Envy and Manipulations

by rrabbit

Sixteen year old Ginny Weasley has her first summer job at the Folk Hills Country Club, the most prestigious high society club in the wizarding world. When Draco Malfoy comes home from his summer internship at the Ministry of Magic things get complicated.

21. Chapter 21

Hogwarts was once a place that held so much magic for me but now it's just a ruin, decaying on a cliff that still stinks of death from the prior battles. I can smell the rot all the way from here and it makes my stomach turn…I bring my hand up to cover my mouth and close my eyes for a moment as I try to get myself together.

Now is not the time to be weak.

The nighttime air is chilly, so I pull the cloak a little tighter around my body and I look at the castle through timid eyes... Large chunks of the building are completely missing and Gryffindor tower has been blasted to smithereens...It's hard seeing something I once loved so much just completely destroyed.

"It's kind of sad, isn't it?" Blaise pulls the thought from my mind as we stand just outside the ward barrier. "How the mighty have fallen."

I lick my lips and grip my wand a little tighter. My hands are sweating something fierce and my thoughts are scattered all over the place. There are a couple of lights on in the castle, and that makes me nervous...

"...Ginny?"

I shake my head. Has Blaise been talking this whole time?

"Yeah?" I ask, swallowing hard as I glance his way. His hood is drawn back and black hair is falling into his amber eyes. His good looks don't comfort me at all. They remind me too much of the demanding men in my life who have turned and twisted me beyond repair…

"I asked if you wanted to hear my plan?" he asks with a that simple Zabini smile that holds a thousand secrets. I nod my head, so he takes a step closer, pulling out a folded piece of parchment from his pocket. "This is a little treat I stole from your side of the fence," he explains as he opens up a map to the castle... where little dots with names floating beside them are moving about. "An amazing bit of magic, really. It shows every living being inside."

I take the map from him and lay it out against a tree to see. Richard Yaxley is in the great hall surrounded by other people whom I'm not familiar with... A few names I recognize as Death Eater's are mulling about the halls... but there... in Snape's old Potions lab, are Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter, Pansy Parkinson, and George Weasley.

"They're alive!" I shout and Blaise shushes me, looking around like he thought someone would curse us. "Look here," I press my finger against the parchment and nearly shove it in his face. "They're alive."

"Yes, I see that." He snatches the map away from me and folds it back into his pocket. "Now, all we have to do is break the wards and we're set."

"And then we just go in there?" I ask, looking back at the castle. "You think we can do that?"

"I think you can," he counters with a wry grin.

"What?"

"You're going to have to break the wards. I can't do it. I'm not strong enough, but I think you are. From there... well, I guess I'm just going have stand impossibly close to you the whole time so they won't kill me."

I give him a hard look and he smiles, knocking my chin up with his knuckle.

"Don't look so surprised. I don't matter. They'll kill me on site, but you... you they're going to want to hold on to for a while." I shake my head, turning away from him as he laughs. "The safest place in the world is standing right next to you," he says, reaching out to touch some of my hair. "And it's a good thing that I like you so much."

"I don't see how that could be true," I tell him as I pull away from his wondering hand. "No one is safe by me," I say because that's the cold hard truth of my life.

"Of course it's true," he says, tugging my hair so I'll look at him. "Didn't you know that? The plan is to use you as a human shield." He's smiling at me again and I can't help but roll my eyes. "I'll just shadow you all the way through the castle and throw you about when someone tries to curse me. It's a perfect plan, if I do say so myself.'

He's so smug and he wiggles his brows when we make eye contact….I turn away from him when I think about how silly he's being and I feel the corner of my mouth tilt up.

"Is that a smile I see?" he asks, tilting his chin to view the turn of my lips. "She can smile? Call the papers, we've got breaking news."

"Stop," I tell him, pushing his hand away when he tries to touch me again. This is serious and neither of us should be smiling about it.

"Why wouldn't they try to hurt me?" I ask, blinking at him as I put some hair behind my ear. "What am I to them?" I ask with a frown, sobering up quite quickly at the thought. "The Dark Lord is dead. It doesn't make sense. What if they... What if they try to curse me or something?"

"They won't," he says simply, plucking off a piece of lint from his sweater.

"How do you know?" I ask, a little too harshly as I push some hair away from my face. I'm kind of nervous and I can't stop messing with my hair. "You can't possibly know that."

"They will not want to hurt you," he answers with a sigh. "Trust me, Ginny. No one in their right mind is going to raise their wand to you."

"They're not in their right mind... They're Death Eater's."

"I thought this was what you wanted. Are we getting cold feet now?"

"No," I say quickly... too quickly, actually. "I just want to know what I'm getting into... is all," I say as I start messing with my hair again. "I want to be prepared. It's good to be prepared... Don't you think? Do you think it's good to know what we're getting into? Questions are good, right?"

I'm rambling now, but he ignores me as he picks up a nearby stick that's roughly the size of a Quidditch bat. He looks at it thoughtfully for a second before throwing it at the ward barrier with an underhanded toss. The stick freezes mid air before bursting into flames and then crumbling into nothingness.

I stare at the now empty space with my mouth slightly ajar. Blaise makes an hmf noise before peddling backwards and leaning against a tree with his arms crossed.

"That's nice," he says, making a motion to the now empty space where the stick once was. "Good luck with that, darling."

"You're not even going to try to help?"

"I'm here for moral support," he says, giving me a charming smile that I'm sure dropped many knickers once upon a time. "I'm your greatest cheerleader. Team Ginny all the way," he says with a fist pump before bringing that hand to his chin and tapping his fingers thoughtfully for a moment. "Hey, remember when you were an actual cheerleader?" He crosses his ankles, his oxford shoe bent at the toe. "I really liked that uniform," he says as he tilts his chin down and gives me a predatory, golden eyed, glare. "Do you think you'd ever consider wearing it again? When you're no longer knocked up, of course," he adds quickly like that would have a bearing on my decision.

I give him a disgusted look that makes him laugh.

"I guess it doesn't matter," he says with a dismissive shrug as he starts picking at his fingernails. "I have enough images to last me for the rest of my life. My spank bank is completely full… You looked like such a slut…"

"Hey," I snap, giving him an icy look as I pull the cloak around me again. "Stop saying things like that to me."

He just blinks innocently like what he just said was no where near being offensive.

"What? I didn't say that you were a slut... I was just implying that you may have looked like one. Wasn't that the point of those things, anyways? To make you girls look like sexy slut bunnies? I would be lying if I said I didn't thoroughly enjoy it…"

"You're disgusting," I snap before turning back to the wards and tapping the wand against my thigh. "This is important," I tell him, giving him another look over my shoulder. "Stop saying things like that to me. I'm serious. I don't like it…"

How could I… After all the stuff that happened to me with Tom...

"I let you say mean things to me all the time," he counters.

"I don't say mean things to you," I hiss, putting my hand on my stomach when the baby moves. "You're just awful."

"See, that was mean," he says with a smile but I refuse to respond. The wards are making the nighttime air shimmer lightly before my eyes and I inhale a shaking breath. I have no idea what to do next so I start gnawing on the corner of my lip as I stare out at the castle.

"You don't have to be afraid-"

"I'm not afraid," I say quickly as I tug down on Draco's sweater. I pull the sleeve over my left hand and I bring it up to my face, inhaling against the fabric so I can smell Draco's cologne.

"Of course," he says with a little smile like he was humoring me. "How foolish of me to even think such a thing."

"You are foolish," I mutter spitefully under my breath... but he hears it.

"That was mean too," he says with a hand on his heart. "You really have no idea how terribly you treat me. I have half a mind to quit you all together…." I spare him another look and he licks his lower lip. "But of course I won't. I haven't conquered you yet."

"That's never going to happen," I tell him with an angry head shake.

"Never say never," he mutters like he didn't necessarily want me to hear.

I choose to ignore him anyways and I turn back to the castle. Zabini shouldn't be talking to me like that and he shouldn't be flirting with me. Especially not now... Not when things are so serious and real people who matter to me could be hurt. I try to find the strength to do what I have to do next, but I have no idea how to break the wards, no idea how to even start…. I lift and lower my wand a few times as I think about Draco and my brother... and Harry and Pansy. Just because they're alive, doesn't mean they're not in pain.

What if they're being tortured right now? Death Eater's are known for torturing their captives... They take pleasure in it and Draco was a traitor... Harry was the face of resistance... God, they won't survive much longer!

If I can pick out all the anger and resentment I have...If I can focus all my energy...

"Are you going to do something?" Zabini asks, checking his watch and breaking my resolve. "Or are we going to be here all night?"

I give him a dirty look and he puts a hand up in defense.

"Hey, don't look at me like that. I just don't want to stand around all night. These shoes are new and not broken in yet."

"This isn't funny," I tell him, turning back to the castle. "This isn't funny," I repeat under my breath.

"Of course it's not funny," he says, and I can feel him glaring at my back. His tone is much colder, much more hateful than before. "It isn't funny at all, babe."

I glance at him when he calls me that name, but he's not looking at me anymore. He's fiddling with his wand with his eyes narrowed like I had hurt his feelings some how, but I don't care. I don't say anything to him, I just wait until he looks at me, and then I promptly look away. He starts to unfold the map from his pocket as I pace back and forth in front of the wards, trying to remember something...anything...that Tom had said to me in the past that might help me now.

...You have so much potential... and it's all wasted on you...

"Oh, look at this," he says, but I ignore him because he's a jerk. "Yaxley is in the room with Malfoy and the others...Well, that's troubling..."

"What?"I stop pacing and look at him over my shoulder "What's troubling?"

"Your brother..." he says. "His name is gone."

"What?" I stomp towards him and snatch the map away to see for myself. "What... What does that mean?" I ask hopelessly even though I'm pretty sure I know what it means. "Does that mean he's dead?" I ask as I look at the empty space by Harry, where George's name used to be.

"Or close to it," he says lightly as he watches my profile. "That's a shame, really. I liked that brother of yours. He was one of the bearable ones..."

I clench my jaw and push the map back at his chest. That's just the spark I need and with the thought of my brother's dead body in my mind, I lift my wand and blast a curse right at the wards.

The curse is bright blue and it sores high into the air, breaking apart like a firework before hitting the wall of magic with a loud, deafening boom. Nothing happens for a few seconds and then a gust of unnaturally cold wind hits us and ruffles my hair, sending the shoulders of my cloak flowing behind me. The wind shakes me to the core and a few painfully silent moments pass before the wards start cracking...shattering like glass until it all crumbles to the ground at our feet.

There's a heavy pause before Blaise speaks and, when he does, his voice is low and unlike anything I've ever heard coming from him. "I didn't think you'd actually be able to do it," he says softly.

I glance at him to see to his reaction, but he looks... he almost looks upset.

"Isn't this why you brought me?"

He doesn't answer, but I don't wait. I start to head towards the castle, but Blaise grabs my arm before I can.

"What are you doing?" I snap as he pulls us into the forest. "We have to get in there...My brother..."

"You're not going into that castle, you silly girl," he says, pushing me against a tree and messing with an odd dial on his watch. "Just hold still."

"No, my brother..." I go to push him back but he slams my shoulder against the tree.

"I'm sorry that hurt," he says quickly. I go to move again, but he holds firm. "Your brother is fine. I lied to you," he says as he takes out the map to show me... George's name is back in the room with the others and I tilt my head in confusion when I see it. "I used a bit of kid magic to trick you. See? He's right there."

"Why would you do that?" I ask fiercely, grabbing the map and trying to figure out how he could have fooled me so easily.

Stupid girl...

"So you would break the wards, of course," he says simply and he snatches the map back. "If anyone had a chance of doing it, it was you. This was the only way."

I stare at him while he stuffs the map back in his pocket, but before I can call him out on his constant lies, two pops of Apparation break the silence. It makes me jump and I raise my wand to the two people in black cloaks who are barreling towards us with purposeful steps. They're on a mission, that much I can tell... but Blaise puts his hand over mine and pushes my arm down. He even tuts his tongue like I was being rash about the whole thing.

"We don't have much time," the woman on the right says as she takes off her cloak. Blaise keeps his hand over mine and squeezes gently to get me to relax, but I don't. "You're Ginny," she barks when she gets closer and I nod my head, letting her shake my free hand with callused fingers. "Name's Trisha. I'll be taking your likeness tonight.

"Wait… What?" I ask when she starts to strip out of her jeans and t-shirt.

She's older, in her mid forties, and her graying hair is cut short and spiked about her head. The man beside her is a big brick wall with a black mustache that looks like a squirrel crawled on his lip and died. He keeps pursing his lips and scanning the trees while she throws clothes on the ground. One article after another gets added to the pile until she's down to just a sports bra and grandma underwear that reaches up way past her navel. I step back and watch in confusion as she pulls out an odd looking pillow from her bag and starts strapping it around her stomach.

"Blaise?" I ask softly, unable to mask the confusion in my voice as I tilt my chin to look at him. "I don't understand…"

"They're expecting to see Ginny Weasley," Blaise says as Trisha arranges the fake stomach against her belly, punching it into place in such a way that makes me step back and touch my own belly. "And we're going to give them one. Only Trisha is a trained Auror and she's obviously not pregnant."

"I don't..."

"You don't understand," Blaise finishes for me and I blink a few times as he starts removing my cloak. "I didn't exactly fill you in," he says as he unclasps the cloak with his long fingers. "I'm good at lying, Ginny, and I had no intention of actually going into that castle just the two of us. That would be fucking stupid, no matter how strong you may be. In a few minutes the rest of the Order is going to show up, waiting for my signal to go inside. I told Yaxley that I would bring you to them if they released the others. He thinks I care about them enough to do that," he says with an eye roll. "Shows what he knows."

He starts to take off Draco's sweater, but I stop his hands.

"We were out in the open," he explains. "The Death Eaters would have been watching... They were waiting to see you break the Dark Lord's wards. They know what you were wearing."

"I..."

The woman named Trisha opens a flask and she plucks a single strand of hair from my head.

"Ow," I whisper as I rub out the pain and she gives me a crooked smile.

"Sorry," she answers before throwing the hair into the potion. It fizzles for a few moments and once it settles, she downs it all in one large gulp.

She even belches afterward and I make a face as Blaise turns to me, his broad shoulders blocking the others from view.

"Why didn't you tell me any of this?" I say to his chest because I'm so angry I feel like I might hit him. "I'm strong, Blaise. You weren't wrong about that..."

"You are sharing this body with a wizard, Ginny," he says gently. "I know you try to ignore that fact, but I will not put you in harms way... Especially when you're carrying a child."

"Blaise..."

"Listen," he says, pulling me away from Trisha and the strange man so they can't hear us. "Just listen for a moment. I am going to tell you something that is true." I swallow hard as he presses close to me with his hand running over my rounded middle. "You have a child in here that has never seen the evil we can do to one another. This pregnancy has been so stressful he's probably going to come out pulling out what little hair he has to start with."

"Don't say that."

"Are you deciding to care now?" he asks and I clench my jaw in shame because he's right.

I wasn't thinking of baby names. I wasn't really wondering what he'd look either. I'm not excited to decorate his nursery or pick out his clothes…. If I woke up tomorrow suddenly not pregnant, I don't think I would even care… I might even be pleased, as sad as that is….I have no drive to protect him and I have no desire to hold him… The awful truth is a dark part inside of me doesn't give a damn about him.

Blaise sees the look on my face and takes a step back, pinching the bridge of his nose before giving me a hard look.

"My mother never wanted children," he tells me, his voice low and serious. "She's a selfish bitch who never wanted me, a fact that she made very clear numerous times in my childhood."

I feel guilty, but I refuse to show it.

"She only kept me because she knew that she could use me to get the things that she wanted. Money being the driving force behind most of her decisions, she realized that I had the potential to be a big pay day for her... one she could milk until I came of age. My father..." he trails off for a second, blinking hard before continuing. "He was old. He never had any children. When he found out she was trying to do and what would become of us once she did it... he offered to marry her, give her a comfortable home life and a sizable bank account. He had always wanted a son..."

He stops talking for a second and then he looks at me.

"I wish you could have met my father. He was a good man... The world doesn't seem to have many of those."

"Your father was a death eater." I wince as soon as I say it. It might be true, but it was insensitive to bring up.

"He was a lot of things," he says, his voice a little sharper in his anger. "Beliefs don't make us dangerous; it's the actions that show the true measure of a man. Anybody can have beliefs…" he trails off and shakes his head like he was getting off track and when he looks to me again, he's serious and somber and so unlike the Zabini that I know. "My father and his sister were the only people in the whole world who ever loved me…. but my Aunt was simple. She was damaged during the war and loved like a child... My father... he died when I was young and I was left alone with my Mother who had resented me from the moment I started to grow inside of her."

"Why are you telling me this?" I ask in frustration, trying not to be moved by his little story because he's Blaise and Blaise is a liar.

"It still hurts that my birth parents never cared," he answers, running a hand over the roundness of my stomach. "It's a pain no child should ever have to know."

I turn away, the guilt starting to sink heavily on my chest because he sounds so genuine.

"Many people are going to try to use him," he says, staring at his hand on my stomach. "You know that," he adds seriously, flicking his golden eyes to mine. "And the best way to protect him from that is to love him. Not because you have to, not because you'd feel guilty otherwise... but because he'll be your son.Your son, Ginny," he says like he was trying to make it sink in. "I know you will. You're incapable of anything less, but you have got to start acting like it. You have to start protecting him now. This baby might grow up to be a lot of things, but first and foremost, this baby is yours. How much you invest could make all the difference in the world."

"You said they wouldn't even try to hurt me...Remember, you said that..." I say pathetically because I don't want to feel bad anymore.

"I say a lot of things," he admits softly, bringing a hand up to brush his knuckles along my cheek. "They would tear that child right out of your womb if they had a chance." I swallow hard at the thought. "What kind of man would I be if I let you walk into that?" he asks seriously, sparing me a golden eyed look that makes me feel ashamed. "I am a lot of things, but I am not a monster."

"I..." I trail off for a second, not knowing what to say.

He's just staring at me, giving me this look... This look like I would be an awful person if I didn't agree with him... and maybe he's right. I look down at my stomach and sigh. Was I awful... was I selfish?

"Does that make sense to you?" he presses, tilting his head to catch my eyes. "Don't you agree? I know it's frustrating."

"Why didn't you just tell me all of this?" I ask, the anger burning my chest again. "You didn't have to trick me."

"I'm sorry," he says, looking serious again. "I thought it was the only way. Your magic plays directly off of your emotions…"

"Zabini," the woman named Trisha calls to him in a loud whisper. He looks around the trees and makes a motion with his hand.

"Just another second," he tells her before looking back to me and tilting his face down so he can see my reaction. "Ginny, please tell me that you understand. I'm not doing this to be mean or overly deceitful. I am trying to do a good thing here, to be a good guy. It's a very rare thing for me. You've already broken the wards for us and that is bounds above what anyone else will do tonight. I can't let you go in, so please say you'll stay out here."

I don't say anything for a while and Trisha whispers to us again. Zabini asks her for a few more moments and I look down at my stomach, running my hand along the baby when I feel him move. He moves. He's real and one day he will be born... and he will walk... and talk... and cry... and hopefully love… I look up at Zabini. He's staring at me with his dark brows furrowed and I turn away.

"Okay."

"What?" he asks gently, tilting his face to hear me better.

"I said okay. I won't go in. I'm not even good at dueling anyways," I tell him with clenched teeth. "I would probably just mess it up."

"I don't think that's true," he says, brushing his hand along my arm. "But I'm pleased anyways. Now," he exhales slowly and he's standing so close that it ruffles my hair. "We're going to need your clothes," he says, sending a look down to my dress. "Like I said, the Death Eater's were watching you at the gate."

I nod my head and I take off the cloak handing it to him and making him turn around while I take off the sweater.

"What am I supposed to wear?" I ask as I lower the straps of the orange dress. He tilts his face so I can see his profile and I bet he's peaking. "That woman was wearing jeans and a tight shirt. She's a lot smaller than me. They won't fit unless you know any sizing charms, because I sure as hell don't."

"I asked her to bring something for you," he explains. I let the dress pool at my feet as goosebumps rise on my skin. "We won't make you walk around naked."

I can hear the smirk in his voice, but I ignore it.

I bundle up the dress and hand it to him over his shoulder. I'm pleased I decided to wear shorts now. "She's not going to need my bra and underwear is she?" I ask uncomfortably as I cross my arms. "Because that's gross."

"No, just your shoes," he says and when I hesitate, he explains. "She has bigger feet than you do," he flicks me a quick glance before looking away.

"Oh," I say as I try to find a comfortable way to bend down to untie the oxfords. They come off along with my socks and I'm left barefoot and nearly naked in the forest that is far too cold for the season.

"Just give me a second," he says as he walks towards the others. I rub my skin to keep it warm and when he returns, he's holding a folded up white thing and bright red wellies.

"What?" I ask as he places the rain boots by my feet. I look at them in disgust because I know for a fact those kinds of boots aren't comfortable.

"Those are what she brought?"

"She said it was all she had that might fit you." He hands me the white bundle and I unravel it, holding it up to see a white night gown with lace trim.

"What?" I repeat because it's floor length and ridiculous. "Seriously?"

"Yeah," he says. I quickly put it on because I don't want to just be standing around in my underwear anymore. It's sleeveless and fits like a tent.

"Are you kidding me? She didn't have any sweat pants or anything?" I ask as I bundle up the fabric in my hands.

He shrugs.

"Zabini," Trisha comes towards us, only she's not Trisha anymore…. She's me. Wearing my dress and my shoes and braidingmy hair…. "We've lingered here too long. They're going to get suspicious."

"What shoes did you wear here?" Blaise asks. "They might be better than what you brought."

Trisha, who looks like me, glances behind her and bends down to pick up a pair of rough looking combat boots caked in mud and covered in something green and awful smelling.

"Well," Zabini looks back at me with an amused eyebrow raised. "It's the red boots or the lesbian shoes. Pick your poison."

I don't even bother to answer as I slip my feet into the rain boots, hiking up the skirt of the night gown so I don't trip all over the place.

"Ready?" Trisha asks and Blaise nods his head, reaching out to squeeze my hand. "Let me get the potion from Jaul and we'll go in." He nods again and she walks back to the brick wall with the mustache.

"Don't worry," he says giving me a little smile when I start chewing on my lip again. "I won't leave you totally out of the loop. I am not like Malfoy."

He steps back and moves his wand in the air. An odd pink spell tints the night time sky before disappearing and in its place is a mirror set into a carved silver frame.

"The surveillance is still up," he explains as he taps the mirror so a view of the front hall of Hogwarts comes into focus. "I will not let you come in with me, but I can give you the next best thing," he says as he turns the mirror with his hands, showing different sections of the castle as he pulls me to his side. "I think all the main sections are covered..."

"How do you know this magic?" I ask softly as I take a step forward to get a better look at the mirror.

"I know a lot of magic," he says with a smile as he steps behind me so his breath is warm on my neck. "Watch," he says as he reaches past me, his chest pressed into my back as he does a sequence with his hand that shrinks the mirror until it could fit in a pocket. "There." He says as he smiles against my neck. He hands it to me. "Now, to make it lager again, you just tap the corner four times in a row," he says, showing me with air movements just above the glass. "I will try to bring everything out to the halls so you can view at your leisure."

