As Ginny's heart pounded furiously in her chest, she struggled to keep from shouting out again, but it was not an easy battle. Her breath was escaping from her quivering lips in sharp, ragged gasps and it felt like a tennis ball was lodged in her throat, preventing her from taking deep breaths to calm herself.
She wasn't aware of anything going on around her. She didn't notice that Draco stood silently next to her, pale-faced and wide-eyed, or that the twins had frozen in horror, their mouths open in identical expressions of terror and disbelief.
All Ginny could see through her stinging eyes was the body lying at her feet, still partially obscured by dust and debris. Her gaze remained locked on it, wild thoughts running through her mind.
What the hell happened? What if the person down there is Bill or Charlie?! Oh my God, please don't let it be one of my brothers…
Without a sound, Ginny slowly knelt down, arm outstretched until her trembling hand was right next to the motionless figure. Then she paused, not ready to face the horrible truth that might be revealed if she carried out her action.
Her pale fingers twitched a little, readying themselves for what they were about to do. Then, in one movement, Ginny grasped the robed shoulder in front of her and flipped the body over onto its back.
Fred, George and Draco all gasped simultaneously and took a faltering step backwards. Ginny didn't move. She knelt beside the man on the ground, her heart thumping so hard now that she was sure it would split her chest open. She couldn't avert eyes from the face. That face…it was horrible.
The eyes were wide and staring, the mouth, open in a silent scream, the skin pale and white. And to make it all worse, there were fine trickles of fresh, bright red blood running down the forehead and cheeks, creating patterns like veins as vivid as a rose on new fallen snow.
"My God, Albert," George whispered, taking a step foreword and kneeling next to Ginny.
Fred joined them, reached out and gently grasped Albert's hand.
"So cold," Fred muttered distantly, grimacing. He placed his index and middle fingers on the inside of Albert's wrist and paused. Everyone held their breath.
"Dead," Fred pronounced shortly, looking as though he was going to be sick.
Ginny let her chin drop and rest on her chest. She felt a warm tear slide down her cheek, but she didn't have any inkling to reach up and wipe it off. It fell onto the ground, creating a little wet spot of sand.
"Where are Bill and Charlie?" George asked urgently, his voice cracking as though he was struggling not to shed some tears as well.
Fred closed his eyes and sighed deeply, looking extremely pained.
Ginny couldn't bear to think of the answer to George's question. She didn't want to think of what they might discover if they perused the answer.
Ginny didn't realize that she was crying heavily until a stream of warm, sticky tears fell onto the front of her blouse. She couldn't hold it in any longer. And with a wrench that felt as though someone had taken an iron glove and clenched her heart within it, she gave a great sob and buried her face in her hands.
Fred and George couldn't bear to see their sister like this. But nether of them attempted to comfort her. Fred awkwardly raised his arm to put it around Ginny's shoulders, but as a fresh wail burst forth from her, he stood up quickly, blinking back tears and biting his lower lip.
"Ok," George said in a defeated voice, "Ginny, you stay here." Fred and George looked at each other, then walked slowly away to look at some nearby damage, their feet hesitantly making their way across the sandy ground.
Draco still hadn't moved from where he had first stood when the fate of the old wizard, Albert had been revealed. Draco knew he should be feeling some sort of emotion at the discovery of his death, but he couldn't will himself to the extent of sadness, and he wasn't going to try and force himself into it. He knew perfectly well that most of his heart was pure coldness and hatred, and once he had made up his mind, nothing could melt the ice surrounding him and make him change his mind,
But then he had a sudden thought, Ginny. Ginny Weasly had managed; even against his will to take a little part of his bitterness and reforge it into something else…he had a tiny feeling he might know exactly what it was, but too much of him was still clouded and cloaked with darkness to want to think about it.
But she was still the only source of joy he had experienced in a long while. Somehow, every time he looked at her, he felt his eyes soften. When he was alone, it felt as though he was breathing in icy wind that filled his throat and nostrils and stung and burned as he inhaled. But the moment she looked at him, the wind became soft and warm, with the faint scent of cinnamon and flowers, and Draco could breath pleasantly again, eager to fill himself with the peaceful, intoxicating feeling he could only partake in when she was with him.
