"Why is it that our paths continuously cross, Ginevra?"

Ginny glared up at Voldemort as he paced in front of her, his eyes rarely leaving hers. They had been dragged back to Hogwarts, and once inside the castle, Ginny was separated from the children and hauled up to Voldemort's office. Dean had wonderfully taken it upon himself to be her personal guard, and had barely left her side since she was arrested.

Now, standing with hands bound in Dumbledore's old office, she almost felt a little teary with the memories. However, as soon as she saw Voldemort stretched out on his plush office chair, a rather triumphant grin on his face, she sobered up quickly, her hate rising once again.

"I believe we're just destined to be together," Ginny droned sarcastically, holding her up to him defiantly, "or you just have a fascination with me... It started when I was eleven, I'm sure-"

"Shut up!" Dean hissed, shoving his wand painfully into her back, "It was a rhetorical question!"

Ginny rolled her eyes, and Voldemort let out a dry laugh, "Oh, she knows that... She's been married to Snape all these years... I'm surprised she doesn't reek of sarcasm."

"I shower four times a day."

"How witty, Madame Snape."

"I do what I can."

His eyes narrowed, and she could tell he was no longer as amused with her as he had first been when she was dragged in. The tension had suddenly built up, and she knew Voldemort hated it when people challenged his wit.

"I find it interesting that you rejoined the Order," he drawled lazily, returning to his desk to lean on it. "Though completely predictable."

She remained silent, knowing he wanted to spar with her again. If she should start, he would try and verbally shake her until she could no longer fight back. But there was no way in Hell Ginny could ever give him that satisfaction.

He no longer frightened her. Yes, there was an element of fear that came along with his name, but he was now just a man... one that was slightly more powerful, and ugly looking, than she was used to. She could never understand why he was never quite as scary to her as he was to everyone else. Perhaps it was because she had outlasted Tom Riddle as a young girl... Maybe she felt connect with him somehow.

Ha. Like that was the reason.

"I almost see it as a betrayal..." he continued, his tone rather flat now, and his eyes missing that twinkle of humour, "Considering I was the one who matched you up with the man you love..."

Her cheeks flushed involuntarily, and she heard Dean shift behind her. The way he spat out the word love was alarming, yet unsurprising. Clearly the man had never been in love.

"And what of your life now?" he mused, knotting his fingers together in front of him as he stared down at her, "You have roped Snape into joining the Order, once again, freed all my prisoners from Azkaban... and now you all think you'll come raid Hogwarts in a valiant attack that will be talked about in history books for centuries?" He snorted, "I think not, girl."

Damn. She wasn't too sure why no one thought Voldemort wouldn't catch onto their plan, but hopefully someone had another idea. If they couldn't bring down the man, everything they had done over the past week would have been a waste, and more people would be in danger than ever.

"Now, we plan on sending a letter to a certain Mr. Malfoy," Voldemort explained, holding up a piece of parchment, "but we thought we should include a little something for your husband... Give us a nice, dramatic scream, Madame Snape... I'm sure he'll love it."

"You're disgusting-"

Ginny suddenly let out a sharp cry when Dean dug his wand painfully into her back, twisting it to add some sort of effect. Voldemort cocked a nearly invisible eyebrow, "That was almost what I wanted... try a little harder, Thomas."

She knew what he was doing. There had been these letters invented recently that would record sounds and words, almost like a Howler. However, these notes weren't generally as cruel as Howlers were, and people didn't cringe whenever they received one.

Dean placed his wand against her neck, and then whispered, "Just scream, Gin... It'll be a lot less painful."

"Piss off," she snarled, glaring pointedly at the floor to avoid contact with both males in the room. Dean murmured something softly, and Ginny suddenly felt a sharp, withering pain spread all over her body, painful enough to be the Cruciatus Curse, but she wasn't sure. Her knees buckled, and she fell to the floor, a short howl flying from her lips.

"Good enough," Voldemort muttered, folding up the slip of paper, then pointing his wand at it, muttering the universal release spell. Within seconds, Ginny anguish was echoing throughout the office once more, and she could feel the shame on her cheeks when she heard it. Severus was just going to die...

As if reading her thoughts, Voldemort smirked, "Oh yes... Dear husband will be thrilled to hear this... Let's hope he doesn't do anything rash."

Ginny felt her eyes water at the thought her husband abandoning reason and rushing to her rescue - it would surely result in his death. The Dark Lord sauntered across the room and placed the letter on the leg of a dark owl, and then pushed the window open. In an instant, Ginny wanted to leap up and restrain the bird, maybe even run somewhere safe with it. However, in a fleeting moment, the bird was gone, off to deliver the letter to her husband and Draco.

But along with that bird... went her hope.


This is unbelievable! First we get arrested, basically strip searched by disgusting older men, and now my sister and I are locked in the same bloody room as Will Turny. I suppose that's not the greatest of my worries (getting killed takes top priority), but I can't stand the fact that I'm stuck with him.

