Fic: Hospitality - 6/? - M - Draco/Ginny
Title: Hospitality
Pairing: Draco/Ginny
Rating: R (M) - eventually
Summary: “There was no snide quip though. No deliberately cutting comment. Ginny stared and then a second later the grey eyes rolled dramatically and turned away from her towards the tasteless curtains.” Post-war fic. Ginny was just plodding along, enduring her perfectly well-ordered normal life and dreaming that maybe something more interesting might come along. She just never thought that the ‘something’ might actually turn out to be a ‘someone’.
Spoilers: HBP
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
1: Paperwork
2: The Good Life
3: Cures and Conundrums
4: Escape, with Sandwiches
5: Night Owls
PART SIX: BOOKWORM
Saturday afternoon saw Ginny using the spare key that Hermione had given her for emergencies to let herself into the other witch’s apartment. She stepped inside and quickly closed the door, shrugging off her coat and placing it on the hook on the wall. The moment she had stepped inside heat had assaulted her and small hallway was deliciously warm compared to the world outside. Ginny paused by the door, taking a moment to rub some life back into her hands before moving down the hall and into the kitchen.
“Crookshanks!” she called and smiled a moment later as the animal in question slunk around the kitchen door, mewing at her. He sidled up to her and rubbed affectionately around Ginny’s legs. “Hey gorgeous,” she said, bobbing down and running her fingers through his thick fur. “Let’s see if I can find you some munchies.”
Crookshanks purred approvingly and wandered over to the corner where his bowls were kept. Ginny’s grin widened and she set about digging out a tin of cat food.
Feeding Crookshanks and making sure he was okay had been an unspoken part of her promise to look after Hermione’s place while she was away - one which Ginny far from minded. Considering all the time that Hermione had spent at the Burrow and their close friendship at Hogwarts, Crookshanks had almost felt like a permanent feature in the redhead’s life and she had missed him ever since Hermione had graduated from school and started to spend less time at the Weasley family home. Growing up, Ginny’s only really had one pet - Arnold, a Pygmy Puff who had unfortunately only enjoyed a short lifespan. There had been Errol and Pig of course, but Errol had been a family pet and not the most engaging of creatures considering he spent a good ninety percent of his life asleep. Pig, on the other hand, had always been very energetic but he had also always favoured Ron. Scabbers, she thought, was better forgotten entirely. As a consequence the friendly, sensitive Crookshanks had always felt somewhat like a pet to the redhead.
Opting to use her wand instead of the Muggle can opener that Hermione owned, Ginny quickly opened the food and emptied it into one of the bowls. Crookshanks attacked it impatiently.
Satisfied she had performed that part of her promise to Hermione, Ginny headed into the lounge. In comparison to her own comfortable little flat, Hermione’s apartment felt huge.
It was huge, she amended. When her friend had first moved in, Ginny had been quite jealous of her. With her doctors’ salary and years of typically careful saving on the brunette’s part, Hermione was able to afford somewhere far above Ginny’s price bracket. The apartment was situated in a good part of Diagon Alley and consisted of a large lounge and kitchen, a study, a bedroom with an ensuite bathroom that was also accessible from the hall outside. Ginny suspected the real reason that Hermione had rented the place though was the small terrace afforded to her by living on the top floor of converted building.
On moving in, Hermione had applied for and received permission to cover it; turning the area into an enchanted greenhouse that was warm enough all year around to grow any plants she needed. Hermione had always taken her studies seriously and becoming a doctor had not altered that. The greenhouse allowed her to grow the necessary ingredients she needed for a variety of home remedies that she was convinced worked better than store-bought alternatives. Ginny did not doubt they were better. Hermione was a perfectionist after all.
Ginny moved towards the small extension now, pausing in the doorway to strip off her navy jumper as the near tropical heat enveloped her. After tossing it back into the room behind her, Ginny made her way over to the small workbench where, just as she had expected, there was a list of instructions in her friend’s neat script of how much to water each species and what supplements needed to be added. Ginny could not help but frown at it and absently she wondered whether it was completely necessary that all the detailed instructions be followed. She somehow doubted that Ron and Harry were completely true to them when they landed to job of looking after the greenhouse when Hermione went away.
That said, Ginny decided she was not willing to take the risk. The idea of Hermione coming back from the symposium and finding out that some of her prize specimens were in less than perfect condition was not in the least appealing to the redhead. It was far too easy to picture Hermione’s disappointed features. She already had enough to feel guilty about; she did not need to add anything else to the end of the list.
Moving about the room, enjoying the warmth and the sunlight seeping in through the glass roof, Ginny carefully carried out Hermione’s instructions. It was a pleasant enough way to spend her time; even if it was technically work. There was something quite relaxing about tending to the plants and glancing at the little notes that Hermione had left spread all over the place. Ginny had long pictured herself with a garden of her own one day; somewhere small and just for her. It would be covered in terracotta pots filled with flowers and she would hide cheesy like statues amongst the foliage to make people smile.
After finishing in the greenhouse, Ginny moved through the other rooms in the apartment to check on the more mundane houseplants that required attention. She finished up in Hermione’s study and after taking care of the small fern that the brunette had on her windowsill she moved onto her second, thoroughly unauthorised reason for being in the other witch’s apartment that day.
