Up-Bringing

It was raining. Though this was hardly an unusual occurrence in the middle of autumn, Ginny was particularly irked by it today because the Hogsmeade weekend had crept up on her, and it was still drizzling even as she walked out of the castle gates and along the muddied lane towards the village.

She was immersed deep in thought, contemplating, of all people, Draco Malfoy.

As hard as she'd tried, the proximity she'd had to Malfoy when he'd realised his parents' deaths had not failed to penetrate her. She'd tried to keep from comparing, but she couldn't - there was no stopping her mind wandering to a similar situation, where her parents had been the ones never, ever coming home again, and she wasn't going to pretend that she didn't have an increasing amount of information whizzing around inside of her head. For a start, they wouldn't have died at the hands of a person meant to be protecting them.

They'd have died fighting for every single witch and wizard to have quailed under Voldemort's rule. They'd have died knowing that every person who mattered to them loved them unconditionally. They'd have died standing up, with a wand in their hands, not cowering, begging for mercy...

Where was Draco now? Wait, since when had she been referring to him as Draco, instead of 'That Little Ferret Malfoy'? Was he alright? Not that she cared, but he would be even more vicious if he was dealing with this badly. She wondered vaguely whether anyone other than Draco would miss Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy. She doubted it.

Did he have any other family? Maybe. She didn't expect she'd like any of them. She frowned, thinking of how Malfoy must have grown up, having his every whim pandered to, always getting what he wanted, always having his parents to buy him things, his father to smirk proudly when he punished his first house elf for disobedience, or his mother to coo when he stepped into his primary school uniform.

She'd not arranged to meet anyone in the village, mainly because she hadn't really been aware that she was going to go. She'd just woken up that morning, realised the entrance hall was packed, and decided pretty much on a whim that it might distract her: her mind had been irritatingly full of the scowling, blond-haired Slytherin boy since she'd found out about his parents.

Pulling her cloak around her, she wandered along the street in the village, looking obtusely through foggy glass windows. Eventually, when she couldn't feel her fingers or toes anymore, she slunk out of the bitter wind and into a tiny, dimly-lit teashop at the end of the lane nearest the Shrieking Shack.

It looked very much like a pub, but did not appear to sell anything vaguely alcoholic. The red walls were tall, stretching up to a lofty ceiling under which several dozen live fairies seemed to be zooming happily around.

"Can I get you a drink?" asked a slim, dark-haired witch in short, ruby-coloured robes. She smiled a wide smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. Ginny immediately disliked her.

"Tea, hot, plenty of sugar," she said brightly, taking in the name on the witch's small golden tag: "Camilla". Camilla plastered her grin back onto her face.

"Coming up, take a seat."

Ginny glanced around the room, and immediately noticed something she had not when she first came in - there were an unusually large number of boys lining the walls, watching the waitress. Smirking, Ginny looked back to her. Evidently she had missed what was so attractive about the skinny, fake-smiling woman.

Shaking her head, she disappeared into a corner, sitting down out of reach of what little light there was. It was warm in here - slightly warmer than she would have liked, she thought, pulling off her cloak and jacket.

From across the room she noticed Dean and Seamus lounging across their chairs. She smiled again, as Camilla sauntered over with a pot of steaming black coffee, and tittered at them for putting their feet up on the seats. They sprung to attention and sat up at once, nearly knocking over her tray.

The bell on the door jingled merrily, and Ginny glanced over. Draco Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle had just entered, the former being led, for a change, by the other two. He looked decidedly unhappy. Not surprising though it is, she told herself, considering.

When asked what they wanted, she was surprised when either Crabbe or Goyle (she wasn't sure which) said, "Usual, Cam." They must be regulars, she mused, watching Crabbe and Goyle sit down, their eyes on Camilla. Malfoy fixed his eyes on the table's surface, but Ginny could tell he wasn't remotely concerned with it.

Camilla returned almost straight away with a tray, laden with two coffee mugs and a tea, along with a pot of cream and a sugar bowl. Annoyance stabbed at her - she'd been here first, after all. Camilla perched next to Draco, a little too close for Ginny's liking, and her smile no longer so false. She watched her tilt in and mutter something to Malfoy. He frowned and shook his head, mumbling. Crabbe and Goyle were watching hungrily the hem of the waitresses' robes on her thigh.

