Draco's Desires

Part Eighteen

Birth And Death

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When I next opened my eyes, what struck me as odd was the fact that I was standing up, instead of lying down. But I wasn't exactly standing on my own. In fact, I was chained to the wall. All four of us were. Ginny was bent over the fire, and Voldemort was not present. The snake, Nagini, was frightening enough and more than made up for her master's absence.

I turned my head to look at Harry who was tied up next to me. "Harry, we have to get out of here. I have a very bad feeling about this."

He struggled in his bonds, but it was useless. Our hands were chained above our heads and our legs were spread and fastened apart in a most undignified manor. I teased Hermione to try to lighten the tension. "Hey Granger. Looking good there!" I winked at her.

She actually smiled weakly at me. I guess one last laugh before dying was all right.

Ginny was kneeling on the floor, laying pillows on an old table. She then took out her wand and tapped it on the top. A ring of fire sprang from her wand and surrounded the pillows. She then went to the fireplace and crouched there next to the dead baby, waiting.

It wasn't long before Voldemort entered the room again. We immediately started to squirm in our bonds. What was he going to do? I closed my eyes, fearing that my own death was rapidly approaching.

"Slytherin, bring the Unborn." Voldemort stood behind the table with the pillows. Ginny leaned into the fire and gently lifted the baby. She unwrapped it from its cloth, leaving the poor little thing quite naked. She placed it on the table and stood next to Voldemort. We watched in horror. I was afraid he was going to eat it!

On the contrary, he seemed to be as pleased with the baby as Ginny was. He lay his white thin hands on it and started to chant under his breath. I stared at the baby, waiting to see what would happen to it. I could hear Harry's labored breathing next to me. Why didn't he just kill us and get it over with? I couldn't stand this waiting.

Voldemort reached down and took Ginny's hands. He placed them on the baby, next to his. He kept muttering the strange spells and the child started to glow vaguely. Ron yelled out. "Hermione!"

Hermione had started to glow too. "W..What's happening to me!" She started to struggle.

Ginny focused her dead eyes on Hermione. "Life-force of Hermione Granger, come to me." She extended a hand and hot white light was sucked out of Hermione. It poured out of her mouth, her eyes, her ears, even her very arms and legs. She screamed, but it was a panicked scream, not one of pain. Still, it was terrifying to watch. Ginny was going to kill her! Drain her dry!

But she stopped before Hermione was dead. She folded her hand around the ball of light that had gathered in front of her, and it disappeared into her body. She closed her eyes and blew the light out of her mouth over the baby. It was absorbed into the child's body and his chest rose once. I gasped. That was surely just the lungs expanding from that bit of air…it couldn't have come back to life. I looked over at the others. Hermione had slumped in her chains with exhaustion. Ron had tears in his eyes and was trying to coax her back to health with sweet words. I felt rather moved.

Voldemort smiled at us. "Let's see…why not give Harry Potter a taste?" He held out his fist towards Harry. "Life-force of Harry Potter, come to me!"

Harry shuddered from head to toe. "Fight it, fight it, fight it…" he was chanting to himself under his breath.

Voldemort started to draw the life out of Harry. His energy was bright blue and lively, and it put up quite a fight. The light tried to bounce all over, and refused to fly right to the Dark Lord's fingers. Voldemort glared at it and had to use his other hand to help contain it. Harry put up a noble mental fight, trying to keep his energy, but soon the heat and the strain were just too much. He hung his head and the blue energy surrendered. Voldemort licked his lips as he absorbed Harry's life. "Almost a shame to have to use it up so quickly." But he blew it out onto the baby. The chest rose again. I think it might have whimpered.

"Life-force of Ronald Weasley, come to me!" Ginny called and threw out her hand.

"Ginny! Don't! Stop it!" Ron started to yell as his life was gradually sucked out of him. His was a reddish color, the color of his hair. And of his fiery temper, I would gather. His head fell against Harry's shoulder as he lost the strength to hold it up anymore.

