She woke up sweating and scared. To her relief, she looked around and saw that she was in her own room. This was already the fourth time in a week that she had woken from a nightmare like this. They were all the same; she was followed by her stalker until she came to a dead end and couldn't go anywhere. She wanted to scream, but she couldn't. He walked closer to her with his wand pointed at her. She was trapped and couldn't get her own wand anymore. Then, just before he could do anything to her, she woke up.
She was still recovering from her dream, when she suddenly heard someone knocking on her door. She became frightened. This couldn't be her stalker, could it? She crawled under her duvet, hoping that the knocking would stop. For a short time she thought that it had stopped, but then she heard it again, even harder this time.
"Ginny, open up! It's me Ron!"
Ginny sighed a sigh of relief when she heard it was only her brother and quickly put on her dressing gown before opening the door.
"Ginny, why did it take you so long before you opened the door?"
"I'm sorry Ron, I was sleeping", answered Ginny.
"Sleeping? Through the hard knocking? But you were always such a light sleeper. Are you sure there isn't something else you want to tell me? Did you have another nightmare?"
Ginny sighed and nodded in defeat. She should never have told Ron about her nightmares. He had always been concerned, but now he was really too concerned about her.
"This can't go on any longer," said Ron determinedly.
"Ron, it was only a nightmare", said Ginny, who didn't liked the concern of her brother at all.
"Nonsense", said Ron. "It isn't only the nightmares Gin and you know it. The stalking has gone on long enough. It's about time something was done about it."
"What are you planning to do Ron? Watch over me night and day?", said Ginny sarcastically.
"Well, that isn't such a bad idea you know", said Ron.
"Ron you know that isn't possible with the work you are doing. Besides, I don't think Hermione would be very happy for her boyfriend to be with me night and day."
"No, you're right", said Ron. "But maybe I can arrange for someone else to protect you. An auror for instance."
"Ron! You've got to be kidding, right? You don't think seriously that an auror is going to protect me. How would he do that? By staying with me night and day?"
"Yes", said Ron, happy that he had come up with such a great idea.
"Ron, that is impossible", said Ginny.
"We'll see about that. But are you going to change or are you planning to go to your job dressed like that?"
Ginny looked at her clock and jumped when she saw what time it was. Without saying anything to Ron she walked to her bedroom to change. She walked back to the living room where Ron still was standing.
"I'm sorry Ron. I enjoyed your visit very much, but I have to go now."
"Wait! I'll walk with you", said Ron while he accompanied Ginny out of her flat.
The flat she lived in was well protected, because it was impossible to apparate in it. They walked together to the street behind her flat where she apparated to St. Mungo's, the hospital in which she worked as a healer. In her last year at Hogwarts she had worked extra hard and got a scholarship. This ensured that she could follow her dream and so she took the expensive course to become a healer.
Exhausted she apparated back in the street behind her flat. It had been a busy day. That morning she had been too late at the hospital and was therefore behind on her schedule for the whole day. The worst thing was that she also heard from her stalker again. Today flowers had been delivered for her with a small card on them. For anyone else it would appear to be a nice gesture from a secret admirer or something like that. But Ginny knew better than that. Her hands had begun to shake whilst she was reading the card. It said: I am watching you. I hope you had a nice dream.
Ginny became frightened when she read it. How could he now also know that she was having nightmares about him? She had thrown away the flowers and the card. And it took her half an hour to calm down again and reassure herself that he wasn't nearby at that moment. Her hands started to shake again just thinking back about it.
Quickly she walked back to her flat and carefully opened the door. Suddenly she heard noises coming from the living room. A great wave of fear came over her and she immediately grabbed her wand. Would he be in her flat right now? She couldn't believe it. Her hands started to shake and she carefully took a step in the direction the noises came from. What could she do? She didn't have much time to think about this, as the living-room door opened and someone walked closer to her. She stopped breathing for a moment. She knew what she had to do, but her body didn't cooperate and she kept standing still. With all the willpower she could find she was able to point her wand at the door, but before she was able to say a spell she heard someone say 'Expelliarmus' and her wand flew away.
Oh great, some mad man is coming after me and I'm not even armed, thought Ginny.
Quickly she grabbed the first thing that could be a possible weapon, which happened to be an umbrella. She sighed, how was she ever going to beat someone with an umbrella while the other was armed with a wand? She decided to go for the surprise effect and held the umbrella high, ready to hit the person with it. Quietly she walked closer to the already open door and saw her intruder standing. She collected all her strength to hit the person hard, but just before the umbrella could hit him he blocked it, threw the umbrella from her hands and took her in a hold. Ginny tried to free herself, but the person who was holding her was much stronger and it was impossible for her to get free.
"Well, well, look what I've got here."
"Malfoy?" asked Ginny.
Many thanks to my beta penguin of death for removing all the grammar errors. Thank you!
