Drabble Challenge #001 - Abolish
Title: Flee No Hope
Length: 859 words
Note to self: Get better job
Five years since the war had been lost and Ginny found herself working for the enemy. Really, there was nothing else she could do, unless she wanted to watch her family die; unless she wanted to suffer death herself.
She hated being a secretary, though. If the Dark Lord wanted her to participate in the slaughtering of thousands of innocent Muggles around the world, the least he could do was give her a better job. Glaring down at the sheet in front of her, Ginny wondered if Prisoner 3494 had any relation to her past. If so, she was glad they'd escaped, if only for a brief while.
Note to self: Forget Harry Potter
That aside.
The next parchment had information about a rebel group which had managed to find support in east Asia. Definitely worth checking out, Ginny thought. Last she'd checked, Harry had been running east. Really, the connection was almost logical in her mind.
A young man approached her. Though he was a year older than Ginny, perhaps even two, his youth would never die. He was a Loyal Follower of the Dark, but he certainly didn't look it. Weren't the bad guys supposed to be evil?
"Here," he said haughtily, handing her another stack of parchments. He looked down at the little pile of purple sticky notes on her desk with a raised eyebrow. "Get back to work."
On what? Ginny asked herself, and marked 'abolished' underneath the information about the revolution in east Asia. Everybody who had attempted was now dead, she'd heard. Why did they need it on record?
Note to self: Stop it with the notes
Lucius Malfoy rarely came in to see over her work. He trusted her as one of his only loyal Blood Traitors. Not because she agreed with his cause, but because she had long since lost faith in her own.
He picked up a purple sticky note which read 'Forget Harry Potter' and sneered at her. She stared back at him passively. Punish me, she thought. I dare you. It really would be the last straw. She might then be able to break herself out of this apathy.
"How…touching," he told her. It struck her suddenly that the curl of his lips made him look an awful lot like Snape, even though he was everything the greasy-haired Potions Master had not been. The man could have lived if he'd not stood up for a guilty conscience at the very last moment. And he had called Gryffindors stupid.
Lucius did exactly as Ginny had thought he would. He burned her stack of sticky notes with a flick of his wand. "I would not object to punishing you, Blood Traitor," he said, his voice like silk. How he managed that affect, Ginny didn't know. Probably the same way he managed his tailored outfit and eloquent expression.
"Anything different from the norm, Mr. Plastic," Ginny replied without thinking, mocking his smooth, careless tone. His ice blue eyes flashed with anger.
Note to self: Actually, don't stop
He'd left without another word and Ginny wrote the words down on her arm, enjoying the feel of the quill scratching up her skin. She knew he'd be back later and then she'd really suffer. But it was worth it.
She kept this job to save her family, to keep them alive. She only saw them on Saturdays, when she was allowed to travel to the Work Camps and serve soup and stale bread. Charity work.
What family? She'd never thought to ask this before. Now that she had, though, the apathy withered. A flame of resentment flickered within her and she knew what she was going to do. Even if it would cost her own life.
Even if it would destroy her family.
Note to self: Forget Harry Potter
Perhaps she'd gone insane, but Ginny didn't care. The lights flickered out. Picking up her pen, because for some reason that was still important to her, to write these little notes which had been her last form of resistance, she left what had once been the proud center of bureaucracy in the wizarding world.
It was now a cavern of wickedness.
She walked through the corridors, saying goodbye to her past one last time. Her father had once worked in the very office she passed to get out, heels clicking rhythmically on the hard granite floor. Harry would have done something foolish, too.
Note to self: Run
She wrote the note on her hand just as she'd reached the broken-down telephone booth. It seemed to her rather self-demeaning for leaving it there. Perhaps the Death Eaters hadn't meant for it to be the last standing memorial of Muggles and a time when they had known freedom.
She bolted, still clutching the pen in her hand. Running was not allowed anymore, because it caused chaos and confusion. Immediately there were Death Eaters at the scene, wearing pristine black robes and skull-like white masks. A flash of green lightning struck through the street. Innocent bystanders screamed as a weary young Weasley fell to her death.
Ginny held onto her pen.
