Poison Ivy || Draco Malfoy

59 - The Fight for Justice

The weeks rolled by and my stomach grew and grew.

Percy remained in a coma, with the Weasley's rumoured to be keeping a bedside vigil.

Pansy, Blaise and I continued in our quest to free Draco. We even managed to get a hold of all the girls who had taken my art classes; all of whom happily agreed to sign a petition and even offered to hold a protest outside Harry's office - which they did - much to Harry's annoyance. Although he didn't seem to mind when his assistant, Annie, got into a cat fight with my ex-student, Tabitha.

And, despite the distress it caused me, I spoke out about my ordeal. I knew I needed to do it to help Draco's plight, to make people understand his motives. So, with Blaise's inside contacts with the local wizarding radio station, I was able to broadcast my story.

Harry was furious, saying that I'd gone and ruined any chance of getting a conviction now, and that I was lucky he wasn't arresting me for slander, but I didn't care. All I cared about was freeing Draco. He didn't deserve to be in that place. And he certainly didn't deserve to have his soul sucked cruelly from his body.

The amount of attention we caught after my radio interview was phenomenal. People wrote to me in droves all offering me their support in my fight for justice. Some even shared that they'd been through a similar experience and wished they'd had someone as loving and as brave as Draco to rescue them.

Crowds started gathering outside the Ministry, protesting their objection to Draco's unfair imprisonment and demanding that Harry be removed from his position as Head Auror.

"This is becoming ridiculous, Ivy!" Harry spluttered on the doorstep of Pansy's country manor. "The crowds are starting to draw in the Muggle's attention and we've had to make alternative arrangements for the visitors entrance since your protestors have started camping in the phone-box!"

"Don't you talk to my sister like that," Pansy spat, as she came to join me at the threshold; arms crossed defiantly, "and if you don't like it, then you know what to do. Free Draco."

"MY WIFE'S BROTHER IS STILL IN A COMA BECAUSE OF HIM!" Harry bellowed.

I immediately started to close the door on his face. We'd been going through this same conversation over and over again, and it never got us anywhere. Harry refused to back down and so did I.

In fact, I realised, I'd spend the rest of my life fighting to get justice for Draco, even if circumstances meant that I could never see him again.

A fact that wasn't lost on Ginny Potter.

It was one hot evening in July, three months after Draco's attack on Percy when she paid me an unannounced visit.

"I'm here to ask you civilly, to put a stop to these vulgar rumours about my brother," she said coldly, her eyes looking anywhere but at my seven month pregnant stomach.

"I'm only speaking the truth, Ginny," I said quietly, yet firmly; trying not to show the hurt on my face. "And I think a small part of you knows that, the part that was once upon a time my friend."

"Never!" Ginny spat, her eyes now sparking in fury. "The Ivy I knew would never publicly accuse someone of something so horrific when they aren't even able to defend themselves!"

"Draco is in prison because of your brother and what he's done to me," I said steadily. "He doesn't deserve to be in there."

"HE'S IN PRISON BECAUSE HE IS NOTHING BUT A VIOLENT THUG!" Ginny screamed, her whole body shaking violently. "And I will never allow Harry to release him. NEVER!"

But then something happened, something that changed everything.

And it turned out that Draco's saviour was the very last person in the world I had expected to stand up.

It shocked us all.

*****

On the twenty-sixth of August, almost four months to the day when he was put in a coma, Percy Weasley woke up.

The first thing he saw upon opening his eyes was his mother leaning over him; her face flooded with tears as she brushed his fringe across his forehead.

"My boy," she trembled, smiling through her tears, "my beautiful, darling boy. You came back to us."

But Molly's boy just shook his head sadly as he opened his mouth to speak, and yet found that he could not.

"Shhh, son," Molly whispered in his ear, "it'll take time, let's have the healers check you over first."

But this could not wait, for during his time in his unconscious world, when he was in that place between life and death; Percy had had a visitor.

His dead brother, Fred.

"You need to go back and do the right thing," Fred had said to a sobbing Percy. "And Mum will forgive you because she's our mother and she loves you. She loves all of us. Go back, confess, and get help."

And so here he was, awake again and lying in the hospital bed, looking up at his mother and trying desperately to find the words, but his body wasn't working properly, and his voice seemed to have disappeared.

It would take time, they explained, his body still had a lot of strengthening to do before it could function properly.

So, every morning, when his mother walked into his room, he tried to say the words, but still they would not come.

And then, on the thirty-first of August, five days after he had woken up, he found that his voice had finally returned.

"Mother," he rasped, as she once again patted his head and lovingly stroked his cheek.

"What is it my darling boy?" She whispered, her eyes glistening in joy at finally hearing her son call her that again. "Take your time, love, there's no rush."

"I-Ivy," he stuttered, willing his tongue to make the movements.

His mother's face darkened the moment the name left his cracked lips. "That woman is better off out of our lives, Percy," she snapped. "She is nothing but a cold blooded liar."

But Percy gave his head a mournful little shake, looking up at his mother imploringly.

"N-no, Mother," he said, his voice becoming more strangled by the second as his tongue started to tire, "she- she's not l-lying."

Molly widened her eyes in alarm, refusing to believe that the words coming out of her son's mouth could be what she thought he meant.

"What are you trying to say, Percy?" She trembled, praying with everything inside of her that she had simply misheard.

But there was no denying what he said next; with each clearly spoken word hitting her with such force that Molly would later reflect that it had felt as though she was being repeatedly punched; each word a deafening blow.

"I raped her, Mother. I raped Ivy."

*****