. She turns to glare at the car sitting innocuously on the beach. It is not even a car, she grumbles to herself. It has no doors and a canvas top instead of a roof.
“It’s called a jeep,” he had explained while she walked around it earlier that day, surveying the long cardboard boxes jutting out of the vehicle’s frame. There was hardly anywhere to sit.
“Is that English?” she asked uncertainly.
***
“Well, it’s not an English-manufactured car, if that’s what you’re asking,” he replies as he squeezes into the back. “But I have a feeling your question is much more mundane and obtuse than that.”
Ginny scowls at him. It is only logical for her to ask. He lapses into Krio often. The ‘unofficial’ official language, he had said when he again caught himself talking to her in a language she did not understand.
“Yes, jeep is an English word. American car though.”
“Americans don’t put doors on their cars?”
Draco rolls his eyes. “Just take a seat,” he says as he pats the top of his thighs.
Ginny shakes her head. “Aren’t you driving?”
“No, Aiah is. Do you remember him? Guy with one arm?” Draco locks his arm at the elbow and tilts his shoulder heavily to the right before proceeding to swing his left arm vigorously at the shoulder. It is a perfect imitation of the dark man that had greeted Draco that morning but Ginny is not amused.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” he challenges, looking at her intently with those hard eyes.
“Don’t make fun of people’s pain,” she replies, feeling her own stomach churn as the pain rises in her.
“Weasley, everyone is in pain,” he snaps, sitting back and turning away from her.
Ginny stares at him in astonishment. He is acting as though she has offended him. Him. The git has been the one making fun of a man with only one arm. But, when she opens her mouth to chastise him, she can’t say it. She can’t let it surface. And she tries to focus her mind elsewhere but it only ends up on a rather unpleasant impending scenario. “A man with one arm is driving?”
“So? He drove it here,” he says petulantly. He resembles a pouting three-year old with his lower lip stuck out and his arms crossed.
Ginny huffs at his childishness. She turns around to stomp her own feet on the dirt, only to see Tobias standing there. She is surprised she didn’t smell him initially.
She steps back reflexively and falls against Draco. One hand fumbles back to grasp his. She doesn’t know why she has done this but he doesn’t pull away.
“Ginny! I was disappointed I didn’t see you all yesterday. Where did you disappear to?” He smiles at her but she does not smile back.
Tobias may not have seen her but she certainly saw him. At Paddy’s, by the harbor. She hadn’t understood Draco’s concern when he sent her to the beach. Where all the internationals were. Where she wouldn’t be so alone. Feel so alone. But then, she saw those men in suits again. Perhaps the same ones she had flown over with but maybe not. It didn’t matter. They all looked the same, their white faces burning in the heat, their flabby arms around tall beautiful dark girls. Girls younger than her. Girls perhaps with less to look forward to than her. So while the deep blue waves crested white on the break as they rushed towards the shore, Ginny had looked at her feet all the way to Hotel Baromi. And when Draco had returned late in the evening, he had found her sitting in that small rectangular room with the windows shut, the curtains drawn.
“She’s with me,” Draco says as he grabs Ginny around the waist and places her on his lap.
Tobias chokes in surprise. “Oh,” he finally manages. “What about the rest of my money?”
Draco narrows his eyes. Ginny finds it rather menacing and it makes her feel better. “Half of the items were defective. The quality of the steel was more than questionable. And apparently you never learned how to count to sixty-eight because we only have forty-three of your mediocre-”
“What about the girl?” Tobias interrupts, gesturing towards Ginny.
“She’s not something you can sell,” he replies, his voice low and dangerous. His hands grasps Ginny’s waist tighter and she gasps at the feeling.
“I beg to differ,” he replies, smirking. And it is nothing like Draco’s smirk. It is lecherous and insulting and before Ginny realizes it, she has hopped off Draco’s lap and slapped him across his round face. Tobias’ fat palm goes to his cheek. He stares at her for a moment before he waddles away with frightened eyes.
Draco laughs while Ginny looks at her own hand incredulously. It stings from hitting Tobias. But it had felt good. It still feels good. When she turns to Draco, he is smiling at her. “That was bloody brilliant. That’s the Ginny Weasley I remembered.”
And Ginny can’t help but smile back at him. It is the first time she has ever seen him smile. He smirks, sneers and frowns. But never smiles. Not even back at Hogwarts. It’s nice. It makes him look younger and more carefree and it makes Ginny realize how hard life must have been for Draco Malfoy.
They stare at each other for a moment but then Aiah’s voice catches Draco’s attention and Ginny sighs in relief. She doesn’t know how long she could have looked at those mercurial pools.
“C’mon, my tarnished girl,” he says jokingly, “we’ve got to get going.” Ginny blushes as she sits on his lap and he wraps his arms around her waist. “Given that we’ve already shared a bed, I hardly think there’s any need to blush.”
Though she can’t see her own face, Ginny knows it is likely a bright tomato-red. That had been the most awkward night of her life. Lying in bed with Draco Malfoy and watching the mosquito netting float above her in the dark. She had protested sharing a bed of course but he had explained what malaria was. Death did not scare her but the thought of dying in a fevered state of incoherency, while at first blush, had some appeal to it, ultimately compelled her to scramble onto the sagging mattress while Draco pulled the netting around them. She supposed she should have been grateful that he was gentleman enough to stick to his own side. But lying there, next to him, not touching; it made her feel more isolated than she ever thought she could ever feel.
And Ginny doesn’t know, as they set off, how she feels about being so close to Draco, with his hands on her and their hot skins touching.
***
Six hours later, she still does not know how she feels about it. All she can come up with it is that being with Draco makes her feel both lonely and - she just cannot pinpoint that other word but it stirs something inside of her and she thinks this is how it should be. But not with Draco Malfoy, the Ice Prince whose glittering gray eyes were never trained on her but on the dusty road and the people walking along them in their colorful outfits and straight backs. Whose breath, nevertheless, came out hot against her neck as the jeep bumped along the uneven road.
