Author's Note: This is Pre-HBP. Please review—and if you do, please remember that when rating, "10" is the highest and "1" is the lowest; on one of the other entries on this challenge, a reviewer thought it was the other way round and ruined a story's rating when they meant to give it top marks. So... yeah. Please review. I sincerely hope you enjoy it.
A Night Without Stars
Potter47
ONE
The creaking of floorboards was all to be heard that night; the continuous resonance of foot upon wood, pacing back and forth, forth and back.
The hooded figures could not keep still—one by the window, one by the door, one sitting on that ratty old chair, tapping long fingernails upon the splintery arms—and then moving.
The woman in the chair turned her head; sweat was beading at her hairline, on her face, on her neck beneath the hood. A spare dust particle floated up down left and right by her eyes, the cold pupils following its journey.
The dust continued away from the woman, floating naively in the airless room. It swerved and swooshed and sidled until, for no particular reason, it decided to come to a rest and fell straight downward upon the dirty-blonde hair of the one hoodless person in the room—a girl, arms and legs bound, arranged awkwardly upon the floor.
The dirty-blonde spoke, then, her odd voice cutting roughly into the silence:
"This is rather painful, you know."
The woman in the chair pulled her wand from nowhere and cast a wordless spell upon the girl that sealed her lips together—the girl's eyes crossed in confusion and surprise, but then settled back into place and drifted closed.
The woman drew the others' attention to her and mouthed to them, "Silence."
The others—there were two men, both subordinate to the woman—nodded, and obeyed.
Ginny let out a strangely rattling breath from her place by the window of Honeydukes, and she wished that it wasn't so unseasonably warm today—sweat was pouring down her face and neck, and the humidity in the air made the whole shop very stuffy.
Nothing was visible outside of the window—the village itself was covered in a thick fog so that if one were to venture out in it... it would not be difficult to be lost.
The fog had been there since the attack.
Ginny glanced over her shoulder, momentarily abandoning her 'watch' on the outside world, and saw Harry there, pacing back and forth, just as he had been doing ever since... well.
"She'll be OK," said Ginny in a small, somewhat wavering voice that certainly would not convince anyone, let alone Harry. "You know Luna... she probably won't even mind it."
Harry didn't speak, but only continued to pace. Ginny swallowed—her throat was painfully dry today—and she felt a strong urge to pace along with him... perhaps just to hold him tightly and tell him everything would be all right...
...she wished someone could do that for her as well.
Ginny shifted her gaze from Harry's face down to his feet, and began to follow them across the wooden floor, step, step, step and then back to where they started. Unbeknownst even to herself, she started to bite her lip in time with his movements, her teeth pressing into the skin as each foot fell to the floor.
"We... them."
Ginny's gaze jumped back up to Harry's face, her teeth biting too hard in surprise, drawing a bit of blood—
He had spoken, but she hadn't heard right.
"What?"
"We should check on them."
"Oh," said Ginny, dabbing the driblets of blood away with her tongue—it tasted like dirt, she thought, from that little taste—"Yeah, I guess."
Looking round the shop, Ginny wished that someone else would be up here by the door, just to be safe... but no one else had made it to Honeydukes—she hoped they'd made it somewhere.
Harry and Ginny walked down to the basement—it was strange to have free run of the place, really, and Ginny didn't want to think about what must have happened to the owners—and found the trapdoor open, as they knew it would be. Down from there, and down the countless steps (it took much longer than they would have liked, leaving the shop empty and all), they found Ron and Hermione—the former was seated upon the bottom step, watching the latter wave her wand round complicatedly.
"Do you have any idea what you're doing?" said Ginny. "Or are you just conducting a dust symphony?"
"Shh," said Ron in a bored voice, his chin resting on his hand, "she's 'concentrating.'"
Hermione made a noise of frustration and lowered her wand, shaking her head.
"I don't have any idea what I'm doing," she admitted. "I don't have any idea what's keeping the wards up."
