N.A.R.G.L.E.S.
Disclaimer: I do not ever dare to think about owning anything of Harry Potter franchise. JKR is much braver than I in that aspect, because she dares. Hail Jo, hail! Was it clear enough? Right.
Synopsys: There is two major points that defined the relationship of Harry and Ginny. First the famous kiss in the Common room, which ignited the whole affair. The second, not as joyous, was the break-up under the tree, straight after the funeral of Headmaster Dumbledore. Enter the eternal agent of chaos, change and alteration, a simple two words phrase: 'what if'. Insert the chaotic variables before these two significant checkpoints and give them a quality. Like: What if #1=Both Harry and Ginny acted like today's common teens of around seventeen years of age and thus took dating (and their raging hormones) a bit more seriously. And what if that this change affected their streak of adventure also. That done, see to: What if #2=Harry, because of his imperious needs to be with the amazing Ginny were too much, couldn't act upon his overly-idiotic, noble intentions to save her from mortal danger. Intriguing, isn't it? Oh, I almost forgot! There is a 'What if #3'! Namely: What if Sirius was not as dead as, say, other 'normal' dead people – given his unusual dying circumstances.
There. The question is righteous: what the heck can fold out of this mess? Well, keep on reading and find out!
Ch#01 – Prologue (Part 1)
Decide
It was the last day of May during the year 1997. More than three weeks ago, but I still remember it. I will remember it for a long, long time, possibly to my dying days.
It was Professor Dumbledore's funeral that day.
And the day when the plan of my next great adventure manifested in my mind.
The day when many kinds of tears have fallen. Drops filled with despair and woe, with bittersweet hopelessness or with sweet liquid of fakeness and hidden joy. The nerve of those beast, clad in suits and dress robes walking amongst the mourning sheep. Protocol can justify hypocrisy, I learned that day. And nobody cares about the truth behind the ulterior, as long as the beast is there, laughing fake tears from behind their shields of political posts.
That day, I vowed to do something about that. To eradicate the system and help raise a righteous one. Why me? Well, who else? As I said, nobody cares. Everybody is too lazy, waiting for someone to do the right thing. I am fated for greatness, I start to get into terms with that, so why shouldn't I endeavor righting the other wrong after I dealt with the Darn Thorn in the Wizarding World's arse.
That day, I also had to make a few decisions.
Fun fact about decisions: the longer you thing and muse on them, the harder to make they'll became. On the other hand, jumping headlong into one option is considered rash and irresponsible. Or in many cases downright stupid. In my case: also deadly.
So the knack of decisions is to find the medium, the balance. Don't mull on it too long, but don't haste action without thinking of the consequences.
This knack, I never was good with. I limbo between the two extremities and usually hurt myself of others.
So it was quite the miracle that I managed to find something of a medium in this particularly big and serious decision.
Ginny.
Just so the fact to be known, reaching a decision about Ginny was a miracle in itself. The girl was the epitome of unpredictability. I've known her for the better part of six years and she surprised me on the usual frequency of once in an hour for the last two weeks we started dating. The girl was, in one word, intense. She drew your attention automatically, even without you knowing. She took life on the run and not with a big spoon, but with a canteen ladle. She was like, well, like the meaning of life. You search for the ultimate, yet get millions of answers every turn.
And if she keeps up the way she is, she will be all the more closer to be my meaning of life.
Anyway, we were sitting in delicate, humble silence in one of the rows, attending our Headmaster's final lamentation. Close as ever, supporting, and offering a shoulder to cry on for each other. She was beautiful even with the flowing, salty make-up tinting her eyes with a reddish layer. She was sad and pretty. I was troubled and afraid.
I had the girl. I had the mission.
I had the decision to make. The choice to make, for the two were paradoxical. Could not be managed simultaneously, parallel to each other. Ginny was a whole other quest herself; one which I could not afford to start on, due to the status quo. My mission was the one we had embarked on in tandem with Dumbledore; the one which claimed his life; the one which scared the shit out of me. The one which had me stumped at the moment. And probable will hold me stumped for awhile.
Tom Riddle and his undying, stray splinters of souls. Damn them all to hell and back!
Tommy and his branch with the prophecy as icing was the destiny that was forced upon me. Ginny would be the destiny of my choice. The two fates could not interact. Heh! Hell, 'either must die at the hands of the other, for neither can live while the other survives…' Applied to my dilemma so aptly that I was inclined to laugh my ass off. Would have look interesting in the middle of a funeral, though.
