Drowning

Ginny isn\'t sure when the madness began.

Perhaps it was the by-law, passed in the year she left Hogwarts, which legally made associating with Muggles an Azkaban-punishable offence. But, of course, the segregation had begun long before that.

Perhaps it was the effective martial law declared by the Ministry in her sixth year because of the threat posed by You Know Who.

She suspects, however, that it all began long before that. Maybe it began with the speech made by the Minister at the beginning of her fifth year.

\"We seek peace. We strive for peace. And sometimes peace must be defended. A future lived at the mercy of terrible threats by an evil man is no peace at all. We will fight You Know Who and we will defeat him for our cause is just. We will eliminate him and his kind.\"

Ginny and her friends were huddled around magic-tolerant radio listening to WWN when she first heard these words. Her friends couldn\'t understand why she couldn\'t stop laughing.

\"Him and his kind,\" she had repeated, between giggles. \"His kind, indeed!\"

Yes, perhaps, it had begun there.

The whole madness that engulfed the wizarding world had crept upon them like a Lethifold in the night. Everything was cloaked in respectability. Everything was for their own good.

Words repeated over and over again by Fudge and his staff. In different guises.

\"We\'re ensuring the peace of the wizarding world for years to come.\"

\"We\'re building a stable society that even You Know Who will find hard to topple.\"

\"This action was taken with the safety of our children in mind.\"

\"Now we can walk the streets of Diagon Alley in peace.\"

Reassuring words.

All the while, Aurors were stationed at every street corner. The Wizengamot was slowly stripped of its power. With smiles, and platitudes, Fudge was given full control of the British Ministry.

\"The current system is mired in bureaucracy. This way is better for us all. Control will, of course, be handed back immediately to the Wizengamot when You Know Who is no longer a threat.\"

It sounded perfectly innocent. Perfectly innocuous. But Voldemort had been killed these past five years and still Minister Fudge was in control.

We\'re drowning in this madness, Ginny thinks as she walks slowly along the streets of Diagon Alley.

It all still looks the same. She could have been fooled into thinking that it was fifteen years ago when everything was still bright and the gauzy veil of childhood innocence still obscured her vision. Look, didn\'t she get ice-cream from there in her very first year at Hogwarts. Ginny can still remember the taste. Vanilla and sweet cherry. She hasn\'t tasted anything so sweet for the past ten years.

She walks past an Auror, stiffly silent, beside the doorway of the Diagon Pub. Pushing open the door, Ginny steps inside. She wonders whether this place has changed at all. Or has it been as perfectly preserved as the alley outside.

\"What would you like, Miss Weasley.\" The barman is solicitously polite.

So different yet the same, Ginny thinks as she orders a butterbeer. She gulps the drink down.

Even the butterbeer tastes the same.

\"Miss Weasley.\" A perfectly manicured hand is placed on her shoulder.

She gestures to the stool beside her and the person sits down with look of distaste.

\"Could you have not chosen a more appropriate location for our meeting?\" he asks and gestures for the barman to come over. \"Scotch.\" The barman returns with the scotch and then retreats away, with a bow for Ginny.

She raises an eyebrow. \"Better not let the Auror outside hear that. Muggle sympathisers quickly disappear around here.\"

His upper lip curled into the same characteristic sneer she remembered so well from school. \"Tell me, my dear Ginevra Weasley, when have I been a Muggle sympathiser?\"

Ginny gives him a cold smile. \"Calling me by that name is not a good way of getting me in a good mood.\"

\"Bad memories?\" Draco Malfoy\'s face is impassive.

\"My family\'s traitorous tendencies have nothing to do with it,\" she replies icily. Madness.

\"Yet you want me to place you in touch with one of your brothers. Why, Miss Weasley, would a loyal Ministry employee want to talk to such a traitor. Such a Muggle-lover.\"

\"My reasons are my own.\"

He gives her a calculating look. \"I would have never pegged you to work the Ministry when we were at school.\"

Ginny shrugs.