Ron stood, stretched a minute, and then leaned against the invisible wall that was keeping them from Hogwarts, crossing his arms and facing the others. "I reckon we should just try our luck in the fog."
"That's what the Death Eaters want us to do," said Hermione. "Why else do you think they conjured the fog?"
"Block out the sunlight?" suggested Ron. "Maybe Lestrange's a vampire or something, wouldn't put it past her."
"But how are we going to get Luna back?" said Ginny impatiently. "We can't just sit here and wait for the fog to go away, can we? I mean... they'd be gone by then, right?"
"We have to do something," said Harry, "now."
The four of them looked between each other, trying to figure out what that something would be.
Ginny was very tired today, and overwhelmingly happy to return to Gryffindor Tower—Snape had assigned all of the fourth years dreadful essays over the weekend, and Ginny'd been in the library ever since supper, poring over books to help with her essay... or to attempt to help with her essay, as it wasn't doing all that much.
She straightened her bag on her back and slogged on, turning now to the corridor of the Fat Lady—
"Let's sleep under the stars tonight," said Luna, and Ginny almost fell over backwards at the suddenness of it—where had Luna come from...?
"What?" said Ginny. "Sleep under—what?"
"The stars," said Luna again. "Wouldn't it be fun? I've always wanted to do it, and since they won't let us sleep in the Great Hall, I figured we could sneak out to this place on the edge of Hogsmeade—"
"Wait, wait," said Ginny, shaking her head, "slow down, Luna. Why do you want to sleep under the stars all of a sudden, exactly?"
"I just told you, I've ALWAYS wanted to do it, not just all of a sudden, Ginny, haven't I ever told you?"
Ginny shook her head no.
"I haven't? Oh, that's terrible, what else haven't I told you about? Have I told you—"
"Are you feeling all right, Luna?" said Ginny. "I mean, you don't usually talk so fast—"
"I'm excited, Ginny, can't you tell? You know, we need to get to know each other better, don't we? I mean... how long ago did we meet? First year, right, that was three years ago, wasn't it? But we don't really even know that much about each other—"
"Yes we do—"
"No, we don't," said Luna. "What's my favourite ice cream flavour?"
"Um..."
"Exactly. If you don't know that, you don't know anything about me, and since I don't know your favourite ice-cream flavour, I don't know anything about you either—"
"It's strawberry."
"Mine's cookie dough—good, that's a start. But let's sleep under the stars."
Ginny blinked, wondering just how strange a person could get before they were shipped off to St Mungo's. But somehow...
"OK, all right," said Ginny, then, and she sounded almost exasperated. "We'll sleep under the stars. But I've got to drop off these books in my dorm—"
"That's fine," said Luna, and she was grinning. "I'll block my ears, you know, so I don't hear the password."
"Er... right."
The four of them—Ginny, Harry, Ron, and Hermione—abandoned the attempt to get through the tunnel, and just as they reached the basement of Honeydukes, they heard the slam of a door above—all four heads snapped upwards.
Harry put a finger to his mouth and mouthed "Shh"—the others nodded and obeyed. They took out their wands then, and following Harry, mounted the stairs—
Step, step, step, step—up to the top, and then Harry turned the doorknob, opened the door just a tiny bit—
"AHH! Get away! Stay where you are! Don't move or I'll curse you!"
The four let out a breath of relief, and Harry let the door swing wide—Neville stood before them in the middle of Honeydukes, his wand raised and his arm trembling.
"Harry? Ginny—"
"It's us," said Harry. "You made it—"
"Yeah," said Neville, nodding, and Ginny noticed that he was out of breath. "I actually just was sort of sitting in the middle of that fog for a while and hoping no one would notice—"
Ron half-laughed, and Hermione trod on his foot.
"What?" he said. "It's a funny picture—"
"It is sort of funny, looking back on it," said Neville, but his voice didn't sound very amused. "But it was really pretty horrible out there, and there was a body—"
—there was a collective gasp from the others, and no one breathed a moment—
"—but I think it was a Death Eater, I didn't stop to look."
