Brothers in Blood: Father and Sons by JAWorley

“Come on, hurry up!”

“Shh…”

Ginny giggled as Draco grabbed her hand to pull her to a stop in the darkened corridor. They had left the mass of students behind in the Entrance Hall as they had left to go back to their common rooms, and were now heading to a secret place Ginny refused to tell Draco the exact location of.

“There will be hell to catch after tonight if we get caught out after hours…”

Ginny giggled again. “Since when do you care about breaking rules?” She squeezed his hand and tugged him behind a tapestry into a hidden passage with stairs leading downward in a spiral.

Biting his lip for a moment, Draco remembered Snape’s words from earlier. He was expected to be on his best behavior… sneaking away with a girl from Gryffindor late at night didn’t exactly count as “best.” But then again, she wasn’t just any ordinary girl from Gryffindor was she, or else he wouldn’t be sneaking away with her. Would Snape understand that if he was caught? Draco shook his head in the darkness as they reached the bottom of the stairs and exited the hidden hall from behind another tapestry before Ginny lead him off again. In his mind, Draco knew he would do anything for Ginny, and it frightened him. Since when had he decided she was that important? He liked her sure, but wasn’t it just another relationship that wouldn’t work out in the end?

Ten minutes later and they were still winding their way in and out of secret passages. “Almost there,” she whispered to him. The ground was earthy now and there were roots protruding down from the ceiling. Draco was sure they were no longer in the castle but somewhere under the castle grounds.

“Still not going to tell me where we’re going?”

Another giggle and then, “Nope, you’ll just have to wait and see.”

She was right, they were almost there. A moment later and Ginny was whispering a password to a wrought iron gate. Draco could feel the cool night air hitting him from the other side of the gate, and was pleased when the gate opened and revealed a sprawling garden under the stars.

He inhaled the cool fresh air deeply and only after she had released his hand did Draco realize that he had been holding her hand for the last ten minutes.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Ginny asked him, twirling slowly and looking up at the stars.

Draco nodded. This was his secret place… this was the garden Harry had followed him to just before the Dark Lord and his followers had begun their attack on the castle the year before.

“I was never able to get that gate open,” Draco said more to himself than to her.

Ginny looked down from the sky at him. “You’ve been here before?”

He nodded. “I used to come out here all the time before they closed the grounds off… nobody else knew about it. How did you figure out the password for the underground entrance?”

“A portrait told me. This was Helga Hufflepuff’s old garden. Each of the founders had something put in just for their house… Ravenclaw made a hidden library somewhere near her house, Gryffindor made the room of requirement, and Slytherin made the huge Prefect’s bathroom with the pool on the first floor.”

Draco nodded. He hadn’t known that. He looked up to the night sky and took in another deep breath. It was even better out here at night than in the daytime.

He was so engrossed with the glittering stars after a few long moments, that he hadn’t noticed Ginny sidling up next to him until she brushed against his arm. Draco looked down and into her wonderfully green eyes. There was a depth to them that he wanted to fall into and never be found again.

“I’m glad you and Harry became friends,” Ginny said quietly, still gazing into his eyes.

Draco nodded and suddenly felt he was unable to speak. He wanted to kiss her so badly that he felt it in every muscle and bone in his body. If she didn’t look away, he was going to kiss her. Any moment, he thought to himself, any moment and she’ll look away… any moment.

Ginny did not look away, and Draco leaned in slowly, giving her a last chance to pull out of kissing range. She didn’t and in the next second Draco had his lips against hers in the sweetest kiss he’d ever had in his life.

Even as they kissed, Draco expected her to pull away, but she never did. Instead she wrapped her arms around his neck, and he wrapped his around her lower back, pulling her in closer to feel her warmth in the cool night.

When they finally broke for air, neither one seemed able to speak. Instead, their eyes remained locked, and Draco’s heart seemed to be speaking volumes for him.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Ginny frowned ever so slightly. “Why?”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have done that. It makes things complicated.”

She searched his eyes for more information, but found none. “Maybe I like things complicated.”

If his heart wasn’t beating fast enough before, it was running races now. “Me too.”

She pulled closer to him and put her head on his chest. This too frightened Draco. He felt like her head belonged there and like her body belonged there in his embrace. Things were so dark and dangerous right now… especially for him. How could he bear to lose something so precious if it were ripped away from him by the Dark Lord?

