Summary: When let off from Azkaban on a second chance, Barty Crouch Jr becomes Xenophilius Lovegood's worst nightmare, back to haunt him and his daughter. In order to fulfil forgotten vows, an ex-murderer and a war heroine are brought together in unconventional circumstances, leading to an unexpected romance.
oOo
It was two a.m, and Ginny was angry.
She had tossed and turned in bed for several hours, trying in vain to get some sleep. It was impossible; her head was completely wrecked with the events of the dinner. Beside her, Harry was sleeping soundly, his hands tucked under the pillows as he snored softly. Clearly, he didn't appear to be as angry as she was.
She wasn't just angry; she was furious. Everytime she closed her eyes, she saw his smirking, cruel face, as he stood there in the middle of their family dinner as though he had been personally invited. Whenever there was silence, she heard his voice rattling through her head, telling the family that he had arrived to pick Luna up, and then hushing her when she spoke. How did he have the nerve to speak to her like that? How did he have the gall to just show up at their family dinner and interrupt them so rudely?
Ginny shot up into a sitting position and glared out of the window, and Harry rolled over into the space where her head had just been. There was no way she could lie here and try to go to sleep. There was no way she could stay out of it. Not this time.
She climbed to her feet and wandered around the bedroom quietly, pulling on her clothes and shoes, and headed downstairs, closing the door behind her gently. She knew she should mind her own business. She knew that she needed to keep her nose out. But as she slipped outside into the cold night air, and wandered a little further away from the Burrow so that there was no chance of anyone hearing her, she knew that there was no way she could keep out of it.
Picturing the place that she was going to be heading to, Ginny turned on the spot and vanished.
She appeared seconds later in the middle of a dark living room, with pale walls and haughty velvet furniture that stood like eerie shadows in the middle of the pitch black room. After a waiting for a moment to ensure that no one had heard the distinctive noise that apparition made, Ginny took a few tentative steps forward.
The first thing she wanted to do was check that she wouldn't be overheard. She could've just cast a silencing charm on the kitchen, where she would be going, but truth be told, Ginny was too curious.
She trod carefully up the stairs, climbing slowly up two levels until she reached the final floor, which had only one corridor and two doors. She advanced on the door that was open, pulling her wand out of her pocket.
The room was flooded in creamy moonlight, which was shining in from a large, ceiling-to-floor window. Ginny peered her head around the door frame, casting her eyes towards the four-poster, sapphire-quilted bed.
The two people that inhabited the bed looked ethereally pale; their opalescent skin glowing spectrally in the milky light. Luna was laid on her back, her face soft and gentle, and her long, flaxen blonde hair fanned out around her head, looking silver in the dark. Laid on his side beside her was Barty, shirtless and facing her, as though he had fallen asleep admiring her. His hand was clasped with one of hers, their fingers intertwined.
Ginny felt automatically repulsed by the sight. She backed out of the room quickly, and rose her wand towards the door. "Muffliato," she breathed, immediately preventing any sound from breaching the doorway.
After ensuring that neither Barty or Luna would hear her, Ginny headed back downstairs, and made her way into the kitchen.
Her target was sat on the kitchen table. A medium sized cauldron rested there, with a large lid over the top of it. Ginny wandered over to the cauldron and carefully pushed the lid away, taking a good look inside. It was full to the brim with a bright, greeny-blue liquid. When Ginny inhaled, she smelt sea salt, fresh air and the smell that the rain brought along with it on a hot day.
It was the perfect Calming Draught. Ginny doubted that even Professor Slughorn could produce such an immaculate potion. But it had to go.
Ginny walked over to the sink, where a metal jug resided. She scooped it out, magically enlarged it, and then set it beside the cauldron. Afterwards, she dipped her finger into the cauldron and then wiped it across her lips, making a mental note of how it tasted.
"Aguamenti," she murmured, and a stream of water poured out of the tip of her wand and slowly filled the jug. Once it was full, she concentrated hard, and transfigured the water into an identical replica of the potion in the cauldron.
It looked identical, and upon tasting it, Ginny discovered that it tasted almost the same, too. But it was a complete fake; there were absolutely no calming qualities that would be provided from the pretend potion. It was nothing more than pretty water.
Ginny flourished her wand at the cauldron, and the real potion vanished instantly. Afterwards, she took the jug of fraudulent potion, and tipped it into the cauldron. She shrunk the empty jug, replaced it on the sink, and stood in the middle of the dark kitchen. There was just one other thing.
"Accio medication," she whispered, blinking around the kitchen. A draw at the farthest side of the kitchen flew open, and several sheets of pills soared towards her. These were much easier to replace with placebo tablets, and after shoving the real pills - the packets which were all labelled with an odd word—Venlafaxine—into her pocket, she folded her arms in the middle of the kitchen, admiring her handiwork.
