Author's Note: As promised, here is the sequel to Ginny the Dragon Slayer. If you haven't read it, you don't really need to. This fic is continuous with it, but it's a stand alone, as well. But read it! And read my other fics while you're at it! u_u

Okay, shameless self promotion moment over. Enjoy this fic, and please be patient, it starts out a bit slow, but picks up the pace a little later.

The World Inverted

Chapter One: "What Was Written" or "Black As He Painteth"

Unadorned the meadow - hunger driveth the wolf out of the wood,
The maidens chained and whipped within a dreary dungeon -
And, fo! 'twixt the wizen roses a mossy grave;

"The Devil is as Black as He Painteth" -
O Canvas! Wherefore?...

-- Theatre of Tragedy

X

Draco Malfoy flew across the star-studded sky with his accustomed speed and grace. It was a cold night, and no amount of warming spells could make the chilling bite of the winter air any less harsh against the smooth skin of his pale cheek.

He was clad in the dark robes that he was now well known for wearing since the start of the war, his feet protected by knee-high dragon-hide boots of the finest make, as were his gloved hands.

His white-blond hair, cropped short along the sides, and long down the center, until it barely touched the collar of his black shirt, was covered by the hood of his cloak, which billowed softly behind him as he flew over the forest. He painted a sinister figure, flying across the night sky, as his shadow danced in the moonlit ground below, matching him step by step.

Known for his cruelty and his staggering rise to power amongst even the worst of Death Eaters, Draco Malfoy was more or less used to being seen as Voldemort's angel of death. The image of a dark robed, fair haired man, tall and lithe, with his wand drawn, was feared by most decent, hardworking people, and by some not so decent people, as well.

It was an image he had cultivated carefully, especially in those first, uncertain years, where he had felt that proving himself as a ruthless and faithful servant of the Dark Lord was almost as important to the cause as his work in the Order of the Phoenix.

And now, after all those years of serving as a double agent, the fight was over, the final battle had been won. Harry Potter had actually fulfilled his destiny by slaying Voldemort, and putting an end to the war.

This last part, the end of the war, was all Draco really cared for. He had sacrificed himself all these years, working for a cause for which he had no love, none at all. He resented it as much as he fought for it, would have laid down his life for it, without a moment's hesitation. But he hated it.

The real reason for his sacrifice was the beating heart of a woman, all red hair, amber eyes, a smile like sunrise, and everything that was Ginevra Weasley.

Now we can be together. After all these years of being apart, of not seeing your face…

He remembered her as he had last seen her, her lovely face contracted in pain, her beautiful, soulful eyes shimmering with unshed tears. Tears over him.

"Don't wait for me," he had snapped at her. She was sixteen, and he would be going to war, fighting for both sides, in equal measure.

They both knew he was likely to die for his betrayal. There was no point in tying yourself to a corpse, he reasoned.

But he had hoped, all these years, had fiercely hoped that she would wait. He knew she would.

Draco had sacrificed all for her that she would be safe, that she would live. She was the only thing that had kept him sane throughout these hard long years. Ginny.

She waited for him now. After tonight, he'd come to her.

Thou didst swear…No, he hadn't really. Not in words. But his heart, his entire soul as much as had.

Closing his eyes briefly, Draco allowed his hood to slip back so he could feel the biting caress of the wind through his hair as he flew. He saw himself land in the fields of Ottery St Catchpole, saw himself walk the stony path to her house, dropping his broom and removing his hood, saw himself wind his way through the garden, like he'd imagined himself doing, thousands of times. And he'd knock the door.

At the thought of her Draco leaned further into the broom, making his hard, lean body almost completely flat against the chill wind, and with a burst of speed, reached the Death Eater safe house that was his destination.

Landing lightly on the courtyard of the imposing mansion that would be invisible to Muggles, Draco hooded himself, and quickly drew his wand out as he approached the stone steps. Snow crunched under his boots as he walked, with only the moon and stars above for company.

All thought of Ginny vanished from his mind, all thought of anything. He emptied his mind, allowed himself to be a blank canvas, concentrating all of his attention on his surroundings, and what he meant to do.

Draco was naturally cautious, but he had learned to be methodically so over the years. The Dark Lord often sent him to finish off Death Eaters he was displeased with, and deep in his heart was the fear that one day he would unknowingly incur in the wrath of the by now inhuman Lord of all evil, and would find himself in the same position of his victims.

