A/N: Thank you so much to reviewers! I love you all. Late February. This is a nicer chapter, but we see a Dark side of Ginny… and we also see the sensitive girl that the Bat-Bogey Hex so accurately covers. P

READ: If you read the last chapter, that's fine. Continue. If you didn't because you read the warning, here's basically what happened – Draco was called to see Lord Voldie, and they all turned against him. He was kidnapped and sent to be tortured, and Macbain was sent to kill Ginny. Draco was given Crucio etc, and then he had images planted in his mind of Ginny being horrifically murdered… that's basically it.

Disclaimer: I am not lucky enough to be as smart enough as to invent these characters myself. They are not mine. Too bad. –pout-

The Stone Speaks

Thirty-Three: The Scry

GINNY

"I heard it was a set-up."

"What, disappearing in a fireplace?"

"I heard he's been expelled."

"Why would he been expelled?"

"I don't know – maybe because he killed the old Headmaster?!"

"I heard that he was expelled because he was the one who attacked Ginny Weasley in the night."

"Why would he do a thing like that?"

"He's had it in for the Weasleys for years."

"Whatever – I heard that he eloped with Madam Rosmerta's daughter."

Ginny pursed her lips. Blaise Zabini, Gregory Goyle and Victor Crabbe had told Professor Umbridge about Draco's disappearance, so of course the toad announced it to the whole school. Now all of Hogwarts was spreading rumours about why he was gone.

She hated to admit that she was so dependent on him, but Ginny missed him terribly, and couldn't help worrying about whether he was safe. She glanced sideways; Ron and Hermione were busy arguing, Luna and Harry were chatting about something – no-one would see her sneak away. She hurried down a set of stairs, through a secret passageway, behind a tapestry, and then she stopped, before the wall where the Room of Requiremens door would appear.

Nobody was around. Ginny drew her wand and tapped the wall. "I want a room to Scry in," she whispered. There was a silence, and then a door pushed through the stone wall. Ginny slipped into the room. It was small, dimly-lit, and in the centre of it was a bowl filled almost to the brim with clear water.

She walked quickly to the bowl, sat beside it, cross-legged, and then inspected her wand. Ah, it's clean enough. She held her wand vertically and lowered it carefully until its tip submerged. Then she drew it swiftly in an S-shape, hissing, "Bethelio aislin lourdius."

Where she had drawn her wand, a thin red line appeared, following the curve of the shape she had sketched on the water; an S formed on the water surface. The red thickened outwards until the water was pure, thick and crimson. Then Ginny said clearly, "Draco Ophius Malfoy," and plunged her wand down sharply into the scarlet water.

From her wand, the water cleared immediately, and Ginny peered into the water. Come on, show me Draco, she urged the bowl silently. Then the liquid became black, and it spat her wand out, tossing it across the room into the wall. Ginny gazed in horror at the bowl. It was bubbling… the gurgling diminished, and then the water became clear again.

"You're joking," said Ginny quietly. "No way." She looked up. Fred. I need Fred, George and Elma Tonks again. She stood, Summoned her wand, and ran from the Room of Requirements. She had disappeared before the door could even slam.

"Professor McGonagall!" she gasped out, slamming her knuckles, hard, on the Deputy Headmistress' door. "Please, it's urgent."

There was a sickening moment when Ginny was scared that the only teacher who would really understand what she was going through was ignoring her. Then the door swung open, and Ginny was faced with Professor Snape.

"Urgent, eh?" Snape sneered. "I highly doubt that anything you have to say could be urgent, Miss Weasley."

"Please, sir, it's extremely important!" Ginny cried. She was being rude to Snape by shouting at him, but she needed to save Draco. "I have to see Professor McGonagall."

"Do not speak to your Professors in such a manner! Apologize instantly and that will be five points from Gryffindor. Consider yourself lucky that -"

"Severus!" Professor McGonagall barked. "I think that you should leave the matter in my hands – she came to address me on something I would regard important, not you!" she frowned at Snape, and then ushered Ginny into her office. "What is wrong, Miss Weasley?"

Ginny cast a nervous glance backwards at the Potions master, before taking a deep breath and saying, "Professor McGonagall, Draco Malfoy is in danger!"

Snape's eyes widened with surprise, before narrowing suspiciously; McGonagall frowned slightly. "We already suspected as much, Miss Weasley, due to the fact that he has no living family that would willingly take him away with no notice. Do you any idea of his whereabouts?"