This girl, weeping at his feet, mourning over someone that he didn't care for in the slightest, caused a sharp pang of icy coldness to shoot through his body. He felt his eyes revert into their sharp, clear, menacing state, and even in the heat of the desert, the icy wind that Draco could never fully throw off his shoulders began to pond and whistle in his ears.
Ginny suddenly became aware that Draco was standing behind her. Though tears were still flowing down her wet and dirt-streaked cheeks, she was no longer wailing. She raised her head and turned it slowly, only to come face to face with a pair of legs. She raised her head slightly, until she was looking up into the pale face of Draco.
He was standing with his back to the glowing red sun, which reduced most of his body and face to dark shadows. But his porcelain skin, which could never be shrouded by any darkness that Ginny had ever seen, stood out against all the deep blues and purples of the shadows.
His cheeks had a slight flush to them, and his blonde hair was stirred up by a small breeze that had begun to play across their faces. Ginny couldn't help but notice his eyes, which were as cold and gray as she had ever seen them before. It suddenly struck her as odd that even such a cold person as Draco, could remain so undaunted by the heat of his surroundings.
She sat up straighter, squinting at him through her wet eyes, unable to will herself to believe what she had seen in his face. Could it be? Yes, it was! There was a slight smile twisted on his lips.
Ginny felt her mouth drop open. How could he be smiling now, when victims of a terrible occurrence lay before them, scattered within their ruined surroundings? She found herself hoping that Draco didn't realize what he was doing, that it was merely an act of defense because he didn't know what to do in a situation like this.
Draco didn't hear her when she spoke, but he looked down, and saw her gazing at him through, wet, glistening eyes.
"I said, why are you smiling?" Ginny said, so softly that Draco wasn't sure that she had really spoken at all.
"I'm not," he said shortly, taking in her small, crouching form. This was Ginny Weasly as he had never seen her before, broken and helpless. Even back when he thought her to be a mindless little girl, he had never been able to deny the fact that she was incredibly spirited and independent, capable of standing up for herself and others. But the girl in front of him didn't resemble that girl in the slightest.
"Yes you were," Ginny whispered, hanging her head and letting her red curls fall over her face.
"So what if I was?" Draco asked, a hint of disgust creeping into his voice. He didn't like her this way. He had always loved her fire, the energy she had! But it seemed as though her waterfall of tears had extinguished that fire, and left her pitiful and helpless. And he didn't like the cringing girl that sat before him.
"Draco…they're dead. They're all dead," she gasped, unable to keep the choking of tears out of her voice, "He killed them. All because of…because of us." And she dissolved in another wave of silent tears.
"Excuse me," Draco whispered dangerously, "All because of us? I don't think so, Weasly. And if you want the truth, I don't much care."
Ginny looked up at him, her wet eyes wide in disbelief. By now, her entire face was damp with the water from her tears, and even her freckles looked runny, like water seeping down a watercolor painting.
"You don't…you don't care?" she asked weakly. Her bottom lip trembled uncontrollably, and before she could say anything, her words were silenced by a huge surge of water from her eyes.
Draco looked at her and shook his head in disgust. He had been certain that comment would make her stand up to him, become her usual spirited self. Hell, he would have even liked her to hit him, as long as she stopped her pitiful moaning. It was worse than listening to Pansy Parkinson simpering over him at all hours of the day.
Oh well, Draco thought, if she was going to act like this, then he wasn't going to deal with it.
He resisted the urge to give her a good, hard kick then turned his back on her, walking over to the edge of their hideout pyramid and sat with his back against the stone wall, casting dark looks at her as she continued to sob.
"Good Lord!" Fred's voice hastily rang out, and Draco's head shot in its direction.
"Oh my God, Charlie!" George's voice joined Fred's, sounding as panicked as his twin's.
Draco saw Ginny finally lift herself off the ground, then hobble over to where the twins stood as weakly and wobbly as though she had forgotten how to walk.
After a moment of hesitation, Draco stood up, brushed himself of and went to join them.
Fred and George were standing by a large stone pillar that had apparently been a part of the building that now stood in ruins around it. They were both grunting and straining, trying to lift the pillar off of the ground.
"What the-" Daco began, walking around to the other side of the pillar, but then he stopped. Someone was lying, one leg under the huge pillar, pinned to the ground like a magnet stuck to a refrigerator.
