A/N: I did some chapter re-arranging, so let me clarify for my current readers: I broke up the original Chapter 1 into two chapters. I felt that the stuff in this chapter (Chapter 2) was getting buried at the end before, and it's important, so it deserves its own chapter! Also, I'm not sure how you all feel about long chapters, but I'm planning this to be a novel-length fic, and the chapters are tending on the long side right now. But, you can tell me how you feel about that when you review . . . ;) Enjoy!
Chapter 2: Perchance to Dream
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Vile dormmates aside, the Head Girl accommodations weren't half bad, Ginny had to admit. Malfoy had hung back after the feast—probably for some prime Parkinson fawning, Ginny thought to herself with a twist of her lip—so, after a hurried goodnight to Dean and Luna as they escorted off their first years, she got to explore her new dormitory unmolested. The girl in the tapestry that guarded the entrance reminded her somewhat of Luna, only more Medieval looking: she had long, blond hair and a high forehead, and her voice was delicate, almost hard to hear. She was holding up a silver mirror to the unicorn in the tapestry when Ginny walked up and said, "Lux."
"Welcome," the girl said, but the tapestry was already rolling up from the floor, peeling away from the wall, revealing a wooden door sunken into the stone wall. Once inside, Ginny spent a good bit of time poking around the common room—there was a table with a chess board, a wall covered in books, and curling wrought-iron candlesticks standing about the room that she supposed would make a Slytherin feel more at home. Everything seemed to be decorated in neutral colors: squishy chairs by the fire in a rich tan-brown; wall-paper that looked like birch trees, with white bark and silver-green leaves. Upon closer inspection, Ginny noticed that the wallpaper stretched backward into darkness, trees upon trees until there was nothing, like a real forest. She even thought she saw a flicker of movement in its depths, but then, the fire could have been playing tricks. You never knew with Hogwarts.
There were two doors out of the common area, both thick and wooden like the main entrance. Ginny found that they both had a little bronze plaque beside them, one that said "HEAD BOY: DRACO MALFOY" and another that said "HEAD GIRL: GINNY WEASLEY." She took a mental photograph of her plaque, to remember the moment. Then she pushed inside her door, which had been left ajar.
Her room was wide, with a double bed, a small wooden desk, and her trunk, already moved up from the train. She let out a vast sigh of relief when she realized that adjoining her room were a private toilet and shower. She would rather have Bat-Bogeyed herself than shared a toilet with Malfoy.
She unpacked a few things—toiletries, a few books. She was just going to Spell-o-tape Harry's photos from that morning to her wall when she noticed dark, heavy curtains on the other side of her bed. Leaving the photos scattered on her desk with his letter, she pushed aside the curtains and discovered a window alcove, complete with cushioned seat. Sitting on the seat was a roll of parchment. She read it, not recognizing the handwriting at first.
Dear Miss Weasley,
Congratulations on being Head Girl. It is one more honor you do to Gryffindor House. Please make yourself at home in these accommodations.
I have included lists of duties and responsibilities to be fulfilled by the Head Girl, Head Boy, and Prefects. Please read these carefully and distribute the workload accordingly at weekly meetings.
The lock on your bedroom door can be charmed with an individual password. Simply tap the doorhandle with your wand, say the incantation (Clostra), and say the chosen password. Once activated, the password can only be reset with a tap from the same wand.
Remember that you can come to me if you should ever have questions.
Most sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Ginny felt a sudden rush of gratitude for the old Head of Gryffindor House. Something told Ginny that this letter was more of the Headmaster's department, but Ginny would bet her broomstick it wouldn't have been one-tenth as nice coming from Snape.
After she'd set her password—blast-ended skrewts, just because she could—Ginny was struck with a sudden and wonderful idea. She supposed Malfoy would have received a roll of parchment very similar to hers, only he hadn't arrived to read his yet. Sneaking back out into the common room, Ginny poked her head into Draco's bedroom, her heart pounding faster despite herself. His room was just like hers, except for the intimidating black trunk with the Malfoy crest at the foot of his bed where her worn old brown one would have been. She saw the roll of parchment on his desk, bright white in the darkness of the room. She summoned it and unrolled it in the doorway, where the light from the common room allowed her to find the sentence about locking his door. Malfoy's letter actually had been written by Snape, she noticed with a flash of resentment, which gave her all the more pleasure when she magicked that sentence out entirely.
