Blood Ties
Rating: PG-13
Summary: "You fall in with the sort of people your parents would call the wrong crowd, and before you know it you're sucked into the vortex" A chain of events forces Ginny to take on the world of the Dark Lord; but will the lure of power prove too much for her?
Disclaimer: Anything you recognise, I don't own.
A/N Well, here I am, updating, something I don't seem to do very often, lol. I'm really sorry for the update time, but as I'm getting out longer chapters than I previously have been, then things will be going a little slow. Please forgive me, lol ; )
Chapter Two
Getting To Know the Neighbours
As she appeared outside the station in the town centre with a faint *popping* sound, Ginny grudgingly resigned herself to the fact that this would be the last time she would be apparating for quite a while – the ministry often tracked missing people down when they apparated, the particular branch of magic that it used being easy to identify with special ministry technology.
A convenient way to travel it might be, but if Ginny didn't want to be caught, she'd have to give up that luxury.
Entering the building, she quickly bought a train ticket to her destination, nervously biting her lip as the clerk processed the tickets and practically snatching them from his hands with a hasty 'thank you' as she rushed towards the platform.
The platform itself was freezing, acting like a wind tunnel in the chill air of 3:30am. The vicious wind whipped her hair about her face as she waited, her arms wrapped around herself in an attempt to keep warm.
She wished now that she had brought an extra jumper, thinking longingly of the warm fleece that she had left behind in her hurry to leave. Thinking of the fleece led to thoughts of her bedroom, and for a moment she wished that she was back in her warm, snuggly bed at home with her head on her pillow and the duvet pulled up over her chin, cosy and secure.
But no – she had started on this journey and she wasn't going to give up already, when she had really only just begun.
Promising herself that as soon as possible she would buy herself a coat, she sat down on the nearest bench to wait for the arrival of her train. Thankfully she didn't have to kill time for long; in the next five minutes it drew noisily into the station, and she boarded quickly, one of only a few getting on compared to the noisy parties of raucous young men and women who were disembarking from the carriages.
She passed several drunk young men who wolf-whistled at her, but she ignored them as best she could, holding her head high and carrying on down the train to the rear carriages. One tried grabbing onto her jumper, and nearly succeeded in pulling her onto his lap, but she kicked him angrily and he let go, he and his friends giggling stupidly as she walked away and thankfully leaving her alone.
She settled finally in a coach near the back of the train, mostly empty save for an elderly couple asleep at the opposite end. Chucking her bag onto the seat beside her, she sat next to the window, yawning and slouching down in the seat, feeling much more comfortable than she had outside on the bench a minute ago as the train jerked forwards slightly and began to move.
It was warmer in the carriage than it had been outside, and Ginny pulled off her beanie hat, shoving it unceremoniously into her bag whilst she tried to see if she had any gum in the front pocket. Finding none, she sighed dramatically, crossing her arms and slouching even further down into her seat.
"What's the matter sunshine, found disaster waiting for you in the bottom of the bag?"
Starting tensely, Ginny looked up to see who had spoken and found herself looking up at a young woman (although older than Ginny was), wearing a cool smile on her ruby-red lips
She was standing next to Ginny's two seats, leaning on the one in the aisle. A cigarette smoked in one pale hand, and numerous gold bangles dangled from her thin wrists. Laughing callously, she dropped down into the seat opposite Ginny and leant on the table in between them, stubbing out her cigarette on the surface and causing it to smoke a little, a small, black, congealed blob left where the smouldering ash had burnt the plastic.
Taking a pack of Marlboro out of the pocket of her cord jacket, she pulled another one out and lit up, taking a long and savouring drag as if she hadn't smoked in a week. Noticing Ginny staring at her, she flicked the packet open and held them out to Ginny in an invitation for her to take one.
Shaking her head, Ginny declined the offer, surreptitiously trying to edge back in her seat a little to avoid the smoke wafting across the table from the cigarette in the woman's hand. Ginny wasn't too fond of cigarettes and cigars; her great-grandfather had died because he smoked so many.
