A/N: The story is beginning to wrap up now. Two or three more chapters at the most and then it will be over.

Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize belongs to me.

Chapter Fifteen

-Dark Arts Are Dark For a Reason

Ginny knew how incredibly hard it was to have a crush on somebody who didn't like you back. However, she seemed to be a glutton for punishment. First it was Harry Potter, and just look at how that 'romance that wasn't' turned out. Now the object of her love was Draco Malfoy, and if her romance with Harry was doomed from the start then this one was doomed before it had begun. At least Ron and her parents liked Harry; she knew they hated Draco Malfoy. Now, here she was, sitting in an alcove in the library researching with him. How was she supposed to keep her hands (and lips) to herself in such a small, enclosed space?

Nevertheless, Ginny knew she had to keep her crush secret. They stood more of a chance of finding a cure when they worked together without distraction. Besides, if they found a cure there would be plenty of time to make Draco like her; and if they didn't-well, it wouldn't have mattered even if Draco did like her back.

"I've got it."

"Huh?" Ginny looked up at Draco confused.

"I've got it," Draco repeated, a look of disbelief etched onto his face. Ginny felt a twinge of hope flare up inside her and squashed it as quickly as it had appeared. There was no use raising her hopes. "What is it?" She asked calmly, her face becoming a mask.

"It was in one of the books I found in the Restricted Section," Draco replied, looking around quickly and then ripping the page out of the book. "C'mon, let's go." He stuffed the page into his pocket and jammed the books into a backpack.

"What did you do that for?" Ginny asked bewildered as she followed him out of the library.

Draco gave her a look that said, 'don't be an idiot,' and answered, "It would look a bit suspicious carrying around a tome, wouldn't it, Weasley? This page is a lot easier to hide."

"Fine, whatever," Ginny said. She wouldn't argue with him. "But you haven't answered my first question. What did you find?"

"It's a spell," Draco said so softly she could hardly hear him.

Ginny rolled her eyes. "What's with the secrecy? It's only a spell."

Draco gave Ginny another of his looks. "And here I was thinking you weren't a blockhead like your brother."

The barb flew over Ginny's head. She was getting used to Draco's jibes now. She didn't take her eyes of Draco as he led her down into the dungeons.

"It's illegal," he whispered at last. "We'll be expelled for sure if someone finds out we're going to use it."

Ginny was quiet for a few minutes. She had a few misgivings about using an illegal spell, but those were few. It really depended what the spell was, but if it were something like a Polyjuice Potion then she wouldn't mind using it.

Draco stopped at Professor Snape's office door. "What are you doing?" Ginny asked, panicked. "Professor Snape will be there!"

"You Gryffindors are so stupid sometimes. You spend all that time making up complex plans to get into his storeroom when a tiny bit of spying would tell you that he always has an appointment every Tuesday afternoon. It means he's not here," Draco finished exasperatedly.

"What appointment?" Ginny asked as Draco whispered 'Alohomora,' and the office door swung open.

Draco shrugged. "I dunno. We always reckoned it was with his psychiatrist. He certainly needs one."

Maybe it was with his manicurist, Ginny thought, but didn't voice her idea out aloud. She didn't think Draco would appreciate it very much.

Draco crossed over to his private storeroom and took out the page from his pocket. "Okay," he said at last after gazing down at the paper for a few minutes. "Ginny, you need to look for a jar of vervain. I'll get the dragon blood."

He left the page on Professor Snape's desk before he went into the storeroom. Ginny waited until he'd gone inside before crossing over quickly to look at the spell herself. She'd only read the first line before Draco's yell of her name made her hurry over to the storeroom.

As she browsed the rows of jars for vervain the title of the page stuck into her mind. Necromancy…

Slowly the Gryffindor common room emptied until Ginny and a few fifth years were all that were left. Ginny had snagged one of the armchairs near the fire and didn't look up when she heard the Fat Lady open. Her eyes didn't move from the fire when someone threw themselves into the chair next to her. Her mind was solely fixed on what was going to happen tonight. Tonight she and Draco would slip out of the castle and make their way back into the Forbidden Forest. Draco hadn't told her much about the spell, but Ginny wasn't sure that she wanted to know. She was pretty sure she'd had the grasp of it anyway.