When the requiem was over, we, Gin and I, stayed there, waiting for the crowd to dwindle. Ron, bless his lazily maturing heart, got my silent request to give us privacy, and guided a soaked Hermione to someplace else. We were alone and I could feel the tension and suspense in the air crawling on my skin. And yet she was so calm and beautiful.
"Out with it," she said to me and the smile she gave me was fainter and more mysterious than Mona Lisa's. She read me better than a she would a children's picture book.
Looking back now, I'm able to remember what I said. Vaguely.
"Ginny…" That's a start. "Ginny, I…" That's it! Good boy, continue! Keep it up! "I have to… you… but I don't want to… You mustn't… but I need to… you… it's me… Dumbledore told me… so I can't…"
It is highly probable that I was more coherent as a toddler. But wait for it. Me, Ginny and decisions. Here's the result of that mix. Sirius would laugh rolling on the floor if he heard me now. Yeah, Sirius, the techniques worked for most of the girls – but this was Ginny. I looked at her pleadingly. She looked back calmly with shiny-shimmery eyes, waiting.
"Harry…" she breathed.
"Mhmph…?" I, well, eh, responded. If 'mhmph' can be called a response.
"I…have…no…idea…what…you…are…talking…about," she said slowly, with pauses, and with unmistakable amusement.
I have to stress that she really looked so incredibly beautiful, for the next thing I said after a moment of consideration was:
"I shouldn't have, but—Ah, to hell with it! I want you. Now."
Techniques of keeping up the 'I'm awesome' veneer vanished from my mind – not that it worked well. Just as the plans and decisions did. However, he did say that I should go with it, that I should man up and take the rare chance she presented.
She looked at me with an amalgamation of emotions, like, surprise, amusement, mirth, joy, confusion, disapproval and love. All in one cute little jerk of her head, movement of her brow, narrowing of her eyes and twitching of her lips. It was all there. And she still looked gorgeous. Plus, like I said, she lived her life with gusto.
"Let's find a place. Or… if you're in to public exhibit—"
"Okay!" I said hastily and like a mindless, I dunno, animal following instincts, I grabbed her hand and rushed into the closest secluded spot in the vicinity.
That being Hagrid's hut.
Luck was with us, for the people still there were too occupied with talking, mourning, doing anything but watching us hastily depart. We invaded the hut, I pushed in the charred door and had to pick it up and lean it against the doorframe to shield the outside form peeking in. Turning, I rested my torso against it. We just stood there for a moment, staring at the eyes of the other. And for a moment, I forgot the purpose of our sudden flight from the scene.
"Harry?" she tried me curiously.
"I dunno… I'm confused. And quite numb at the moment," I said, feeling exactly like that.
"Then quickly start pumping blood into the right placed, buddy, 'cause your little suggestion suggested my nether bits too. And the sensation I feel is as far from numb as it can be. In fact, if you don't do something about it, I'll start looking for something in Hagrid's stash for fire-ant infestation, 'cause I'm bloody burning, Harry!"
Have I mentioned that she looked mind-blowing beauteous. I think Ginny is the kind of girl who looks beautiful no matter what. She can be torn and dirty and bloody, like in the Depths of Mystery in her fourth year. Or covered in the sticky, smelly goo of Mimbulus Mimbletonia's stinksap - she still looked beautiful. Yeah, I noticed. I also was an idiot. That's the reason for the horrid Cho-tastrophy. Now, I'm not so much of an idiot. I still mumbled incoherently – as you could observe before -, I still was struck speechless – like now -, but I knew what I wanted at least – I just realized.
Acting on that knowledge, I pushed myself from the door and practically pranced on her. I cupped her face and kissed her like there was no tomorrow. Like I was forced to show her all my desire, need, want, commitment and care I wasn't shy to give. And later take away, as I planned before. But the plan became a lost memory, so faint, that a dementor would not have been able to reach and raise it.
I wanted this girl.
That was the first time I really, truly realized that. I wanted to be with her all the time. Her presence was my air and my food and my drink. Her mind was my inspiration and her body was my well of pleasurable joy. Her smile was my hope and her strength my cane. I needed her.
With this realization – later, much later, after the haze of lust ebbed – my former plan was gone with the wind. I decided that yes, I will be gone, but with Ginny. All I needed was her. Ginny was my djinni.
But that was the topic of my musing during my long, boring first week of summer. Right then, I was the farthest from bored.
