Chapter One: Going Back
Deep underground, in the darkest torture chamber of Phoenix Riddle, three figures hooded and robed in black stood before an old man chained to a wall. They had been hired to torture and kill him, yet had no intention of doing so. "There is only one choice," sounded the once strong voice of Albus Dumbledore. Looking at his bent and broken body, weak from months of torture. Looking into his dull eyes, no one would have guessed he was once the greatest wizard of the age. His once marvelous twinkling blue eyes now lacked the shining blue luster they once had, but as he looked on the three individuals in front of him, the old fire returned, if only for a moment. " You must go back. You must kill her before she has a chance to discover all her powers."
"We can't kill her professor, no one can." Came the hardened voice of Ginny Weasley. The dulcet tones she once spoke in where now gone, replaced by a harder, crueler voice. Her soft face was now hardened in grim determinations, and the hope that had once radiated from her was now gone. Of the nine members of her family, she was the only one left.
"No, not as she is now," replied the aged professor, "but if you go back to the beginning, before she realizes her dark potential, and her powers that were hidden by her father.there might be a chance."
"What then---if she dies, Voldemorts will continue to gain power. Shall we just trade one dark lord for another?" Blaise Zambini stared at Dumbledore, his dark eyes shadowed by his long dark lashes. Tall, dark, brooding, and powerful he was the Slytherin everyone had forgotten in school. The Dark Lord Voldemort had all too soon realized his potential, and he quickly rose though the ranks of death eaters. But when he saw his beloved potions master brutally tortured, and killed before his own eyes, he became a spy for Professor Dumbledore, the only man he still had real respect for.
"Better a dark lord we know can be defeated, then one who we know can not." Said Ginny softly.
"Right you are Ms. Weasly, right you are." Came the soft reply of the professor.
"We don't know he can be killed you fool!" hissed the other boy, who had been silent and still until now.
"We'll the prophecy says-"
"Do you think I give a damn about your precious prophecy? Harry Potter didn't kill the dark lord. He couldn't, he didn't have the power. He died at the dark lords feet begging for mercy." He venomously spat.
"You lair!" her voice came in out louder, hate filled tone.
"I was there, why you I love to you about it?" he asked lowering his hood.
"Because you're a Malfoy." She answered staring at him. His steel gray cold eyes, his platinum hair, his tall and well-built body. His whole life he had been the boy everyone loved to hate. Then his delicately constructed life was shattered like fragile glass. His father, the only person he looked up to, was brutally killed by Voldemort for his failure to kill one person. His mother, the only person he ever loved, was killed by Phoenix Riddle herself during her coronation as a Dark Queen. Having lost everything he held dear, he finally turned his back on the only thing he had every known in his life, darkness. Lost, confused, and broken, he had been taken in by Dumbledore, and slowly began to heal.
Before he could answer her, Dumbledore cut in with a sense of urgency. "Listen; quickly! There is an old dark spell that has the power to bring you back in time. You must find it and use it before its too late. She must not find out what you are doing. No one can." Suddenly he faltered, " Hoods up! She is coming, she is coming."
Perhaps it was an act, maybe his old age, or maybe his feat of her, but whatever the reason was, Albus slumped against the wall behind him in a dead faint. His hands let go of the chains holding them, and his body went limp, held up only by the long dark snaking cords holding him against the sharp spikes digging into his back.
The three resumed their task of pretending to kill him slowly and painfully, each consciously straining not to shudder ad cry.
And just as they had been warned, she came. In a swirl of acidic smelling black smoke, she appeared. Silently observing the dying wizard hanging from the wall, she glared at him with obvious distaste. As if they ad suddenly became aware that she was there, the three black figures turned and knelt in the pools of blood at their feet. Dumbledore's blood and the blood of other innocents killed in the chamber.
Heads bowed, and eyes raise, they stared at her.
Her robes of the deepest darkest black were long and swept the floor when she moved. Her face was heart shaped and always held at a proud, disdainful, aristocratic angle. Her black eyes observed them with casual interest, and her small, pink delicate mouth was slightly open. Her blood red hair was loose and curled softly to her mid-back, blowing gently in a breeze that only she could feel. She was beautiful beyond words, beautiful yet terrible.
When she finally spoke, her voice was low, and sweet. "Why is he sill alive?" She questioned, violently nudging her perfect head in Dumbledore's direction. Carefully observing the three people who had begged her to kill him, she waited. After a moment of silence she prodded, " Well?"
