"Follow"

Title: "Follow"
Ship: Draco/Ginny
Rating: PG-13 (or whatever the equivilant is now; I'll look it up again later)
Summary: From one place to the next, it's always the same routine: a letter, a meeting, a memory modified.

A/N: Okay, so this plot occured to me first as the idea of Draco being like a sort of camp follower. I wanted to write it in sort of a minamalistic style, but I gave that up just because. Also, I have an exam on Monday, so if it feels unfinished, it's because I know, I had to leave it hanging a bit. I'll wrap it up some other time. It's also as polished as I'd like it to be.



The biggest problem was that they had misunderstood just how long the war would be. This caused all sorts of problems.

One of them was that the Order continually relocated their headquarters.

The war dragged on.



Draco was listening to the two gentlemen who stood, hats in hands, opposite from where he was seated behind his desk, when the owl swooped in and landed heavily on his desk. Without pausing, he accepted the letter, stroked it once, and slid the sheet of folded paper into a drawer.

“My father has made it clear his position on those who choose to associate with Muggles. He sees any such entanglement, however brief and for whatever reason, as a permanent alliance. My thoughts on the subject are the same as his.”

“Of course,” said the man on the right immediately. “Of course, our sentiments are also the same.”

“We wouldn’t be having this conversation if your sentiments are aligned with ours,” Draco said coldly, pretense of patience gone. “Therefore, please tell me exactly what you wanted to see me about so that I can decide whether I want to bring the subject to my father…as you clearly hope I will.”

The man on the left had remained silent so far, letting his partner build their introduction, which the Malfoy heir had now just dismantled. He was not, then, the weakling boy they had expected would be easy to manipulate into an ally for their cause. Neither, it seemed, was he merely a conduit for his father.

He let his partner, who was now thoroughly unsettled, stumble through their proposal, choosing instead to observe the younger Malfoy’s bored countenance carefully. Draco Malfoy’s only indication of impatience was how much more detached he became with each passing minute.

Finally, as expected, he rose and said impassively, “I’ll keep your proposal in mind.”

The meeting was concluded.

With one last glance at Malfoy, he saw the young man open the desk drawer.



Touching the tip of his wand to the sheet of paper, now carefully unfolded, he murmured an incantation now familiar to him, and moved his wand in the motion of signing his signature.

“Draco Malfoy,” he spoke quietly.

The letters unfurled and revealed, in the end, an address. He looked at the handwriting for a long moment before tapping it with his wand against. The spell this time was for hiding the contents of the message rather than revealing it. It burned crisp and clean, and he swept the ashes off his desk and as he bent over certain letters he was writing to certain men of means interested in their cause, he called for a house elf to vanish the mess.



This time, the house is on the outskirts of London. He made his way there slowly, Apparating first to places that he needed to visit anyway, his last stop being a bar fashioned like an old tavern. Portkeys could be traced, and the Floo was the most dangerous way of transportation lately, but travel by broom remained largely unwatched. It was also a hassle and required a great deal of nerve, to be flying about in public, where anyone could be mistaken for an enemy by either side.

However, Draco didn’t mind the flying, he liked it, and so it wasn’t a bother for him. He had learned also how to minimize the risk, using techniques and tricks his body, lying almost prone along the broom, remembered. And he had gained quite a lot of nerve in recent months. Both Potter and his father would be amazed at just how far he was willing to go, for some things.

Many people made the mistake of flying too high or too low, but the best was to fly exactly just below the tops of the trees. One ran the risk of flying into the trees, but Draco was good at weaving in and out and under bothersome branches. The trees provided a dark, shadowy cover and kept him focused on what he was doing, as opposed to lapsing into a blankness that often came from the ease and pleasure he felt when flying.

He saw the house a little less than a mile off, and he landed neatly, walking the remaining quarter of a mile.

The letters never told him how to get into the house—that was too many words to be too safe—so once again, Draco would find himself falling back on his learning back at Hogwarts, sneaking through the corridors at night trying to track down Potter and then later on in his seventh year, to do what he was doing now, a year later.

He drew on the Invisibility Cloak and set to breaking into the house. When he was finally inside, he fitted himself to a wall as Longbottom walked by him, apparently the first sentry for the night.

“Point Me,” he whispered to his wand. The wand spun like a needle.

It was always the northwest room. No.12 Grimmauld Place, the Shrieking Shack, the house in Bloomsbury, the flat near the Tower of Hamlets, Cutty Sark. Always the northwest room. They had agreed on it.

He headed up the stairs. The stairs were old, but they were silent beneath his careful feet, the splintered banister smooth beneath his palm. This place had seen far too little sunlight and felt far too little warmth in the past years, and the house seemed to welcome him, drawing him higher and deeper. He was still careful. Weight distributed evenly, feet flat. Testing each step before taking it, he was soundless. It was best not to cast too many spells in this place. The Order wasn’t incompetent, and if they had felt the need to switch locations again so rapidly, that meant they were going to be even more careful in monitoring the premise.