The study was everything that someone might expect for a room of its type that belonged to Hermione Granger. Each wall was lined with tall bookcases that overflowed with texts on all manners of subjects, with tomes of various sizes and ages. Indeed, it seemed that the other witch had actually managed to run out of room on the shelves and had taken to stacking some of the less valuable texts on the floor in the corners, on her desk and on the small end table next to the comfy chair by the window.
Ginny grinned, surveying the richness of Hermione’s library with greedy eyes. With Hermione away she had the other witch’s extensive book collection all to herself for the weekend. All she had to remember to do was put the texts back where she had found them and replace any paper and ink she might use and Hermione would never be any the wiser. Considering the way that Hermione had reacted when Ginny had questioned her about Malfoy, it would not be a good idea for Hermione to figure out what she had borrowed her library for.
Feeling decidedly smug, Ginny wandered over to the large desk in the centre of the room and seated herself behind it. Unsurprisingly, when she reached down to try the draws, she found that the top two were locked in such a fashion that even ‘Alohomora’ would not work. Ginny guessed that Hermione had used a more complicated locking spell, perhaps something that was tuned specifically to one person. The third draw, however, opened easily and in it Ginny found a thick pad of paper. She took it out and placed it on the desk before her, then reached for the quill and ink pot.
The problem now, was where to start. Hermione’s impressive library was filled with books but Ginny had no idea where she would find what she wanted to know. She was not the bookworm that Hermione was and she had never been able to understand her friend’s system for storing the books. Indeed, to her, there did not seem to be much of a pattern at all.
The idea to make use of Hermione’s extensive collection of books and medical journals had come to Ginny around about the time she downed the dregs of her fifth vodka and coke the night before. Perched on the edge of her barstool, she had been drunkenly trying to explain something or other, quite possibly the rules of Quidditch, to a confused looking Muggle barman when it had hit her. The man had held a hand up, stopping her mid-ramble and asked with a friendly, suggestive little smile, “So, how come you’re here alone?” Ginny opened her mouth and, having missed his point, had just been about to explain that her best friend was away for the weekend when it had dawned on her.
The realisation had been so sudden that Ginny had nearly fallen sideways off the stool; Hermione had unwittingly given her the perfect chance to figure out once and for all exactly what she had seen in Malfoy’s file.
Triumphantly, she had quickly drunk the refill her brand new best friend, the barman, had poured her then leaned over the bar and smacked a quick kiss on his lips. Cheekily, she said, “Thanks for the inspiration,” and dropped a ten on the bar top, slipping off her stool and leaving behind a bewildered looking man.
A plan had already begun to form in her mind. The next day when she went to do the housekeeping that Hermione had asked her to do then she would take the chance to do a little snooping. If nothing else then she hoped that a couple of hours suffering through doing boring research would relieve her of the irritating, irrational desire to find out what exactly was wrong with Malfoy once and for all. Ginny could not help but think it was absurd that she was still even preoccupied with him - especially considering the way in which he had talked to her. Indeed when she had left him in the cubicle Ginny had been well and truly ready to forget all about Draco Malfoy and what he might possibly be doing at St Mungo’s.
Unfortunately that small voice which reminded her about little things such as professionalism had stopped her from simply leaving the ward and forgetting about him completely. Knowing that it was the right thing to do and yet hating actually having to do it, Ginny tracked down the nurse on duty and told her about finding Malfoy.
It was the nurse’s reaction which had fuelled Ginny’s interest once more. The woman had listened carefully to every word the redhead said then rolled her eyes, sighed, and said, “Oh, not again!”
She had spoken in such an exasperated manner than Ginny had immediately been charged with the desire to ask exactly what she meant. Before Ginny could give into the urge the other woman had bustled away; heading in Malfoy’s direction and muttering under her breath. Somehow, Ginny had imagined that the pale wizard was going to receive quite a scolding. The notion thrilled that little part inside Ginny that desired revenge on him.
Exhausted, she had trudged home and gotten straight into bed; forgoing the bath she had promised herself. Sleep had evaded her though. It had been the early hours of the morning before she had eventually managed to find it; the floating, brief, visions of cool grey eyes and gaunt features finally fading.
Much to Ginny’s chagrin, when she had woken the next morning and dragged her still weary body out of bed it had not been long before once again she thought about Malfoy. It had been a complete accident. She had just finished running a brush through her hair and reached for a bottle of frizz preventing serum when abruptly Malfoy had flitted into her mind. Or, more precisely, the way in which his hair had curled slightly at the bottom where it touched his nightshirt. It had seemed so unusual, so unnatural. The Malfoy who she knew would never have left himself look so unkempt.
The thought had startled her so much that Ginny had dropped the glass bottle full of serum into the sink where it had landed with a clatter and shattered. With a brief profanity, Ginny had begun to pick at the mess, annoyed at how once again Malfoy had managed to intrude on her life. Determined, she had put him to the back of her mind.
The problem was that he did not seem to want to stay there.
Time and time again throughout the day, Malfoy had cropped up in her thoughts - utterly randomly and entirely unexpectedly. It seemed that there was always something around to remind her of him. The only bright spot in Ginny’s day had been the arrival of a fantastically large bouquet of flowers with her name on the card. The other girls in the office had all rushed over to her desk, cooing over the flourish of bright buds and then spent the rest of the day seething over the fact that they had not been sent something so spectacular. It had surprised Ginny to find out that some of them actually recognised the name on the card. Blaise Zabini had apparently featured on more than one eligible bachelor list over recent years. The only down point of the whole incident had been Agnes walking over to her desk, sniffing loudly and complaining that Ginny should not be bringing her private life to work with her.
