Ginny awoke suddenly. She blinked a few times in the dark room, disoriented, and propped herself up on her elbows to look around.
The room was dark save for a few tiny rays of light that came in around the edges of the curtains, and as her pupils adjusted, she was able to take in more of the strange room. It was simple, plain, and sparsely furnished with dark furniture. There was a robe strewn over the chair near the door, and a few picture frames on the mantle over the fireplace, and on the top of the dresser opposite the window.
Ginny rose up to sitting and swung her legs around to the side of the bed before standing shakily. She felt as though she hadn't walked in a very long time, the same way she recalled feeling after coming down with dragon pox the year before she'd started at Hogwarts.
Extending her arms just as a child would, she took a few uncertain steps toward the window, and closed her eyes as she drew back the curtains to flood the room with light.
For a moment she stood still, hands on the curtains, eyes closed, and her face upturned towards the rays of the sun. When she finally opened her eyes to the brilliance, Ginny could not prevent the gasp of awe that escaped her lips.
Outside, thriving and moving and flying and running, the entire world seemed to be alive.
It was, rather, a massive green meadow, filled with wildflowers and tall grass, and lined with bushes and trees that were in full bloom with white, blue and pink flowers. From her vantage point, at least a storey up, Ginny could see for hundreds of meters. Birds flitted from tree to tree, and an orange cat tumbled through a patch of shorter grass, followed quickly by six or seven tiny black and orange kittens. Closer to the house the grass was cut short, and the wildflowers were limited to hedges that were scattered here and there. There were paths of walking stones that were lined and interrupted by clumps of clover, and a garden near the house that was sprouting some curious looking plants. In the distance, a rose covered white gazebo sat next to a tiny pond, and beneath the shelter of flowers, a picnic was set out on a wine colored blanket.
Ginny turned her head to and fro; looking for any people that might have set up the picnic, and found no human soul.
There was a bang, and Ginny turned, startled at the sound that had originated from somewhere beneath her in the house, and she remembered her place. This room, so lovely in its pale yellow color, was not her own, and the view from the window was just as foreign to her. In fact, she had no recollection of – well – anything.
Ginny swallowed, and thought hard about the things that she could recall for certain. Her name was Ginny. She was the youngest of the spirited family of nine Weasleys, and had only recently graduated Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The wizarding world was on the brink of a war, and her brother Ron was headed right into the thick of it. At least he had been, the last time Ginny or her family had heard from him. She knew he was traveling with his girlfriend, Hermione Granger, and Ginny's old beau, The Boy Who Lived, Harry Potter. Try as she might, she could not recall any reason for her not to be in her own bed. In fact, if memory served her, the night before she'd gone to bed after a terrible row with her mum, who insisted that she would be better off during the war if she left in the morning for one of the safe houses near the Bempton cliffs.
There was a shriek of joy from outside the window, and Ginny turned back in time to see a young girl streak across the lawn, her long red braids flying behind her in the same way as her white dress. The girl, who could have been no more than four, disappeared behind a tree, and reappeared on the other side, clambering up onto a swing that was tied into the tree's branches. As the swing gained height, another person came into view – a man.
Tall, with sun kissed hair and skin, the man stood tall. He had broad shoulders, and a narrow waist and hips, and even though he wore simple trousers and a white shirt, Ginny could discern the shape of his muscles through the fabric. He turned back to the house at the sound of another scream, and Ginny appraised his face in hopes of some level of recognition, but was too far away.
Toddling towards the man, another child came into view. This one, with fair hair and skin, could have only been two years old at the very most, and was tiny in comparison to the man as he picked her up in his arms.
Ginny turned from the window, and started slowly across the bedroom towards the door. If she could get to the man downstairs, he could surely tell her what had transpired since the night before. She turned the handle of the door, and opened it to a cool breeze. Ginny shivered, and looked down.
Her feet were bare, and her knees stuck out from beneath the pale blue nightdress. Remembering the robe, Ginny pulled the black fabric up off of the chair, and around her thin limbs, doing the belt up at her waist, and then moving out the door into the hall.
A skylight brightly lighted the hall, and the landing she stood on had two doors on either side, all closed. Before her, wide spiral staircases lead down. Ginny moved slowly, holding tightly to the banister for support, and took each step at a time.
It was curious, she thought, that there were no photos on the wall, no paintings or artwork of any kind, although the walls were painted in complementary earth tones. It was as though whoever's home this was either had no family to fill the house, or no desire to make it any more comfortable than was practical. She recalled the confusion and odd assortment of wall adornments that was common in the Burrow, and felt a twinge of longing.
Movement ahead of her stopped her in her tracks. Across from the bottom of the stairs, a large, ornate mirror was hung, and within it's frame, Ginny found herself staring back. She stopped, entranced. Her skin was luminescent in its pallor, though not more than she remembered, and her freckles stood out in stark contrast. Only the slightest shadows were beneath her eyes, which were as large and brown as ever, and had a shocking similarity to what she thought would be described as doe-like. Besides looking a little thin and tired, Ginny couldn't quite put her finger on why she felt as though she looked so drastically different.