He's standing too close to me, so I move away and face him again, gripping the mirror in both hands with a worried frown on my face.

"Blaise, how did you know how to do this?" Zabini looks down at me, completely amused by my expression and he tilts his head when I furrow my brows. "The Dark Lord used this kind of mirror to show me Hogwarts once," I admit in a soft voice because I don't like talking about my time with Tom.

"And we're both wizards. Imagine that," he jokes, reaching out to put my braid over my shoulder before letting his hand travel down to my stomach where his warm hand rests just above the baby. "Remember, Ginny, if you care nothing of yourself, at least care for him," he says. "And remember what a nice guy I was tonight because I just might die."

"You're not going to die," I tell him seriously, hating the thought.

"Let's hope not. The world would be a very dull place with out me in it."

I nod because I couldn't deny that. I would be sad if he died, as awful as he is.

Trisha uses my voice to call his name again and in a moment of misplaced affection, I put my hand over his. Maybe I'm just feeling sentimental, but the move surprises him and he almost smiles as he spreads his fingers and lifts them until he threads his fingers through mine. His hand is warm and I'm cold...and maybe it's just nice to be touched because I don't pull back right away.

"Isn't it funny?" he whispers. His voice is soft and gentle as he tilts his face down to catch my eyes. "That holding hands hold more affection than a kiss?"

My stomach is starting to knot and I glance up at him, not moving because I feel like it would make him sad. He smiles for a moment before bending down like he wanted to kiss me... I turn away at the last moment... This was wrong. I shouldn't have done this.

"It depends on who you're kissing," I say as I step away quickly and start smoothing down the night gown.

"Zabini," Trisha comes to find us, looking like me and dressed like me… and even glaring like me. "Let's head in."

"Jaul is going to stay with you until the others come," Zabini says, his voice is unpleasant and cold. The man with the mustache steps forward and looks me down. I guess he's Jaul, then. "I've arranged for your father to pick you up," he adds sharply. I've upset him and a part of me feels guilty. "You shouldn't have left them with out telling," he adds. "That was actually really shitty to do to the people who love you."

I blink a few times, feeling like I had been smacked into place, but I can't respond. We share a look before he grabs the hand of the fake me and they start heading out of the forest and towards the gate. I have a silly moment where I almost follow them, but the man named Jaul grabs my arm and shakes his head.

"Blaise," I call and he stops, not looking over his shoulder, but tilting his head so he can hear me. I want to say something about Draco... about bringing him back safely, but I don't think Zabini would care too much for that right now. "Good luck," I end up saying, leaving a million things left unsaid in between.

They leave, and then Jaul hands me Trisha's cloak when he notices that I shivered. It's made of wool and it itches, but I wear it anyways. I look down at the mirror, seeing only the front hall of Hogwarts before a loud commotion starts... Pops of Apparation litter the forest and when my father, of all people, comes out of no where to pull me into a quick hug, I inhale sharply.

"Dad?" I say in a muffled voice against his chest because his grip way too tight. He pulls back and grabs my face, looking deeply into my eyes with his glasses slipping down his nose. "Dad?" I say again, confusion making my head pound.

"What is your great aunt Muriel's middle name?"

"What?" I blink a few times.

"Great aunt Muriel's middle name," he says firmly, his jaw setting into a firm line. "What is it?"

"It's..." I have to think for a moment. "Um, Lafonda...Something stupid like that..."

A grin breaks out on his face, like my answer had pleased him.

"Just had to make sure," he says, giving me a smile and pulling me into another tight hug. "Ginny," he sighs against my hair, like he was relieved to find me alive and so well. "Oh, Ginny. We thought we lost you again," he whispers, kissing the side of my head a few times before pulling back with his hands on my shoulders. "We need to get you out of here..." he says seriously, like he just realized where we were. "Here, I'll bring you home..."

He takes my hand, but I hold firm.

"I can't go home," I tell him honestly... because I just... I just can't. "Is there anything... is there anything I can do to help?"

"You try to do so much," my Dad says as Order members take positions hidden in the woods. The mirror is too cold, so I put it in a pocket in the cloak located right along the heart.

"I can do more..."

He looks around before focusing back on me like an idea had hit him. "I can't have you be anywhere near here... but I know a way you can help," he adds when he sees the look on my face. "Your mother is in Hogsmeade... helping the healers set up camp there. I can bring you there," he tells me, brushing some hair away from my face. "There you can really help."

I think for a moment, putting my hand over my belly when the baby kicks and I nod my head.

There I can help and stay out of harms way, right?

"Your mother is going to be so happy to see you," he says and I swallow hard at the thought of seeing my Mom again after leaving the way I did. I bet she's not going to be pleased.

I let myself get Apparated just outside of the Hogshead tavern that's been converted into a make shift hospital and I hesitate at the door.

"You can do a lot of good here," Dad says as he walks me in with his hands on my shoulders. "The most important job in the world…." We find my mother towards the back, fussing with Daphne as they fold bits of fabric on one of the make shift cots. "Molly," Dad coughs to get her attention and when she looks up, she puts her hand on her heart before running to me.

"Ginny!" she says as she hugs me tight, taking my breath away and squeezing painfully. "I am so pleased you're here. I wasn't sure I would ever see you again. How could you just leave with out telling us!?"

"I was with Mrs. Malfoy," I mumble, turning into a twelve year old as my mother berates me.

"You should have told us." she snaps, her eyes narrowed as she pulls back. "We thought you'd been kidnapped again... and then we just get a letter letting us know you're with that woman. A letter? The Death Eater's could have made you write something like that! I nearly had a heart attack until Narcissa Malfoy showed up in all her finery...and what are you wearing?" She pulls open my cloak and looks at the silly night gown. "What is this?""

"Molly," my father coughs, stopping my mother from delving into the rant she so sorely wanted to get out. "She wants to help," Dad says and they share a look like they didn't want to bring up how upset they were with me. Blaise was right. What I did was shitty and I would have to find the time to properly apologize, but right now wasn't that time… because right now too much was happening. "I thought this would be a good place for her."

"Right..." Mom nods, sending me another awkward smile that's tight lipped because she can't decide whether she wants to yell or hug me. "Daphne," she calls over her shoulder and Daphne, her blond hair a halo about her head, bounces towards us in a white apron that has healers supplies stuffed in the pockets. "Let's set Ginny up with a job," Mom smiles at me again with her arm around my shoulders. "Not in here though," she adds quickly before Daphne gets a chance to speak. "There are too many open potions. The fumes aren't good for the baby."

Right.

"I need to get back," Dad says as he checks his watch. "We'll be taking the castle soon. Hopefully this will be the end of it."

"Be careful," Mom says, tears threatening to fall as she lets her arm slip from my shoulders. She steps forward to hug my father and then she kisses him on the lips...The child in me wants to make a face, but I don't. "You be safe and bring our boys home."

They kiss again and just for a moment they are two human beings who love each other instead of Mom and Dad who lived only in the roles I have placed them in. It's hard to watch their intimacy, so I look away to escape it and my gaze falls on Daphne. She has her hands clasped together in front of her chest and her large eyes were brimming with tears.

"They're alive," I say to reassure her and she flicks her blue eyes towards mine. "I saw it. George is alive," I whisper because I know... I know that she loves him. "Zabini had a map. He showed me..."

She gives me a tight lipped smile that looks relieved and then she covers her mouth, turning away for a moment when a wave of emotion hits her. I barely feel anything and I glance back at my parents who finally break apart to look at me. "You be safe," Dad says with a emotion in his voice. He gives me a hug, kissing my head again before pulling back. "I love you."

"I love you too," I say and it sounds weird when I say it, like my voice is too high to be real.

He hugs Daphne too before leaving with a grave look on his old face. We watch in silence as he leaves... not saying a word before the door shuts. My heart falls to see him gone…. Like it used to drop when he would leave for work in the morning when I was little… but this was much more serious…. This was life and death and he might never come back….

"You know," Mom says. Her voice is light and cracking with sadness. "I have done this so many times, one would think I would be used to it by now... but I never am." She appears to be talking to the air in front of her and Daphne steps forward to take her arm. "It always hurts."

"They will all be alright, Mrs. Weasley," Daphne says, playing the good comforting daughter as I stand awkwardly by a cot. "The Weasley men are a resilient bunch."

They share a smile and then turn to me as I play with the ring on my finger, never feeling more left out of my own family.

Mom shakes off her sadness and a sharpness comes back into her eyes. "Now, Ginny," she smiles as she wipes away her tears. "I think we should put you upstairs. Things will be getting bloody down here and it won't be good for you to be around it." She walks towards a basket that's full of white towels. "We can set you up in a room where you can sterilize these for us. You know how to do that, right? It's a very simple spell..."

"I know it," I admit and she smiles that weird smile again.

"Good. Good..." she nods her head and then makes a motion with her hand. "Come with me, then. I'll show you the way."

When she starts walking, I follow, but before we reach the stairs, a girl in healers robes rushes towards my Mom and demands an audience. The basket gets handed off to Daphne and my Mom waves us on, telling Daphne where she wants me stationed and what orders I have to follow.

I look towards Daphne and she gives me a sweet smile that makes me look away.

"Follow me, Gin," she says as I feel an itching in my chest.

We walk up the rickety staircase before reaching an empty room to the right of the hall that has one grime covered window. The room is humid and I take off the cloak, folding it over my arm and looking around with a brow raised.

"I can grab you a chair," she says as she sets the basket down. The room is bare, but there is one dresser against the far wall that's warped from water damage and missing a few handles. Daphne puts her hands on her hips and looks around with a sigh. "Maybe two, that way you won't have to bend down so much."

I bring a hand up to my head and rub my temple…. I feel an ache now… just starting in my mind.

"Are you alright?" she asks and I blink hard a few times before nodding my head.

"Sorry," I whisper. "I think I'm getting a headache."

"Oh, well… I mean…. We might have something for that if you want."

"No, I'm fine," I say. I dig inside of the cloak to take out the mirror. For a moment, I forgot I even had it.

I exhale slowly before walking towards the center of the room and tapping the corner four times like Blaise had shown me. The mirror makes a cracking sound before enlarging and floating in front of me like it was hanging on an imaginary wall. Daphne gasps behind me, but I ignore her as I run my finger along the glass, turning the images of the castle until I find Blaise and the imposter Ginny in the back hallway on the second floor, talking to Yaxley and a whole group of Death Eater's robed in black.

"My God," Daphne says, walking up behind me as I try to fiddle with the mirror to see if I can hear anything. "Where did you get this?"

"Blaise gave it to me," I say as run my fingers along the sides, looking for some sort of volume control. I could hear things with the Dark Lord's looking glass, it only makes sense that it would work with this as well.

"He was the one who brought you here?" she asks and I nod my head, narrowing my eyes as I watch them speak... trying to read their lips.

"Yes," I say as that ache in my brain starts to get a little more pronounced. A witch with purple hair falls in front of the imposter and reaches out to put her hands on the fake stomach, but Blaise kicks her back with a sneer.

Something pulses between my legs and I look away from Zabini to focus on something else.

"Why?"

"Why did he bring me?" I ask impatiently as I look over my shoulder. Daphne, her blonde hair a mess, looks incredibly timid as she wrings the end of the apron out with her hands. "Because," I say as I look back at the mirror. "I had to break the wards."

"You broke the wards?" she repeats, like she just couldn't grasp the idea and I nod my head sharply. "Ginny... That's... That's quite a feet."

"Is it?" I ask snidely, wanting her to stop talking.

"I should get your mother... She should see this."

"Don't you dare," I say hatefully, giving her an awful glare over my shoulder that makes her wince. "She'll just take it away. I need to see what's going on," I tell her, my voice is starting to sound crazed and I'm sweating. "Don't you tell her, Daphne."

"Alright," she puts her petite hands up and nods her head. "I won't but... But Ginny, you are looking awfully pale... You look... Oh, my God!"

"What?" I snap, turning back to the mirror when her eyes grow as wide as saucers. "What did I-" I was going to ask what I missed, but I stop short because I can see it.

The purple haired witch had gotten to the imposter and discovered the fake stomach. The scene was frenzied... Death Eaters were arguing and one of them had locked Trisha into a hold with their wand pointed at her neck.

"Poly juice potion would only replicate you," Daphne says behind me, her voice sounding worried. "Not the baby."

Something happened.

Yaxley did a spell that made his wand glow yellow and then the witch who was holding onto Tricia used a curse to... a curse to kill her. It's a bloody death that tears open her insides. I cover my mouth and Daphne squeaks behind me as they let her fall to the floor. Her own likeness came back as her life, and most of her insides slip from her body.

"That can't be good," Daphne says and I agree with her, nodding as my head starts pounding something terrible.

Blaise jumps out of harms way and slides down the banister as Death Eater's start to chase after him. Tricia's trampled under heavy boots and discarded quickly like she never mattered at all and I have a moment of sadness for her loss because she probably had family… she might have even had kids… and she died for taking my place. I shake out of it and I turn the mirror to find Blaise again. He's being pursued through a corridor and I tilt the mirror so I can follow. A curse gets his arm and blasts a cut right through it, but he keeps going even when the blood starts flowing.

Blaise is a quick sprinter and he makes it to the Great Hall, hiding in an alcove and speaking frenzied words that I can't hear into his watch. Death Eater's follow shortly afterward and find Zabini in his hiding spot, but Order members start to show up just in time. They fight against the wall of Death Eater's and Zabini takes the distraction to slink away again, hiding by the stairs where he heals his arm with a quickly done spell before looking up…. Right where I'm looking down…. He stares for a few moments with his jaw tight before running into the battle and fighting like hell.

"Can you see the others with that thing?" Daphne is standing right beside me now. "Can you see George or Draco?"

I shake my head as I turn the mirror a million different ways. "They're in a room that's not covered," I tell her as I turn the mirror back to the battle. "They're in the Potions lab. Blaise knows that," I add as I start chewing on my nails.

Daphne starts to say something else, but pops of Apparation can be heard from outside and she runs towards the window.

"It's started," she says with a head shake, blonde curls bouncing around her face. "I have to get down stairs. There are ten people bloodied up already."

She runs towards the door, purpose making her steps sharp... and she glances at me before taking off into the hall. That look in her eyes was so heavy and so serious... I realize now that this war had changed us all... Even silly Daphne...She wasn't half as silly anymore.

When she's gone, I look back at the mirror. At the raging battle... but I notice something through the all the craziness... Yaxley, and that awful pig nose of his, is starting to creep away from the battle. He keeps looking over his shoulder, like he was waiting for someone to follow him, and then he starts sprinting away once he's in the clear. He goes back upstairs... to the third floor... and into the girl's lavatory.

Where the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets is.

Why is hey going in there?

"In here!" someone yells and I snap my neck to the doorway.

Three healers come stomping into my room and the mirror falls to the ground. It shatters at my feet and I bend down to salvage it... but it starts sizzling against floor before disappearing all together. I clench my fist in anger to lose that window to the castle and I nearly stomp my foot but I stop myself. The healers are speaking frantically to one another it takes my attention away when I realize they're carrying in two people completely covered in blood.

"I'm sorry." The taller healer notices me first. He's older, with a balding head of white hair. "We need the room. These two will need extensive attention."

I get out of the way when one of the healers produces two sterile cots with his wand and I back up against the wall when the bloodied people are laid down on top of them. One is screaming bloody murder and the other is gurgling…. I can see that one is a man is one is a woman now...Two of the healers start to work on the man, hovering over him and using their wands as he screams in pain. That leaves the older healer to work by himself woman, who is bleeding from so many open wounds on her body that I can hardly see how she could survive.

"You, girl," the tall healer snaps at me as I try to slink out of the room and when we make eye contact, he nods to the basket of towels. "Grab a few of those for me, will you?"

"They haven't been sterilized," I admit, feeling stupid saying it and stupid for not doing the one job I had.

"I don't care," he snaps as the woman groans underneath his wand and makes that odd gurgling sound like there was water in her throat. "Just grab some and come over here. I need all the hands I can get."

I grab a few towels and scurry towards him, hesitating a second when I see all the blood and carnage.

"Put one of those against this wound," he says, nodding to the gaping gash in the woman's stomach. "Just put pressure on it and hold it there while I heal this," he says, moving back to the awful looking mark on her neck….that must be the cause for that awful gurgling noise. "I assume you know nothing of medicine?"

"No," I admit and he nods.

"Not surprised. You look like you're twelve."

I would be offended, but I can't find the energy to be... too much is happening and I'm literally pushing a woman's insides back into her body.

"I hate the Death Eater's," he sneers as he works, getting blood all up and down his arm. "They're cruel fighters...Beasts are what they truly are. They pick targets and surround them... ganging up on their opponents with no sense of dignity or honor. The curses they use are foul," he says, sparing me a little glance before going back to healing the poor woman below. "They're not fighting a war... They're not fighting for something great. They're mutilating bodies. Look at this poor child," he says and I flick a glance down. I can barely make out her face... it's so disfigured. "She can't be a day over fifteen."

I look down at her as the healer starts to mend bone and cartilage... Weaving together open sores and bloodied cuts... When I see a tuft of dirty blonde hair that's unstained from all the bloodshed, realization washes over me like an ice cold shower.

I know who this is.

How could I not know?

I quickly look down her body again… of course… the tall lankiness of her form is still there and when she opens the one eye that actually can open…. I see the light blue misty iris that I had once looked into when she was considered my best friend. My hands start shaking. My heart starts pounding… and my head starts screaming.

"She's seventeen," I say, glancing at the healer again as the bile rises in my throat. "Her name is Luna Lovegood."

"You know her?" The healer asks.

"You have to save her. You have to make her better…." I keep rambling variations of that and my eyes become blurred from crying. "You have to fix this."

"What's her name again?" he asks, using a soothing voice as he heals all the life threatening curses on her body.

"Luna," I say quickly, breathlessly, as I keep my hands pressed against her middle.

"She's your friend?" he asks as snot starts to drip from my nose.

"She was," I admit because it was true.

I had lost her during the war. Her father died sometime in the beginning and I thought she went into hiding with a family friend in the north, but here she is…. Here she is and I had no idea she had joined the army. Here she is where I have failed to be a good friend to her once again. Our friendship seems like something that happened a millennium ago but the good memories are still fresh in my mind… They still make my heart clench.

"You have to save her!"

"I need you to calm down," I healer says, speaking to me in a straight monotone voice as every fiber in my being shakes. "I need your help, but I need you to calm down and stop getting so emotional. I know it's very hard, but I need a steady hand. Just breathe," he says and I inhale slowly. "And keep your hands still."

I nod, trying to do as he says…moving this way and that way and grabbing more towels when more blood comes pooling out. His voice is tense and taunt, but the movements of his wand are fluid like a well learned dance.

"What house was she in?" he asks, as he tries to heal that gash on her throat again because the other thing he tried didn't hold.

"Ravenclaw," I say, my voice sounding odd and frightened. "We've been friends since I was twelve," I admit softly, closing my eyes when the wounds…. The wounds start to fester and smell.

"Does she have any family?" He asks and I shake my head.

She had no one left... and I was miserable even though I had a majority of my family intact.

He doesn't say anything after that and sweat starts to form on his brow when he opens a breathing passage in her throat, inserting some kind of tube that he pulls from his pocket to help her breathe. I feel like I'm going to throw up, but I keep swallowing it.

When he moves to the wound on the stomach, I cringe away and have to cover my mouth.

"You look ill," he says as he starts mending the wound with his wand. Luna makes an odd rattling noise with her throat. "If you need to throw up, you can leave. I can take it from here."

"I'm fine," I tell him, using more towels to help... but she starts screaming and it frightens me so my hands falter for a moment. The scream is a desperate scream, one I've never heard before but it haunts me so I look away from it... towards the second bed where the two healers are amputating the legs on the man...

I'm not fine anymore. I grab the now empty basket of towels and drag it to the hallway where I empty my stomach until I feel like my whole body is turning inside out. I break out in a cold sweat and I throw up one last time before standing straight and pushing hair out of my face. My nightgown is all bloodied now and I close my eyes for moment, catching my breath before finding the courage to go back into that room.

I've seen awful things... I've been through awful things...I can be there for an old friend.

When I get back into the room, the old healer is wiping sweat from his brow and he's sitting back on his haunches. I walk towards him, sending another look towards the man who's legs are gone before kneeling down. She's not screaming anymore but she's breathing slowly... her wounds still looking awful.

"Matthew," a woman in healer robes comes running into the room and the old man looks up. "There's a boy downstairs. His sternum is cracked and the Stacklized Curse has reached his heart. Seth is busy..."

"I can be down there in a second."

"What?" I ask as he stands up, grabbing a clean part of the towel to clean his hands.

"There's really not much I can do right now," he tells me. "You can stay here with her, but I have to go back downstairs. I've done all that I can."

He leaves after that and the other two healers keep working on the man in the next bed. I go back to Luna and use my wand to clean bits of blood and dirt that I find as her chest rises and falls. She can't speak, her jaw is too messed up, but she keeps looking at me with that one good eye, so I take her hand.

She squeezes my fingers.

The man in the second passes out and one of the healers leaves while the other bandages what's left of his legs. I inhale sharply and look back down at my friend. The world is an awful and unfair place. Just over a year ago Luna and I were still friends, still working and laughing together... until I dragged her to Pansy Parkinson's house and the whole thing went to hell.

"I didn't know you joined the army," I say as I look at her uniform. It's torn and blood stained, but I can see the Order's logo stitched on her sleeve. "I'm so sorry this happened." She makes a noise in her throat, that odd gargling noise again. I ball my right hand up in a fist and bring it up to my forehead. It feels like there's a hammer pounding away right behind my eyes. "We've all been drowning, you know, since last summer," I whisper as I think of Theo and Draco. How light it all seemed and how quickly it turned dark. "It all went to hell so fast...and I have no idea what to do."

She left hand is clenched into a fist and she starts to move her arm, her muscles straining and shaking the whole way.

"Luna, don't move," I tell her, putting my hand on her arm and resting it against the cot again. "Try to relax. It might help with the healing."

Her face screws up in a weird expression and she shakes her head.

"No, don't do that," I panic as I hover over her. "He put some tube thing in your throat to help you breathe. Don't move your head."

She exhales slowly and closes her eye for a moment.

I can practically feel her frustration.

"This is it," I tell her. "After this fight there will be no more. The Death Eaters will truly be done and what's left of them will be tried for their crimes. Maybe things will get back to normal then... and you could come and stay with us, you know," I tell her gently, grabbing her hand again. "We could be friends again."

She tries to say something and it comes out like a strangled whisper.

"Just rest," I tell her, putting my hand on her shoulder.

She doesn't rest. She starts moving her lips... attempting to speak, so I lean in closer to hear.

I make out nothing at first... just jumbled words through muffled breaths... then I make out my name and I lean in closer.

"What?" I ask softly, my stomach pressing into the cot

She says something else I can't make out and then the next word out of her mouth make me pause.

"Second..."

"What?"

"Second house."

"I don't understand," I tell her, pulling back to look into her eye.

"The second house," she says, opening her clenched fist, revealing a silver pendent that has a two swans entangled around a shield. I take it from her and wipe off some of the blood with my thumb. I've seen this coat of arms before in random places around her house. It's not so strange to see such things in mostly pureblooded house holds... I just don't understand why she's holding it now. "The second house is falling."