As fantastic as the arrival of the flowers had been, in the long term they had not done much to purge her mind of thoughts of Malfoy. Indeed, the wizard in charge of his case while Hermione was away had called by the administration office and questioned her very carefully on the incident she had witnessed. When the man had gone back to the wards, Ginny was left with the impression that he did not entirely understand what had happened either - that he was just as perplexed as she was. It was the first time that it had dawned on her that whatever was wrong with Malfoy seemed to be baffling the medical staff as well. Now that she thought about it, Ginny realised that even Hermione had looked as if she was uncertain. At the time, Ginny had put it down to the fact that the other witch knew she should not have been talking about a patient. Now Ginny could not help be wonder whether it was actually something more.
By the time that Ginny had been finished for the day she had been ready to scream. All she wanted to do was go home and go to sleep. Even that had been affected by Malfoy though - yet again as the case may be. All night long she had been forced to endure replays of her conversation with the man in her dreams. They had been bizarrely realistic and rather disturbing as a consequence.
Now she was determined to get to the bottom of the situation. Maybe if she figured out once and for all exactly what was wrong with Malfoy then she would be able to forget him. After all, it was not as if she would be forced into daily contact with him. The prospect was deliciously appealing - so appealing in fact that Ginny had been forced to work hard to avoid a desire to get up at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning to head over to Hermione’s apartment. All morning she had tried to occupy herself to deny the urge and as a consequence Ginny doubted that her flat had ever been so clean since she had moved in.
Pursing her lips, she leaned over the pad of paper and wrote carefully at the top of it:
Diagnosis - Malèdiction de Sang
Sitting back, Ginny pondered the words; the ones that had caused her initial surprise when she had read Malfoy’s file. It was obviously French, that much Ginny had already discerned and when she whispered it aloud it sounded suspiciously like it could be a spell, perhaps some sort of hex, though she did not think that she have heard of it before. That did not mean much however. During the war, Ginny had learned that there were many more curses than the ones she had been taught about at school. Indeed they had only been told about the most common ones they were likely to come across and they were divided into two distinct groups: distressing yet unserious ones and serious, life threatening ones. The former were most likely to be cast impulsively and perhaps without any real intention of harm. The latter were intended to cause the victim considerable pain and perhaps even death. Needless to say they had not been taught how to cast the second variety.
Throughout the war years however, Ginny had discovered that other magical schools for wizards and witches were not quite so discerning about what they did and did not teach as Hogwarts had been. Students from Durmstrang had generally possessed considerable knowledge of the Dark Arts; but there were others as well, students from Beauxbatons and even some of the smaller schools had known some particularly nasty little hexes as well. The first time she had gone into battle alongside a small group of mercenaries from Italy she had been astonished by some of the spells they had cast - even though they had been using them on Death Eaters.
This, however, was not one that she had heard of before. If it was of French origin then that was not a great surprise; she had not had much to do with the French witches and wizards who had aided them during the war. Bill had been the one who had worked alongside them along with his wife.
She frowned. ‘Sang’, she thought, meant ‘blood’. What ‘Malèdiction’ meant though, was a mystery. The more she thought about it, the more she rolled the word around in her head, the less sense it seemed to make.
Gritting her teeth in frustration, she wrote ‘blood’ underneath and a question mark beside ‘Malèdiction’. Until she figured out what the word meant or she somehow miraculously discovered a way to search the library without knowing then she was stuck. For the first time in her life Ginny found herself wishing that Hogwarts had offered foreign language classes like she knew Muggle schools had to. She had Muggle friends who, when they were in school, had complained on a regular basis to her about French or German or Spanish classes.
Then again, Ginny admitted silently, even if they had been offered then she probably would not have taken one. Sometimes even English had felt like a foreign language and there had been plenty of strange, alien sounding words to learn what with all the different spells and incantations they had been expected to know at school.
Her eyes flickered towards the bookcases, over them. Maybe Hermione had a French dictionary amongst them somewhere. Picking up her wand, she commanded, “Accio French dictionary!”
Nothing happened.
Ginny scrunched her nose up in irritation. She supposed that she should not have expected that it would be so easy in the first place. After all, why would Hermione own a French dictionary? Knowing her friend as she did, Ginny half expected that the other woman had mastered the language by the time she was ten.
Unfortunately it was starting to look as if she was going to have to do this the hard way.
~*~*~*~
Ginny blinked tiredly and absently reached into the biscuit barrel next to her, only slightly surprised a second when her fingertips encountered nothing but the crumb littered bottom. She leaned over and frowned as she realised that she had completely cleared out her friend’s biscuit supply. It was yet another thing she was going to have to replace before Hermione returned. The list was only going to grow as well; she had already made a sizable dent in the coffee.
At some point since leaving Hogwarts, Ginny had somehow managed to forget just how tedious doing research could be. For the last five hours, she had been pouring through books, creating piles of them around the desk. Hermione would probably have had a small fit if she had seen them. The last time she had stood up she had nearly gone flying over a particularly thick tome and Ginny was sure she had heard the spine crack.
She stretched her legs out now, wincing at the way in which her sore muscles strained. It felt like her knees had been turning to solid stone from sitting in one position too long.