The breath was let out in a sort of half-relief.
"So you made it through the fog, then?" said Ginny. "You made it here?"
"Well, yeah," said Neville, nodding. "I just sort of went in the general direction I reckoned someplace was, and I remembered that passageway under here—"
"How'd you know about that?" Harry said, almost suspiciously. Neville reddened.
"I heard you lot talking about it once, I just figured I might as well not mention it... actually I don't even remember where it comes out up at the castle, but I know you said Honeydukes—"
"It's all right," said Hermione. "It doesn't matter that you know, since... well, I suppose it's not much of a secret anymore, is it? The Death Eaters know about it too, they must, they put a ward up on it so we can't get to the school."
Neville blinked once, and his face fell completely. "You mean we're still... trapped?"
"Pretty much," said Ginny. "But we've got to find the Death Eaters—"
"WHAT?" said Neville. "Why would—wouldn't it be best just to lie low until they leave?"
"They've got Luna, Neville," said Ginny, and there was a sort of frank emotion in her voice that surprised her, and Neville blinked once again. Ginny added quietly: "...and they're not leaving..."
"Oh." She reckoned he was "oh"ing the first part, about them having Luna.
"Hey, hang on a minute," said Harry. "Neville, since you did it once... d'you think you could help us get through the fog? D'you know how far it lasts for, at least?"
"Well... no, I don't know how far it goes, but... well, I could try to help. Nothing to lose, right?" The last words were hardly convincing.
"If we could reach the end of the fog," said Hermione thoughtfully, "then we could probably get a better picture of where everything is—and maybe we might be able to see where the Death Eaters have gone."
"But wouldn't they have just left?" said Neville. "I mean, why would they wait around Hogsmeade for us to find them?"
The four others looked at each other, back and forth, but none spoke—almost as though they had a secret.
"Let's go," said Ginny.
Ginny needed... Ginny needed to get away, away from everything, away from... away from Dean, especially, but she didn't feel like admitting that to herself.
She found herself out on the grounds... standing out in the middle of the path down from the castle to the front gates, and she wondered where she was going. It was getting late out, really, and if she was caught out on the grounds this time of night, she'd probably be get detention till OWLs came round...
Then she thought of that place...
Looking back over her shoulder a minute, Ginny set off towards Hogsmeade, feeling more than very visible, being the only person out on the grounds... luckily the setting sun was blocked partly by the castle, so that she was not overly illuminated.
It had been nearly a year since that night, since she and Luna had slept under the stars... they'd talked a long time that night, more than ever before, and it had been then that Luna had confided in Ginny that her favourite colour was orange-red—not red-orange, but orange-red, because there was a difference, although Ginny had yet to see it, all this time later.
And now as Ginny came upon the spot—the clearing just on the edge of Hogsmeade and the Forest, where there was a wall of tightly-wound trees blocking the view of the village—she wondered why they had never slept out here again, in all this time...
Ginny sat down with her back to the town, nearly leaning against the rough barks of the skinny-and-twisty trees, but not quite because that would have been uncomfortable. The wind blew calmingly by her ears, keeping the long red hair out of her face... she closed her eyes and began to clear her mind of everything she could...
The wind began to ruffle the fallen leaves on the ground, crinkling them together like a salt shaker, and even though she had not intended to do so, Ginny opened one eye and looked down upon the broken foliage. She saw that someone had made a pile of them to Ginny's left, a large pile about two feet high and four or so across, and that pile was moving now more than any of the other leaves... Ginny wondered how many leaves there were, if there could be such a large pile and still so many more on the ground beside it.
Opening the other eye, Ginny watched the pile for some time, thinking of the reds and yellows and oranges that made it up... there was something unique about the fall, October especially... something very colourful and yet very dreary at the same time. It probably had something to do with Hallowe'en.
The wind died down and the leaves rustled some more.
Ginny blinked.
The leaves kept twitching.
