Reflections

By: Shima And Tempis

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. J.K. does. I believe I would ruin it if I did.

Author's Note/Warning: I have never written Harry Potter fan fiction before. I know precious little about the fandom other than what I have read in a few shipping communities, but I know how heated shipping debates can get. I would appreciate if no one flamed this fic just because of shipping it may or may not imply. And I apologize if I totally screwed up the characters. It's been a while since I last read the books.

Snape had grabbed him by the collar of his torn robes in order to drag him away from Hogwarts, but that had not helped rid him of the image of Albus Dumbledore sprawled dead on the ground. He had none that inevitably the headmaster was going to die, and that he was supposed to be the one to do it—but he had not thought of what it would look like. Dumbledore, dead.

Inevitably, he was still a Hogwarts student. It made the headmaster's death a little harder to let go of.

"Our Master is going to have plenty of words for you, Malfoy," Snape hissed, clasping him tighter. The professor had not spoken to him until then, and Draco was snapped harshly from the image of Dumbledore to the present, as they stumbled through the Forbidden Forest. The idea of their Master saying anything to him froze his blood. In a sudden act of desperation, Draco tore himself from Snape's grasp, falling backwards into another Death Eater. He righted himself quickly, and began to run—in no direction in particular.

Snape would not be bothered with the insolent boy any longer, regardless of how his mother had begged. Let the boy run off and get eaten by a gigantic spider. It would be a better end than what the Master would bring upon him.

Draco ran towards any light he saw, and that eventually led him to the edge of the forest. He saw fully the Dark Mark that perched above Hogwarts. There was no one outside any longer, and Draco was sure that Dumbledore's body had been taken away, someplace safe.

Just as Draco was about to make the trek up to the castle for god knows what reason, fatigue consumed him and he fell to the ground.

Ginny could not sleep. In the girl's dormitory in the Gryffindor tower, she heard sniffling and sobbing of other girls with the same problem. She was sure Hermione was lying awake, allowing tears to slip from her eyes. But sadness and depression were not what was keeping Ginny Weasley awake. It was something else. She thought with a sense of fear that something was left undone—that something was still to happen this night that was already full of terror and heartache.

Even though sleeplessness had caught all the Gryffindor off-guard, there was not a single body in the Common Room. The Fat Lady was asleep when she opened the portrait into the hall, and the rotund woman's gentle snoring did not waver as Ginny shut the portrait back in place. She looked about the torch lit hallways, shivers going up and down her spine. Yes, something was still to happen this night. Ginny just wished she knew what.

Draco was not sure what had roused him from his slumber. It may have been a creature just courageous enough to come to the edge of the Forbidden Forest. It may have been that he turned in his sleep so that the glow of the Dark Mark came across his eyelids. He had no idea. But when he did finally awaken, stars were still in the sky. He tried to pull himself up, his arms shaking uncontrollably. It seemed an hour before he could get himself upright, and even then his vision spun.

He stumbled in a forward direction, the eerie glow of the Dark Mark leading him towards Hogwarts Castle and perhaps, to an entrance not being guarded. Shapes would not stay still as he tried to keep a constant path up the hill, but he stumbled and fell several times into the cold night's ground. He felt tearing at his robes and each new fall accented the pain he was already feeling from being dragged through the Forbidden Forest.

Somehow Draco managed towards a large door. It was bolted, however, and charmed to remain closed. The Malfoy son cursed, his fist pounding once on the door. He hoped blindly that someone had heard it. Then he realized what someone happening upon him would amount to, and he stumbled backwards and into a pillar, looking up at the starry night sky. He needed to find a door, he knew. He continued his blind, pained and unstable walk about the castle grounds.

Ginny walked down the hallways in her school uniform and a cloak, the cold night air rushing across stone and flickering the charmed torches. She took a few steps and stepped on something hard on the ground. Looking beneath her foot, she saw a small portrait, slashed by a curse. The occupants were either gone or, Ginny shuddered, dead. She picked it up and held it to her breast.

Then she heard it.

It was once, quick, but loud enough that Ginny was sure she had not imagined it. In a rush, she closed the distance between herself and the large door. It would not open. Cursing silently, she slipped her wand out of her cloak pocket. She would not be able to open the door, she knew, without someone being alerted. Instead, she charmed up a peephole that she had to stand on tiptoes to reach. She closed on eye and squinted through it—but there was nothing to be seen.

Ginny looked about herself, wanting to laugh out of fear and embarrassment at how nervous she was. Instead, she turned on her heel back the way she came, turning a corner viciously to get the one, loud, pounding noise out of her head.

Draco had always known how to get in and out of the Dungeons. The fact that he could still get into them now suggested that the Slytherins had been moved to a safer area, for the charms of the Slytherin Head of House, Snape, were obviously not going to keep them safe from Death Eaters.

He could not stay in the Dungeons long without feeling ill, so the young man tramped up flights of stairs to the main floor. He stopped, looking down an empty, torch lit hall. There was no one to be seen. Not even a ghost. The portraits had been removed; some possibly had been blasted from their walls during the onslaught of Death Eaters. Draco tried to ignore the flashback that came to him when he saw a scorch of a misfired curse on the wall.

And yet the image flooded him, of Dumbledore's lifeless body, and Draco stumbled and fell against a wall. The moment's disorientation showed him the blood spots he was leaving on the floor.

He stumbled onward.

Ginny heard the steps before she saw the shadow. She was about to turn a corner, towards a carpeted hallway, which ended with a glass case full of awards. She paused, however, when she heard them. The footsteps.

