Absentees
By Nancy D


Chapter One: Dreams

** "It is our destiny!" exclaimed Ginny to the man who held her. She put her lips to his and they kissed passionately. He stroked her hair gently and smiled down upon her.

"What do you mean - our destiny?" he breathed.

"It means," started Ginny, still holding fast to the man's muscular arms, "that we met for a reason. There is a reason that we are together. For now that we are together -" She kissed him some more.

"Yes?" he asked.

"We can -"

"Yes?"

"We can - " But this time, Ginny was cut short by a blunt-edge knife being stabbed into the back of her neck.

"Together, we could have ruled the world. But not anymore!" were the last words Ginny heard the man say before darkness overcame her. **

Ginny awoke, her heart pounding, her face covered in sweat, and in a horrifyingly dizzy state. She fell out of bed and crawled weakly into the bathroom, threw her face in front of the toilet and puked. One of her clammy hands gripped the toilet bowl while her other hand swept up her dull auburn hair that was soaked with sweat.

"You ok?" came a voice behind her. She looked up with her tired, glassy eyes. It was her boyfriend Thad who had been in bed with her. Ginny didn't answer, but instead, propped herself up against the wall.

"You shouldn't have had so much to drink last night," said Thad, and with that, he crawled back in bed and went to sleep almost instantly.

But it was a lot longer than that when Ginny could finally go back to sleep, and when she did, it was a sickish, uneasy sleep, in which she had another horrifying dream.

**Ginny was walking down the halls of Hogwarts, a place she hadn't been to since she graduated three years before. As she walked, her hair, which was tied up tight started to fall out of the rope and hang down around her. She started to walk faster and faster until she could see someone on the other end of the hall. She didn't know who it was, but she wanted to, so she kept walking faster and faster until she was running to see whom the person was. Finally, she got close enough to see that the person was her mother, who she also hadn't seen for almost three years. She was running towards her mother, but all of a sudden a man walked out in front of her. Ginny stopped, instantaneously.

"Draco?" she breathed.

"It's me, Ginny," said Draco. He put his lean arms around her small body. "I have come back to you, Ginny."

"Oh, Draco!" She kissed him passionately, and he lifted her up and they started walking in the opposite direction, getting farther and farther away from Ginny's mum. **

Ginny awoke to sunlight streaming through her bathroom window. Her hair was dry, her hands weren't sweaty anymore, and she certainly felt better than she had during the middle of the night. Her head hurt like hell, and she just wanted to go back to bed, but she couldn't get this dream out of her head, and she didn't know what it meant. She didn't remember the first dream at all.

She went downstairs and saw a note lying on the table. It was from Thad.

"Baby, I had to get somewhere fast. Woke up early this morning. See you later on. No sleeping with anyone else till I get back. Your honey, Thaddeus."

Ginny started to cry. "Now I'm all alone, I can't ponder this dream by myself…" Then she thought of it. Who was always the best at interpreting dreams back at Hogwarts? Her brother's best friend, Hermione Granger. She hadn't spoken with Hermione for quite awhile either, or Ron and Harry for that matter.

Ginny met Thad right after she graduated from Hogwarts, and from then on she pretty much cut herself off from everyone else. Thad was a wizard also. He worked in a factory manufacturing widgets. Widgets were broom attachments that enhanced or altered your flight. They were quite fun, actually. Ginny, who had trouble keeping jobs in the past and didn't like waitressing was now working as Thad's secretary.

Ginny felt kind of awkward visiting Hermione after all these years, but she figured it was for the better. She went upstairs and bathed, then she drained a bottle of headache potion, which she was sure wouldn't even make a dent in her bitch-ass headache, and rummaged through a drawer of old dusty memories from three years ago to try to find Hermione's address. She found it under a stack of old newspapers. She was living in Scotland. Since Ginny couldn't picture the house to apparate too, she would have to use floo powder to get there. She found some floo powder, threw it in the fireplace, and jumped inside.

Ginny was let off right in Hermione's smoke-filled living room. She thought the smoke was from the fireplace, but then realized that it was coming from the figure on the couch who was holding, what Ginny recognized to be a 'cigarette', kind of a Muggle potion which was inhaled, and reading a book. Ginny walked up behind the couch and noticed that the person sitting there was Hermione. "Hermione?" she asked.

Hermione jumped off of the couch and turned around so her overlarge stomach was visible. "How the hell did you get into my house, bitch!!!" she screamed.

