Here we go… as promised. :S
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Arriving in the Burrow, the trio were immediately aware that things were not good. Screams were echoing down the staircase, and not 10 seconds after their arrival, Ginny came barreling down into the living room. Ron grabbed her arm before she could reach the front door, and though she twisted in his grasp, his hold stayed firm.
Mrs Weasley appeared at the bottom of the stairs, and Harry and Hermione were shocked at her appearance. Her usually neat hair was haphazard and flyaway, her face was red and splotchy, and there was an almost feral snarl on her face. When she saw Ginny struggling against Ron, she grinned horribly. Harry and Hermione exchanged a glance, completely thrown by the appearance of a woman they considered to be the very embodiment of motherly affection and calm.
"Good work, Ron!" Mrs Weasley screeched. "Stop right there, Ginny!"
Molly hurried over to Ron and Ginny, before grabbing her distraught daughter away from her son. And then she slapped her as hard as she could.
Three cries of outrage met this action, and suddenly Mrs Weasley was facing three very angry teenagers, each of whom had a wand trained on her. Ginny wrenched free at last and, despite the fact that he had stopped her escaping earlier, hugged Ron around the waist as though her life depended on it. Ron patted her on the head, murmuring comforting words, while continuing to glare at his mother.
Molly Weasley was, for her part, swelling with fury. Finally, her anger broke, and she began screaming, not only at her daughter, but at the three people pointing wands at her as well.
"You ungrateful, vindictive bitch!" she screamed at the top of her voice, her wand shooting angry sparks towards Ginny. "Why do you do it? Why do enjoy causing us this hurt? You think you're the only person who matters in this family? Is that it?"
She seemed to be building up to something, and sure enough, after another minute of ranting about Ginny's selfishness, she let forth a crushing blow.
"I wish I'd never stopped Belatrix! I WISH YOU HAD DIED INSTEAD OF FRED!" she shrieked, her eyes rolling, looking quite mad.
After a ringing silence, Ginny gave a short gasp, and before anyone could stop her she had pulled free of Ron and fled out the front door. A sharp crack a second later indicated that she had disapparated. The four people left in the kitchen were left staring at each other in trepidation. It was a tense moment.
Then Molly gave a strangled sob, and collapsed to the ground.
"Mum!" Ron cried, and ran to her side. No matter what he, Harry or Hermione said, Molly continued to moan and sob on the floor. Eventually Ron waved his wand and levitated her towards the staircase, walking her up to her room and placing her on the bed.
By this time, Molly had stopped crying, and instead lay silently, staring up at the ceiling. It was a long time before she spoke again.
Ron walked back down the stairs, accompanied by Harry and Hermione. They sat on the couch together, saying nothing. When Ron broke the silence, he sounded like he had a bad cold.
"We have to try and find her." he stated.
Harry and Hermione exchanged yet another glance.
"Do you think so, Ron? I'm sure she'll turn up when she's calmed down. She always has before." Hermione said soothingly. But Ron just shook his head jerkily.
"No, this time is different. She might… She might hurt herself."
"You don't think she'd…" Hermione trailed off, sparing a look at Harry, who chose this moment to speak.
"No." he said roughly. "I know Ginny. I know her even better after last night. There's no way she'd be as weak as I was."
Ron and Hermione both started to protest his calling himself weak, but he waved them down impatiently. "That's not important. I think you're both right. I think Hermione's right in thinking she wouldn't resort to self-harm, but I think Ron's right when he says this is different to any other time she's run off, and we ought to try and find her."
Hermione and Ron both nodded.
"Where should we look first?" was Hermione's first question, directed towards Ron. He looked thoughtful for a moment.
"I think we should split up. I'll look in the same places I was trying last night: nightclubs in town. Harry, you go back to Grimauld and go through the place with a fine toothed comb. If you don't find her there, then move on to other order member's places. She was always close to Tonks, so it's possible she might even be with Andromeda and Teddy.
"Hermione, you go around to friend's places. Seamus, Dean, the Patils, all those. It shouldn't take you long to check each one, so just try and visit as many as you can.
"If you run out of places to look, or if you find her, send a Patronus to me with the message, and I'll send one back with my location, and you can join me there. Sound good?"