Before her on the desk were a stack of messy notes, covered in her handwriting. After searching for nearly an hour in Hermione’s library for a translation of ‘Malèdiction’, Ginny had eventually given in and headed to Flourish and Blotts on Diagon Alley to purchase a dictionary.
The girl behind the counter had given her a strange look when she had made her purchase, almost as if no one bought foreign language dictionaries. Ginny supposed that few people did. There was only a small selection in the shop and she had been lucky to find a French one. Most people, she guessed, would simply use translation spells but Ginny had never been very good at them and this was not something that she wanted to make a mistake with. The thought of finding out at a later date that she had been wasting her time because she had accidentally mistranslated the diagnosis did not inspire pleasant thoughts in the redhead.
Bristling with frustration, she had cracked open the book and sought of ‘Malèdiction’ even before leaving the shop. Stood in the doorway, she let out an indignant little squeak. Apparently the only thing that ‘Malèdiction’ meant was ‘curse’. She had spent half the afternoon translating something that was practically useless. ‘Blood Curse’ was not especially descriptive or informative. She suspected that there were literally hundreds of spells and potions that could come under the heading of ‘Blood Curse’.
After returning to Hermione’s apartment, Ginny had taken to writing down everything and anything she could find to do with Blood Curses. It was her hope that something would click and she would be able to find a lead that would eventually reveal to her the exact nature of Malfoy’s illness. So far though, it had only left her with the thick pile of notes detailing everything from possible symptoms, to cures, to the history of Blood Curses - though from what Ginny had been able to garner they had been around forever in one form or another.
She had tried not to think too hard as she was reading and writing, making her mindset as clinical as she was able to. More than once her writing hand had stopped, hovering over the sheet of paper before her as she had cringed or shuddered at something she read. While some Blood Curses could be relatively minor there were others that were potentially fatal; there were untreatable, incurable examples of both varieties. She had read about curses that could kill instantly and others that would affect the sufferer for months, even years. She had read about examples where a witch or wizard was hit with a curse and the symptoms did not begin to show themselves for perhaps five or six generations or until the right set of circumstances had been fulfilled by a descendant.
There was one thing that always seemed to remain the same however. They were, without exception, debilitating. Without knowing exactly which one Malfoy was suffering with, there was no way that she could discover the severity of it.
Ultimately, the problem was that the symptoms that Malfoy was apparently exhibiting could easily be applied to about thirty or forty individual curses and that was just out of the ones that she had managed to find in Hermione’s library. As extensive as it was, Ginny did not pretend for a moment that the collection could possibly include every spell that had ever been created.
Running her fingers over the notes before her, Ginny dug out her original sheet of paper. Underneath diagnosis and the irritatingly simple translation, the redhead had noted down all the details she had remembered of his symptoms and the treatments that Malfoy was being given for them. There was disappointingly little to go on and cross-referencing her research with what she remembered had been problematic as a consequence.
Since the list was not very detailed - she did not have the sort of memory that allowed her to remember exactly what had been written there - Ginny had ended up reading around the subject rather than being able to pinpoint exactly what she needed to know. While she had studiously researched the symptoms that she had recalled, and now had a rather vague grasp of practically everything and anything even vaguely related to ‘blood pressure’, ‘atrial fibrillation’, ‘tachycardia’ and what seemed about a thousand other things as well, she had then found herself reading further still. It had taken her deeper, into learning about the potential consequences of the symptoms such as ‘pulmonary edema’, ‘pericarditis’ and so many other baffling things that she found it all quite dizzying. It was taxing to try and understand and Ginny began to wish that she had tried to pay a little more attention when Professor McGonagall had attempted in introduce classes in rudimentary medicine in her final year at Hogwarts.
After it all, Ginny still felt strangely unsatisfied, as if despite her hours of researching she had actually found nothing of any consequence at all. She might have learned all about the symptoms but, the redhead realised, what she really wanted to know now was how Malfoy had come to be suffering from such a curse in the first place.
She remembered the sheets and sheets of paper in the file - the ones that she had not had the chance to read before Hermione had returned. Malfoy’s case notes had been particularly thick; unusually so actually, leading Ginny to believe that he must have been receiving treatment for quite some time. She could not even begin to imagine what else might have been documented there.
Frustrated, the redhead pushed sharply away from the desk, nearly upending her coffee mug in the process. She made her way to the window, leaning against the wall so that she could look out onto the street bellowing, glistening in the late afternoon sunlight.
She was tired; physically, emotionally and mentally. Her fatigue was all encompassing, though Ginny was aware that it probably only seemed so because she was so frustrated at her lack of progress. She was tired and fed up of the nagging little voice inside that would not let her simply put aside the books and notes so that she could forget about Malfoy.
Peering out the window, she muttered angrily at herself. Why should she care that Malfoy was ill? Even if it had not been for the enmity between their families then his actions prior to and during the war should have left her completely unfeeling where Malfoy was concerned.
However, each time that she thought as much, her mind would turn once more to how he had looked when she had accidentally happened upon the blonde man. Ginny felt like hitting her head against the window every single time thoughts of those pale grey eyes flashing had interrupted her thoughts. Those same eyes had never inflicted such a fixation on her when they were at school together. She had naturally associated them with hatred and cruelty and a man who would happily have made her miserable. Now though, they dragged her back again to thoughts that she did not want to have, just as they had repeatedly throughout the last few hours. Once more her frustration grew and she found herself searching through her notes yet again.