“Ron’s going to disown me,” Ginny said quietly, head comfortable against his beating heart.

Draco nodded, breathing in the wonderful scent of her hair. “We don’t have to tell anybody.” Even as he said it his heart slowed a little with disappointment. Inside he wanted to shout aloud to everybody he knew that he and Ginny had kissed, and what’s more that he was in love with her.

Ginny pulled back suddenly and shook her head. “I’m not going to let him get in the way. He’s being stupid.”

“Good.”

They stood there in the garden for some time simply enjoying each other’s embrace, and it was well into the night before they made their way back into the castle and to their common rooms.

The next day, Draco was walking on air. He felt invincible like nothing could touch him, and his near death experience from the night before had faded from his mind as if it had happened years ago.

Harry seemed to notice the change in Draco’s mood. “That must be some magical black eye,” he commented at breakfast.

Draco looked up, grinning. “Huh?”

“Well, yesterday you were your normal sullen self, and today you seem to be somebody else altogether.”

Draco shrugged, unable to rid himself of the grin.

“I know what that look is,” Harry said after a few moments with a mouthful of toast. “That’s the stupid grin every man alive gets when he’s fallen for someone.”

“Hm…” Draco took several drinks of apple juice and looked Harry straight in the eye. “Well maybe I have and maybe she fell for me back.”

Narrowing his eyes, Harry wondered if it was possible that Ginny liked Draco as much as he figured Draco liked her, but in the next moment his suspicions were confirmed when Ginny came up and had a seat next to Draco. Under the table their hands met and their fingers laced together. She wore the same goofy grin that Draco did.

“Ha! I knew it!” Harry pointed his fork at the pair. Lowering his voice he said, “You two snuck off somewhere last night and snogged when I went down the table to talk to Hermione!”

Ginny’s face reddened and Draco looked proud. “Well maybe you could wait until we had the chance to tell people before you shout it to the whole school?” Ginny asked him.

Harry nodded, proud of himself that he had figured it out before he had been told. “No worries here. I wouldn’t want Ron to find out anyhow… bad enough him disowning his best mate. No need for him to start picking off his family too.”

“Well I’m not worried about him so much,” Ginny said, though her statement lacked confidence. “If he wants to be stupid, let him be. It’s none of his business anyway.”

Harry glanced down the table to where Hermione sat. She kept shooting the three of them glances. “Do you think Hermione’s told him?” Harry asked.

Draco frowned. “Hermione knows?”

“Ginny and Hermione are girls in case you’ve forgotten… girls spread news like this like wild fire.”

Draco thought on this as Ginny told Harry that boys were just as bad. “And besides that, she won’t tell anybody until I say it’s ok to.” Draco’s attention was brought back to the conversation when Ginny moved their locked hands to rest on his knee. It startled him, but he was enjoying the contact with her immensely. His entire body felt energized just holding her hand, like an electrical current was running through him. He’d never felt that way holding a girl’s hand before.

At lunch Draco had Harry to himself for a moment before Ginny arrived. He took the time to ask Harry a burning question. “How did you deal with Snape seeing all of your thoughts? I mean… you know. There are some things in my head I don’t want anybody to see but me.”

Harry shook his head. He had no good advice for his friend. “I hated it too. I was having nightmares where Voldem- where he was killing me every night and Severus was just standing there watching. I… well, that’s how he figured out I thought of him as a parent. In my dream I was saying, ‘help me dad.’”

Draco swallowed hard. While what Snape had seen in Harry’s mind was embarrassing, he had horrors locked away in his that he kept buried there for good reasons. He had seen his father murder people in the worst ways from the time he was old enough to remember, and what’s more, he had had the crap beaten out of him more times than he could remember. He also didn’t want anyone to intrude on his private feelings for Ginny.

“So what do I do then?” Draco asked. Severus had approached him after breakfast and informed him that he wanted to start Occlumency lessons Monday night.

“Learn quick,” Harry said. “I can help you practice, but then you have two people seeing what’s in your mind instead of just one. It’s up to you.”

If he had a choice at all, he would opt out of the lessons altogether he thought to himself. He felt he didn’t have a choice though, because he didn’t want to disappoint Snape.