Then:
"Boo." A figure stood up from the centre of the pile, brushing leaves off herself and speaking in a not-very-SURPRISE! way. "You know, it's rather difficult not to sneeze when you're like that—"
"Luna!" said Ginny, and she felt her face quirking into a smile for some reason. "What are you doing here?"
"I was playing hide-and-go-seek," said Luna. "It took you forever to find me—"
"I wasn't looking—"
Luna ignored her and brushed a leaf out of her long, dirty-blonde hair. It fell to the ground listlessly, like a speck of dust.
"You just need more practice," she assured, nodding. Then Luna's expression changed suddenly, as though she were seeing Ginny differently for the first time. She said: "You don't look very happy."
This was strange, because Ginny had had a smile on her face for the first time in a long while. "I don't? Oh... I'm not, not really." Ginny blinked as the words fell from her mouth; they came so very easily, which was amazing, because she had not been able to speak them even to herself.
"What's wrong? Here, have a nice leaf." Luna handed Ginny a perfect, uncrumpled leaf, holding it out by the stem.
"It's just... well, everything that's been going on, you know?" No, she didn't. "Well, Dean's been acting all... strange, and stuff. And... and stuff. Things just feel off," concluded Ginny ineloquently.
"Well, they are," said Luna. "I've been trying to find the on-switch for years, but I haven't managed it yet. It would be nice for everything to go the way we want for once, wouldn't it? But then, we wouldn't be able to appreciate it very well, if nothing ever went wrong."
Sometimes, Ginny felt that Luna made great philosophical statements only to contradict herself and prove the point moot. She wasn't quite sure if this was one of those times.
"Oh, I didn't even notice!" said Luna suddenly, and she tilted her head back farther than it should have been able to go—"Look, the sun's gone and left without letting the stars know its their turn... we won't be able to watch them tonight."
Ginny looked up now as well and noticed that Luna was right—there were no stars tonight, the October clouds were too thick and October-y, chilled and frozen like the ground below them.
Luna laid herself down upon that frozen ground then, and made a sort of pillow for herself out of some leaves. She had an expression of utter peacefulness on her face, as though she were dreaming a good dream, the kind that you don't want to leave.
Ginny lay down beside her, made her own pillow, and looked up. It was really getting very dark now, and the lights of the village behind the twiny trees were being extinguished one after another... when Ginny looked through those trees, she thought she saw someone standing there, sidling among the twirling branches, but a moment later she was sure she'd imagined it.
"Let's not wait another year, Ginny," said Luna suddenly, then. "Let's come out here more often. Every week, how about that? We'll make it a tradition—they're not just for Boxing Day, you know—"
"All right," said Ginny, nodding as best she could in her horizontal position, and then wondering why she'd bothered nodding when Luna would never have seen it. "A tradition."
"Every weekend, starting today and never ever ending, not till we're old and grey."
Ginny smiled slightly, thinking that of course it wouldn't last that long—perhaps until the end of their seventh year, maybe... but then she thought, 'Why not try?'
"Sure, Luna. Every weekend."
There was another movement out of the corner of Ginny's eye, and it was almost like the swirling of a cloak by the trees... but it must have been the wind.
It was with more than a little hesitation that Neville finally pushed open the door of Honeydukes and stepped out once more into the fog. He held the door open for Ginny, who stepped out next, and then Harry, Hermione, and finally Ron.
There was a wind now, that seemed to pick up just as Neville's foot met the pavement. It whistled in their ears, the soft hiss of continuous breath.
The wind caught the door in its grasp and swung it out fully, slamming it into the wall of the shop—then the breeze let up a minute and it settled back into place. Just as it came to a close once again, and Neville was about to take a step away from the building, Hermione said:
"Wait!"
The others turned round; Hermione continued, slightly muffled by the wind: "We should all hold hands or something, so we don't get separated."
"Er... right," said Neville, who held his hand out to Ginny, who took it hastily and held one back to Harry, and so on and so forth...
Finally, with a collective breath, Neville raised his foot and took the first step, and Ginny followed, and Harry... Step step step, silenced by the wind.