Her fingers were massaging my boggled mind through my scalp, rendering my hair more chaotic if that was at all possible. And her marvelous lips were on, no, in mine, tongues playing search and destroy. She tasted like Ginny. Ginny was a complex adjective, you see. Like I said, unpredictable, surprising, intense thrill ride. But the flavor was bittersweet. Tonic. The substrate for endless teasing. You know, Gin and her tonic? Heh. She was crazy for pungent and clashing flavors. Bittersweet, sour-sweet, spicy-sweet.
Our bohemian frolicking now shortly after the funeral of our Headmaster could be called – lightly – piquant. But it was a documented reaction to loss. You indulge in life to assure yourself that you still have important things with you. So you want to feel alive. What better way to experience that than sex? Maybe a Wronskij Feint with a Firebolt. Naked. But that's only the second choice.
We were still snogging as if possessed by demons of desire and our automated hand started to peel the layers of annoyance between our burning flesh. I quickly found my first favorite part on a female body, the triangle between her neck, collarbone and armpit. It was a so delicate area, even to look at. I could see the veins pumping her boiling blood behind the soft and milky skin on her neck. The little groove between her collarbone and trapezium muscle as it shifted as her head moved. And the soft bulge of her chest where her perfect little globes start to bulk - they're shivery delightful. To touch and caress the area and then watch as she squirms and gasps.
The girl was so… ergonomic. Everywhere I touched her, my hand fit perfectly. Her skin was silky soft and shiny with perspiration. And touched her I did, without shame or hesitancy. I roamed her glorious surface with reverent, but needy hands. She was not so gentle in her need; she tore the shirt off my chest launching the buttons into orbit, for I swear wild magic swirled around us in sync with our raging lust.
One of her hands found its way down my stomach to rest just above my crotch and I let out a hiss that for once was not parseltongue. I got hold of her hips and drew her harshly against me, trapping her hand that cupped my hardwood between our bodies. I let my eyes roll back into focus and I dropped my gaze down at her. She was looking up at me with a teasing smile on her lips and a glint in her eyes that I've never seen before. It was wild, intense, shiny-shimmery and magnetic.
"You really do want me, don't you?" she asked in low-key tone, which was so sensual that it didn't just ripple through air into my ears, no. It sauntered sexily all the way.
"What did you think? That I was having on you in such a serious matter?" I asked incredulously. Well, as incredulously as I was able to in that state. It was more like a teasing tickle of the naughty, warm grumbling of breath from my throat. She just raised her right brow in a perfectly obvious inviting manner and it was more than everything I've got not to jump on the bait. I reached down to a place that made her hitch on a gulp of air and go wide-eyed. I brought my hand up in align with my mouth and suckled on my own fingers that were suspiciously glistening. All the way thought this maneuver I never took my eyes off of hers. The hand I used was my right one, my wand-hand, which I write with. Which I wrote a sentence over a hundred times with. And as a banner of evidence that sentence was visible to her in all its scarry glory.
"I must not tell lies," I whispered and to top the drama, I raised my left brow in retaliation. She was so mine in a moment. Not that I really had to extort to achieve that goal.
"Then answer me this," she said after the total of ten second it took her to recover from my kinky performance. I counted. She was again back into her teaser-mode, I could see it her eyes. It was on her lips.
"Shoot," I breathed into her mouth which was in a nonsense distance away from mine. I could do my share of tease too!
"How bad do you want me?" she asked in a fake seriousness which was hidden by her half-smirk as she stepped away from me. A good one foot away. I felt cold and robbed. And I could just stare at her. Was this just plain cruel or what?
"Ginny…bloody… What?!" I stuttered. Now I was incredulous one hundred percent.
"How bad do you want me, Harry?" she repeated with a full-blown smirk now and she did a little motion with her body that caused a little motion in my pants. Bloody hell that woman!
"Would you just look at me?" I demanded her and my arms align in a way that would cause all attention on me preferably shift downwards to the area between my taut lower stomach flaked with a stripe of hair and my half-tugged-down jeans. There was the hard and unmistakable clincher you needed.
"Oh my!" she gasped. I could tell immediately it was fake. "It looks bad. You should see a healer with that. Does it hurts?" she asked with incredibly credible concern.
"Gin, I beg you, don't fuck around," I cried. "You keep this up and my fuse will blow." She giggled. Giggled!
"I have the cure. You only have to tell me how bad you want me."
"Very badly," I stressed. Man, girls can be cruel.
"Say, would you be willing to play a little game for the cure?" she asked in a calculating way. This was evil blackmail! But I was in a very pressing situation, so…
"Yes!"
