Draco Malfoy, Seeker Of Souls

Chapter Eight

Sorting Hat Shock

**~~~~~**

When Harry and I arrived at the school, we plummeted down the stairs to Snape's room. We couldn't wait to get to Ginny, and the trip back from the Black School had seemed horribly long.

We burst in and found Ron sitting on Snape's bed, Ginny in his lap, fresh tears in his eyes. He looked up at us and blinked. "Thank you so much."

We smiled. "She'll be alright, Ron," said Harry.

Hermione came out of the bathroom, Snape right behind her. "We've drawn her a bath. We need to get her all cleaned up." She took one of Ginny's hands and rubbed it. "She's so cold."

Snape cleared his throat. "I'll carry her in to the bathroom and Hermione will bathe her. You boys help me brew a potion to warm her up from the inside out. She's near death as it is, and I don't want her getting a chill."

Potion brewing was fine and all, and Harry and Ron nervously helped, but I couldn't stay out of the bathroom. Hermione kept chiding me for being in there, but I felt like I needed to help in some way. She finally let me wash Ginny's hair. As I worked in special shampoo to kill the bugs, I thought about what would happen next. "I need to go down to see Tom Riddle. He'll be wanting to know how Ginny is."

Hermione cleared her throat and gently scrubbed one of Ginny's arms. "Must you?"

"What's wrong with that?" I felt slightly annoyed.

She turned on the water and looked at me. "I don't think we like him very much, if you want the truth. He looks at both Ginny and Harry with some kind of hunger."

I snorted. "You're imagining things."

She shrugged. "It's up to you, but try to be careful for once in your life."

I glowered, but ignored it.

At that point, pretty much everybody swooped in like mother hens (if you can really picture Snape as a huge mother fowl and all). Harry and Ron were brandishing potions and Snape had clean clothes. Everyone gathered helpfully around the tub until Hermione started to howl about every male in Hogwarts mulling around this poor girl and that they'd better all get out until Ginny was properly dressed, thank you very much! Hermione was so scary when she was mad that Snape practically cowered and pulled the boys out. I was promptly shoved out too and had to wait on Snape's bed with everyone else.

Snape didn't take too well to having us all hanging around in his bedroom. He drifted around in the corner, glowering at Ron who was kneading Snape's bed spread out of sheer nervousness with his hands, and occasionally trying to untangle Nathaniel from a curtain cord he had been happily chewing on. It was a welcome sight when Hermione threw open the bathroom door and announced that now we could come in.

Hermione had managed to lift Ginny from the tub and pull her warm nightgown over her head. I helped shove her arms through the sleeves and hoist pajama pants up her legs for extra warmth before I carried her out into the bedroom. "I'm scared," I said. "She hasn't batted an eyelash yet."

Snape knelt next to her on the bed and lifted her head. "Draco, pour the potions into her mouth. It should help bring her around."

I did so and she coughed – a most welcome sound. We all gathered around her and looked at her expectantly. Soon she opened her eyes in a blurry sort of way and blinked at us. Her eyes were staring as if she was blind and they didn't focus on us. A sea of dull brown mostly hid her pupils and she stared at nothing. "Ginny?" I whispered.

I felt someone rubbing my shoulders. It was Snape. "She can't hear you, Draco. Her Soul is gone. She's alive, but not complete."

"Severus is correct," came a voice from the doorway. Dumbledore was standing there, the teary-eyed Weasley parents behind him. "Until we can locate her Soul again, she will remain like this."

I was bursting to tell my secret, but Harry shook his head at me. They would never believe me, and we weren't really going about getting Ginny's Soul back in the most honest of ways. If they knew we had been down in the Chamber Of Secrets again, after all the trouble it had caused…

"May we see her?" Mrs. Weasley asked. I had never seen her so subdued before.

Snape nodded. "She's awake and she might respond well to your touch. But don't expect her to acknowledge it very much. She may have shreds of herself in there somewhere, but she's certainly not complete."

Mrs. Weasley moved forward into the room and gathered Ginny up in her arms. Ginny's stare remained the same, but her breathing seemed to soften. It wasn't long before she was asleep again, calm in her mother's arms, even if she really didn't know she was there.