Hermione and Harry were both impressed with the leadership and planning qualities Ron was showing, and nodded. All three of them got up; Harry headed to the fireplace and immediately flooed to his home, while Ron and Hermione walked out the front door to disapparate beyond the wards.
When they reached the front gate, Hermione took Ron's arm and looked intently into his face.
"We'll find her Ron. Don't worry." she said with conviction, and gave him a chaste kiss on the cheek before turning on the spot and disapparating away.
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Ron didn't have any luck until the fifth club he tried. It was a small and dingy establishment, whose main patronage seemed to be the hardcore crowd. Tattoos and leather seemed to be the main attire, and Ron wasn't feeling particularly confident that he would find out anything useful in such a place. Still, the more promising places he already tried had come up empty, so perhaps a change of strategy would garner better results.
After a brief wait in line, in which he attracted much attention for his long wizard robes and lack of eyebrow piercings, he was allowed into the club proper. He immediately made his way to the bar, where he received more glances from the heavily tattooed and pierced bartender.
"What can I get ya, luv?" she asked him, a small smile of amusement lifting the corners of her mouth. Ron had no time to feel embarrassed at the moment though, and got straight to the point.
"I was wondering if you could help me find someone. A girl, little bit younger than me. Long red hair, same color as mine. Name of Ginny."
The bartender looked him up and down a couple of times before nodding. "If I couldn't tell just by looking at you that you're related, then I'd say no, 'cause it's a bit creepy to be following some girl around otherwise. She was in here about two hours ago, but that's all I can tell you. If you want some more info, I recommend talking to Leo over there." she said, pointing out a tall, painfully thin, shabby looking man with a pointed face and small beard who was sitting at a table in the very corner of the club. "She was chatting to him for a while."
Ron thanked her profusely, and made his way over to the strange man. Had it been any other situation, he would have been furious to know that Ginny was fraternizing with such unsavory characters, but with his anxiety at an all-time high, all he could feel was hope that the man could help him.
Leo looked up in fright when Ron made himself known, but relaxed when he took the newcomer's appearance.
"Jesus, mate. Don't sneak up on a bloke like tha'!" he exclaimed in a thick cockney accent. "Never know 'oo might be sneaking up on po' ol' Leo."
"Sorry." said Ron impatiently. "Listen, the bartender said you could help me."
Leo raised his eyebrows, a pointy toothed smile breaking out on his face. "Did she now? Bless 'er. You lookin' ter buy some stuff, then?"
"What?" asked Ron.
"You wan' sum product, yeah? Why else you's lookin' for Leo?" he asked in voice that clearly said he thought Ron was slow in the head.
"Oh! No! No I don't want any product. The bartender said she saw you talking to my sister earlier. I wanted to know if you knew where she is or where she went."
Leo leaned back in his chair, apparently disappointed in Ron's motives for speaking to him. "Yeah, I mighta seen 'er. Ginger nut like you, wern' she?"
"Yeah, same hair."
"Yeah she bough' some stuff off of me couple hours 'go. Poor sod looked li' she wan'ed ta ge' well wasted." he added, not looking very sorry at all.
A cold ball of dread was growing in the pit of Ron's stomach, but he forced himself to speak calmly for a little longer.
"You say she bought some product off you? What do you mean?"
Leo was looking at him strangely. "You neva bin to a club afore, sonny?"
"What?" said Ron again, wishing he had something else to say.
Leo sighed. "Drugs, man!" he exclaimed. "Product is drugs! Yer little sister bough' drugs off me!"
Ron went cold.
"No." he whispered in a voice laced with fear.
"No my arse! Bough' a bunch o' heroin, din she?"
"Heroin?" Ron asked, unfamiliar with the word.
"Fokin' 'ell mate! Slow aint ya? Herion! Smack! Dope! Junk! All that good shit!"
Ron forced himself to stay calm for a little longer, he needed more information. "Is it bad for you?" he managed to croak.
Leo was now apparently convinced that Ron suffered from arrested development disorder. He snorted. "Fok yeah it is! Kill ya if ya ought careful."
Ron snapped. In one swift movement he had Leo slammed against the wall, fist at his throat, and his own furious face just inches from Leo's. The poor drug dealer struggled and squirmed, gasping for breath.
"Oi, whatcha fink you's doin'?" he yelled.