"The name of the game is: 'Obey Your Mistress'. What do you say?" Oh-khay… Probably I looked like a lost puppy right then. In all likelihood, I might have even whimpered. "What was that?"
"Okay…?" I uttered. It was so uncertain and pained that she could have mistaken it from a dog's whining.
"You will say: Yes, Mistress!" she ordered. Wow, she really has extreme fantasies. Oh, well, she's the One. I'm going head over heels for her. And I'm desperate enough. Let's indulge her…
"Yes, Mistress!"
"Good, pet!" Pet?! What the—"On your knees!" I did as she told. She back away and sat in one of the huge chairs of Hagrid's that was not burned in a way that revealed the Gate to Heaven in its full glory.
"I always wondered about something... About another usage of parseltongue…" she told me and my gears clicked to grasp the meaning. She meant to… me… my tongue… her… that way… "Crawl over here and kneel before your Mistress!" I did in a haze. "Sing my Valentine song I wrote to you into me in parseltongue!" I did a double-take. Frankly, it was all I could do. And then snorted. And started laughing. It was funny!
BAMM!
I saw a few stars, so hard so slapped me. She slapped me! Ginny really played her role with empathize. "Cease this laughter! Don't you dare laugh at your Mistress again!" she commanded, her face as stern as McGee's. And that's saying something.
"I apologize, Mistress," I said humbly. Man, it stung.
"Now proceed with you task, pet!" she swished her wand around, which happened to appear in her hand, and did some charm around the building. Silencing or whatnot.
But proceed?! What a formally worded order, Mistress. Given the style of the task… Nevertheless, I complied and approached my instrument. Inserting the tool, I started singing to an imaginary snake. Enough to say that the result was immediate and would have put a banshee into shame.
Trying to say this without bragging, it took me around seventy seconds to have her bathing in Nirvana. Utterly oblivious to the ambience as she was currently, I dared to stand up and look at her. She looked like a flushed, glistening and impossibly sexy tomato. With limbs. And hair. And boobs. Anyway, she looked not only edible, but delicious. So while she panted and whimpered her bliss, I gently picked her up into my arms and carried her to Hagrid's bed. It was his only – his 'cot' as he said -, but to us puny humans, it was like a double French bed. Miraculously, it was among the few furniture in the room that was untouched by the flames Bella sent out to the hut back during the attack. I 'deposited' her on its center not too gently, which caused her to grunt and come back down to Earth.
"What are you doing, pet?" she demanded. I didn't answer, just crawled atop her. On her account, she did not fight it for a moment. Not even a slap. "Stop this in this instant! I did not order this. And I will not tolerate this behavior!"
"Shush…" I breathed onto her face when I was completely above her.
"What…?" she whispered back, wide-eyed and lost. She – do I have to say – still managed to look inhumanly beautiful. "But we were playing a game…" she complained with a pout.
I gripped her wrists firmly, but not hard enough to hurt her and trapped her hands above her head. I inhaled deeply from her neck and stated my verdict.
"Game over."
Some incalculable time later, I was sprawled in Hagrid's one intact chair with Gin sprawled atop me and with a soft, conjured blanket sprawled atop us. To tell you the truth, it was a position and a company that I would have desired to spend all my remaining lifetime in and with—But.
Always a but…
But this petite girl was heavy. Like you couldn't believe. I haven't the faintest idea why, but she was heavy. Or maybe it was the fact that we stayed like that for like an hour? Numbness returned to dominate the majority of my senses. Yeah, it could be the time my limbs were kept pressurized so that blood scarcely visited them. Not a very serious 'but', but a 'but' all the same… And what a butt indeed! Heh!
Anyway, I was thinking about a lot of things in this one numb hour, for my mind stayed sharp and separate from the predicament of my body. Not that my body had any reason to complain, because it received all the bliss and joy mortal life could offer not that long ago. And my mind shared the experience, but unlike my fatigued body, my mind was fueled by my willpower instead of muscle-power.
And my will was never accused of being weak. So I was thinking. And trying to reach a decision in a serious dilemma.
Again about the very girl resting on my lap – among other things.
The harder I tried the more I realized that I could not make a point through my jumble of thoughts alone. I needed help. Advice, inspiration, an alternative perspective. Who better than the source of all these who was also conveniently in close vicinity?
"Ginny?"
She just turned her smiling face slightly towards mine and squeezed my hand she was holding to sign that I had her attention.
"I'm about to spill my guts…" I announced.
Now she really turned to me and glanced up shrewdly from the corners of her eyes.