“Are you going to sit there all day, Weasley?” Draco’s voice breaks into her thoughts and she scrambles to the shore. They have unloaded everything from the jeep into long boats that are shallow and not very wide and the wood looks like it’s splintering. Draco is knee-deep in the water, pulling one of them in.
Ginny looks at this piece of driftwood uncertainly. “We’re supposed to get to the island on that?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve developed standards?” Draco mocks. “Next thing I know, you’ll be demanding I repaint it!” He glances at side, the green peeling along with the wood.
“Are you sure we’ll make it?”
“Afraid of water?” That smirk. She just wants to wipe it off.
“No,” she instantly responds though this is not exactly true. “But I can’t swim.” How do Muggles manage to live the way they do? she wonders as she watches the boat rock back and forth in the water. Crossing the lake at Hogwarts was never like this.
“Maybe I’ll fish you out. Maybe.” But then says, “Canoes are extremely stable if you know how to handle them properly. And I’m paddling anyway. All you have to do is sit and enjoy the scenery. Now, mekes before I leave you behind.”
She does not know if he is serious about leaving her behind but she decides that she does not want to risk it. Though he had been the one to insist that if she was daft (she preferred the word ‘stubborn’) enough to stay, then she would need to spend the week with him. She didn’t know what to make of his ultimatum but she had agreed and now she is here, before this canoe thing, with no one else to depend on but Draco Malfoy.
‘At least he is holding this steady,’ she thinks as she gingerly steps in. Once she settles in, he pulls it deeper into the water. The muscles in his arms flex when he finally swings himself in across from her with practiced ease. He calls to the man in the canoe next to them and after some signaling, he takes the oars and begins to paddle.
Even though the sun is setting, the air is still hot and buzzing. Draco wipes his forehead with his left forearm. It is paler on the underside, a familiar porcelain, and entirely smooth. Devoid of the Death Mark. She has not seen him since Hogwarts so she does not know - cannot know - if there had been one before. She had merely assumed that he had taken the oath.
“Your hair,” he says, interrupting her thoughts.
Her heart beats a little faster. What of it? Did he admire its color? Did the light set off her coppery highlights? It is one of the few attributes she is proud of.
“It would win the prized award - by far, may I add - for best imitation,” he says as he leans forward, moving the paddle powerfully through the water, “of a pygmy puff.”
Ginny’s hands fly to her head and she instantly feels ashamed for giving into Malfoy’s childish comment and her own vanity. She scrunches her nose in annoyance. Her hair does feel big but he probably only said it to laugh at her. But when she looks at him, his expression is impassive. He is staring off into the distance again. She drops her hands and asks tiredly, “Do you always have to insult everyone?”
“No.” And she actually believes him somehow. “Weasels are exceptions though.”
“You are such a nasty git,” she pouts. And she feels like sticking her tongue out at him but she is rather proud of herself for managing not to do so.
“It’s okay. You can admit you are secretly infatuated with me.”
“What? But I-” she protests but blushes because certainly not before but now…
And then he goes ahead and ruins it all by talking with that mouth of his. “Of course, you can’t admit it. Wouldn’t be much of a secret, would it?”
She just huffs and crosses her arms. He does not say anything else and she tries to distract herself by looking at their surroundings. But she can’t help but think of her hair. And it bothers her because it should not matter but she just can’t help but imagine it expanding in this foreign air. She tries to tie it into a knot but gravity pulls it down and it sits heavily against her neck. She makes a second attempt but the knot falls out and she sighs loudly as the strands fall about her face.
The boat rocks and Ginny grips onto the sides. She looks up to see Draco making his way towards her.
“What are you doing?” The panic is rising quicker than she is willing to admit as the water splashes up against these rocking sides.
He stands in the middle of the canoe, bracing his feet against the slanting sides, and starts pulling at the corner of his shirt. It is only then she realizes that he is wearing the same shirt as yesterday. Imagine. Malfoy in the same dirty shirt each day. It is somehow not very repulsive, if inconsistent with the residual memories of the boy she used to know.
He has ripped off a long strip from the bottom of his shirt and he kneels towards her. “Lean forward, Weasley.”
“What? Are you going to blindfold me?” she asks, startled.
“Don’t tell me you waste time reading mass-produced mystery books or worse,” he replies, a look of disgust flitting across his handsome face, “cliché romance novels.” He pulls her hand so she is leaning forward and then lets go to reach behind her. He gathers her thick hair into his hands and ties her hair with this haphazard white ribbon.
When he pulls back, his hands brush her neck and she closes her eyes briefly at the sensation. She listens to him clamber back to the other end of the canoe and the boat creaks as he takes his seat again. She can imagine his strong hands taking the paddles, adjusting the grip as he begins to move them through the water again. ‘He acts as though nothing has happened,’ she thinks while wondering if maybe he rips his shirt for women everyday. She almost laughs at herself for such a silly thought but the feeling of him still lingers on her and she cannot help but hold onto it. For just a little while longer.
When she hears the paddles move through the water, she opens her eyes and sees he is staring intently at her. She tells herself that she will not look away. But she does. “What are in these boxes anyway?” she asks, toeing one of them. He does not tell her much. Nothing about what he is doing, why he is here. Why should he?
“Contraband.”
“What?” She does not understand this word.
“Never mind, Weasley,” he huffs, looking irritated. But his strokes remain fluid and even as he propels them along and for a few moments, the steady sound of the paddles moving through the water is all they hear before he says to her, “Don’t you know anything? Are you really that useless? I mean, I know your family’s poor but surely-”
“If I’m so useless, then why have me here with you at all?” she bristles. She wonders if Draco says things to be hurtful or because it is so ingrained in him that he does not realize it. She does not know which is worse.