"Falling?" I whisper, but my neck snaps up when lightening strikes outside and thunder claps soon after. The bang rattles the winders and shakes the walls... wind whistles and rain beats against the roof... and then another loud clap of thunder rumbles the building... and Luna starts shaking uncontrollably.

"Oh, my God," I try to hold her arms from flying about as her whole body moves and jerks... A foam starts to comes out of her mouth and I panic. "Luna."

The healer next to us rushes over and tries to do a few things with his wand. "She's in shock," he explains, sparing me a little look when his spells don't do anything. He's middle eastern and he looks exhausted. "Um... let me think..." he says to himself as he helps hold her down. "Let me think..."

He starts saying something else, but Luna's skin starts cracking...I fall back and the healer does as well because she's cracking like an egg shell, showing black charred skin underneath. The noise it makes is awful and I cover my mouth because I've never seen anything like it before. It's like a scene out of a demented nightmare I have no business witnessing and I scramble back until I hit the wall as fear grips my heart. She breaks all over, like her skin was just a covering and not attacked to her body at all...and the smell... the smell is horrific.

"What is this?" I ask, but the healer doesn't get a chance to answer because Luna suddenly bursts into flames.

She starts screaming... a loud and soul piercing scream... as her entire body goes up in flames...

It's unlike anything I've ever seen before and the healer tries to put out the fire with his wand. When that fails, he grabs a nearby towel and attempts to put it out the old fashioned way, but that's not working either and her screams shake my entire body with a feeling I've never felt before. I suddenly become numb to my feelings and I just stare... eyes wide open and hardly seeing a thing as the flames eat her entire body... The noises she's making... I feel like I might faint but I can't move. My muscles are made out of stone and I feel like there's an anchor on my leg... keeping me in place. The fire is an odd purple color with green at it's core when it normally would be blue, and watching it so closely is almost hypnotic... Cursed fire..... I shake out of my daze and pull myself up to try help the healer, but as suddenly as it started... the fire extinguishes before I even take my first step.

A moment of tense silence follows before the healer uses his wand to run over Luna's charred chest.

"She's dead," he declares softly....Pointing out the obvious... "I've never seen anything like that before," he admits, sending me a worried look. He's just a young guy... maybe twenty six... and he looks completely in over his head. "Are you alright?" he asks, coming towards me as I stare wide eyed at the corpse of my friend. "Jesus, I didn't realize you were with child," he says, looking down at my stomach with troubled eyes. "What are you even doing in a place like this?"

"What kind of curse would do such a thing?" I ask, my throat tight as I look at Luna's charred body. There's a sadness inside me... something buried deep in my chest that's screaming and crying right now... but the shock is too much and nothing is coming to the surface just yet.

"I'm not sure," he says with a head shake. "Something evil."

He leans forward and takes a few blood stained towels to cover what's left of her body. "Wait," I say, going towards the cot and looking down at what used to be my friend.

I feel something brewing deep in my chest... Something awful that has morphed from months of sadness and abuse... Something catches the light and I reach out to grab the silver pendent from Luna's tightly clenched fingers. I look at the two swans through blurred eyes and then I clutch it so tightly that it breaks through the skin of my palm and starts bleeding something terrible. The healer says something, but I ignore him as I take the towels and cover Luna's body myself.

The second house...

I look at the window, through the rain and through the trees where the castle is in the distance. Resting on a cliff like a demon from a nightmare.

Something evil....

I send the healer a look before leaving the room. I jog walk down the rickety stair with the nightgown bunched around my thighs and when I get to the ground floor, I stop short when two healers run in front of me, blocking my path as they hustle to help more fallen Order members.

The second house is falling...I shake my head to get Luna's voice out of my head.

People are all over the place. Running, healing, yelling... and blood... so much blood.

Blood is the most important thing...

I shake my head again and watching the madness like it was moving around me in slow motion. The old healer upstairs was right, the Death Eater's are cruel with their curses... they weren't seeking just to kill or injure... they were seeking to torture and ruin...My mother is working hard, running around the healers to assist them. Daphne is close by, her white apron soaked in blood. She looks completely frazzled as she hands off potions and supplies to impatient healers who are barking demands as they try to salvage the lives of the Order members brought in from the battle.

I don't know which is worse, being in the heart of the battle, or being around for the aftermath.

I've always liked you in red...

It makes me think of Tom and all the times he said I could be so much more than I am. How powerful I could be and how wasteful I was... I know my talk with Blaise had made me feel guilty, but I know deep down that I could honestly help. For Luna and the countless others who've lost their lives... I look down at my wand, turning it in my hand for a few moments before making the decision and walking towards the front door. No one notices me leave during the commotion and when I get outside, I look towards the castle far in the distance as rain drenches my clothes before lifting my wand and Apparating.

I land on the third floor. With the wards broken, Apparation to and from the castle is possible and I look around to make sure no one is going to attack me before exhaling slowly. Appparting makes my bones ache and I pause a moment with my hand on my back before looking down at the wet bloodied nightgown. It's too long. I can't move easily with it, so I slash it with my wand so it rests at my knees.

The fight is still in the main hall and it's making the whole castle shake. I grip my wand before I start heading towards the stair case to join, but someone starts yelling my name. I turn around quickly, only find Moaning Myrtle at the end of the hall, hopping up and down and waving at me.

"Ginny! Oh, I knew you would come!"

"Myrtle?" I whisper in confusion as I approach. She's standing in a circle of black salt... ghost salt....confinement salt of for the dead...

"I told them... I told them Ginny Weasley was my very best friend and she would never stand for this!"

"What's happened?" I ask softly, looking at the circle with a furrowed brow.

"Those awful Death Eater's grounded us!" she snaps as she motions to the circle. "All because The Bloody Baron and Nearly Headless Nick wouldn't leave well enough alone. They tried to have a mutiny against them! Can you believe that? Ghosts against living people! It was just silly. I told them so... I told them it was silly but no one listens to sad old Myrtle. I've been stuck in this stupid circle for months. Months, I tell you! It's been just so completely awful. I can't move!" She moans as she paces back and forth inside the circle. "It's the worst thing that's ever happened to me... other than dying, of course, that was pretty awful... but this... this is torture! I can't fly, I can't walk through walls... I can't even spy on people! And you know how much I love spying on people!"

"I..."

"Oh, and you know what," she says, totally ignoring me as she stops pacing to stare me down. "That pig faced Death Eater is the worst of them all! He is so terrible to everyone and he's not even good looking! At least Tom Riddle is good looking! Anyways, if you could just put a dash in this pesky circle and set me free, that would just be great."

I bring my foot out and make a swipe in the circle. She laughs loudly and floats towards the ceilings doing a few back flips and spinning like a ballerina.

I head towards the stairs.

"Where are you going?"

Myrtle plops herself in front of me and it makes me stumble back.

"I'm going to end this," I tell her, walking around her with my thoughts of Luna and her burning body.

"All by your lonesome?" she asks as she floats beside me with her hands resting behind her back.

I flick her an irritated look and decide to ignore her.

"You're going the wrong way, you know."

"What are you talking about?" I ask when she jumps in front of me again.

"Aren't you going to save your boyfriend? Isn't that why you're here?"

"Draco..." I trail off for a moment, blinking hard when my head pulses. I could do that... I could free them before joining the battle. Saving lives would be a whole lot better than taking them, anyways. I pass her again to get to the stairs so I can go down to the dungeons, but she blocks me. "What are you doing?" I snap and she tilts her head.

"Where are you going?" she asks, turning so she's hanging upside down right in front of me.

"The potions lab."

"Why would you ever do that?" she asks when I start going down the stairs.

"That's where they are."

"Oh yes," she nods her head as she starts tiptoeing down the bannister. "But they were moved when the battle started up..." she says as she smiles at me. "All four of them, including Draco Malfoy."

I stop.

"Seriously?"

She nods and smiles. "I saw it myself... and they were in a bad way." She shakes her head like she was remembering something unpleasant... and in turn I think of Luna. A bad way, indeed. "Not sure if they'll survive the night down there."

I did see Yaxley disappear into chamber... that would make sense, I guess. I hesitate a second before nodding my head and turning.

"The best place to put things you want to keep hidden is the Chamber," she says as she follows me up the stairs and down the hall. "But of course, you would know all about that."

"Who's been opening the door?" I ask, the question stopping me short when I realize the only way to get into the chamber would be with someone who can speak to snakes.

"Hmm?" she asks, blinking at me behind black rimmed glasses.

"Who's been letting them into the chamber? Harry wouldn't. He's the only parslemouth I know and I'm not sure he can even do that anymore..." I trail off when she shrugs. Myrtle knew how to open the door, perhaps another Death Eater knew the right amount of hisses to get inside as well.

That could make sense too.. .

"I might need your help getting into the chamber," I tell her honestly, because I had needed her when I was using the space for practice... I might need her again.

"Why?" she giggles as she spins in midair. "Why need my help when you have a snake in your belly?"

"I do not," I nearly yell and she looks amused by my reaction.

"That's what everyone here is saying anyways," she says with a shrug.

"Well, everyone is wrong," I say harshly and she just smiles as she floats above me with a little grin on her face.

I shake her off and go to the bathroom. The sink is already parted, revealing the darkness that leads into the depths of the castle. I tap my wand against my thigh for a few moments... hesitating before taking the first step. Myrtle follows me, singing songs and doing flips in the air as we make out descent. It's a long way down and it feels like years of my life were being sucked out of me with each step. When we finally reach the chamber door, I start to feel something troubling settle on my chest... a feeling close to dread with a dash of hysteria.

"Open it for me," I say to the ghost who's sitting cross legged on a nearby beam.

"Are you sure you want to go in there?" she asks, tilting her head to the side and letting her glasses slide down her nose. "I mean, it is ghastly, isn't it?"

"You said they were in there, right?" She nods and I grip my wand. "Then I need to get in there. Just do it for me. Please?" I ask through clenched teeth.

She raises a brow before hissing the practiced words. The door starts to creek open and I pause for a second, waiting for an attack, but when none comes, I take a tentative step forward...then another... and another... until I'm completely inside of the damp chamber. I trigger immediately, but I close my eyes and try to breathe slowly... I will not have a panic attack. Not now.

Enemies of the heir beware...

Not now! I clench my fist and try to find it in me to be brave... Shaking off all thoughts of my childhood...or lack thereof... I let my eyes open after getting my emotions under control and I look behind me when I realize Myrtle didn't follow. She's hovering in the doorway, blinking at me behind those silly glasses.

"Are you coming?" I ask softly, trying not to sound frightened.

"I can't..." she motions down to the floor. A solid line of black salt is blocking her path. "Break the line and I can help you find the others."

I nod, guessing that the death eaters wouldn't want ghosts to interfere with their demented word down here. I walk to her and swipe a line in the salt. She claps her hands before floating past me with a squeal of delight and she disappears into the darkness before I can call her back to me.

The chamber always smells like an unpleasant basement and I make a face when the scent brings up awful memories. Ginny from a year ago probably would have had a panic attack by such a smell, but I'm not that girl anymore. I do my best to shake it off and I lift my wand, igniting the torches that line the walls. They bathe the never ending room in an unhealthy green light that makes the Chamber feel like the first circle of hell. If there was such a place as the Underworld... it probably would like this... with it's never ending darkness and the soul consuming feeling of hopelessness...

My rain boots squeak against the stone floor as I walk towards the statue of Salazar Slytherin... He was not an attractive man and I have to wonder what he would think of the world now... What would he think of the school he help to build... and the beliefs that helped destroy it? I hear a rustling, so I stop and look around for Myrtle, but she's no where to be found.

Suddenly, a spell shoots out from around the statue and grazes my neck.

I screech in pain before shooting a frenzied curse in the direction of the caster. The curse, a blind curse unknown to me, makes the statue blow up with a bang, sending the pieces flying all over the chamber floor. I hide in an alcove to escape the wreckage with heart pounding.

"Oh, I think you got him," Myrtle yells once the blast settles and the dust clears. I peak my head out as she floats towards the shattered statue. "You got him good!" she starts doing a little dance. "Killed that pig nose dead!"

"Yaxkley is dead?" I squeak.

"Indeed. This block fell right on his chest," she says as I cautiously step out of my hiding spot. "Hopefully he doesn't come back as a ghost. Could you imagine how terrible that would be for me?"

"Where are the others?" I ask as I scan the room, walking around the shattered statue and glancing down at Yaxley.

He is dead... .His glassed over eyes are staring straight ahead and there's a large stone on his chest that flattened his ribcage. Still clutched in his left hand is a velvet bag of ghost salt that's spilled around him from the impact of my curse. It's disturbing to see and I feel the bile rise in my throat before I push it back down.

"They have to be around here somewhere," she calls from the ceiling with a fake thinking voice. I cover my mouth and look away from Yaxley. "Oh, where, oh, where could they be?"

"You said you knew they were in here for sure."

"Oh, I did know..." she nods her head, pigtails tickling her cheeks. "But they might have moved them again."

"Might?" I hiss angrily as I bring my hand up to the wound on my neck. It's bleeding something awful and the pain's finally hit me. It's white hot and it makes my eyes tear up, but I will not cry.

"Yes, might..." she looks around with her hands on her hips.

"If they aren't here?" I ask as I use my wand to move the rubble of the statue, becoming frantic in my search. "Then why did Yaxley come down here..." I trail off because I can see Myrtle heading towards the door. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to check upstairs. Make sure no one's coming," she says as she peaks her head out of the doorway. "This is a one way exit, Ginny Bean," I make a face at the nickname, but I don't mention it. " Trust me, you do not want to get stuck down here," she says and I nod my head in understanding before turning back to find the others.

"Thanks..." I start to say, but when the door slams, I jump and run towards it, tripping over my feet and the stone body of Salazar Slytherin.

I pound my fists against the door and feel around for something to hold onto...but there are no handles... no door knobs to open it back up. I press my shoulder against it, refusing to be stuck down here in this hell hole with a dead body... a dead body of a person I just killed.

Myrtle always had to open the door with the same hiss when it would close before...

"She'll come back," I whisper hopefully to myself as I press the door again. I even try to use a bit of magic, but it just ricochets off the door and hits the wall behind me. "She'll come back..." I say again, nodding my head and then pressing my forehead to the cold metal with my eyes clenched shut. "She'll come back..."

"No, she won't."

I snap my eyes open when I hear that voice and a cold chill crawls up my spine.

"Betrayal hurts, doesn't it?"

I turn around quickly with my wand up, but I nearly drop it when he appears among the rubble.

"You can't trust anyone," he says with a smile and I shake my head because he can't possibly be here. "They're all liars and crooks."

I inhale quickly, my breath catching and nearly choking on the suddenly cold air. There...standing right in front of me in his old Hogwarts uniform looking just like he stepped out of a diary is Tom Riddle. It's bringing back too many memories... too many nightmares... and I start breathing heavily as I flatten myself against the wall.

"At least I'm honest about who and what I am. It's completely despicable to go against someone so completely. Even I know that."

"How are you-"

"Nothing truly dies," he replies as he leans against the wall with his hands in his pockets. He's a ghost- as white and translucent as Myrtle and as beautiful as Tom Riddle in his prime ever was. "Not if they don't want to anyways," he adds with a smile. "You have nothing to say to me? After all we've been through?"

I swallow the lump in my throat, but I can't look away.

"Don't you miss me?"

"How..." I trail off, not sure of what to ask and he gives me another patient smile. "I saw your dead body," I tell him, my right hand is shaking uncontrollably and Tom sees it, smiling at the twitch like it was something adorable. "It was burned..."

"You can kill the body," he says. "But it's a lot harder to kill the soul. A simple knife will not do that." He smiles at the look on my face. "Come on now. You knew it was too easy. I would never go out that quickly"

"No..." I shake my head. "This is not even happening. This is a dream." I close my eyes shut, willing it to be so. "This is just a nightmare."

"You dream of me often?"

"Shut up," I hiss, turning around and pressing my forehead against the door and bringing hands up to cover my eyes. "This isn't real."

"Oh, but it is real," he says. "Look at me and you will see how real it is."

I tilt my head and look over my shoulder. He's still there, still staring at me with black coal eyes.. still smiling. This has to be a dream and soon Draco will wake me up and these past few days will be like they never happened...Never happened. Never happened. Never happened...

"You're dead."

"That's true," he says, nodding his head. "In one sense of the word, I suppose."

"It's not possible. I must be going mad."

"You're not mad," he says. "You have never been mad. A little confused... a little naive... a little whiny... a little silly... but never mad."

I don't say anything to that, I just turn back to the door and press my forehead against it again. I toy with the idea of slamming my head against the wall until my brains come out.

"Weren't you wondering how I died after our little meeting in the forest was going so well?"

I don't say anything.

"After all, that is the last time we saw one another... No?" he asks when I refuse to answer and he comes closer, his ghostly shoes tapping against the hard stone floor. "I could show you, if you'd like..." he says as I shake my head. "Powerful wizards make powerful ghosts. I bet you don't remember, do you? You rarely remember anything of interest."

"Leave me alone."

He stops walking for a moment and I look behind me to make sure he's not going to do anything terrible. "You and I are alike," he says, removing his hands from his pockets to touch his chest like he was giving a heart felt statement. "Do you still not see that? We are cut from the same cloth and nothing will ever change that."

I shake my head again, some hair coming loose and falling in my eyes. "You're evil."

"There is no such thing," he counters firmly curling his hand into a fist. "People like you and I are above good and evil...We're above all of that..." he trails off for a moment and then looks over my face with a sigh. "You look frightened."

"I'm not," I tell him, my teeth clenched and betraying my emotions as I turn to face him full on.

"Of course," he says, giving me a smile and looking so much like Blaise."Let me give you a little lesson in trust, Ginny. I'll show you a great betrayal," he says, walking my way until he's standing toe to toe with me. "Let me show you why I am this way and why you are the way you are."

"No."

He smiles again. Handsome teenage Tom Riddle in his Slytherin robes, smiles at me. "You keep saying that word. I think you know by now that it doesn't matter a thing to me."

"You're dead," I tell him, blinking at him through my lashes. "You can't do magic."

"But the dead carry memories," he says as he gets so close to me... so close I can see that one freckle he has on the side of his face. "And I've got a whole bag full for you."

Before I can run, he takes a step forward until his body is right inside of mine. I freeze. I can't move... I can't breathe... I can feel him inside of me, going through my thoughts and feelings and turning my blood into ice. After a few torturous moments, the chamber falls away and I find myself in a buried memory outside of Shell cottage.

I see it all going on around me like I was watching a muggle television show. Outside but inside and all around the forest... The battle is raging wild around me, curses are lighting up the sky and people are dying...I walk through the memory, the edges clouded and fuzzy and beyond my reach. I can see myself among the trees. I was laying on the ground with Tom, a man built by magic and blood, hovering over me with his wand pressed against my exposed belly.

I was knocked out during this. I remember him throwing a curse at me... I remember the darkness that followed but the rest of the night was gone to me...but here I can watch, here I can see Tom, his dark hair falling across his brows as he starts to cut my stomach open with his wand. I can feel it... It hurt something terrible and inside I was screaming, but I just couldn't move... until my hand started to reach up to stop him. I grabbed his wrist and dug my nails into his skin until he finally looked at me.

What he saw made him smile.

I didn't try to curse him, I didn't try to run or scream... and he didn't try to put me under again. I move closer to see as I sat up and touched the small cut Tom had left on my stomach. The blood was bright red and I held it up to the light before licking my finger.

I cringe in disgust... Memory me smiles... and then I see my eyes... they're as red as Tom's have ever been.

"There you are," The monster named Tom whispered as I looked over his face, red eyes dancing along his features before something odd happened... something in the way I was looking at him changed. I tilted my chin down and smiled... a very weird and seductive looking smile.. before bringing my hand out to his neck and pulling his face towards mine.

I kissed him. I kissed him long and hard and passionately and I just couldn't believe what I was doing. Tom Riddle was my tormenter, my nightmare, my rapist... and there I was... kissing him like I loved him. I laid back against the forest floor while curses split the trees around us and I pulled him close, tilting my face and deepening the kiss.

What in the hell was I doing?

I'm completely horrified as I watch my hand dance down his chest until I reach his belt buckle, but he stopped me before I could do anything awful.

"Now is not the time for that," he said, clicking his tongue as he put my hand on his shoulder. "There is a war going on," he smiled as I watched him, red eyes against red eyes. "Besides," he added, pulling back to run his hand along my stomach again. "I wouldn't be able to do anything in that respect." His red eyes flicked to mine again. "You broke me and there is only one way to fix it."

He started to bunch up my dress again, but I grabbed his wrist in a firm grip. "No."

He clenched his teeth. "You know how much I don't like that word."

"I'll die," I said, my voice sounding strong and confident... more like his.

"That's hardly true," he replied, and his voice sounded softer, sweeter, more like mine.

I looked around with my new red eyes before looking back at Tom and reaching out to touch his arm. "No," I said, my voice still as solid as ever.

"This is all your fault," he replied, smiling at my hand as I danced my fingers down his arm... where I took the wand from his fingers without any resistance. "You've been a very naughty girl."

Why was he talking so casually with me? Why was he letting me take his wand and why was I listening to him?

"You won't die," I told him. "Don't be silly," I smiled at him before pulling my hand away and pressing his wand against my wrist... cutting it open with a spell before willingly offering him my blood.

"Silly," he said the word like it was funny and he flicked a glance to me before bending his neck and drinking the blood from my wrist.

And I let him... I just let him... There was a war going on around us, trees were catching fire and people were dying... and there I was, letting him drink my blood like it was the most normal thing in the world. I watched in horror as I brought my free hand up to thread through his hair, moving even closer to him so my lips were pressed against his head...pressed against him like I loved him.

The shock of such a scene is making me sick... it's disturbing and it can't possibly be true...

After a few moments, he pulled back, his teeth coated in blood. He smiled when I brought a hand up to wipe away the blood at the corner of his mouth all lovingly. I was smiling at him... he was smiling at me...I felt stick... and then I leaned forward...

I kissed him again.

I kissed him and I kissed him and I kissed him. I kissed him passionately. I kissed him like I loved it... I kissed him with my arms pulling him close... and he kissed back, bringing his hand up to my neck to hold me in place, twisting in my hair when I tilted my head to the right. When I finally pulled back, I added one last kiss against the corner of his lips before exhaling slowly and pressing my forehead to his.

A curse came flying right towards his head, and he deflected it quickly, never once looking away from me...then we broke away and we both turned towards the culprit. Draco was standing there, his wand drawn and his face covered in ash. He looked thoroughly broken and betrayed, but I hardly cared.

"Boyfriend is jealous," Tom said with a smirk, getting to his feet and taking the wand that I handed him. Draco saw the exchange and his eyes narrowed. "Boyfriend is very jealous."

"Step away from her," Draco said, his voice sounding hard, but his wand hand was wavering.

Draco was afraid.

"Oh..." Tom taunted and he smiled down at me. "Boyfriend is trying to be brave, but even he knows he can't beat me in my weakest state, let alone after I've had a bloody pick me up."

Draco blasted a curse and Tom deflected it with another mocking smile. It goes on like like for a few minutes... with Draco shooting curse after angry curse and Tom laughing and laughing... And then Tom stopped smiling and he looked at me with a serious tilt of his head.