His well developed sense of paranoia, born from growing up with Lucius Malfoy for a father, would certainly serve him well now. Draco was by now widely recognized as the ultimate betrayer of the Dark Lord, of his own father, of his own legacy of powerful Dark Wizards. There were many, he knew, who would never forgive him his treachery.

Murmuring the words that would deactivate the wards briefly, and grant him passage into the building, Draco gripped his wand harder between his gloved fingers. He had already disposed of four Death Eaters tonight, but he knew, without a doubt, this one would be the hardest.

This one had one distinct advantage over the others, over Draco himself. Because of this, Draco would have to alter his modus operandi. Usually he would come in with guns blazing, quick, methodical, neat. He sometimes used swords, when it was a particularly important 'honor killing'. Sometimes, most of the time, the more practical and by now mundane Avada Kedavra.

But not tonight.

Tonight there would be words spoken, words exchanged. He owed him that much.

Draco entered the ancient building and kicked the snow out of his boots, giving his surroundings a cursory inspection. Satisfied that he hadn't been followed, he proceeded to climb the stairs, using a silencing charm to avoid any creaking.

He was sitting at the desk at the far end of the library, and for a moment Draco was involuntary brought back to his childhood, to the fluttering of fear in his gut, the quickening of his heart beat when he was summoned to his father's study.

Lucius hadn't changed much from the image Draco had in his memories; he still had the same silvery blond hair, hanging loosely over his shoulders, the same cold butcher's eyes, so similar in their color and their intensity to Draco's own, the same cold smile that never reached his eyes.

"So you've come, then," he murmured in his silky baritone, meeting his son's eyes. "I knew it was only a matter of time."

"Father," Draco said curtly, for all greeting.

Reaching up, his gloved hands drew back the hood of his dark robes, revealing a head of fair hair, and arrogant, delicate features that exhibited no emotion.

"Are you here to kill me?" Lucius demanded, giving Draco's wand a disdainful glance. "So this is what my son is reduced to? After being the greatest Death Eater that ever lived, he's now a vulgar hit man for the Ministry. A common, filthy traitor."

Draco took in his father's words, the bitterness in his tone, but his countenance remained indifferent. "I won't kill you father, not if you give up. Azkaban is not nearly as bad as it used to be, I hear."

"You disgust me, Draco," the older man spat, rising slowly from behind the desk. "After all we've been through, you remain nothing but a foolish child." Lucius looked at him coldly, his eyes glittering with malice, and something else. "I never told anyone your dirty little secret."

Draco's eyes narrowed as he continued to observe his father in silence.

"You never contacted the little wench, so at times I thought you must have forgotten her. I was willing to forget it, too. But I know you. I know you better than you know yourself. And this was all about her, wasn't it, Draco?" he asked softly, his voice deceptively tender as he drew out his wand. "You've done this all for her. And now you suppose you'll drop me off at the Ministry, and then fly off to the little dirt cave where she lives, and fall at her feet."

"Father, that's enough," Draco warned, lifting his wand, his words unconsciously trying to prolong the inevitable.

Deep down he'd always known he'd end up killing his father one day. Ever since he was a child, he had known, somehow, and Lucius seemed to feel the same way.

As if reading his son's mind, he curled his sensuous lips with disdain, and said softly, "I always knew it would come to this, Draco. Even when I taught you how to duel, I knew I'd die by your hand, some day. But it will be worth it, believe me, it will be."

Draco could see that Lucius was by now completely deranged. It had been a long process, had taken long years to culminate, to reach this breaking point were a crazy, green light danced behind his father's eyes.

He had lasted longer than Draco had expected. Lucius had been long involved in the practice of consuming and sinister magics, had explored the root of all evil, and become intimate with it, doing truly despicable things. At some point he seemed to have crossed a line, and there would be no turning back now. Sooner or later it would have come to this.

And for me, too, Draco thought. Sooner or later I would have become like him. Easy is the descent…

"I wish it wouldn't be this way, father," Draco said softly, and realized immediately that it was true.

After all those years of hating his father, of dreaming of a moment like this, the time had finally come, and he found it was not all he'd hoped it would be.

The fact remained that Lucius, despite being a murderous lunatic with no conscience and no heart, was still his father. He had suffered so at his father's hand, in a number of ways, but killing him wouldn't erase any of that.

