Chapter Five: Don't Leave Me

"Don't leave me all alone
Just drop me off at home
I'll be fine, it's not the first
Just like last time,
But a little worse"

Draco was appalled at how long girls took to get ready. Luckily for him his date was in another house, so he didn't have to sit around in the common room waiting impatiently for her while listening to screams of "Where is my make up?" ring through the common room. He was the only Slytherin going with a member of another house. Ravenclaw was fine, but the other Slytherins would have freaked if she were from Hufflepuff or Gryffindor. After a little while it was time to go and meet Cho. Draco smirked as he imagined what Potter would do when he saw Cho with Draco. He walked to the entrance hall and saw Cho standing there talking to Potter. He walked up to her, took her arm and said, "Shall we go?" The look on Potter's face was priceless. He very much resembled Weasley whenever Draco called Granger a Mudblood. He could see Potter about to say something but Draco and Cho walked into the Great Hall before Potter could say a word. Draco and Cho weren't really sure which table they should sit at. While they had taken away the house tables the students seemed to form the houses nonetheless. Luckily there was an empty table so they went and sat there. Draco just sat there watching people come in until he spotted the tell tale gleam of fiery red hair that could only belong to his friend. He saw that prat Longbottom run up and hold her hand and Draco glared at him. He heard Cho speak and turned around.

"Well, since the reason that you asked me was because you wanted to get to know me better, we should do that." She said.

He nodded. They started talking; she told Draco about her siblings and random things and him the same. Except about the siblings, because Draco was an only child. Cho was actually sort of fun to talk to. Nowhere near Ginny, but still okay. At least she was more interesting than Pansy. Hell, to him anyone was more interesting than Pansy. She had kept droning on and on about the latest styles of make up and the latest gossip and how mad she was that Viktor Krum had gone out with a "Mudblood" like Granger. He could sort of see why Potter liked Cho so much. After dinner he asked Cho if she wanted to dance so her took her hand and led her to the dance floor. Dumbledore had somehow gotten a hold of some muggle CDs and had figured out a way to play them using magic. Draco wasn't too keen on the idea but the music was actually okay. When he and Cho started dancing they were playing a pretty fast song; he thought he had heard about this style of music. Punk, he thought it was. He looked over at Ginny and saw her dancing with Longbottom. Actually a better way to describe it would be trying to dance with Longbottom. He kept stepping on her toes and hitting her accidentally. Finally he saw her tell Longbottom that she wanted to stop.

"Cho, I'm going to go over and talk to Ginny over there, okay?" He said, in truth not really caring whether she minded or not.

"Sure. Is it alright if I dance with someone else?" She said, relieved. Draco had been getting on her nerves a bit.

"Of course." He said, impatiently, and walked over to Ginny. He saw her sitting down and rubbing her feet.

"Hi Gin." He said softly. She didn't look up. There was an awkward silence for a while.

"Oh…you're…mad about that…"He said, a little embarrassed.

She lifted her head; he could see the anger in her eyes.

"Of course I'm mad! What else could I be when my best friend starts being really mean to me and doesn't want to be friends and then the next day acts like he did nothing?" She said angrily.

"Can we at least talk about it?" He said, as desperate as he could be.

"Fine." She said, still fuming. "But this isn't my fault."

Before she could say anything else he grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the hall. They walked into the garden; he had let go of her hand. The garden looked beautiful. The flowers had been charmed to look like ice, sparkling clear in the dim fairy lights. There was snow falling everywhere and crystal benches every few meters along the side of the path. There was an ice sculpture in the center of it all. It was what looked like the Muggle idea of a fairy. A gorgeous woman with silken wigs and a dress made of what looked like snow. She had curly hair that cascaded down her frozen back, and eyes that glittered in the fairy lights, reminding him greatly of Ginny. He turned towards her.

"Gin, I'm sorry. I let the pressure of everyone else get to me."  He said, ashamed.

"Why should I forgive you?" She said, fire in her eyes, "As I remember your exact words were 'I don't know why I ever made friends with you in the first place, Weasel.'"

 "You know I didn't mean that."

"How could I?" She said indignantly. "It sure sounded like you meant it."

