Disclaimer: Own nada.
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Chapter Twenty-Three: Karma with a Bad Sense of HumorThey were almost at the destination. Harry had led Ginny to the foot of the Ministry building. Ginny merely blindly followed Harry to wherever he was heading to. With her own sense of imbalance due to her memory loss and Harry's now ever present "V" on his forehead, all Ginny could do was follow the leader. Harry's reaction of cursing and his aura of destruction did nothing to pacify Ginny's own doubts.
Why would someone erase her memory? Did she find out something absolutely horrible? Like murder? Or was she forced to do something horrible? If Harry was taking her to the ministry, did she do something like what happened during the first year at Hogwarts? Was her memory loss due to another wizard or witch overpowering her mind?
The thought of being controlled by some evil wizard and the recurring images of Tom Riddle stopped Ginny's musings. A mental dam created by fright abruptly ended the flood of inquires. Her feet stopped walking too. Unexplainable fear and anxiety over the trip to the Ministry of Magic didn't aid in Ginny's internal pleadings to continue moving her legs. She couldn't do anything. The intensity of dread was like a powerful premonition advocating ultimate pessimism. Somehow, going to the Aurors' office would be an unsettling event with news that cannot even be described as one's worst nightmare.
Without knowing that she was shaking in dread, Harry looked at Ginny with a look of utmost care, as though she was a porcelain doll that suffered a fall but didn't break.
"Are you alright, Ginny?" Harry asked after pulling her close to his chest. The redhead's palms were cold and sweaty. The blank look in Ginny's eyes had scared the auror. The only times Harry had ever seen anyone look so helpless and in distress were interviews with victims. But Harry was certain Ginny was a victim. She suffered at the hand of some dishonorable witch or wizard, mostly because of her connections. With two close friends being aurors and nearly all of her relatives working at or with England's Ministry of Magic, it was no surprised Ginny was attacked.
Harry was definitely certain Ginny was a victim of something horrible. But what and whom caused her suffering?
After numerous kisses of comfort, hugs, and promising words, Ginny returned to reality. Flashes of the Chamber of Secrets and the ominous cloud that hung over Ginny's conscience were disabling, but the light that shined through the clouds was Harry, like many times before.
"It's alright Harry," Ginny spoke attempting to return the favor of comfort. "We are almost there. A few steps and we face the next stage, right?" Ginny knew she had experienced something horrible. If not, she wouldn't be paralyzed and borderline mad, insane, crazy, depressed when she tried to prod through the hidden memories.
Holding Harry's hand tighter, it was Ginny who led the two into the building and to the Department of Defense. Harry performed the necessary steps for Ginny to enter and to set up whatever he wanted to do in the office of the aurors. Ginny was left to be alone with her thoughts. Organization was crucial for Ginny to combat the reasonless apprehension. Certainly her previous visits to this professionally decorated part of the Ministry were always filled with consternation, this time, the feeling seemed more urgent. All her earlier visits were haunted by petty nervousness, but this time, something in Ginny's head was sending deafening warning signals about upcoming events.
"Potter? Ginny?" the familiar voice of Draco Malfoy sounded the room. His form was supported the doorframe that separated the office of the Famous Trio among the aurors from the rest of the department. "What are you doing here?" One glance at Ginny and Harry, he rephrased the question. "What happened to you two?"
"I think I have found more explanations, Malfoy," Harry began.
Ginny's mind chose to block the aurors' conversation from her comprehension. The words were like the whooshes of wind blowing by her ear. Occasionally, the speech was slurred. Ginny couldn't concentrate nor understand what the two aurors were discussing so avidly. She glanced around the room. Everything was placed is a way that shouted order and chaos. Papers were haphazardly laid on the desks, but somehow the arrangement seemed ordered. It looked as though whoever was sorting it randomly placed the grouped papers.
"Ginny?"
Ginny looked up from her survey of the surroundings. The looks on both Draco's face and Harry's face hurled back the dark cloud that was in her mind; seeing two frowns increased her own apprehensions. Why couldn't she remember things when she revisited her memories?
"Um?"
"Ginny," Harry began playing with a file folder in his hands. "Can you tell me what you have done since I was gone?" Ginny slowly shook her head. Trying harder, pieces of memories fell in place.