"Oh boy! Should I bring you that big bucket or will this bowl be enough?" she asked deadpan.
"Gin, I'm serious!"
She looked for a torn second like she will spring on the Sirius-serious jokes, but she relented for the obvious reason that she suddenly remembered. She didn't know yet, and I was not sure I will enlighten her about that little secret about him just now. We'll see.
"Okay, I'll shut up and listen," she promised and snuggled a bit. It must have been an involuntary action associated with the start of a children's tale just about to be read aloud, or an old man's lecture about to begin boring people out of their sanity. It must have, because she couldn't have been any more comfortable that that. So she had told me at least. I would have felt cruel pleasure in the knowledge that she was at least a little bit as numb as I was…
"Right, thanks," I said and then stopped. How to begin? Where to start? From the start was so overused and predictable. I will start from the end and go backwards this time. "Well, believe it or not, but I really am the Chosen One, destined to defeat Voldemort."
I paused for the dramatic effect. Which did not came as she remained silent and unsurprised. So much so, that she didn't even stop caressing my forearm. Long seconds passed in silence until her empathic skill, which were always keen on me kicked in and made her to look up at me. Her eyes widened and her mouth gaped to form a surprised 'oh'. I think it was more for the fact that she was surprised that I expected her to be surprised.
"Sweet Merlin! Don't you say!" she exclaimed quietly, still caressing my arm. Just as I thought.
"Alright, how long have you known?"
"From the start," she answered promptly.
"Which was when exactly?" I asked at the loss, as several date and time flashed before me. And look and behold, she managed to confuse me on my own past and self and beliefs.
"From the about the time I fully comprehended your story. The Boy Who Lived surviving the Killing Curse with only a scar as a reminder by rebounding it and thus defeating the Dark Lord, who disappears without a trace. History well documented by several sources. The story was fishy for me even by then. Of course, I was young and was expected to develop a crush on you. Like all young girls should have – and so did. I was also expected to accept the tale as it was and be happy with my daydreams about you in shiny armor fooling around me in a way or another, whatever. Adult think children could not possibly possess any sense of logic. But actually, children can be more logical and intelligent than most adults, for the 'adult-problems' are degrading their brain-power—"
"Gin, to the point, please… But explain this suspicion about the fishy story, I'm actually intrigued."
"Oh! Sorry. Right, so all I did was to apply some logic to the story and it had fallen apart easily. First off, how can it be well documented when the sole survivor and witness was you and you never gave an interview on it. Hell, they didn't even know where you were until the first of September, 1991, the start of your career in Hogwarts!"
"That's what I said when I first learned about the stories!" I nodded.
"Second. Killing Curse. Unblockable, unbreakable, always lethal on contact, leaving no physical mark Killing Curse. And you survive it with 'only' a scar on your forehead."
"You knew this much about the prime of Unforgivables back then? When you were, what, like eight?" I asked curiously. Unforgivables, as far as I knew, weren't part of the vital information the adults told the fledgling magicians about the culture they lived in.
"I researched," she said. Vague and deflecting. "And that very same unstoppable, unblockable, not-manipul-able in any way at all curse just rebounds from you and destroys not only Tom completely, leaving not a speck of ash, but the majority of the house as well. The Adava Kedavra is not a destruction curse. Its sole purpose it to kill, to cease life in any circumstances, leaving no evidence at all."
"That's interesting," I muttered as I mused over it. "Dumbledore told me it was my mother's sacrifice that created a protection around me. Her boundless love," I commented further, wanting to get to the bottom of this issue. I always boggled me too, but could never figure out a straight explanation. It was good to have Gin to theorize on serious matters. She was not only bombastic as a lover, but fantastic as a thinking mind.
"Love. That's just too sentimental. I don't want to say bad about the Headmaster, especially right at his funeral, but he was just too sentimental sometimes, even to a fault. It's not a bad thing normally, but in matters like this and especially in explaining it to you, it is. Do you honestly think that your mother's selfless and love-filled act of sacrifice was exclusive and unique to the history of magic? To history of mankind? Just think, how many mothers could have sacrificed themselves to save the life of their child during the past several millennia? I bet a good number of them were magical. Why are you the only survivor of the Adava Kedavra, which is an ancient curse, well beyond the time of the modern British Wizarding World?"
"That is… an insightful thesis," I said while pondering the answers and questions this new explanation raised. "Then why have I survived?"
"No clue," she shrugged against my chest. "For now we just have to do with the fact you did. For which fact I'm overly grateful," she said smiling up at me sweetly and stroked my chest so that I almost purred.