7: A Slytherin Sunday
Pairing: Draco/Ginny
Rating: R (M) - eventually
Summary: “There was no snide quip though. No deliberately cutting comment. Ginny stared and then a second later the grey eyes rolled dramatically and turned away from her towards the tasteless curtains.” Post-war fic. Ginny was just plodding along, enduring her perfectly well-ordered normal life and dreaming that maybe something more interesting might come along. She just never thought that the ‘something’ might actually turn out to be a ‘someone’.
Spoilers: HBP
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
1: Paperwork
2: The Good Life
3: Cures and Conundrums
4: Escape, with Sandwiches
5: Night Owls
PART SIX: BOOKWORM
Saturday afternoon saw Ginny using the spare key that Hermione had given her for emergencies to let herself into the other witch’s apartment. She stepped inside and quickly closed the door, shrugging off her coat and placing it on the hook on the wall. The moment she had stepped inside heat had assaulted her and small hallway was deliciously warm compared to the world outside. Ginny paused by the door, taking a moment to rub some life back into her hands before moving down the hall and into the kitchen.
“Crookshanks!” she called and smiled a moment later as the animal in question slunk around the kitchen door, mewing at her. He sidled up to her and rubbed affectionately around Ginny’s legs. “Hey gorgeous,” she said, bobbing down and running her fingers through his thick fur. “Let’s see if I can find you some munchies.”
Crookshanks purred approvingly and wandered over to the corner where his bowls were kept. Ginny’s grin widened and she set about digging out a tin of cat food.
Feeding Crookshanks and making sure he was okay had been an unspoken part of her promise to look after Hermione’s place while she was away - one which Ginny far from minded. Considering all the time that Hermione had spent at the Burrow and their close friendship at Hogwarts, Crookshanks had almost felt like a permanent feature in the redhead’s life and she had missed him ever since Hermione had graduated from school and started to spend less time at the Weasley family home. Growing up, Ginny’s only really had one pet - Arnold, a Pygmy Puff who had unfortunately only enjoyed a short lifespan. There had been Errol and Pig of course, but Errol had been a family pet and not the most engaging of creatures considering he spent a good ninety percent of his life asleep. Pig, on the other hand, had always been very energetic but he had also always favoured Ron. Scabbers, she thought, was better forgotten entirely. As a consequence the friendly, sensitive Crookshanks had always felt somewhat like a pet to the redhead.
Opting to use her wand instead of the Muggle can opener that Hermione owned, Ginny quickly opened the food and emptied it into one of the bowls. Crookshanks attacked it impatiently.
Satisfied she had performed that part of her promise to Hermione, Ginny headed into the lounge. In comparison to her own comfortable little flat, Hermione’s apartment felt huge.
It was huge, she amended. When her friend had first moved in, Ginny had been quite jealous of her. With her doctors’ salary and years of typically careful saving on the brunette’s part, Hermione was able to afford somewhere far above Ginny’s price bracket. The apartment was situated in a good part of Diagon Alley and consisted of a large lounge and kitchen, a study, a bedroom with an ensuite bathroom that was also accessible from the hall outside. Ginny suspected the real reason that Hermione had rented the place though was the small terrace afforded to her by living on the top floor of converted building.
On moving in, Hermione had applied for and received permission to cover it; turning the area into an enchanted greenhouse that was warm enough all year around to grow any plants she needed. Hermione had always taken her studies seriously and becoming a doctor had not altered that. The greenhouse allowed her to grow the necessary ingredients she needed for a variety of home remedies that she was convinced worked better than store-bought alternatives. Ginny did not doubt they were better. Hermione was a perfectionist after all.
Ginny moved towards the small extension now, pausing in the doorway to strip off her navy jumper as the near tropical heat enveloped her. After tossing it back into the room behind her, Ginny made her way over to the small workbench where, just as she had expected, there was a list of instructions in her friend’s neat script of how much to water each species and what supplements needed to be added. Ginny could not help but frown at it and absently she wondered whether it was completely necessary that all the detailed instructions be followed. She somehow doubted that Ron and Harry were completely true to them when they landed to job of looking after the greenhouse when Hermione went away.
That said, Ginny decided she was not willing to take the risk. The idea of Hermione coming back from the symposium and finding out that some of her prize specimens were in less than perfect condition was not in the least appealing to the redhead. It was far too easy to picture Hermione’s disappointed features. She already had enough to feel guilty about; she did not need to add anything else to the end of the list.
Moving about the room, enjoying the warmth and the sunlight seeping in through the glass roof, Ginny carefully carried out Hermione’s instructions. It was a pleasant enough way to spend her time; even if it was technically work. There was something quite relaxing about tending to the plants and glancing at the little notes that Hermione had left spread all over the place. Ginny had long pictured herself with a garden of her own one day; somewhere small and just for her. It would be covered in terracotta pots filled with flowers and she would hide cheesy like statues amongst the foliage to make people smile.
After finishing in the greenhouse, Ginny moved through the other rooms in the apartment to check on the more mundane houseplants that required attention. She finished up in Hermione’s study and after taking care of the small fern that the brunette had on her windowsill she moved onto her second, thoroughly unauthorised reason for being in the other witch’s apartment that day.