"Should I kill boyfriend now?" he asked. I didn't answer and he nodded his head. "I think it might be time for him to die. You think she won't find out what you've been doing?" Tom asked, turning back to Draco with a narrowed eyed glare. "You think she won't figure out the twisted relationships you've built. At least I am honest about who I am and what I want. But you, you are almost masterful in your manipulation. Why don't you tell her?" He asked, nodding to me. "Tell her what your end plan is."

"Shut up," Draco said breathlessly.

The Dark Lord laughed again. "That's almost adorable... Telling me to shut up." He looked at me again, red eyes dark and wicked. "I plan on keeping you alive for a very long time... What does boyfriend plan on doing?"

Draco took that distraction to send another curse and it hit Tom, just barely, but it did graze his face...making a small cut along his cheek where dead black blood started to ooze out. Tom looked murderous then and he started on Draco with a vengeance, throwing curse after deadly curse with all his might. Draco could hardly keep up with onslaught of violence and he ended up falling back after Tom's curses started to crack the shields he was throwing up.

Draco was no match for the Dark Lord... even though he did try his hardest.

Tom eventually disarmed him and pocketed his wand with a smug look on his face. Draco didn't look afraid, his gray eyes were on fire as he looked up at the Dark Lord and when Tom bent down and pressed his wand under his chin, Draco didn't even flinch.

"Game over," Tom hissed, his voice sounding like a snake. "You lose."

He squared his shoulders to do the killing curse, but out of now where, Richard Yaxley Apparated behind Tom and grabbed his hair, jerking his head back to expose his neck and slicing across his throat with a dagger. Black blood covered Draco's face and he sneered before pushing Tom's lifeless body to the side. He wiped off his face with the back of his sleeve and then Yaxley offered his hand to help him up. They started talking to one another. Draco was angry and Yaxley was frantic. I move closer to hear what they're saying, but suddenly they both stop...

And then they both looked at me.

Yaxley was quick, he sprinted towards me and pushed me to my back, tilting the dagger above my stomach before bringing it down... but someone was faster... someone blasted him in the chest and he flew through the air, hitting a nearby tree and blacking out as a fire started to brew within me. Blaise stepped around my body, giving Draco a look as he gripped his wand.

Blaise and Draco started to talk quietly to one another, sending glances to Yaxley with hushed voices and viscous glares.

I pulled myself to my feet and they didn't move for a while as I walked towards them. Then Draco started speaking to me, empty words on empty ears as I bent down to pick up Tom's wand from his dead fingers. They both took a step back when I turned towards them.

They almost looked afraid.

How funny that expression looked on their faces.

And then I started killing people. Order members and Death Eater's alike. Red eyes blazing with the Dark Lord's wand that felt so right in my hand... and I just kept going until my head started to hurt so badly I thought it was going to explode. It was a razor sharp pain and I stumbled a bit when little flashes of light started to dog my vision. I started to petal backwards, retracing my steps over dead bodies as the pain started to grow and pulse and heat and break.

I backed up into a large tree a few feet away from the Dark Lord's dead body and I slumped down until I was sitting with my head in my hands. Everything was hurting... everything was broken...

"Ginny?"

I snapped my head up and saw Draco... his face was ashen as he stared at me with his wand at his side. Blaise was beside him, looking around at all of the damage before spotting Yaxley knocked out by the tree.

"Malfoy..."

"Shut up," Draco cut Zabini off sharply, giving him a sideways look before glancing back at me and taking a step forward. "It's alright."

Yaxley started to wake and he made an awful noise as a white hot pain seared through my body. It was so bad I actually yelped a little and Draco hurried to me, dropping to his knees in front of me and tilting my chin up.

"What have you done?" he whispered, staring over my face and noticing the red eyes.

I blinked through blurry tears and saw Blaise to the side of us, healing Richard Yaxley. "No," I shook my head. "No, don't do that."

Draco and Blaise shared a long look and then Zabini shook his head. "You can't," he said to Draco with his dark hair falling in his eyes. "That's why she's getting so many headaches. She won't be able to take much more-"

"I know," Draco snapped, looking back at me seriously. "I know..."

"What do you know?" I asked, blinking hard when another pain shocked my system.

"You know that I love you," he said, grabbing my face to get him to look at him. "You know that I love you," he repeats as grips his wand. "You will always remember that first, right? You will always remember that I love you."

"Malfoy..." Blaise tried to cut in, but Draco gave him a sharp look that shut him up.

He looked back at me, my eyes weren't red anymore and I look more confused than anything. I looked past his shoulder at Blaise, who was looking so deathly serious, but for a moment he smiled and winked at me. Draco tilted my face towards his, leaning forward to press a soft kiss to my lips before raising his wand and hitting me with a spell...

"You will not remember the last half hour," Draco said, looking at his watch. "You will remember nothing of what you've done or who you've seen."

I blinked once, my eyes suddenly dazed and glassy.

"You didn't see me, you didn't see Zabini, you didn't see Richard Yalxey...Do you understand?"

I nodded a curse nod.

He sighed loudly, putting his hands back on my face and kissing my forehead. Then I started screaming. Screaming as loud and as hard as I could. The noise brought the battle towards us and a fire started...burning up the forest in green flames as I screamed something terrible when the pain in my body became too much to bare.

Tom stepped away from me, pulling us out of the memory so we were back in the chamber. Just me alone with a ghost.

"Do you see?" he asked with a brow raised as he brings his hand like he was going to brush hair away from my face, but his hand goes right through me. "Yaxley made a deal with your devil to end me, but he got too greedy...And your devil has been doing a lot of awful things to you. How many times, do you suppose, he's done that? How many times has he messed with your memories to serve his own purpose?"

"You're lying."

"I'm not," he seriously. "Seeing is believing, is it not?"

"What would his purpose be?" I asked softly, my voice cracking in betrayal.

"That is a good question," Tom said with a smile. "And he isn't the only one who's done that to you. Your mind is scrambled by the people you trust most. Why is that?" he asks. "Maybe its because they've seen you for what you truly are." He tilts his chin down and gives me a serious look. "You're just like me."

"That's not true..."

"Oh, but it is," he says with a smile. "You saw it. In that memory... That wasn't some mix up... it wasn't some magic I placed upon you. That was your true form. I didn't corrupt you. You were corrupted already. It's in your blood, Ginevra. Darkness like that never goes away no matter how hard you try to hide it."

A rumble shakes the walls and we both look up as the ceiling starts vibrating.

"The fight is getting quite heated..."

"What was Yaxley doing down here?" I ask, watching the ceiling at it shakes.

"He wanted to see me," he says with a smirk. "Maybe apologize for slitting my throat."

"He was keeping you in here," I say when it dawns on me. I look down at the black salt scattered by the door. "How did he end up inside?"

"I told you, powerful wizards make powerful spirits. I've always been good at convincing people to do as I want." Another loud bang is heard and Tom smiles. "We should go watch," he says, looking up. "See what our old friends are up to."

He hisses something at the door and it starts to open. On the other side of the threshold is Myrtle. She's sitting there on that old fallen beam and she stands up when we come into view with a smile on her face.

"Isn't he handsome, Ginny?" she asks as she blinks at Tom Riddle like he was just the dreamiest thing she's ever seen.

"He murdered you," I remind her, my voice wavering, but anger lacing each syllable.

"Let's not drag up past transgressions," Tom chides with a tut of his tongue. "It's not polite to do that in front of company."

Myrtle makes a hmf noise and nods her head in agreement. I look down at the salt as Tom walks through it and then he looks over my shoulder, reading my face and realizing what I'm thinking.

"Are you going to barricade yourself inside?" he asks. "I can wait." he says as he crosses his arms and Myrtle laughs, covering her mouth when he gives her an annoyed look. "I don't have to eat, or sleep...I'm perfectly at ease waiting."

"Or have a baby!" Myrtle adds with a jump.

"Or have a baby," Tom repeats, holding out his hand like he wanted to help me through. "Don't be silly. You're among friends."

Silly.

I hesitate a second, staring into Tom's dark dead eyes before stepping through the doorway and following the ghosts up the old staircase that leads to the third floor bathroom. I am not an idiot. I know they're not my friends, but what other option do I have? Stay in the Chamber until I rot?

Her skeleton will lie in the chamber forever...

My right eye twitches and I rub it out with the heel of my palm. Tom walks in front me, his ghostly shoes tapping against the ground as Myrtle floats overhead, singing a song and talking loudly until Tom tells her to leave us. She pouts, her face falling, before she disappears into a pipe.

"If she wasn't already dead," Tom starts when we reach the bathroom. "I would kill her again."

I don't say anything to that. We make our way to the stair cases that move us to the second level where we can see the fight happen in the lower hall beneath us. I run over to the banister when I see George. He's alive, but looking worse for the wear as he fights a death eater like a muggle, fist against fist.

"This is where it happened, you know," Tom says, as he curls his fingers around the back of my nightgown. "What everyone has been looking for since you were just a child."

"What are you talking about?" I ask as I see the Death Eater and George disappear down a corridor.

"It took me a while to find it myself. I tried... so did everyone else... what you saw and heard when you were here..." That makes me pause and I tilt my chin down, catching him out of the corner of my eyes. "Everyone always thinks Harry Potter is the main player, but you've had your own story playing out under everyone's nose and no one even bothered to look until it was too late."

George reemerges, his nose broken, but still alive and I sigh in relief.

"Prophesies are one in a million, but it's the content that truly matters, wouldn't you say?" I turn away from him, back to the battle... where hundreds are fighting and dying. "Dumbledore knew what you were, but he made a choice and he chose Harry Potter. That seems to be running theme in your life, isn't it? Getting passed over when you're in need."

I shake my head.

"Think real hard, Ginny," Tom says as he runs his lips over the back of my head. "Everything you've ever needed to know is right in here. The doors are all open now. "

I blink hard once and look down the hallway. There are some people dueling by the statue of Helga Hufflepuff and I lick my lips nervously.

"Do you remember?" he asks gently. "You were seven."

I could see myself at seven... My hair was cut short and my freckles were darker and more visible than they are now. I liked playing outside. I liked sports, wearing Quidditch Jerseys, and I loved my older brother Charlie the most.

When I was seven, Charlie was sixteen and he was the captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team.

"It was a long game, wasn't it?" Tom says, his lips back at my ear. "It was cold and raining."

I remember that game. Ron and I were huddled under an umbrella in the family section of the Gryffindor stands. The sky was so dark and the rain was so heavy that even with the bright stadium lights, it was hard to see anything. About two hours into it, I had to go to the restroom so my Mom took me to the castle. When I was done, we started to walk out, but we ran into an old teacher of my Mother's. I can't even remember who it was now, but I remember she wore a pointed purple hat and my Mom talked to her forever.

Forever to a seven year old is more like fifteen minutes, but I was restless.

I took the time to wander around and look at the things in the hallway. I always loved Hogwarts and I couldn't wait until I was old enough to do magic. I was already pretty good at doing wandless magic on my own, doing little things in my bedroom so my parents wouldn't see... I started to wander further away because my Mom just kept talking and then I decided to ride the moving staircases.

It was a favorite past time of mine whenever we went to the castle.

As I was hopping from stair to stair, someone screeched and I snapped my head up... on to find Professor Trelawney looking horrified.

"Little girl!" she snapped making me freeze with one foot on the stairs. "What in Merlin's name are you doing?"

I didn't say anything, I just kind of stared at her, looking guilty.

"Where are your parents?" she questioned, her big eyes blinking behind ridiculous glasses. "Come here this instant. You're going to hurt yourself. You could fall to your death doing such a thing."

She made a motion with her hand, adjusting her brightly printed shawl in the process.

I looked around for a moment before walking towards her shyly. "My Mom is downstairs," I mumbled, nodding down to the lower levels.

"You should be with her then, not wondering around the castle," she replied, grabbing my hand with ring covered fingers. "This place can be dangerous to an untrained little witch," she said, patting my hand. "Many young ones have died in these halls."

"Died?" I asked, my face twisted in horror.

"Yes," she nodded, wild hair falling over her arm and tickling my cheek. I made a face and moved it out of the way. "And more to come," she said, tapping the spot in between her eyes. "I can see it all, you know. I have the sight."

"The sight?"

She nodded again, smiling at me. "Runs in the family, I'm afraid. A burden I must carry around with me for the rest of my life."

"You can see the future?" I asked and she nodded. "Can you see my future?"

"Oh, my dear, people always want to know what the future holds for them, but they are hardly pleased with the answer."

"Could you tell me?" I asked, ever the curious seven year old. I stopped walking and smiled. "Could you tell me if I'll be famous like Rhonda Raptor?"

"Who's Rhonda Raptor?" she asked, sniffing at the name like it was nothing.

I dropped her hand and turned around to show her the back of my jersey. "Number 15 for the Chuddly Cannons. The best seeker in the league!"

"My, what an accomplishment," she said. When I turned back to look at her, I rolled on my toes in excitement. She laughed for a moment, looking down at me before nodding her head. "Oh, alright," she smiled as she bent down until we were eye to eye. She took my hands in between her own and started making an odd humming noise. "Are you ready?" she asked and I nodded my head. She smelled strange... something spicy and foreign... "Close your eyes."

I clenched my eyes shut.

"No peeking," she said when I opened one eye to see her. "What is your name?"

"Ginny Weasley."

"And age."

"Seven... and a half," I added for good measure and she laughed.

"My, that is important. Let me see..." she started humming again, gripping my hands tightly. "I see many great things in your future," she said and I opened my right eye to see. She had her eyes closed and she was making the silliest face. "Yes, many friends...good grades...Quidditch team captain..."

"Really?" I said in excitement, opening both eyes.

"The sight never lies."

"What house will I be in?" I asked, believing she was real because I was seven and I had no reason not to.

She hummed for a moment and then her large eyes flicked down to the pin I was wearing that had a picture of Charlie with his Quidditch uniform on it. "Gryffindor." she said and I grinned, rolling on my toes. "Does that please you?"

"Yes. My whole family has been in Gryffindor."

"Because you're brave and noble," she said. "Now, come on. I bet your mother is looking for you."

We started walking again, and I was smiling from the news of my very happy future...until Trelaweny stopped short, make me trip over my own feet.

"Are you alright?" I asked as she stared ahead, her eyes looking glassy and her body rigid. "Um..." I poked her arm. "Are you okay?" I looked around to see if someone could help because I was pretty sure something was wrong... but we were alone in the hallway. Not even a portrait was nearby. "Hello?" I asked, waving my hand in front of her face.

Everything about her was different and when she spoke, her voice wasn't the same. It was different and deep.

"A darkness..."

"What?" I ask curiously, tilting my head and frowning at her strange behavior.

"A darkness rises..."

"Rises?"

She paused for a second and then her whole body went ridged and her lips curled back into an ugly sneer as her voice boomed across the entire hall.

"A darkness rises from the ashes in the depths of the Black Hills. Born into blood when the second house falls. An ancient oath is fulfilled when the end of an age draws near and a union forged in fire will reign for one thousand years. An awful love will decide which way the pendulum sways and the daughter of the crow will revive the son of Ishar with blood made of magic. Two paths taken with two promises made, the child of the broken wizard will hold the fate of all..."

She blinked and then cleared her throat.

"Oh my," she said, blinking rapidly as she licked her lips. "What was that? What did I say?"

"You..."

"Ginevra Weasley!" My Mother found us then and with her was Albus Dumbledore. "I was looking everywhere for you! What are you doing in this part of the castle?"

"I'm sure she was just going on a little adventure," Dumbledore smiled, his blue eyes twinkling behind half moon spectacles."No harm done."

As I walked past, Dumbledore watched me and looked into my mind. I didn't know it then, but I know it now. He saw the speech made to me by a teacher on his pay roll and for a moment the all knowing Dumbledore was perplexed before being concerned.

"He convinced your parents to rid you of that memory when you started having nightmares. For your sake, of course. Good old Dumbledore, savior of all."

Tom presses himself against me again, this time I don't bother to get away from him.

"You were too young to handle the information... too stupid to know these things... too silly to care about...But Dumbledore, he knew... he knew it was about you. About you and me...And Yaxley, that little social climber," he smiles as he presses his lips to my hair again. "Killed me for a promise and he was stabbed in the front after stabbing me in the back. People are just awful, aren't they?"

That was one thing I could agree with.

"Do you know what Ishar means?" he asks curiously.

The son of Ishar...

"It's snake language. It means 'The Great Traitor'. I wonder..." he trails off, smiling again. "What traitor that could be." I don't answer and sighs."Do you hear that?"

I shake my head, wanting him to shut up but when he touches me again, I bite my lip. "How are you touching me?" I ask, thinking I must be going mad.

"We're by so much magic," he says motioning to the fight. "It feeds a wizard's soul. Didn't you know that? Now... Close your eyes."

"No."

"Just try," he whispers against my ear. I cringe because I want him to go away but he never does. "Close your eyes and focus. Do you hear it? All those heart beats..."

I do hear them, but I won't let him know that. He already thinks we're so much alike...I don't want to give him anything else to rub in my face. But I do hear them... There are one thousand two hundred and fifty two heart beats in the castle. One thousand two hundred and fifty two heart beats that are thumping and pounding together like war drum...

"All those lives..." he says gently, running his hand up my arm. I close my eyes and shiver at his ice cold touch. "Ours for the taking."

I snap my eyes open and try to slink away from him, but he blocks me, keeping me trapped against his body and the railing.

"It's wonderful, isn't it?" he sighs wistfully and presses himself behind me, curling his hand around mine on the banister. "One of the most beautiful scenes in the world is a colorful curse flying at the peak of a wizards battle."

"And witches," I say, swallowing hard when I feel his nose run along the shell of my ear. "There are witches down there too."

"Of course, you're right," he says and I can feel him smile against my hair. He's going to humor me. "Women have come a long way since my day. Just look at you," he laughs, clearly making fun of me. "What a modern woman you are."

I ignore him and go back to watching the fight that's tearing up the front hall of the castle. Death Eaters and Order members alike are dying for an ambitious man's senseless war...I lean over so I can see better, but he puts his hand on my stomach.

"I wouldn't do that," he says as he taps his fingers down my tummy like he was playing piano keys. "One of them might see you."

I push his hand off of me, but he doesn't seem to care.

"How long until they figure out you're not where you're supposed to be?" he asks, but I don't bother to respond as I rub my eye with the heel of my palm. It's starting to twitch again. "Isn't it that the way it always is? Bossing and pushing poor little Ginny around?"

"Stop talking."

I can feel him smiling and I slide away so I can watch Draco. He's by the front doors, standing next to a broken glass window. He's doing a hell of a job fighting off a dark robed Death Eater. I watch my Draco hit the woman in the chest with the killing curse and she screams so loudly it makes my teeth gnash together. She thumps to the ground in silence and Draco walks over her dead body to move on to his next victim.

Now there are one thousand two hundred and thirty one heart beats.

"You know why they do it? It's because they're afraid of you... Afraid of what you are and what you could become. So many people down there are fighting for their right to tell you what to do," he says, his voice a hiss in my ear. "Who's your boss now?" he asks curiously, making a chill creep down my spine. "Mother?" Father?" he runs his hand along my side as his chin grazes my shoulder. My poor father looks so old and tired... and he's moving so slow... I feel like he won't survive the night. "Family... Friends?" I see Hermione and Pansy fighting side by side... "Boyfriend?"

He pauses and lets the word hang in the air as a curse grazes the side of Draco's face, making a slice along his cheek bone. I inhale sharply to see him hurt, but Draco is a seasoned warrior by now. He doesn't even stop to see the blood before killing the wizard who cast the badly aimed curse.

"And what a boyfriend he is," he adds with his lips by my ear. I tilt my chin down and turn my face slightly to the left so I can see him from the corner of my eyes. He's just a dark shadow behind me and he smiles when we make eye contact.

I promptly look away.

"Now, that one is troublesome," he curls his lips against my ear. "Because it branches off into a million different pieces, doesn't it? Boyfriend... Boyfriend's friends...Boyfriend's family...Boyfriend's government... Boyfriend's army..."

"You say that like you're any different," I snap hatefully, pushing him off again and he laughs... he laughs and he laughs and he laughs...

"In my perfect world," he continues, his cold hand curling against mine on the railing. He starts playing with the engagement ring Draco had given me, rocking it back and forth on my finger. "Everyone else would be beneath you. No one would dare tell you what to do or make you feel inadequate. It would be a punishable offense to talk down to you or tell you you've been wrong when you've been so very right... because you and I," he says, pausing a second to smile. "Are always right."

"Get away from me."

"No," he says simply, like my request was silly and not worth thinking about. "In my perfect world you would only have to answer to me. Just me and no one else. How nice would that be?"

"I shouldn't have to answer to anyone," I whisper, moving my hand from underneath his.

"Now, that's not true," he replies, his hand dancing up my side. "A part of you likes it."

I make a disgusted face and push away from him when he tries to run it over my stomach. The fight below is getting frenzied and hard to watch. There's too much movement... too many colors to properly focus on one thing...It makes my head hurt...and there's fire... the same purple fire with the green core that took my friend.

"You could end this now," he says as I narrow my eyes, my right hand twitching as I stare into the fire. "You know you could."

"Leave me alone."

"All those souls down there," he breathes out slowly, chilling my bones. "My Death Eater's are greatly outnumbered... but they will never stop. You know that...They will never stop and you will never sleep well again. If the Order is successful in taking the castle, what is your government going to do after this is over? Try them and put them in jail? Do you think that will stop the idea?"

I don't say anything as the purple fire pulses.

"No, of course not," he says after a long pause. "You can never kill the idea... it will always linger in the back of your mind and it will never go away... And there are people who will see it come to fruition with or without me," he says motioning to Draco again. "You know what you can do," he says, trailing spider like fingers up my arm. "You know how easy it would be... just like how easy it was for you to break the wards...You know why you were able to that? Because you are like me."

I don't say anything to that.

"Fire is very purifying. It burns out all evils."

"Does it?" I ask, thinking of Luna and her awful death... and her screams that will forever haunt me.

"You know it does," he says, leaning forward so he can see my face. "They will deserve it. They will never stop fighting if you don't do it. They will kill more people... They will always be there. You could end this, Ginevra. You could end them," he says as he touches my hair.

I lick my lips and he taps his fingers against the banister.

"Look at all those people... All those people you claim to love..." He makes a sweeping motion with his hand and I follow the line until I reach my Father. A younger Death Eater has him cornered and is throwing curse after curse right at him.

He falls to the ground, putting up as many shields as he can, but the shields are starting to crack.

I could end this... Tom is right. I could stop this right now. I hate the Death Eater's. I hate everything they stand for and everything they are and I hate that they keep fighting. I look to my father once again... That Death Eater is hovering over him, ready to strike with a killing curse and I can't let that happen...

I lift my hand.

I know the curse well and I know how to control it... I can practically feel Tom's smile when I say the words and a green fire starts to spew out of the tip of my wand. It falls to the ground and grows bigger and longer as it curls down the staircase until it takes the form of the a fully grown Basilisk. The curse kills the Death Eater's, eating them whole and leaving only scorched bones in it's wake. The sound in the hall is chilling as they all scramble for cover, but there's no use. The Fiend Fyre curse I had spent so many nights practicing will only kill those I want it too... and it will kill them no matter where they hide.

It only takes ten minutes before they're all dead and the curse dies with them... falling against the ground and crackling like a true dying fire before disappearing all together.

The Prometheus project at it's finest... Bringing fire to man.

