A/N: Harry's story will be told briefly in this chapter, but don't expect a whole lot of him throughout the story. The usual disclaimer applies, plus the massive amount of credit I give to Louis De Bernieres, and for this chapter title, H.G. Wells.

Chapter 2: War of the Worlds

Every morning since Harry's departure, Ginny awoke with a tired sigh.

She missed waking up to his warmth next to her. No matter how much bright sunshine poured through the window, no matter how calming the drifting music of the waves nearby were, Ginny could not have felt worse.

It had been a month since her boyfriend left to fight and Ginny had not yet received one letter. She was leaning towards optimistic when she tried to tell herself that if Harry were dead (a prospect that made her shudder), she would have received some kind of notification confirming it. A nagging, rather dark side of her, however, assumed he could be lying lost in a ditch somewhere.

Ginny screamed as loudly as she could, flailing her arms on the white sheets as if she were a child.

" Ginny!" she heard Hermione's concerned voice drift in through the open window of her bedroom.

The frustrated girl pulled herself out of bed and down the stairs to greet her friend. If there was any sort of comfort Ginny had, it was Hermione. She too was more than affected by the parting with her loved one, and for the past three weeks, she had visited Ginny every day. The presence of Hermione abated Ginny's frustrations, for the girls could relate to each other on many levels.

When Ginny pulled open her front door, Hermione was clutching a shoulder bag and sitting beneath the peach tree with beads of sweat adorning her face.

" Hermione, I told you. I'll go and visit you. You shouldn't have to walk up that crazy hill every day just to see me!"

Ginny approached her friend and sat beside her. Hermione wiped the sweat on her forehead.

" Don't bother coming. The exercise is good for my body. Besides, I don't feel like waiting until past noon for you to finally get out of bed and see me!"

She nudged the redhead in the ribs, and Ginny found herself giggling. Her frustrations had not escaped her, but she had to admit, she felt better.

Mr. Nonas, a wizard who had lived in the village with his muggle wife for more than fifty years, waved as he strolled by the cottage.

" Good afternoon," he called softly. The girls waved and nodded back, not expecting more from the old wizard. He had retired from the Department of Mysteries after Voldemort's descent to power over twenty years ago. He was among many other workers from that department living in their secret village, for the Dark side often targeted them. For obvious reasons, those same workers were very solitary people and mostly kept to themselves.

Ginny offered a glass of juice, and Hermione accepted. They stepped into the cool kitchen.

" What's in the bag?" Ginny asked curiously.

" Oh," Hermione set it on the wooden table and opened it. " It's my pregnancy books. My mum sent me one of those dictionaries of children's names, so I brought it with me to show you. Of course, I wouldn't dream of finding a name in there." She sprawled the books on the surface of the table.

Ginny set a glass of cold orange juice on the table. " What are you going to name the baby?"

Hermione fixed her with a sorrowful stare and forced a small smile. " Ron and I are going to decide together."

Ginny did not press on. She seated herself beside her friend and opened one of the books, silently observing a picture of a witch's belly growing steadily bigger by the second.

" Hermione, you're going to be big," Ginny remarked as if realizing this fact for the first time.

" Hmm?" Ginny heard a faint clicking noise coming from Hermione and looked up.

Between two long wooden needles, there hung some kind of small square. It looked almost watery and Ginny felt compelled to stroke it.

" What are you knitting?"

Hermione smiled. " I'm making different squares for now. When they're done, I'm going to sew them together to make a blanket for the baby." She stopped knitting and patted her belly benignly.

Ginny reached out and caressed the knitted fabric, which felt like it looked – soft like water and smooth like glass.

" I got the yarn imported from France. I think it contains a bit of veela hair and parts of an invisibility cloak." Hermione reached into her bag and pulled out different colored spools of yarn that shimmered exactly like the one she was knitting. " I've got it in different colors for the quilt."

" Can I try too?" Ginny asked. She had learned to knit from her mother when she was young.

Hermione handed her a spool of shimmering red yarn and two knitting needles. As her memory was a bit rusty, Ginny needed Hermione's help to get started, but she eventually got the hang of it. Soon, two pairs of needles were clicking rhythmically in the small kitchen of the cottage.

