Author's Note: So first of all, I want to apologize to you all for the poor formatting on the last chapter. The uploading process made all my scene/point of view transitions really unclear... But hopefully, this chapter will be much better. Anyway, I'm really grateful for all the reviews I've already gotten. Keep 'em coming. :)
"We're heading down to dinner, Gin. Are you coming?"
Ginny flicked her eyes upward to meet Annie's questioning glance. "No," she replied with a smile. "I think I'll try and get some work done first. You lot can go on ahead."
Annie gave her a long look but left along with the other girls. She was grateful that her friend had let the matter of dinner drop. Lately she had taken to nagging Ginny about eating enough, which she found extremely frustrating. Pushing Annie out of her mind, Ginny leaned her head back against the plush red armchair and closed her eyes, just for a second, just to give them a break before she resumed reading. The heat from the fire warmed her face and made her feel drowsy; it loosened the iron grip she had placed on her thoughts, allowing them to wander, wander far away from the Charms book on her lap, far away from the common room...
The heels of her hands were pressed against cold, slimy stone. She was shivering: from cold, from fear, from anticipation. It wasn't long now. It wasn't long until he would be here. She had been waiting for hours – where was he? Why wasn't he here? He had told her...
And then the pale, handsome face was sliding into view out of the dim torchlight. Capped by dark, gently waved hair and inset with eyes like wells: dark and deep. They were eyes you could hurt yourself in. But only if you got too close; only if you fell. She looked up at him admiringly, but felt as though she'd been slapped when she saw that he wasn't smiling. Why wasn't he smiling? Wasn't he happy with her? Hadn't she done as he'd asked? Hadn't he been with her the whole time, inside her, helping her to paint those words on the wall?
The blood rushed to her cheeks. "I did what you said," she said. "You told me to come here after, and I did. I did both things, then I came right away." She bumbled on and on.
"Ginevra." Tom's voice was soft like velvet, and she imagined there was warmth in it, even though the look in his eyes was dangerous. "My little Ginevra." He knelt before her. Ginny, eleven years old and small for her age, was paralyzed. Not by fear or by magic. By the weight of Tom above her, pressing against her, but before he could crush her, he evaporated into heavy smoke and vanished entirely. Tom was replaced by Harry, looking heroic with a sword and offering her a hand up. Before she could take it, Harry disappeared, too, and was replaced by a great snake preparing to strike.
She turned her head to the side, not wanting to see when it sank its fangs into her. An inch away from her face was a pair of steel gray eyes. "You like it, don't you?" The voice asked. She screamed.
Ginny woke up with a start. The images were still fresh in her mind, fresh like paint, like walls painted red with blood. Her heart was pounding madly in her chest, which felt too constricted to contain it. She thought she might explode. Thoughtlessly she rose. Her Charms book slid off her lap and landed spine up on the carpet, like a tent. She left it there as she walked for the portrait hole, trying to keep her expression blank and her movements steady as several pairs of eyes followed her out. She wondered if she had actually screamed, if they had heard anything as she dreamed by the fireplace... But the eyes only appeared bored, not suspicious, so she didn't think so. She clambered out from behind the Fat Lady and began to walk.
She didn't know where she was going, but after an unknown amount of corridors and staircases that she passed by, she could no longer control the shaking. She braced herself against a wall only to sink down against it as her knees gave out. A gasping sob rose out of her chest, but she wasn't crying. Her eyes were dry. She was just startled, disturbed...
It had been a long time since Ginny had dreamed of Tom, and never so vividly, never to the point of nearly crying out like that. She berated herself viciously for letting her guard down. Even when she was only eleven, still a child, she had never once screamed when the nightmares struck. In fact, she had never spoken of the nightmares at all, to anyone, just as she had never told anyone how much she remembered of her first year at Hogwarts. Everyone had just assumed that she had been in a trance or something, and she had not bothered to correct them. It was easier that way than to let everyone – Harry, her parents, Dumbledore – see what she had really been. To see that she had wanted very much to please Tom, even as his requests had gotten blacker and blacker, because he was charming and reminded her of Harry, except that Harry didn't care about her or let her confide in him the way Tom did...
As Ginny's mind began to clear, she had to swallow down the disgust she felt for herself. Why was she letting all of this through? Why now, when she had been able to effectively keep it behind closed mental doors for so long? But she knew why. It was just a reminder that people always got what they deserved. People who want the wrong things for themselves always pay the price: just as she had nearly died at age eleven because she had both wanted and allowed Tom to control her. In many ways, she was still paying that price.
Slowly, her mind began to numb itself again to the effects of the dream. She felt much more composed now. She smoothed down her hair and stood, straightening her uniform as she did so. It was just in time, too, for she didn't hear the approaching footsteps until the figure had already turned the corner and walked up to her.
"Hi, Harry," Ginny said, surprised.
"Hey." Harry Potter watched her through his round-rimmed glasses. His face was familiar to her, and still as handsome as she had supposed when she was still to young to board the Hogwarts Express. She wasn't sure what she felt for him anymore. Before she could wonder what he was doing there, he had continued to speak: "I was just... er, I saw you in the common room. You jumped up and left pretty quickly. Is everything okay?"