"You know, you can just ask me to stop kid – I won't be offended" the woman said suddenly, not even looking up from studying her flawlessly manicured fingernails that matched her lipstick perfectly.
Ginny relaxed slightly at the woman's mildly cordial tone, and nodded in reply, silently thankful to the woman.
"Just let me finish this one, yeah?" she asked, indicating the cigarette in her hand. Ginny nodded, leaning back once again and slouching in her seat, thinking the conversation was over – but it seemed the woman had other ideas.
"What's your name kid?"
"What?" Ginny (who hadn't been listening) replied, looking over at the woman.
"I said, what's you name?" she repeated, "It's a simple question kid"
Ginny paused for a second, wondering suddenly if she should give her real name or not. With the ministry after her, 'Ginny Weasley' was a name they would be asking after. She needed something else…
"Virginia" she answered finally, deciding on just her full name instead of her given one.
"Virginia?" the woman replied, raising her eyebrows with incredulity, "You sure as hell don't look like a Virginia. Nah, I think I'm going to call you…Ginger, after that hair of yours. Nice to meet you" she added, holding out the hand that was empty of a cigarette.
Dubiously, Ginny reached over the table and took the woman's hand, shaking it politely.
"What about you?" Ginny asked softly, following the manners her mother had taught her, "What are you called?"
"Well, I do have a real name, but nobody knows what that is, so people just call me Stella" she replied, taking one last drag of her cigarette and stubbing it out on another bit of the table. Once again, the plastic went black and began to congeal as wisps of smoke rose from it for a few seconds before it cooled.
"Why doesn't anyone know your real name?" Ginny asked curiously.
"Because I don't want anyone to know what it is" Stella replied simply, grinning roguishly, "It's a stupid, middle-class suburbia name that no self-respecting person would ever let other people know. My mother was the only one who ever called me it, and now she's dead and buried there's no one else in the world but me who knows what it is"
"Oh…" Ginny replied slowly, unprepared for the amount of information Stella had loaded on her, "That's…"
"Weird," she supplied amiably, putting her feet up on the seat next to her so that she was stretched across the two seats, the back of her knees laying on the armrest in between them, "But no one would call me it anyway, I'm stuck with Stella for the rest of my life now. The guys down at the Viper club renamed me—"
"I'm sorry, what?" Ginny cried suddenly, interrupting her, "Who – where did you say?"
"The Viper club," Stella replied, looking at Ginny with an odd expression, "Why?"
"I've heard of it before. It's…well, it's where I'm going," Ginny replied, calming slightly, although she was still leaning forwards over the table, her eyes lit up with animation, "Except, well…I don't really know where it is"
"Wait a minute Ginger," Stella said, holding out a hand in a gesture for her to calm down, "If you want to go to the Viper club, then you must be a…you are, aren't you?"
"If you're asking me if I'm a witch," Ginny replied, lowering her voice to barely above a whisper, "Then my answer would have to be yes. And what about you? You must be as well"
Stella nodded, a grin spreading across her face. "Born and bred. I went to Hogwarts, obviously, and I graduated…if I was Class of '93 I graduated…five years ago. What about you? When did you graduate?"
"Uh…'97" Ginny replied quickly, deciding quickly to add a year to her age as another way to throw the ministry off course. "I'm nineteen"
"Nineteen? You look younger" Stella replied, studying Ginny's face, her remark and her eyes making Ginny feel slightly nervous. "What house were you in?"
"Ravenclaw" Ginny replied, the lie coming a little more swiftly this time, and less nervously, "How about you?"
"Slytherin – pureblood of course, like yourself I'd imagine" Stella replied, shocking Ginny slightly with the revelation of her house. But then, she shouldn't really be surprised at all – Stella fit in well the Slytherin image. "And you're a turncoat Ravenclaw," she added, grinning, "We don't see too many of them around"
"A turncoat?" Ginny asked, baffled.
"Well, I suppose you don't think of yourself as a turncoat, do you? It just seems natural to follow this way of life – our way of life" Stella replied, rolling back the sleeve of her coat.
