Thanks to my wonderful beta Híril, this story is much better than it would have been if I had been left to my own devices. Any remaining mistakes are my own. This was originally written for the HP Horror Fest 2018, on LiveJournal and AO3.
In The Deep, Dark Woods
-oOo-
A loud howl rose from the forest behind the clearing and the crowd around the fire edged closed together.
"The wards will hold," Hermione muttered, as if she were trying to convince herself.
The newcomer was sitting at the edge, so far from the fire that the light of the dancing flames could not reach his face. Neville had almost dropped the flask of hot tea when passing it on to him. It had nearly got stuck there, too – Alicia had to get up and ask for it back so the others could warm themselves up a little.
"Of course the wards will hold," Seamus said, a good bit louder. He had only been with them for a few months, and he still clung on to the cheerfulness that had startled the rest of them when he had turned up. "Sure, aren't you the brightest witch I ever met, even if you never went to Hogwarts?"
"How would I know?" Hermione asked reasonably, but Ginny noticed that she sat a little straighter.
"You've done a bang-up job with the fire, too. All those logs Dean and I dragged here, breaking our backs..."
"Last thing I saw, you still had a wand," Ginny piped up. She had spent hours daydreaming how a wand – her wand – would feel in her hand, the sheer power of it. There were no spares for those who weren't fighting, and with six – no five, she must remember they would only ever be five now– older brothers, she had as much chance of getting a wand as a ticket to the Hogwarts Express.
"So I do – what was the spell you taught me there, Hermione? Wingardium Leviosa?" Seamus asked, brandishing his wand. Ginny only noticed the stranger looking up because she was trying not to stare too hungrily at the wand.
"It's Levio-sa," Hermione corrected. "Not Levios-a."
"Wingardium Levio-sa," Seamus said obediently, lifting one of the burning logs a foot in the air before sending it crashing down into the fire again. The resulting rain of sparkles lit up even the edges of the clearing, illuminating the face of the newcomer.
Ginny's heart was hammering so hard she was surprised neither Ron nor Luna, who were sitting next to her, could hear it. "I know who you are," she said. "You're Draco Malfoy!"
Ron almost knocked the tea flask out of her hand as he sat up straight, grabbing her arm so hard she winced. The group around the fire went quiet; Ginny could hear an owl hoot softly in the distance. Only Luna continued to stare into the fire, whistling soundlessly to herself.
"So what if I am?" Malfoy said, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
"Why aren't you at Hogwarts, then?" Ron asked. "I thought it would be right up your alley – all your little pure-blood friends are there."
Only Bill and Charlie had been old enough to actually go to Hogwarts, before the Weasleys had been blacklisted.
The Dark Lord did not allow blood-traitors to go to school, or work for the Ministry of Magic – or walk down Diagon Alley, even. When they had been little, Ron and Ginny's favourite game had been to play 'Hogwarts'. One of them had been the teacher, and the other one had to repeat the made-up spells with a stick from the garden. That had been while they had still had a garden – or a house of their own, for that matter.
Their father had not openly declared for the Order, which probably had ensured Ginny had some memories from the Burrow, but he was known to be loyal to Albus Dumbledore.
Most outspoken Dumbledore supporters had been smoked out of their homes by the mid-Eighties – anyone who still believed the ex-Headmaster had been right about the Dark Lord kept it to themselves after that, or packed up all their things and fled in the middle of the night, like the Weasleys.
Ginny had met Albus Dumbledore several times.
His presence was like a charm – it had made her feel safe, like nothing else. She may only have been thirteen, but Ginny knew very well her parents were powerless in the face of most of the dangers their children had to deal with.
Everyone knew The Chosen One, Harry Potter, the only one who could have vanquished the Dark Lord, had died in Godric's Hollow when he was only a baby, but when Dumbledore stroked his beard and looked at her with a twinkle in his blue eyes, Ginny felt there might still be hope.
It always felt worse afterwards, whenever she would return to the children's camp and the adults would go back to fighting the hopeless war again.
To have it all snatched away was somehow worse than never having it at all – it didn't make sense to Ginny, but that's how it was.
With Dumbledore it felt like she mattered, that there would be an end to all this one day – an end to sleeping in leaking tents packed several to a bed for warmth. An end to scraping by on stolen supermarket food and what they could find in the forest. An end to trying to learn spells without a wand, so she could fight in a war her side had been losing since before she was born.