The study was everything that someone might expect for a room of its type that belonged to Hermione Granger. Each wall was lined with tall bookcases that overflowed with texts on all manners of subjects, with tomes of various sizes and ages. Indeed, it seemed that the other witch had actually managed to run out of room on the shelves and had taken to stacking some of the less valuable texts on the floor in the corners, on her desk and on the small end table next to the comfy chair by the window.
Ginny grinned, surveying the richness of Hermione’s library with greedy eyes. With Hermione away she had the other witch’s extensive book collection all to herself for the weekend. All she had to remember to do was put the texts back where she had found them and replace any paper and ink she might use and Hermione would never be any the wiser. Considering the way that Hermione had reacted when Ginny had questioned her about Malfoy, it would not be a good idea for Hermione to figure out what she had borrowed her library for.
Feeling decidedly smug, Ginny wandered over to the large desk in the centre of the room and seated herself behind it. Unsurprisingly, when she reached down to try the draws, she found that the top two were locked in such a fashion that even ‘Alohomora’ would not work. Ginny guessed that Hermione had used a more complicated locking spell, perhaps something that was tuned specifically to one person. The third draw, however, opened easily and in it Ginny found a thick pad of paper. She took it out and placed it on the desk before her, then reached for the quill and ink pot.
The problem now, was where to start. Hermione’s impressive library was filled with books but Ginny had no idea where she would find what she wanted to know. She was not the bookworm that Hermione was and she had never been able to understand her friend’s system for storing the books. Indeed, to her, there did not seem to be much of a pattern at all.
The idea to make use of Hermione’s extensive collection of books and medical journals had come to Ginny around about the time she downed the dregs of her fifth vodka and coke the night before. Perched on the edge of her barstool, she had been drunkenly trying to explain something or other, quite possibly the rules of Quidditch, to a confused looking Muggle barman when it had hit her. The man had held a hand up, stopping her mid-ramble and asked with a friendly, suggestive little smile, “So, how come you’re here alone?” Ginny opened her mouth and, having missed his point, had just been about to explain that her best friend was away for the weekend when it had dawned on her.
The realisation had been so sudden that Ginny had nearly fallen sideways off the stool; Hermione had unwittingly given her the perfect chance to figure out once and for all exactly what she had seen in Malfoy’s file.
Triumphantly, she had quickly drunk the refill her brand new best friend, the barman, had poured her then leaned over the bar and smacked a quick kiss on his lips. Cheekily, she said, “Thanks for the inspiration,” and dropped a ten on the bar top, slipping off her stool and leaving behind a bewildered looking man.
A plan had already begun to form in her mind. The next day when she went to do the housekeeping that Hermione had asked her to do then she would take the chance to do a little snooping. If nothing else then she hoped that a couple of hours suffering through doing boring research would relieve her of the irritating, irrational desire to find out what exactly was wrong with Malfoy once and for all. Ginny could not help but think it was absurd that she was still even preoccupied with him - especially considering the way in which he had talked to her. Indeed when she had left him in the cubicle Ginny had been well and truly ready to forget all about Draco Malfoy and what he might possibly be doing at St Mungo’s.
Unfortunately that small voice which reminded her about little things such as professionalism had stopped her from simply leaving the ward and forgetting about him completely. Knowing that it was the right thing to do and yet hating actually having to do it, Ginny tracked down the nurse on duty and told her about finding Malfoy.
It was the nurse’s reaction which had fuelled Ginny’s interest once more. The woman had listened carefully to every word the redhead said then rolled her eyes, sighed, and said, “Oh, not again!”
She had spoken in such an exasperated manner than Ginny had immediately been charged with the desire to ask exactly what she meant. Before Ginny could give into the urge the other woman had bustled away; heading in Malfoy’s direction and muttering under her breath. Somehow, Ginny had imagined that the pale wizard was going to receive quite a scolding. The notion thrilled that little part inside Ginny that desired revenge on him.
Exhausted, she had trudged home and gotten straight into bed; forgoing the bath she had promised herself. Sleep had evaded her though. It had been the early hours of the morning before she had eventually managed to find it; the floating, brief, visions of cool grey eyes and gaunt features finally fading.
Much to Ginny’s chagrin, when she had woken the next morning and dragged her still weary body out of bed it had not been long before once again she thought about Malfoy. It had been a complete accident. She had just finished running a brush through her hair and reached for a bottle of frizz preventing serum when abruptly Malfoy had flitted into her mind. Or, more precisely, the way in which his hair had curled slightly at the bottom where it touched his nightshirt. It had seemed so unusual, so unnatural. The Malfoy who she knew would never have left himself look so unkempt.
The thought had startled her so much that Ginny had dropped the glass bottle full of serum into the sink where it had landed with a clatter and shattered. With a brief profanity, Ginny had begun to pick at the mess, annoyed at how once again Malfoy had managed to intrude on her life. Determined, she had put him to the back of her mind.
The problem was that he did not seem to want to stay there.
Time and time again throughout the day, Malfoy had cropped up in her thoughts - utterly randomly and entirely unexpectedly. It seemed that there was always something around to remind her of him. The only bright spot in Ginny’s day had been the arrival of a fantastically large bouquet of flowers with her name on the card. The other girls in the office had all rushed over to her desk, cooing over the flourish of bright buds and then spent the rest of the day seething over the fact that they had not been sent something so spectacular. It had surprised Ginny to find out that some of them actually recognised the name on the card. Blaise Zabini had apparently featured on more than one eligible bachelor list over recent years. The only down point of the whole incident had been Agnes walking over to her desk, sniffing loudly and complaining that Ginny should not be bringing her private life to work with her.