By now the baby's chest was rising and falling. It was trying to open its eyes and mouth. My own eyes were huge as I stared at it, as it fought to live by using the life-power of these three people.

Voldemort then turned his attention to me. "And now young Malfoy." He gave me a wicked smile. "Your life-force is bound to be the most useful out of all these little human sacrifices who fell into my net." He walked out from behind the table and glided towards me, his red eyes boring into mine. I shifted my gaze, trying to look at anything else. I focused on Ginny who was gripping the table, breathing very heavily. She looked like she was running out of energy and fast. She had put so much of her power into the baby.

Voldemort reached out and pinched my chin with his fingers, lifting my head up roughly so that I was staring deep into his red eyes. I dared to speak. "Why is mine the most useful, My L..Lord?" I stammered.

He smiled. "Dear boy, your soul is pure evil. And so this child will be as well. With your dark soul, combined with mine and that of Miss Ginny over there, I will have someone to carry on in my wake. Someone who will love and trust and obey me."

"You mean…an heir?" Those slitted red eyes mesmerized me.

"Yes indeed, Malfoy. A child of my very own, a dark child who will serve only me and fear nothing."

I tried to buy as much time as I could. Where were those Ministry idiots? "If the child is going to be evil, My Lord, why did you take the life away from them?" I gestured to the others with my head, as the rest of my body was immobilized.

"They all had a little bit of what the child needs. With the Mudblood's intelligence, the Weasley brat's temper, and Harry Potter's spunk, he will have the endowments he deserves."

"But won't their goodness get in the way?" My head was swimming in those eyes, in the heat. I was afraid I was going to pass out at any second.

He leaned down closer to me so that our noses were almost touching. "Dear child…he will be mostly you. You…and…me." I tried not to throw up.

He backed away from me. "So, I will be draining the most life-force from you. All of your evilness, jealously, and cruelty will be put into this little body for the good of the Dark Arts. Aren't you proud, young Malfoy? Your father certainly was."

My head jerked up. "My father?"

Harry groggily lifted his head. "What does his father have to do with this?"

Voldemort stood behind the table and twirled his finger around a strand of Ginny's hair. "Why Draco, your father suggested you. Why do you think he let you go back to Hogwarts in the middle of the summer? He knew what you were up to, playing in the Chamber. He thought it would be good for your family to use your dark tendencies for some good, rather than waste them all in that school where clean magic is taught. Do you think just anyone could have gone down into the Chamber of Secrets without being killed? Only the most extraordinary wizards can enter it without being overtaken and destroyed by the dark power planted there. You and Ginny were supposed to go back down. You are drawn to dark things, the two of you. Harry Potter was an added bonus."

"But…Ginny. Why Ginny?" I could hardly force the words out of my mouth.

"Ah yes…the lovely Ginny Weasley. She's beautiful, isn't she? Young, but destined to be a great beauty once she gets over her childish…awkwardness. Tom Riddle took quite a fancy to her, so who else would be better to raise such a dark child as mine?" So that was it. She was supposed to be this baby's mother.

Harry cried out. "Tom Riddle didn't like Ginny! He used Ginny! He called her boring and almost got her killed!"

"She was just a child then, now wasn't she? Look how she's grown and matured." He lifted a slender finger and slid it down one of Ginny's cheeks. It left a dark streak, as if it had burned her white skin. She didn't even flinch as he did this. It was as if she had no life left in her at all. She just stared straight ahead at me with those dark green snake eyes.

"Ginny…" I moaned.

"I'm so glad you liked my pool. Tom Riddle created it three years ago while Ginny was held captive down in the Chamber of Secrets. He thought it might prove…useful some day. How right he was. How lucky to have captured the same little butterfly in his web! That proved that she was the one to look after my child." He leaned over and kissed Ginny's cheek. I shuddered at this, my teeth chattering. How dare he touch her! Ruddy sick bastard!

Voldemort smiled at me. "Well, I think it's about time, Draco. I will tell your father goodbye for you. How proud he will be, knowing that his only son gave up his life for our good."