They were going to revive Alistryna.

As a child Ginny had been inundated with horror stories about necromancers and the art they practised. She knew that for every person they successfully raised, there were many other attempts that had gone horribly wrong. If the necromancer didn't catch the soul of the person they were to revive in the Underworld, then they would bring back a zombie. Sometimes the life of the necromancer managed to get caught in the Underworld and they either became stuck between the two worlds or else died. Other times, things-demons- came back with the necromancer and their victim. Ginny remembered the horror story Fred and George had told her when she was little about the necromancer whose flesh was eaten away from the inside by something he had accidentally brought back with him. That story still made shivers run up Ginny's spine.

The person in the chair next to her spoke, and Ginny's line of thought broke. "Pardon?" she asked, looking up from the fire to see Hermione's eyes looking at her worriedly.

"Are you alright, Gin?" Hermione asked, frowning. "You don't seem yourself."

"I'm fine," Ginny assured her, pasting a smile on her face. "What did you say before?"

Hermione shrugged. "I just wondered why you weren't in your room. You don't usually come into the common room anymore."

"I just felt like company," Ginny answered simply. It was true; it had been lonely by herself in her room.

Hermione gave a smile. "I feel like that myself, sometimes." She leant forward conspiratorially and her voice lowered. "I've got an idea to catch your Death Eater."

"Really?" Ginny asked, her rake smile slipping away to be replaced by a real one. She would love to turn Sabine in.

Hermione nodded. "We need her to confess her loyalty to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named in front of someone like Professor McGonagall or Professor Dumbledore. I believe that a trick would work."

"Do you have any ideas?"

Hermione shrugged. "Some. Give me a few days and I'll have worked out which one would be best to use."

Ginny grinned. "Thanks, 'Mione."

Hermione gave an answering grin. "Hey, don't thank me. I'm not the one who worked out she was a Death Eater. Besides, it's nice doing something without Ron and Harry tagging along after me." Hermione's smile suddenly became playful as she switched topics. "So, how's your love life going?"

"How's yours?" Ginny countered quickly. Who knew Hermione could be such a nosy parker?

To Ginny's surprise a faint blush rose on Hermione's cheeks. "Oh, well…you know," she answered and ducked her head.

Ginny resisted the urge to squeal. "Ron finally realised he liked you!"

Hermione just smiled.

The Forbidden Forest was eerily still.

Ginny gave a shiver as she traipsed behind Draco, following the outline of his body against the light from his wand.

"Stop breathing so loud, Ginny," Draco's voice floated back to her. "You'll bring down an acromantula on us."

Ginny rolled her eyes even though she knew Draco couldn't see her in the dark. With half a mind on her breathing, she peered into the darkness, trying vainly to pick out landmarks or shapes that would show where they were. She stopped after a hundred metres though. She swore she saw eyes blinking at her in the dark, and bushes moving even though there was no wind. She fixed her eyes on Draco's back instead.

"Are we lost?" She asked at last.

Draco didn't answer and stopped instead, the light from his wand extinguished with a muffled 'nox'.

"You got us lost?!" Ginny asked, appalled.

"No," Draco's disembodied voice whispered to her. "Don't you recognise this place?"

"How can I? It's pitch black," Ginny whispered back. She didn't know why they were whispering. Perhaps it was because the forest was too still, too quiet.

"Look," Draco's voice insisted, as he moved to stand behind her. Ginny couldn't see him, but she could feel his hot breath on the back of her neck.

Ginny calmed her nerves and forced herself to look. Slowly her eyes became accustomed to the darkness. Dark shapes began to sharpen to become trees and bushes.

And suddenly she knew. "I know where we are," she whispered to Draco. There was the place where Lucius Malfoy had stood. There, Goyle. And over there was the place where Alistryna had fallen.

"We need to find something of Alistryna's," Draco's voice continued. "Anything- a ribbon, a piece of her hair. Did you bring your wand?"

"What a silly question," Ginny whispered, and reached into her robe pocket. She pulled out a wand. She hesitated for a moment before whispering, 'Lumos'.