The shadow worried her even more. It was large, even in the flickering torchlight, and definitely human shaped. She crept closer to the corner, looking down the red carpet (which looked royal purple in the night).

What she saw stopped her heart, and made her grip the portrait in her arms all the tighter.

Draco Malfoy leaned against the awards' case, his cloak in tatters. His school uniform was also in disarray. Ginny saw blood through the holes in his clothing, and she had to stifle a gasp. Fear flooded her first, and she looked about wildly for more Death Eaters. But there were none to be found. Her brown eyes found the Malfoy boy's form again, just as he slumped gracelessly onto the glass, his cheek pressed against it. His cloak's sleeve fell then, and Ginny realized a charmed moonlight hung above Draco, shining on his forearm, where the Dark Mark lay embellished.

Somehow, fear escaped her. Looking at the crumpled figure of her enemy, she could feel nothing but hatred. Complete and utter hatred for this figure that had attended Hogwarts for six years and still chose to betray them all. And with this blind hatred came the courage Ginny needed to step out from her dark corner and into the hall.

Draco heard the loud steps behind him. It took all the strength he had left to push himself up and turn his head to see who had found him—to find out who his executioner was to be.

Of all the people Draco had imagined could be standing their, glaring at him, the little weasel was not one of them. Yet there she was, holding a portrait to her breast with one hand and her wand tightly with the other. Even in his state he knew his place, and his eyes narrowed. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, he let out a snarl. "Well, Weasel, come for revenge?"

Ginny let the portrait fall from her grasp at his words. This… thing, this shell of what was once the bastardly self-centered Draco Malfoy could not scare her. Anger her, yes. But even his snarl could not shake her, and the fact that he had lost all of his grandeur surprised her. She came forward, her wand held out in front of her. Her eyes fell on the Dark mark on his arm, then back to his face. His normally slick blonde hair was out of place, dirty and full of twigs. He looked like he had just had a rut with the Womping Willow, and it was not nearly as funny a sight as it should have been.

"What are you doing here, Malfoy?" Her voice was dripping with malice, but she spoke still in a whisper.

Draco shrugged himself up, stumbling, before finding balance in an upright position. His eyes were focused on the redhead in front of him. He watched as her glance shifted from his face, and he knew at once what she was looking at. He tugged his sleeve down to cover the Mark.

"I suppose you could call it my Judgment Day." Draco answered her, taking a careful step towards her. Draco's wand lay somewhere in the Dungeons where he had dropped it. Before this redheaded, elven sprite, he was defenseless. "And yet I could ask you the same question. With no one about, why ever would you be wandering the halls?"

At this point Ginny had gotten herself only a few feet from him, and they were both encased in magical moonlight. She was not sure how to answer his question without sounding mildly melodramatic. "I couldn't sleep."

Draco let a smirk fall across his dry lips. "Well your insomnia has given you a great gift, Weasley." He stood straighter, his arms out. "Do with me as thou see fit."

Ginny's eyes widened. "What?" She hissed, her hand tightening on her wand. She had to admit, her arm was getting tired from holding it so still, but she was not about to lower her once source of protection.

"Kill me." Draco ordered coldly, lowering his arms. His eyes were like ice.

"I don't kill people, Malfoy. That's your line of work." Ginny snapped. She would have given everything to be heartless at this moment. The opportunity to see Malfoy fall dead to the ground seemed all too tempting. But her conscience would not let her lose contact with her head, which kept her wand still.

Draco let the smirk fall from his lips. "Then call for someone who will finish the job, little weasel. I have dealt with your presence long enough."

The little redhead's eyes narrowed into slits, the chocolate brown of her irises seeming to turn black. "Why would anyone give you what you want?"

"Avada kedavra!"

Ginny flinched as Draco yelled it, as the two words bounced off of the high ceiling and far walls. He had no wand, he wasn't really saying the curse, and thus it did nothing, but she felt this sense of desperation even in the vilest curse she had ever heard.

"Kill me, Weasley. Be a hero. Potter will take you in his arms and propose right then, I'm sure."

Ginny's grip tightened on her wand and her eyes narrowed at the mention of Harry Potter. "You have no right to say anything about Harry." She snapped, taking a step into the hall. "What you've done is heartless, despicable—"

"—Mindless, ruthless, disgusting. I know what you're going to say, weaslette. So please, do me the honor of putting me out of my misery before I have to take any more of this." Draco cut her off neatly, and even in his tattered robes he still held an air of indignation about him.

And yet her wand remained still. She couldn't understand it, but something within her kept her from killing the Malfoy spawn. Had Harry been there, Ginny was sure, Malfoy wouldn't have been able to utter a single word. But she just couldn't. She couldn't be the heartless being Malfoy wanted her to be. So instead she barked into the hall: "Get out of here!"

Malfoy stared at her, a smirk on his face. He tsked. "I expected more from you, Weasley. But I supposed I'll have to find me final judgment elsewhere. From Potter, perhaps?"

"Don't go anywhere near him!"

"Oh, I won't. But I'm sure he'll come for me anyway, Weasel." And then, with a twirl of his tattered robes, Draco left the hall at a less-than-brisk pace, disappearing from Ginny's sight.

She let out a breath she hadn't known she had been holding, before slumping against the stone wall. She couldn't be the ruthless warrior she was expected to be. She couldn't be the girl Harry and the others expected to be.

She couldn't kill.