As fantastic as the arrival of the flowers had been, in the long term they had not done much to purge her mind of thoughts of Malfoy. Indeed, the wizard in charge of his case while Hermione was away had called by the administration office and questioned her very carefully on the incident she had witnessed. When the man had gone back to the wards, Ginny was left with the impression that he did not entirely understand what had happened either - that he was just as perplexed as she was. It was the first time that it had dawned on her that whatever was wrong with Malfoy seemed to be baffling the medical staff as well. Now that she thought about it, Ginny realised that even Hermione had looked as if she was uncertain. At the time, Ginny had put it down to the fact that the other witch knew she should not have been talking about a patient. Now Ginny could not help be wonder whether it was actually something more.
By the time that Ginny had been finished for the day she had been ready to scream. All she wanted to do was go home and go to sleep. Even that had been affected by Malfoy though - yet again as the case may be. All night long she had been forced to endure replays of her conversation with the man in her dreams. They had been bizarrely realistic and rather disturbing as a consequence.
Now she was determined to get to the bottom of the situation. Maybe if she figured out once and for all exactly what was wrong with Malfoy then she would be able to forget him. After all, it was not as if she would be forced into daily contact with him. The prospect was deliciously appealing - so appealing in fact that Ginny had been forced to work hard to avoid a desire to get up at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning to head over to Hermione’s apartment. All morning she had tried to occupy herself to deny the urge and as a consequence Ginny doubted that her flat had ever been so clean since she had moved in.
Pursing her lips, she leaned over the pad of paper and wrote carefully at the top of it:
Diagnosis - Malèdiction de Sang
Sitting back, Ginny pondered the words; the ones that had caused her initial surprise when she had read Malfoy’s file. It was obviously French, that much Ginny had already discerned and when she whispered it aloud it sounded suspiciously like it could be a spell, perhaps some sort of hex, though she did not think that she have heard of it before. That did not mean much however. During the war, Ginny had learned that there were many more curses than the ones she had been taught about at school. Indeed they had only been told about the most common ones they were likely to come across and they were divided into two distinct groups: distressing yet unserious ones and serious, life threatening ones. The former were most likely to be cast impulsively and perhaps without any real intention of harm. The latter were intended to cause the victim considerable pain and perhaps even death. Needless to say they had not been taught how to cast the second variety.
Throughout the war years however, Ginny had discovered that other magical schools for wizards and witches were not quite so discerning about what they did and did not teach as Hogwarts had been. Students from Durmstrang had generally possessed considerable knowledge of the Dark Arts; but there were others as well, students from Beauxbatons and even some of the smaller schools had known some particularly nasty little hexes as well. The first time she had gone into battle alongside a small group of mercenaries from Italy she had been astonished by some of the spells they had cast - even though they had been using them on Death Eaters.
This, however, was not one that she had heard of before. If it was of French origin then that was not a great surprise; she had not had much to do with the French witches and wizards who had aided them during the war. Bill had been the one who had worked alongside them along with his wife.
She frowned. ‘Sang’, she thought, meant ‘blood’. What ‘Malèdiction’ meant though, was a mystery. The more she thought about it, the more she rolled the word around in her head, the less sense it seemed to make.
Gritting her teeth in frustration, she wrote ‘blood’ underneath and a question mark beside ‘Malèdiction’. Until she figured out what the word meant or she somehow miraculously discovered a way to search the library without knowing then she was stuck. For the first time in her life Ginny found herself wishing that Hogwarts had offered foreign language classes like she knew Muggle schools had to. She had Muggle friends who, when they were in school, had complained on a regular basis to her about French or German or Spanish classes.
Then again, Ginny admitted silently, even if they had been offered then she probably would not have taken one. Sometimes even English had felt like a foreign language and there had been plenty of strange, alien sounding words to learn what with all the different spells and incantations they had been expected to know at school.
Her eyes flickered towards the bookcases, over them. Maybe Hermione had a French dictionary amongst them somewhere. Picking up her wand, she commanded, “Accio French dictionary!”
Nothing happened.
Ginny scrunched her nose up in irritation. She supposed that she should not have expected that it would be so easy in the first place. After all, why would Hermione own a French dictionary? Knowing her friend as she did, Ginny half expected that the other woman had mastered the language by the time she was ten.
Unfortunately it was starting to look as if she was going to have to do this the hard way.
~*~*~*~
Ginny blinked tiredly and absently reached into the biscuit barrel next to her, only slightly surprised a second when her fingertips encountered nothing but the crumb littered bottom. She leaned over and frowned as she realised that she had completely cleared out her friend’s biscuit supply. It was yet another thing she was going to have to replace before Hermione returned. The list was only going to grow as well; she had already made a sizable dent in the coffee.
At some point since leaving Hogwarts, Ginny had somehow managed to forget just how tedious doing research could be. For the last five hours, she had been pouring through books, creating piles of them around the desk. Hermione would probably have had a small fit if she had seen them. The last time she had stood up she had nearly gone flying over a particularly thick tome and Ginny was sure she had heard the spine crack.
She stretched her legs out now, wincing at the way in which her sore muscles strained. It felt like her knees had been turning to solid stone from sitting in one position too long.
