Disclaimer-This is all JKR’s. I kind of used one of her ideas more closely than usual, so I felt I should update the whole disclaimer thing. Not that the rest of it was mine anyways. *sigh*

Advice from the Batty One

~~~~~

Throughout the next few weeks, things changed for Ginny. Whenever she passed Draco and the rest of the Slytherins in the hall, she heard laughter. Including that of her boyfriend. And not the good type of laughing that never failed to lift her spirits; it was the cruel, mocking kind. It was for the best, she knew that, but it didn’t make it any easier. She tried to keep her head up and ignore them, but she was constantly close to tears. She’d heard all of the rumors: she was a slut, Draco was going to just kill her after the baby was born, she was so stupid for sleeping with him, all of it. And the laughter certainly did not help things. Occasionally, she would glance at her lover’s face. Whenever no one else was watching, he would give her a warm smile, making her tears cease. So long as she knew he loved her, she found it much easier to ignore everyone else.

But no one was more furious than Ron. His face had turned a permanent shade of red. He had blown up his cauldron with pure, uncontrollable anger on several occasions because he had to share the dungeons with the Slytherins every week.

During one particular class, it had taken Dean, Seamus, Harry, Neville, and Hermione combined to hold him back from strangling Draco. Though Ginny had told him about Draco’s. . . circumstances, he hadn’t really believed her.

On one such occasion, Draco had been talking to Pansy, Crabbe and Goyle. They were asking him what he was going to do about the pregnancy. He was forced to tell them a lie, keep his premise up, and Ron had overheard.

“Well, I’ll obviously keep the child. It will be pure blood, though Weasley is not exactly my first choice for the mother. I’m not sure what I’ll do with her after the kid is born. Once I’ve taken the child, I’ll probably use Cruciatus or Avada her sorry arse.”

At this statement, snickering could be heard from all of the Slytherins. Ron was so angry at this statement, his potion blew up for the third time that month. His face was so red it looked like it was about to explode as well.

It was the next comment from Pansy that pushed him over the edge.

“So, how did it feel to take that little bitch’s virginity? Was she any good?”

Pansy was extremely lucky the rest of the Gryffindors wanted to keep their house points by stopping Ron, or she would have probably been hexed into the middle of Timbuktu with a very uncomfortable rash and an angry Hippogriff.

~~~~~

Draco met with Ginny almost every night; at least, those when he was able to sneak away from the rest of the Slytherins. Every time, they would brainstorm what to do once the baby came and she wasn’t safe anymore. But neither could come up with anything.

All of the rumors and the front put up by Draco were finally, over time, getting to her. Often, she would start crying all of a sudden. It could sometimes take nearly an hour for him to calm her down. He hated seeing her grow so depressed, but there was nothing he could do. Except. . .

“Ginny, I’m going to talk to Dumbledore.” he said one night as he sat with her crying in his arms.

“Draco, you can’t! What if someone from the other side finds out you asked for his help? Then we’d be in more danger than we are now. I won’t let you,” she answered stubbornly.

“But it’s the only way. We are obviously not coming up with anything ourselves. Besides, if anyone sees me in his office, I can just tell them that he was interrogating me or something.”

“I suppose. But please be careful,” she agreed grudgingly after thinking it over for a moment. “After all, I do still happen to still love you, you little prat.”

“I know. And I will.”

~~~~~

Draco cautiously stepped into the headmaster’s office the next night.

“Ah, Draco Malfoy, please have a seat. What brings you here?” he said absently without even looking up from his desk.

“I need your help.”

“Really? You must be in dire need to come ask someone like me for something.”

“Yes. I am,” he said, not noticing the sarcasm. “It’s about Ginny. I assume you’ve heard the rumors?”

“Naturally. But I have no way of knowing whether they are true.”

“Whatever I say in here will not be told to anyone else, right?”

“Correct. Everything that goes on in this office never leaves this office.”

Draco took a deep breath and began, “I am a spy. I pretend to be a Death Eater in training, as my father would most likely kill me if I wasn’t. But I don’t agree at all with the Dark Bastard. I try to mess up every plan of his that I can without alerting him to my incompetence. It was working well, until Ginny got pregnant.” He paused for a moment before going on with his little confession.

“If they knew that I actually cared about her....” He shuddered, and continued, “So I have to pretend I just want her safe to protect my child, who I will raise to be a Death Eater. I hate having to say. . .” his voice caught slightly as he thought of what he had told people, but he continued, “say. . .the bad things about her, but it’s the only way to keep her and my child safe. The rumors are getting to her right now, and I can’t stand it. But it will be worse when the baby is born, and I will be expected to kill her, or at the very least, torture her. I could never do that,” he said vehemently. “But I can’t think of a way to protect her after she gives birth.

“I want us to all be a family, without He-Who-Should-Really-Be-Dead interfering. And I need your help to figure out how.” Draco sat back in his chair, looking as though a great weight had been lifted off of his chest.

“Well, that is indeed a problem,” Dumbledore said thoughtfully. “However, I don’t think that there is a way that you can be with Miss Weasley and continue to act as a Death Eater. They would see right through it, as she’s got too much fire and too much family history to be a suitable spouse in Voldemort’s eyes.” Draco flinched slightly upon hearing the name, but didn’t say anything. “You will have to make a choice: give up being a spy, or give up being with your family–at least, I assume that is what they are to you.” He nodded his consent, and Dumbledore finished, “Only once you make that decision will a solution be evident.”

“That’s a stupid question. I’d give up anything for her, even my life,” he said with a passion that made his normally gray eyes turn a vivid blue. “I don’t really want it to come to that because I don’t want her to have to raise the baby alone, but you know what I mean. Of course I choose her.”

“Wise decision,” Dumbledore said with the trademark twinkle in his eye, “One way to protect yourselves comes to mind, but the last time it was tried, it failed.”

“Well, what was it?”

“The Fidelius Charm. It is a spell in which a secret is magically concealed inside one person. That secret can only be discovered if the Secret-Keeper chooses to divulge it themself. Voldemort and his followers could only find you and your family if your Secret-Keeper wishes them to.”

“Why didn’t it work the first time?”

“There are too many factors for me to completely explain, but when the Potters-“ he was cut off by Draco.

“Wait a minute, the Potters were the ones who used it before?” he said skeptically. “And they failed? I don’t want to do anything that involves Harry, especially if it didn’t work.”

“If you would allow me to finish, the spell failed because the Potters’ Secret-Keeper was a spy for Voldemort and he betrayed them.”

“Wow. They were betrayed by someone they trusted to protect their lives?”

“Yes. Almost immediately after the spell was performed, Voldemort came to their hiding place, and, well, you know the rest,” he finished with a wave of his hand.

“But if the one person they trusted betrayed them, how do I know our Secret-Keeper won’t betray us?”

“You don’t.”

With that, Draco left. He had some major thinking to do.

~~~~~

On to A Debate
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