The way he said it – as if he were performing his brotherly duty – made Ginny want to laugh in his face. Harry Potter, the Chosen One, destined to save the world, but not too high and mighty to look after little Ginny Weasley. There's just one problem with that, she thought, cocking her head at him. You don't even see me. Not really.
"I'm perfectly fine, Harry." She flashed him a suggestive smile. "I just fancied a walk."
Harry grinned shyly, and Ginny knew that he had swallowed her lie as smooth as pumpkin juice. There was an awkward silence as he continued to look at her with a strange look on his face. She looked at him expectantly, since he looked like he was about to say something else. A few more uncomfortable moments passed before he did.
"Right." Harry straightened his glasses. "Right, well, I reckon I'll just head back to the commonroom, then, Hermione's looking over my Transfiguration essay..." He trailed off. "I'll see you later, Gin."
"Yeah, see you."
Harry looked back at her just before he turned the corner. "You're sure everything is alright?"
Ginny nodded. "Yeah. Everything is great."
Apparently satisfied, Harry left. This time, he did not turn back.
"You are such a fucking liar."
The voice made her jump. It was not Harry. Of course it wasn't Harry – he would never talk like that to her, or to anyone, for that matter. Ginny gritted her teeth and turned slowly.
"What do you want, Malfoy?" She glared at the taller boy's sharp features. In a way, it felt good to finally have someone she didn't have to smile at; the thought made her scowl even harder, as though her face were trying very hard to forget all the smiling she had forced it into lately.
"Tsk tsk, Weasley," said Malfoy in his infuriating drawl. "That's not very gracious of you."
"'Gracious'?" Ginny couldn't believe him. "Do you expect a thank you card or something? Because I'm sorry, but that's not happening. And what are you doing out here, anyway? Are you following me?"
Now it was Malfoy's turn to look disbelieving. "Excuse me? This coming from the one who stalked me, dragged me into a dark room, and proceeded to assault me? Hardly."
"You deserved to be assaulted," said Ginny scathingly.
"Yeah? Well, you don't."
Ginny's scowl fell promptly from her face, leaving her with only a comically confused expression. "What?"
"Get help, Weasley," said Malfoy slowly, as if explaining something very simple to someone very stupid. "You're messed up. I saw the way you lied to Potter just now. You're good at it, which is exactly why you need to stop before you end up at St. Mungo's, or dead." As he said all this, Malfoy had gotten very close to her, his footsteps accentuating his points. Ginny was staring directly at his chest; he was much taller than her. Suddenly, through her attempts to remain angry and defensive, she remembered how helpless she had felt when she awoke in his commonroom. How vulnerable and pathetic. Even now, being back in the context of Malfoy, she felt exposed.
She forced herself to look up into his gray eyes, encircled by deep shadows. He looked like shit, Ginny reflected. Everything about him looked haggard and weary. "Why do you care?" She hated that she was unable to keep her voice from trembling.
"I don't. But there is a war outside of these walls, Weasley. And maybe inside them, too, before long. You know that, right? Or are you too selfish to care that there are going to be enough casualties as it is?"
The scowl worked its way back onto Ginny's face. Malfoy didn't know what he was talking about, the pretentious git. Just because he'd happened to find her after... Ginny quickly pulled her mind back to Malfoy. The bastard. He didn't know anything.
As Draco stood in front of the Weasley girl, watching the stubborness and denial pass across her face like an open book, he didn't think he'd ever been so pissed off in his life. Merlin, he knew that he was selfish, but this was ridiculous. Here someone was threatening her – had threatened her life – and she was refusing to find help even when it was offered. He thought of his own threats. The threats to his family. The unspoken, unspeakable thing that gnawed at his every waking hour like a beast. He hated Weasley. He hated her because she chose what was happening to her and because he himself would kill for a choice. Any choice but the only one left to him.
Maybe he'd been lying when he said she didn't deserve it. Draco was still fuming when he moved to walk past her, unable to stand her any longer, none-too-gently bumping her arm in the process. Something occurred to him, though, so he paused directly beside her; as if frozen, she had not moved.
"I won't talk to you again. Or help you."
"Good," said Weasley defiantly. "But if you tell anyone..."
"Save it, Weasley. You're not actually significant enough to be an interesting conversation point."
Draco walked away without looking back, glad to be leaving her behind. Whatever sliver of conscience had presented itself to make him tell her to try and find help was apparently satisfied and silent. He was still agitated about the encounter, however, by the time he reached the Room of Requirement. Her face flashed into his mind. She was a fool and he hated her. But that didn't explain why he still felt bad for her. Just like the furious scowl on Weasley's face, imprinted unwillingly into his mind, didn't explain why her brown eyes had been so...pleading. Pleading for someone to help her.
Draco found his way through the zigzagging pathway of the Room, past tottering, precarious piles of unclaimed rubbish, till finally he stood before the Vanishing Cabinet. Help her. That was a laugh. He couldn't even help himself.