Camilla nudged Malfoy with her elbow, playfully flicking her dark hair forward and blinking in an over-exaggerated manner. Malfoy shuffled and snapped more harshly, but she wasn't deterred. She put a hand on his arm.

"Nothing!" she heard him growl at her. "Don't you have work to do or something?"

Ginny stood up, compulsively opened her shirt collar wider and adjusted her jeans, then strode across the room. As she approached, shaking her hair off her face, Crabbe, Goyle and Malfoy's eyes all widened slightly, looking up.

"Hey," she said loudly, putting a hand on her hip as she had in the library several days before. Draco's eyes flashed. Camilla turned, her smile vanishing. "I'm still waiting on that tea."

The witch looked torn between fury and embarrassment. She settled on fury, but huffed away, looking very peeved. Ginny looked back to the others.

Malfoy was openly staring at her. Crabbe and Goyle were glaring, plainly angry beyond words. Draco, though, lifted his chin. "Thanks," he said, sarcastically. Ginny met his gaze, and was greeting with genuine gratitude. Crabbe and Goyle appeared not to notice.

Ginny pulled a look of nonchalance onto her face, raising her eyebrow. "I just wanted my tea," she said coldly, and she went back to her seat. She felt Draco's eyes on her all the way across the hardwood floor, but she didn't sit. Instead, she grabbed up her clock and jacket, slung them over her arm, just as Camilla emerged with a tea pot on a tray.

"You know what? Don't worry about it," she called. "I've just realised I've got somewhere to be," she added, only glancing back at Malfoy when she was on her way out of the door. He was smirking.

She was in the process of jerking her coat back over her shoulders out in the chilly street when she heard a shout. Spinning around, tugging her collar into a more comfortable position, she saw Malfoy walking quickly towards her, the wind buffering his hair into his eyes.

Drawing herself up, she stood stock-still and let him approach her. His face wore a look halfway between amusement and- was that nervousness? Not likely, she told herself, but there was almost definitely something uncomfortable about the way Malfoy drew up near her.

"I told the others I was going to tell you off for chasing Camilla away," he said bossily. "Come with me."

She gave him a look that plainly said 'Why in hell should I?' and he glanced desperately towards the teashop.

"Just come on, will you? I don't have much time," and he grabbed her around the elbow, dragging her up the lane and towards the path that led to the Shrieking Shack.

---

Ginny sat easily on the fence around the broken down building, watching Malfoy's feet shuffling in the slippery ground. She'd sat up there on purpose: it made her eyes on an even level with his.

"Well?" she said. "What d'you want Malfoy?"

"Shut up," he said. She glared at him. "Let me talk."

"Go on then."

He shot her a strange, strangled kind of look that she didn't really know the meaning of, and leant on the fence next to her. He stared at the ground for a long time, so Ginny decided that maybe she should start him off.

"How're you feeling anyway?" she said, careful to inject the right amount of irritation into her tone.

"What d'you care?" he sneered.

"More than you know, Draco. But mainly because I don't see as there's anyone else you can talk to."

"Of course there is," he spat, apparently disgusted at the thought that the only person he could talk to was a filthy Muggle-lover. But she heard the doubt in his voice.

"Yeah, right," she said sceptically, " 'Cause everyone in Slytherin is really sorry for your loss, right? They're all there with you at night, making sure you're tucked up nice and warm, pouring you tea, fluffing up your pillows."

He snorted. "Anyone tried that with me and I'd jinx them before they added the cream," he said. Ginny appreciated the fact he'd tried making a joke.

"I'm sure you would," she said, without patronisation.

"I don't need anyone looking after me," he said stubbornly. "I can take care of myself."

"Good," she said, and she knew that she was very likely to hit a nerve with what she said next, but she ploughed on. "Because you're going to have very little choice in the matter from now on."

But all he did was snort again.

"Really though," she said. "Have you got any family or anything? What're you going to do now?"

"I don't know," he said, and she heard sincerity for the first time yet. "I'm nearly of age, so I don't have to go to any of my family. When I leave Hogwarts I'll be seventeen anyway, so I can go back to the Manor on my own, I won't need a Guardian."

Ginny nodded.

"I might sell it," he said distantly.

"Why?"

"Because it wouldn't feel right," he said quietly. "Without them there."