Mr. Weasley sat next to his wife and stroked his daughter's damp hair. "How long will it take to retrieve her Soul again?" He looked desperate.

Dumbledore's eyes were sad. "I will be honest with you. Nothing like this has ever happened in the history of the wizarding world that I have heard tell of. When a Soul was lost in the Black School, it was typically thought to be gone forever. No one has ever tried to retrieve one. There were only two beings in the world who might have known how to do it and one has been dead for years…" We kids looked at each other. Could he mean Salazar Slytherin? "…And the other is such a supreme evil that he will be very hard to catch, even by the most clever and talented wizard." He looked at me and then at Harry. "But I have very high hope. It is all right here in their heads," he said very softly so only Harry and I heard him clearly.

I started and so did Harry. "'It's all here in your head'…" he muttered.

" 'Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness'…" I finished, giving him a piercing look, which he returned.

The Weasley's were unaware of this very powerful moment that Harry and I seemed to be having. "Anything you can do," murmured Mrs. Weasley. "Anything at all."

Dumbledore moved forwards and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Everything will work out." He was looking steadily at us. Harry and I had the distinct feeling that the weight of this was resting squarely on our shoulders.

Dumbledore proceeded to lead the Weasley's out, Ginny in their arms, to visit the twins and the rest of the brothers in a room down the hall. She was going to be put in a secret room next to Snape's so we could keep a close eye on her until she was herself again. "Come along, young ones," said Dumbledore. "You can help us settle her in. You've all done very well."

Ron and Hermione linked hands and followed the Weasley's out. Snape covered up Nathaniel with a blanket where he had dozed off on the floor, and then went to get ready for lessons the next day, leaving Harry and me in the room. I turned to follow Ginny's family, but Harry grabbed my arm. "How did you know what the Sorting Hat said to me?" he hissed.

I frowned. "I could ask you the same thing! It told me I was to be great, and all the greatness was right there in my head." I grinned with smug pride.

"The hat told me that too!" Harry frowned. He was holding onto my arm very tightly as if it was my fault.

"That hurts!" I said, trying to wrench away.

"How could it have told you that? It hardly even made it on your head when it announced that you were going to be in Slytherin!"

I flinched, a bit fearful of him. "It was on my head long enough to tell me that! It said I could be great, it was all in my head, and that Slytherin would help me on my way to greatness. It had time to tell me that while it was being dropped to my head. It knew where I would do best!" I was talking very rapidly.

"It told me the same thing!" This seemed to have unnerved the great Harry Potter very much. With a smooth motion of his arm, he threw me over onto my bed and fled. I sat up and sneered after him, rubbing my arm where he had bruised it. Who needs him, anyway! Great git!

*****

I was laying on my bed sulking when Harry came in through the door. I looked at him and glared. "What are you doing in here, Potter?"

He made an annoyed noise. "Oh, honestly, don't go back to calling me that! There's something very irritating about being called by your last name all the time." He sat down at the end of the bed.

"Humph. You're the one who got all mad at me over the Sorting Hat." I lay there and refused to look at him.

He reached over and fingered my arm where he had grabbed me. "Are you alright? I shouldn't have thrown you."

I quirked an eyebrow. And how many times had I been rough with him? "It's fine."

He sighed. "I was just unnerved. I can't believe the Sorting Hat said the exact same thing to the both of us. Only, I was begging to be anywhere but in Slytherin. So it put me in Gryffindor. That's the only difference."

I looked at him with interest. "You were supposed to be in Slytherin?"

He looked down. "Yes…but don't tell anyone!"

I shrugged. "What's so wrong with Slytherin? I love being a Slytherin."

"That's because you're a dark wizard."

I put on a mock expression of hurt. "How dare you!"

"Sorry…but your reputation, you know…"

"I know." I was starting to get that age-old glimmer of excitement. What could the Hat have known about Harry and I that we didn't? It made me wonder if the Hat was all knowing and that it knew our destinies long before we did. I decided not to worry about it, even if it was creepy. We had enough to think about.

**~~~~~**

Note: The quotes in italics are J.K. Rowling's words, not mine. They are what the Sorting Hat told Harry in the books, of course.