"What?!" He was going to kill me? "You didn't kill Harry and the others!"

"Oh, they will die. Trust me on that. They will hang there until their bodies give out from having so much of their life-force drained away. But you will be snuffed out before you even know it. You should thank me, really."

"But I don't want to die!" I planned on being bratty right until the very end. "You won't dare kill me! Why can't you just take some of my life-force? How much does one baby need?!" I tried to stomp my feet, but I was chained very well.

"Well, it was not my first desire to kill you, but I'm quite afraid it will happen anyway. And after all, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, so they say." He chuckled at this Muggle phrase.

I struggled like mad. "Let me go! Let me go! I'll tell my father! You'd better let me go right now, or you'll be sorry!" I think my brain had snapped. I didn't even know what I was saying. I was horrified at the stream of childish threats exploding from my mouth, but what else could I do? I was going to be killed!

Voldemort threw out his hand and cried out, "Life-force of Draco Malfoy…COME TO ME!!"

I suddenly felt like I was being pulled violently forward, but I wasn't moving at all. It wasn't painful, but I was scared. I could feel energy draining from me bit by bit. And the energy was black. Dark, black, and evil. So this is what I was made up of? Maybe it was best if I did die.

"Fight it, Draco! Somehow, fight it!" Harry was yelling at me through the haze of rushing energy I could hear in my ears.

"Too weak…I'm too weak…" I didn't say this, my brain did. I couldn't force any sounds out of my mouth at all.

"Fight Draco! FIGHT!" This word rang in my mind. Fight. No, no fighting now. I felt so deeply sorry. Sorry for everything.

Mental pictures flashed into my head. I was dying. They always say your life flashes before your eyes. But I didn't see my life. I saw people. My mother. "Mother…I was never a very good boy. I was stuck up and spoiled. I'm sorry! Please don't hate me! I love you." I heard a "zap" and a cry of surprise from across the room.

Hermione. "I'm sorry, Hermione! I don't care if you don't come from a wizarding family. You have just as much magical talent as anyone, maybe even more!" My mind cried out my remorse. Zap! What was that noise? My body jolted whenever it happened. I was dying! This had to be death. I screamed louder, my brain feeling like it was going to explode.

Ron. "I don't hate you, or your parents! Who I really hate is myself!" Zap. I cried out and knocked into something with my head. I think it was Harry. I could hear crying. Hermione was crying for me.

Harry. "I tried to make friends with you, Harry! Remember on the train the first day? I wanted you to be in my house and be my best friend, but I messed up. I messed it up!" Zap!

I could hear gasps of surprise from all sides. And cries of pain, oddly enough. Were they my cries?

Ginny. I saw Ginny most vividly of all. My mind screwed up all its strength and screamed out. "I love you, Ginny! I love you!" Then I heard the words burst from my mouth and echo in the sweltering room. "I LOVE YOU, GINNY!" My eyes popped open and I saw a spike of bright silver energy fly from my chest and hit Voldemort. He cried out and fell to the ground, breaking the spell. He looked battered and defeated. I turned my head and found myself staring into the surprised green eyes of Harry Potter. "What happened?"

"We..we thought you were done for. He was sucking out all of this black energy and you were shaking and your eyes had rolled back… but then all of a sudden these silver beams of light would shoot right out of your heart and hit Voldemort in his. It hurt him so much, he could hardly keep tugging out your life-force. He would cry out and stumble backwards. You must have sent good energy into him. That's the only thing I can think of that would hurt him."

"Good energy? Me?" I struggled. My chains were coming loose. The magic holding them together was crumbling. "I had been thinking good thoughts, but…"

Hermione was getting free now as well. "Everyone has good in them, Draco. You just have to find it." How incredibly sappy! But maybe it was true.

Meanwhile, Voldemort had absorbed my life energy and breathed it into the baby. It had started to whine and cry. It was now a living, breathing thing, made up of me, as well as Harry, Hermione, and Ron. It was like a part of us.

