Strawberries

Strike of the Dragon

Harry arrived home after another day at the day care. He threw his keys on the counter, grabbed a soda out of the fridge, and flopped down on the couch in his living room. He lay there in a daze, listlessly staring at the ceiling. He didn't know how he survived day to day.

The door bell rang. Harry groaned, but reluctantly got up and answered the door.

"Serena?" Harry looked down at the little girl.

She stared down at the ground, quietly, very much unlike Serena. "The Dragon found us," she said softly. She rubbed her toe into the concrete. "Mommy told me to go down the fire escape and go to your house."

He ushered her inside, peeking around before closing the door. He gently pushed he into the kitchen, sitting her down and getting her a soda.

"What happened?"

She began slowly, "The Dragon came. Mommy and him were arguing as usual." She wouldn't look at him in the face. "I was hiding in my room and Mommy told me that if he was ever to come and find us I should get out without being seen and run. After you 'n mommy found each other again, she told me that if he were ever to come that I go to your house and that if Dragon ever found me, never to tell him I knew you at all." She whipped her nose.

Harry took this all in. He assumed that the "Dragon" was the deatheater who had captured her during the War. The clock ticked out time loudly in the quiet room.

"Who's the Dragon?"

"I dunno," she replied. "Mommy just calls him the Dragon, andwhen ever he comes I'm either hiding or running away. Mommy tells me not to look at him."

Harry felt frustrated, not at Serena of course, but the fact that this didn't lead to any clues as to who the deatheater was.

She looked at Harry, tears in her eyes. She looked frightened. "Mommy was screaming while I ran away." She broke into tears. Harry held her, comforting the terrified 6-year-old girl who had been put through so much at such a young age. It broke his heart, it was as if it had been ripped out of his lungs and thrown across the room. An anger bubbled up inside him, who was be so evil as to torture a little girl such as this. There was no words he could scream or curse he could throw that would calm his heart.

The deatheater would pay, he would make sure of it.

"I'm sure you're mommy will be okay. She knows how to take care of herself." But when he said, it was more to convince himself rather to then reassure Serena.

-x-

Serena had fallen asleep in front of the T.V. when the doorbell rang. It was almost 1. Harry looked through the peep hole and saw nobody there. Cautiously he opened the door, hand at his wand in his pocket, ready.

Suddenly there was a movement and Ginny was there, sitting on the concrete steps up to his front door. Her clothes were in disarray, her hair messy, her skin bruised and lying next to her was an invisibility cloak.

"Oh, my god, Ginny!" His voice barelyraised above a whisper as he surveyed her.

"Is she there?" she asked, quietly, not meeting his face, her hair covering her eyes that Harry knew were tear stained.

"Yes, yes, she's here." He closed the door and bent down and sat next to her, wrapping his coat around her, and pulled her to him. They sat in silence as he rocked her back and forth, and she cried silently into him.

"What happened?"

"He came," was all she whispered.

"Who?"

She looked up, eyes full of pain, a bruise on her cheek and once eye black. "The Dragon," Her eyes were full of earnest.

"Who?" He asked her more forcefully.

She looked down, and her hair fell in front of her face, hiding it from view.

"I should probably start from the beginning," she whispered.

-x-

Harry had tucked Serena into his bed, and after both grownups had kissed her goodnight, they sat down in the kitchen to talk.

Ginny stared down at the wood of the table, and took a deep breath.

"It was only about a week after you had left to go to the Order of the Phoenix headquarters. Deatheaters stormed Hogwarts. Of course they had inside help."

She looked up. "Most of the Slytherins helped. And of course Draco in charge of the student deatheaters." She gave a slight hiccupping noise, but after another deep breath continued. "They tore down the school, and some deatheaters though it would be fun to pick up a couple of girls." She turned away. "As you can guess, I was one of them.

"I was dueling with this one deatheater and I was grabbed from behind. A gag was thrown over my mouth and a blindfold placed over my eyes. They carried me away, I knew they did because I felt I was outside and it was much quieter. I tried to get away, but they were much bigger then me. They tied up to a tree and I heard other girls nearby crying out for help." Ginny stayed strong as she told her story, she looked Harry right in the eyes, her voice hardly wavering.