It was probably a little too harsh, granted, but Ginny knew it was the right thing to do. After a few days, or maybe a week, all of the Calming Draught and medication would be out of Barty's system. It wouldn't be long before he went back to his old self, before he flipped or did something reckless. He might even try to hurt Luna.
The thought filled Ginny with dread, but she gritted her teeth. Maybe him doing something to hurt her would make her realise that she needed to be as far away from him as possible.
Not to mention, there was always the possibility that whatever he morphed into without his medication would return him straight back to Azkaban.
oOo
When Aurora cracked her eyes open, bright white daylight was streaming into her vision.
She sat up slowly, running a hand through her long hair and brushing the tendrils out of her face, before taking a look at the room around her. She was in the inn called the Leaky Cauldron, which was about all she could remember since arriving here. She had been so tired, that the moment Stamford Jorkins delivered her here, she had pretty much collapsed on the musty, moth-eaten bed.
It was a grubby little room, with dirty windows, plain unpainted walls, and a stained, uncovered wooden floor. Aurora shivered as she sat there on the lumpy mattress of her bed—the harsh winter outside had easily penetrated this little inn, and she was freezing cold. It was a surprise she'd survived the night.
A knock at the door caused her to groan and force herself out of the bed. She dressed quickly, pulling several layers over her body in order to maintain some warmth, and then opened the door. A young woman stood there, her pale, thin brown hair tied up in a ponytail and a grubby, flower-print apron around her podgy waist. "Good afternoon," she greeted politely, though her smile was slightly forced, and she tapped her foot slightly impatiently. "Will you be joining us for dinner?"
"Dinner?" Aurora asked, raising her eyebrows. "What time is it?"
"Three-thirty," the girl replied, stifling a yawn.
Aurora muffled a gasp with her palm, feeling quite appalled. She'd virtually slept the entire day away. Perhaps this was the fabled jet lag that she'd heard so much about. Despite being tired, and wanting nothing more but to curl back up on the bed, her stomach protested, so she nodded.
As the woman led Aurora down the corridor, she attempted to make idle small talk. "Have you worked here long?" she questioned politely.
"No," she replied. "I've just started helping out every few days. My grades weren't that great, so my job prospects are kind of limited."
"Your grades?" Aurora asked. "Did you go to Hogwarts?"
"Hufflepuff House," she responded with a wider smile. "From your accent, I'm gathering you're not from England?"
"Australia, actually."
"Did you go to school over there?"
"I did six years at the Australian Sorcery School of Elements," Aurora told her as they reached the bar area of the Leaky Cauldron, and she was led to a small table near the back. "I've missed my last year, though, due to some...family problems, so I've requested to study an extra year at Hogwarts."
"School of Elements?" replied the girl, looking slightly mystified. She sat down opposite Aurora, resting her chin in her hands. "How does that work?"
Aurora smiled wanly. "Well, in Australia, witches and wizards believe that all magic comes from the barest elements of the earth. Magic is an energy that courses through our bodies from our connection to the earth. Some of the more hardcore theorists even speculate that Muggles are magic, too, but they just don't have the ability to release their magical energy," she paused, taking another look at the girl, to ensure she hadn't bored her to death already.
"Go on," she urged, her eyes wide.
"Well, when we first go to the school, we have to do this test where you're surrounded by six different objects. They change all the time, but they always resemble an element. You are made to stand in the centre of the circle of objects, and hone all of your magical energy into your centre. The object that reacts to your magic is the element that you will be focusing on."
"Focusing on?"
"Yes. We get separated into six separate...well, they would be what you call your Houses. For me, the object that reacted was a porcelain jug of water, so I was put in the School of Aqua. For the next six years, most of my magical skills were put into further developing my talent for manipulating water."
"Wow...it's so different!" the girl exclaimed. "But, can you do other magic? Like inferno and things?"
"I can cast other spells with a wand of course, but water is the ultimate strong point for me," Aurora replied, and she pointed her finger to a glass of water that was on the table. "Watch." Silently, and using no wand or verbal spell, Aurora caused the water to rise from the glass in an eerie bubble, allow it to float there momentarily, and then spatter back down into the glass in a thin stream.
"That's amazing. I've always been rubbish at non-verbal magic."
"Believe me, any spell that isn't water-related, I can't do it without a wand or a spoken spell," Aurora continued. "It's just the way they teach us over there. I'm sure that if you found out your elemental strength and focused just on that, you'd be able to cast nonverbal spells on your strong point before long."
"What other elemental schools are there?"
"Fire, Earth, Air, Energy and Ice," Aurora counted them off her fingers as she went on.
"Hannah!" a male voice yelled from the bar suddenly, causing both of the girls to flinch. "Do you want to get paid today?"