"Hush, Draco," Lucius said calmly, raising his wand. "My dragon. It is written…"

There was something in his left hand, something made of gold, which shone with a malevolent red glitter.

Draco raised his own wand, knowing that this was the moment, and that he could very well die. He was more skilled than Lucius, but his father was more experienced.

He recognized the possibility that he would be the one killed, and was scared, not for himself, but for Ginny. Draco had long stopped thinking of his own life as belonging to him. It was hers, all of it. Even this.

"Goodbye, Draco," Lucius said softly, pointing his wand at his son.

"AVADA KEDAVRA!" Draco shouted, in the same instant Lucius cast an entirely different curse.

"OBLIVIATUS AGNITIO!" He had barely finished saying the words when the green jet that had shot out from Draco's wand hit him squarely in the chest, and he crumpled to the ground in the same instant the strange object he held blasted a blinding jet of red light at Draco.

The blast knocked the Malfoy heir to the ground, his dark robes falling around him like broken wings. His pale grey eyes remained open, but were unseeing.

In his mind there was a spark, that once ignited warmed to a glow that spread across his eyes, like a gossamer veil. He saw the image of Ginny, her lovely, open face, her amber eyes, and her hair, her wild red hair, framing her face, pouring down her back like a river of flames. She was turning to look at him, and already her warm eyes were smiling, and her full lips were rounding to say his name.

The image flashed across Draco's mind like a beacon, leaving a burning imprint of her in the back of his eyes. Slowly, it began to fade, until there was nothing left but darkness.

For a moment he was filled with an unspeakable sorrow, and his grief was so great it physically hurt him, but the moment passed, and the pain became no more than a lingering heaviness, adding to the already leaden feeling at the pit of his stomach.

He blinked, and tried to stand, but he was suddenly so very tired, his limbs so heavy, it really would be impossibly to move them. And then the world slipped away, and there was only darkness.

X

Ginny Weasley kneeled on the wooden floor of Twelve Grimmauld Place, the safe house of The Order of the Phoenix, concentrating on the bone-mending spell she was about to cast on the badly broken leg of her brother Fred.

"We did it, Ginny! That basilisk snogger is dead! Harry did it! The war is finally over!"

"Shh, Fred, please! Stop moving, relax, your leg is horribly-" she protested in vain, trying to curb the dangerously buoyant mood of the Weasley twin, who'd already nearly poked her eye out with his wand.

"Fuck it, to hell with my leg, Ginny! I would have given more than that if I'd had to. Voldemort's dead, Harry did it! And he's alive! We all are…"

Ginny finished the spell and watched, relieved, as her brother's leg took on a normal shape, as opposed to the sickening angles it'd had only moments before, when they'd both Apparated on the street outside the safe house, Fred leaning heavily against her as his leg bled alarmingly.

But he was safe now, and so was she. They all were. Only then did she allow for it to sink in. It was over. It was really over.

She sat back on her haunches, her strawberry red hair falling over her shoulder, as tears of relief and happiness filled her eyes, and she wiped away at them hastily. After all these years of hoping and waiting, she would finally be able to see his face. Now they could be together.

Draco.

Harry had told someone he'd seen him, he'd been there in the chamber with Voldemort. He'd disappeared when the Aurors arrived, for the sake of his own safety.

Less than a handful of people actually knew that Draco Malfoy was a valuable double agent, the silent member of the Order of the Phoenix who was never at the meetings, but was instrumental in the defeat of the Dark Lord.

"Fred, I have to go home now…I have to wait for him!" she said hurriedly, and ran out the door, into the cold winter night. A moment later she had Disapparated, and was gone.

Once home at The Burrow, Ginny quickly wiped her face of the grime she had accumulated during this brutal day, in which she'd narrowly escaped her death a number of times. It was incredible, the presence of mind and serenity she'd had, even in the most critical moments. She understood she had to live. She had to survive, for him.

Pausing to inspect her face in the mirror, Ginny ran to the window and laughed with delight as she watched all surviving members of the Weasley family Apparate outside, one by one.

There was Harry, oh Harry!

And Ron, and Hermione, and Charlie and his wife. There was Luna, and Fred and George. They had all survived.

Her heart threatened to burst out of her chest as she tingled with anticipation, for surely Draco would be here any minute.

She waited.

And waited…and waited.

X


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