"We want to make him suffer." Came Malfoy's cold, bitter voice.
"She began to consider them again, as though this was not the reply she had expected. "Very Well, he soon will die. I'll be back in ten minutes."
"If you want him dead, why can't you kill him yourself?" spat out Ginny in a voice dripping with malice and venom.
"Because I only kill those who matter, and he doesn't matter. He means nothing!" The Phoenix spat back just as malevolently.
"Then why do you want him dead in a grave?"
A look of cold fury passed over her wondrously fair face, yet she made no attempt to hide the truth. " Because he knew how to bring my father back, and then all the work we have done would be worthless, gone, little more than a memory, or maybe a shadow of what could have been."
And with another swirl of black smoke she was gone leaving three stunned undercover Aurors behind her. When the smoke finally cleared, they looked at each other and simultaneously apparated to the (now) unused Burrow.
AT THE BURROW
Lying on a deep plush couch of the darkest red, Blaise, Draco, and Ginny stretched out in front of the roaring fire they had conjured.
As they looking into the dancing flames, they began to discuss how to get back to the past. After all, Dumbledore had only told them that it had to be done, not how to do it.
"Do you think we could get back to the chamber and ask him?" Asked Ginny.
"Are you crazy?! She'll be livid that we left and didn't kill him." Replied Blaise, "We'll all be dead before we could say hello to the old chap, let alone ask him anything."
"Damn it!" She swore. And so they all became lost in thought again as they stared at the fire. The leaping reds and oranges entranced them.
"I've got it!" said Malfoy suddenly snapping them out of their trances, " The Manor!"
"What manor?" said Ginny, a slight frown marring her features.
"Malfoy Manor!"
"It was destroyed, Draco. It was burned right after you left her order." Blaise whispered, " Nothings left."
To Blaise and Ginny's surprise, he laughed, " Yes, I know the house was, but the cellar, no magic, no matter how dark it it or was, could destroy the entrance."
"Your delusional my boy." Said Blaise.
"No, listen. For such an amazingly stupid man, my father was quite clever. He knew that if anyone would ever try to break into his cellar, they would use dark magic, because the cellar was used to hide dark things. So he used a complex spell to protect and lock it that was pure white magic. The Order of the Fire bird only uses dark magic to destroy."
"So the cellar is safe!" Said the other two simultaneously, with excitement dripping from their voices.
"Exactly!" said Draco flashing them both a wide, true smile, " and if anyone had a book filled with dark magic to go far back in time, it would have been him!"
"Brilliant!" said Ginny, truly happy for the first time since Charlie, the last surviving member of her family, was killed. And if she wasn't happy, she was at least hopeful that she might at last have something to believe in again, at long last.
THE FAR AWAY TOP SECRET WELL-HIDDEN TORTURE CHAMBER
As if he could somehow read their thoughts, Dumbledore smiled with his dying breath, hopeful that the future could be saved.
AMISDT THE PILES OF RUBBLE THAT HAD ONCE BEEN MALFOY MANOR
Two years ago, if you had told him that he, Draco Malfoy would be on his hands and knees crawling through the rubble of his once sprawling, beautiful manor house, he would have laughed at you like you had told a funny joke. Had you told him that he would be crawling trough the piles of ancient wood and stone with Virginia Weasely and Blaise Zambini he would have told you that you were delusional, and secretly arranged to put you into Saint Mungo's insanity ward. Yet there he was, doing that very thing. After a long, cold, wet and grueling search, the trio at last found what they were looking for. By all outside appearances, it was a very simple wooden door, made of oak, or maple. On the surface if the door, the infamous Malfoy crest was painted. A black skull was crowned in roses, impaled on a bed of razor sharp thorns. "No offense mate, but your family was a bit.odd." "I know, some great-great grandfather of mine thought it was funny, and so do I, come to think of it."
Ginny and Blaise shared a look that clearly said, "Delusional!"
"And here we are, 'Alohamora'." As soon as Draco's low drawling voice finished the spell, the trap door melted away, and revealed a long flight of stairs, with green carpets and a silver rail. As they clutched the ice cold railing and made their way into the depths of the Manors, Ginny began to laugh.
"What?!" Snapped the owner of this desolate place.
"It just that your family as the most notorious wizarding family for years, yet the gateway to your most secret and prized possessions can be unlocked with the simplest spell. A first year could get into your secret room, Hell-someone who hasn't gone to school could.although I suppose-"
"Shut it Weasel."