\"In fact,\" he continues blandly, \"I would have thought that there would have been a role reversal here. You know, me being the loyal Ministry sycophant, and you being, well, in my role.\"

\"Our lives sometimes take unexpected directions.\" We\'re drowning in the madness.

He throws back the entire scotch in one gulp. \"Which brother do you want to meet?\"

\"Ronald.\"

Draco raises an eyebrow. \"The Traitor?\" he repeats with a note of incredulity in his voice. \"You are aware of the penalty.\"

Ginny laughs dryly. \"Ginevra Weasley. Head of the Department of Social Control. Do you really think that I am unaware of the methods used?\"

He nods slowly. \"I suppose not. How do I know that I will not end up in a cosy Azkaban cell for this.\"

She shrugs. \"I cannot give you anything but my word. All it takes is one shout, just one shout, from me and you\'ll see that lovely little cell.\" She lets the unsaid implications dawn in his mind.

Draco stands up abruptly. \"I will be in touch.\" He walks to the door of the pub. \"What do you plan on doing with him?\"

\"That, Malfoy, is none of your business.\"

He gives her a reluctant bow. She can tell that he wants to ask more, but is terrified of her rank. There is something ironic in that thought that makes Ginny want to laugh. A Malfoy bowing to a Weasley. That was something for the history books. But she suppresses the laugh.

Standing up, she brushes away invisible specks of lint off her impeccable robes and gives a curt nod to the barman who is in a far corner of the bar. He gives her another bow as she leaves.

The entire wizarding world stands still when I pass, Ginny thinks. Strangely enough the thought doesn\'t bother her as much as she thinks it should. I\'m just another person drowning in this madness.

Tom would be proud of me. The thought comes unbidden and she cringes away from it. She doesn\'t want to make Tom proud. Does she? It doesn\'t matter now. He\'s dead. Has been dead for five years. Tom\'s gone. Harry\'s gone too. Almost all the loves of her life have gone now.

They\'ve left me behind, she thinks furiously as she Apparates back home. Only Ron is left. Her brother. Her love.

\"Ginny?\" the tremulous whisper comes from behind her.

She spins around, wand immediately drawn from her sleeve. \"Show yourself,\" she snaps, \"or face the wrath of the Ministry.\"

\"Ginny,\" the person whispers again. \"It\'s me.\"

Ginny freezes. The voice is familiar. Too familiar. Who knew that Malfoy would have been so fast? She composes herself. \"You left me behind,\" she spits.

Ron sighs and emerges from the shadows. Ginny hides the involuntary shudder that goes through her. He is only a year older - less even - than her, but he looks so ravaged.

\"I\'m sorry,\" he says softly. \"I\'m so, so, sorry.\" He steps forward and attempts to touch her face, but she jerks her head away.

\"You abandoned me,\" she manages to say, without a tremor in her voice. \"You just?left one morning.\"

He runs a hand through his messy red hair. She notices that it is almost mid-back length now. Far longer than her Ministry-approved shoulder length hair. The same colour as hers though. Bright, bright red. Like blood.

\"Hermione found out,\" he says finally. \"That last evening, under the stars at Hogwarts. She saw us. She confronted me when I went back.\" He looks at her desperately. \"I had to leave. Merlin, Ginny! She was pregnant. I couldn\'t stay here with you?not with her knowing.\" He spreads his hands helplessly. \"None of us guessed that it would have ended like this. We never thought that Fudge would ?we never thought that you would ?

\"That\'s Minister Fudge,\" Ginny says slowly, almost robotically. The words seem to wash over her. Drowning in madness. \"You chose her over me. You chose your wife over your sister!\"

\"That\'s just it,\" Ron says desperately. \"You\'re my sister. Can\'t you see now? It was wrong. It shouldn\'t have ever happened. We were weak.\"

She tilts her head to one side, ignoring the rushing anger gathering around her. \"Weak, Ron?\" A smile flits over her lips. \"And don\'t you feel the same weakness now.\" She walks over to him and looks him in the eyes. Her darker hazel eyes staring into his light nut brown ones. \"Admit it, Ron, you\'ve always liked me better.\" She gives a wild little laugh.