Ginny didn't say anything. She was imagining Draco all alone, wandering Malfoy Manor with his footsteps echoing off far-flung marble walls.

"I can't understand how this happened," Malfoy burst out. "This wasn't meant to happen."

"How did they die?" Ginny asked, peering at Malfoy's profile, his hair whipped roughly back off his forehead.

"Tortured," he said shortly. "You-Know-Who thought they were with-holding information."

"Were they?"

"Undoubtedly. You-Know-Who always knows when there's something he's not being told."

"Hey," she said, suddenly realising something, "how come you're not calling him the Dark Lord anymore?"

Draco paused, then said uncertainly; "My parents' deaths have caused certain... beliefs of mine to be called into question."

"Like what?" she asked, curious.

"Everything I've ever known," he said bluntly. When she didn't respond, he elaborated. "My certainty of life has been shaken. When I was growing up, I always believed that my mother and father were right in saying that the Dark Arts gave us a power over people so strong that nothing could hurt us." Seeing her confused look, he tried to explain.

"According to them, it was because of the Dark Arts that Malfoy Manor, our riches, our distinction, our power, our influence in the magical word came down our family line to us. For generations my family has allied itself with the Dark Lord and Dark magic. They believed, as I did, that we were invincible."

"But you're not likely to be short of money, Malfoy. Your parents would have left everything to you, right?"

"Only someone as poor as you would put so much emphasis on money!" he snapped. "This isn't about fortune, Weasley. This is about... lack of faith, trust. I can't put trust in anything I'd ever heard from them anymore."

Ginny paused, then said, "You can put trust in me."

He gave her a sideways glance. "Maybe..." he murmured.

"And now," Ginny said, after a long silence, "for all that you've been taught, all you thought was true, you've been proved as vulnerable as anybody else. You're just as susceptible as anyone else is, just as open to pain and suffering. And at the hands of the very thing that was meant to offer you such concrete unwavering protection," Ginny said, looking at Draco's grey eyes. He nodded.

"It questions everything I've ever been taught," he said. "Everything I've ever learnt about the Wizarding World. If it's not true that we could some how dodge death and gain power by supporting You-Know-Who, what's to say that being Pure-Blood isn't the most important thing? Who's to say whether evil always has to win? That the best pleasure can be got from stamping on the people below me to get what I want? What?"

Ginny's smile had been gradually growing, and she didn't let it falter now.

"Nothing, it's just that..."

"What?" he repeated again.

"Well," she said, phrasing carefully, "have you ever actually tried, Draco, instead of stamping on people, getting a leg-up from them?"

Draco pulled a weirdly contorted face that seemed to indicate that he had not.

She laughed sharply. "Didn't think so somehow, Malfoy."

He looked at her for a moment.

"Draco," he said.

"What?"

"I preferred Draco."

"Oh," she said. "OK. Guess that makes me Ginny then."

For an instant, she thought she saw a faint smile flicker over Draco's pale lips. Then, before she had a chance to do anything, they heard a snapping twig coming up the path, and Draco had his wand on her.

"You come anywhere near me again, Mudblood-Lover, and I'll hex you from here to Africa!" Malfoy spat, loudly, and he flicked his wand at her. She felt the spell hit her in the chest and she was knocked off the fence and into a large, badly smelling puddle a few meters away, badly winded. She grabbed her own wand from her robe pocket.

"Don't even think about it, Weasel," Malfoy yelled, leaning on the fence. He turned around; a recently arrived Crabbe and Goyle cackling behind him as he stormed away. She wasn't letting him get away with humiliating her like that though.

"Petrificus Totalus!" she yelled, and Malfoy froze, not by choice. His arms and legs snapped to his sides, and he fell over onto his nose. When Crabbe and Goyle made to charge after her, she glared at them. "Unless you want the same treatment, I'd back off, if I were you."

Apparently they took her word for it, because they didn't move.

Ginny walked straight over to Malfoy, and crouched over him. Too quiet for Crabbe and Goyle to hear, she said,

"You try anything like that again, Draco, and you'll be sneezing bats for a week," and she smeared a good quantity of stinking mud over his face, leaving four finger-streaked marks. Malfoy's eyes shone in his pale face, but she couldn't read their expression. "See you later."

---

All done. What d'you reckon? Any suggestions greatly appreciated.