"YOU SOLD MY BABY SISTER DRUGS THAT COULD KILL HER?" Ron screamed, totally beyond reason. Both participants of the dispute were unaware that the band had stopped playing, and most of the club's occupants had stopped to watch the disagreement. Near the back of the crowd a pair of bouncers struggled to push through the throng.
"Mate! She was fockin cryin' and shi'! She jus' waned ta have a good nigh', thas all!"
"SHE'S SIXTEEN YOU MOTHERFUCKER!" Ron continued to scream. He was quite mad now, and knew only one thing for certain: he was going to kill the man in front of him. One bloke at the back of the pub yelled out.
"Smash the rat's filthy face in ginge'!" A few people shouted out in agreement, and before long a chant had gone up.
"SMASH HIM! SMASH HIM! SMASH HIM!"
The bass player of the band started up a beat, drawing the crowd into an even greater frenzy. Ron was tempted to pull out his wand and blast the cringing piece of filth into a thousand pieces, no matter that he was in a room full of Muggles.
Despite the insanity that had taken hold of him, he was strangely reminded of just how similar his position was to that of Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew, all those years ago.
Ron plunged his hand into his robes, but before he could even grasp his wand's handle, he was seized roughly from behind. The two bouncers had finally made it to him, and together they half carried, half dragged him to the fire exit. Before they threw him through the door, Ron heard the bartender speak.
"You really ought to stop selling that shit to underage girls, Leo."
"Fuckin' oath…" came the reply.
As soon as he landed, Ron leapt back to his feet, but the few seconds had given him a chance to think, and instead of charging back into the club, wand drawn, he instead decided to focus on what was actually important: finding Ginny.
Leo would get his in due time.
He walked hurriedly along the alleyway for a little bit, until he was quite sure he was out of sight of any Muggles. He then drew his wand and conjured his Patronus. The little terrier burst from his wand and gamboled about him for a few seconds.
"Harry and Hermione, meet me at the entrance to King's Cross Station. Hurry." he told it urgently. Then he waved his wand and the terrier split into two, which disappeared in different directions. Ron then turned on the spot, disapparating away to King's Cross.
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Harry was just leaving Andromeda Tonks place, after determining that Ginny was indeed not there. After a quick hello to Teddy he walked outside and prepared to apparate elsewhere, when a Patronus he recognized immediately as Ron's terrier flew up to him and spoke in Ron's voice.
"Meet me at the entrance to King's Cross Station. Hurry."
Before the Patronus had even begun to fade away, Harry had turned on the spot.
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"Come on Hermione, I'm sure Ginny's fine, stay and have a beer with us."
"For the last time, Seamus. NO!"
Seamus made to speak again, but stopped before uttering even a word as a Patronus swooped in through his window.
"Meet me at the entrance to King's Cross Station. Hurry." It said to Hermione in Ron's voice. Before Seamus could ask what that was all about, Hermione turned on the spot and vanished.
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Ron's breath frosted in front of him in the cold night air of King's Cross. He looked around, waiting for his friends to appear.
He didn't have to wait long, Harry was the first, appearing just fifteen meters to his left. Hermione followed seconds later, appearing totally silently into the night. They walked towards him, questioning looks on their faces. As soon as they reached him, Ron launched into an explanation of what had happened in the club, ignoring their gasps and Hermione's indignant cry of "RON!" when he described how he had tried to pull out his wand in a crowded Muggle club.
When he had finished, there was a very ugly look on Harry's face.
"Okay, so we find Ginny. We take her home and make sure she's okay. Then we go back to the club and kill that bastard." he said in a dangerously matter-of-fact voice.
Ron was expecting Hermione to exclaim at Harry's murderous intent, but when he looked at her, she was nodding slightly. Despite himself, Ron grinned.
"So where do we go from here?" Hermione asked.
Ron snapped his fingers. "Hermione, that point me spell you taught Harry back in fourth year, could you key that in to point you towards Ginny?"
Hermione bit her lip, thinking quickly. "I'm sorry Ron, but I don't think so. If it were that easy to find someone then Voldemort would've just used it to find Harry last year, rather than relying on the name taboo, wouldn't he?"
Ron shoulders slumped. "Yeah, of course." Still, he looked at her hopefully, clearly expecting her to produce another brilliant idea such as he was used to. Unfortunately, despite thinking harder than she had ever thought in her life, Hermione was having no luck.
Suddenly, Harry spoke.