The door to the northwest room was unlocked. He couldn’t risk a knock, so he paused, listening for sounds of movement or another presence within. He eased the door gently open and slipped inside. The hinges swung cleanly and without a sound, keeping the secret.

As always, he wondered if this was right. He wondered if he had the right to add one more risk to a house that was brimming over and cracking with subterfuge.

The door hadn’t even clicked shut before Ginny collided with him. Draco’s arms came up instinctively to go around her, and for one breathless moment when he lost all the air in his lungs, probably from the impact of her body hitting into his, the world was just her, just Ginny, just the smell of her and his face buried in her hair, his fingers caught up with her.

Draco broke away from her to cast a Silencing Charm. Ginny took his wand and leaned over his shoulder, whispering a locking spell at the door, adding a ward for good measure, before dropping his wand on the floor. They hadn’t lasted this long in secrecy without being careful.

He stepped back to look at her, studying her critically. “What’s wrong?”

“You know. The Longbottoms…”

“I saw him downstairs.”

“He’s staying with us now. I don’t think that he’s...all right,” she finished. “He’s not grieving the way people do.”

“Everyone mourns differently, Gin.”

“Yeah, I know,” she sighed. She changed the subject and looked at him intently, reaching out to touch his jaw. “I missed you.”

He met her gaze. “I missed you, too.”

Ginny sighed again. “Just hold me, Draco.”

He did as she asked. His hands stroked her hair, and when she lifted her face to him, he kissed her. He felt humbled beneath her hungry mouth, and as his thumb brushed the corner of her lip, he felt the shiver.

He lifted her onto the desk in the room, the only furniture besides the bed, and she gazed down at him silently. Draco exhaled deeply and curled one hand around the graceful curve of her neck, his other hand catching at both of hers as he kissed her again, harder this time, like a stamp of possession, trying to convey all the frustration and anger he felt that she couldn’t possibly know how much of it he felt.



His clothes were thoroughly crumpled when he woke in the morning. The morning light was sharp and harsh and showed the strains of stress on her face.

He heard her voice as she charmed his clothes straight and ironed.

“You still look tired,” he observed.

“Trust me, that was the best sleep I’ve had in a long time.”

He offered her a grin in return. “That’s good.”

When he finally left, it was with Ginny leaving the room for breakfast downstairs. Leaving was a mutual movement, done simultaneously, a silent affair.



On his return to Malfoy Manor, he charmed the night away. He wouldn’t be able to give a location for the Order, nor would he be able to recall details of any plans he had overheard. He wouldn’t remember the people he had seen who shouldn’t have been there. Instead, his dreams would be filled with the scent of Ginny’s hair and the strength of her arms as she had clung to him. But that could be explained away as having been the bothersome memories of his seventh year.



Another place. Another northwest room. Another early morning.

“You can Apparate back,” she told him, “We’re leaving in the morning.”

“Okay,” he said. “I was trying not to wake you.”

She smiled and glanced away as he tugged his shirt over his head. “Thanks, but I woke up when you did.”

He finished dressing silently before returning to the bed. “What’s wrong?”

He listened to the sound of movement downstairs and the rain on the roof falling into the gutter pipe. He listened to their breathing in the room.

“Ginny?” He needed to hear an answer.

She propped herself up with an elbow and reached for him. Pulled him down to lie beside her, and quieted him with her mouth. “Don’t, Draco,” she whispered into his mouth.

He subsided, hands tightening on her upper arms. She listened to all the things unsaid in his ragged breathing and blinking eyes. He had made a great concession tonight, but she wondered if he knew that he hadn’t had to. She had learned long ago to read the signs and subtleties in his gestures, in the inflections of his voice, in the look in his eyes.

“I’ll do it,” she said, meeting his eyes steadily.

He gave her a puzzled look. “What?”

She held up her wand. “This time, let me do it, Draco.”

He hesitated only for a second. There was no one he trusted more besides Ginny. It wasn’t even a choice. “Okay.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I know how to do it right. You won’t remember anything when you get back.”

He caught her hand. “I always worry about that, Gin.”

She said the words, did the magic. And it worked.



He left Gringrotts feeling annoyed. It seemed, then, that the Ministry had no intention on unfreezing his assets until gave them access to the Manor.

“Malfoy,” called a voice oddly.

He turned wearily as one of the Weasleys hurried up to him, her eyes intent on his face. She held out a hand. He drew back from her, alarmed. “What do you want?”

Her eyes scanned his. “Just—”

It was the scent on the sharp, cutting wind. Something in his eyes changed, and he tilted his head at her.

“I just wanted to say,” she began again, “that they told me I had to do it. And it was never a matter of my trust.”

“What are you on about? I don’t even know your name,” he said blankly. He blinked. “You went to school with me.”

“It’s Ginny.” She smiled at him. “I was a year below you.”

Do you want to remember?




Oh yeah! I just made a post requesting the need for a brainstorm-beta for a Sarkney fic* at proclivityfans. I wanted to link it here, too.

*Fear not, I have not forgotten my other WIPs. Those are still in progress, I just wanted to get the ball rolling on this one as well.