Ron places his hands on her shoulders and tries to push her away, but Ginny wriggles closer.

\"I could change the laws, you know,\" she whispers into his ear, as her fingers undo the top button of his Muggle jeans. \"I\'m sleeping with the Minister, did you know that? He fucks me on top of the desk in his office. Over all the paperwork. Makes the bloody paperwork far more interesting. He\'d do anything I asked of him. Even legalise incest.\" She looks up into his eyes and smiles as she wraps her fingers around his cock. \"We could be together, Ron. I could have your arrest order revoked. We could be truly together. You just have to say the word.\"

She kneels down awkwardly. The floor of her foyer is nothing like the floor of the Minister\'s office and she admits she prefers the latter. Plush carpet is far nicer to kneel on than hardwood floors. Licking a trembling drop of pre-come off her brother, she feels him shudder slightly. \"It\'s like coming home, Ron,\" she whispers as she takes the entire cock in her mouth.

\"Oh, Merlin, Ginny,\" Ron gasps. \"We can\'t be doing this any more. It\'s? his entire body convulses and she feels the bitterness of his come trickle down her throat, \"wrong,\" he finishes weakly.

Wiping her mouth slowly, Ginny gets up and stares her brother in the eye. \"I\'m the only one who can satisfy you like that,\" she says. \"We\'re not young any more. And even when we were teenagers, can you honestly say Hermione could do that for you?\"

\"That\'s not the point!\"

\"We\'re made for each other,\" Ginny says quietly, in an almost sing-song fashion. \"Ron and Ginny Weasley. We even have the last name. How wonderful is that?\" She kisses him, her tongue tracing his bottom lip. A fire bubbles up in her and she feels happy for the first time since he left. \"You taste wonderful.\"

\"We can\'t do this. For Merlin\'s sake, I have a child!\" Ron says desperately. \"A beautiful young girl.\"

Ginny smiles. \"And she can join us.\" She kisses Ron again, feeling him tremble. \"Don\'t fight this, my brother. You know that we were mean to be.\"

She feels his arms enclose around her and feels him hardening again against her.

\"So be it,\" he mutters into the collar of her robes before kissing her hungrily. Ginny\'s knees almost buckled. \"My darling, darling sister. I\'ve missed you so much.\"

\"Show me.\"

Ginny leads her brother into her bedroom. She can still see indecision playing on his features. \"Remember the game we used to play?\" She smiles in encouragement and throws herself backwards onto the bed, opening her legs.

\"We? Ron trails off.

\"We used to play pretend.\" Ginny laughs. \"We used to pretend that you would rape me. Remember how much we enjoyed that?\" She opens her legs further. She never wore underwear any more. The Minister didn\'t like it.

Ron gulps visibly. Then in a motion so fast that she missed it, he had her pinned to the bed. She could feel the muscles of his legs tighten around her waist as he brought her arms above her head and held them there. \"My little bitch whore of a sister,\" he says hoarsely as he lifts her robes above her waist. \"You enjoy this don\'t you?\"

Ginny doesn\'t say anything but struggles slightly. She knows her brother likes this.

He enters her roughly with no preparation and she arches up to meet him. There is pain but there is also the memories that flood Ginny. The first time they did this, she was shy and scared and they were in the Gryffindor Common Room. They had been terrified that somebody would walk in. She feels him hit deep inside her and moans as he thrusts harder. Nobody else has ever done this for her. Even the Minister is rather solicitous and is scared to bring her this beautiful pain.

With a gasp, Ron comes and collapses on her.

\"My Ron,\" she says softly and smoothes his hair away from his face.

\"Ginny,\" he whispers. \"Nobody else?

He doesn\'t seem like he can finish, but Ginny understands. \"Stay with me..\"

He doesn\'t answer, but that is reply enough for Ginny.

They\'re together now and forever. Both drowning in this madness. This beautiful madness.

And that\'s all that matters.

-fin

This is an one shot. Reviews are very welcome!