We were put into white robes, clearly so if we escaped, we wouldn't be able to blend in with anyone around Hogwarts. They are quite similar to the ones the prisoners were wearing at Azkaban, but a little cleaner.

Our room was just one of the classrooms. I'm assuming the school is no longer open, seeing as we were at war, and we found ourselves locked inside the Charms room. Thankfully, there was enough room to give me some space from Will.

"Where's Auntie Ginny?" Annie asked suddenly, sitting on the window ledge as I leaned against the wall beside her, "Is she in trouble?"

I shrugged, "She's not in trouble... I think she's talking with someone."
There was no point in frightening her, and to be honest... I had no idea what happened to Ginny. I hadn't seen her since the pub, and for all I know, she could have been killed right then and there.

"I want to go home," Annie whimpered, pulling her legs up to her chest, "I want to see Daddy again-"

"We'll go home soon," I assured her, hating the way deception just rolled off my tongue, "I bet this is all some big misunderstanding."

Although my sister was young, she wasn't stupid. She didn't say anything, but I had a feeling she knew something was terribly wrong with the whole situation.

"Eloise?"

I barely looked over at Will when he called my name. Instead, I folded my arms across my chest and stared out the window, trying my best to just ignore him completely.

"Eloise, you have to talk to me sometime-"

"I don't ever have to talk to you!" I hissed, shooting him a fierce glare, "Ever!"

"Look, just let me explain myself," he pleaded, moving across the stair-like seating arrangements to get closer to me. "I didn't mean for this to happen-"

"So you just took Annie to be funny?" I snarled, noting that my sister tried to say something, but I cut her off, "I don't care what you say, Will... I don't think I'll ever forgive you."

He released a lengthy sigh, then ran a hand through his black, slightly curly hair, "Eloise, I had to take her to protect her... Dean was patrolling the house, and he said anyone we found we would have to kill... I didn't want anything to happen to her, and I didn't think they would find us in Hogsmeade, honestly."

I wanted to lash out at him again, but there was a part of me that knew he was telling the truth. Gingerly, I glanced over at him, "I can't trust you for a long time, Will."

"I know-"

"You've hurt a lot of people I love," I ground out, my lip trembling, "and you've really hurt me... I won't come crawling back-"

"I don't want you to!" he said quickly, standing up and taking a few steps closer, "I just want you to talk to me again, maybe listen to what I have to say... I'm going to keep you and Annie safe while we're here... No one is going to hurt you."

Silence settled over us, and I went to go sit with him on the bench. When he tried to touch my shoulder, I smacked his hand away, but said nothing. I didn't want him to touch me, nor did I want him to hold me. Just sitting by him was good enough, despite the fact I was secretly still over the moon about him.


"So where'd you find this?" Kevin inquired, shooting his older brother a look as they both munched on something that had many similarities to toffee, but wasn't.

Shane grinned, "I told you... I raided Lupin's candy jar. He has one for all the little kid prisoners, and I figured we could use something sweet."

"Sounds reasonable."

The boys had been sitting outside the prison in the front courtyard for almost two hours now. It was still too hectic inside for their liking, and at least when they were outside no one could yell at them for doing something wrong. The sea was choppy against the rocky outlines of the island, but there was still a sense of hidden beauty in the darkness.

They needed the candy to settle their frantic nerves. Eloise had gone with Ginny to rescue Annie almost three hours ago, and had yet to return. No one wanted to go check on them, since it could blow their cover, but everyone was feeling the anxiety of the girls missing.

Kevin wished to discuss it with his brother, but Shane wasn't really in the mood. He expressed his desire to just sit outside and talk about anything but the war, something Kevin would happily comply with.

"This is good."

"I know."

"We should raid his jar more often."

"Fred and George are pros... We could get them in on it, too."

Kevin snorted, "Can you imagine? We could make an underground candy laundering with the rest of the kids... It'd be sad, but at least we'd have something to do."

"Hmm."

Kevin, once again, was envious of his older brother. Sawyer had been in for almost the entire day to spend time with him, and he was pretty sure his brother and his girlfriend spent the majority of it locked in Shane's room. He wished he had a girlfriend, but the girls his age were so irritating. They wanted to be flirty, but they were over the top most of the time, and couldn't be around boys for long periods of time without bursting into giggling fits.

"Do you see that?"

Kevin snapped out of his thoughts, and his eyes followed Shane's finger toward the sky. There was an owl fluttering toward them, and from what he could tell, it was large and black. Setting his toffee down on the bench they had made their home, Kevin marched a few paces forward, stopping once the owl landed on a metal rubbish bin. Shane too rose to his feet, and stepped in front of Kevin as he made his way over to the owl.

Of course Shane got to go investigate, Kevin thought spitefully as he hurried to catch up, he's the oldest, after all... everything good should happen to him!