Ginny was taken aback. She put her hand to her head as Hermione's screaming wasn't doing much to ease the pain of her headache. "Through the fireplace," she said, softly.

Hermione didn't answer, as she had reached for the telephone and started dialing furiously. "The police are coming!"

"Um," started Ginny. "The police can't do anything about me. The Ministry of Magic, maybe, but the police -"

Hermione dropped the phone. "M-ministry…of…m-magic?" she said softly. "I haven't heard from them in ages…"

"Oh Hermione," said Ginny, arms outstretched. Hermione looked very different than when Ginny had last seen her. Her hair was short and spiky, and died the color of blond that wasn't exactly a 'real' hair color. And she was visibly pregnant. But all this didn't matter to Ginny; she was still Hermione. In fact, Ginny probably thought the same thing was going through Hermione's head. Ginny's hair was shorter and straight with split ends. She had a scar on her face from where a dog had bitten her at a party a year before. Her face was pale as ever, and you could see in her eyes that she was very hung over. But she processed forward, and so did Hermione, and the two of them embraced in sisterly love never experienced before by either of them, because neither one of them had sisters.

"Ginny!" said Hermione. "You came back! How's Ron? And Harry? Tell me how they all are, I haven't seen anyone for ages!" She was starting to get very excited.

"I'm sorry," said Ginny. "I haven't seen anyone in ages either. Not since I graduated. But how have you been doing?"

Hermione didn't know what to say. She looked as if she were about to cry. "Ginny, I haven't used magic in almost a year now."

"What? Why not?"

"I don't know. I came here with Elijah, and we were both going to study to be alchemists, and then I don't know what happened. He went off with some Muggle who had nothing going for her. And then I met Brent, also a Muggle, and the father of…" She looked down. Ginny nodded. "I just decided to lead a Muggle lifestyle, and then I quit using magic altogether. I'm surprised they haven't taken my house off the Floo Network." Hermione wiped tears from her face.

"It's OK," said Ginny. She gave her a hug. "I haven't been leading the best lifestyle either. "I've been living with my boyfriend Thad for a while now. He doesn't have the best job - widget maker - but we're OK. I haven't seen or heard from anyone in almost three years."

"Then why did you decide to come to me now?" Hermione asked.

"Because I had this dream," started Ginny. "I was walking down the halls of Hogwarts, and at the end was my mum. I kept getting closer and closer to her, but then, out of nowhere, this handsome man came and swept me off my feet and kissed me and took me away from my mother." She didn't dare tell Hermione who the handsome man was. She didn't know about the Ginny/Draco scandal back when she was in sixth year.

"And you came to me because I used to be the best interpreter of dreams back in our Hogwarts days." Hermione put out her cigarette.

"Yes, that's it."

"Key word: Used To."

"Oh, come on, Hermione, you can't just Forget!"

"Yes I can," said Hermione. "I've forgotten what Hogwarts looks like inside. I've forgotten how you score in Quidditch. I've forgotten almost every spell I've learned."

"Have you forgotten about SPEW?" asked Ginny. Hermione smiled.

"Oh yeah, SPEW. No, I haven't forgotten about that yet, but I don't do the campaigns anymore like I used to."

"Well you'll never guess, but the Ministry of Magic passed a law saying that house elves now get to wear clothes and have sick days and worker's comp!"

"Seriously?"

"Seriously! Come on, Hermione! You've missed so much, you've GOT to come back to the wizarding world!"

"I can't," said Hermione. He laughter and happiness ceased altogether. "I've been away too damn long." She sighed. "Just too damn long…"

"Come on, Hermione. There is no 'too long'. You're welcome back any time." Hermione didn't answer. Instead, she started howling in pain. "Hermione?!" asked Ginny, panicking. "Is it your appendix? I know a good charm for app -"

"I'M HAVING A BABY, WOMAN, GET ME TO THE FUCKING HOSPITAL!!!"

"Ok, just - remain - calm." She stood Hermione up who was still howling in pain.

"HURRY!!!" screamed Hermione. Ginny began to lead her towards the fireplace. "WHERE THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING??? THE HOSPITAL'S OUTSIDE! YOU HAVE TO DRIVE THE FUCKING CAR!!!"

"No - I - don't!" puffed Ginny, shoving Hermione into the fireplace. "I'll do what I want!" So she threw Floo Powder into the fireplace, and in an instant they fell out of the fireplace of the maternity ward of St. Mungo's.