Disclaimer: I do not own anything recognizable. Harry Potter and all related characters, settings, ideas are property of J.K. Rowling.

Illusions

By WhK

--

The room had little white walls, and she was instantly reminded of death.

Death, like seeing so much pure white that it blinded your vision and caused your eyeballs to explode, leaving your sockets moist and empty, leaving you to bleed, bleed, bleed until all of your blood-tears pooled down to the bottom, still seeping onto, no into, the white blankness until all of the sharp, lively red disappeared.

White was the color of utter loneliness. Enclosed in it, there was not a single bacterium, nothing prokaryotic nor eukaryotic, no intelligent or unintelligent life at all. She didn't breathe, she didn't move, she didn't taste, see, feel, smell, or hear.

She reached her hand out in front of her to check for her own existence.

She screamed and bled again and again as she saw nothing in front of her but more endless, stretching, agonizing white.

But her scream was engulfed and silenced. And she knew there could be nothing worse than this.

--

She saw now (or did she) that it was no room at all. It could not be contained, nor could she. She was certainly not constrained by the limitations of a human body, but neither could she move, glide, swoop freely.

She simply was. In the midst of everything and nothing, she was. The only that kept her being was her consciousness.

The white boundaries threatened to take her in. Coaxing at first, and then forceful. Take her eternally so that she may live without a body, without a voice.

With a harsh laughter that the relentless place quickly dissolved, she wondered if perhaps she was stuck in her own mind. Forever to wander the maze with no sense of anything.

Time became a concept of yesterday. She had already been here forever and would be another forever or two.

Had she been real, an effable body, or even a spirit, ghost, spectre, she would have rocked back and forth, back and forth, holding herself in the biting, chewing coldness. She would have moaned out hoarsely, a wail of inscrutable pain and such, such loneliness. She was driven to madness, always fighting to keep herself from becoming frozen, always fighting to keep loneliness from draping her with it's shadow.

Until there was a change.

--

It was, at first, a gentle shimmer. A shimmer, then something that she could only conceive as a door. She shrank. The miniscule door grew, then zoomed and flew her towards it. Everything was still a small, tiny series of reverberations; they could be unseen the very next moment, if she looked away. If she were the least bit distracted, or she breathed too heavily or even thought of it too much, it would poof and disappear.

But she didn't look away.

Pushed through something hard and yet penetrable, she was sucked through what she wanted to call the other side.

There was a rush of color.

--

"Where am I?" was the first question she felt herself ask. She stretched every part of her body, as if now, all of a sudden, the idea of controlling a body in a tangible world were ridiculous.

A voice answered her question.

"You're home, Ginny." She looked up. The warm, kind face of her brother Ron came into view. Ginny giggled.

"Home?" It sounded almost foreign. Ron shook his head.

"It's the first day of classes, silly. If you don't hurry up, we'll miss the train." Ron ruffled her hair affectionately. Ginny sat, confused, but delighted by all that she could taste. She breathed in, and tasted the metallic air. Refreshing.

"But…I was alone. In a…in a…." She couldn't describe it. " In a white room. Alone. I was dying."

Ron pursed his lips.

"Must have had a nightmare. It's been a while since you've had one, anyway." Seeing Ginny's worried look, Ron smiled.

"Relax. Go get ready. You'll feel better soon."

Ginny floated out of bed, feeling worn and unwashed and positively dirty, for a reason unknown. She felt almost irritated, like she was forgetting something she shouldn't.

She walked from place to place in an almost dreamlike state, wondering why she felt so lightheaded, so awkward.

But Ron was right. By the time she bade her parent's goodbye and was successfully on the train, she was feeling better. Almost normal, one could say. She chatted with her friends, and forgot all about her strange dream. Sometimes dreams did that, didn't they? They haunted you for a while.

But all haunts went away at some point. All of them.

--

Ginny Weasley's 6th year at Hogwarts promised to be better than the last 5. Everything had gone insanely right, to the point where she felt suspicious that her good luck would soon, very soon, run out.

She was glad she was not taking Divination.

Suddenly, everything seemed to come to her with great ease, with the ease of someone who was indefinitely sage and wise. She brushed it off as growing up, however. Perhaps she was finally discovering her talents.

Her school work, most of all, was going well. Even the professors seemed to notice her improvement and commended her, all with the exception of Snape. Nothing bothered her, however, not even him.

She took Ron's fruitless attempts to ward off any potential boyfriends as if the action were distinctively cute. She allowed the occasional Slytherin bully to taunt her for her lack of money or clothes or dignity, and she brushed past them with a serene smile.

She even tolerated Malfoy. Draco Malfoy, the annoying little boy that he was. Or perhaps tolerated might be an understatement. He had grown up, hadn't he? Or maybe she had.

It was a strange, peculiar feeling. One that could be poked at with a stick and awakened. One that, if it were not toyed with, if it were not thought of, would die down and nearly disappear, and not remind her of its presence. It was still young and premature, like a weak seedling of a tree. One big breeze could knock it down. One plentiful rainfall could nurture it into a giant.

For while she had never realized it until now and perhaps…perhaps even then, she had not really known, except in the deepest places of herself where she never tread—

Known, that she loved Draco Malfoy.

--

Note: If any of this seems extremely confusing to you right now; good. It should be. This fic will jump around time a lot—time won't be such a linear thing as we are all used to, but all of it is necessary for the eventual plot. So I'm asking you to be blind for a while here, and read this fic as it is written and try not to confuse yourself with too many questions.