"It's for Dad," Shane muttered, cocking his head to the side to read the cursive writing on the envelope. "I guess we can bring it in for him."

He reached forward for the owl's leg, but it instantly snapped at him, leaving a red mark on his hand. Kevin smirked as his brother cursed softly, then snatched the letter away with a bit more force. Once the letter was off its leg, the bird took to flight again, taking off into the setting sun. It was quite picturesque, really.

"Should we read it?"

"And have Lucius beat us for opening something that isn't ours?" Shane snorted, giving him a look, "No... C'mon, let's go find him."


Draco had spent most of the day worrying about his little girls. He simply couldn't take it anymore, and was in desperate need of some time alone with his other girl, Hermione. They weren't really on good speaking terms since the day before, but he was determined to make that go away with some smooth taking and a back rub.

His parents were sitting with the Weasleys somewhere, and Potter was getting some much needed sleep. Snape was with the Lupins making sure some of the prisoners understood their roles in the attack, which was to happen sometime soon. He hadn't seen Weasley all day, but counted it as a blessing.

Hermione had picked a room which was in a different hall than his own, which was a little annoying, but he still knew how to find it. The hallways were dark with a small amount of torches littered along the walls. It was eerie, but nothing Draco wasn't used to.

He found her door shut, as usual, but didn't bother to knock. If she was sleeping, he would be quiet, but if she was changing... Well, that would be a nice surprise.

Draco pushed the door open gently, only to find Ronald sodding Weasley lounged out on Hermione's bed, while his girlfriend was seated on the pillow, her gimp leg hanging over the edge.

"What the bloody Hell's going on in here?" he demanded, instantly assuming the worst. He hadn't seen either of them all day... and there were only a couple of things grown people with a romantic history could be doing when they were alone.

Hermione jumped, and Ron let out a snort, "Hey, Malfoy-"

"Don't 'hey, Malfoy' me, Weasel," Draco snarled, pulling out his wand and pointing it at the relaxed redhead. "What's going on?"

"Draco!" Hermione shouted, her eyes narrowing, "What's the matter with you?"

"What's the matter with me? How do you-"

"This isn't what you're thinking, Draco," Hermione snapped, pushing herself off the bed, her hand against the wall for support. "We were just talking, all right?"

Just talking... Weasley had been sending her longing looks ever since he saw her in the prison. He knew she was mad at him, but she didn't need to go shag Weasley-

"I'm a married man, Malfoy," Ron said suddenly, bringing Draco out of his murderous thoughts. "If you think I'd cheat on my wife with Hermione, I may just have to hurt you."

"Don't give me that noble bollocks, Weasley," Draco sneered, rolling his eyes at him. "I've seen the way you look at Hermione-"

"Draco!" Hermione groaned, her tone harsh, "Enough!"

"No-"

"Ron, can you just... go?" she sighed, running a hand through her hair, "Please?"

The redhead rose, and after shooting Draco a fiery look, one that Hermione couldn't see, he departed, shutting the door forcefully behind him. A silence moved over the pair as they stared at each other, and Draco folded his arms, nodding to the bed, "Well?"

"Can I not sit in a room and just talk with a man?" she inquired bluntly, shaking her head at him, "We were just talking... I haven't had a real chance to in a long time, and I didn't feel like seeing you, so-"

"So you figured you could just hope in the sac with-"

"We didn't do anything!"

"How do I know that?"

"You should trust me enough to believe me!" she shouted, sitting back down on the bed with her hands limply in her lap, "I don't know how to prove it to you any other way, Draco, so if you don't want to believe me, that's fine."

Draco exhaled deeply, then ran a hand through his hair. This had definitely not been his intention for the night. He regretted losing his temper so quickly, and shifted across the room to sit beside her on the single bed, "I'm sorry."

"You should be," she muttered, staring at her fingertips. "I care about you too much to cheat on you, Draco... You should know that by now."

"I know."

He glanced over with her, and a moment later her eyes flickered up to meet his, sadness in them. Frowning, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, "What's wrong?"

"I don't want another war," she whispered, shaking her head as she slid closer to lean against his chest, "I'm afraid of who we're going to lose... I'm afraid to lose you."

Draco snorted, then tilted her head up, "Trust me, I'm a better fighter than most of them out there-"

She giggled, and he shot her a mockery of a glare, "What, do you think that's funny?"

"Quite."

The air finally returned to one of lightness, one he loved to be in when he was with his Hermione. He inched back on the bed, then settled down, his head on the flat pillow, and his feet hanging over the ends. Hermione rolled her eyes, then made herself comfortable as she laid down beside him, her head and hand on his chest.

"So you two were just talking?"

"Yes, Draco," she groaned.

"You swear it?"

"Yes!"

"I could go talk to him, and-"

"Draco!"

"I'm just kidding, love," he chuckled, giving her a soft peck on the head as he stroked her hair gently. "I trust you."