The End of the World.

~*~

Chapter Eleven: Ginny

Ginny seemed to be lying tensely in the dark for quite awhile before she decided to move. There was no light in the cellar, and she didn't have her wand - it was in her bag, which was (she presumed) still stuck in the fence. She blindly shuffled across the dusty floor, her hands in front of her to feel her way around. She bumped into a large object and almost jumped out of her skin. Placing one hand on her chest to try and soothe her heart, she felt the big object with her other hand. It seemed to be a large couch, or chair. Ok, so there was a chair in there. That was good. Just as she was getting ready to go around the chair and continue to explore the cellar, she heard a loud crashing noise - someone was at the basement door moving the rubbish bins.

Her heart leapt into her throat and she dived behind the couch. It was quite close to the brick wall behind and she hit her head quite hard against it in her haste. Lying there in the dark, Ginny waited in silence, ignoring the throbbing on her skull and trying to listen if someone was coming down.

Her view was completely obscured by the couch, but when the door to the outside was opened, the room briefly lit up with a dim grey light, before the door slammed behind whoever it was coming down the stairs. Ginny bit her lip and squeezed her eyes tightly shut. Who was there? Did they know that she was there? Had she been discovered? Had Draco really led her into a trap?

Before she had much time to dwell on such questions, Ginny saw a small flickering light fill the room over top of the couch.

"Ginny?" a hoarse voice whispered. "Ginny, are you here?"

She thought she recognised the voice, but she said nothing - it could be a trap after all - and the faceless voice let out a string of expletives. This language brought a clear picture of the intruder to her mind, and she crawled out from behind the couch to come standing face to face with Draco Malfoy.

"You're mother would be disgusted with that language, Malfoy."

Draco, pretending not to be surprised to see the red-head crawl backwards out from behind the mangy old couch, raised his eyebrow and stared at her coolly.

"My mother *taught* me that language. You have cobwebs in your hair, Weasley."

Angrily, Ginny swiped at the offending cobwebs as Draco lit several more candles around the room with his wand.

"Where are the rest of the Death Eaters?"

"I'd prefer if you didn't include me in their group. I might be a Slytherin, but I can assure you that there is more to becoming a Death Eater than just being sorted into the right house. Or the wrong house, depending on how you look at it," he added.

"Where are they?"

"Looking for you, still. Killing some other people on the way."

"Do they know I'm here?"

"If they did, then I doubt they would waste their time searching for you in places where they knew they wouldn't find you."

"For Merlin's sake, Malfoy. I hardly think this is the time for jokes."

"I hardly thought I was joking."

She glared at him for a moment, her eyes narrowed and her hands on her hips.

"Why did you tell me to come here, Malfoy?"

"I guess I'm not as heartless and sadistic as you like to think I am."

"As I like to think you are? As long as I've known you - as long as you've damn well *lived* - you have never done a decent thing towards another living being unless it benefited you."

"Especially not towards a Gryffindor," Draco agreed, nodding his sliver- blonde head.

"Yes, exactly. Wait," she said, squeezing her hands into fists in frustration. "Stop agreeing with me. Just tell me why you saved me, Draco, and I will go and you will never have to see me again."

"I guess deep down somewhere I must have a decent bone in my body. And I never said I wanted you to leave."

"Well I'm not staying here to be your initiation-into-Death Eater-hood sacrifice, thank you very much, Malfoy," she sneered sarcastically.

"Do you really think I'd kill you?" Draco looked genuinely surprised.

"Do I think you'd kill me? Frankly, Draco, yes. And I think you'd enjoy doing it."

"Well you don't know me very well then, do you, Weasley."

"I don't really want to. I already know enough to be repulsed by you - any more details and I might have to throw myself off a cliff."

"Well, good luck finding a cliff in the middle of London City. And good luck getting there before the Death Eaters catch you."

Ginny stood there glowering at Draco.

"I know *you* find it highly amusing that people are getting killed all around us and that I could be next, but I'm finding it a bit hard to laugh at the situation, Draco."

"If I thought I would get a kick out of seeing you killed, I wouldn't have told you to come here. Will you stop letting your pre-conceived opinions of me get in the way of logical thought? I'm not going to kill you, I didn't lead you here so someone *else* could kill you, and I certainly don't want to see all my efforts to *get* you here go to waste just because you're too proud to accept the fact the maybe I did something nice for once. It's your damn Gryffindor pride. A most unfortunate trait to have, I must say. It makes you very disagreeable."

"Well what would you like me to do, Malfoy? Grovel at your feet and praise you for saving my life? Because, quite frankly, I would have rather been killed back there than be stuck in here for Merlin knows how long with you as my only companion."

"I'll keep that in mind for next time, then," Draco replied and turned away from her. He began to climb the cellar stairs, when Ginny stamped her foot in frustration.

"Where are you going?"

"Out," he said, not turning around. "I got the impression that you didn't want to be here with me."

"Oh, right," Ginny replied. "You got *that* impression, but you seemed to completely miss the part about me wanting to know answers. You know, like why you're acting like a good guy now and why you saved my life. Little stuff like that."

"Oh, I got that part. I just didn't think you'd want to hear the answers."

Ginny blinked. That was not what she had expected him to say.

"Why not?" she asked.