"You do rather talk to much at times." Concluded the other young man in the trio. They looked around and found themselves in a dark, dusty, and dank room. There where shelves and shelves of jars filled with heads, hands, and many a disgusting dark objects. Next to those jars, there where shelves and shelves filled with books containing old magic, with dark purposes. Only five years ago, such things would have fascinated Draco's fifteen-year old self. "I really was a prick, wasn't I?" Draco said out loud. "And you still are!" muttered Ginny. "Scourgify." He whispered, and the room was suddenly clean, and green. Slytherin colors, "Some things never change father," whispered Draco," Lumous!"
Hours later, the trio were still sitting at the table; flicking through the endless dusty tomes. Malfoy slowly drifted to sleep, his light blonde locks scattered across the pages of his book. Ginny's head began to fall, and soon she also was sound asleep on her book. Frustrated, Blaise shoved his long black waves of hair out of his face, and reached for another heavy, dust ridden manual.
"Dark Spells For Dire Times"
After quickly flipping through all the pages, the title on the last page caught his eyes. His dark brown eyes read, and re read the page growing larger each time.
"Well I'll be damned!" he whispered. On the yellowing linen page, surrounded by black flowers, and covered by a faint white misty sheen, was a time spell.
"Quickly now we must pass
The line that divides future and past
Time that binds Becomes time undone The thread of time must be Unraveled. On backward paths Our souls now travel. Back we now go To change the past Forward from there We save our future. Two must live And one must die, To advert the evil Of the advisary eyes."
Their hands were tightly clasped together, so tightly clasped that their knuckle's where white. Over and over they repeated the spell, feeling it growing in power. Then the black ground cracked beneath their feet, releasing a radiant white and silver light. White smoke gushed forth after a moment, enveloping them in a cold of pure, unrestrained magic. While the white swirled around their bodies, they frantically looked through the smoke for a glimpse of someone else, but they could see nothing. Reassured only by the feeling of someone else hand holding their own, they took a deep breath and waited. Then they were gone.
Disclaimer: Hehe..you know the drill, nothing is mine but the plot A/N: please r & r to tell me what you think! =) (more will come as soon as I can wangle the computer away from my brothers)
Deep underground, in the darkest torture chamber of Phoenix Riddle, three figures hooded and robed in black stood before an old man chained to a wall. They had been hired to torture and kill him, yet had no intention of doing so. "There is only one choice," sounded the once strong voice of Albus Dumbledore. Looking at his bent and broken body, weak from months of torture. Looking into his dull eyes, no one would have guessed he was once the greatest wizard of the age. His once marvelous twinkling blue eyes now lacked the shining blue luster they once had, but as he looked on the three individuals in front of him, the old fire returned, if only for a moment. " You must go back. You must kill her before she has a chance to discover all her powers."
"We can't kill her professor, no one can." Came the hardened voice of Ginny Weasley. The dulcet tones she once spoke in where now gone, replaced by a harder, crueler voice. Her soft face was now hardened in grim determinations, and the hope that had once radiated from her was now gone. Of the nine members of her family, she was the only one left.
"No, not as she is now," replied the aged professor, "but if you go back to the beginning, before she realizes her dark potential, and her powers that were hidden by her father.there might be a chance."
"What then---if she dies, Voldemorts will continue to gain power. Shall we just trade one dark lord for another?" Blaise Zambini stared at Dumbledore, his dark eyes shadowed by his long dark lashes. Tall, dark, brooding, and powerful he was the Slytherin everyone had forgotten in school. The Dark Lord Voldemort had all too soon realized his potential, and he quickly rose though the ranks of death eaters. But when he saw his beloved potions master brutally tortured, and killed before his own eyes, he became a spy for Professor Dumbledore, the only man he still had real respect for.
"Better a dark lord we know can be defeated, then one who we know can not." Said Ginny softly.
"Right you are Ms. Weasly, right you are." Came the soft reply of the professor.
"We don't know he can be killed you fool!" hissed the other boy, who had been silent and still until now.
"We'll the prophecy says-"
"Do you think I give a damn about your precious prophecy? Harry Potter didn't kill the dark lord. He couldn't, he didn't have the power. He died at the dark lords feet begging for mercy." He venomously spat.
"You lair!" her voice came in out louder, hate filled tone.
"I was there, why you I love to you about it?" he asked lowering his hood.