"Wingardium Leviosa," she said, watching as the parchment settled back on the top of Malfoy's desk. She crept back into the common room, leaving his door cracked open as it had been before. She'd never said "blast-ended skrewts" with such a spring in her step, and a moment later, she was curling up in her window alcove, clutching McGonagall's parchment and chuckling to herself.
She liked starting out with a bit of an advantage.
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That night, her freckled arms spread wide against the blankets of her bed, Ginny had a very strange dream.
She looked down on a circle of nine. They were each perched on a rock, she noticed, though a man with long, white hair was lounging on his with rather pronounced laziness—so pronounced she thought it must be faked.
"Is it so hard to give us a little proof?" he drawled across the circle of his companions. He seemed to be gazing at a woman who sat opposite him, robed in blue, with free-flowing blond hair and, of all things, a rabbit in her lap. She was petting it with long, white fingers, emanating calmness.
"I cannot show you on demand, Arawn, as you well know," she said. Her voice was very gentle, and Ginny was inclined to look past the woman's strangeness and trust the natural wisdom that she sensed was underneath.
"Right. We understand," said another man from the circle, this one dark-haired with a gold-and-silver circlet on his head. His voice had a note of leadership, his tone a sense of finality. Ginny couldn't help but peek at the insolent Arawn, who was rolling his eyes.
His eyes. Ginny gave a start when she got a good look at them. His irises were so silvery pale that they faded into the whites, practically indistinguishable. His eyes were like ghosts.
Mumbles broke out amongst the nine at the leader's words. Ginny took the moment to get her bearings. The stones seemed embedded in the dirt on the crest of a hill. It was night, she realized, but the moon was so full and bright that it cast shadows over the group. There were torches staked between each stone, flickering with unnatural blue flame. Somehow, looking at those flames, she knew that these were very powerful magical beings. She felt it in her bones.
"So we trust Adraste." The speaker was a dark-skinned man, tall, judging by the way his knees stuck awkwardly out from where he was seated. He wore a robe that shifted in color between green, gray, and blue in the flickering light. In his right hand was a pale white trident. At his words, the blond-haired woman with the rabbit nodded an acknowledgment of thanks. Ginny figured that she must be Adraste.
The man with the trident kept talking, his voice low. " . . . what we do from here?" he finished, glancing around the circle.
"We build the curse, of course. And then we wait," said a new voice, and Ginny tracked it down to a straight-backed woman with white jewels like stars pinned to her curling brown hair. Her hands were folded in her lap. Ginny noticed a long, dark scabbard sticking out from her belt. The woman had an air of confidence as she continued, "Nearly 3,000 years, if the stars are correct."
Arawn snorted from his corner, but said nothing.
"Where's Gurdy?" asked another from the circle, and suddenly everyone was poking their heads around, squinting to see beyond the torchlight.
"He's not here," said yet another voice, this one deep and rasping, but clearly feminine. Ginny found the speaker a moment later: a dark, hooded figure with a crow on her shoulder. Ginny couldn't see her face, but she felt her blood run cold when she noticed what the woman was holding. A long, gleaming scythe. The grim reaper. "He's off . . . doing me a favor."
Obviously Ginny wasn't the only one curious as well as disgusted by the idea of what favors such a woman would call in. The brown-haired woman who had spoken of stars wore an expression of distaste.
"No matter," said Adraste, and everyone turned to her. "The stars will align. Gurdy will be our messenger to those we have chosen. It is Fated."
Ginny found this whole speech to be a bit ridiculous, although she had to admit that the full moon and the torchlight and the smell of impending rain added a very believable atmosphere to the whole experience. She thought she had goosebumps, if one could have goosebumps in a dream.
Back in her Head Girl dormitory, Ginny tossed about in a troubled sleep, the faces of those nine beings flitting in and out of her confused dreams. Besides the six she'd heard from at first, there were two almost familiar flame-haired ones, a man and a woman, and another man with skin as dark as night and a lyre strapped to his back. It was getting hard to keep them all straight, but they stayed in her head as the night stretched on and on.
Little did Ginny know that in the room next to her, they stayed in Draco's head, too. He was having the exact same dream.
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A/N: Aha! Gods and goddesses and dreams, oh my! More to come soon. Please review!