"I think I might know where she is." he said in a funny voice.
"Really! Where?" was Ron's urgent reply.
Harry held out his hand to his two friends and they took it nervously, feeling the familiar constricting feeling as they disappeared into nothingness.
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Hogwarts loomed out of the darkness, the familiar shape marred by the massive damages done during the battle which had not yet been repaired.
Ron and Hermione looked curiously at Harry, wondering why he thought Ginny would be at Hogwarts, but his face was a mask. The moonlight glinted briefly off of him, throwing his features into sharper relief, and his friends felt a jolt of anxiety when they saw the expression he wore.
Without speaking, Harry took off at jog up the Hogwarts drive, Ron and Hermione following.
Harry picked up speed when he reached the lake edge, curving around towards the woods. His heart compressed painfully when he saw the beech tree he had spent many happy hours under with Ron, Hermione… and Ginny.
And then he was running, and he was no longer seventeen but twelve, and sprinting along an ancient chamber towards a motionless body, while the monkey like face of Salazar Slytherin glared down upon him.
He reached her and fell to his knees, but even as he took her cold hand in his, Harry knew that this was no memory.
Ginny Weasley looked much as she had all those years ago. Pale and small and so, so cold.
"Ginny! Ginny don't be dead, please don't be dead!"
'She won't wake' said a little voice in the back of his head, and Harry knew it was true. Dimly he was aware of Ron collapsing to his knees beside him. Dimly he was aware of him shaking her, yelling her name.
Ginny's head lolled limply on her shoulders, her wide eyes staring unseeingly up at them. A tiny trickle of blood ran out the side of the mouth, and Harry remembered the spiral of smoke which had done the same thing last night.
Or had it been a thousand years ago?
Ginny Weasley was dead, all the evidence was in front of him, but somehow he couldn't accept it as truth. He remembered how he had felt when Sirius had died, as well as Dumbledore. There was no question about it; this was much, much worse.
There was no anger, no irrational desire to do something about the situation as there had been in the past. There was just death, and cold, and the gentle sigh of the wind though the beech tree's branches. There was no hope, there was nothing left to fight for.
What had he thought of her last night? Always strong. Always fighting. How could it be that the strongest of them all was the first to leave? He noticed, vaguely, the syringe that lay next to her, and the small trail of blood that ran down her arm, beginning in the crook of her elbow. It seemed somehow obscene, and Harry found himself wondering how someone proud, and brave, and beautiful like Ginny Weasley had been brought down through the actions of scum like Leo. There was no poetic beauty to it, no sacrifice that could be written about with pride and honor. There was only a dirty paper bag, a syringe and a body.
And the terrible, irrefutable fact that Ginny Weasley was dead.
Dead.
Sound returned all at once, as Ron screamed. It was a scream of such broken disbelief, such pain and guilt, that it almost made Harry cry out himself just from the sound of it. Ron staggered to his feet and lurched towards the lake shore, where he retched and heaved, his body convulsing.
When he returned, there was no expression on his face. He simply collapsed next to Ginny's body and drew it onto his lap, cradling it with tenderness and care befitting a newborn. Rocking back and forth, he pressed his face against her hair, once so bright and vibrant, now lank and dead looking, and began to sob softly.
Hermione stood as well, her face a tableau of pain and grief. She fell back down when she reached Harry's side and buried her face in his chest. Finally she succumbed to the tears, and heaved with wretched sobs into his robes.
Harry sat unfeelingly, his hand still gripping Ginny's, staring across the dark waters of the lake. He felt something brush against his hand, and looked down. A scrap of paper was poking out of Ginny's grip. Gently, he prized her hand open and removed it. He stared at the note, reading the words her living hand had written there, even as her life had ebbed away.
All my life; I gave for you.
Harry felt his soul being crushed into powder as the words leapt from the page at him, dragging him back down, down into darkness with their meaning… And then he was broken inside, and how could there be hope, how could there be anything left to fix, as yet another part of himself was torn into nothingness?
How could it be that he was responsible, again, for the death of a friend?
How did it come to this?
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I hated writing this, I'm actually angry at myself for doing that to Ginny.
Goddamn it I need a drink.
-TR
P.S. Cheers for the feedback, means a lot. There might be a little longer between the next couple of updates, as I'm currently away from home, but I'll do my best to get them up ASAP.