Ginny began to feel her palms grow sweaty, especially the one holding onto Harry's hand... and soon after that, she began to find it hard to think of anything but that hand holding hers, which grew distracting—she nearly tripped over Neville in front of her, and lost her grip on his hand a moment, which could have been disastrous if he hadn't caught hold of her arm again.
"Careful, Ginny."
She nodded and held on tighter.
Walk walk walk, step step step, through the fog of this surreal fairy-Hogsmeade, until suddenly, (and the sound pierced Ginny's ears for the suddenness and the loudness)—
Hermione screamed, and then she was gone; the scream was snuffed out like the light of a candle.
"What happened, what happened?" said Neville anxiously, and Ginny could scarcely hear him, for the wind—
"I think—I think Hermione tripped on something, I lost my grip on her hand... Ron's with her, too—" Harry shouted against the whistling.
"But she can't have gone far—"
There was suddenly a silence that was so very full of the sound of the rattling, whistling wind that Ginny wondered why she'd thought of it as a silence. She could hear nothing around her, could hardly feel Neville's and Harry's hands on her own, for the wind pelted the skin of her wrists so very harshly... Her hands were numb, and so was the rest of her—the three of them were alone. Ron and Hermione were alone. Luna was alone—
Ginny felt so very completely lost in the fog...
"POINT ME!"
Ginny's ears perked up like a cat's at the bizarre exclamation—it was Harry's voice, she was sure of that, but it had sounded almost as though the words were supposed to be a spell—
And then Ginny felt herself being pulled by the arm she had been pulling by, which got her dreadfully out-of-sorts (as though she weren't already). She took a moment in this newfound motion to work out what had happened, step by step, since the scream—
Hermione tripped on something. She lost hold of Harry's arm. She and Ron disappeared—
The exclamation, "Point me!," the new tugging... she knew now, Harry was pulling her and Neville, instead of Neville pulling her and Harry... it had taken her too long to make sense of that, and she wanted the wind to just stop so she could think better...
And then it did.
Ginny was no longer being assaulted by the mighty gusts of air—her ears had been freed of the incessant whistling. What had happened?
Ginny knew, then: Harry had pulled them out of the fog, to the far edge. They had made it, the three of them...
"Are you all right?" said Harry, then, and his face was suddenly in front of Ginny's. She nodded, and looked around.
They were on a sort of hill, just on the edge of the village. She sat down upon the withered, dead-looking grass, and put her head in her hands, soothing her ears with her fingertips.
She wondered where Ron and Hermione were now, but then decided it was best not to try to think of that.
"What was that?" said Neville's voice, and Ginny looked up—he was talking to Harry.
"It was something I learned back in fourth year... I'm an idiot for not thinking of it before; it shows you where north is, it's a compass, basically—"
Ginny got the basic idea of what he was saying and tuned the rest out. She took a few deep breaths, in and out, and remembered quite suddenly that it was very warm today, and she was almost sweating now. She almost laughed at the absurdity of it, for it had been so cold in the fog...
"So now what do we do?" she said, and her voice was much more determined-sounding than she would have expected it to be.
"We keep going, I guess," said Harry, and he held out a hand to Ginny, to help her up off the grass—she took it gratefully, and was surprised to find she didn't need it.
"Let's head up there," said Neville. "Hermione said to look for where the Death Eaters might have gone."
They climbed further up the hill, and further still until they were able to see somewhat over the fog, see the tops of buildings amongst the smoke-like veil.
"I don't see anything," said Neville.
"Me neither," said Harry.
"So what do we do?"
"I guess we have to wait until something shows up. We can't very well just guess where they've gone, after all. So we have to wait."
Ginny swallowed, and sat down once again on the deadened grass... and they watched.
"There is a beauty in a night without stars, isn't there?"
Luna lay on her back, arms beneath her head, staring up at the heavens. Ginny sat beside her, huddled to her knees for the cold, her head tipped back to see the night.