Snape stepped forwards almost threateningly, opening his mouth, but he was silenced by one look from McGonagall.

Ginny bowed her head. "No, Professor McGonagall, I don't, but if I could perhaps speak to Fred and George to use their Extendable Ears again -"

"Minerva, may I interrupt?" Snape asked silkily. "Considering that we did not alert the students of Mister Malfoy's situation, I am extremely interested as to how she knew." Both Professors turned expectantly towards the sixteen-year-old.

Ginny's breath caught. "Professors… I – just," she paused, and then, breathing deeply, said unabashedly, "I Scryed him."

Professor Snape sharply in took his breath; Professor McGonagall stared. "You were using Black magic on campus?" he snarled. "Such acts are illegal in Britain, punishable by Azkaban, I do not think that such a -"

"It doesn't matter!" Ginny cried. "It doesn't matter how I saw him. Who gives a damn if I used an amount of harmless Black magic – one of your students is held by Dark wizards!"

Professor Snape's lip curled at the language and looked as though he would like nothing better than to throttle Ginny. She glared sideways at him. I know that you're a Death Eater, and I know that I'm probably ruining all of Voldemort's plans. Happy now?

"Miss Weasley… you were close to Mister Malfoy, am I correct?" McGonagall probed.

Ginny didn't see how this had anything to do with what was going on. "Draco is being held hostage! I didn't think it would matter if I liked him, hated him, was his classmate or had secretly been married to him for three years! We have to save him!" she exclaimed.

"Answer the damn question!" Snape snarled.

Ginny stuffed her hands into her pockets. "Yes," she snapped. "He's my best friend."

Both Professors did not try to hide their astonishment. McGonagall merely raised her eyebrows, whereas Snape spluttered, "but you are a Gryffindor and he is Slytherin! It simply doesn't work that way – you are closest to Granger and Lovegood, I thought!"

"Why does it even matter?" Ginny shouted. "He's my best friend and he's a hostage – why is it so difficult for you to agree to help him?"

Professor McGonagall sighed. "Miss Weasley, sit down." Reluctantly, Ginny obeyed. "Miss Weasley… we haven't informed the students… but He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is growing stronger, and getting closer. I daresay you recall what I told you earlier in the school year?"

Ginny folded her arms across her chest, staring at her shoes. Without looking up, she nodded curtly.

"I am merely worried for your sake that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is doing this on purpose – drawing you out of safety by kidnapping one of your closest friends in the hope that we, quite sensibly, would deny you from going, and that you would go to rescue him by yourself," Professor McGonagall explained.

"The sort of thing that Mister Potter does every year," Professor Snape said disdainfully; both McGonagall and Ginny glared at him.

"Anyway… what's your point?" asked Ginny suspiciously.

McGonagall regarded Ginny through her square spectacles. "I will conjure a Patronus to fetch Miss Tonks and the twins. I am also going to alert a group of Aurors to help Mister Malfoy. However, I am forbidding you to leave the Hogwarts grounds until the end of the school term. It isn't safe."

Ginny's face fell. No more Hogsmeade with my friends. No more sneaky visits to the Forest. All because some lunatic decided that chasing Harry had gotten old. She hid her disappointment, however, and asked, "When will everything be sorted out? Like… when will Draco be safe again?" she was being sappy and she knew it, but her own emotions were getting past her pride.

McGonagall looked sadly at the redhead. "I have no idea, Miss Weasley. It… it could be weeks."

"WHAT?" Ginny yelped. "He'll be dead by then!" She jumped to her feet and looked frantically from the Transfiguration Professor to the Potions Professor. "We have to go after him now!" she leapt to her feet, pulling her wand out and pointing it to the floor. "Expecto patronum!" she shouted, squeezing her eyes shut. Ginny was spinning under his arm, her own arm stretched upwards to almost its full extent, her skirt flaring around her knees, and then her journey across the dance floor came to abrupt halt and Draco caught her, his head lightly clapping her back, and then they were dancing, closer than ever, their bodies flush of each other.

From her wand tip a white light blossomed, and as it fell to the floor it took on the form of a large, glowing hare. Ginny opened her eyes to look at it. "Get my brothers – Fredrick and Goerge Weasley – and Elma Tonks. Tell them: 'Apparate to Professor McGonagall's office immediately. It's urgent'." The hare twitched its nose once and then disappeared.

"Everything seems to be urgent, these days," Snape said icily.

Ginny glared at him, and sank back into her chair. Ignoring her Potions teacher's sarcastic comments, she began to twine a loose strand of red hair into a thin braid.

