Author Note: I'm really sketchy about this fic to be honest, it's my second big fanfiction and I wanted to do something completely different. What I don't want to concentrate on in this fic is too much of the details - spells, places you know... - I know they play a very important part but I want the story to overbear the details, you know? I want it to be less about magic and more about what it will be about. Please keep an open mind and hopefully enjoy.

Introduction:

She had promised herself that if it had ever happened to her, she would have killed herself.

She woke up that morning with a pang in the bottom of her gut, and she knew instantly that something was wrong. But she didn't know what. Her life was almost perfect. An irony it was, that in the time of the darkest hour when the battle between evil and good had come to its peak, things would be at their highest for her.

It had been many years since she was the Ginny she had been. Many years since she had sat in the Hogwarts Castle, studying and working, hating and loving. Even now, when she read the papers each day, the Harry Potter they spoke of was almost a dream to her. She remembered him clearly, his bright green eyes, contrasted with his jet black hair, his sharp, clear voice, his soft, loving touch. But it seemed in another life that she knew of them. She hadn't seen Harry in over half a decade. A short time in the wizarding world, but things can change in the smallest of moments.

When Harry had left her, sitting at Dumbledore's funeral, her hands in her lap, trying to be strong, she had vowed to herself that she would do everything to help him. Passionate she asked to join the Order, and she would not be refused. In the end, she made a bargain to take beginners' lessons, learning charms and strategies, theories and histories. She dreamt of one day fighting side by side with Harry, watching death eaters as they fell around them. And finally watching in awe as it was completed, as Harry became triumphant, when he would finally be ready to be with her, to kiss her and hold her. When she knew that nothing else mattered than him and her. A child's dream it was. And a child she was then.

But Ginny was not a fighter. Fiery and mischievous as she was, bold and crass as she could be, she could not bear to look into the eyes of another human being and take their soul. At the age of 18, when she would have officially joined the Order, when she could finally do her part to help Harry, she left. She packed her bags and moved out of the burrow. It shocked many, to say the least. But Ginny had felt it coming a long time before.

She felt her support for the Order- her support for the war in general - fade when a death eater, only 15 had been brought into the headquarters. Limp with lack of life, and cold with the fill of death. His body was levitated single handed by Tonks onto a nearby table.

"We found him kneeling in the corner with his hood on. He had been crying. I tried creeping over to help, but he moved so quickly it scared me, I thought he would try a fast-one so I… I did the killing curse… I had to… It might have been him or me."

And it was him.

"Of course Tonks, it wasn't your fault. Anyone would have done the same," Ron comforted.

But Ginny didn't believe that. She blamed Tonks, she blamed the Order, and she blamed the dark-side. She blamed the world. It made her angry to live in a world where it was them or the dark-side, where they were both living with hate for each other, where they both could not see that the end of the war would only come if they accepted their differences and lived with each other.

The next day she packed her bags. She could not be apart of something she hated. Because she knew when she joined the order, she would be the one coming home with bodies, living in fear of anyone in a dark hood. She would be the one hating her.

It had been a hard move to live away from the Order. She had known it all her life; she grew up with them around her, eating with her, living with her. They were her aunts and uncles, her family friends, her classmates. And without them, she had nothing. It was like starting anew, going to a completely different country, and living with people with completely different customs. In truth, Ginny only moved to London, not a far distance from her family home, and still a world away. She lived among the muggles. She found a job with a catering company, putting all she had learnt from her mother into practice, and pretty soon she had gone from a common-class worker, to a supervisor, an assistant manager, and finally a manager. She loved her job, she had the freedom of hours, a feeling of importance, her own spacious apartment, and more money than she needed to get by. Yes, her life was almost perfect. But the frequent letters from her mother let her know that not everyone's was the same. The war was on a head with hundreds dying everyday. She was told stories of traitors, tortures, missing persons, missing friends…

Even in the muggle world the papers held stories of missing people, mysteriously vanishing without a trace, and to the people around her it was nothing more than a lost child, or a shady drug deal, but Ginny saw it as it really was, wizards trying to escape you-know-who tracked down and punished, used as tools of revenge and ransom. She knew she was no safer in here than she was back home. But at least she felt less connected, at least she didn't have to see the bodies, to hear the screams in the middle of the night, or to look up and see the dark shadow of the dark mark. Still, Ginny swore to herself that if it ever happened to her, she would kill herself rather than be taken in by the dark side.

When she got up that morning with a pang in her gut she knew instantly that something horrible would happen. And she knew almost a second later that it would happen to her. Her apartment seemed suffocating. There seemed to be a thousand shadows moving on the wall, a million voices whispering over her shoulder, and many times she swore she felt a breath on her neck. Her hands were jittery and she almost spilled her cup of hot coffee. Her mind was in a thousand different places and her sweat glands were working overdrive. Her eyes were neurotic, turning this way and that, up and down, left and right. Panicked she left her apartment, the beating of her heart pounding against the thin wall of her chest, her hands clasped at her side, her strides long and swift. She didn't know where she was going, and she didn't know why she was going. But that didn't seem to matter to her. It was late at night when she ended up in a neighbourhood park, all alone. It was the only place she felt calm all day. And she imagined in the dark that she could see the children playing on the swings and the parents cuddling their babies, and it made her happy. How ironic it was that the one place she had felt safest all day was the one place she was in most danger.

It didn't take a moment for it to happen, for her to feel the grasp of a male hand on her waist, pulling her off the bench she was sitting on and into a standing position, to feel a hand pressed hard on her mouth almost cutting off her air supply.

She fought long a hard, to scream, she kicked and struggled. And in the end she only managed to fight his hood off.

She promised herself if it ever happened to her she would kill herself. And yet, as she fought for dear life, she noticed the blonde hair, the pale skin and the grey eyes looking down at her in shock, the only thing she could think to do was whisper, "Malfoy?"