"Brilliant," Tom breathes against my ear before he steps back, his body leaving me cold.

Now there are six hundred and eighty heartbeats in the castle... frantically beating in fear and astonishment.

There's a long silence before all six hundred and eighty heartbeats look directly at me. My father is the first to break the silence... He says my name softly as he walks up the stairs with his hand out like he was shielding himself from me.

"Here now," he says when he gets close. He brings his hand out to take the wand from me and I step back. "Oh, honey," he sighs sadly, looking at me brokenly like I had done something that could never be fixed. "What have you done?"

I look behind me. Tom is hiding in the darkness now and I look back at my dad as he gently pries the wand out of my hand.

"It's alright now," he whispers, talking to me gently like I was a feral dog. "It's over."

He goes in like he wants to hug me, but I step back and cross my arms. The thought of being touched right now sickens me.

"Ginny," I know that voice and I look towards the stairs.

Draco runs to reach us and when he does, he moves past my father and puts his hands on my face. He looks terrible... his lips are bloodied and there are dark circles under his eyes. He hasn't slept in days and I doubt the Death Eaters fed him.

"What happened to your neck?" he asks quickly, turning his head to see the gash in my skin. He covers it quickly with his hand. "You've lost so much blood," he points out as he tries to heal it. It closes the wound, but it stings terribly and I nearly cry out. "You need to see a healer."

"Are you okay?" I ask softly because he looks so terrible. Even though I'm not sure what I was feeling... I never want him to be hurt.

"I'm fine," he says as he looks over my face with his brows furrowed. His voice is deep and unnaturally scratchy. I doubt the Death Eaters gave him water either...

"You don't look fine," I admit as I bring my hand up to grab his wrist.

"Neither do you," he says and when I give him an affronted look, he backs off and takes off his cloak... leaving him in an undershirt that's positively filthy.

"What are you..."

"Your nose is bleeding," he says as he uses a bit of the cloak to wipe off my chin and lips before pinching my nose shut. "Tilt you head back," he says, but I just push him away. He looks hurt, but he covers it quickly. "You have a headache?" he asks and I suddenly realize that a do... A terrible headache that feels like someone is taking a pickaxe to my temple.

The lights seems too bright now... the voices too loud... I back up and blink a few times in rapid succession.

"Let's get you out of here," Dad says, taking my arm. "You should see a healer.

...And a psychiatrist... my father thinks sadly and I glance at him as he looks at the scorched spots on the floor. ….What has my little girl done?...

My father is scared of me.

I look back at the others... they're still staring and I look around until I find Blaise. He's standing by an alcove and there's some blood at the corner of his mouth. His expression is blank and when we make eye contact, he tilts his head in a curious way.

"Gin," Draco takes my hand and I look at him. "Come on," he gently urges me to follow him.

"I do have a headache," I admit as the pounding becomes too much to handle.

"I know," he sighs sadly, like he could feel it too. He starts helping me down the stairs as the whole world stares at me. When we reach the landing, something breaks inside of me and I grab his arm. "What?" he asks quickly and when he looks at me... that way his expression is... He looks so horrified. "Oh, my God," he says, looking over my face like something awful had happened.

"I don't feel well," I say before the walls of Hogwarts start to crumble around me and darkness covers my eyes.

The last thing I hear before I fall is Blaise Zabini commenting on all the blood.

---

It's a funny thing about dreams... It's a funny thing that they make you feel so many wild emotions all at once. Twisting and turning and moving too fast and far too slow all at the same time. It's a funny thing how they kill you and bring you back to life a million times over...All in the time frame of a few hours...

I'm walking down a stone staircase surrounded by curved walls that are lined floor to ceiling with dusty shelves full of books. It's a place I've never been before, but at the same time, I feel like it's a place I've always know... A place I've always gone to and a place that could be considered a home... I shake my head at my own silly thoughts and carefully walk down the steps as the sound of the ocean echoes off the walls. It's soothing and it calms me as I make my way deep into the earth. I'm carrying a lantern in my right hand and there's a single black candle inside of it to light my way.

A candle that burns with a green flame that makes the whole place seems sinister.

There's darkness all around me...behind, above, and especially below, where the stairs spiral down into the earth...I feel like I'm gliding on a cloud... The dream making me feel okay even though I'm walking down to hell...To Hades, where the souls of the dead roam free and where I'll spend the rest of eternity by the side of my king...

The books around me have no titles. Maybe they did at one time, but now they're too old... they're too worn and nearly every spine is broken like they had been read a million times and then a millions times more. I dance my fingers along the shelf as the water hums beneath me and I start singing a song to break the silence.

"Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens...Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens..." I stop when I hear an odd noise and I tilt my head. When it doesn't repeat, I shake it off and start singing some more. "Brown paper packages tied up with strings...These are a few of my favorite things."

Those aren't really my favorite things. Do I have favorite things?

"Spaghetti with meat balls and cupcakes with icing... "I attempt my own version of the song. "Playing some Quidditch and then going biking..."Do I really like those things enough to add to a song? I shrug and continue. "Having some friends who actually care about me... These are a few of my favorite things..."

My voice echos off the walls and ruffles a few dust bunnies.

"Reading a good book and kissing my boyfriend..." I make a face at that lyric and add a bit more. "Even though is a big fucking liar...Some days I think I should kill him with fire...And tell all his friends I wouldn't do such a thing... These are a few of my favorite things..."

Something thumps to the ground behind me and I stop singing.

I look over my shoulder, holding the lantern in the direction of the noise. It's one of the books...and it's just laying a few steps above me like it had always been there. I tilt my head curiously, but nearly drop the lantern when it opens of it's own accord. I even fumble down a few stairs, nearly falling into the darkness when the pages start to flip frantically.

With a final whoosh of air, the flipping stops, resting somewhere in the middle of the ancient book.

I look into the darkness before walking towards it and sitting down on the step, pulling the book to my lap so I can read it properly. The pages are yellowed and held together with twine. The corners are dog eared and crumbling...but what I see on the page makes me curious. There's a painting of a redheaded wizard in velvet black robes. In his hand he's holding a jewel incrusted dagger that has the head of a crow carved into it's handle. It's the wizard I remember seeing in a dream... A wizard who made an awful deal with a dying witch to save her children.

Edmund the Marvelous, Born in the year 482 C.E.

"Edmund the Marvelous," I whisper, feeling the name on my lips and liking how it curls around my tongue.

I turn the page to read more, putting the lantern to my side. It casts a wicked looking shadow against the wall and some hair falls in my face so I quickly tuck it behind my ear.

Edmund Crow, known as Edmund the Marvelous, was a dark wizard that lived during late antiquity and into the middle ages. The earliest recorded Metamorphmagus in wizardry history, he could change his appearance at will and used his ability to gain access to the muggle courts across Europe and Asia...

There's another picture...One of a coin with a coat of arms on it. A dagger and a crow...I run my fingers over the seal before continuing, letting my eyes skip over each printed word.

Son of the Great Wizard Ewlfred Crow and the High Witch of the North Ester of Sedania, Edmund was best known for being the leader of the separation movement which lead to the Great Divide in the year 565 C.E. The rumored writer of the Unequal Doctrine, Edmund is also accredited with developing the first plague curse that devastated human history. The Black Death killed up to 200 million muggles between 1348-1350, leaving a majority of the magical population unharmed...

I make a face at the picture that follows the entry. It's a drawing of dead bodies with open sores, piled on top of each other in a city square. I jump ahead a few paragraphs when I see my last name... and I hold the book closer, squinting against the awful lighting so I can see.

He was known by non-magical people as a crafty warlock who would find his way into high ranking positions with deceptions, stealing fortunes and stirring wars across nations. His Metamorphmagus abilities let him change into the form of animals, often shifting into a snake or a crow to taunt his victims. His preferred form was that of a weasel, lending to the superstition that if a weasel crossed your path, death was sure to follow.

He took the surname Weasley in the summer of 547 after killing the King Of Gweynedd, Maelgwn Gwnedd. The king allegedly claimed that the famous Edmund was no great sorcerer, but a 'weasley' jester in disguise...

Weasley... I think of my family and turn the page.

He was put to death over three hundred times and is said to have liked the feeling of fire, purposely seeking out that method of death and torture. There are five known cases of identity switching during his executions. According to Herodius, Edmund would force a member of the royal family to consume a potion that would take on his likeness. He would then swap places with the muggle before the execution was to take place and watch with the family as they were murdered.

Out of the five switched bodies, three were crown princes, one was a princess, and one was a King. Three had their heads chopped off, one was hanged in a public square, and another was stoned to death. All returned to their own appearance after death, creating a frenzy in the watching crowd...

I let my eyes trail towards the bottom of the section as a bone chilling wind climbs up the stair case.

He was killed by Lancaster Malfoy in the fall of 1435 at the age of nine hundred and fifty three. His unnaturally long life is attributed to the rumor that he mastered the Horocrux curse first created by Herpo the foul...

Another book falls and I jump.

I look around before standing up with the lantern and walking towards it.

The History of the Black Hills.... I pick it up and put the lantern on one of the shelves. There's a photo of a creepy looking cave that goes deep into the earth on the title page, drawn in black ink. The Black Hills hold one of the strongest pockets of pure magic in the known world... I turn a few pages until I find another picture.

It's a beautiful woman with red hair flowing down a jewel encrusted dress. She has piercing blue eyes that almost glow behind her lashes and she's wearing a pear choker that holds a black stone at her throat. The stone has an intricate W carved into it.

Miriam of the house Weasley. Died in the summer of 1435. Her severed head was found by a family member who recognized her bright hair as he was walking through a field. Miriam's murder ignited the one hundred years war with the House of Malfoy. It's believed the rest of her remains are scattered along the black hills.

Another book falls and I swallow hard before picking it up as well.

Blood Bonds and Bindings: Magic of the ancient world...

I hear someone start to whistle and I look down into the darkness...A darkness rises from the ashes in the depths of the Black Hills...I shake my head to get that voice out of my head and I put the books down because I don't want to read anymore...Born into blood when the second house falls...

The second house... The second house... The second house... The second house... The second house...

I feel something wet on my lips and I bring my hand up to feel, pulling back and seeing blood on my finger tips. I pick up the lantern and start my way down the stairs with curiosity pushing me forward...The rain boots are squeaking with each step and the nightgown does nothing to stop the coldness that's creeping up from the pit.

I walk forever... for years it feels like... until I spy a light at the end of a dark tunnel. It's a green fire that shows a brick lined path leading further into the wet earth. I walk towards the light, my heart thumping against my ribcage and speeding up when I hear someone start humming a song again. It's a pleasant enough voice, one of a woman. When I reach the light, a door opens to the left of me, revealing a small room that looks like someone's homely kitchen.

The yellow walls are completely covered in odd looking instruments... Some I can tell are actual pots and pans... but others seem more sinister...with sharp edges and shining blades covered in dried blood. I swallow hard and take a step forward because something inside of me tells me to. There's a double sink on the right side of the wall covered in rust and above that is mirror, held in a silver frame that's carved to look like the outline of a forest. At the heart of the room is an extremely large table... It's dark wood burned with odd looking symbols I don't recognize.

I hear footsteps and a second later an old woman walks into the room from a nonsexist door in the wall, holding a stack of folded white towels. She's humming to herself, the same song I heard on the stairs that brought me down here. She resembles the typical witch of muggle nightmares... with her hair, wild and gray, piled on top of her head in an messy bun and her nose, large and crooked, covered in warts. She's hunched over with a very large lump protruding from her back under ratty clothes that look like they haven't seen a wash board in ages.

I take a step back... but hit the wall.

I send a panicked look behind me, expecting to see the opening to the tunnel, but that's gone now. It's like there never was a door and I send another scared look to the old woman, realizing I'm stuck now in this windowless, doorless, room under the earth.

"Down in the valley where the darkness lies..." She's singing now, ignoring me completely as she sets up the towels on the table. Unfolding them and laying them out as her ragged voice continues on. "The big old beast could hear the children's cries..." She goes over to the wall and taps her bony finger against her lips before grabbing one of the scary looking instruments that's made of metal and looks like it could kill a man. "He came one night with his blood red eyes..." She starts washing her hands in the sink. "And killed them all under moonlit skies..."

I must have made a noise because she looks my way. She grins, showing crooked yellow teeth rotting in her head.

"Finally," she says, walking towards me with rickety steps. Her eyes are black... as dark and soulless as a moonless night. "I've been waiting for you..."

"Waiting?" I whisper.

"Yes,waiting. A very long time, indeed," she nods. "You're lucky you didn't wait any longer," she says, taking my hand. "You can't just have a baby by yourself..."

"Baby," I say, my brain feeling foggy.

"Just look at you," she says, motioning to my legs. I look down and see that the white nightgown is stained with blood at the meeting of my thighs. "Leaking all over the place."

"But I don't..." I shake my head. "I don't feel any pain or anything..."

"You will," she says as she pats the table where she placed all those towels. "But lets not dwell on that."

I sit on the table top and she opens a cabinet, showing rows of colorful potions.

"This is a dream," I point out... I've just never been this lucid before. It's a funny thing about dreams... you never know what's going to happen when you're in them.

"Of course it's a dream," she says like I was silly. She taps the the bottles with her nails, poking and shaking some with those bony fingers of hers. I can see my reflection in the silver mirror above the sink... and what I see is frighting...There's blood everywhere... coming from my nose, my ears... it even looks like my eyes have been bleeding and crying blood red tears.

"What happened to me?" I ask as I bring a hand up to the dried blood... only to see my hands are covered in it too.

"Great magic asks for great sacrifices," she sings, turning to me with a glowing red potion in her hand. "Drink this now. The pain will be coming soon."

"Who are you?"

"I'm your fairy Godmother," she smiles, clearly joking as she pushes the vial into my hand. "All little girls wish for one of those, don't they? A good fairy to come in to make everything perfect and right... if only for a night."

"I don't believe in any of that," I say, putting the potion down. "And I'm not drinking this."

"Well, then you only have ten seconds," she says, looking at a sand timer on the wall.

"Ten seconds for-"

I don't get to finish that question because pain unlike anything I have ever felt before courses though my body. I fall back, my head smacking against the table as my spine curls and a high pitched scream leaves my throat. I scrap nails against my thighs and clench my eyes shut when the torture pierces every part of my body.

The crone presses the potion bottle to my lips. "Drink," she urges. "It will deaden the pain."

I don't even care if it kills me. I drink all of it in one swallow and bunch the nightgown of my dress up with sweaty hands, wishing for the pain to subside. It get's to an almost unbearable level when the woman sets up camp at the end of the table and uses a pair of scissors to cut off my shorts and knickers.

"No. No," I mumble through the pain, knocking my knees together and actually kicking her in the chest when she takes off the wellies.

She laughs before becoming very serious, looking me with dark lidded eyes. "You are having this baby right now. I would suggest you let me help you."

"I want to wake up now," I say, closing my eyes and laying back again. "I want to wake up now..."

"Keep hoping for that," she says as she goes back between my legs, doing things I can't see with a crooked looking wand. "And listen to me when I tell you to push."

I open my eyes and look up. Something is carved into the ceiling... It's a six pointed star... A star that almost looks like the star of David... but the lines are too curved... and inside each triangle is the likeness of an animal.

"That represents the six major families that led the Great Divide," she says. I can feel the sweat on my forehead. It feels like it's pooling all over my body. "When witches and wizards officially broke away to create their own world. That's your family," she says, but I don't look at her. The pain is too great. "At the top. You were a Crow before you were a Weasley."

The daughter of the Crow...

I scream loud when the woman tells me to push.

"I like Weasley better," she says with a little smile as she looks over my knees. "People underestimate a Weasley. That's what people don't understand. You can have loud tyrants, proud kings, and overbearing lords, but its the quiet ones that stand in the shadows and whisper suggestions that truly burn down empires."

"Empires," I repeat because I can't say anything else.

"Empires," she says, but her voice is different. It's deeper. "You are the product of one of the oldest, strongest, purest blood lines in history. You should have never allowed anyone to treat you the way they have."

I arch my back and clench my fists when another contraction tears through my body.

"Immortality isn't reached through spells or potions, it's true form is through the blood line...through the family you create." I want to rest. I want to stop. I would give up anything in the world to make it stop. "Power is not won through force. It's won through confidence. Confidence in your beliefs and your magic and the way you carry yourself. Someday the veil will be lifted and you will see... you will see that you've been sitting on top this whole time. You are not to be abused," she says, her voice low like a man. "You are the abuser."

"Abuser," I repeat, looking up at the ceiling... seeing a swan in one of the triangles.

"House of Branon," he says. He sounds like a man now, but I don't have the energy to look. "The second house of the great six families."

The second house...The second house...The second house...

"And the second house has fallen. Everything it stood for... everything it was...Everything it ever would be... is gone."

I think of Luna and her pendent. How she was all that was left of her family... all that was left of her line...

"Tom is still around," I point out, looking up as the star starts spinning and the animals come to life. One of them is a snake and I know that belongs to the House of Slytherin. "Tom will never be gone."

"Tom Riddle was the son of a degenerate inbred witch and a pompous muggle. He is no threat to you."

An awful love...

God, this hurts.

"There is so much pain," he agrees as I push again until something inside of me breaks. "The world is a wild and wonderful place, filled with horrible people."

"People who kill," I say through a scream, seeing the flames of the castle in my minds eyes... Seeing the purple flame of death.

"People who do nothing," he corrects me. "Those people are horrible. Lazy people. People who refuse to stand up and fight for something... anything... those people are the true evil in our world. If you don't stand for anything, how can you ever expect to fly?"

I scream again. I scream for hours as the animals on the ceiling jump and slithering and fly around each other in some kind of demented dance. The crone tells me stories... fables and wild tales that couldn't possibly true as I push through the night and well into the next day. I hear a high pitched wail of a new life after tortuous hours of labor, but I want nothing to do with it. I want to pass out and sleep for a full year. But I can't. Not when a shadow hovers over me and places a weight against my chest.

"Hold him," he says. I crack my eyes open, cradling the weight to my chest and looking at the voice.

Above me is a red haired man with eyes as red as blood cloaked in midnight robes. "See," he moves sweaty hair away from my face so I can look down. For a second I have the horrid thought of the thing having scales like a monster... but what I see is just a baby. A baby with copper colored hair slightly darker than mine.

"He looks like you."

The man bends down and presses his lips to the babies soft head.

"New baby smell," he says with a smile, flicking red glowing eyes to mine. He has a square jaw and a crooked nose that looks like it'd been broken a few times. Edmund the Marvelous didn't look half as marvelous in real life, but there was a presence about him... an aura that lingered in the air when he spoke. The same aura that followed Tom when he was at his finest. "There is nothing like it. If there was such a thing as heaven, I believe it would smell of this."

The man moves and I lean down to press my nose to baby's head. "It does smell like heaven," I whisper as I brush my lips over his forehead. "I like it."

"Of course you do. Flesh of my flesh. Blood of my blood... "

"Ginny!" Someone is always yelling my name.

I look up at the red haired man again and we smile at one another as the room starts to fall away... piece by piece... brick by brick... It all crumbles until I'm left in a large empty cavern. Large and dark and wet... Everything is gone and I'm left with is a sobbing naked baby in a cave made for dragons.

"Sh..." I whisper as I wrap a bloodied towel around him, holding him close. I'm not on a table any more. There is no longer warm fire or soft towels... I'm just on the hard ground made of rugged stone and I can hear water dripping somewhere from the high ceilings. The only light is a wand glowing a few feet away... but it's not my wand. It's some kind of crooked stick looking thing and I give it a look before going back to the baby and trying to sooth his cries. "It's alright.."

He keeps crying... He keeps screaming...His face is red and his screams are echoing around the cavern. I don't know the first thing about having a baby...but the screams trigger something inside of me and with a shaking hand I lower the strap on my nightgown. It takes a few tries before the crying stops and he latches on for the first time.

...And suddenly everything was fine...Suddenly everything was perfect for the first time in my life...

I stare at him, using my bloodied fingers to touch his hand and the side of his cheek. I hear footsteps, but I ignore them as I study the child in my arms.

"I don't want to move just yet," I saw to whoever just took a knee beside me.

"You are going to have to see a healer." I glance to my left... where I see Draco. He puts a cloak around my shoulders and sends a troubled look down my body. "He could get sick down here," he says, his eyes sad and dark.

"He won't," I say, knowing in my heart that's true. "He will never get sick."

Draco doesn't say anything as a darkness begins to cloud my vision. I hear a chiming in my head... an ancient promise finally coming to fruition...

When the seventh moon is the second house, a powerful union between the two families will set the world on fire...and from the ashes we will rise a race not burdened in it's contempt...but reveling in it's discord...

I feel a smile creep to my face because the world is a wild and wonderful place.

---

"Are you sure?"

"Of course," the witch tells me. She has a hook nose and awful smelling breath. "He had a stash of them. Was able to grab a few before they burned the place down."

"If I find out that you're lying," I tell her, looking her square in the eye. "I will kill you."

She nods, and for a moment she looks frightened. She knows who I am and what I can do.

"Good," I tell her, handing her the bag of coins and taking the vial from her. I hold it up to get a better look before quickly tucking it into my pocket and checking the time.

I'm late.

I leave without saying a good bye and throw up my hood. I don't need to be recognized doing dealings in this seedy alleyway... not with the reputation I already have thanks to that night at Hogwarts. It's February now... and the weather has been deary and cold. I stuff the hands into the pockets of my coat and get to safe App zone where I lift my wand and land in the forest outside of a muggle church. It's a new building that has ugly yellow bricks and large windows that remind me of a prison, but I go in anyways because this is the only place where I feel truly at ease.

Inside, I find my group in one of the choir rooms, sitting in a circle on metal chairs. Kristi, the group leader, sees me first and stands up when I approach.

"I'm sorry I'm late," I tell her as I take off my coat, placing it on a table nearby and taking my empty seat. "I got held up."

Kristi nods her head. "It's alright, just try not to be late again."

I nod my head because I know the rules. If you're late two times, you're asked to leave. This group has stiff guidelines, but it helps us all to heal in ways other places can't. I glance at the cross hanging from the wall and quickly look away. We're not affiliated with any religion here, but we have to use the church because it's the only place that will let us do it for free. There's nothing quite like a man being tortured on a block of wood to make you feel all good about yourself.

"Alright," Kristi takes out her notes and a pen. "Before we get into our meeting, is there anything anyone would like to talk about?" she asks, looking around the room at the other broken women who refuse to meet her eyes. "This is a free and safe place to open up," she says for the millionth time. "No one here will judge you on your feelings or decisions."

"I went home for the weekend." Pam, a college aged girl with short brown hair speaks first. "For my Grandma's birthday," she explains, flicking uneasy eyes around the room. "My abuser was there too. I had to sit across from him when we had cake and I just kept on having this fantasy... He was smiling and laughing... and I just wanted to jump across the table and stab my fork into his neck." She starts tugging on the sleeves of her hooded sweatshirt uneasily. "He smiled at me once, asked me how school was..."

She trails off for a second, her eyes getting blurry.

"How did you respond?" Kristi asks gently.

Pam takes a moment to wipe her eyes, crossing her arms tightly over her breasts. "I told him school was fine," she admits and then she starts laughing a humorless laugh. "Like it was nothing. Like it was normal... like..."