“I don’t need your head on my conscience,” he sneers at her.
“What do you know about guilt?” she spits. And he turns to her with narrowed furious eyes. He has dropped the paddles and they are floating in the middle of the river, the setting sun dancing along the breaks, the shoreline behind them and their destination, Tiwai island - at the very least, he has told her that - looming in the dying light. When he does not respond, she throws up her hands and hisses, “And how did you end up here? How did you manage to get free of the war when everyone else had to suffer?”
And it is all Malfoy’s fault that she has finally asked that question that she did not think she would. Because it is about the war. And she does not want to talk of it.
But he does not say anything. He just turns his head and she thinks he is being insolent but then he shifts enough so that his face is not in shadow and she can see the strain around his mouth and the vacant but haunted expression in his eyes even while he stares out into the water. She watches him unabashedly now, his pale profile contrasting sharply, pathetically with the beautiful setting of Sierra Leone.
“You don't belong here.” And she means that he is better fit for some elaborate palace, a royal sparkling gala. Where the cold pain he exudes is just another fixture in a meaningless life and that is okay. But the look on his face doesn’t fit in such a paradise.
“I know,” he quietly replies. His voice is a mere whisper in the still air. Fleeting. Gone. He does not say anything else to her all the way to the island.
And how fitting it is when they near the shore, the sky opens up. The brochures did not mention that May to December is rainy season in Sierra Leone.
*mekes: “hurry up"
( Part 3&4 )
ORIGINAL REQUEST:
BRIEFLY describe what you'd like to receive: A few years after Voldemort's defeat, D & G happen to meet under odd circumstances. & you can take it from there. :)
The tone/mood of the fic: Slightly angsty fluff.
A Theme/element/line of dialogue/object you want in your fic: A ribbon of any colour but green.
Canon or AU? Canon.
Rating of the the fic you want: PG-13.
Deal Breakers (what don't you want?): Harry/Hermione. OOCness.
Author: Black Alnair
Rating: PG-13
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Books 1-6
Summary: The ghosts that haunt Ginny Weasley after the Second War lead her to Sierra Leone where she seeks escape but instead, learns of hope and the endurance of innocence from the unlikely figure of Draco Malfoy. Excerpt: “Ginny lets out a sigh and turns to face her savior. But they are close and he is a tall. She has to lean back to see the stubble on his chin but it is his lips that her eyes fixate on. There is something familiar about their sensuousness.”
Author's Notes: I think I did a fair amount of research on Sierra Leone for this fic (look at the appendix! I read fact sheets, news articles and even blogs and of course, looked at a lot of pretty pictures), but any inaccuracies are entirely my own and my betas are in no way accountable for them. Speaking of my wonderful betas (dragonlilleth, fallenwitch and jandjsalmon), I am infinitely grateful for all the help they’ve given me. And furthermore, thanks to the person who requested the prompt! It really inspired me and I can only hope you like this!
Betas: dragonlilleth, fallenwitch, jandjsalmon
And the Twilight Sounds
“To live is to choose. But to choose well, you must know who you are and what you stand for, where you want to go and why you want to get there.” ~ Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations
Part I - Freetown
Aerial Photos of Freetown
It is noon when Draco Malfoy comes to her rescue.
Earlier that day, Ginny had landed at Freetown International Airport in Lungi, Sierra Leone, her nose pressed against the rectangular window of the plane as it descended through the clouds and revealed a place of painful beauty. It is just as the brochures promised, she had marveled. But even when she’d deplaned and stepped into the hot, humid air, she did not entirely understand what she had found or what she would find.
Oh, she did see the river, blue and sparkling in the sunlight, twist along the landscape. And the endless horizon like a painter’s dream. And she had felt it, that requisite stab of pain as the scene unfolded before her, unparalleled in its beauty. But she didn’t know just how painful this beauty could be. Would be.
***
Ginny stares at the sign before her. “Welcome to Sierra Leone. If you cannot help us, please do not corrupt us.”* It is not the greeting she expects. “Ow,” she whines as she swats her arm. Nor is this. A mosquito half the size of her palm has bitten her and she scrunches up her nose in displeasure as she pulls it off by one spindly leg.
But she is learning. We all learn.
“Thank God for malaria shots!” A voice to her left exclaims.
Before she even turns, Ginny knows who it is. And what she will see. It is Tobias. And he waddles when he walks, even in the narrow aisles of a plane. He had waddled toward her from his seat up near the front. Past the dozen or so men in suits that had barely given her a glance. She is petite; all freckles and red hair and they are not interested. “Them UN types,” he had said, chuckling as he seated himself near her. Close to her. “Can’t make time for anything good.”
Ginny doesn’t understand what he is saying most of the time. After all, she is a witch and he is a Muggle. There are inherent communication problems. She thought this would be refreshing. Isn’t this why she’s come? Sure, she is on holiday. The first holiday she has taken - has received - in three years. But really, what had attracted her more than the white sandy beaches on the coast and the emerald mountains in the east was this chance. A chance. To get away. To escape. To leave her wand and the whole bloody magical world behind. Just for a little while.
But she is confused. She doesn’t understand what UN types are. Or why everyone else is wearing a suit. Why she is the only woman. Why she does not know how to be happy anymore.
She doesn’t understand what malaria shots are either. “Ma-laura?” she asks uncertainty.
Tobias only chuckles, his toupee falling forward a little. “Oh, Ginny-girl, you’re just trying to take the mickey out of me, aren’t you?” He reaches up to adjust his borrowed hair but it will not stay put and falls over his eyes. Ginny thinks it looks ridiculous. Like an animal has nested on his scalp. There is always a better option.