"May I ask, Miss Weasley – is this the first time you have Scryed?" Snape asked, trying to sound casually uninterested. Needless to say, it wasn't quite working, and his fascination was very obvious. Ginny looked up at the sallow-skinned, hook-nosed man before her. She knew that Snape was involved in the Dark Arts, but his sudden attention to her Black magic skills was unnerving. I'm not like him, Ginny told herself, I'm not a Death Eater and I'm not a Black witch. At length she answered his question by shaking her head slightly.

"You've Scryed before?" McGonagall repeated incredulously. "On whom?"

Ginny did not lift her gaze. "Percy," she said flatly. Though it was a year ago, she remembered it well. Fourteen-year-old Ginny knelt before the bowl, staring into its depths. "Bethelio aislin lourdius," she told it, drawing the according S-shape. It widened until it was almost as though she was looking at a basin of blood. Glancing up briefly to check that her mother would not suddenly burst through her bedroom door to find Ginny using Black magic, she spoke her sibling's name. "Percival Ignatius Weasley." She stabbed her wand down into the redness. There was a swirling of water, and then Ginny saw the unmistakable silver mist clouding the now-clear water… the mist of the dead. Tears tracked down her face – so young, yet she had seen more horrors than most adults would ever see. It was true. Percy was gone.

McGonagall fell in a respective silence for the boy, forever twenty. After the hush had grown thin and uncomfortable, she asked, "Have you used any other Black magic?"

Now Ginny met the Deputy Headmistress' stare. "Once," she said awkwardly. "I… I Transformed myself. Into the Other state. I… went into Ron's head."

Now both Professors' eyes widened. To Transform was to turn to your Other form – that of a daemon. Daemons could control and even destroy other people's minds. Little, innocent Ginny wasn't as little and innocent as she looked, it seemed.

"And anything else?" McGonagall asked, putting the usual stern, commading tone into her voice.

Ginny looked blankly ahead. "No," she lied. "I haven't." McGonagall eyed the girl for a moment, but accepted the untruth, and dismissed Ginny from her office, saying that she would be informed when Fred, George and Tonks arrived. The redhead ducked past Professor Snape and headed away. She wasn't sure where she wanted to go… she couldn't face seeing anyone. Especially not Ron, Harry or Hermione. Luna… she could just about bear. However, Luna wouldn't understand why Ginny didn't want to see the Golden Trio.

No, the person that Ginny wanted to talk to was Draco. He would understand. He would know exactly what to say to comfort her, and exactly how to make her smile. He was the most amazing person in the world; her best friend… and maybe more. Just two weeks ago she had admitted to Hermione that she fancied Draco, and then told Luna the next day. However, that was easy. Ginny also fancied Alan Levent, the handsome English Quidditch player for the Chudley Cannons (he was the only reason that she agreed to go to matches with Ron, who supported them), Roger Davies, a very handsome ex-Ravenclaw who was now nineteen and working in the Ministry of Magic, and Orlando Bloom, a Muggle actor who she had seen in one of Hermione's films.

She could fancy a thousand people. She could fancy random guys on the street who she didn't know. Fancying was easy – but Ginny was torn. She was scared that her feelings would grow… and equally scared that they would fade away. She needed a girl to talk to.

Luna – yes, but no. She was trustworthy, but she was never without the others, who she didn't want to have to talk to.

Hermione – no. She would tell Harry and, worse still, Ron.

Moaning Myrtle – perhaps. Myrtle, Draco and Ginny were all very close, and Ginny was worried that Myrtle might accidentally tell Draco at some point. If he comes back alive, that is, her brain reminded her. SHUT UP, she screamed at the annoying voice.

Shaking her head to get rid of images of a broken, bleeding Draco, she headed towards the second floor girls' bathroom. I'll tell Myrtle. I owe her; she did tell me about Nearly Headless Nick. Ginny saw Ron and Hermione in each other's arms at the bottom of the fourth storey stairs, so she used a secret set of stairs behind the statue of Baldwin the Brave. She wanted to avoid them all today… and maybe tomorrow as well.

Ginny slipped through the door after checking that no-one was watching. Then, clicking it closed behind her, she called tentatively, "Myrtle?"

There was a pause before the younger (or older, whichever way you looked at it) girl floated out of a cubicle. "Have they found Draco yet?" she asked – Ginny had already informed her of everything that had happened.