Ginny seemed beyond the point of tears by now, Draco noticed. She took one look at Charlie, lying motionless under the pillar, and fell to the ground in a dead faint.
Fred and George both had tears in their eyes as they looked from their sister to their seemingly dead brother.
"Get over here and help us," George cried shrilly, attempting to choke back the tears that were rapidly flowing from his eyes.
Draco looked once again at the thin form of Charlie Weasly. His bright red hair had been reduced to the color of brown dirt, and Draco didn't even want to think about what his leg looked like underneath the pillar.
"What do you need my help for?" Draco asked coolly, still staring at Charlie, "Get out your wands."
Fred and George both straitened up and stopped trying to remove the pillar from the ground. Instead, they both wiped their dirty sleeves on their faces, the dust mixing with their tears to leave dirt streaks across their freckled faces. Then they pulled out their wands. And in hushed and distant sounding voices, they said together, "Wingardium Leviosa."
Draco stepped back as the sound of rock scraping against sand and stone began to grind into their ears as the combined force of the two spells started to lift the vast pillar off of the ground.
The twin's faces were contorted with expressions of strain and determination as they struggled to lift the great stone object higher using their magic.
Finally, inch by inch, the pillar was levitating one foot above its victim's body. Since the pillar cast a dark shadow over everything underneath it, Draco couldn't see the body of the second-oldest Weasly boy, and for that he was glad.
"Malfoy, pull him out from under there!" Fred yelled furiously as he saw the blonde boy staring, unmoving at his brother.
When Draco still didn't move, for he looked like he was in a trance, George shouted, "For the love of God, Malfoy! Move!"
Draco dashed forward, and wincing slightly, quickly pulled the body out, unable to look at it. Fred and George waited for Draco to get Charlie out of the way, then they released the spell, and the pillar, with a huge thud, fell back onto the ground on top of sand and debris.
Fred and George quickly strided over to where Draco had pulled the body, only to be met with a grisly and terrible sight. The look on Draco's face was enough to tell them that he had looked down by mistake. Draco stood next to the body of Charlie, his face paler than it had ever been before, and his eyes fixed on the Weasly boy's horrible fate.
The leg that had been trapped by the pillar was crushed and mangled, with sharp ends of the broken leg bones penetrating the outer layer of skin. The whole leg was covered in thick, rusty colored blood and looked as if an animal had come along and had ruthlessly tore chunks out of it.
The rest of Charlie, though none as severely mangled as his leg, was still not comforting. His arms and face were covered in many painful looking cuts and bruises, and an exceptionally deep gash was sliced in his skin over his left eyebrow, leaving a trail of red-brown blood running over his closed eyelid and down to his chin.
"Merlin's Beard," Fred breathed, turning slightly green at the sight of Charlie's appearance.
"Charlie, oh please no, come on Charlie!" George screamed, turning very red in the face, "What about us? What about your family?! Don't' do this to us!" George let out a yell as loud as a dragon roar, and then furiously pounded his fist against a nearby wall that had gotten the rest of the building blasted away. Then he sank to the ground sobbing, his back against the wall and his head in his hands.
Fred seemed to be beyond tears or hysteria. To Draco, Fred's face showed no outward emotion, but when Draco cocked his head and really looked at him, he saw that everything Fred was hiding was in his eyes.
They were bright, holding no hint of tears, but Draco could clearly see how much pain was contained within their depths. It was almost like flipping through the pages of an old diary. You can read everything very clearly, and even though the memories are mere shadows of the past, you can sense all the pain, anxiety and fears of the person who had written it.
Draco felt a jolt inside him. And he felt his feet moving towards Fred, who had knelt on the ground beside his brother. Draco saw Fred's hand reach down and gently grip his brother's own, limp, white hand. And he saw as Fred solemnly held the hand up to his face and hold Charlie's palm up against his own cheek, his eyes all the while deepening with their increasing struggles.
Draco didn't even realize he was doing it, but quite suddenly he found himself kneeling down next to Fred and resting his hand on the grieving boy's shoulder.
Fred looked up slowly, into the face of Draco. And Draco could tell there was a new emotion in his eyes, something remarkably like understanding and forgiving.
Draco looked down at Charlie. He knew how he would feel if this was a member of his family lying like that on the ground. The fact that it wasn't, just a member of someone else's family made Draco hate himself and his selfishness even more.