Like he didn't rape me, her thoughts scream, but she doesn't say it out loud. Pam was molested by an older cousin when she was a girl. She never told anyone until she joined the rape support group. Even though we're urged to turn in our abusers, most of the women here don't... because they're too ashamed... or too embarrassed by what their friends and family will think...

Sissy talks about her ex-husband next. How her two children still ask about him and wonder why he can't visit them in their studio apartment. Sissy starts crying before she can finish. Her husband raped her a few times early in their marriage and didn't have the courage to leave until twelve years later... after he gave her a black eye that couldn't be covered with cosmetics or long sleeved shirts.

There are different kinds of monsters in the world, I was learning. Not all of them had a wand and warped ideas about blood purity.

After Sissy is done speaking, and Kristi gives her words of encouragement, it's time to get on with the nightly topic.

"Betrayal," Kristi says, looking around the group with her squinting hazel eyes. She's a plump middle aged woman with some kind of degree in psychology. She speaks sharply, but her tone is always some how warm in it's delivery. She kind of reminds of Professor Sprout and that makes me sad. "Tonight I want to talk about the times when we've felt betrayed." She leans back and adjusts her bra strap with a quick tug of her hand. "By our abusers... family members... even strangers who've been insensitive. Often times the feeling of betrayal hurts worse than the actual act of abuse."

She gives us a few minutes to think before turning to a thin woman named Karla who's missing a couple top teeth. I'm pretty sure she's a drug addict.

"Remember this is an open forum," Kristi says after Karla's hesitation. "Free of judgment and full of support. Nothing you could say will be held against you. We are allowed to feel things, even if they seem extreme to some... Trauma buries a lot... A lot of feelings we are entitled to. Now, Karla, can you think of a time when you felt betrayed?"

Karla starts scratching her face, picking at open sores that she won't leave alone. "I feel betrayed by my Mother."

"Why do you feel betrayed?" Kristi presses, leaning forward.

"She walked in on my step-dad touching me when I was fourteen." She picks at a scab until it starts bleeding and another woman hands her a tissue. "Said it was my fault for wearing such short shorts around him when he was drinkin'." I feel bad for her, so I look down at my lap. "I left home when I was sixteen... told her that he'd been touching me long before that day she caught him. She called me a liar... said I just wanted attention... told me Ray had been good to us, put a roof over our head and a meal on our table and I was just ungrateful. I'll never forgive her for sayin' that to me."

"Usually the people around us don't know how to handle the truth of sexual abuse," Kristi says, stepping in right as Karla starts to cry. "Many can respond rather cruelly."

"The kids at my school said I made it all up." Tosh, a black girl with dreads, breaks in with a dour voice. "Kyle was my boyfriend. Everyone liked him and he played football...After I told what happened to me, they all said I was trying to ruin his life because he wanted to break up. The police wouldn't do anything. They couldn't prove it wasn't consensual because I had been drinking. I was passed out, how could I have said yes?"

Tosh had been at a party and had too much to drink... She woke up with her boyfriend on top of her and his friends taking pictures.

"Everybody just thought I was a drunk slut who got caught and made a story up to save my ass. No one believed me. I felt betrayed by everyone."

I think of Draco, how he tricked me into a bonding the first time we had sex...

Kimber goes next. She's a mouse of a woman who wears clothes three sizes too big. "I felt betrayed by my sister," she admits in a quiet voice. She speaks less than I do, which is saying something considering I barely speak at all. "She wasn't even being mean... She was trying to comfort me... I was telling her about my nightmares..." She flicks a glance to Kristi who nods. "She told me it was over now. It was all okay and I should just get over it. Get over it?" she furrows her light eyebrows. "I will never get over it."

A heavy silence falls over the group as we get lost in our own darkness.

"Our past is like a scar," Kristi says. "One that can't be seen by the outside world, but we know it's there. The pain may fade over time, but the memory won't. It will always be there to remind you of what happened and that's okay. It's officially a part of who we are... It's a part of our story as women... as survivors... but it doesn't define us."

A few other women go before it's my turn and I slouch a little in my chair when everyone looks at me. There's a fine line between the pronunciation of 'Ginny' and 'Jenny'... and Kristi gets it wrong every time.

"Jenny," she smiles at me. "It's your turn now."

I hesitate a second before clearing my throat and sitting straight. "I feel betrayed..." I think of Tom. He didn't betray me. He was evil and I shouldn't have expected anything else. "I feel betrayed by my body," I admit softly, resisting the urge to scratch my thighs. "My abuser knew me since I was little," I whisper. "It was like I was possessed, completely under his spell..." I trail off as I think of Folk Hills and the awful thing that happened there. "The first time it happened I was cursed..." I trail off when I see the looks on their faces and I'm quick to cover. "I mean it felt like I was cursed. He drugged me. I thought he was my boyfriend... I thought..." I shake off my memories of Tom on top of me. "I consented because I thought he was someone I loved." I shake my head. "I should have known better. I should have seen it... The second time there were no tricks, he was just stronger than I was. I will never forget that feeling." My voice takes a darker town as I cross my arms. "The feeling of being so much weaker than another person."

Kristi goes to say something, but I cut her off.

"I also feel betrayed by my friends and family..." Kristi presses and I blink a few times. "They always want me to forget what happened. They think if they get rid of my memories, then I will be fine. I was stuck with my abuser for months and when I was finally rescued, my mother said 'at least nothing worse happened' before I even got a chance to tell her. I knew then I could never tell them about the... about it," I say because I can't say the word out loud. "Not when she was looking at me so hopefully... and no one asked. No one asked because if they asked, I think I would have felt better... I would have unburdened myself... but no one asked."

"That's the worst," Pam agrees as she chews on her hoodie string. "I feel like I would tell my parents... I would tell them if they asked. Why didn't they notice I was afraid of him? Whey didn't they notice when I would cry and scream whenever they wanted to go to my aunt and uncles house? Why didn't they ask me?"

Kristi has some words of wisdom for us before it passes on to the girl beside me who felt betrayed by her teacher for reporting the rape when she begged her not to. The group is a very depressing affair, but I feel better knowing I'm not the only one in the world who's broken. There are plenty of war groups in the wizarding world, of course... but none of them dealt with sex abuse and I feared what would happen if I was seen at one anyways.

What would people say?

After the groups over, Kristi hands out little packs of cookies and sends us on our way. I walk out with Pam and Tosh... finding myself drawn to them only because they're the closest to my age. Pam is skittish and jumps at most loud noises and she nearly jumps out of her skin when someone closes a car door.

"Simmer down," Tosh tells her tiredly. "Nothing to be afraid of."

"That's a stupid thing to say," Pam says, chewing on her hoodie string again. "We should be afraid of everything."

Tosh shrugs as I start opening the package of cookies. They're chocolate and I like the way they taste. We walk Pam to the bus stop and wait there until it picks her up. We don't speak to one another and the only noise is the crunch of the cookies I'm eating and the unraveling of Pam's hoodie string.

"This is me," Pam mumbles as the bus approaches and slides up beside us. She hops on, but looks over her shoulder. "Thanks for waiting," she says before finding her seat and disappearing down the street.

I say goodbye to Tosh and go to walk off. I have to walk deep into the woods before Apparating so no one sees me, but Tosh says my name and I turn towards her.

"What happened to your abuser?" Tosh asks as cars drive past. "You said you were with him for months before you were rescued. Did he kidnap you?"

"Something like that," I admit as I crunch up the wrapper and stuff it in my pocket.

"I'm sorry," she says, shaking her head. "I shouldn't have asked."

"No, it's alright," I say, sparing her a little look. "He's dead now."

"There are little blessings in this life," Tosh says, laughing at her own thought as I curl deeper into myself. "I would give anything to kill Kyle. Sometimes the fact that he's going to die one day is all I have to get me through it. At least he can't hurt you anymore."

"I guess," I admit as Tosh takes out her car keys. "But he still haunts me."

"Don't they always?"

She waves me off then and I stuff my hands into my pockets, walking deep into the woods before taking out my wand and Apparating. I live in an apartment complex in a muggle neighborhood that's right behind a really nice shopping center. The only Apparation point I can use is one that's on the other side of a nearby lake, so it's a long walk to my flat. My thoughts keep my company and I use my key to get inside of the building, taking the elevator up to the fifth floor where my place is.

It's nice enough, I guess. Mostly middle class couples who are in their last apartment before buying an actual house live here...And a couple of drug dealers... No matter how nice a place is, they always seem to find their home, don't they?

I open the door to my flat with a different key and hang up my coat when I get inside, pulling the vial from my pocket and holding it up to the light. It's red like everyone elses...but a part of me feels like it should be green or blue... something fit for an evil wizard...

It's freezing in here, so I go over to the thermostat and shake my head when I see the temperature. I turn up the heat and heel up of my boots before going to the bathroom where I hide the vial in the medicine cabinet behind my anti-depressants. No one will look back there, anyways. I've had to go to counseling twice a week after that whole ordeal and my new psychiatrist just keeps giving me new drugs to try. I don't really mind them, I guess. They do manage to help with the nightmares...

I go to my bedroom and take a seat at my writing desk. It's home to an ancient typewriter that my father had found at a pawn shop and I love it. I run my hand through my hair and just look at it for a moment...I got my hair cut to my shoulders a few weeks ago and it still throws me off how short it is. If I was braver, I would have cut it all off like a boy so I would never have to worry about it again.

But I'm not brave.

I pull out a fresh piece of paper and put it in the machine, sitting up straight and squaring my shoulders as I place my fingers on the keys. Then I start typing... word after word... line after line... I keep going even when I hear the front door open. I keep going even when I hear Judith's voice calling to me and I keep going even when I hear the second bedroom door close. I like the way the type writer sounds. The clicks, the taps, the clanks... I think next I'd like to get a computer. I hear they're wonderful... Like little boxes of magic...

After a while, Judith starts to scream and I sigh loudly.

This happens every week. I roll my eyes and scoot the chair back, giving the writing desk a longing look before leaving the room and running into Judith in the hallway.

"You won't believe this!" she yells, with her eyes near to tears. "He's been acting strange all day... I knew something's been wrong all week! I think he might be possessed."

"Possessed?" I ask with a brow up as I walk towards the second bedroom. "He's a baby."

"But something isn't right with him," she says with a frightened voice. "Something is not right! He's been putting things in my mind. Awful things!"

"Shut up," I sigh tiredly as I open the door.

Every bit of furniture...every toy and every decoration is flying about the room. Spinning three feet off the ground... and there he is... sitting up in the crib and chewing on a block like nothing was wrong.

"You're scaring your poor babysitter," I tell him as I pull out my wand. I make everything settle back into place and Judith gasps when she sees it. She starts mumbling something about the devil and the church and I roll my eyes again as I lean down to pick him up. He's happy to see me and he grabs onto some of my hair when I press my lips to his cheek. "Next time we'll have to hire an atheist, yeah?" I ask before kissing his temple. "Maybe they won't bring the devil into it so quickly."

I'm sure he agrees. We've already gone through three nannies and each one ends up thinking he's some sort of demon child. It starts off small... with things moving and doors shutting...the temperature drops and fear sets in... Then it graduates to shadows and images. He can't help it, though. He's just a baby and can't control his magic yet.

Judith makes an effort to run out of the room, but I slam the door quickly and lock it with a flick of my wrists.

"This is the last time," I tell him, letting him lay his head against my shoulder. He should be taking a nap now, but he always starts up when he's tired. "Alright," I nod my head and then turn to the poor woman who's sobbing and scratching at the door. "Don't do that," I tell her, flicking my wand so she's forced to face me. "I want my security deposit back."

"What are you?" she blubbers as her frantic eyes flick between me and the baby...and then to my wand that's glowing an odd green color.

"I'm sorry," I admit. "This is really the last time I will do this to you... or your mind is going to go to mush," I say more to myself than to her because, of course, she doesn't know what's happening.

"What are you going to-"

I lift my wand and do the familiar spell. It hits her in the chest and a glazed look comes to her eyes. "You didn't see anything strange today... Everything was normal and you were never scared."

She nods her head.

"Now, go home and drink some tea. Take a bath... relax... and come back tomorrow feeling refreshed and happy."

She nods again before leaving and I feel that guilt thing that gets stuck in my chest each time I do that to someone. The baby makes a noise so I look down at him.

"I know," I tell him, nodding my head as I walk towards the rocking chair, picking up his bottle on the way. "We could always just get a witch to watch you, but then that would defeat the purpose of what we're trying to achieve."

Peace. That's all I strive for right now and being around magical people makes me sick.

"Although, I bet you'd scare witches too," I admit, smoothing back his hair. "You do way too much magic for your age."

He can hold his own bottle, so I cradle him against me and let him feed himself. His hair looks nearly brown now since it's grown, but I can still see traces of the Weasley red every time the sun hits it just right. I smooth down some stubborn strands by his ear and smile when his dark eyes look into mine. He smiles too, making his eyes crinkle up in a way that melts my heart. He grabs his foot with his right hand and stares at the ceiling, chewing on the bottle, causing milk to slide down his cheek.

I wipe it off with my thumb and then bend down to kiss him again.

Blaise was right, I do love him... and now that he's born it seems impossible that I could have ever felt any other way. Maybe that's the great tragedy of it all...Or the great triumph...

Ethan makes a noise and I smile down at him... I wonder if he likes his name... Of course, Narcissa probably finds it incredibly muggle sounding, but I don't care. I had a million names to choose from. A thousand things I could name him... I had many men who died during the war who he could have been named after... many people that I loved and admired... Charlies... Fred... even Abraxas crossed my mind before I decided that this was a new beginning and my child would have a name that was all his own.

Ethan was a character in a children's book I once read. He was brave and fair and always optimistic...traits I find very appealing as of late... But mostly I named him Ethan just because I like the way it sounds.

It's as simple as that.

His last name is Malfoy, just because Draco was there and insisted, but he doesn't look like any Malfoy I have ever seen. He has more Weasley in him than anything, but his hair is too dark and his eyes are a toffee color that are rimmed in dark brown. Narcissa claims such a look comes from her side of the family... Even though it's obvious that he got the color from me. It was desperate lie, if I've ever heard one...because I think she suspects something awful as well.

Sometimes I'll look at him and convince myself I see Draco in his features... Sometimes I see someone else and that makes me feel ill... but I have to convince myself that, just like his name... his features are all his own and he shouldn't be judged on resemblance to anyone else. Because he is Ethan and he is mine and he is perfect.

With Judith gone, I know I won't get anymore writing done, so I settle back in the rocking chair and start humming a song. Ethan's eyes start to droop and he puts his fingers on my lips... He's always does it right before falling asleep and I smile again as I watch the drowsiness overtake him.

Then he wakes up when the buzzer goes off.

"Shhh..." I whisper when he starts crying. He rarely cries, so it startles me. I cuss under my breath and stand up with him against my chest, bouncing him up and down in an attempt to calm his as I stomp into the hallway.

I get to intercom and press one of the buttons.

"Yes?" I ask sharply, pushing Ethan's bottle into his mouth in an attempt to get him to stop screaming.

There's a seconds pause and I exhale in frustration.

"This is number 516. Who are you looking for?"

There's another silence.

"Hello?" I ask when I hear someone breathing. "Are you looking for someone?"

"You," a voice answers.

I raise my eyebrows and press my lips to Ethan's hair. It's Draco. I haven't seen him in four months. Not since I moved to this place and cut everyone off so I could be alone and work some things out. He see's Ethan, of course...I'm not completely awful. Every three weeks when I meet my mother in Diagon Ally to hand him off for the weekend...That's when he can spend time with the son he thinks is his...

"How did you find me?" I ask softly, staring at the intercom and imaging Draco's face.

"Can I come up?" he asks, his voice low and upset.

Ethan has stopped crying and he's looking curiously at the intercom, reaching sticky fingers out to touch one of the buttons. I pull him back before he can. In reality, I know that Draco can come up whether I let him in or not. He is a wizard, after all... but maybe it's a step in the right direction that he's asking instead of just using his magic, knowing I don't want to see him.

"Ginny." I can hear the sigh in his voice. "Please, will you let me come up?"

I can just imagine him leaning his arm against the building, his other hand clenched into a tight fist.

I stare at the intercom for a moment and then I look at Ethan.

"No," I answer before taking my finger off the button and going into my bedroom.

I lock the door and set Ethan down on the bed so I can start pacing back and forth with my wand... just waiting for him to break down my wards and come storming in...

When he doesn't show... I look back at the baby with my hands on my hips. He starts to get fussy and I look at the time. Of course, it's way past his nap time and he's not happy about it. I snuggle up beside him, running my fingers up and down his stomach as he stretches out against the mattress. I send sly looks to the door as I pull Ethan close and eventually he falls asleep. I watch the door until sleep finds me as well and we take a nice little nap together.

I wake before he does and spend a few moments just looking at him before pulling myself to my feet. I go into the bathroom and get three hidden vials behind my medication before I sit at the kitchen table, filling out the forms I had picked up the week before and securing the vials inside the padded envelope. I put the papers inside with my check and seal it closed, propping it up against the wall so I'll remember to put it out with the post the next time I leave.

I fix myself a sandwich and do some busy work around the house before deciding to call Judith. Her voice sounds soft and still groggy...and that guilt thing comes back to me. I tell her she doesn't have to come tomorrow... I tell her she can have the day off and I hang up before she can answer because I can hear Ethan start to wake.

"Hey, baby," I whisper when I go into the bedroom and find him kicking. I go over and pick him up, holding him close and inhaling that scent of him that I find so intoxicating. "Did you have a good nap?"

I give him his pacifier and we spend the rest of the day together, just lounging about and watching television. I let him sleep with me during the night and we wake early in the morning to eat breakfast. I like our routines... I like that we have a schedule. My psychiatrist says that it helps with my post traumatic stress... Having order in my life that's completely under my control is empowering in a way I've never known...

"Do you want to go for a walk?" I ask after cleaning off the banana from his face.

I pretend he says yes and I bundle him up for the cold weather before grabbing the envelope on the table and stuffing it in my bag. I put him in the stroller and lock the door behind me as we walk towards the lift. I hesitate at the front door, looking out of one of the side windows to make sure Draco's isn't waiting before I leave the building. I keep looking over my shoulder, just waiting for him to pop out from behind a tree as I make my way to the mail boxes across the street.

Ethan makes a noise as I take the envelope from my bag and I look down at him. Does knowing this really matter? Will it change anything? The way I feel or the way I act? I don't think so...I smile at the baby and reach out to take his hand, letting him grip a couple of my fingers. He smiles at me... and I start to put the envelope back in my bag... but at the very last second... I push it through the outgoing mail slot and walk away with Ethan looking curiously up at me as I scurry down the sidewalk.

There's a park nearby, where children play and suburban mothers gather to talk about how rough life is with a husband, two kids, and a mortgage. Their first world problems are a little hard to stomach some days, so I normally keep to myself. I know their thoughts, though. They think I'm too young to have a baby. They think I lied when I told them I was twenty three... and they think I'm strange. The funny thing is, they're mostly right about everything.

Not many people are out, but a few kids are running around and playing on the equipment at the heart of the park. A man is reading a new paper on one of the benches and there's an elderly lady smoking a cigarette by the trash cans. We circle the park a couple times before Ethan falls asleep and I start steering us towards the flat so I can put him in his crib and maybe get some writing done...but I stop when we pass the man with the newspaper. I can't see his face, but his oxford shoes are familiar to me and I hesitate a second before pushing the stroller his way.

"What are you doing here?" I ask when I'm standing right in front of him.

"Reading the paper," he answers and I clench my fist.

"You're in a muggle neighborhood. No one reads newspapers anymore."

"I find that unlikely."

I grab the paper and bunch it up. "Its' all on the internet, Zabini. No muggle under thirty five gets their information from paper based sources...and, by the way, only pedophiles hang out in parks when they don't have any children."

He smiles at me and cross his legs, tilting his hat back.

"And your hat is stupid," I add for good measure because fedoras are pretentious.

I throw the paper in the trash bin and start pushing the stroller away from Zabini... but he jogs to catch up with me.

"That's no way to greet an old friend," he says, walking beside me with his hands in his pockets. "Everyone was wondering why you didn't come back to school. Little do they know you've found yourself a little muggle nest."

"I don't know how you and Draco found me but-"

"Malfoy's been here?" He seems surprised and he raises his eyebrows. "Good old, Draco. Always beating me to the punch..."

I stop with one hand on the stroller and one on my hip. "I'm serious. What do you want?"

He stops smiling. "I just wanted to see you..." His golden eyes trail down to the Ethan still fast asleep. "And baby," he adds with a smirk. He reaches out to touch the baby's cheek, but I push his hand away. "I never got to hold him," he admits with a sigh. "You left before I got a chance to see him."

"Why would you want to?" I ask sharply, giving him a sour look.

"Why wouldn't I?" he asks, tilting his head and smiling. I don't say anything and he looks me over. "Well?" he asks. "Are you going to invite me over for tea or what? Come on," he says, trying to charm me. "We can talk like old friends and I can fill you in on what's been happening back at home."

I hesitate a second before looking him in the eyes. "Only for a little while," I tell him and he smiles in victory before following me back to the apartment complex.

"This is awfully homey," he says when I unlock the front door. "Not where I pictured you."

"Where do you picture me?" I ask tiredly as I put my keys away.

"In some large decrepit mansion surrounded by servants," he says. "Wearing expensive robes and silk nighties."

I make a face. "Then you don't know me at all."

"I know you better than you'd like."

I make another face and send him a glare. "Really, how did you find me?" I repeat my earlier question and he shrugs.

"It's hard to stay hidden, Ginny. Especially from people like me."

We walk towards the lift, but Blaise stops and stares at the door under the stairs. "Where does that lead to?" he asks curiously.

"The basement," I answer, pushing him into the lift and blocking the door with my stroller.

He presses the button to my floor before I tell him to and I give him a suspicious look.

"I told you," he tells me, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. "It's hard to stay hidden."

"You don't break in and watch me sleep, do you?" I half joke, sending him a sideways glare.

"Of course not. Only creeps do that... and maybe the wards you put around your door are a little too strong for me to break."

Now it's my turn to smirk.

"Look," he says, peaking his head over the stroller. "The little one is awake."

Ethan is gazing up at us now, sucking on his pacifier and looking adorable with rosy cheeks and eyes still puffy from sleep.

"He's quite handsome for a baby," Blaise adds and I roll my eyes, tucking the cover a little tighter around his body. "Ethan," he says the name slowly like he was tasting it for the first time. "I'm not sure how I feel about that name. It's very plain for someone of his lineage."

"Stop talking," I sigh and he laughs.

When we get to my floor, I take out my keys and wand. "I'm putting them back up after you leave," I warn him as I remove the wards. "So don't get any ideas."

"What kind of ideas?" he taunts as I unlock the door and push the stroller inside.

I ignore him and take Ethan from his stroller, holding him against my hip as I walk into the living room. Blaise looks around with his hands on his hips, appraising everything he sees. "What a nice little place you've got. Putting Malfoy money to work, are we?"

"If I was putting Draco's money to work, I would be renting out every room in this building."

Zabini snorts in laughter, like my joke had actually tickled him and he throws himself on one of my couches, putting his dirtied up boots on the coffee table. I glare when I see it, but I don't say anything as I go into the kitchen to make a bottle for Ethan. I hold him to the side as I reach in the cabinet for a clean bottle.