"Next thing I knew I felt myself being transporter somewhere else by portkey. I knew there were other girls with me, and I recognized most of them. They were in their upper years." Her voice trailed off. Harry knew this must have been hard for her.

"Then they separated us, and I was locked in a room and unblindfolded. I stayed in there for a couple of weeks, they didn't feed me very much. Sometimes I heard screaming that would last for hours and hours." Tears were starting to fall. "I though they were going to kill me. I though they had already killed the others." She looked at her lap, unable to look at Harry in the eyes anymore.

"I was one of the lucky ones, I was a pureblood." She tried desperately to wipe away her tears, but continued, "They didn't touch me for weeks after the raid. It was probably a couple of months before they started to grow tired of the muggle borns. So finally they took me out of the cell and took me to another room. I waited on hand and foot on deatheaters and they cast the imperious curse on me. I couldn't remember what I did then, though I could probably figure." She sniffed. Harry admired her for staying so strong while she told him. He wanted her to stop talking, just so she wouldn't go through anymore pain.

"Ginny," he whispered, "you don't have to say anything more, I understand,"

"No, no--" She looked back up at him. "I'm not finished."

She looked back down at her lap as she continued, "When I awoke after under the imperious curse, I was all beaten and bloody. But that wasn't the worst part--" She paused. "I wasn't able to fight then. I was put in another room, this time it was much nicer. There was a bed, and clothes and food." She bit her lip, looking up, trying to stop her tears from falling, but to no avail.

"I stayed in there a couple of days after that, nobody disturbed me. Then one day Voldemort himself came in." Her voice cracked. She sat there crying and crying, and Harry tried to comfort her. He cradled her, holding her until she calmed down again.

"After he left more men came in... thenLucius Malfoy came." Her voice broke, but she continued, quieter this time. "And then later, Draco Malfoy came in." She looked fearfully up at him in his arms.

"Many more men came in, and it was only a few weeks later that I knew I was pregnant. But I had been with so many men I didn't know who the father was!" She sobbed into his chest, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't hold her so that her pain would pass. He kissed her forehead, and murmured calming things into her hair.

"Once I knew I was pregnant, they stopped coming. I stayed in that room for several more months. And other girls came in with me, they helped me while I was giving birth. I was able to have a few months of bliss alone with only those girls and my baby. But then the baby got sick." She gulped as she talked, but she didn't stop. "The baby died, my poor baby died." And again she broke down.

"Was it a boy or a girl?" He asked her, trying to distract her.

"It was a boy. I never did know who the father was, I just knew he had brown hair and brown eyes. I named him Weasley." She hiccupped at the name. "We called him Lee for short..." She gave a slight smile at the memory, "I never did give him a last name, just Weasley. But there were another baby before I had Serena. That one was a boy also, and I named him…" She looked up into his eyes, a smile on her face. "I named him Harry, after you."

Harry felt touched she had named her baby Harry. He planted a kiss on her cheek and hugged her. By now tears were also running down his face, but he broke into a smile. After a few minutes of silence, Harry though she wouldn't continue, and he didn't press her.

But she did. "During the births and the deaths, men came in. I had three specific one's though. Voldemort and the two Malfoy's. Voldemort was always the worse though." He felt her shiver slightly. "He would always talk to me beforehand. He always said we had a special connection, some of my life force was in him." She pressed herself against Harry harder. "And Draco was always the nicest, of course if you could call rape nice," she spat. "He did try to console me a little bit, I guess he felt sort of guilty. He told me that he was the one who had come up behind me and blindfolded me and gagged me. He told me I was the most unfortunate of the girls because Voldemort only came to me. And then there was Lucius. " She suddenly climbed out of his embrace, and sat on a chair beside him.

"I was able to escape with Serena. After the War, the father came looking for us."

She shook violently, her hands clentched. "The father was Lucius Malfoy."

-x-

HAH! Had you all fooled didn't I? You thought it had been Draco! But perhaps this changes your whole view on the story... But perhaps there will be more twists to come! Keep reading! You might be surprised!

patronus