He grabs her luggage but she holds on tight. And she smiles just as tightly. “I’m fine. Really. I just want to get to the terminal.”
“What terminal?” Tobias asks, his eyebrows coming together in his confusion. But they part as he exclaims, “Oh, you must be traveling by helicopter, too! That’s splendid. So am I.” And he walks her towards a line of strange olive-green boxes with a long rotating tail, that take off into the air but have no wings, just large, loud spinning blades.
Harry had once told her that he nearly got sick the first time he used the Floo. But at least the Floo wasn’t loud or shook so forcefully that your teeth rattled. But it does not matter what the Floo was like. The network doesn’t exist anymore.
Ginny has her eyes tightly closed as the helicopter rises and falls while it transverses the river that separates the airfield from the main part of Freetown. Tobias tells her this helicopter is an old Russian MI8. Whatever that is. She just nods and clenches her teeth and she tries not to think about the word ‘old’ as the sound of the spinning blades above echo in her head. Things will be better when they are on the ground again.
But then, they get on a bus that is slow and bounces her against a metal wall and Tobias’ round stomach. Somehow Tobias manages to look oblivious to their situation. And they reach the East Street Market: the heart of chaos. Ginny wonders if this is what suffocating feels like, or drowning, as Tobias tugs her through the dark sweaty bodies while vendors, lined up on each side of the dirt path, sell fish and produce, animal skins and straw baskets, bushels of cloth and strange rocks under canvas tents and an eternally beating sun. One man sticks a flopping croaker under her nose. “Fish? Fish?” he asks in heavily accented English. The smell of it tastes raw in her mouth and she feels nauseated.
She turns away. Only to be assaulted by a man selling fried croquettes. The oil splashes and pops. And she jumps a little.
“Young girl in a brave new world!” Tobias laughs. He winks at her and Ginny can only look down. Because she does not know what he means and all this noise and color is too much for her to process. She closes her eyes briefly, only to find that it heightens the unfamiliar sounds around her. And she realizes, in that moment, in that blink of an eye, that this is not what drowning is suppose to be like. That it is supposed to be calm and she is supposed to let go and everything will just fade, f a d e... , into muted colors and muted sounds until nothing remains but a gray silence. Like England has become to her.
Ginny runs into Tobias’ back, not realizing that he has stopped. He has been perspiring heavily. They all have been. But unlike the people around her, who smell of earth, of spice, of air, of Sierra Leone (if only she knew what Sierra Leone really smelled like), he, he reeks. She must step back but there is no place to go.
“You know, you haven’t told me where your hotel is.” The sweat is dripping off his face the way rain runs down a windowpane. It is fascinating and disturbing at the same time. “We should probably head there first and drop your luggage off. Then,” he says smiling, “we can go to the beach.”
He is pulling at her arm again.
But Ginny does not move. Instead, she bites her lip in consternation. She does not want to go to the beach with Tobias, much less spend her entire holiday with him. Which, she gets the impression, he expects or wants her to do. But more than that, she does not want to be dependent on him. On anyone. For anything. She does not want to need anything.
But need and want are often times different.
“I thought English is the official language here,” she says to him instead, remembering the man that tried to sell her a live fish.
He frowns at her. This is the first time he has done this. “It is.”
“But it doesn’t sound like it.” There are words that catch her attention. Like fish. Buy. Cheap. Please. But they sort of dissipate in the hot air and other sounds, sounds she does not understand, cannot understand, fill up the space left behind.
“Well, what did you expect?” he asks, laughing and clutching his belly. It shakes on its own momentum.
Ginny does not know. That most people, some people, would speak the official language of their country, she wants to bite back. But her growing frustration cannot compete with the rise of depression that is starting to poison her, consume her. Because it had been there. From the beginning. So, she lets her shoulders slump instead as she says, “Look, I didn’t book a hotel.”
She didn’t do anything. She just came. Because when she had arrived at the office for the Department of International Travel and Transport, panting from her run down the stairs, her leave for a ten day mini-break, effective immediately, clutched in her hand, the first thing she had seen was a map of the world, spread along the entire back wall and color-coded based on wizarding activity. Nearly all of Britain was violet, like the ill-fitting robes she wore. Each day. Every day. To work. But sub-Saharan Africa was different. A great band of white expanded from its western end, across its mysterious middle and reaching down towards the tip but hovering above what Ginny presumed, if her memory served her well enough, was Zimbabwe. Hell, it could have been Timbuktu and she wouldn’t have been the wiser. But she didn’t care. She didn’t care. She could imagine herself in this place of pure white and it did not matter how nebulous her vision was; it was the first time she had looked forwards in a long time. Without any hesitation, she walked up to the desk and put her notice for vacation down. “Is English spoken in any of those countries in Africa?” she asked as she pointed to that white heart.
And it seemed perfect as she rifled through the brochures on Sierra Leone while waiting for her plane to depart. Though, perfection is often a lie and she should’ve known better - did know better - but sometimes, it was just easier. Easier to read the black-and-white print: “The name of the country is derived from the Portuguese Serra Leoa, meaning ‘Lioness Mountain.’” She was a lion once. And now, she thought, as a small pool of excitement stirred in her, she was going to head into the heart of this lion land. To Freetown. To the capital of this untouched place. She eagerly read the history of the city - “founded in the 18th century by Britons for freed slaves that fought loyally for the Crown during the American Revolution.” Freedom. Loyalty. And maybe a different kind of magic to breathe fresh life into her again.
And now, she is. Here. In Sierra Leone. Not quite halfway around the world. But it feels like it. And it figures that English, the only language she knows, is nearly worthless to her.
Worse yet, Tobias is next to her, facing her, smiling broadly. “Don’t worry, Ginny girl, I’ll take care of everything.” And he is holding her hand again.