Ginny sighed. It was not going to end anytime soon, so she had better pay attention to what was going on.
"What do you mean, you got thrown out?" Hermione always sounded a bit shrill when she was upset. If she had been offered a choice, Ginny wasn't entirely sure Hermione wouldn't have traded her own soul for a chance to go to Hogwarts, so it was a bit of a sore point. "What did you do – did you get yourself expelled?"
Rumour had it Unforgivables were compulsory to stay beyond Third year now, so Ginny wondered what you had to do to get yourself expelled from Hogwarts.
"Don't get your knickers in a twist," Malfoy said with that stupid drawl some of Ginny's better-off cousins – the ones that had stuck with the new regime – had. "My best mate woke me up in the middle of the night and said I had to leg it. I didn't stick around to ask if they had made it official."
"Why was it, then – surely you have some idea?" Neville asked with more patience than most of them had.
"My father offended the Dark Lord. He didn't even mean to – he's not crazy – but now we're on the blacklist. We can't even get back into the Manor!" Malfoy looked crestfallen, like that was the worst thing that could happen to anyone.
"Join the club," Dean said. "Do you think the rest of us are camping for a laugh, before heading back to our own mansions?"
"How did you find us?" Hermione asked, and Roger Davies shot her a grateful glance. He was supposed to have been left in charge, but mostly the Weasleys and Hermione got on with things and Roger pretended it had been his idea all along.
"Dumbledore," Malfoy muttered and stared into the fire.
"Look, a visitor! I was beginning to think we smelled or something – no one drops around anymore!" The mood around the fire rose several levels with the arrival of the twins, and in fairness to them, it wasn't only because it had been their turn to do a food run.
"You're mistaken, Fred – he's the one who smells. Or 'it's he', I can never remember. I'm sure Hermione will correct me in a minute. It's a Malfoy, can't you tell by the sneer and the hair?" George pulled out one of his fake wands, pointing it at the newcomer. With a stab of pride, Ginny noticed it was so convincing Malfoy shirked backwards, into the darkness of the wood behind him.
"Leave it off, Dumbledore sent him." Neville was always making peace – he should be sent out to put a stop to the war, really.
"Duly noted. The stench of Death Eater remains strong, though – perhaps we should toss him in the lake?" Fred cast a threatening look at Malfoy, but as he already was pulling cans of food out of his bag, it got lost in the general excitement.
"Pineapple, my favourite!"
"We nicked it only for you, Luna. Never let it be said –"
"Hot dogs, again?"
"Feel free not to eat them, Ron. Or you can brave the Muggles yourself the next time – they're probably getting suspicious of redheads since their stocks go down every time we visit." The spoils of the expedition were distributed with a practised hand, with most of it ending up in a huge cauldron Lavender had rigged up over the fire.
She was stronger than she looked, Lavender. Most of them were – if you didn't have magic, you had to work hard instead. The bodies around the fire were wiry and strong.
There was something in their faces too, something most newcomers acquired after a while (the ones that lasted, anyway): they looked like they were just as busy sizing up the world as it was sizing up them. Even the younger kids, like the Creeveys, had it.
Life didn't pull any punches in the realm of the Dark Lord – he didn't care if a Muggle-born was five or fifty-five.
There were no very young children here – they were easier to hide as they mostly didn't use magic, and taking little kids from their parents wasn't a great idea even when there was a war on. Once they turned eleven, however, there was a steady trickle of new faces.
Ginny wondered what it would have been like if they had gone to school instead.
She would have been sorted into Gryffindor, of course, and she reckoned she would have liked to play Quidditch, but other than that it was hard to imagine going to regular classes and caring about exams. Percy had tried to get a proper education, tried so very hard, but even he had failed at the end.
He had come home from Beauxbatons during the holidays, full of stories about teachers and dormitories and, miraculously, sitting down to a three-course dinner every single night. Percy was the reason the rest of them knew as much magic as they did; he had taught them as many spells as he could.
Keeping her eyes on the fire, Ginny could almost imagine him in the corner of her eye, earnestly explaining to Neville how he ought to angle his wand when casting a Shielding charm.
Percy had spent his years at Beauxbatons in disguise, under a false name, but it had not mattered. He had been found hanging from the clocktower on his very last day, as a warning to anyone else who thought they could defy the Dark Lord by simply leaving the country.