* * * * *

With the rapt attention that was expected of a Death Eater in the presence of the Dark Lord, Draco stood silently in his circle.

The plan to seize the island was being gone over once again. It had been nearly a month since Voldemort's decision to do it. Since then, the Death Eaters busied themselves by thinking up powerful charms to break the magical shield that protected the island. Any idiot knew they simply could not Apparate into the village (Wormtail did not and was punished severely for the suggestion).

The first part of the plan was more than simple – Voldemort and the Death Eaters were to Apparate to the furthest tip of England's southwest coast. For lack of a more inventive idea, they were to travel by broomstick to the location of the sea where Incolumisa was to be (it would be invisible to them). Using an extremely forceful Revealing charm, spiced up with a little Dark magic, the island would show itself.

Now they were going over the possible charms to use to break the shield protecting Incolumisa. Richard Lestranges, who had made himself quite a prominent member of the group, was pouring ideas out of his mouth like wine into a goblet.

" Yes, Richard. A Repelling charm may be useful," said the Dark Lord, after he'd finished speaking. He looked pensive for a moment. " We shall think about it."

" My Lord, I have a question," a voice spoke near Draco in the circle. He sneered under his mask when he recognized the voice as his father's. " Are we to kill everybody on this island?"

Voldemort glanced at Lucius disdainfully. " This is a seize, Lucius. We want to spread the Dark Order, not kill its potential followers." His bony pale finger was twitching on his wand, as though anxious to torture him. He desisted and spoke again. " But Lord Voldemort does not like mudbloods and muggles, and some may live on this island. They will be killed upon our arrival…"

Draco knew that his father, under his mask, had the biggest smile pasted on his face. He himself felt apprehensive and slightly sick at the idea of killing a person. He'd joined the Dark Order only a year ago, and had never experienced what Lucius referred to as "the gleeful joy in your heart knowing you're ridding the world of another damn mudblood".

He knew when the time came, and come it will, a gleeful joy in his heart would not erupt. He felt comfortable talking about killing others, others dying at the other end of his wand, but committing the act was definitely something else.

* * * * *

Since his arrival, Harry had not been involved in a single battle. He had learned that Death Eaters were a furtive lot, and hardly ever provoked violence upon the Order unless they had to.

The war, much to Harry's surprise, was not all bloodshed and violence. Some troops were commanded by Dumbledore to search for the Death Eaters hiding in Albania, and Harry had been part of this journey through wilderness for a month now.

These troops were mostly Hogwarts graduates like him, and hardly any older. Those who were chosen for the journey were supposed to be without children, as the trip was very perilous. For this reason, Ron was not permitted to go.

Harry became well acquainted with the others, and even in the absence of Ron, he felt he had friends by his side. He also recognized a few, like Seamus Finnigan and Colin Creevey. There were almost fifty wizards involved. They traveled by foot through the thick forests of Albania, searching for a possible place their enemies could be hiding.

As the days progressed, the troops grew more and more emaciated. Food was very scarce, even though Dumbledore sent them parcels of food by owl. They continued through the woods at a quick pace, branches snagging their robes and cutting their bodies. When rain fell, their shoes gathered water and stayed that way for the longest time, nearly rotting their toes, unless fixed with a certain charm. The cold was bitter too and Harry found his, and many others', noses had grown permanently red. Sometimes snow punctured through their cloaks, chilling them to the bone.

And yet, Harry persisted. He had received numerous letters from Ginny, and was more than compelled to write her back. However, owls were only to sent under extreme emergencies, as the troops were not to be found and owls would definitely draw attention.

Harry thought of her always, imagining her frustration at the fact that she had not received a single letter from him. She was on the top of his mind during the days the troops walked silently through thousands of trees that all looked alike, to the nights he lay in his tent, staring at the shadows of those trees through the sheer covering.

One day, a bit more than a month since Harry had commenced the journey, everybody was trudging through the thick snow that had come down the previous night. Wizards kept stopping to put charms on his shoes to prevent the snow from leaking in.

Suddenly, something flew past Harry's arm like a bullet, singing his robes.

He clutched his arm and felt warmth on his cold skin. Blood suddenly stained the snow next to his foot.

His troops turned around to face the origin of the hex.

No sooner had he turned when Harry heard a wizard behind him cry out in pain. As quickly as the first one had come, hundreds of hexes flew by their heads from all different directions.