"Yeah, I think so," said Ginny, and Luna elaborated:
"It's just... you know, boundless. Amazing. Never-ending nothingness."
"Yeah," said Ginny—she felt quite awkward knowing that "Yeah" was the most eloquent thing she could come up with, especially next to Luna, whose ears (as she had herself once observed) were filled with poetic wax.
"But I wonder what they think?"
Ginny looked down at Luna now—the girl's face was contorted in concentration, her pale eyebrows furrowed.
"What do you mean?" asked Ginny.
"I mean, I wonder what the stars think on a night like this—a night without stars. Do they think of it as a night without earth? But then, what do they care about earth, really? Are we all that important to them? They could always look at all the other places, all the other planets... it makes you feel quite inferior, doesn't it?"
Ginny blinked, for that word—'inferior'—had been right at the top of her mind while Luna spoke, it was the perfect word for that feeling of emptiness she was feeling. And it wasn't all that great a word, really, was it? It was really very common-place... but it was the perfect word.
Luna's face relaxed once she had spoken her words of inferiority, as though a burden had been lifted from her shoulders. Then her eyes drifted closed a moment, and open, and closed once more, and then:
"There's something comforting in closing your eyes and not seeing all that much of a difference. That's probably why we sleep at night, I reckon."
Ginny smiled slightly and leaned back now, feeling the frozen ground beneath her back... her head lay beside Luna's and with a sideways glance at her friend, Ginny's eyes closed as well.
The silence of the night was very comforting as well... and then Luna spoke quite suddenly:
"Now that we're not looking," she said (though Ginny didn't know how Luna knew that she had closed her eyes), "I wonder if the stars are back? No, don't look. If you do, then they'll go away again... but I bet they are back. It's just the sort of trick they'd pull, isn't it?"
"Whatever you say, Luna," said Ginny. "Whatever you say."
"Hey, Gin," said Harry oddly, and she looked up at him. "Could I talk to you a minute?"
A moment passed, and then: "Sure, of course."
Harry glanced at Neville as though making sure the boy wasn't listening, and then sat down just behind Ginny, and to her left, so he could see the fog over her shoulder.
"You don't seem very well," he said then. "Are you all right? Really, I mean?"
There was something in his tone that pleased Ginny, an honest-to-goodness caring she heard... and yet she could not help but lie to him.
"Yes, I'm fine."
He didn't seem to believe her, but he didn't press the subject. Instead, he fell silent and watched the fog once again. Ginny felt somewhat uncomfortable with him over her shoulder, just sitting there, inches away... and she began to bite her lip once again.
She scanned the horizon once again, but there was no sign of the Death Eaters. It occurred to her that it was strange for the Death Eaters to go through all this trouble of luring them without even letting them know where to be lured to.
It was too quiet, now, and Ginny began peeling the skin back from her lip with her teeth, just a little bit... and then she managed it, and it stung in the open air. She couldn't stand another moment of silence, so she started talking.
"It's weird, all this," she said. "I mean, Luna and I... I dunno. I'd probably call her my best friend, but I don't know when that happened. It's just... you can tell her anything, you know? And never be worried that she'll tell someone else, that she'll... Luna would never tell a secret. She'd tell anything else, of course, even if it was... you know, Snorkacks or something, but she'd never tell a secret. She never did."
Ginny swallowed, and she heard Harry take a breath behind her.
"She'll be OK," said Harry in a small, somewhat wavering voice that somehow... it convinced Ginny, YES, she would be OK.
Ginny wondered who she meant by 'she.'
And then Ginny noticed that she was biting her lip again, and stopped, but started again a moment later and just stopped caring—
Harry put a hand on her shoulder, his touch almost... poetically hesitant, that was what it was, that's what it would be called. Ginny felt something in his touch, perhaps something she'd wanted to feel for a long time, but she couldn't keep her mind on it, her thoughts kept returning to everything that had happened earlier, with the Death Eaters...
Oh, it was all her fault, wasn't it?