"I'm glad too," I smiled back and kissed her. "You know there is a prophecy about me and Him." She just nodded. "It states that I have to kill him ultimately or else be killed by him. There is no way out of the deal now."
"That was quite obvious too if you ask me," she said in a neutral tone nuzzling my neck with her nose which was very nice, but also distracting. So I put my hand of her cheek and lightly pressed her face into the crook of my neck to still her. So got it and just sighed. "Is there a specification as to when this epic clash between you will take place? A deadline or something?"
"No. It can stretch out to eternity actually," I frowned. That won't do at all. I was fed up being the number one on his hitlist already – and it was 'just' seven years I was aware of Him and his interest in me. Eternity with this target on my forehead look quite grim.
"Good. You have time then," she decided and resumed caressing the light dust of hair on my chest.
I had to grab her hands and trap them inside my own ones. That caused her to look up and see the stony face I probably had on. The conflict around the decision I was dreading swelled within me and begun its clawing and eating my insides anew.
Time.
"I don't have time," I said, countering her earlier statement. I really didn't have. Not now with this new turn of events. "With Dumbledore gone, he won't hesitate to move and act. I have to get my act together as well. I don't have any more time."
She just stared at me long moments while her face remained impassive, unreadable and of course beautiful. Her gaze unnerved me somewhat, not to mention what she said then.
"Bullshit."
"What?" I gasped, taken aback.
"Bullshit. The excrement leaving the arse of male cattles. That's the closest thing to what you just said," she elaborated kindly.
"Ginny, this is not a matter to take lightly! This is about the coming war with Lord fuckin Voldemort! He'll deploy his troop to the main points of Wizarding Britain and stike, take over and rule. The wiping of 'undesirable elements' will follow and the icing will be my very public and very gory execution as a display of his power and cruelty for the terrified sheep of witches and wizards!" I shouted. During the tirade, she somehow shifted on my lap, so now she was straddling my waist facing me straight. And she was just as serious, however much, much calmer than I.
"What a bright glimpse of the future you paint, Harry…" she said sardonically.
"Well, get used to it, 'cause it's highly probable!" I grunted angrily. I didn't know why I was angry. But for the time being, I was glad that I was at least capable of producing any emotion, that I was not just an empty shell. I easily could be. But I never will. My will won't let me fall apart.
"It's probable if you let it be probable," she said the obvious. I almost snapped, but she continued. "It will boil down to you, yes. But protecting everyone and defending the 'main points of Wizarding Britain' is not your responsibility."
"How is it not? I'm the bloody Chosen One!" I said bitterly. At least I was not shouting. "I'm the only one who can do anything about this!"
There was a moment of silence. In that silence I should have probably realized how I sounded like.
"Wow, Harry! You start to show increasingly closer resemblance to the man Snape always painted you like. Egoistic, arrogant idiot," she said in wonder. And I was stunned for a moment in shocked, stinging hurt. Then, her face darkened and her eyes ignited with her famous fire. "Are you really that egoistic? Do you really think that you are something like Atlas bearing the weight of the whole world on your shoulder? Do you really think that nobody can do anything about the upcoming conflict? That everybody will just cover or sulk in shame because they are so incompetent? Goodness, open your eyes, Potter!"
Bamm! Her words hit me like she did a while ago as my Mistress. I was too stunned to fully comprehend, but at least I was open and listening and remembering what she was saying. And she was not finished.
"There is a whole army of Aurors eager to finally be useful. Don't think that Bones won't give a crap about higher orders and administration if the shit hit the fan. She'll be there with a big umbrella in front of it with every single capable man in her department behind her. There's the Order. They'll do everything to protect and defend. True, with Dumbledore in charge, the haven't been too proactive, but that 'limitation' is gone now. And the rest of the magical world? The ones who dare to stand the ground and do not flee? And us? The D.A.? The teachers? Your closest friends? Me?"
"Voldemort is my burden!" I argued back, my voice much weaker that I would have liked.
"He is. True. But he alone. He is your sole problem and responsibility. A very big and serious problem, but exclusive. You don't have to bother with anything, but him. Protecting everyone never was and never will your responsibility – unless you sometime become the Head of the MLE. Protecting the people you love is a noble notion, but that too is not your table. Everyone is responsible for their own safety. We all make our own decisions for ourselves. You do too. The prophecy limited that freedom with you, I know. But you still get to choose what you want to do."