Ginny was still standing, but Voldemort was exhausted. He pulled himself up and started to mutter a spell very fast. "Come to me, life-force of Virginia Weasley, Heir of Slytherin!" Ginny just stood there as her life was sucked out of her body. Voldemort held out his hand to accept it, but shuddered. "It's PINK!" He was revolted. "It shouldn't be pink! It should be black."

Ron spat out at him. "What did you expect, anyway! She's one of the nicest people at Hogwarts!"

"But she swam in the pool! I fed her part of my energy. She should have no good inside. She is a dark shell!" He tried to brush her life-force off his hands, but it stuck to him like sugar. That's what it was. Sweet sugar, clinging to an evil, painful cavity.

By now, I had gotten free. I knew that if the baby needed anything from us, it would be that pink energy of kindness and compassion. While he was busy trying to get Ginny's energy off his hands, I sneaked around behind him. I took a deep breath and shoved him in the back with all the strength I could muster. "Long live…ugh...GINNY!" I yelled, shoving at the same time.

The Dark Lord flew forward and his hand came down on the baby. The pink energy was immediately absorbed into the child and he became rosy and fresh looking. He opened his mouth and gave a cry, very strong. Once Voldemort had gotten his balance, he shoved me aside. "NO!! He can not have that much goodness in him! He will be spoiled!" He started to chant rapidly, and his own life-force poured out of him and hovered over the baby. He was going to overpower Ginny's positive energy with his own negative filth.

I groped in my pocket for my wand, my body slowing down minute by minute. I had very little life left in me, but I had to take him out. He couldn't pollute that child.

There was suddenly a huge scream from behind me. "Avada Kedavra!!!" My heart nearly stopped and I dropped flat on the floor. I cringed as a great burst of green light exploded over my head. Voldemort was screaming in agony. He stumbled away from the baby, but grabbed Ginny up with him, dragging her along.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione had all hit him with the curse at the same time. So why was he still standing? "Why didn't he die?" I demanded.

"He's immortal. The curse won't kill him. But it hurts!" Harry ran towards Voldemort. "Let's get Ginny and get out of here!"

The three of them swooped upon Voldemort, but he knocked them away, hugging Ginny to his chest. He had her wand out, and he was pointing it at her neck. They gasped and backed away.

Voldemort was panting. "You may have weakened me…but I will never leave you alone. Every day, you will fear me. You will remember what has happened here and you will regret."

I took a stab. "Yeah? Why? You're the one who's been hit with the death curse so much, he looks like he's been run over by a Muggle garbage truck!" Voldemort did look pathetic if I do say so myself.

"Because you will have had loss." He pushed Ginny out in front of himself and opened her hand. He lay her wand in it and closed her fingers around it.

Ron's voice was all panic. "What are you going to do? Please…let her go!"

He let out a bloodcurdling laugh and turned her hand so that she was pointing her own wand at herself. "It's a shame, really. But we must teach you all a lesson, or you will never learn that good does not always triumph. Miss Ginny here is an example." He leaned over and hissed in Ginny's ear. "Go ahead, my sweet…end it."

Ginny looked at us, her eyes showing no more emotion than before. But she kept her wand pointed at herself and opened her mouth. "Avada Ke-"

There was a huge boom that nearly burst my eardrums. I covered my face as I was thrown off my feet. The next moment, I was flying through the air in front of a huge wave of flames. The room had exploded somehow. I soared through the air and landed in the hallway with a crash and a sickening thud. I felt about ten of my bones break and I screamed. I screamed for Ginny, for Harry, for anyone.

I lay there, watching the flames fly out of the door of the room I was just in. It was like a thousand fireworks had gone off at once. I crouched low to the ground and cried in terror.

The person…or rather the thing that came to my rescue was a large black dog. It came bounding down the hallway and grabbed me up in its teeth. I was thrown up onto its back, to which I held onto for dear life. It ran through the house and leapt out a broken window. I plummeted off its back from the force of the landing and rolled along on the ground like a ragdoll. I lay there, panting and coughing, broken and bleeding. I turned my head to see Harry across the way with his arms thrown around the dog's neck. He was covered in bruises and cuts, but otherwise, he looked all right. Ron and Hermione were lying nearby, but they weren't moving. They couldn't be dead too! Too…Ginny was dead. She had killed herself with her own wand.

