"Are you sure you are strong enough to do this?" Lucius Malfoy regards his son with cold grey eyes. "This is very important. This girl could pose a great threat to our cause."
"I can do it, Father," Draco says, with more certainty than he feels.
"Then let us waste no more time."
And with a crack, he Disapperates. Closing his eyes to stop the spinning of the room, Draco takes a deep breath before following him.
He arrives in the small, dingy building to find his father waiting just behind the entrance.
"I will take you to her cell."
Draco nods mutely. He feels as though his dinner might come back up at any moment.
He follows Lucius numbly, staring straight ahead.
When they reach her cell, Lucius turns to him. "Here is where I leave you. Do not return to me until you have successfully completed the task."
Without another word, he strides away.
Draco is left standing in front of the large steel door.
Sucking in a breath, he turns the lock and opens the door.
She is there, laying on the floor. Her knees are drawn up to her chest and her face is covered by a curtain of scarlet hair. Her school robes are tattered, revealing her pale, slender legs.
He hesitates before clearing his throat.
She gives a start and raises her head from the floor. As she draws herself up straight, her hair falls back, and he must bite his lip to keep from gasping.
One of her eyes is marred by an ugly blue and purple bruise. A narrow, but clearly deep cut runs the length of her cheek, all the way down to the corner of her mouth. Dried blood is under her nose, and her lip is split down the middle. She must have bitten it to keep from screaming.
She is still the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.
At the sight of him, her eyes take on a hopeful look that makes him feel like his heart has dropped into his stomach somewhere.
"Draco," she breathes. "Are you here to get me out? Please, please get me out. They did horrible things to me. Horrible things."
Her eyes are shining with tears, and his eyes are drawn to her legs. At the very tops of her thighs, clearly visible beneath her ripped skirt, is dried blood. And her blouse is torn. He feels like retching.
"No, I'm not – Actually, I – " He breaks off, unable to continue.
He looks down at her. At her hopeful, confused expression. At her hands, resting on the stone floor beside her. He gazes down upon the girl with who he has laid so many nights before. The lips he has kissed, the hair he has felt sliding through his fingers, the body he has caressed.
And he remembers with sickening force what he must do.
"Ginny, I am so sorry," he says. And he means it.
"Why are you – "
She breaks off, and the hopeful spark in her eyes dies as he raises his wand.
She was his first love. And now she will be his first kill.
"Avada Kedavra."
fin