"You have time, because your confrontation depends on the both of you. You can dictate the terms too – in a way. You showed defiance before. You can now. By not letting him dictate how you live your life. Tom is a master manipulator and uses fear as his tool of trade. It's an effective way to make people do what you want. But bravery is an effective shield against that. And you are a Gryffindor for a reason. And your corporeal patronus is the evidence that you can overcome the worst of your fears and act. The lexical definition of courage."
There was a lull in the flow of very heavy reasons from the fiery girl and a moment of complete silence where we just stared at each other. It took me awhile to force words on my tongue.
"Gin, you have to understand… Time is everything! If I don't act soon and find the way to defeat him for good, he'll kill thousands. I know there are brave and capable people on our side, have no doubt about that, but death is inevitable! However, the more I stall, the more the body count will rise. And besides that the prophecy…" I trailed off, hesitating. Should I? Can I? Is it worth it? Ah, hell! I have a point to make here! A very important point. "The prophecy states: '…either must die at the hands of the other, for neither can live, while the other survive…' You see, Gin? I cannot fully live until either I kill him or die by his hands!"
"But if you are brave enough and dare to live… than you'll survive," she said with an intense face that almost made me take her words for granted. I trusted her, yes, but that didn't mean she was right in this. However, I could not quell the surge of hope her words ignited in me.
"That's just twisting the wording, Ginny!"
"So? Please, don't tell me you take this prophecy seriously! Harry, don't! Tome made the mistake of taking it seriously and that caused his own fall. If had just ignored it and left you alone, he would have probably reached his peak and conquered the magical world long age by now. Of course, it is fortunate that he made that mistake, as we have the chance now. I said fortunate and not 'We're happy', because our chance cost your family and your freedom to choose your destiny. But with it, you – the man you are now – were born. Not by your mother, but by the twists of fate. And by you, hope was born. You are our hope, Harry."
"But hope is like a beam of light in the vast darkness. A glint of light on a small dagger," she continued, immersed in her speech enough to use even such metaphors. "The dagger is of no use against an army; you can't fight many foes with it at once. It is used to take out a single foe with a precise blow. You are the dagger and Tom is that unique foe. You are the beam of light and Tom the source of darkness. Light up the darkness!"
And she was finished. I could tell by her far-away, yet focused-on-me gaze. And now, it was really total silence. As if the Grand Mute Button of the Universe was pushed. And frankly, I didn't ever see much. Just the phenomenon before my eyes. It was at least half a minute till I dared to break the quiet.
"You like Bob Marley?"
I stare back down at the highly uninformative and unofficial invitation to the wedding of Bill and Fleur that my best mate Ron's hyper-owl Pigwidgeon brought me and after reading, I just dropped down at my lap. My reminiscing is interrupted by an unknown reason. Maybe a noise from downstairs – Uncle Whale submerged into the recliner most likely, and its 'splash-effect' resounded right up here. Pathetic. And old to bother me. But still, it does bother me, since it shook me from my remembrance.
I am to attend the wedding at the Burrow on the second of August.
But as Ron was so kind to remind me, I can't leave my cell without at least five bodyguards from the Order. I am officially sick of it! Why can't I do what I want and go to where I please? I'm an adult in week and after that they'll lose all right to control me in any way. Also I promised Dumbledore to return here till my seventeenth birthday, but that wouldn't hold me back. It the thrice-damned fuckin' Trace what does! Bloody Ministry and its 'reasonable restrictions'!
I think Ginny's little lecture on 'Living Life' affected me more than I thought. I despise now every smidge of outside influence that tries to make me do or act against my will. Control, manipulation, greater good, my own safety, necessity, you name it. No more. I'm sick and tired of that crap! I'm free and I want freedom. Well, freedom to go on my own way to achieve the ultimate freedom. Free-of Tom Riddle-dom.
And that thought again leads me to a hard topic. My quest and the involvement of my friends in it. Especially Ginny's.
Ron and Hermione insisted after the funeral and my tryst with the Ginn that they have every intention to accompany me on my journey. While that's nice and flattening, I have to disagree now. They cannot come. This is not their quest, but mine. And I have a very important task for them instead. I think that after hearing that, they will relent and accept my and their role in this chaos. I devised that role for them this week and constructed an argument just for Hermione's predicted outburst of denial. Their case is prepared and ready.
It's Ginny her grace, who's the issue.
I can't find a role for her that doesn't involve me in a way. And what bad is that I'm immensely happy that I can't.
She is convinced that her destiny was interwoven with mine on that fateful evening in the Chamber. She decided to help me on my quest anyhow she can. So basically, she will be my personal assistant.