" They've surrounded us!" Harry heard one of his Order yell. " Get in a circle!" The troops had trained for this sort of an attack.

Harry felt another hex singe the top of his head and scanned the dark forest. He caught glimpses of the enemy hidden behind trees mere feet away from where he stood. He fired a well-chosen curse at a dark shadow in the near distance, but saw the figure avoid it by jumping behind the tree again.

In a matter of seconds, chaos had ensued, ruining what had just been a peaceful atmosphere. Curses were flying from all sides and soon, blood was flying with them.

When Harry turned to attack a less protected part of the circle, he saw a group of wizards who had already been injured amassed in the middle, protected by the fighters encircling them. Seamus was nursing a scarlet hole in his leg through a tear in his robes. He saw Harry looking at him and nodded defiantly.

Harry carefully stepped over the injured to the other side of the circle, where Death Eaters had began to approach them even closer. He continued to shoot more curses until he finally felt a sharp pain in his left shoulder. Disregarding it as best as he could, he persisted. A small hex was not going to bother him.

When his shoulder started to smoke, the wizard next to Harry in the circle put it out. Harry thanked him silently.

For what seemed like an eternity, the fighting continued. More soldiers joined the injured in the middle. Harry felt hot liquid drip down his arm beneath his robe. He saw his blood stain the fabric, but ignored it. Soon, the number of hexes coming from each side decreased and as suddenly as the battle had erupted, the forest was still again.

* * * * *

" Ginny! Ginny!"

Hermione's panicked voice carried through the air and reached Ginny where she was sitting beneath the peach tree. She set down the pregnancy book she had been reading and jumped up to greet her anxious friend. " What is it?"

Hermione was gasping for breath; she had run up the hill at top speed in the scorching heat. She swallowed and pointed her finger at the sky.

Ginny followed the direction and squinted in the glare of the sun to make sure her eyes were not deceiving her. She saw small black pinpricks, hundreds of them, amassed like a horde of fleas in the air. They seemed to be drawing nearer and nearer.

Hermione's shouting had caught the attention of Mrs. Nonas, who was tending her garden in the lawn next to Ginny's. She adjusted the brim of her straw hat and gazed up at the sky.

The pinpricks were becoming considerably larger, and Ginny saw, in utter consternation, that they were people who seemed to be wearing all black.

What happened next was something the girls had no warning for. As the people became larger and clearer, a whisp of green shot out of the air and before Ginny could even comprehend what was happening, she found herself staring at a grisly, neon Dark Mark floating in the midst of the beautiful blue sky. It soared higher and higher, until the green light it expelled had cast itself on the roofs of all the cottages in the village.

She heard Mrs. Nonas drop a pot on the earth and call her husband's name. It was obvious she'd seen the Dark Mark before, for she screamed at the top of her lungs, " Death Eaters!"

No sooner had she shouted it that the horde of people flew past Ginny and Hermione, causing them to fall backwards from the force of wind. The landed just as abruptly on the dusty street in front of the cottage, spraying a cloud of dust and sand into their eyes. Ginny squeezed them tightly shut and realized she had been clutching Hermione's hand, which she didn't let go. In the distance, she heard a rapt, high voice giving what she supposed were commands. Mrs. Nonas was still shouting for her husband.

Hermione coughed. " Ginny…"

Ginny opened her eyes and saw that the dust was beginning to settle. She saw one figure in black robes approaching them quickly, holding over the face a white, expressionless mask.

Mrs. Nonaperio's previous scream processed through Ginny's mind for the first time: Death Eaters.

The figure pointed a wand at them and the muffled voice beneath the mask spoke. " Inside the house. Now."

The girls obeyed, shuddering with fear. The Death Eater followed them into the kitchen and shut the door.

Ginny was still clutching her friend's hand and her knuckles were turning white as a result. The girls kept their eyes fixedly upon the tip of the Death Eater's wand. They backed up as far as they could from it, and hit the wall with their backs.

The Death Eater seemed surprisingly relaxed, as though this sort of thing was everyday routine. Ginny observed, however, that the hand holding the wand was very pale.

The other hand reached up and pulled off the expressionless mask.