"Because you're a Malfoy." She answered staring at him. His steel gray cold eyes, his platinum hair, his tall and well-built body. His whole life he had been the boy everyone loved to hate. Then his delicately constructed life was shattered like fragile glass. His father, the only person he looked up to, was brutally killed by Voldemort for his failure to kill one person. His mother, the only person he ever loved, was killed by Phoenix Riddle herself during her coronation as a Dark Queen. Having lost everything he held dear, he finally turned his back on the only thing he had every known in his life, darkness. Lost, confused, and broken, he had been taken in by Dumbledore, and slowly began to heal.
Before he could answer her, Dumbledore cut in with a sense of urgency. "Listen; quickly! There is an old dark spell that has the power to bring you back in time. You must find it and use it before its too late. She must not find out what you are doing. No one can." Suddenly he faltered, " Hoods up! She is coming, she is coming."
Perhaps it was an act, maybe his old age, or maybe his feat of her, but whatever the reason was, Albus slumped against the wall behind him in a dead faint. His hands let go of the chains holding them, and his body went limp, held up only by the long dark snaking cords holding him against the sharp spikes digging into his back.
The three resumed their task of pretending to kill him slowly and painfully, each consciously straining not to shudder ad cry.
And just as they had been warned, she came. In a swirl of acidic smelling black smoke, she appeared. Silently observing the dying wizard hanging from the wall, she glared at him with obvious distaste. As if they ad suddenly became aware that she was there, the three black figures turned and knelt in the pools of blood at their feet. Dumbledore's blood and the blood of other innocents killed in the chamber.
Heads bowed, and eyes raise, they stared at her.
Her robes of the deepest darkest black were long and swept the floor when she moved. Her face was heart shaped and always held at a proud, disdainful, aristocratic angle. Her black eyes observed them with casual interest, and her small, pink delicate mouth was slightly open. Her blood red hair was loose and curled softly to her mid-back, blowing gently in a breeze that only she could feel. She was beautiful beyond words, beautiful yet terrible.
When she finally spoke, her voice was low, and sweet. "Why is he sill alive?" She questioned, violently nudging her perfect head in Dumbledore's direction. Carefully observing the three people who had begged her to kill him, she waited. After a moment of silence she prodded, " Well?"
"We want to make him suffer." Came Malfoy's cold, bitter voice.
"She began to consider them again, as though this was not the reply she had expected. "Very Well, he soon will die. I'll be back in ten minutes."
"If you want him dead, why can't you kill him yourself?" spat out Ginny in a voice dripping with malice and venom.
"Because I only kill those who matter, and he doesn't matter. He means nothing!" The Phoenix spat back just as malevolently.
"Then why do you want him dead in a grave?"
A look of cold fury passed over her wondrously fair face, yet she made no attempt to hide the truth. " Because he knew how to bring my father back, and then all the work we have done would be worthless, gone, little more than a memory, or maybe a shadow of what could have been."
And with another swirl of black smoke she was gone leaving three stunned undercover Aurors behind her. When the smoke finally cleared, they looked at each other and simultaneously apparated to the (now) unused Burrow.
AT THE BURROW
Lying on a deep plush couch of the darkest red, Blaise, Draco, and Ginny stretched out in front of the roaring fire they had conjured.
As they looking into the dancing flames, they began to discuss how to get back to the past. After all, Dumbledore had only told them that it had to be done, not how to do it.
"Do you think we could get back to the chamber and ask him?" Asked Ginny.
"Are you crazy?! She'll be livid that we left and didn't kill him." Replied Blaise, "We'll all be dead before we could say hello to the old chap, let alone ask him anything."
"Damn it!" She swore. And so they all became lost in thought again as they stared at the fire. The leaping reds and oranges entranced them.
"I've got it!" said Malfoy suddenly snapping them out of their trances, " The Manor!"
"What manor?" said Ginny, a slight frown marring her features.
"Malfoy Manor!"
"It was destroyed, Draco. It was burned right after you left her order." Blaise whispered, " Nothings left."
To Blaise and Ginny's surprise, he laughed, " Yes, I know the house was, but the cellar, no magic, no matter how dark it it or was, could destroy the entrance."
"Your delusional my boy." Said Blaise.
"No, listen. For such an amazingly stupid man, my father was quite clever. He knew that if anyone would ever try to break into his cellar, they would use dark magic, because the cellar was used to hide dark things. So he used a complex spell to protect and lock it that was pure white magic. The Order of the Fire bird only uses dark magic to destroy."