Before her on the desk were a stack of messy notes, covered in her handwriting. After searching for nearly an hour in Hermione’s library for a translation of ‘Malèdiction’, Ginny had eventually given in and headed to Flourish and Blotts on Diagon Alley to purchase a dictionary.
The girl behind the counter had given her a strange look when she had made her purchase, almost as if no one bought foreign language dictionaries. Ginny supposed that few people did. There was only a small selection in the shop and she had been lucky to find a French one. Most people, she guessed, would simply use translation spells but Ginny had never been very good at them and this was not something that she wanted to make a mistake with. The thought of finding out at a later date that she had been wasting her time because she had accidentally mistranslated the diagnosis did not inspire pleasant thoughts in the redhead.
Bristling with frustration, she had cracked open the book and sought of ‘Malèdiction’ even before leaving the shop. Stood in the doorway, she let out an indignant little squeak. Apparently the only thing that ‘Malèdiction’ meant was ‘curse’. She had spent half the afternoon translating something that was practically useless. ‘Blood Curse’ was not especially descriptive or informative. She suspected that there were literally hundreds of spells and potions that could come under the heading of ‘Blood Curse’.
After returning to Hermione’s apartment, Ginny had taken to writing down everything and anything she could find to do with Blood Curses. It was her hope that something would click and she would be able to find a lead that would eventually reveal to her the exact nature of Malfoy’s illness. So far though, it had only left her with the thick pile of notes detailing everything from possible symptoms, to cures, to the history of Blood Curses - though from what Ginny had been able to garner they had been around forever in one form or another.
She had tried not to think too hard as she was reading and writing, making her mindset as clinical as she was able to. More than once her writing hand had stopped, hovering over the sheet of paper before her as she had cringed or shuddered at something she read. While some Blood Curses could be relatively minor there were others that were potentially fatal; there were untreatable, incurable examples of both varieties. She had read about curses that could kill instantly and others that would affect the sufferer for months, even years. She had read about examples where a witch or wizard was hit with a curse and the symptoms did not begin to show themselves for perhaps five or six generations or until the right set of circumstances had been fulfilled by a descendant.
There was one thing that always seemed to remain the same however. They were, without exception, debilitating. Without knowing exactly which one Malfoy was suffering with, there was no way that she could discover the severity of it.
Ultimately, the problem was that the symptoms that Malfoy was apparently exhibiting could easily be applied to about thirty or forty individual curses and that was just out of the ones that she had managed to find in Hermione’s library. As extensive as it was, Ginny did not pretend for a moment that the collection could possibly include every spell that had ever been created.
Running her fingers over the notes before her, Ginny dug out her original sheet of paper. Underneath diagnosis and the irritatingly simple translation, the redhead had noted down all the details she had remembered of his symptoms and the treatments that Malfoy was being given for them. There was disappointingly little to go on and cross-referencing her research with what she remembered had been problematic as a consequence.
Since the list was not very detailed - she did not have the sort of memory that allowed her to remember exactly what had been written there - Ginny had ended up reading around the subject rather than being able to pinpoint exactly what she needed to know. While she had studiously researched the symptoms that she had recalled, and now had a rather vague grasp of practically everything and anything even vaguely related to ‘blood pressure’, ‘atrial fibrillation’, ‘tachycardia’ and what seemed about a thousand other things as well, she had then found herself reading further still. It had taken her deeper, into learning about the potential consequences of the symptoms such as ‘pulmonary edema’, ‘pericarditis’ and so many other baffling things that she found it all quite dizzying. It was taxing to try and understand and Ginny began to wish that she had tried to pay a little more attention when Professor McGonagall had attempted in introduce classes in rudimentary medicine in her final year at Hogwarts.
After it all, Ginny still felt strangely unsatisfied, as if despite her hours of researching she had actually found nothing of any consequence at all. She might have learned all about the symptoms but, the redhead realised, what she really wanted to know now was how Malfoy had come to be suffering from such a curse in the first place.
She remembered the sheets and sheets of paper in the file - the ones that she had not had the chance to read before Hermione had returned. Malfoy’s case notes had been particularly thick; unusually so actually, leading Ginny to believe that he must have been receiving treatment for quite some time. She could not even begin to imagine what else might have been documented there.
Frustrated, the redhead pushed sharply away from the desk, nearly upending her coffee mug in the process. She made her way to the window, leaning against the wall so that she could look out onto the street bellowing, glistening in the late afternoon sunlight.
She was tired; physically, emotionally and mentally. Her fatigue was all encompassing, though Ginny was aware that it probably only seemed so because she was so frustrated at her lack of progress. She was tired and fed up of the nagging little voice inside that would not let her simply put aside the books and notes so that she could forget about Malfoy.
Peering out the window, she muttered angrily at herself. Why should she care that Malfoy was ill? Even if it had not been for the enmity between their families then his actions prior to and during the war should have left her completely unfeeling where Malfoy was concerned.
However, each time that she thought as much, her mind would turn once more to how he had looked when she had accidentally happened upon the blonde man. Ginny felt like hitting her head against the window every single time thoughts of those pale grey eyes flashing had interrupted her thoughts. Those same eyes had never inflicted such a fixation on her when they were at school together. She had naturally associated them with hatred and cruelty and a man who would happily have made her miserable. Now though, they dragged her back again to thoughts that she did not want to have, just as they had repeatedly throughout the last few hours. Once more her frustration grew and she found herself searching through her notes yet again.
7: A Slytherin Sunday