The clearing flooded with light. As if in a trance Ginny walked over to the place where Alistryna had been killed. Just as Dumbledore had said, there was no body. Ginny dropped onto her knees. Just because there was no body didn't mean there was nothing. Draco rested on his haunches beside her, his wand slipping back into his pocket as he searched the ground.

Ginny moved a branch away. A tree must have fallen a few weeks ago, and the ground was covered in branches and twigs. She pushed away a pile of particularly thick twigs, intent on clearing the ground underneath. Suddenly, she saw a patch of colour in between the brown. Her heart quickened as she pushed away the branches to find-

A feather.

Ginny's eyes moved to Draco, who was shifting through some leaves a few metres away. She looked back down at her own patch of dirt before he sensed her eyes on him.

It was about midnight, Ginny supposed as she shuffled through a tuft of spiny grass. The witching hour, the muggles called it. They thought it was the time when the demons and warlocks came out to play. Ginny had always laughed at the idea of the witching hour before.

She wasn't laughing now.

The whole clearing, the entire Forbidden Forest was giving her the creeps tonight. The trees seemed more sinister than usual, the air oppressive and stifling. It was cold too. She'd noticed the temperature dropping as they'd walked further into the forest. Now, in the clearing, her breath was beginning to crystallize into little puffs of ice. Ginny gave a shiver and focused again on the task in front of her. She thrust away the pile of large twigs she'd seen before to get to the ground underneath them. Her hands, already chipped from the cold, closed around the pile of twigs and were about to push them behind her when something occurred to her. She brought the twigs closer into the light and smiled. They weren't twigs at all- they were shards of a wand.

"Draco- I've found her wand," she whispered.

"Really?" Draco was there in an instant. "Well done."

Rare words of praise. Ginny gave a small smile that soon disappeared. "What's next?" She asked, although she already knew the answer.

"The spell," Draco whispered, helping her up before crossing to the middle of the clearing. In the light of Ginny's wand Draco's face appeared strangely devoid of emotion. Digging into his pockets, Draco brought out the page with the spell written on it, vervain, dragon's blood, and two other things she knew they definitely hadn't stolen from Snape's storeroom.

"What are those?" Ginny asked suspiciously.

Draco looked up at her as if he'd forgotten she was there. "Just things we need for the spell," he told her, arranging the dagger and the crucifix in front of him.

"What are they for?"

"The crucifix is for if something goes wrong. As for the dagger- well, the necromancer needs to give some of his blood for the spell to work."

"You think a crucifix is going to save us if something comes back with us from the underworld?" Ginny ignored the dagger and stared at Draco in amazement. Surely he was kidding.

Draco shrugged. "You'd be surprised how many things are scared of it. Anyway, it's only a precaution. We have our wands, remember."

There was a silence as Draco lay out the vervain in a pattern. It was completely unfamiliar to Ginny, and once again she shivered.

"I think only one of us should go," Ginny said suddenly, realising something they hadn't talked about. "One of us should watch over the other in case anything happens on this side."

Draco considered her suggestion for a moment, and then nodded. "That's a good idea. Who goes and who stays?"

Ginny and Draco looked at each other.

"Alistryna knows you better," Draco said at last.

"You know the spell better," Ginny replied.

"I'll teach it to you," Draco answered. "I'll probably scare Alistryna away."

"I'm not sure…" Ginny hesitated.

"Here," Draco handed her the spell. He seemed relieved to get rid of it. "You can probably do it better than I ever could, anyway."

The spell wasn't even a proper spell, Ginny reflected as she gazed down at the paper in her hand. It was a list of instructions, and not very detailed ones at that. The spell told her to take her blood, mix it with the dragon's blood (the blood of immortality, a voice reminded her) and while it spilled onto the vervain to set the plant alight. Then, the spell told her, she would delve into the realms of the dead.

Ginny read it through twice. "That's all very well, but how do you get to the underworld?" she asked desperately.

Draco shrugged. "I guess you'll know when the blood hits the vervain," he answered cautiously.

Ginny wanted to say no, but the thought that this was her only chance to find the cure stopped her.