Ginny had to fight to stop herself from either vomiting or fainting as she saw the black skull imprinted on the soft white skin of Stella's forearm. It was exactly the same as it had been the last time she'd seen one, floating in the sky over the ruin that had once been the Burrow, and almost at once a white hot, burning rage seemed to well up inside her chest. She fought it down, clenching her fists under the table so hard that her nails were digging painfully into her hands.
Stella rolled her sleeve back down quickly, checking that no one else was around and that no one had seen the Dark Mark stamped on her skin. She grinned at Ginny, who was staring fixedly at her arm.
"So – what about you?"
Ginny looked up, confused. "What—?"
"What about you? Your mark?" Stella replied, gesturing to Ginny's own forearm.
"Oh, uh – I…haven't got one…" Ginny muttered, crossing her arms and biting her lip tensely.
"Oh…" Stella replied, her eyes flicking from Ginny's arm to her face and then back to her arm again. She looked at Ginny's arm for a moment, a blank expression on her face until to Ginny's slight relief she just smiled and leant back in her seat, simply replying, "I see…"
There was a pause for a moment, Ginny's heart beating wildly as she thought how stupid it was that she had already been caught by a Death Eater so early on in this journey. Stella just looked at Ginny, a small smile on her lips, before asking lightly, in an amiable voice, "You're one of those people that's sort of in between, yeah?"
"Uh…yeah" Ginny answered, deciding quickly that her best option was to go along with what Stella was saying, hoping fervently that perhaps Stella didn't now want to kill her.
"And now you want to go to the Viper club to see what life is like 'on the other side of the fence', as it were. You want to know what it's like to be one of us"
"Uh…yeah, yeah, that's it," Ginny replied, taking a firm hold of the lifeline Stella had unwittingly given her and using it for all it's worth, "That's exactly what I'm doing"
"Well then," said Stella, smiling wickedly, "Welcome to the club"
***
"So, where do we go from here?" Ginny asked as her and Stella stood in Paddington Station. Stella was sipping from a paper coffee cup, her eyes narrowed; she seemed to be contemplating something.
"Well," she said, downing the last dregs of the coffee and chucking the cup over her shoulder (Ginny winced inwardly – years of being brought up with good manners had made her hate littering), "I was thinking of taking the Edgeware route; it's a much shorter and closer way, and you tend to pick up a few people on the way, so it can be pretty fun"
She grinned at this, not noticing Ginny's confused expression.
"Pick up a few people?" Ginny asked, not quite sure whether she really wanted to hear the answer to her question or not. It could turn out to be some sort of Death Eater euphemism for…well, something really gross.
"Sometimes I meet a couple of friends on the way," Stella told her, crossing her arms and beginning to walk away across the station floor. Ginny hurried after her, slowing as she caught up with Stella's swift pace. "Ewan generally goes that route and I normally see Marisa hanging about down near the back of the club"
"Oh" Ginny replied, relieved. Following Stella out of the station and onto the dark London streets, she looked about her at the streets and the many shops, restaurants and nightclubs all jumbled together along Pread Street and the roads that stretched out from the dingy side entrance of the station. Some of the shop windows were dark, but many of the restaurants remained open and the nightclubs were obviously swarming with people.
"So, which way are we going?" she asked, getting Stella to stop so that she could retrieve the beanie from her bag. Fleetingly she thought back to her fleece once again, but the eagerness in Stella's eyes as she looked down the road stopped her from thinking about the things she had left behind and made her concentrate on the job at hand. "Is it far?"
"An hour away, if we walk," Stella replied, turning left and starting to move away down Pread street, Ginny pacing along beside to her. Stella pulled a cigarette out of her pocket and lit up as they walked along, and Ginny winced slightly as Stella exhaled and smoke swirled out of her mouth and nose, standing out white against the backdrop of the shadowy street. Still, now that they were outside Ginny could no longer really smell the smoke, and so she didn't say anything, instead following Stella as they made their way down the street.
"So, Ginger," Stella began, taking the cigarette from her mouth as she turned to Ginny, "Where'd you hear about our little…establishment? I had no idea it was so widely famed"
Her tone was sarcastic, matching the mordant smile that was playing across her lips as she looked across at Ginny. Smiling back, albeit a little tautly, Ginny tried to play it cool, stuffing her hands in the pockets of her jeans as they strode along and shrugging nonchalantly.