An animal-like cry rose in my throat and I let it rip like I had never screamed before. "NOOOOO!!!!" I was aware of a black-haired man holding me around the waist, trying to keep me still as I attempted to crawl towards the burning house. I shrieked and screamed like a maniac. As soon as Ron came to, he added his agonized cries to mine. His baby sister was dead. He made a run for the house, but the man grabbed him and held him back too. The man wrapped his arms around both of us and Ron and I clung together in our misery. I saw Harry with his arms around Hermione, tears spilling down his cheeks. Hermione was nearly hysterical, and had her head buried against his chest, her fists gripping his shirt.

After what seemed like hours and hours, the Ministry arrived. The rest is a blur to me – a whirl of colors and voices. Hands prodding at me, voices demanding to know where You-Know-Who was and what I had had to do with it. Wanting to know if we had seen Arthur's daughter. I was finally rescued by Professor Snape, who lifted me into his arms as if I were nothing more than an infant. I clung to him, unembarrassed, trying not to let the flood of misery eat me alive. He carried me off to the side and sat with me, holding me tightly, rocking me slightly. I couldn't stop staring at the house.

I vaguely remember seeing Ginny's parents, their arms around Ron, as hysterical as he was. And I think of how much I would have liked to be in their family.

Professor Dumbledore went back and forth between all of us, trying to calm us.

Every Ministry wizard had his or her wand out and was fighting the raging fire with countless water and snuffing spells. Soon, the house was only smoldering, half of it just a skeleton of what it had been. The Riddle House was no more.

Someone made the suggestion that Ginny's loved ones should be taken somewhere else. They were going to go in and try to locate her body. I sobbed. They wouldn't even be able to bring her body back to us, what with all the flames in the room where she died. Snape smoothed back my hair and administered spells on me to ease the pain of my broken limbs. "Let's go somewhere else, Draco. You need medical attention and this is no place for Ginny's friends to be."

But Harry was gawking at the doorway of the half-burned out house. "Someone's coming out!" He yelled. He started to back away in terror. Dumbledore grabbed his and Hermione's arms and pulled them behind himself.

It was Voldemort, of course. Wands were drawn and everyone was ready to fight. But the blood covered, sooty figure that emerged from the doorway was not Voldemort, but…a red head. A small red head, clutching a baby boy with raven-black hair, and wearing a very torn up green robe. They were both covered in bad scratches and burns, but they were alive. The girl's hair blew out in the wind, and she parted her lips, breathing in the fresh air. The dark-haired man's eyes filled with tears. "L..Lily?" he gasped, staring at the girl.

Harry was gawking at her too, his mouth hanging open. You would think he had seen a ghost.

Mrs. Weasley screamed out, "GINNY!" She took off at a run, trying to get to her daughter. I did too, as a matter of fact, but I collapsed on my broken leg.

Ginny dropped to her knees on the ground, hugging the child. "I saved the baby…I think." Her eyes were brown and normal, though bloodshot from the smoke. She was back.

Her father had rushed up and scooped her into his arms. She clung to him and started to scream as pain took her over. Mrs. Weasley had taken the baby who was crying, but very much alive. Mr. Weasley took off at a run, Ginny clutched safely in his arms. In another second, he had climbed into one of the Ministry cars and it took off. Mrs. Weasley followed in the next one.

I cried out. "Come back! Don't take her away again!" Dumbledore and Snape grabbed hold of my arms as I crawled towards the Ministry cars.

"She's in danger of dying if she's not properly taken care of," Dumbledore explained. "You'll see her very soon."

Snape added, "You need help too." He scooped me up again and carried me somewhere. Where, I'm not sure. I closed my eyes and allowed myself to mercifully pass out.

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