Heh, my secretary! Oh, joy! New tease material! And how funny would it be, say, she blasts a Deater apart with a flick or her wand and they like standing agape at the scene and then one of them asks, like 'Who the hell is she?' and I say like, 'She's my secretary!' Hahaha!
"What's so funny?"
Bamm!
My head hurts as I slam it into the wall behind it quite forcefully from the sudden fright of the new voice. I turn back to the source to glare at it.
"Nothing. Not anymore, thanks to your inability to knock!" I grunt back, allowing a moment of self-pity as venue of comfort for my grievous injury.
"Maybe it eluded your keen perception, but I really am unable to knock," lectures my intruder coolly.
"Then simply, I dunno—'Swoosh' or do that stuff with air that make it vibrate eerily or something!" I snap. I am very irritable nowadays and I don't know why. Okay, I do, but I don't know how to solve it. Ginny is unavailable. And I refuse to take up on the 'Frightener's advice. Going through women like a machine is not what I want. I want only one woman.
"You really need to vent that pent-up tantric energy in you, kiddo!" observes the Frightener.
"No, I won't go out with Sam!" Samantha Gillard was a girl-next-door cutie living somewhere around Magnolia Crescent. I met her when I was forced to catch the Knight Bus to get here, as my wardens deemed it unnecessary to escort their prisoner from King's Cross to his cell. Anyway, Ernie dropped me off near my favorite park and as I entered that alley that connected it to Privet Drive I ran into her at the corner. Literally. Knocking both of us to the ground and all that jazz. It rained the day before to top it all.
But she wasn't angry; she just allowed me to help her up and accepted my invitation – which I spurted on a totally unfathomable surge of inspiration - to a hot drink in the nearby bar down the Underground station. We chatted and chuckled, all was fine. When our glasses and dresses were dry, we departed and at the junction of Magnolia and Privet, she bade goodbye with a chaste kiss on my lips, which was full of promises. It was only here at home that I found the bill form the bar with her number on it with the instruction: 'Call me! XOXO Samantha' And a smiley too.
The git hovering next to me right now had been very proud of me, needless to say, and encouraged me to take up the offer. Like he does now in a moment, just wait for it, I see it coming.
"But you still has her number, yes?" he asks. There it is, just as I divined. Thanks, Prof. Trelawney!
"Yes, I do. But I won't call her."
"Why not? She's a bombshell and she knows it! You too know it! Bet the girl can shake your foundations, kiddo! And that is exactly what you need now," he says with remarkable insight. Because frankly, that is what I need.
"True, I need release. It's the partner that is problematic." I need Ginny. Desperately. I cannot wait for my bloody birthday any longer! I have to see her or I disintegrate on a molecule level in the most gruesome manner!
"Oh, come on! Don't mourn after the Djinni! You have The Oomph, it's as strong as it can be and you're letting it decay into an atrophic—fart—if you keep up this ungainly behavior!" hype my personal sexual advisor with grand, erratic hand-gestures to make his point. It only makes him ridiculous. I have to laugh. So I do. On the other hand, he's also being unbelievably contradictory on this 'Project Djinni'. He was driving me spare with his suggestions not quite a month ago and now he's all about moving on and jumping headfirst into 'Womanizer-mode'. Yes, I haven't told him the truth about Gin, I was curious of his reaction. And now that I am satisfied that I can still predict him, I'll consider telling him. Or better yet! I'll let him catch us on the act. That would show him good! I have to laugh again! "Don't chuckle, brat! I'm serious!"
"And I'm Harry. Nice to meet you! But we've already had our introductions a long time ago, Padfoot…" I point out.
The ghastly apparition of Sirius 'Padfoot' Black - former head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, the only escapee of the Azkaban Prison Facility in modern history, declared to be dead since June 12, 1996 – glares down at me and just hovers through my wall in righteous indignation.
TBC…
So far so like what? Good? Bad? Don't worry about the tense confusion; try to find the intention innit! Past is Harry telling us about the past – shocking, eh? – and the present will be consequentially in present tenses. Please, by all means, speculate! Guess how is it possible that Sirius is - well, if not alive - gliding among the living! I love when people speculate the mystery plots! It's highly entertaining! I'll reply to them of course within the limits of my authority as the author – so no spoiling answers to be expected. Well, you can expect them, but then prepare for disappointment.
Oh! Almost forgot! The title of the story is evidently an acronym. You may guess what it stands for too!
Bye for now, folks!