"Oh, just here and there. I know a few people, if you get what I mean…" she lied coolly, keeping her eyes on the other end of the street to avoid any possible indication to Stella that she wasn't telling the truth. To her relief she just nodded and grinned, tapping cigarette ash to one side with a casual (and practised) flick of her wrist.
"That's usually how it happens," she replied, "You fall in with the sort of people your parents would call the 'wrong crowd', and before you know it you're 'sucked into the vortex', as some of my closest associates like to say. The world of the Viper Club opens up before you, and from then on you are it's always willing servant"
She ended the sentence with a slight flourish, grinning and breaking into small giggles as she finished. Ginny let out a strained laugh, her smile not reaching her eyes as she thought on how potentially dark what Stella had just said could be. Fortunately, Stella didn't notice Ginny's lack of humour at the idea, instead beckoning for Ginny to follow as they turned the corner. They passed a sign as they turned onto the road – one of the usual London ones, done in red and white with the postcode at the bottom – telling her that they were on Edgeware road, the street that Stella's route was named after. A police car screamed past them as they began walking down the road, the blue and white swirling siren highlighting the shop fronts along the road. Hundreds of Arab characters, accompanied by smaller English script, jumped out at Ginny as they passed them, and she looked into the windows of the grubby convenience stores to see much the same as the stuff in the small corner shops of Ottery St. Catchpole and her village shop back home.
"It's a bit more classy up Kings Road," Stella informed her, noticing the look on Ginny's face as she caught sight of a group of prostitutes further up the road, "Less illegal activity. Well, in theory anyway" she added with a roguish grin. Ginny smiled back, albeit rather nervously, wondering what exactly she had got herself in to.
What the hell was I thinking, leaving home? she thought to herself as they passed the prostitutes, several of whom yelled at Stella in greeting. Stella mischievously swore at them in return, grinning and throwing an arm over Ginny's shoulder as they walked on. Ginny closed her eyes momentarily as she began to inhale smoke from the cigarette still in Stella's hand, and as she did so the image of Ron from the photograph floated before her eyes. It strengthened her resolve as she saw it, and she opened her eyes again, turning her face away from the cigarette as much as she could without being rude to see Stella still grinning beside her.
Oh well, she thought mordantly, looking ahead of her down the darkened street, might as well make the most of it. After all, she reflected, it's not like I can escape now.
* * *
A/N Okay, please don't kill me – I'm sorry it took so long for me to update, but I've been busy! The essay, remember?! Anyways, I did think that I'd lost interest on this story, but my previously comatose plot bunnies have miraculously reawakened, and although they're still a little sluggish, things are going well. But don't expect an update soon – I think I've caught Not-Updating-For-Months-At-A-Time syndrome, lol.
Thanks to:
Vipera (Hey, thanks for the compliments on the fic, v. nice, lol) cashew (Heya, I'm glad you're liking this fic. However, there is one thing…I have to admit to not actually knowing what Seinfield is. Soz! Obviously this update wasn't fast, it was s-l-o-w, but I promise to make up for it with good-quality chapters! Well, a girl can dream…Oh, and I've read the Bell Jar! It was v. good, and I found out after that my mum actually has a book of her poems, which isn't too bad either. I hope you like the books I recommended!) Alyssa Rose (hope you enjoy the mango, lol. Sorry for the update, but you know what it's like – I'm in demand in so many other places…yeah, I wish! Hope you liked this chapter, please keep reading. It's great that you're liking smart, rebellious Ginny) Maive (You have no idea how much I love getting new readers! And I have continued, albeit a little later than usual, but still. Hope you like it!) Bubbles (Like I've said before, soz for the update – but it's here, finally, so I hope it was good) fcuking cathy (I apologise profusely if at any point it seemed like I wasn't going to continue this – I have! *cue orchestra playing triumphant music* I know, I can't believe it either, lol. Thanks, and keep reading – loyal reviewers are always the best!)