"I can hold him while you do that." I jump when I hear Zabini's voice so close me. "This seems like a two handed operation."

I hesitate a second before nodding my head.

"Sit down," tell him, ushering him to the dining room table that's just outside of the kitchen area. "Stay where I can see you," I warn him as I push him down into a chair. "And don't shake him..."

"I'm not an imbecile," he snaps, giving me a hard look as I cradle Ethan's head. "I'm pretty much aware that it's bad to shake a baby. Thank you for the vote of confidence."

I pause another second before slowly lowering the baby into Zabini's arms. "Be careful with him," I whisper, not wanting to offend him, but genuinely worried.

"I will," he says, amused.

I don't move for a while as he sets him against his chest and when he gives me a look, I finally step away and go back into the kitchen. I make a bottle for Ethan and hand that off to Blaise before starting with the tea. I try not to use magic... but it's hard... so I end up taking out my wand and using a quick spell.

"How is school going?" I ask because the silence is getting weird and I look over my shoulder to see Blaise turning Ethan so they're facing one another.

"Fine," he says as he rests the baby against his lap where his ankle is resting on his knee. "Most of the professors died during the war, and the new people they brought in are awful. They might as well just throw a book at us and send us on our way."

I smile at the thought.

"What about you? Are you ever going back?"

"I might," I say with a shrug. When the tea is ready, I pour some into two cups. "I haven't decided when."

"What color is his hair?" he ponders and I look over to see him brush his fingers across Ethan's head. "It looks... brownish... maybe a little red?"

"It's auburn," I tell him flatly.

"Much darker than yours," he points out, smiling down at Ethan. "You know, in ancient Greece they thought that redheads turned into vampires after death."

"Is that what you're learning at Hogwarts now?" I ask and he smiles at my joke.

"In any case, he's not really a ginger," he says, going back to running his hands through Ethan's hair. "It might even get as dark as mine once he grows a little."

"I doubt that," I counter, placing the cup beside him. "Your hair is black."

"So?"

I make a face and take a seat at the table. "His hair might get lighter... or even redder... but I doubt it would ever turn black," I say as I think of Tom and his perfectly combed black hair...It gives me the chills...

Harry has black hair too, so maybe it's not so awful... I look at Blaise... So does Zabini...but Draco... Draco definitely does not have black hair...

"So, what do you think?" he asks after a moment of silence as I take a sip from my tea cup.

"What do I think about what?"

"About being a mommy?" he asks, sending me a smile as he holds Ethan up. "Was it everything you thought it would be?"

"I don't know," I admit softly, staring down at my hands as he turns toward the table. "You were right though... I love him very much."

"I'm usually right about most things."

"How's Pansy?" I ask, taking another sip from the cup. "I wrote her a letter a couple months ago, but I never heard back."

"Oh, she's shacked up with some bloke she met. They're madly in love, of course. I know she's just trying to make me jealous."

"Is she?" I ask, giving him a hard eyed look. "Not everything is about you," I point out and he laughs.

"I know that, but in this instance, it is all about me...and it always will be with her."

"She deserves to be with someone who treats her well."

"Does she?" he asks, raising a dark eye brow. "She's a huge bitch, Gin. Even you know that."

"Yeah, well..." I can't come up with a good retort, so I change the subject. "How's your mother doing?"

He snorts and doesn't even bother answering. "You know Draco and I are getting medals on Friday. The minister himself is going to be handing them out."

"Medals for what?" I ask, tilting my head to make sure Ethan is alright. He's cradled against Blaise's chest now, drinking his bottle and looking perfectly at home.

"You really haven't been reading the paper here, have you?"

I shake my head.

"For bravery... Being war heroes or something like that... Draco gets a special mention because he was tortured for a while..." He trails off and sighs. "I probably should have let myself get tortured," he says thoughtfully. "Oh, well," he shrugs his shoulders and looks at me. "Too late for that."

"Draco was tortured?" I whisper.

A part of me assumed that, but another part refused to acknowledge it. We didn't talk about it... We didn't talk about anything after the last battle.

"You haven't bedded him in a while," he says and I blush. "You haven't seen the scars he has to add to that fish hook on his back."

I don't say anything for a while as I run my fingers along the grooves in the table, trying to imagine how awful it must look.

"He's already been accepted into The Academy, you know," Blaise says and when I snap my eyes to his, he nods. "Draco. They basically asked him to attend after he graduates. Then he'll be on that linear path to power he's been dreaming about since we were small."

"And you?" I ask, tilting my chin up because I know what Draco's plan holds for him.

"I'll be right along with him," he says with a smile. "Waiting to pull out the rug."

I make a face at that and he laughs.

"Of course, that was a joke," he says, standing up to hand the baby off. "I would never dream of double crossing Draco Malfoy."

"Why not?" I ask, holding Ethan close and letting him grab my hair. "Is there a reason why you do everything he says? It's kind of pathetic," I say, wanting to hurt him.

Blaise doesn't say anything for a few moments, and then he nods his head. "I've owed his family a blood debt for a very long time," he admits, pulling out a cigarette from his pocket. "But it's worked to my advantage so far and soon that blood debt will be broken."

I want to press him more, but he starts walking towards the door.

"I was born a bastard child to a broke soulless bitch," he says and I cringe, covering Ehtan's ears like it could shield him from the hateful words. Zabini lights his cigarette with his wand, blowing smoke from the corner of his mouth. "I shouldn't be alive, but I am, and things just keep getting better for me."

"Are you leaving?" I ask as I stand up.

He smirks. "Sad to see me go?" he asks before checking his watch. "I have somewhere I need to be," he says. "Thank you for letting me in. I would ward this door," he says, tapping the frame as he opens it up. "If I found you, it means others will too."

"Yeah..." I trail off, nodding my head as he stands in the doorway.

"I'll see you around," he says. I turn Ethan away from the smoke as he blows it out into the hallway. "It was good seeing you."

With that he leaves, and I lock the door behind him... using my wand to put up the wards once more. I sit down heavily on a dining room chair and I look down at Ethan.

"Your hair will not turn black," I whisper, pressing a kiss to his forehead. "You're a Weasley child."

I hope it never gets darker... because I fear he really would look like Tom...

---

Two weeks pass before I hear from anyone else from my past but when I do... it's in a muggle grocery store, of all places. I thought I saw her when I was in the canned good isle, but I shook it off because there was no way in hell Ruth Davenport would be anywhere near a grocery store, let alone in a muggle one. She is hard to miss, though, with her chic clothes and good looks... so when I caught a glimpse of her in the meat section, wearing skin tight leather pants and a see through blouse... I decided it was time to go home. I stuffed my list in my pocket and told Ethan to hold on as I started to speed walk towards the cash wrap.

"Ginny!" She catches up to me in the bread isle, but I ignore her. "Ginny, hold on, dear."

I can hear the taps of her high heeled shoes getting closer, and I turn quickly... heading towards the bakery. The tricky witch goes around a table and cuts me off with her long nailed fingers gripping the end of my cart and blocking my exit.

"There you are," she smiles and I send reluctant eyes her way. "You've cut your lovely hair," she points out, slightly breathless from chasing me as she walks around my cart to get closer. "How lovely," she says in that same fake flattering voice that's actually very insulting.

"Yeah," I say, looking down to Ethan as he takes off his hat, showing off his brownish red hair under bright fluorescent lights. "What do you want?"

"I don't want anything," she says, looking down at the baby and letting her smile fade. "I just thought it would be nice to see how you were doing. Everyone is worried about you, you know," she says, giving me a fake pout. I take Ethan's hat away so he doesn't drop it and I stuff it in my bag. "Narcissa is close to having a stroke if you don't return."

"Too bad for her," I say, gripping my shopping cart.

She laughs, it's a bell like laugh, and she gets sideways looks from the men nearby. That's what you get for wearing a plunging neckline to a grocery store. Ethan makes a noise and she looks at him, letting that smile fade again as she sizes him up and down.

"I told you, Ginevra," she says lowly. "You should never have a child you don't want."

I give her a nasty look and grab Ethan's hand, squeezing it because he's so soft. "I want him," I tell her, moving my cart and wanting her to leave me alone. "I love my son."

"Of course," she smiles at me, pearly white teeth against red lipstick. "Children born from rape are always a welcome addition to any family."

I stop and look at her, my face paling and something sharp clawing at my heart.

"He is Draco's son," I say in a low voice, looking around so others won't hear. "How dare you say that to me."

"Right," she smiles again. "You and I are more alike than you know," she says seriously, pulling something from her purse. "I know that my son came to visit you," she says as she hands me a card that has an address on it. "I love my boy as much as you love yours, I'm sure... but I will give you a little bit of advice. Blaise is a liar. He always has been. A trait he picked up from his father, I'm afraid."

"And who would that be?" I ask, wanting to hurt her... or embarrass her, at least... but it doesn't faze her. She just smiles some more.

"If you feel like you need something," she says, nodding to the card she gave me. "This witch is excellent at potions. Don't wait too long like I did...don't wait until they can fight back. I should have ended it eighteen years ago."

"What are you talking about?" I ask as she spares Ethan another look.

"He will be handsome like my boy is handsome... and I'm sure just as awful."

I clench my jaw and start walking again, but she follows.

"I never wanted to have him. I wanted an abortion but the Malfoy's convinced me otherwise. They locked me up until I had the baby and then married me off to Carmine."

"I'm sure that was rough," I say flatly, pushing my cart down the isle.

"I didn't kill my first husband," she says, making me stop and turn around again. "I know that's a generally held belief, but Carmine Zabini was nice to me. I was only twenty four when I had Blaise... I was scared... but I didn't poison Carmine."

"Okay?" I say with a brow raised and she licks her bottom lip.

"Carmine took Blaise for a walk in the garden one day when he was little. They never came back and when I went to look for them, I found them in the stables. Carmine was dead and Blaise was sitting beside him, playing with a toy like nothing had happened. The way he looked at me... I knew I could never prove it, but it was Blaise. I love my son," she says like she was trying to convince herself of it. "I do, but I would never trust him... I would never let him have the upper hand knowing what he can do. The Malfoy's are awful people... I'm an awful person... but Blaise is the worst."

I open my mouth to reply but I stop myself because it's just absurd.

"You're mad," I tell her, breaking away and shaking my head.

"Maybe," she whispers. "But at least I'm not you."

With that she leaves... with every man's eye on her as she sashays out of the store. When she's finally gone, I look down at Ethan and kiss his head, crunching up the card in my right hand.

"We're going to have to move," I tell him, trying not to read in too much to the words spoken to me by a woman I never particularly liked. I tilt my face down until we're looking at one another and I give him a little smile. "I love you," I tell him, just in case... just in case he understood what that awful woman was saying. "I will always love you. I never want you to doubt that," I whisper, leaning forward to kiss his cheek as I think of Blaise and how broken his relationship with his mother is.

I will never let that happen with my son.

Judith is at the apartment when I get home and I let her have Ethan as I put the grocery's away. I take out that crumpled up card and I give the address one last look before throwing it in the bin. There is nothing she said that made sense to me and I want nothing she has to offer. I watch some cartoons with Ethan and Judith before locking myself in the bedroom... going to town on my typewriter and putting the finished pages in the large stack I keep in one of the drawers.

When intercom buzzes, I stop typing.

"I'll get it," I call when I hear Judith get up. I unlock the door and run down the hallway, beating Judith to the intercom and shooing her off when she gives me an affronted look. "Who is it?" I ask after pressing the button.

God help me if it's Ruth Davenport.

"Can I come up?"

It's Draco again and I hesitate with my answer. It would seem very unfair to not let him up now after I've already let Zabini in...That makes me think of Ruth Davenport and I shake my head to rid it of that weird conversation.

I can picture Draco down there... and I think of the scars Zabini mentioned...

"Are you alone?"

"Of course I'm fucking alone, Ginny," he snaps, sounding very much like the Draco I know so well.

It's almost comforting, actually. What a jerk he is.

I take my finger off the button and I peek my head into living room. "Judith?" I call and she lifts her head. "Can you take Ethan for a walk in the park?"

"Uh... yeah, sure," she says as she stands up with Ethan against her hip.

The buzzer starts going off again, so I go into the hallway and press the button. "Just hold on a minute," I say and I hear him cuss as I run back into the front room where Judith is getting the baby bundled up to go outside.

"Will you take the back way out?" I ask as I grab his shoes and push them on his feet while she zips up his coat. "And keep your phone on you. I'll call you when... when you guys should come back."

"Come back?" she asks, giving me a look. "Who's that guy on the intercom?"

"It's just... it's someone..."

"Is it his father?" she whispers like it was a scandal. I grab a hat for Ethan and pull out the stroller from the closet.

"Yes," I admit, grabbing the baby bag and throwing random things in it.

"Oh," she seems surprised and she blinks a few times. "Well, okay then... Are you sure you want to bring him up?" she asks softly.

Judith doesn't know anything about Draco... but she suspects I must come from an abusive relationship based on how I act. Whatever that means...

"I know what I'm doing," I tell her, handing off the bag and grabbing Ethan so I can put him in his stroller. "Just keep your phone on."

"Okay," she nods her head as I strap the baby in. "I'll take him to McDonald's," she says, going into the kitchen and grabbing some baby food from the pantry. "We'll have lunch there."

The buzzer starts going off again and I open the door to usher them out.

"Remember, the back way."

She nods and I kiss Ethan quickly before watching them walk to the lift. Once they're gone, I run back to the intercom that's buzzing impatiently.

"If you don't want me to come up, just tell me leave," he snaps angrily.

"You can come up," I say quickly before pressing the button to let him in.

I take the wards off the door and then I sit at the kitchen table, waiting for him to come up with a nervous feeling tilting my stomach. When a knock comes at the door, I feel my heart start pounding, so I gingerly get up and unlock it... opening it just barely so I can see...He's standing there in a pompous wizards cloak, decked out in a green sweater and black slacks so perfectly pressed.

"Are you going to let me in?" he asks, raising his brows.

I step aside and make a motion for him to come in. He looks around the room as he unclasps his cloak and I shut the door behind him.

"You know this is a muggle neighborhood," I point out as I take his black winter cloak to hang in the closet.

"So?"

"You can't just wear your cloak around like it's normal."

"It's normal to me," he says, giving me another steel eyed look that clenches my heart.

"Well, only weird-o's wear cloaks in the muggle world," I say sourly and he looks around with his arms crossed.

"Where is he?"

"Who?" I ask, knowing full well who and when he gives me another glare, I swallow. "He's with the babysitter."

"I've been very patient with you, Gin," he says, running a hand over his face. "I have given you all the space in the world like you requested, but you can't keep me away from my son. It's not fair. I'm missing out on too much and I've reached my limit. One weekend a month isn't cutting it."

"I know it's not fair," I say softly because it's true. "I didn't know what else to do..."

"Of course my mother thinks I should just take you to court. How plebeian would that be?" I don't say anything and he glances at me... When he turns his neck I can see... I can see a scar peaking out just above the collar of his sweater. "You do realize I would win, right? If that came to pass. I would be granted full custody. I'm rich and well connected and I didn't fucking kidnap him for five fucking months."

"I'm his mother, Draco," I tell him, trying not to get angry with him because I understand why he's upset. "I didn't kidnap him-"

"Yes, you did," he snaps, cutting me off before I can finish. "That's what you would call it if I took him from you. I'm supposed to be his father, remember?"

"I remember," I say flatly because I can't think of anything else to say.

A silence falls between us and he rubs his forehead before letting his hand drop and looking around my flat with a brow raised. "Why did you not stay in the house I bought you?"

I think of of the beautiful home Draco gave me when I told him I wanted a break... When I told him I had to get away and not see him for a while...When I gave back his mother's ring and the bracelet...and the key to his fortune...When I broke up with him.

"Because you bought it," I admit.

"Did I not buy this?" he asks, looking around with a sneer. I don't respond and he nods. "That's what I thought." He walks towards the living room and I follow him, staring at his back and following the line of his spine. Draco's always had such a nice shape. He's still tall and slender... but he's starting to fill out more... He's turning into a man and I wonder if I look more like a woman.

He notices the television first and makes a face before sitting down on one of the chairs and rubbing his face. I carefully take a seat on the couch and put my hands together.

"What do you want?"

"Want?" I ask, raising a brow when he finally looks at me. He leans forward with his elbows on his knees.

"What do you want?" he asks again with his silver eyes narrowed. "To end all of this nonsense," he adds, sending a nasty look to the television like it had personally offended him. "I have given you more than enough time to sort it all out and I'm becoming impatient."

"This is not nonsense," I tell him softly. "My feelings do not run on your schedule and your time isn't more valuable than mine."

"I didn't say it was," he replies sharply. He stands up quickly and starts pacing. "I feel like I'm going mad. What do you want to make this right?"

"Why don't you just erase my memories to get what you want?" I counter flatly and he cringes like I had stabbed him with a sharp knife.

If only I had a knife right now....

"I've already talked to you about that," he says heatedly. "I told you why I did it and you forgave me."

"Don't I always?" I sigh tiredly as I think of my support group. All those women who fall into the same patterns even when they did find a half way decent guy... "I don't want anything," I admit.

"Not even me?" he asks, his voice betraying his true emotions.

I hesitate a moment with my answer. He notices and clenches his fist, sitting down heavily and rubbing the emotion out of his eyes.

"I'm sorry. Is that what you want? I'm sorry for everything. The truth is I'm an awful person and hardly worth knowing."

I don't say anything, I just stare at him.

"Does that satisfy you?"

"It doesn't," I answer quickly. "That is a worthless apology."

He's getting angry... His cheeks are starting to color and his jaw is clenched in an angry line. "I can understand you wanting to get away...I can get you wanting to be alone for a while... What I can't understand is how you can stand to be away from me for so long. Whatever our differences... I thought you loved me. Is that not true anymore?"

The way he looks... it's making my heart hurt so I turn away from him. "You're an emotional blackmailer," I whisper as I think of words Kristi has said.

He hears it.

"And you're not?" he counters, giving me a hard eyed glare.

"Not like you," I answer and he clenches his fist before looking away and sighing loudly.

"I did not mean to get so angry," he admits to himself.

Another long silence falls between us and when he finally looks again at me, he's not half as angry as before. He stands up and walks towards me, kneeling when he gets close enough and running his knuckles down my cheek... It takes all that I have not to push him away.

"My emotions are getting the better of me," he says gently, putting his left hand on my thigh. "I don't mean to be so defensive. I just..." He pauses for a second. "I just miss you," he says, like it was hard for him to admit. "I love you so much."

He tilts his head as he studies my face and I can see that scar again. It's red and jagged around the edges. I wonder how far down it goes... I reach a tentative hand out to his collar and I carefully pull it down. I can see more marks across his chest and I lean forward, putting my left hand on his neck and running it through his hair so I can see down his back.

"They used a cursed blade," he admits softly, turning his face into my neck and inhaling. "They won't heal completely, but they will get lighter over time," he says, putting his hands on either side of me and caging me against the couch. We're pressed against one another now and I can feel each breath he takes. "The healer said they'll hardly be noticeable in a few years."

"I'm sorry," I tell him, letting go of his collar. When I realize what he's wearing and why it has no tags, my heart clenches a bit tighter and I pull back to look into his eyes. "My mother made this," I whisper, reaching out to tug on the fabric. "I can recognize her work anywhere."

"It's the only one she's given me that wasn't completely ridiculous," he admits and I feel the corner of my mouth turn up in a smile.

"Did she make you one with a dragon on it?" I ask, a full smile starting to break out on my face when I picture Draco opening that present.

"She made me two," he replies with a smirk and I actually laugh. "Trust me, they were just as awful as they sound."

"I can imagine," I say with a laugh and then I reach out to place a hand on his shoulder. "It was a nice touch wearing it here," I admit because Draco has always figured out ways to endear himself to me.

"I thought you'd like it," he whispers and then he leans forward, pressing a gentle kiss to my lips before I can even think...I let him, pulling him closer with my arms locked around his neck.

I let myself sink into the kiss... feeling the girl in me sigh to be kissed by someone I love so much...I even let him deepen it, opening my mouth and pressing against him tightly when he tilts his head and grabs my hair.

But then I remember myself... so I carefully pull back even when he tries to stop me.

I have a million thoughts running through my mind right now... but one sticks out and I can't hold my question back.

"Did you know that the information about Harry's aunt was a set up?"

"What?" he asks, setting back on his heels.

"Did you know it was a trap?"

He furrows his brows and lets his hands drop to his sides. "How could I have possibly known that?"

"It happened," I say softly, staring at his throat. "I find it hard to believe you didn't know."

He looks offended and he stands up. "If I knew it was a trap, why in the world would I go along with it?" he asks. He's getting furious now and his cheeks darken again. "In what way would that benefit me?"

I look away and think of Zabini. He's a liar... a million people have told me that... but his lies always seem so plausible. "Because you wanted Harry out of the way."

"Out of the way?" he asks, looking at me like he had never seen me before. "Why would you fucking think that? Harry Potter is no threat to me. Where is this coming from?"

Where was this coming from? I didn't dare admit and I shake it off. Blaise is the worst...

"I found the burrow password. In your room at Yellow Springs. You were so sure you gave it back. You lied to me."

"I did not lie," he says in frustration and he walks away... towards the window that rests against the back wall. "I honestly thought that I lost it."

"Really?" I ask with an eyebrow up. I stand to face him full on when he turns towards me. "You didn't give it to the Death Eaters? You didn't want them out of the way to keep me isolated?"

He gives me an awful look. "If I gave it to the Death Eaters, why in the hell would you find it randomly in my bedroom? Where did you find it?" he asks and I hesitate with my answer. That seems to prove something to him. "You're confusing a legitimate mistake with something sinister."

"Isn't that what I should expect from you? How many times have you swiped my memories? I know you're good at doing that. You said it was only that one time, but I think that's a lie too."

He doesn't say anything.

"I know what you are, Draco. I know what you've done to me and my friends... Luna..." I clench my fists when I think of her. "You made Theodore Nott date her so I wouldn't have anyone but you. He was awful... he treated her horribly and now she's dead!"

"And that's my fault?" he asks in anger. "I had nothing to do with her dying and if she didn't want to date Theo... she didn't have to. It's not my fucking fault he didn't treat her well." He hits his hand against the wall and then he shakes his head. "I have trust issues," he says sharply, turning to me. "I know that. I recognize that. I have problems trusting your fidelity and your love because everything I've grown up around has taught me otherwise... but you have them too. You have never trusted my intentions."

"Should I?" I ask, staring at his profile. "What have you ever done to prove to me I could trust you completely? You have so many plans and ambitions... You may say you love me... but it's awfully convenient for you."

"You are such a bitch sometimes. I've already apologized to you and now you're purposely trying to bait me into a fight."

Anger bubbles in my chest and my muscles tense.

"I'm not trying to start a fight... Me questioning you on questionable things does not make me a bitch," I tell him heatedly... I can feel my own face getting red as Draco pulls on his hair, making it stick up. "I'm well aware that me not forgiving you every horrible thing doesn't fit into your perfectly constructed life, but I can't just accept your apology and go back to the way things were. Nothing is ever going to be the same again... I'm not the same... and I hope you aren't either after all you've been through. It would be silly to think otherwise and it would be silly of me to go any further just accepting whatever you say because you're the one that said it."