He turned around slowly and fixed her with a level gaze.

"I saved your life because I could. I don't get many opportunities to do good things. Besides," he added off-handedly. "Now you're in debt to me. Personal debts always come in handy at some point or another."

"So it *was* for your benefit, then?" she spat, not wanting to believe that he could do anything out of the goodness of his heart. She had trouble enough believing he *had* a heart.

"No, I didn't think of it like that at the time. It only occurred to me now that you owe me your life."

Ginny rolled her eyes.

"Well what are you going to do now, then? Keep me locked down here as your personal slave?"

"As delightful as that sounds, Gryffindors simply don't make good slaves. Hufflepuffs are better workers. Hardworking. Loyal. That sort of thing. Gryffindors make better torture victims - it's highly amusing when the finally crack and beg for mercy. If there's one thing that can be said for a Gryffindor is that it takes a lot to break their pride."

Ginny didn't respond to this - she was pretty sure he was joking (again - honestly, this really *wasn't* the time) but you could never tell with Slytherins. Especially Death Eater Slytherins.

"Look, you can stay here as long as you want, or you can leave and run around the streets doing whatever you were doing before you decided to play tag with those Death Eaters, I don't care. But I would advise you to stay here for a few days until they've all finished in London and moved off to kill people in another part of the country."

"A few days?" Ginny seemed to forget that she was on the run from the Death Eaters, and currently hiding in some stranger's cellar with one of her arch-enemies. "I can't stay here for a few days. My family could be dead by then. I'd rather die trying to find them than find out that they all died when I was waiting for it to be safe to keep looking," she said vehemently. "It's never going to be safe. I could stay in here for years and still run the risk of being captured and killed when I finally emerged. If they didn't find me down here first."

Draco looked surprised - Ginny figured that he wasn't high enough up in the Death Eater ranks to know about it yet. Draco climbed back down the stairs and stared into Ginny's face, trying to figure out if she was having him on.

"Your family? Why? Where are they?"

"I have no idea. I think they were kidnapped by You-Know-Who."

"Kidnapped? Why? How come you're not with them?"

"I don't know why. I don't know where they've been taken, or if they're still alive. I only escaped by lucky chance. I went for a walk and when I got back they were gone. The house was destroyed and there was no one left."

"So you ran all the way to London hoping to find a big sign saying 'Kidnapped Weasleys Here' so you could waltz inside and ask the Dark Lord nicely for them back?"

Ginny scowled.

"I was going to my brother's house. I figured he could help me. But I guess he's been killed, or kidnapped, or has run away somewhere safe."

"If he lives anywhere around here then I expect he has," Draco agreed.

Ginny was silent. There was nothing more to say, really. Draco was being no help to her, dodging questions and cracking sarcastic jokes every two minutes.

"Well, I guess I'll just have to think of a new plan, then," Ginny said. Avoiding eye contact with Draco, Ginny sidestepped the blonde and made towards the stairs.

"So you're just going to go out there with no plans, no wand, no food, no help and expect to find them before the Death Eaters find you?" Draco asked, raising his eyebrow again.

Ginny stopped, one hand on the banister, and glanced back over her shoulder.

"No, I don't expect to find them. But I'm going to die trying," she said coldly. With that, she turned her head back and climbed the stairs, leaving Draco looking shocked and confused in the middle of the dingy cellar.

"Wait - don't go." Ginny stopped again and turned around on the stairs. "Was it just your family that disappeared?"

"What do you mean?" she asked, narrowing her eyes in suspicion.

"I mean," Draco began hesitantly. "I mean, if Potter was taken with them, then I might be able to help you."

~*~

A/N - lots of dialogue in this chapter. I tried to keep them both in character - Draco a cocky, self-righteous, Gryffindor-hating brat, and Ginny a fiery, Slytherin-hating Girl-Power Girl ^_~ I refuse to make them mary-sues. If something's worth doing, then it's worth doing in character ^_^

Hmmmm . . . this is my longest chapter ever, I think. Even longer than the last. Lucky you! Or unlucky if you didn't want to read it . . . but then stupid you for reading something you didn't want to :P And second chapter in two days! That's certainly not a record for me, but I feel very efficient anyhoo. It's probably going to be awhile until I update again as I will be without decent internet access for an undetermined amount of time starting tomorrow. I'll still be able to read them (hopefully!!!) but I'm not going to sit around in an internet café for hours typing up fanfiction . . . I don't have a life, nor any dignity anymore, but I simply don't have that much money ^_^

Next Chapter. . . VOLDEMORT . . . rah. Scary stuff. Will find out answers like I promised for the last chapter. Except this time it WILL happen.

Coming Soon: Special guest appearances by Tortured!Harry, Spy!Snape, I'mEvilAndHaveanAwesomeName!Bellatrix. Other people too . . . where are all the Weasleys? Fred and George? Bill? Charlie? Percy? Mrs Weasley?

More Torture, More Snakes, More scariness and more arguing. Wow. How can you stand the suspense _

A ZILLION thanks to every single reviewer. You are the people who inspire me to keep writing. Every time I get a new review I can't stop grinning for the rest of the day. It's amazing how something so seemingly small and insignificant like clicking a purple button and typing a few words can have on a persons life. Hinthint. :P