"When you left, Hermione told me to housesit for you . . ." Ginny began the narration of her life in the past few weeks. She spoke of the kneazles, meeting the maid, baking desserts, and writing her column. " . . . so for her next visit, I was going to bake her my pie. She wanted to try my recipe."
"Helen said she never saw you after your discussion about pies," Harry interrupted. "Do you remember what happened after that?"
"I did the usual: writing, reading, resting," Ginny replied with a shrug. The dubious look on Harry's face made her doubtful of her quick reply. Did she do those things though? She didn't feel like she lived at all in the past few weeks yet she had the memory of knowing she had written her columns.
Silence took over the room for a few moments. Both aurors seemed to be going through pieces of the puzzle in their head. The picture seemed awkward without the other third of the Trio. Where was Aurora? Shouldn't she be apart of this crime-solving meeting? Ginny turned her attention to Draco.
"Draco, where is Aurora and why are you here now? Aurora told me you always rested for a week after a mission before returning to office work." When Ginny mentioned her best friend's name, both aurors stiffened visibly. The only time Ginny had ever seem Harry so emotionless and stone-like was when his comrades died fighting against Voldemort. "Oh no." The cry was more of a statement of realization rather than shock. "What happened to Aurora?"
The stormy cloud cover in Ginny's mind seemed to turn into a hurricane. Frenzied waves of shock, panic, anxiety shook her mind while a silent and wordless ominous voice sent a feeling of a premonition being accurate. Ginny felt like she knew something bad was going to happen. The little shadow of omens in her head now had the center stage in her thoughts. Aurora was hurt, if not dead. Ginny felt like she knew something was going to happen. But as for a better explanation than a premonition, there was none.
"What did you say?" Harry asked still in his confidante/coworker mode.
"I should have known!" Ginny wailed out. The small blurb of the unknown sent Ginny into a shivering state. Noticing her distress, Harry walked over to Ginny and placed her in the safe circle of his arms.
"Shh, Ginny. No one would have expected anything to come out of the worry. Or if they did, it was the routine worry friends and family feel when we go off to a mission," Harry said into her hair. The words of comfort had no effect. The shivering became a show of tears.
"No, this was a different type of bad feeling." Ginny retorted. "I can't describe it, but it was bad. The realization was a boulder sinking into my stomach type of shock." To battle the shaking in her bones, Ginny pulled out of Harry's comfortable but unyielding embrace. She needed to pace, to calm her nerves, to get her out of this horrible nightmare.
"Harry, Draco," Ginny spoke after a long period of silence except the sound of Ginny pacing. "Tell me what happened to Aurora." The two men looked at each other before anyone dared to open his mouth. Ginny's heart pounded. Instead of feeling anxious at perhaps she got the title of head girl, the sinking pit in her stomach was an indescribable sense of dread. What had happened to Aurora that caused the two men to look ghastly the two times she asked why her best friends wasn't with them when the mission was over.
"Ginny," Draco began after his eye conversation with Harry. "Nothing really happened to Aurora." Ginny noticed the pained voice he used when he said Aurora's name. If nothing did happen to her, why would Draco Malfoy sound like someone took a knife, stabbed it in his heart, twisted the knife, and proceeded to pound on his already wounded heart?
"Aurora chose to not come back with us," Harry added his two cent when Draco didn't elaborate on his answer. Ginny looked at the two men before, switching from staring in Harry's eyes to Draco's. The fact that none of them actually held her stare annoyed Ginny to no end. They were deliberately trying to hide something from her for probably a stupid reason like they don't want to hurt her.
"Why would Aurora choose not to come back with you?" Ginny asked patiently. If they wanted her to be the poor little child listening to why Santa didn't come, they will have to deal with Ginny taking charge of the interrogation and answer session. "Please tell me. She is my best friend; I believe I deserve to know what happened exactly that she chose to not return. After all, she does have a wedding coming up in a few months." The comment on the wedding made both men flinch.
"Ginny," Harry began after another secret conversation with Draco via their eyes. "Aurora said – "
"She betrayed us." Ginny's eyes became the size of saucers at Draco's exclamation. "We were attacked at our lodging one night. The radicals were taking instructions at Aurora's bidding.