Ginny walked into the Great Hall and sat down next to Draco again as she had done at breakfast, taking his hand under the table. The warmth her hand gave him spread up his fingers and through his entire arm. She was just telling him and Harry that she had heard that Pansy had locked herself in the seventh year Slytherin girls dormitory and wouldn’t come out, but was cut off by a flurry of owls swarming in through the windows, dropping papers and letters in front of people.

“That’s odd,” Harry said. “It’s way past morning post and I’ve never seen them come in twice in one day like this before.”

Draco looked up and caught the newspaper his eagle owl dropped from above him and Harry took the copy Hedwig dropped in his lap. Ginny leaned in over Draco to see what it said and gasped at the picture on the front page. Students around the Great Hall were doing the same as they opened up their copy of the Special Edition Daily Prophet to find a picture of parts of the Ministry of Magic in ruins.

“A Ministry Mess,” Draco read the headline aloud and several students without copies of the paper came from Ravenclaw table to stand behind Draco and Harry and read over their shoulders.

“Read it aloud then,” a younger student who couldn’t push his way through the crowd said.

There were other nods from around him, so Draco took his cue, unused to so many people wanting to crowd around him, and read, “Ministry of Magic in ruins. It appears that the Ministry has finally broken under the strain. Minster Cornelius Fudge is nowhere to be found, and it is suspected that he and several other missing Ministry Members have been abducted in the attack lead by the Dark Lord and his followers around eight am this morning.

“While it is unknown what exactly prompted the attack on the Ministry this morning, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement stated in an official press release this afternoon that it may have had something to do with four newly expelled Hogwarts students that were taken into custody last night after attacking three unnamed students. The suspects 17 year olds Blaise Zabini, Millicent Bulstrode, Vincent Crabbe, and 16 year old Evan Issacs were reportedly freed from their holding cells this morning during the attack, and have disappeared with the rest of the Dark Lord’s followers.

If anybody has any information on the missing suspects, the attack on the Ministry of Magic, the Dark Lord, or the whereabouts of the Minister of Magic and other missing Ministry staff, please contact the Department of Magical Law Enforcement immediately.

Until the Minister can be found, the Ministry urges people to remain calm and to stay in their homes if at all possible. Diagonally has been closed until further notice to prevent the magical shopping center from becoming a target, and most store owners in Hogsmead have closed shop as well.

Further updates will be sent in the evening edition of the Daily Prophet.”

The listeners gathered around them were hushed when Draco finished reading. Ginny gripped Draco’s hand tighter, and finally a second year Ravenclaw girl standing in the back said, “My dad works in the Ministry of Magic. Were there any names of the people that were taken?”

Draco shook his head. “No.” He glanced at Ginny as people dispersed to go and find their friends from other tables or to spread the news to those that had not been at lunch. “I’m sure he’s fine,” Draco tried to offer her in comfort, referring to her father.

“Percy works there too,” Ginny said quietly. “And Bill and Charlie were there helping dad with a few things because he was swamped… they were going to be there until next week.”

Harry swallowed as Ginny leaned into Draco and he put his arm around her for comfort. Ron was halfway down the table towards them when he saw this, and stopped before he turned back and left he Great Hall. Harry shook his head, wondering that Ron couldn’t even come down to comfort his little sister.

Before the end of lunch, several other owls appeared carrying letters to students, but there was no letter for Ginny. Three Hufflepuffs jumped up from their table and ran from the Great Hall in tears when they received their letters, and a fifth year Ravenclaw boy slammed his fist down on the table in anger when he opened up the letter that had been delivered to him.

Hermione came over to them and sat next to Harry. “I hate this,” she said. “I wish Voldemort didn’t exist.” Because both of Draco’s arms were occupied, he didn’t move to pick anything up to throw at her for saying Voldemort’s name, but he did shoot her a dark look.

“It’s my job to make sure he’s stopped,” Harry said solemnly, remembering the prophecy.

Hermione looked worried, and said, “You’re not planning on going after him are you?”

Draco and Ginny looked up at him too. Harry shook his head. “I won’t have to. He’s going to make his way here again. But when the time comes, he’s going to pay for all the pain he’s caused the rest of the world.”

Feeling tied to Harry’s oath, Draco nodded. It might be the death of him to do it, but he would see an end to Voldemort. He wasn’t going to let Harry go it alone.