It was a slow Thursday afternoon when it happened. Harry was bent over, organizing the T-shirts in the store that he owned with Ron when the door opened, and they walked in.
The door opened, revealing Draco and Ginny, arm in arm. Surprised, Harry walked over to them. He suddenly remembered what this meant and felt slightly nauseated.
"What are you doing in a muggle mall?" Harry asked, not so nicely.
"What are you doing owning a store in a muggle mall?" replied Draco in the same tone. Ginny stood there looking like his arm candy. It made Harry sick.
"I wanted to get away," Harry said sheepishly. "I got tired of people always expecting me to save them, bless them, and kill Voldemort when all three of us know that it can't be done."
Speaking up for the first time, Ginny said, "The Dark Lord's been overthrown. Long live the All Powerful!" Her words put a feeling of dread in the pit of Harry's stomach. He now knew that the prophecy had finally been fulfilled.
It was the middle of exams during his fifth year, and Ginny's fourth. She still had that monstrous crush on him, and even though he didn't like her in that way, he took advantage of it and asked her out. Harry heard feet pounding on the stone floor, and looked up to see Ginny running toward him, panicked. He stood up just in time to grab her as she doe into his arms, and started sobbing onto his shoulder.
"What happened Ginny?" Harry asked, with real concern in his voice. "Did Malfoy do anything to you?
Sobbing she just shook her head.
"Ginny, I can't fix it if I don't know what's wrong. You have to tell me what happened."
She looked up at him, and the look on her face haunted his dreams for years to come. She was pale, paler than well, Malfoy. Her eyes were red, and her face blotchy from crying. "It was Professor Trelawney," she said weakly.
The worst came to Harry's mind. He had never though that Trelawney was like that, but it sure did explain a lot of things. "What did she do to you! Did she hurt you Ginny!"
She looked up at him with big tear-filled green eyes and giggled. "No, she just... scared me. We were in the middle of my exam, and she went all rigid. Her voice got really low, her eyes rolled back, and she went into a trance, or...something. And then..." her words were cut off by a sob. Harry stroked her head and asked the one question that he would regret for the rest of his life.
"Ginny, what did she say to you?"
She looked up at him, shuddered, and began to speak. "She said, 'It will come to pass, and the one who loved the Life Giver will turn her back on him. Once turned, she will become the Key. The Key will go to the Sworn Enemy and give herself to him. Once given, she will serve a new Master. Her new Master will, with her help, overthrow the Dark Lord and become the All Powerful because she is stronger than the Life Giver.' And then she passed out. Harry," she exclaimed, "Help me understand what it means. I don't believe she would have said it in front of me if I wasn't supposed to hear it."
"You're probably right. Let's go tell Dumbledore. He can help"
"No!" said Ginny, a little too quickly, and then tried to recover. "I mean... he always speaks in riddles Harry. What he tells will be just as hard to understand as what Trelawney told us."
"I guess you're right," Harry replied slowly. Noting her unease when talking about Dumbledore, Harry vowed to tell him what had happened.
Harry snapped back into reality and stared into the smirking Malfoy face.
"He...you..." Malfoy laughed.
"Yes, Potter. I overthrew the Dark Lord. I'm the All Powerful."
"But that's...how..." Harry looked from Draco to Ginny uneasily, slowly backing up against the display of t-shirts that had been the most important thing on his mind only two minutes ago.
"Draco killed him," Ginny murmured softly and looked down at her shoes. "The prophecy came true, Harry."
The prophecy...
"What do you think it means, Professor?" Harry looked around Dumbledore's office, trying to find something to take his mind off of the problem at hand.
"I think it's very clear, Harry."
"But...what does it mean?" Dumbledore sighed.
"You are the Life Giver. Who can you think of who loves you?" Silence.
"Ginny. But...she can't..."
"Ginny will betray you. She will...go to Voldemort."
"Harry? Harry? You here, mate?" Ron's happy voice came from the back of the store. A red head poked out a door marked Private. "You want to help me with these boxes? Got a new shipment in...oh, customers." Ron walked out of the back room, and stopped suddenly next to the register.
"What a...pleasure," Draco replied with a smirk, and Ginny flushed red, still staring at the floor.
"Malfoy...and...Gin?"
"We were just leaving," The smirk stayed on Malfoy's face as he watched the siblings avoiding each other's eyes. "Just remember Potter, you're not in power anymore. You should be glad you're hiding out here in this muggle mall." Malfoy turned on his heel and the pair of them walked out.