Ginny shivered and inched closer to the fire. She mustn't think about Percy, not anymore; she must remember she only had five brothers now.
One of them was stuck in a tug-of-war with another about the ketchup the twins had brought.
"Stop it!" George panted, pulling as hard as he could. "You know it's for mystery meat, not tonight!"
"I just want a tiny bit –" Ron wasn't strong enough, and the plastic bottle slipped out of his hand.
"Good old mystery meat night," Fred said pointedly in Malfoy's direction. "Half the fun is guessing what it is. I always pick rat – you'll never go far wrong." He smiled as Malfoy put his beaker with beans down, looking forlornly at the piece of yesterday's bread that came with it.
Malfoy would get used to not being fussy, just like everyone else had. With any luck, he was old enough not to spend the first weeks sobbing through the night. At least he could use that wand of his to cast a Silencing charm.
As if he were reading her mind, Fred turned back to Malfoy. "Do you have a wand at least, or are you relying on your good looks alone to pull your weight around here?"
"Of course I have a wand, I'm a Malfoy." He didn't need to spell out that the rest of them were pond scum as far as he was concerned. His father has been very stupid to cut the Malfoys loose from He Who Must Not Be Named's court – Malfoy The Younger would run out of time before he cottoned on he wasn't protected from the consequences of his actions any longer.
Ginny frowned - maybe she was looking at it the wrong way around? Given how cosseted this boy must have been, it was more likely his father had tried to step in and save him after he had messed up than the other way around. She had seen Death Eaters: they would make mincemeat of this guy in about thirty seconds, and so would the Order.
Lucius Malfoy wasn't exactly stupid, from what she had heard, but she could easily believe the boy in front of her could still be in the dark about what had driven him out of Hogwarts.
Ginny had become good at spotting the little cracks, the signs that someone wasn't holding up as well as they would like people to think, and even though she hadn't even met Malfoy before, his tells were obvious.
Every time the werewolves howled, his left eye twitched.
"There's an awful lot of them out there tonight." Penelope Clearwater looked pale.
"They can't find us," Hermione said, and it would have sounded a lot more convincing if Ginny hadn't noticed her knuckles were white as she was squeezing her hands into fists.
"It's almost as if they were looking for something. Or someone." Fred exchanged a glance with George. Ginny's back stiffened – her twin brothers were as sharp as they came (the jury was still out on Ron, who had a tendency not to use his brain if he could get away with other people doing the thinking for him).
There were often werewolves around, but they usually moved on searching for prey. Tonight, it was almost as if something was attracting them to the camp, keeping them in the vicinity even though they couldn't break through the wards.
"Bit of a coincidence that they would get closer than ever on the night you turn up," said George.
"Downright suspicious, even," Fred added.
"Or what do you reckon, Malfoy?" They both turned to look at him expectantly.
"I didn't ask them to follow me, if that's what you're wondering," Malfoy said warily. He didn't know much about the twins if he thought that would satisfy them.
"Interesting choice of words, Fred."
"I was wondering if you'd noticed, George."
Ginny had, and she couldn't resist showing off to her brothers. "Why were they following you, Malfoy?"
He ignored her and turned to Hermione: "Are you sure about the wards? What's your surname, by the way?"
"You won't recognise it, so don't bother," she snapped. "They will hold. I would also like to know whether the werewolves are looking for you."
Another howl almost drowned out the last words of the sentence.
Ginny shivered, all the little hairs on her body standing to attention rigidly. There was something about that sound that cut straight through any bravery she might have had on a night without a full moon. Perhaps she wasn't cut out for Gryffindor, after all.
Malfoy looked sullen, but said nothing.
Another voice piped up: "Daddy told me werewolves can smell shame. That must be how they tracked you – you were ashamed of having supported Voldemort."
"Must you, Luna?" Hermione asked with a pained expression while others dropped precious cans of food and drink. Those who had wands whipped them out, as if a company of Death Eaters could descend upon them at any moment.
Ginny had only ever heard Dumbledore use that name - he may not need to worry about the taboo, but everyone else did.
"You told me the wards would hold. Don't worry, I've tried it before to be sure," Luna said tranquilly and more than one face around the fire blanched.