Behind it, the girls saw, was a pale and sweaty face. He looked no older than Ginny, and had prominent cheekbones, a pointed nose, and piercing gray eyes so cold they made Ginny almost shiver. A think whisp of silvery-blonde hair hung onto his face.

" You!" Hermione's chest was heaving and her face was turning beet red. She narrowed her eyes and pointing a shaking finger at the intruder. " Malfoy."

Disregarding Hermione, the Death Eater stuck his white mask into the pocket of his heavy robes and pulled back the hood, revealing a head full of blonde hair. Ginny saw his nose twitch on his apathetic face.

Keeping his wand arm steady, the man began to speak. " The Dark Lord shall come by soon," he said. His voice was deep and quiet, but the girls caught ever word. " He'll want to know who in here's a mudblood or a muggle." Ginny saw his gray eyes flicker at Hermione, causing her to clutch her friend's hand ever more tightly. " And I'll tell him, and he'll have you killed."

Hermione practically crushed Ginny's hand with this statement. Ginny looked over at her and saw naked fear in her chocolate eyes.

" Well, we're witches," said Ginny defiantly.

Draco sneered. He nudged his head towards Hermione. " She's a mudblood."

" How do you know?" Ginny found herself shouting before she could stop herself. There was a monotonous buzzing sound in her numb mind that prevented her from thinking at all.

Draco did not answer. He looked back at Hermione and met her fearful eyes. " I know."

" Well then, you're taking me too!"

Hermione tore her eyes away from Draco. " No," she said simply. Ginny could hear her voice shaking. She turned back to the Death Eater. " You're only going to kill me, you coward," she spat disdainfully. 

Draco seemed in no way affected by this, or if he was, he hid it.

Ginny stepped forward, ignoring the wand of the Death Eater pointed at her face. She wanted to scream, to throw anything she could at this – this creature. " Your 'master' can kill me too!"

" No, Ginny," said Hermione defiantly. She pulled her hand, causing Ginny to face her ill-fated friend. " Somebody has to tell Ron what happened. And I need you to take care of him for me. I won't let him lose three loved ones just because of him."

As Draco listened distantly to Hermione's words, he caught the word three. Were they hiding somebody he was not aware of? Perhaps he should have come with another Death Eater. That way, they could watch the girls while he went to look for the third.

" Is there anybody else here?" he found himself asking. The girls shot daggers at him with their eyes. " Because if there is and you don't bring them out now, I assure you, they'll die," he added coldly.

" You're already going to kill them, you ---," Ginny could not think of a name bad enough to be sufficient for Draco. Hermione had shushed her anyway.

It was at that moment that Draco eyes wandered around his surroundings. They rested on the small plates piled in the sink, the jug of milk on the smooth pine table, and the books and knitting needles that lay next to it.

The pastel-colored pink book caught his gaze and he stared at it in disbelief: Practical Pregnancies.

His eyes caught another, opened to an article entitled Potions for a Pregnant Witch. In fact, books of that sort seemed to be scattered all over the table.

His gaze returned to his hostages. Hermione's eyes bore through his. He suddenly, as though waking from a dream, realized with a sickening jolt the gravity of the situation.

He was the prominent figure of the room. He alone was permitted to decide who in this room would die and who would not. He was defying nature, defying the innate course of fate that was really supposed to make these decisions.

It was a power Draco only dreamed of having, and yet, the sheer quantity of it made him sick.

There was an unnerving silence in the air. Ginny and Hermione knew Draco's decision was inevitable. The girls stared unblinkingly at their intruder, their pale and shaking hands clutched together.

Through the sheer curtain that hung over the glass on the kitchen door, Ginny saw a shadow draw nearer. Suddenly, the door burst open, and framed in the doorway stood a figure who made the sunshine illuminating around him seem dismal.

A pair of gleaming red eyes scanned the room and rested on the trembling, ashen-faced girls. The lipless mouth sneered.

" I've disposed of three thus far… are there any in here?"

The unnaturally high voice cut through the tense air like a hot knife through butter. Ginny stared at the face she had heard so much about but never seen. Harry had been right, his frightening features were truly unforgettable.

Without thinking, without a single glance at Hermione, Draco opened his mouth to speak.

* * * * *

A/N: Gasp! This is the mother of cliffhangers, is it not? *  Please review!