She tugs at it but he only readjusts his hand to grasp her wrist. His stubby fingers grip onto it tightly, and she is almost certain her skin will bruise, the injury spreading and covering her freckles until it merges into an ugly purple and black mark. Who says her imagination is dead? Oh yes, that was Ron. But no, no, maybe... “No,” she responds, shaking her head, her flyaways sticking to the sides of her face. “I’ve been too much trouble. Can you just direct me to a proper hotel?”
...it’s changed. We all change.
She can see the glint in his eyes as he pulls her closer. “But you can stay with me.”
“No, no, thank you,” she repeats. “I’m sure I can find someplace else. Just tell me...” They are nearly the same height, even though Ginny is not tall. He barely has to lean down to kiss her. And he is coming closer and closer and Ginny feels the silent scream of protest about to emerge. It is at the bottom of her throat. And though he seems to move slowly, his chapped lips creeping forward, she fears she will not be able to give voice in time.
But then, this is when Draco comes.
*** “Tobias,” a cold voice drawls from behind her. “I should’ve known you wouldn’t have been at the meeting point.”
Tobias stumbles back but he is still holding onto her and she nearly falls forward. But a strong hand firmly grasps her hip and steadies her against a hard angular body. Even in this tropical weather, goose bumps spread across her flesh. The other hand comes up and removes Tobias’ sweaty palm from her.
“I-I was helping her out,” he stammers, gesturing towards Ginny.
“I don’t care what you were doing.” Displeasure is evident in his voice. “You should’ve been there.”
Tobias’ fleshy mouth hangs open for a moment but then without another glance at Ginny, he turns and waddles away, his short pudgy frame disappearing into the crowd within a matter of moments. Ginny lets out a sigh and turns to face her savior. But they are close and he is a tall. She has to lean back to see the stubble on his chin but it is his lips that her eyes fixate on. There is something familiar about their sensuousness.
“Thank you.”
He glances down at her, but she cannot see his eyes behind the dark shades he wears and it makes her nervous. “I’m Ginny by the way.” She places her hand in the small area between them. But he does not take her proffered hand. He only dips his head a bit lower as though he is looking at it but does not know why it is there. She drops it after a moment, embarrassed and slightly miffed that he does not have the courtesy to take it.
“I know who you are, Weasley,” he finally sneers. He takes off his glasses and hard silver-blue eyes glitter down at her.
They are eyes from a past she hardly remembers. “Malfoy?” she asks. Because she is uncertain how the man standing before her could be the thin pointy-face prat she once knew and despised. He had disappeared during the war, after his mother had been murdered. No one ever found out who did it. Maybe no one even cared. Some members of the Order, her youngest brother included, wanted to find Malfoy once the war was over. Make him pay. Rot in Azkaban with his father. But Harry had said no. Malfoy had already paid his price.
That was the last time she had even heard Malfoy’s name mentioned.
Now she is standing in front of him. Close enough that she can feel his heat separate from the heavy warmth of this tropical climate. He is taller. And though he is still thin, she can tell he is strong. The white linen shirt he wears is nearly threadbare and the muscle flexes underneath as he holds himself with unnatural stiffness. His skin, though not tanned, is not a fragile porcelain anymore and that white-blonde hair falls haphazardly but becomingly across his eyes. He has grown up well. But really, there is actually no resemblance to the Draco Malfoy she once knew. Only those eyes. Alight with anger. With hate. With whatever fuels a person like him. But Merlin, they are so alive.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he growls.
And that sneer. It is the same. Well, some things never do change, she thinks as her eyes fall from his demanding gaze to his mouth again. She idly wonders if it would be demanding too. She must physically shake herself. Heat stroke? Probably not. “I have a right to be here,” she finally says though the answer sounds flat, even to her ears.
“I’m sure you do.” And his face twists with some unknown rage. He was always angry, wasn’t he?
But Ginny does not say this to him. Because she envies his anger. And is grateful for it too. If in all this time, Draco Malfoy has remained the same, the same bitter little prat underneath this new skin, then maybe the whole world has not gone into shambles. And she can still hold onto something that is whole. She does not know what is. Still whole. But the hope that such things still exist. Maybe it will be enough. Until the next day. For the next day.
“What the hell were you doing with Tobias Worthington?” he asks when she remains silent. And he cannot keep the disgust from seeping into his voice. He probably does not try.
“Why? Are you jealous?” she shoots back. She does not know what has compelled her to say such a silly thing.
And he looks at her as though it is the stupidest thing she has ever said. And it probably is. “I don’t think that even warrants a reply,” he says with a raised eyebrow. He places a hand under her chin, tilting her head up and Ginny holds her breath as he regards her. She can feel how rough his skin has become and a feeling of surprise wars with her heightened awareness of him. The feeling of nausea rises up again but she is far from able to analyze the reason for it. “I didn’t think even a Weasley would sink that low.”
It takes her a moment to realize he is referring to Tobias. She steps back so he is not touching her anymore. “It’s not like I wanted him around,” she says defensively. “He wouldn’t let go of me just then when you came up.”
“That’s not what it looked like,” he replies, the doubt made evident in the tilt of his head. “The Ginny Weasley I knew wouldn’t have stood by while someone else had his way with her.”
She blushes red. And wants to bite back and ask how a self-absorbed git like him knew anything about her in the first place. But his comment makes her think about things she does not want to think about. Which are best forgotten. Because you can’t. Go. Back. But really...what had happen to the girl she used to be? That girl would have taken Tobias’ precious toupee and stuffed it into his mouth.
“Well,” he says as he shoves his hands in his pocket and rocks back a little. “I would love to reminisce about the good old days had they existed, but I have a full day. Got to catch up to a lewd penguin with a carpet on its head.” Ginny assumes he is referring to Tobias. “But Weasley?”