Ginny hadn't taken her eyes off of Malfoy: he had twisted as if he were in pain at the word. Fred and George must have been watching him too because Fred rolled up his sleeves as George demanded:
"Show us your left arm."
"Why should I?" Malfoy was still sullen.
"Because if you do, we'll believe you're not a Death Eater. Otherwise –"
Fred advanced amidst shocked whispers.
"But he couldn't be seventeen –" Ron objected.
"Doesn't matter these days," George said. "If you can kill, you can take the Mark."
"Right then, Malfoy – which will it be?" Fred was almost upon him.
"You've no idea what it's like!" he burst out. "They round up everyone who turns fourteen and bring them out in the Forbidden Forest. Lots never come back. If you don't agree to take the Mark, they set the others after you! The Chase, they call it." Looking around the fire, he failed to find sympathetic faces.
"People trying to hurt you because you won't do the Dark Lord's bidding. I wonder what that would be like?" George said.
"I have absolutely no idea. Now, will you show me that arm or will I have to make you?" Fred towered above Malfoy, who still was sitting down.
It was obvious Malfoy had no idea how to survive on his own. Ginny would have started running about five minutes ago.
With something that sounded suspiciously like a sob, Malfoy pulled up his sleeve. The skull and the snake were clearly visible on his pale skin, even in the light from the fire. It was shocking to see it like that, right here among her friends.
If it hadn't been for that Mark, Ginny would have had six brothers instead of five.
The twins seemed to be thinking the same thing.
"You know, Malfoy, these things can be removed," Fred said with an ugly expression on his face.
Cradling his arm close to him, Malfoy turned his head from one side to the other, looking for help that wasn't coming. "You can't cut off my arm!"
"Can't I?" Somehow, Fred had found a knife, or maybe he had conjured one – their hunting knives weren't usually a foot long. Nor did they have a curved blade.
"You're fucking crazy, all of you!" Malfoy threw behind him as he dove into the darkness surrounding them, aided by a shower of red sparks from George's wand. The sound of breaking twigs and tree branches pushed aside stopped abruptly as he reached the wards.
"Good riddance," George said cheerfully as the howls outside rose to a crescendo. Some of the smaller kids looked scared, but the werewolves showed no sign they had discovered Malfoy wasn't the only human present in the forest.
They would probably be busy with him for a while, anyway.
Mercifully, the shouting and growling grew more and more distant, until they could pretend it was like any other night at the camp.
Well, almost.
"Here's a present for you, Hermione." George brandished the wand Ginny had been eyeing so enviously. It was just like the twins – George must have snatched it from Malfoy when he was busy being scared of Fred. She wondered whether they had planned it, if you could call it that – one look, and they knew exactly what the other twin was thinking.
Ginny wasn't the only one to find fault with the wand being given to someone who wasn't even a Weasley.
"What about me?" Ron looked injured. His siblings braced themselves for an epic sulk.
"Because if Hermione gets a wand of her own to use, we might all survive long enough to get you and Ginny one too," Fred said like he expected everyone to agree with him.
Ron drew a deep breath to start arguing.
Ginny leant forward and boxed his arm. "He's right, you know."
"I'm his brother!"
"That's why I want to keep you around for as long as possible, Ickle Ronniekins. Don't make me change my mind."
Ron mumbled something under his breath about a shocking lack of family feeling, but his heart wasn't in it. Unusually, Hermione still hadn't spoken a word. Her hands were wrapped around her new wand, as if it were going to sprout wings and fly away if she let go.
"Right. If Dumbledore ever asks, Malfoy never showed up." George looked around the fire, an unusually stern expression on his face. Even Roger Davies nodded before he remembered he should be the one to make sure everyone knew the score and did his own sweep around the group.
It was mostly for the benefit of the little ones, like Dennis Creevey. The rest of them knew better than telling the adults. The Order was too busy fighting – what if their parents got distracted and got themselves killed? It wasn't worth it.
They weren't exactly young kids anymore; they could handle things themselves.
The following day, all that was left outside the wards were some tracks leading further into the forest, as if something heavy had been dragged along, and a single black leather shoe, size 8.
Pity – if there had been two, someone could have replaced their old ones.
Ginny tossed it aside and packed up the tent swiftly like she had done it hundreds of times before. If she was lucky, she would get to do it again tomorrow night, and her brothers would still be there to share the tent with her.
THE END