"So the cellar is safe!" Said the other two simultaneously, with excitement dripping from their voices.
"Exactly!" said Draco flashing them both a wide, true smile, " and if anyone had a book filled with dark magic to go far back in time, it would have been him!"
"Brilliant!" said Ginny, truly happy for the first time since Charlie, the last surviving member of her family, was killed. And if she wasn't happy, she was at least hopeful that she might at last have something to believe in again, at long last.
THE FAR AWAY TOP SECRET WELL-HIDDEN TORTURE CHAMBER
As if he could somehow read their thoughts, Dumbledore smiled with his dying breath, hopeful that the future could be saved.
AMISDT THE PILES OF RUBBLE THAT HAD ONCE BEEN MALFOY MANOR
Two years ago, if you had told him that he, Draco Malfoy would be on his hands and knees crawling through the rubble of his once sprawling, beautiful manor house, he would have laughed at you like you had told a funny joke. Had you told him that he would be crawling trough the piles of ancient wood and stone with Virginia Weasely and Blaise Zambini he would have told you that you were delusional, and secretly arranged to put you into Saint Mungo's insanity ward. Yet there he was, doing that very thing. After a long, cold, wet and grueling search, the trio at last found what they were looking for. By all outside appearances, it was a very simple wooden door, made of oak, or maple. On the surface if the door, the infamous Malfoy crest was painted. A black skull was crowned in roses, impaled on a bed of razor sharp thorns. "No offense mate, but your family was a bit.odd." "I know, some great-great grandfather of mine thought it was funny, and so do I, come to think of it."
Ginny and Blaise shared a look that clearly said, "Delusional!"
"And here we are, 'Alohamora'." As soon as Draco's low drawling voice finished the spell, the trap door melted away, and revealed a long flight of stairs, with green carpets and a silver rail. As they clutched the ice cold railing and made their way into the depths of the Manors, Ginny began to laugh.
"What?!" Snapped the owner of this desolate place.
"It just that your family as the most notorious wizarding family for years, yet the gateway to your most secret and prized possessions can be unlocked with the simplest spell. A first year could get into your secret room, Hell-someone who hasn't gone to school could.although I suppose-"
"Shut it Weasel."
"You do rather talk to much at times." Concluded the other young man in the trio. They looked around and found themselves in a dark, dusty, and dank room. There where shelves and shelves of jars filled with heads, hands, and many a disgusting dark objects. Next to those jars, there where shelves and shelves filled with books containing old magic, with dark purposes. Only five years ago, such things would have fascinated Draco's fifteen-year old self. "I really was a prick, wasn't I?" Draco said out loud. "And you still are!" muttered Ginny. "Scourgify." He whispered, and the room was suddenly clean, and green. Slytherin colors, "Some things never change father," whispered Draco," Lumous!"
Hours later, the trio were still sitting at the table; flicking through the endless dusty tomes. Malfoy slowly drifted to sleep, his light blonde locks scattered across the pages of his book. Ginny's head began to fall, and soon she also was sound asleep on her book. Frustrated, Blaise shoved his long black waves of hair out of his face, and reached for another heavy, dust ridden manual.
"Dark Spells For Dire Times"
After quickly flipping through all the pages, the title on the last page caught his eyes. His dark brown eyes read, and re read the page growing larger each time.
"Well I'll be damned!" he whispered. On the yellowing linen page, surrounded by black flowers, and covered by a faint white misty sheen, was a time spell.
"Quickly now we must pass
The line that divides future and past
Time that binds Becomes time undone The thread of time must be Unraveled. On backward paths Our souls now travel. Back we now go To change the past Forward from there We save our future. Two must live And one must die, To advert the evil Of the advisary eyes."
Their hands were tightly clasped together, so tightly clasped that their knuckle's where white. Over and over they repeated the spell, feeling it growing in power. Then the black ground cracked beneath their feet, releasing a radiant white and silver light. White smoke gushed forth after a moment, enveloping them in a cold of pure, unrestrained magic. While the white swirled around their bodies, they frantically looked through the smoke for a glimpse of someone else, but they could see nothing. Reassured only by the feeling of someone else hand holding their own, they took a deep breath and waited. Then they were gone.
Disclaimer: Hehe..you know the drill, nothing is mine but the plot A/N: please r & r to tell me what you think! =) (more will come as soon as I can wangle the computer away from my brothers)