And she waits for his scathing good riddance.
“Be careful about the company you keep.”
His words are almost kind and it breaks her. Before she can stop herself, she has thrown Malfoy’s advice aside and is clutching desperately onto his arm. “Don’t go.” She doesn’t want to panic. Doesn’t want to let go but she feels herself unraveling and she cannot stop now that she has begun. “I-I have no place to stay. And I don’t know what to do. I have no wand. I had to leave it back in England - you know, those stupid new rules. And I don’t even have the right currency! I thought I was supposed to exchange it at the terminal but there was no terminal. And I didn’t want to but I had to, I had to stay with Tobias. No one else would help me and Malfoy, I-” Need him. But though she has gone this far already, she cannot tell him. She needs him. “I just asked for a vacation in an English speaking country,” she finishes.
He is silent and when she dares meet his eye, she finds him looking at her with something akin to shock. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Ginny thinks this is not a good look for him. But his expression neutralizes after some moments and he finally says, “That’s just the official language.”
“I figured,” she replies with a hysterical half-laugh.
It is all she needs to do to chase him away. He shakes her off and stares at her for a few moments before turning abruptly and leaving her in the dirt.
Ginny never thought she would feel disappointment while watching Draco Malfoy walk away from her. But she does. And it makes her feel sick. And pathetic. And alone as this last bit of familiarity falls away from her and when she has just realized that perhaps she needs familiarity to remain sane. And all this running she has done, has been doing for the past few years, has been all wrong.
She sinks to the ground and does not see him stop and glance back at her. Nor does she see him shake his head at himself and walk back. She is only aware of him when he grasps her upper arms and pulls her up.
Relief floods through her and she throws her arms around him. He stands stiffly and it makes Ginny feel cold in the warm air. She moves back and does not look him in the eye.
“You’re really here all by yourself?” he asks.
“No, I’m madly in love with Tobias and followed him all the way from England,” she answers darkly.
“But I chased him away,” he snorts. “My fault. I didn’t mean to scare your knight in shining armor away.” She looks up at him through her lashes and sees him run a hand irritably through his hair.
“Look, I really can’t baby-sit you today,” he suddenly snaps.
She bristles at the way he talks to her but she balls up her fists and manages to suppress her anger. At him. At herself. For having to depend on him.
“But I’ll be back later this evening. You’ll find me...” and he digs into his pocket for a scrap of paper. He comes up with a napkin instead and starts scribbling on it. “At Hotel Barmoi. It’s on Cape Road. Do you know where that is? No, of course not. Just head towards the beach and make a right. There are plenty of internationals around that area. Some will be able to speak English.” He puts the napkin in her hand and squeezes. She thinks maybe he is trying to reassure her but his hold is too tight and it is slightly painful. “But really,” his voice softens. And he looks so intently at her that she has to look away. That girl she used to know. She would’ve looked Draco Malfoy in the eye. But this is her now. “Weasley, take care. Tek tem.”
And this time, when he walks away, he does not come back.
* quoting description from Notes from Sierra Leone: http://www.greenebean.com/julie/sierraleone.html
** Tek tem: “be careful”
Part II - The White Heart
Moa River
Sunset
It is dusk when they reach the Moa River and the soft pink sky breaks in the river’s quiet ripples. Draco is standing at the shore, his hands on his narrow hips, as he stares at the sinking sun. Ginny has learned in the past day she has spent with him that he does this often. Stares steadily at the land around him. What is he looking for? She does not know. She cannot even answer that question for herself.
She sinks down onto the soft sand, her body tired and sore from having traveled all day. On Draco Malfoy’s lap. His bony knees digging into the back of her thighs. His rough hands on her hips. She turns to glare at the car sitting innocuously on the beach. It is not even a car, she grumbles to herself. It has no doors and a canvas top instead of a roof.
“It’s called a jeep,” he had explained while she walked around it earlier that day, surveying the long cardboard boxes jutting out of the vehicle’s frame. There was hardly anywhere to sit.
“Is that English?” she asked uncertainly.
***
“Well, it’s not an English-manufactured car, if that’s what you’re asking,” he replies as he squeezes into the back. “But I have a feeling your question is much more mundane and obtuse than that.”
Ginny scowls at him. It is only logical for her to ask. He lapses into Krio often. The ‘unofficial’ official language, he had said when he again caught himself talking to her in a language she did not understand.
“Yes, jeep is an English word. American car though.”
“Americans don’t put doors on their cars?”
Draco rolls his eyes. “Just take a seat,” he says as he pats the top of his thighs.
Ginny shakes her head. “Aren’t you driving?”
“No, Aiah is. Do you remember him? Guy with one arm?” Draco locks his arm at the elbow and tilts his shoulder heavily to the right before proceeding to swing his left arm vigorously at the shoulder. It is a perfect imitation of the dark man that had greeted Draco that morning but Ginny is not amused.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” he challenges, looking at her intently with those hard eyes.
“Don’t make fun of people’s pain,” she replies, feeling her own stomach churn as the pain rises in her.
“Weasley, everyone is in pain,” he snaps, sitting back and turning away from her.
Ginny stares at him in astonishment. He is acting as though she has offended him. Him. The git has been the one making fun of a man with only one arm. But, when she opens her mouth to chastise him, she can’t say it. She can’t let it surface. And she tries to focus her mind elsewhere but it only ends up on a rather unpleasant impending scenario. “A man with one arm is driving?”
“So? He drove it here,” he says petulantly. He resembles a pouting three-year old with his lower lip stuck out and his arms crossed.
Ginny huffs at his childishness. She turns around to stomp her own feet on the dirt, only to see Tobias standing there. She is surprised she didn’t smell him initially.