It wasn't only the way she looked of course. There was the weakness that she felt, and the separation she felt from all aspects of her life. It was almost as if she were suddenly, overnight, so much older, and permanently changed. Something seemed to be missing, or perhaps had never been there in the first place. She felt desperately, foolishly, hollow.
Her stomach growled, and Ginny started, laughing gently. Of course, she would probably only need to eat and then the hollowness she felt would be gone. She continued shakily, reassuring herself that she was right to not worry, and that the gentleman outside would surely allow her to share in his picnic with the children. Hopefully he would also be able and willing to answer her questions.
At the base of the stairs, a hallway stretched both to her left and right. A closed door at the end of the hall on the left looked promising, but when there was the crash of pots and pans from within, and the sound of a woman singing, Ginny turned the other direction. The garden had taken her in its grasp almost as soon as she'd seen it, and she didn't want to go without encountering it.
A few minutes of slow going steps, and Ginny came to rest with her hand against the door handle, breathing slightly harder. It took all of her effort the pull open the door, and to step out onto the grass, but the feel of the wind on her cheeks and the sun on her face was worth it. All the life that she'd seen from the window was all around her, and in the air, buzzing, shrieking, laughing, and then, all too suddenly, silent.
Ginny turned slowly towards the man, and moved towards him, confused by the sudden silence from him and the children. The older girl was still swinging, although her shrieks of joy were gone, and her eyes were bright in their confusion. The toddler was babbling to herself obliviously, playing with something in the grass, and the man –.
The man was pale beneath his tan, his silver eyes shining with something akin to shock and disbelief. He took a staggered step or two towards her, and stopped.
"Lu –" he choked out, and cleared his throat. "Luna!" he called.
From within the house there was silence, until the door behind Ginny creaked open, and she turned to see a tall, willowy woman.
The woman had brilliant blue eyes, wispy, long blonde hair, and a pair of too-large spectacles on her nose. She wore a loose frock beneath a pair of dirty overalls, and her hands and arms had an assortment of odd-shaped jewelry adorning them.
When she saw Ginny, she stopped in her tracks, tilted her head to the side, and said, "Well, hello Ginny. It's been a while."
Ginny looked hard at the girl, furrowing her eyebrows in the effort of recognizing this woman, who so obviously knew her. She seemed familiar somehow – although distantly so. She had an ethereal quality to her, and had Ginny not been sure of her own consciousness, she'd have thought the woman was a dream.
"Luna," came the man's voice once again, and Ginny turned back to the man.
"Oh, right." The woman appeared in her peripheral vision, moving in front of her and past the man, where she scooped the toddler into her arms, and took the hand of the elder girl, helping her from the swing. They hurried around Ginny, taking a strangely wide berth, and she heard them go back into the house followed by the door closing firmly.
Given the opportunity, and the fact that neither she nor the man seemed to have anything to say at present, Ginny studied his face.
His hair, while fair, seemed darkened by the sun. It looked soft, and was cut shorter on the sides, and was styled handsomely. His chin was strong, jaw line chiseled, his cheeks high, and even his nose had a delicate point to it. It was an aristocratic face, made even more so by the gentle curve of his eyebrows, and the shape of his eyes. Most intriguing was the color of them – blue, or perhaps green, but so warm, and so bright, and shimmering with – what was that?
Tears. The man was crying.
Something clicked suddenly within Ginny's mind. Luna. Luna. She'd had a friend named Luna, a girl at school that people thought was very strange, but Ginny had found to be merely misunderstood. She opened up her mouth to speak, just as the man began to move, and before she could make a sound, found her pressed against his chest as he hugged her.
When he realized that she was not hugging him back, he took a step back, and then another two, and wiped at his eyes.
"Ginny?" he asked gently. "Ginny, do you remember me?"
For a moment, Ginny stood silently, biting her lip. When the man opened his mouth to say something again, she blurted the first thing that came to mind.
"Luna. That was Luna Lovegood, wasn't it?"
The man swallowed, Ginny noticed, and then extended his hand to her.
"Come with me," he said softly. "You must have lots of questions."
She stared at his outstretched hand for a moment, and then at his face, trying to place it somewhere within the confines of her memory. Nothing positive came up, but then again, neither did anything negative, and so she took his hand and walked with him to the gazebo.
He summoned a few pillows with a flick of his wand, and helped her to prop herself up against them, before sitting opposite to her.
"Would you like some pumpkin juice?" he offered, eyebrows slightly lifted as he watched her face.
She nodded, recalling its sweetness fondly. Ginny watched as he poured a glass for her, and then himself, before taking hers and sipping from it slowly.
"You must have a lot of questions," he offered, after watching her for a moment.
"I do."
"Well, I've got answers for you." He smiled at her, softly, and then gave her a moment of silence.
Finally, Ginny put her glass down, and took a deep breath. "Who are you?"
The expression on his face was careful, guarded, but the look of pain in his eyes gave himself away, and he flinched before answering.
"My name is Draco Malfoy –" he began.
Immediately, her eyes widened and a jolt of adrenaline rushed through her. "Wait – what?"
"—And I am your husband."