Despair welled up in her heart, and Ginny revealed everything that had happened, in both the Room of Requirement and in Professor McGonagall's office. "And then," she finished, "I couldn't face seeing Harry, Ron, Hermione - or even Luna – so I came here. I need someone to talk to. I'm going to go insane."

Myrtle made sympathetic noises and patted Ginny's back while the redhead sighed, depressed, and stared at the ground. I have to tell her… no, don't, she'll tell Draco… she wouldn't… she would… she – "Myrtle, I think that I have a crush on Draco," she blurted out, and instantly felt her face grow warm.

The young ghost tilted her head slightly sideways. "I knew it would happen," she said pensively.

Ginny frowned. "How?"

Myrtle rolled her eyes. "Please. Hurt, misunderstood, gorgeous boy. Hurt, misunderstood, gorgeous girl. Put them together. There's no way that you weren't going to fall for each other," she said.

Ginny turned pink. "I'm not hurt or misunderstood!" she said defensively. "And I'm not falling for him! I just… sort of like him."

Myrtle smirked infuriatingly.

"What?" Ginny snapped. I'm beginning to regret telling Myrtle. Why is she smirking like that?! What does she know that I don't?! "What's so funny?"

"The funny thing is, Ginny, that I didn't hear a denial to the 'gorgeous'," Myrtle grinned. "I heard a denial to hurt… misunderstood… and falling for each other. BUT, when I said he was gorgeous… you didn't deny it!"

Ginny's pink face flushed to red. "I'm – not – but – no – I -" Myrtle was still smirking… "Okay, okay! He's… sort of kind of maybe sort of perhaps a little cute," she snapped, lowering her head so that she could hide her glowing cheeks behind her hair.

"Ginny, you're on fire."

"What?!" Ginny yelped.

Myrtle rolled her eyes again. "I meant, you're blushing. You're blushing like hell, and that means you like him."

Ginny stared up at the slightly taller girl. "I thought we had just confirmed that I liked him," she said wryly. "Anyway, Myrtle, the point is… I like him a little more than a friend – I think… and he's being held by Dark Wizards! No-one's willing to help him just because everyone thinks that he killed Professor Dumbledore, and no-one's to help me because now they all know that I practice Black magic. And they could be hurting him!"

Myrtle buried her face in her hands. "I know…" she murmured. "I'm worried too. But… Ginny."

"What?"

"You know… he is our best friend. And he is nice to us, and we know that he's been hurt badly in the past and needs healing…" Myrtle bit her lip. "Gin, he's still a Death Eater."

Ginny's heart lurched painfully in her ribcage. Involuntarily, a hand flew to her chest, above her heart – she dropped her hand back to its correct place when Myrtle raised an eyebrow, blushing again. Oh God. I forgot. He might… he might not be hurt. He might still be working for Lord Voldemort… and Lord Voldemort wants to kill me. "Myrtle…" she said slowly. "I know what you're getting at… but… do you think that he's still on their side?"

Myrtle sighed. "There's no way of telling. We never discuss it, so I don't know his opinions."

Ginny huffed her breath sadly. "I'm just worried. He's my best friend – but what if he's still on Lord Voldemort's -" (Myrtle flinched) "- side? What if… he's trying to kill me?"

Both girls fell totally silent. Neither of them moved. Then Myrtle scooted over and wrapped her translucent arms around Ginny. "I'm sorry that I can't be of more help," Myrtle said miserably, "and I just… I hate it! You and Draco can live your lives happily… when you graduate, you can get jobs, you can get married, you can have children, you… you can do anything." Myrtle looked down at her hands. "All that's in my future is sitting in this stupid toilet cubicle for the rest of eternity."

"Myr, it's okay -"

"No, it's not!" Myrtle burst out. "You'll grow up and you'll make new friends… and I'll be left here, by myself… then, one day, you'll die and be gone forever… and I'll still be here…"

Ginny felt so bad for Myrtle. "I'm sorry, Myr. It's wasn't your fault that you died. And, if it makes you feel any better, when I'm older, I'll come and teach at Hogwarts. I'll take a potion so that I live forever… and we can always be friends. And when I finally do die… I'll become a ghost. And we can still always be friends."

"What about Draco?" Myrtle asked sorrowfully.

Ginny's heart panged. "I have no idea," she whispered. "But right now, I don't care about the future. I just want him here. I want him safe. And I don't care how much it takes… how much magic it takes – White… or Black."

And so they sat, desolate and depressed, in each others' arms.

A/N: Also a bit of a depressing chapter. Oh well. It only gets worse! XD Just joking. Please review.