"Sorry, Tom," Hannah muttered, rolling her eyes expressively. She stood up, and stuck her hand out to Aurora, who shook it politely. "Sorry about that. I'll catch you later at some point though, yeah? My name is Hannah Abbott, by the way—sorry I didn't tell you that sooner."
"Aurora Greengrass," Aurora greeted enthusiastically, grinning widely at Hannah. "Thanks so much for talking to me—the move over here has been pretty crummy. I haven't really had many friends in the last year, and I wasn't expecting to meet someone so soon when I got here."
"Nice to meet you, Aurora," Hannah dropped her hand, and smoothed down her apron. "Anyway. I'll speak to you soon!" she hurried over to the bar, where the landlord, Tom, was tutting at her. Aurora leaned back in her seat, feeling a lot better than she had done upon waking up.
oOo
During her short lunch break that day, Luna decided to take a walk over to the Burrow to see if she could speak to Ginny. Rolf hadn't shown up for work, probably after yesterday's shenanigans, and she'd had no word or letter from any of the Weasleys.
The Sunday dinner had gone spectacularly wrong, but Luna didn't want to dwell on that. It had happened, she was suitably embarrassed, and she knew that the Weasleys and her friends were probably extremely irritated with her and her choice to leave with Barty. Luna had replayed the event in her head all morning, and when the clock struck twelve, she had made the decision to try and straighten things out with Ginny.
She didn't want to talk about Barty or what kind of a person he was or wasn't. She just wanted to remind Ginny that she was still her friend, and she still loved her and cared about her deeply.
Luna spotted Mrs Weasley in the kitchen once again as she was advancing upon the back entrance of the Burrow, but she didn't look as pleased to see her as she had done yesterday. Instead of shouting for Luna to let herself in, Mrs Weasley instead came to the kitchen door, closing it behind her sharply.
"Hello, Luna. Lovely to see you," Mrs Weasley greeted, though she sounded a little stiff. Molly wasn't the greatest actress, and Luna could tell by the way that her eyebrows furrowed together, and the corners of her lips tugged downwards in a stern frown, that she wasn't particularly happy to see Luna at all.
"Hi, Mrs Weasley. Sorry to barge here uninvited. I just wondered if I could see Ginny?" Luna made to walk past Mrs Weasley, but the older woman didn't budge, remaining firmly in place like a wide, red-haired brick wall.
"I don't think that's really appropriate, Luna," Mrs Weasley simpered. "She's been very upset since yesterday. I think you just need to give her a little bit of space."
Luna sighed and shrunk back. "Mrs Weasley, I know that Barty was out of order just showing up yesterday. Honestly, if I thought he was going to do something like that, I wouldn't have even come. I really need to speak with her. She's my best friend."
"I'm sorry, dear."
Luna stared up at Mrs Weasley blankly. There was no way that she was going to budge - Ginny hadn't inherited her famous Weasley stubbornness from just anyone. "I...I guess I'll try her again another time, then," she mumbled, and turned away, beginning to walk back to her own house on the hill.
oOo
Meanwhile, upstairs in the Burrow, Ginny was crouched at her bedroom window, watching Luna's retreating blonde figure.
There was no way she could talk to Luna and pretend that everything was okay again - not now, not after what she had done.
Since waking up in her own bed, Ginny was beginning to regret tampering with Barty's potion. She had been angry—explosively angry, and she had reacted on that anger. What she had done was dangerous, not only to Barty, but to Luna, and anyone else he came into contact with when he was unstable. If something dreadful happened, she would be to blame.
Ginny swallowed and sat down on the floor, burying her face in her hands. What had she done?
oOo
After dinner, the landlord of the Leaky Cauldron, Tom, brought something over to Aurora. It was a parchment envelope, with a Hogwarts crest stamped into the wax seal. She fingered the parchment at her table hopefully, praying that it would have the answer that she so desperately wanted.
Hannah sat down opposite her, pulling off her apron. Her shift had ended now, so Tom couldn't complain for her slacking off. "Is that from Hogwarts?"
"Yeah," Aurora replied, running her finger across the inked address. Aurora Greengrass, Room Three, The Leaky Cauldron, London, England. "They said they would write to me with their final decision. I'm too scared to open it," Aurora pushed the letter over to Hannah. "Will you do it for me?"
Hannah shrugged, and picked up the letter. She slid her finger into the parchment, deftly slicing it open, and pulled out the sheet of folded parchment inside. It was fairly short.
Aurora chewed her fingernails down to the quick as she watched her new friends eyes scanning the letter.
Hannah's face fell, as she placed the letter down carefully on the table. "I'm sorry, Aurora," she murmured. "They can't let you join."
Aurora resisted the urge to slam her face into the desk dramatically.
"That was my only option," she mumbled, her throat suddenly feeling uncomfortably thick. "What am I going to do now?"