She steps back reflexively and falls against Draco. One hand fumbles back to grasp his. She doesn’t know why she has done this but he doesn’t pull away.
“Ginny! I was disappointed I didn’t see you all yesterday. Where did you disappear to?” He smiles at her but she does not smile back.
Tobias may not have seen her but she certainly saw him. At Paddy’s, by the harbor. She hadn’t understood Draco’s concern when he sent her to the beach. Where all the internationals were. Where she wouldn’t be so alone. Feel so alone. But then, she saw those men in suits again. Perhaps the same ones she had flown over with but maybe not. It didn’t matter. They all looked the same, their white faces burning in the heat, their flabby arms around tall beautiful dark girls. Girls younger than her. Girls perhaps with less to look forward to than her. So while the deep blue waves crested white on the break as they rushed towards the shore, Ginny had looked at her feet all the way to Hotel Baromi. And when Draco had returned late in the evening, he had found her sitting in that small rectangular room with the windows shut, the curtains drawn.
“She’s with me,” Draco says as he grabs Ginny around the waist and places her on his lap.
Tobias chokes in surprise. “Oh,” he finally manages. “What about the rest of my money?”
Draco narrows his eyes. Ginny finds it rather menacing and it makes her feel better. “Half of the items were defective. The quality of the steel was more than questionable. And apparently you never learned how to count to sixty-eight because we only have forty-three of your mediocre-”
“What about the girl?” Tobias interrupts, gesturing towards Ginny.
“She’s not something you can sell,” he replies, his voice low and dangerous. His hands grasps Ginny’s waist tighter and she gasps at the feeling.
“I beg to differ,” he replies, smirking. And it is nothing like Draco’s smirk. It is lecherous and insulting and before Ginny realizes it, she has hopped off Draco’s lap and slapped him across his round face. Tobias’ fat palm goes to his cheek. He stares at her for a moment before he waddles away with frightened eyes.
Draco laughs while Ginny looks at her own hand incredulously. It stings from hitting Tobias. But it had felt good. It still feels good. When she turns to Draco, he is smiling at her. “That was bloody brilliant. That’s the Ginny Weasley I remembered.”
And Ginny can’t help but smile back at him. It is the first time she has ever seen him smile. He smirks, sneers and frowns. But never smiles. Not even back at Hogwarts. It’s nice. It makes him look younger and more carefree and it makes Ginny realize how hard life must have been for Draco Malfoy.
They stare at each other for a moment but then Aiah’s voice catches Draco’s attention and Ginny sighs in relief. She doesn’t know how long she could have looked at those mercurial pools.
“C’mon, my tarnished girl,” he says jokingly, “we’ve got to get going.” Ginny blushes as she sits on his lap and he wraps his arms around her waist. “Given that we’ve already shared a bed, I hardly think there’s any need to blush.”
Though she can’t see her own face, Ginny knows it is likely a bright tomato-red. That had been the most awkward night of her life. Lying in bed with Draco Malfoy and watching the mosquito netting float above her in the dark. She had protested sharing a bed of course but he had explained what malaria was. Death did not scare her but the thought of dying in a fevered state of incoherency, while at first blush, had some appeal to it, ultimately compelled her to scramble onto the sagging mattress while Draco pulled the netting around them. She supposed she should have been grateful that he was gentleman enough to stick to his own side. But lying there, next to him, not touching; it made her feel more isolated than she ever thought she could ever feel.
And Ginny doesn’t know, as they set off, how she feels about being so close to Draco, with his hands on her and their hot skins touching.
***
Six hours later, she still does not know how she feels about it. All she can come up with it is that being with Draco makes her feel both lonely and - she just cannot pinpoint that other word but it stirs something inside of her and she thinks this is how it should be. But not with Draco Malfoy, the Ice Prince whose glittering gray eyes were never trained on her but on the dusty road and the people walking along them in their colorful outfits and straight backs. Whose breath, nevertheless, came out hot against her neck as the jeep bumped along the uneven road.
“Are you going to sit there all day, Weasley?” Draco’s voice breaks into her thoughts and she scrambles to the shore. They have unloaded everything from the jeep into long boats that are shallow and not very wide and the wood looks like it’s splintering. Draco is knee-deep in the water, pulling one of them in.
Ginny looks at this piece of driftwood uncertainly. “We’re supposed to get to the island on that?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve developed standards?” Draco mocks. “Next thing I know, you’ll be demanding I repaint it!” He glances at side, the green peeling along with the wood.
“Are you sure we’ll make it?”
“Afraid of water?” That smirk. She just wants to wipe it off.
“No,” she instantly responds though this is not exactly true. “But I can’t swim.” How do Muggles manage to live the way they do? she wonders as she watches the boat rock back and forth in the water. Crossing the lake at Hogwarts was never like this.
“Maybe I’ll fish you out. Maybe.” But then says, “Canoes are extremely stable if you know how to handle them properly. And I’m paddling anyway. All you have to do is sit and enjoy the scenery. Now, mekes before I leave you behind.”
She does not know if he is serious about leaving her behind but she decides that she does not want to risk it. Though he had been the one to insist that if she was daft (she preferred the word ‘stubborn’) enough to stay, then she would need to spend the week with him. She didn’t know what to make of his ultimatum but she had agreed and now she is here, before this canoe thing, with no one else to depend on but Draco Malfoy.
‘At least he is holding this steady,’ she thinks as she gingerly steps in. Once she settles in, he pulls it deeper into the water. The muscles in his arms flex when he finally swings himself in across from her with practiced ease. He calls to the man in the canoe next to them and after some signaling, he takes the oars and begins to paddle.
Even though the sun is setting, the air is still hot and buzzing. Draco wipes his forehead with his left forearm. It is paler on the underside, a familiar porcelain, and entirely smooth. Devoid of the Death Mark. She has not seen him since Hogwarts so she does not know - cannot know - if there had been one before. She had merely assumed that he had taken the oath.