Then the music changed to a slower song. He held out his hand to Ginny.

"Do you want to dance?"

She didn't say anything, but she still took his hand.

He pulled her in to him, and while at first she was reluctant, by the end of the song all of her anger had left her.

Another slow song started playing and they danced again. They danced a few more songs and then decided to go inside. Since it was pretty late they just went back to their respective common rooms. The sound of sobbing echoed through the hall on the way to the Slytherin common room, and Draco decided to check it out.

When did I get so Gryffindor? He wondered. He opened a door to where he thought the sound was coming from. He saw a girl slumped next to the wall crying. All he could see of her was dark brown hair and a glint of metallic red dress robes.

He walked over to her and spoke.

"Hello…" He couldn't really think of what else to say. She lifted her head and he realized who she was.

"Wait, you're Vider, Ginny's friend, right?" He said.

"Yes." She said, sniffling. "You're the Draco she keeps talking about."

"I suppose."

"Could you please leave me alone, I'm kind of busy crying." She said, and buried her head in her hands.

"Well, I don't leave a friend sobbing in a dark room." She looked up at him, confused. "Any friend of Ginny is a friend of mine."

"What about Harry, Ron, and Hermione?" She asked, smiling slightly.

Draco struggled to find a good answer.

"She doesn't really consider them friends; just acquaintances." He said, knowing that was a rather odd thing to say.

"I guess…if Ginny trusts you then…I probably can…" She said reluctantly. "If you want to know what's going on, read these."

She handed him three notes. He said "Lumos" and opened the first one.

To my darling Vider,

I have to do it. Lord Voldemort will not let me run any longer. I will join and spy. Burn this after you read it; I don't want anything to happen. Please don't try to stop me. Remember that I will always love you, and I'm doing this for you to be safe. Be careful, and may your life without me be happy.

Love,

Father

She saw him finish the note and said, "Read the other ones. They sent me back all my letters."

He picked up another one and read:

Please Papa, please, don't do this! Mamma needs you to stay with her. I need you! There's got to be something we can do!

Draco felt a pain in his chest. He picked up the last one.

A la Maîtresse Vider La Lune :
Nous regrettons de vous informer qui vos parents, M. et Ms Jèan La Lune a été trouvée mort dans leur maison. La cause de mort semble être le charme de Meurtre.

Nos sympathies,
Michel Helios, le Ministre Français de Magie

Draco translated the French into English in his mind:

To the Mistress Vider la Lune:
We regret to inform you that your parents, Mr and Mrs Jèan La Lune were found dead in their home.  The cause of death seems have been the Killing curse.

Our sympathies,
Michel Helios, French Minister of Magic

He was surprised. He was about to say something when he noticed Vider wasn't there and the window was open. He stuck his head out and saw a figure in dark green robes flying away with something wearing red robes; he realized that it was Vider. He ran to the boy's dorm and got his Firebolt. He then opened the window and jumped out on his broom. He was about to go after her, the person's broom didn't seem to be too fast, but he decided that it would be better to get Ginny. After all, it was her friend. He had been to Gryffindor tower before; after all he wasn't really known for following the rules. He checked all the windows until he saw the flash of red hair. He looked a little closer; he didn't want to accidentally go into the fifth or seventh year boy's dorms. They both had Weasleys there too. He saw that the person's hair went down to their waist, so he knew it was Ginny. He tapped on the door. Hard. It seemed that everyone else were heavy sleepers because they didn't wake up, but Ginny did. She thought it was an owl so she went to the window and opened it. She almost screamed when she saw Draco hovering outside her window but stopped herself.

"Draco, what are you doing here?" She whispered.

"Something's happened to Vider!"

"What?"

"Well, first of all her parents are now dead, and second of all she's been kidnapped, so come on!" Ginny almost fainted.

"Hold on, let me get my wand." She rushed to her nightstand and grabbed her wand; then jumped onto the broom. She held tight to Draco's waist and they went off. Draco had to be careful not to go in front of the teacher's offices. He looked around, afraid that he'd lost sight of Vider but then he saw the glint of sliver towards the west and sped off in that direction. Little did they know that they were being watched. And followed.