He felt sorry for the Weasly's. It suddenly struck him like a blot of lightning.
Draco took his hand off Fred's shoulder and carefully wrapped his own cold fingers around the wrist on Charlie's hand that Fred was holding.
"Bloody hell…" Draco whispered abruptly, his eyes widening and his mouth open in surprise.
"What?" Fred gasped, looking at Draco's stunned expression.
"Fred, your brother! Charlie! He's alive!"
Fred looked at Draco a little angrily, as though he thought he wasn't being serious.
"Stop it Malfoy!" Fred snapped, a few tears finally making their way down his cheeks.
"Here! See for yourself!" Draco cried excitedly, thrusting Charlie's hand into Fred's own once again. Draco placed two of Fred's fingers on Charlie's wrist, then sat back and watched the look on Fred's face go from horror, to disbelief, to utter excitement.
"I don't believe it!" Fred screeched, looking at Draco, a huge smile plastered on his face, "George, he's alive! He's alive!"
"What?" George stopped sobbing and scooted over to them on his hands and knees. He too, felt the faint, but definite pulse that swelled under the light touch of his two fingers.
"Fred," George said softly, "It's true. He IS alive!"
Fred and George, both crying with happiness, embraced each other joyously.
"Well, we'd better bandage up those wounds or he won't be for long," Draco cut in, genuinely concerned, "We have to stop the blood flow, he might have lost too much already."
Fred and George suddenly became as serious as Draco had ever seen them.
"Right," Fred said briskly, pulling out his wand. George did the same, and within seconds, the twins had magically conjured bandages that covered all of Charlie's many wounds.
Fred conjured a stretcher that hovered in midair about 4 feet off the ground, and with Draco and George's help, the three boys lifted Charlie as carefully as they could off the ground and laid him to rest on the stretcher, making sure not to disturb his horrifying, demolished leg.
"He needs some serious medical help that we definitely can't provide," George said in a commanding voice, "We have to get him out of here right away."
George reached out and gingerly tucked in bandage that had come undone on Charlie's leg.
"But what about B-" Fred began, but he stopped at once when he saw Charlie stir ever so slightly at Georges touch.
"Charlie!" Fred gasped, standing over him, "Can you hear me, Charlie?"
Charlie's eyes did not open, but he gave a very small, very weak nod.
"We have to get him out of here! And we have to get ourselves out! Who knows what might happen if we stick around the battle scene?!" Draco said gravely.
George nodded. "But Bill-" He started to say, but once again, movement from Charlie cut him off.
"Bill…got away…not here anymore…" mumbled Charlie in a raspy, sot voice, eyes still not open. As he finished his astonishing statement, he fell completely silent once again.
All three boys looked at each other. Then, both of the twins moved at the same time.
Fred ran over to where Ginny still lay in a dead faint, scooped her up and went back to George and Draco. George pulled out his wand and conjured another stretcher for Ginny, and Fred set her down upon it.
"Bill got away," Fred said, talking quickly as he and George conjured ropes and tied them around Charlie and Ginny on the stretchers, "We have got to get away as well. We have to know more, and get some help for Charlie. We're running out of time."
"You don't have your wand, isn't that right?" George said to Draco as he finished tying a knot.
"That's right," Draco said, feeling very useless.
"All right then Fred, help me," George directed.
Fred nodded, and he and George both flicked their wands and two jets of bright orange light smothered Draco and the two stretchers. When the light had cleared, Draco looked at them quizzically.
"Don't tell anyone we did that," Fred said sternly.
"And what exactly did you do?"
"We made it so you, Charlie and Ginny will be taken wherever we go when we Disapparate. It's a very closely monitored spell. It's not supposed to be used, really. Too many older witches and wizards would be using it to get places faster so they didn't have to bother with other wizards who hadn't passed the test yet, or with those who didn't have their wands." Fred told him matter-of-factly.
Draco nodded silently, his head pounding.
"All right then, on with it," George said rigidly. Fred, George and Draco all pressed in close together, each of their hearts pounding as forcefully as the next. They each grasped one hand onto a stretcher.
"Wait! Where are we going to go?" Draco asked quickly, a hint of panic in his voice, "What are we going to do?"
"Something we should have done a long time ago," Fred said darkly. And with two jets of gleaming gold light, the Egyptian sun quickly melted away in a swirl of twinkling lights.