“Your hair,” he says, interrupting her thoughts.
Her heart beats a little faster. What of it? Did he admire its color? Did the light set off her coppery highlights? It is one of the few attributes she is proud of.
“It would win the prized award - by far, may I add - for best imitation,” he says as he leans forward, moving the paddle powerfully through the water, “of a pygmy puff.”
Ginny’s hands fly to her head and she instantly feels ashamed for giving into Malfoy’s childish comment and her own vanity. She scrunches her nose in annoyance. Her hair does feel big but he probably only said it to laugh at her. But when she looks at him, his expression is impassive. He is staring off into the distance again. She drops her hands and asks tiredly, “Do you always have to insult everyone?”
“No.” And she actually believes him somehow. “Weasels are exceptions though.”
“You are such a nasty git,” she pouts. And she feels like sticking her tongue out at him but she is rather proud of herself for managing not to do so.
“It’s okay. You can admit you are secretly infatuated with me.”
“What? But I-” she protests but blushes because certainly not before but now…
And then he goes ahead and ruins it all by talking with that mouth of his. “Of course, you can’t admit it. Wouldn’t be much of a secret, would it?”
She just huffs and crosses her arms. He does not say anything else and she tries to distract herself by looking at their surroundings. But she can’t help but think of her hair. And it bothers her because it should not matter but she just can’t help but imagine it expanding in this foreign air. She tries to tie it into a knot but gravity pulls it down and it sits heavily against her neck. She makes a second attempt but the knot falls out and she sighs loudly as the strands fall about her face.
The boat rocks and Ginny grips onto the sides. She looks up to see Draco making his way towards her.
“What are you doing?” The panic is rising quicker than she is willing to admit as the water splashes up against these rocking sides.
He stands in the middle of the canoe, bracing his feet against the slanting sides, and starts pulling at the corner of his shirt. It is only then she realizes that he is wearing the same shirt as yesterday. Imagine. Malfoy in the same dirty shirt each day. It is somehow not very repulsive, if inconsistent with the residual memories of the boy she used to know.
He has ripped off a long strip from the bottom of his shirt and he kneels towards her. “Lean forward, Weasley.”
“What? Are you going to blindfold me?” she asks, startled.
“Don’t tell me you waste time reading mass-produced mystery books or worse,” he replies, a look of disgust flitting across his handsome face, “cliché romance novels.” He pulls her hand so she is leaning forward and then lets go to reach behind her. He gathers her thick hair into his hands and ties her hair with this haphazard white ribbon.
When he pulls back, his hands brush her neck and she closes her eyes briefly at the sensation. She listens to him clamber back to the other end of the canoe and the boat creaks as he takes his seat again. She can imagine his strong hands taking the paddles, adjusting the grip as he begins to move them through the water again. ‘He acts as though nothing has happened,’ she thinks while wondering if maybe he rips his shirt for women everyday. She almost laughs at herself for such a silly thought but the feeling of him still lingers on her and she cannot help but hold onto it. For just a little while longer.
When she hears the paddles move through the water, she opens her eyes and sees he is staring intently at her. She tells herself that she will not look away. But she does. “What are in these boxes anyway?” she asks, toeing one of them. He does not tell her much. Nothing about what he is doing, why he is here. Why should he?
“Contraband.”
“What?” She does not understand this word.
“Never mind, Weasley,” he huffs, looking irritated. But his strokes remain fluid and even as he propels them along and for a few moments, the steady sound of the paddles moving through the water is all they hear before he says to her, “Don’t you know anything? Are you really that useless? I mean, I know your family’s poor but surely-”
“If I’m so useless, then why have me here with you at all?” she bristles. She wonders if Draco says things to be hurtful or because it is so ingrained in him that he does not realize it. She does not know which is worse.
“I don’t need your head on my conscience,” he sneers at her.
“What do you know about guilt?” she spits. And he turns to her with narrowed furious eyes. He has dropped the paddles and they are floating in the middle of the river, the setting sun dancing along the breaks, the shoreline behind them and their destination, Tiwai island - at the very least, he has told her that - looming in the dying light. When he does not respond, she throws up her hands and hisses, “And how did you end up here? How did you manage to get free of the war when everyone else had to suffer?”
And it is all Malfoy’s fault that she has finally asked that question that she did not think she would. Because it is about the war. And she does not want to talk of it.
But he does not say anything. He just turns his head and she thinks he is being insolent but then he shifts enough so that his face is not in shadow and she can see the strain around his mouth and the vacant but haunted expression in his eyes even while he stares out into the water. She watches him unabashedly now, his pale profile contrasting sharply, pathetically with the beautiful setting of Sierra Leone.
“You don't belong here.” And she means that he is better fit for some elaborate palace, a royal sparkling gala. Where the cold pain he exudes is just another fixture in a meaningless life and that is okay. But the look on his face doesn’t fit in such a paradise.
“I know,” he quietly replies. His voice is a mere whisper in the still air. Fleeting. Gone. He does not say anything else to her all the way to the island.
And how fitting it is when they near the shore, the sky opens up. The brochures did not mention that May to December is rainy season in Sierra Leone.
*mekes: “hurry up"
( Part 3&4 )
ORIGINAL REQUEST:
BRIEFLY describe what you'd like to receive: A few years after Voldemort's defeat, D & G happen to meet under odd circumstances. & you can take it from there. :)
The tone/mood of the fic: Slightly angsty fluff.
A Theme/element/line of dialogue/object you want in your fic: A ribbon of any colour but green.
Canon or AU? Canon.
Rating of the the fic you want: PG-13.
Deal Breakers (what don't you want?): Harry/Hermione. OOCness.