"I'll watch your body," Draco whispered to her. "I promise."

Ginny's eyes dropped to the ground, to where Draco had arranged the shards of Alistryna's wand on top of the vervain. "Okay."

She sat cross-legged in front of the vervain and Draco handed her the bottle of dragon's blood. Ginny unscrewed the lid and scrunched her nose as the pungent, metallic smell of dragon blood escaped into the air. She reached across Draco's for the dagger. The hilt was cold in her hand, but comfortingly so. She could feel as Draco's eyes on her as she brought the dagger up to her left hand so that the blade rested lightly on her palm. Ginny took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and ran the dagger across her hand.

Her eyes snapped open and she bit her lip to stop from crying out at the pain. An even line of red had appeared on her palm, and Ginny turned her hand over above the vervain so that the blood dripped onto the plant. She dropped the dagger in her other hand, lifted up the bottle of dragon's blood and upended it's entire contents over the pattern. She heard Draco give a hiss of irritation from next to her and mentally gave him a scowl. It wasn't as if the spell had said how much dragon's blood to use. Once she had finished emptying the bottle, Ginny placed it carefully next to herself and picked up her wand. 'Incendio,' she whispered, and the vervain and wand shards burst into flame.

The pain in her hand forgotten, Ginny stared into the flames. Through the flames and sparks she could see the outlines of the vervain and pieces of wand as the shimmered and then caught alight. Alistryna's wand gave off coloured sparks, like miniature fireworks. Red, green, blue, and yellow lines traced through the air like the Catherine wheels on Guy Fawkes Day.

Alistryna…

Ginny pictured Alistryna's face in the flames in front of her. The lank brown hair, sullen mouth and the accusing brown eyes all began to take shape in the fire. Ginny added in the smaller details like the small mole near her hairline and the small dimple in her cheek. Slowly, the flames began to fade away as the girl in front of her became clearer. The dark shapes in the background that were trees disappeared. The empty of bottle of dragon's blood vanished, as did the dagger. Ginny's eyes didn't move from the vision of Alistryna in the fire, but she knew Draco wasn't sitting next to her anymore.

Instead of the forest landscape, Ginny was sitting in what looked like pure darkness. The light of the fire showed nothing except an everlasting expanse of black. The faint sound of running water was the only thing that Ginny could hear. Even the fire was silent.

The Alistryna in the fire blinked. Ginny stared. Surely she hadn't seen…?

Ginny's mouth opened in amazement as she watched Alistryna stretch, and then place her hands on the ground in front of the fire. Alistryna's face screwed up in concentration as she pulled the rest of her body out of the fire. She lay on the ground for a moment, gasping, but soon recovered her strength enough to stand. She stood still, her eyes fixed on Ginny. "So, t'is thee," she said mildly, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

Ginny nodded, hardly believing her eyes. Alistryna was standing right in front of her. "I'm sorry," she croaked, her mouth dry.

Alistryna shrugged. "It was my time to meet my death."

"I should never have let you-"

Alistryna cut her off with a dismissive gesture. "Thou didst not come to the realms of the dead to give an apology."

Ginny allowed herself a small smile. Alistryna had always been astute. "I came to find the antidote."

"And why shouldst I give it to thee?" Alistryna asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I came to the realms of the dead to find you!" Ginny exclaimed in amazement. "Surely that proves how serious I am?"

Alistryna cocked her head, thinking. After what seemed like an age but was probably only a few minutes she nodded. "Tis not an antidote, as such," she began haltingly. "More a…rite."

"What type of rite?"

Alistryna grinned. "A final one."

Please review and tell me what you think!!!

Thankyous this chapter go to: Adri wow! Thanks for saying such nice stuff about my fics! Dragon dreamer; PHOENIXPRINCESS all your questions will be answered soon…fcuking cathy; Summerkins Ginny's parents kept the curse a secret from the entire family, so no one but Ginny knows; kawaiiRyu he can be a bit mean sometimes, can't he? Iced faerie not long now; Estella Luna thanks for your review! They always make me think. Anyhow, I'll try and make Draco more insensitive before the story ends; Arafel2 so do I.