POSSIBLE SPOILERS/WARNINGS: Minor references to certain events from books 1-6
SUMMARY: A budding romance; a mysterious, anger-filled teenager; a future in tatters. Will they be able to save the day or let the mistakes of the past haunt them in the future?
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry for the burst of short chapters. If you read my A/N in the previous chapter, this fic was meant to be a one-shot fic only, but I couldn't so it became a series of short-chaptered story.
BETA: Special thanks to Maria (aka tigereyes320) for beta-reading this fic for me
II. Uh-oh, Where Are We?
GINNY GROANED AS SHE SLOWLY CAME TO after being sucked in to a vortex that opened right above the Great Hall during dinner. Everyone in the room panicked when the portal grew bigger and bigger; terrorized shriek field the large hall, but no one seemed to be running for their lives. At least that was what Ginny thought when she glanced around her and found everyone at the old Gryffindor table sat frozen where they were. She waited a couple of heartbeats before she got up and started to run from the room, but the moment she did she felt a strong hand grab her around the waist and pulled her into the vortex. The last thing she recalled was seeing Hermione, Harry and her brother Ron's shocked faces and her brother and her ex-boyfriend scrambling to pull her back before she passed out.
Something heavy was keeping her where she landed. She tried to fudge it, but the darn thing wouldn't move. She tried fudging the weight on top of her a couple more times, but it was too darn heavy and too darn stubborn to move.
"Where's my wand when I need it?" she grumbled trying to keep her oxygen flow going. She was still a bit out of sorts after that vortex sucked her in. She wondered how many other former students were taken.
Ginny was busy trying to remember everything else that happened before she blanked out when the weight on top of her started moving – and groaning! She stopped breathing. Her heart lodged in her throat. That cold hand known as panic starts to wrap itself around her. She doesn't know if whoever this person was on top of her was a friend or foe.
She listened attentively, her whole body tensed. Dammit, she didn't know what that vortex was about or who conjured it. For all she knows it was part of the Dark Lord's ploy to get to Harry.
"Bloody hell," mumbled the dead weight on top of her.
Ginny's ears perked at the familiar sound of the voice. Her initial dread was replaced with instant anger. The strength she didn't expect to possess came back ten-fold and she managed to push him off her.
Draco Malfoy landed with a thud on the cold cement floor. He was still a wee bit disoriented and parts of him ached after he was pulled into that massive black hole. Where the hell did that hole come from anyway? He wasn't aware of any portals being opened, otherwise his father would've warned him.
"Get your bloody self off me, Malfoy!"
Draco's whole body tensed at the sound of that particular irate voice. He didn't need a genius to figure out who was the person who cushioned his fall, albeit little was done to prevent himself from feeling like he'd been torn to pieces when he landed.
"Ginny?" His vision was slowly clearing. He blinked a couple of times and focused his gaze on the hot-tempered redhead sprawled on the floor with him. "What the hell?"
Ginny angrily pushed herself to a standing position, dusting herself off the dirt that stuck to her when she landed on the cold floor. She blatantly ignored Draco and started scanning the place. This room looked eerily familiar to her, but she couldn't point her finger to it. She has been to this room before, but when exactly she couldn't point out.
"Where in the world are we?" Draco voiced out the question Ginny was reluctant to ask out loud. He got up from the cold floor himself and dusted his robe off dust that clung to it. "This place looks oddly familiar," he added, turning a complete three-sixty degree surveying the room they crash-landed to.
"It better well should," snarled a not too welcoming voice from the corner of the room. The voice's owner was shrouded in darkness, concealing her hiding place from the blond and redhead that crashed in on her unexpectedly.
Draco and Ginny whirled at the direction they heard the voice came from. The wand Ginny couldn't find earlier was in her hand in an instant (it was stuffed inside her robe and when Draco landed on her, she couldn't twist sideways to grab it due to his weight). Draco's wand was out as well and aimed at the figure.
"Who is there?" he demanded.
"The bloody Easter Bunny," answered the stranger with an all too familiar sarcasm reminiscent of a young Draco Malfoy during his years studying at Hogwarts. "Put your wand down," she ordered.
"Show yourself!" Draco ignored the stranger's warning and continued to aim his wand at her direction. He reached behind him and put a protective arm in front of Ginny, shielding her from potential harm's way as they both backed away slowly from where they stood.
The stranger didn't listen instead she let out a very unladylike snort as if she was mocking him. Draco's patience was slowly slipping and Ginny was getting more impatient.
"Put…your wand…down," the woman repeated, her tone carrying a warning indicating if neither one of them do what she told them to do she'd do something nasty to them.
"Show yourself first," Ginny demanded.
"Stubborn to the end," muttered the stranger and with a blink of an eye Draco and Ginny's wands were taken from them. The stranger moved out of the shadow then, her black robe's hood covering her face, but in her hand she showed their wands.
"Give that back!" demanded Ginny when she realized what just happened.
"Not yet," replied the hooded figure. "I need to be certain first that neither one of you will use this against me," she dangled their wands once again.
"After that trick you pulled of disarming us, you think we'll be a match to you?" Draco said incredulously.
The stranger merely shrugged. She crossed the distance between herself and the two strangers that landed in the middle of the circle of candles. Draco and Ginny took a protective step backwards with Draco pushing Ginny behind him for protection.
"Who are you?" asked Ginny peering over Draco's shoulder. "Where are we?"
The hooded stranger seemed to not hear her. She contemplated on whether to answer Ginny's question or not. After a moment's pause she pushed the hood covering her head and face, revealing a small, heart-shaped face framed by a thick mass of wavy strawberry-blond hair.
Ginny let out an audible gasp as soon as she has a clear view of the stranger's face. Their captor looked exactly like a female version of Draco Malfoy, except for the colour of her hair and a splash of freckles on her face.
Draco was momentarily rendered speechless at the sight of the young woman standing before them. He was looking at Ginny Weasley's look-alike, except for the colour of her eyes; it was rare to see a redhead sporting silver gray eyes.
"You two aren't supposed to be here," answered their captor. She walked over the circle of candles and handed their wands back to them. "The spell I cast must've backfired," she continued.
"Spell?" echoed Draco.
"What spell?" asked Ginny.
The young woman met the dumbfounded couple's gaze. This was neither the time nor the place for her to explain everything to them. She followed the instructions down to a T, what happened?
"Never mind. We can't stay here any longer," she announced. "You two can Apparate, can you not?" She eyed Draco and Ginny carefully then belatedly realized she was asking a ridiculous question and answered it herself. "Of course you do! Apparate to the Burrow, I'll just meet you there," she announced before disappearing.
"The Burrow?" echoed Ginny and cast Draco a curious look.
Draco merely shrugged. "I thought your home was destroyed?"
"It was," nodded Ginny.
"Look, let's just follow what that woman says instead of us lingering here. If we want answers my guess is we better go after her," he suggested.