"There was a rather disastrous duel between Potter and I against Aurora and those guerilla wizards. Half way into the duel, the radicals started disapparating at Aurora's command. Just before she disapparated, she dropped a letter addressed to you. By then, five of the Latin American defense wizards had fallen." Draco handed Ginny a postcard sized envelope.
"When the Latin American Alliance's president tried to open the letter, the security charms placed on it gave his first degree burns and cinched his beard, eyelashes, and eyebrows," Harry added. "I think the letter is a private thing, but it will definitely be one of the evidence at the trial."
"Do you know why?" Ginny whispered as she looked at the plain envelope. "She wouldn't do something like that. It just isn't right."
"That's why we need you to open the letter and see what she wrote in it," Harry replied with a smile.
"You don't think she actually betrayed you two?"
"Well, no," Draco replied with a huff of air. "Potter got this warning about you and Aurora had a nightmare about you. Something doesn't feel quite right, not that you aren't special," he added after Harry glared at him. The fact of what had happened to her brought the deep pit of fear back in Ginny's mind.
"I suppose I should read the letter then," Ginny said after another moment of silence. Finding out that Aurora supposedly betrayed Harry and Draco was mind blowing. If her betrayal were related to whatever had happened to Ginny, it would be even more shocking. "I suppose we should read the letter and see what she wrote." Ginny's hands shook as she opened the letter.
Dear Ginny,
It certainly has been awhile since we last communicated. This letter should not bring you any bad news. I am alive and well. Whatever you have heard from the ministry or from Harry and Draco might seem shocking and unlike what I would have done, but I am ashamed to say that as your best friend, I have hidden things from you. Some happenings in my family are kept secret because they are meant to be. It was never my intention to bring any of my friends in danger. Now I am sorry to say that if I do not disappear from the face of the earth, you will be in danger. There were quite a few reasons why someone would use you as a levy to blackmail me considering you are my best friend.
I beseech you and any of my friends at Hogwarts to refrain from looking for me. What happened on this mission basically resulted in making me nonexistent to the world. Although you will most likely never see me again, please note that I didn't really commit treason. The rebels knew of our location already. During one of my assigned secret meetings with the heads, I was captured and offered a in which my family must refrain from any intervention of "you know".
Please be safe and marry Harry. If it isn't a rush for you and Harry, I would be very happy if the wedding – Draco's and mine – you are planning is used for your happiness. It was strange how the wedding was started with the common idea that it was Harry marrying Aurora and gradually transformed to a wedding of Draco Malfoy and then the truth was revealed. It would be very humorous if the wedding did become a wedding of Harry Potter. The press will have a ball and we can say the Draco-Aurora thing was a cover up.
I don't know . . . or you could say the truth. Anyhow, please let Draco know I wish him the best in everthing and tell Harry to remember our Conversation. Also, if Mr. Malfoy complains about money, just rub it in his face that my family actually chipped in most of the expenses. That's my farewell present to all of you.
Happy a great life (that's cheesy, but hey),
With eternal gratitude,
Aurora Classen
Ginny looked up from the letter. The heads of Harry and Draco were looking over her shoulder. It was one those things that bothered her: her vertically challenged physique. But it wasn't important. Her best friend at Hogwarts was now living in exile of sorts and her last wish was to have Ginny and Harry marry. The proposition was odd, just like her extremely eccentric friend.
So it was Aurora's wish that she should marry Harry in a few months . . .
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Erm yes. Things just got stranger. I supposed I am rushing the ending a bit . . . I have no clue anymore. Bad writers' blocks tend to mess up things very badly.
I am sorry about the very delayed update. Due to the pretty much impossible block, I resorted to writing my very own ideas now. I hope no one will hurt me if I turn my attention to my original ideas rather than fanfiction for a while. For those who actually like my "style" (ha! If you could call it that ^^), fictionpress has the ones not archived on here and my website will have more later . . . as soon as I get time to fiddle with it. ^^
Thanks for everyone's support! You have made this story very enjoyable (and quite a bit difficult) to write. As for the friends I have made while writing this, thank you many more times and a shower of hugs.
If you would like to ask me about when I will write the next, all necessary contact info is in my profile. I don't mind reasonable rushing, it actually helps to a degree.
~Omnifarious
NOTE: This isn't the last chapter. I still have more loose ends to tie up.