He clenches his wand hand. "I didn't come here to fight you. I want access to my son. I'm proposing joint custody, but if you won't give me that... I will pursue it the legal way."

The thought terrifies me, but I won't show my fear.

"I don't want it to be this way," he admits, his voice much gentler as he looks at me. "It would be best for everyone if we were a proper family. I can support both of you. You can finish school... go to university. Everything will be much easier with me."

"I don't want Ethan to grow up in the same world you did... with all the lying and backstabbing. Kill before you get killed is no way to live and I won't subject him to that... or myself, for that matter. I don't want your money, so you can take it... and I don't need your love, either. I can survive without it. I've been doing pretty well on my own so far. You do not define me."

He's silent for a long time and eyes start to get glassy, so he turns away.

"I feel like your love is so thin," he almost laughs, but it's a sad laugh because he's very close to crying... if he'd never allow himself the weakness. "It tears so easily. You've always been looking for a reason not to love me... to find out why I was never good enough for you."

"You've got that wrong. For the past year and a half I have been looking desperately for reasons to keep loving you. To justify to myself something that I know is wrong."

"Being in love with me is wrong to you?" he asks. His voice cracks and it makes my own eyes water to see him so hurt.

"I don't know," I tell him honestly. "You have never been honest with me... all your lies and truths mix together... I don't know what to think. I'm not sure if I even know you."

"You know me better than anyone," he says seriously. I don't respond so he looks away. "My love is awful," he says and it rings inside of my memory. "And it's completely ruined me."

"Me too," I tell him, crossing my arms. "I had a life before you. I played sports, I had friends... a good relationship with my family... I even had hobbies. I lost most of that by being with you."

That came across as very cruel, and I felt ashamed for saying it when he look so hurt... but he covered it quickly.

"You would have lost a lot more if I didn't love you so much," he says flatly, his expression blank and his eyes shining.

"I think you should leave now."

I go to open the front door, but Draco doesn't follow.

"My world has changed," he says. "Goals I once aspired to seem hardly worth having." He walks towards me and reaches into his pocket. "If I don't have you, I don't see how I could want anything else."

"I'm sure you'll manage," I say callously.

"I don't want to," he retorts. "Unlike you, my love does define me. In fact, it's changed everything about me."

He pulls something from his pocket and I flinch, thinking it's going to be his wand... but when I see a vial of blood... I tilt my head..

"What is this?" I ask.

"It's your blood," he tells me softly. He presses it into my hand. "I asked for it once and could never bring myself to use it... because it would be like using you and all those things you said really would be true."

I don't know what to say... or believe... so I don't say anything.

Draco stares me down for a few uncomfortable moments before speaking again.

"You're so beautiful," he whispers, bringing a hand up to my hair and looking thoughtful. "You're the first person I've ever truly wanted before."

I bring my hand up and grab his wrist so I can gently pull it away. "I'll let you see Ethan more," I tell him softly. "We can work something out... but I really think you should leave now."

"You want me to be honest?" he asks.

I don't say anything.

"I will be honest with you," he admits, stepping back and scratching his forehead. "I had a governess when I was growing up."

I look at him and blink. "What?"

"I had a governess," he repeats. "She was in charge of my primary education, but my grandfather took it upon himself to teach me the history of our people. Two days a week from the time I was five until I turned eleven, he would take me to sites and museums, schooling me on the pure-blooded families and the legends that built them. When I was eight he took me to Folk Hills and told me the history of the Black Hills and it's mythology...That was the first time I heard the story of Lancaster Malfoy and the curse he put on your family. The curse of the blood line that ignited the feud that lasted for generations. My Grandfather told me that the Weasley's were once a great and noble family that had housed many powerful and dark witches and wizards... In fact, Folk Hills was built upon the ruin of Blackstone Castle, your ancestral home."

He takes a seat at the dining room table and motions for me to do the same. I don't move. I just keep looking at him.

"But your family fell into ruin... and Blackstone fell into the hands of my family who let it rot into the ground out of spite. My Grandfather told me that a girl had finally been born into your house after two centuries of weak hearted boys. A girl named Ginevra who was just a year younger than me. He told me that this girl was a curse breaking witch and a curse breaking witch was more powerful than any wizard ever could be. He told me that because of that ancient bond so many years ago, I had a claim to that girl . He told me that a curse breaking witch is the kind of wife one would want in their corner and I would do well to keep an eye out for you as we grew older. That was the first time I heard your name."

I take a seat across from him with my brows furrowed at his admissions.

"I hardly cared about what he had to say. I was eight... I didn't even think about you again until I found out it was you who opened the Chamber of Secrets. After I found out it was my father who gave you the diary, I asked him why. He told me that he didn't realize what power the diary had possessed. It was given to him by the Dark Lord not long before his death and was told to keep it hidden. My father kept it tucked between a million other books in our library and forgot about it over time. After the Lord Voldemort was 'killed' by Harry Potter, rumors started to go around about a book the Dark Lord used to carry around. The Book of the Corrupt, they called it. They said it made the person who had it go mad and do wicked things to themselves and the ones they loved."

"That was the diary?"

He nods. "My father isn't much for rumors, though, he ignored them. When I was four, my mother found the diary and started writing in it. She was pregnant at the time... The book convinced her that I was a monster and that the baby inside of her was one too. She used a curse to kill the baby and then turned her wand on me... My father caught her before she could curse me... but not in time to save the sister who was eight months grown inside of her. My father buried the book in the garden and my parents swore never to speak of it again. They claim she had a miscarriage "

I make a face when I remember Narcissa Malfoy... how she claimed they never had any children after Draco because he was so perfect.

"In my second year of Hogwarts, the ministry was doing raids on houses that had sided with the Dark Lord during the first war. Your father was in charge of finding dark artifacts and had planned a thorough search of Malfoy Manor. My father knew he had to get rid of that book, and he planned on selling it in Knockturn ally... but an opportunity arose when we saw your family that day. He said it was to get back at your father for leading the raids... He said that he thought your family could use a little darkness in their lives."

I make a face as I remember my first year of Hogwarts and the dark shadow that looms over all my memories.

"I remember him saying that perhaps the book found it's proper home... If you were able to open the Chamber of Secrets with the help of a memory, what else could you do?"

He puts his hand on the table and starts tapping his fingers against the wood. Tap. Tap. Tap...

"When the Dark Lord was resurrected, it was in a muggle graveyard... and Peter Pettigrew said he needed three ingredients. The blood of the enemy, the sacrifice of the servant, and the bone of the father. The bone was taken from a muggle grave." His lip curls back like the very idea of having a muggle around, even a dead one, was distasteful. "The Dark Lord used the money of pureblooded families. He preached to them about their superiority and he tormented them with his power... but he was no pureblood. He was the son of a filthy muggle and dared to tell purebloods what to do."

He pauses for a second when the anger gets to him.

"The night that he tortured my father for losing his diary was the night I made the decision to bring him down. I decided that I would not follow a cruel wizard with dirty blood and neither should anyone else. I heard whispers of your name as soon as he came back... The Dark Lord remembered you. Just barely, but enough to be interested. My father said he held himself up in the Lestrange library, tracing your lineage and reading accounts of your ancestors. He appeared two weeks later and said that he would have you because fate had willed it to be so. He said you were bonded through soul magic and that soon you would be bonded to him by so much more. I didn't know what he meant by soul magic... I didn't realize until I found out about his Horcruxes."

I swallow and look at my lap, gently scratching my fingers over my jeans.

"He was going to take you then... but my father and grandfather offered a different alternative. They convinced him to let you finish your schooling. The Dark Lord was waiting to make himself known until after the school year started anyways. That way he could control the student body and hold certain children hostage once the war broke out. My grandfather told him that it would be easy to control you if you believed in his creed... He said you were young enough to be convinced. So the Dark Lord asked me to try to show you light, as it were."

I knew this, but it still kind of hurt.

"I had already come up with most of my plan to bring about Lord Voldemort's down fall. Once I understood that it was your blood that would bring him to full power, I knew it would be a good idea to get close to you. Zabini told me that you worked at Folk Hills. He said that you were good looking," he says, flicking me a glance. "That made me wanting to be close to you more believable... "

"You starting dating me for that," I say.

"I liked you, Ginny," he admits. "You were pretty and I actually liked you. With what I wanted to do... I didn't have to be your boyfriend for that."

"What did you want to do?" I ask gently.

"My plan was to take out his inner circle first," he admits. "One by one I would take them out while Potter took out the Dark Lord's Horcruxes... but there was one that was bonded with you. I knew that with that, as well as the blood that brought him to power... I thought that to kill the dark lord..." he pauses for a second. "I would have to kill you too."

We make eye contact and I can't find it in me to say anything... because he wanted to kill me. He dated me, he kissed me...he told me he loved me... but he was going to kill me.

"The others knew?" I ask as I think of the look Ivy Parkinson gave me once at Hogwarts. Something that was a mixture between sympathy and pity.

"Some of them," he nods. It makes me think of Pansy and Daphne... how they pushed me in his direction knowing what he wanted to do. "I changed my mind," he admits. "I spent the better part of the year trying to figure out a way to separate your soul from his. I knew you couldn't survive without it. You're not a monster like he is."

"Why?"

"Why what?" he asks, avoiding my gaze as he looks at his hand.

"Why did you change your mind about killing me? You had me," I tell him with my brows raised. "You tricked me into a bonding without my consent and I would have done anything you wanted."

"I didn't want to," he says softly, tilting his chin down.

"Why?"

"Because I fell in love with you."

"So?"

"So?" he tilts his head at my response like I was being ridiculous. "Is that not explanation enough?"

"Not really," I admit, sitting back and crossing my legs. "When did you decide you weren't going to murder me?" I ask sharply.

"Ginny..."

"How long were we together... before you decided that?"

"It doesn't matter when."

"Yes it does," I tell him. "Because it means everything you said... every touch and kiss... was lie."

Where I was having girlish romantic thoughts at the start of our relationship, every move Draco made was a ploy to bring me closer so he could get rid of me.

"No, it wasn't," he says, getting up and walking around to my side of the table. He kneels beside me and takes my hands. "It kind of threw me off guard how trusting you were... Even though I was a Malfoy, you gave in rather easily. You were affectionate and you fell in love with me so quickly... I started second guessing myself from the start. How could I hurt you when I was developing real feelings for you? I love you," he says. "My first order of business wasn't killing the Dark Lord anymore. It was keeping you safe, protecting you... and I will spend the rest of my life loving you and trying to protect you. So you see how much my word has changed... That is the truth. The awful truth, but the truth none the less."

He leans in like he wants to kiss me, but I turn away at the last second.

"Then tell me another truth," I say, pulling my hands from his. "Why didn't you get me out of the Riddle House?"

He's silent for a moment before biting back. "I've explained this to you. The wards were impossible to break. Anyone who tried caught on fire..."

"Then why was Blaise able to bribe his house elf to give me Henry? Why wouldn't you just bribe that elf to get me out of there? Why wouldn't you let that happen?"

"What are you talking about?" he asks sharply, sitting back on his knees with his hand on the table.

"If you couldn't get me out of there by a house-elf, which I highly doubt, then why didn't you at least have it send me a note of some kind. I was there for months with no one and I thought I was going to die..."

"Wait," he snaps, shaking his head. "Blaise bribed an elf to give you his familiar? He couldn't have done that."

"Well, he did," I tell him sharply. "He's done more for me than you ever have."

He stands up with his hand clenched. "You never told me that. That you had the familiar in Riddle house."

"Yes, I did," I answer, not sure if that's the truth. "You know I had Henry at Shell cottage... How do you think I got him?"

Draco looks troubled for a moment. He furrows his brows and looks away before something dawns on his face. "House-elves can't just go in and out of any wards... They have to be approved."

"Faun was a Zabini elf. She looked after me in the house and Franklin, the elf that brought me Henry, he was the elf that cooked my meals. Why are you acting like this is news to you?"

"Because it is," he says darkly, sparing me a glance. "You should have told me that. If I would have know a way to get into that house, I would have saved you. I didn't know Zabini's elves were guarding you...I didn't know about his familiar." He takes out his wand and then he goes to the closet where I hung his cloak. "I'm going to come back later," he tells me as he clasps his cloak around his neck and he comes back to me, grabbing my face and kissing me hard. "If Blaise Zabini comes here, you don't let him in."

The look on my face must have given it away, because he clenches his jaw.

"He's been here before," he spits with his eyes narrowed. "He's not going to be here again," he says, his voice rough and taking that authoritative tone I'm so used to. "If he comes around, you do not let him in. Do you understand?"

Before I can answer, the phone rings and it makes Draco jump. Just the visual of Draco being so surprised by a muggle machine is pleasant enough to last me the rest of my life.

"What is that?" he snaps, offended by the noise as he grips his wand.

I give him a look and go into the kitchen where the phone is against the wall.

"Hello?"

I can hear Ethan crying in the background and Judith's voice sounds tired.

"Is it alright if we come back now?" she asks breathlessly. "I think Ethan is getting tired."

"Yes," I tell her, sparing a look to Draco as he glares me down. "Yes, come back. It's alright."

When I hang up the phone, Draco speaks. "I'm coming back," he says, nodding to the door. "Zabini does not come in here."

He leaves with a slam of the door and I sit at the kitchen table... staring at the wall and thinking of Blaise Zabini... The Malfoy's are awful people... I'm an awful person... but Blaise is the worst... Blaise lies... He's a liar... He's terrible...

I don't move until Judith and Ethan come through the door fifteen minutes later. It shakes me from my thoughts and I blink a few times as the world comes back to focus.

"I don't think he's feeling well," Judith says as Ethan whines, not knowing anything about the revelations I just received.

"Let me see," I whisper in a dazed voice as I stand up and reach for him. I take off his hat, kissing away his tears and putting my palm on his forehead. "He doesn't feel too hot," I whisper and when he looks at me, he reaches out to grab my hair. "What's wrong, baby?"

He starts babbling, a precursor to words, and I smile, tugging off his shoes and walking us into the living room. It's easy to forget all my troubles when I'm with him.

"I grabbed your mail while we were out," she says, setting it beside me as I take off Ethan's jacket. "How did you talk with that guy go?" she asks. "I think we passed him on the way out. The blond fellow?"

"That was him. It was alright," I say flatly. Grabbing the mail and sorting through it.

"Was he wearing a cloak?" she asks curiously and I can hear the humor in her voice.

"Yes, he's weird," I tell her so she doesn't ask anymore questions.

"My brother wears a cloak sometimes. He's really into this Dungeons and Dragons game... Plays it all the time in my Mum's basement."

"You can have the rest of the day off," I tell her quickly when I see the orange envelop I've been waiting for. "Thank you." I give her a tight lipped smile, on the verge of crying because my emotions are running so high.

Why was Draco so surprised when I told him about Henry? Did that mean Zabini could have gotten me out but he didn't... and then he lied? He's a liar... A very good liar...

I wait for her to leave before I put Ethan in his play pen and then I sit down, staring at the envelope before tearing it open with a nervous flutter in my stomach.

"Whatever the outcome," I say out loud, looking at Ethan as he plays. "It will not change my feelings."

I swear.

I take out the results and furrow my brows as I read them... It doesn't make any sense... I don't understand... I stand up quickly and grab the phone, dialing the number at the top to the page and chewing my lower lip raw as I try to understand the graphs.

"Um... Hi...My name is Ginevra Weasley. I'm calling to ask about some test results I received."

"Okay, just give me one second and I'll connect you."

Another person picks up. I explain my concerns and I give him my name. "I'm just a little confused," I admit as I hold the two papers in front of me. "I'm not sure how I should read these."

"Well," I can hear him typing on a computer. "It looks like out of the two samples given to us, donor A is the father."

I clench my eyes shut and put my forehead against the wall.

"Thank God," I say in a relived whisper and the man is silent for a moment.

"It looks like donor B is closely related to the child as well," the man says, like the news would be pleasing to me. I stand straight to look at the paper with a confused tilt of my head... Of course, every pureblooded family is in some degree related to one another... "Judging by this, it looks like donor B is not the father, but the child's grandfather."

"What?" I whisper because donor B was the vial of blood I bought in Knockturn Ally... The blood that should have belonged to Tom Riddle.

"The grandfather. The Y chromosome..."

"But that's impossible," I say. "This could be wrong, right? Maybe a mix up? That happens, doesn't it? Donor A is the father," I say. "If Draco is the father... it's impossible what you're telling me."

"I'm sorry, ma'am. If you want to fill out the forms again, we can retake the test to be sure... but it looks like this is pretty clear."

I hang up the phone. I know it's rude, but I don't know what else to do. I lean my head against the wall for a few moments, clenching and unclenching my fists before going into the living room and picking Ethan up. He fusses for a moment, so I give him his pacifier and once he quiets down I grab the papers, looking them over with a brutal intensity before the itching in my chest starts to burn.

The witch lied to me... She gave me Lucius Malfoy's blood. She was fucking lying...I start pacing back and forth... back and forth... and then I stop, looking down at Ethan... His eyes... his hair... his nose... his smile...

I storm out of the flat, slamming the door behind me and startling my baby as I walk towards the lift. The doors shut and I press the button, watching the digital numbers by the ceiling count down from five until they reach the basement. I don't move for a few moments... staring at the empty laundry room as Ethan grips my hair in his soft little fingers. I'm thankful no one is down here, because I feel like I might have done something I shouldn't have if I encountered a muggle right now.

Ethan tugs on my hair, so I look at him. His eyes look so curious and I press a soft kiss to his head before walking towards the supply closet and turning on the light. It's full of cleaning supplies and old brooms... A typical custodial unit if there ever was one...and I look behind me one last time before lifting my wand and whispering a spell.

A door appears against the empty back wall, shimmering against the darkness and making Ethan make a happy noise around his pacifier.

He loves magic so much and I'm not sure if that should worry me.

I push the door open to reveal the hidden room I constructed when I first moved in. There's nothing to it, really... just a large windowless room made out of dirt and stone. I lift my wand to light the hanging lamps and I press my lips to Ethan's temple while the lights roar to life. The door closes behind us and Ethan makes another happy noise as I hold him tighter. It's impossibly cold now and I lick my lips nervously as I let my eyes fall to the center of the room. There, right under one of the lamps, is the ghost of Tom Riddle, sitting in a circle of black ghost salt.

It took me two months to finally trap him.

"I was wondering when you were going to come and see me again." He smiles as he stands up, his Slytherin uniform looking as perfect as it did so many decades ago. "Leaving me here in the dark was a cruel twist, I'll admit. I quite admire how dark you're becoming."

I don't rise to his bait and I walk towards him with my wand white knuckled in my right hand.

"You seem so flustered," he muses, his dead dark eyes looking over my face with fake concern... Then he gives the baby in my arms a fond smile. "And you brought the boy..." He inhales slowly, like air was actually entering his lungs. "I bet his blood tastes like a sugar cane."

"You'll never know what his blood tastes like. You're dead."

He laughs at me and then something lights in his eyes... like he figured something out.

"You found something out that you didn't like." He smiles again, a wide handsome grin that chills my heart. "I see..." he smirks when Ethan tilts his head... and I do my best to pull his attention away. "Don't look so sour," he says, standing in the center of the circle with his hands clasped behind his back. "It's not my fault you didn't get the answer you wanted."

"I got my answer," I tell him sharply, covering Ethan's ears and trying to keep my emotions under control. "I can rest easy now because I know there is no way in hell you're his father."

"Is that so?" he asks, tilting his head like he was in on some great secret.

"Yes." I snap. "It was silly of me to think it was even a possibility. You weren't a true man anyways. You could never father a child."

I want to hurt him, but he just becomes more amused.

"Well, you must be down here for some reason. I suspect it's not to celebrate the news that Mr. Malfoy is the true father of that awfully Slytherin looking boy."

"He doesn't look like a Slytherin," I retort.

"No? Know many Slytherin's, do you? Well..." he smiles as he trails off. "I suppose you do."

I glare at him, feeling my blood boil and my hand shaking. I turn away when Ethan looks at me and I realize how rash I'm being. I shouldn't have come down here... I shouldn't have brought him... He never needed to see Tom... I should have better control of my emotions... I lick my lips and give Ethan an apologetic smile before heading towards exit... leaving Tom in the dark where he belongs.

"I always took what I wanted when I wanted it," he says. I stop, but refuse to turn around. "This might come as a surprise to you, my darling, but I fathered six children when I was in my original body... and I made sure to kill all of them before they had a chance to form." I feel cold, so I snuggle closer to Ethan. He puts his little hand on my neck and rests his head against my shoulder like he knew I needed the comfort. "One slipped past me, it seems," he says as I turn to look at him from the corner of my eyes. "He was hidden from me well. I didn't even know until the end."

I don't know what to say, so I don't say anything.

"I told you I had ways of ensuring my legacy, weeding out unwanted characteristics..." He tilts his face to see the baby and I turn again so Ethan can't see him. "It's very Dark magic, of course...Outlawed almost a century ago when it was first discovered. Magical eugenics is a ghastly business. Narcissa Malfoy proved herself quite skilled in the art. Most children die from those kind of potions, but he didn't. Draco Malfoy does, in fact, look like a Malfoy...and most of the things that would have made him like me had been wiped out. I couldn't even feel him like I had felt the others... But that boy," he says, nodding to me and the baby. "Is going to be mine."

I think of the potions I drank each day at Riddle Manor... and I shake it off quickly because what he's implying is ridiculous.

"You're lying," I tell him in disgust."I'm going to find out a way to get rid of you once and for all. When I'm done no one is even going to remember that you lived at all."

He laughs. "I doubt that," he says, his dead eyes sparkling. "Besides, why try to get rid of me before you have all the answers?" I don't say anything and he smirks. "There's a war coming, Ginny. It may be tomorrow or it may be in ten years... but it's coming and this time you're going to have to be prepared. You can't be a scared little farm girl this time around."

"You're lying," I repeat, my voice wavering.

"I rarely lie. That witch did give you my blood and now you know a truth."

I send him a look. How could he have even known about that?

"No, you're wrong. She gave me Lucius Malfoy's blood I won't let you do this to me."

"Do what?" he asks innocently.

"Confuse me... Try to mess up my mind."

"Oh, my dear girl. Your mind was already messed up before I came into the picture," he laughs at his own joke. "Narcissa was a crafty witch... She had Lucius formally adopt the boy so he would officially be a Malfoy under magical law and the elder Malfoy was none the wiser. Probably signed it without even asking what it was... Men are such idiots when girls are involved," he smirks at me, like I would know all about it. "Draco Malfoy probably doesn't even know it himself, but he will," he says. "The same person who found out and told me will probably tell him too. This person is a bitter child, you see, and he learned when he was young that he was the rightful heir to the Malfoy Estates because his mother was a whore and Lucius Malfoy couldn't help himself around a beautiful woman. It seems fortune smiled on him when he found out Narcissa's little secret."

I look at him suspiciously as he smirks.

"Don't believe me?" he asks with his brows raised. "Why don't you ask him yourself?"

"What do you mean?" I whisper, putting my hand on Ethan's head as his heart beats against my chest.

"He's standing right behind you."

The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and I reluctantly turn around. I see him before he lifts his wand, golden eyes glowing against the light... The last thing I hear before I fall is Blaise Zabini commenting on all the blood.

The Malfoy's are awful people... I'm an awful person... but Blaise is the worst.

Truer words have never been spoken.