Updated: 8-27-04

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chapter 47: PORTENSION - an interlude

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Ginny Weasley sat in the stands, looking out over the Quidditch pitch, and listened to the wind blow. Such a calming sound. She closed her eyes and let it flow through her, let it wash away all of the distractions that had built up over the day until she was blank, a slate wiped clean, an empty mirror.

It was then that she could begin to feel it building within her, singing through her blood, an emptiness, a vast nothing. She could feel it reaching through her and out towards the edges of the world. It waited there, curled upon itself, asleep and half-dreaming, but waiting for her.

Opening her eyes, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a white daisy, a bit crushed and wilted. The wind whipped her hair and tangled it in front of her eyes as she gazed down at the flower intently. Raising it to her face, she pressed her lips to the soft petals. Pulling it away, she gently grasped a petal and plucked it neatly from the flower. "He loves me," she whispered softly to herself as she watched the long, white petal turn to ash and blow away. A cold smile curled her lips and she took hold of another. "He loves me not."

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"How are you feeling, Ron?" Hermione's tone held only loving concern and Ron sighed as he set his pumpkin juice to the side.

"How do you mean?" Even as he said it, Ron avoided looking up at Hermione, or Harry seated next to her. Instead he looked intently at his mashed potatoes, swirling them around with his fork.

"Well, we're worried about you. You've been so pale, but you said you don't want any help with the...the blood loss. I just want to make sure you're doing alright." Hermione's tone suggested that even if he said he was, she'd never believe it. Ron chanced looking up enough to see that her hands were moving restlessly around her plate, shifting the knife to the other side, fiddling with her napkin. Ron sighed again.

"I'm fine, Hermione. Really. It's not as bad as it sounds." A choked sound came from Harry, and Ron was sure that he was remembering what he had seen when he'd found Ron in the showers that morning. Recalling the fight they'd had, Ron hunched down further in his seat. How long could they keep up this pretense of civility before they started in on him again about Malfoy? He understood why they didn't believe him, but it didn't make it any easier. And Draco was right, nothing would convince them of the truth now.

"Why did Malfoy hit you, Ron?" Harry's voice was level, but it sounded strained. Ron closed his eyes, wishing Harry could just drop it all for the night and pretend like nothing was wrong.

"We just got in an argument, ok Harry? He hit me. I hit him. It was an argument. Now it's over."

"Look me in the eye and tell me that." Harry's tone was hard, and out of the corner of his eye Ron could see that Hermione's hands had ceased moving around her plate. She had frozen, one finger on her fork as though unsure of what to do with it.

Bracing himself, Ron looked up and into Harry's intense, green eyes. "We argued, we hit each other, it doesn't matter now." Ron resisted the urge to look away, but every second he stared into Harry's eyes made it harder and harder. He was catching flashes of it, of the blood and the way Zabini had been so still. Part of Ron was just glad Harry had seen only the result and not how it had been accomplished. He shouldn't have thought of it, though, for even as he did, a knife flashed in his peripheral vision and drew a long line of blood over pale flesh.

"What was the argument about?"

Ron blinked, trying to concentrate on what Harry was saying and how he might respond without riling him up again. "I said it doesn't matter, Harry." A pale boy, covered in cuts, was reflected back at him from Harry's glasses.

Harry's voice lost somewhat of its coldness and took on a bit of a pleading tone. "If it doesn't matter, then why can't you tell us?"

The pain in Harry's eyes, along with the violence Ron could see remembered there, was finally too much for him and he looked away, trying desperately not to let the visions of his own memories replace the horror Ron saw when he looked at his friends. "I just can't."

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Ginny smiled remotely as the rest of the flower finally blackened and blew away. Closing her eyes, she tilted her face upwards as she felt a surge of the magic pulse through her. It was so sweet. Off in a corner of her mind she could feel that other one stirring, could feel him opening blind eyes into her soul and smiling at the emptiness he found there. She could feel his lust swelling inside her, humming through her veins and threading through the new strands of magic being spun out of the darkness.

Standing, she descended the risers and started out towards the walls of the castle. A black coldness enveloped her and her skin shone like ice. Frost crunched in the grass beneath her feet. Stopping just beside the doors to the castle, she put a hand up to the gray stone, caressing it and the warmth she felt spilling outward.

Turning away from the door, she walked along the edge of the castle, one hand trailing along the rough wall. Fine as old spider's silk, a snaking crack followed in her fingers' wake. She could feel him laughing between the broken edges of the stone. In the distance clouds began to gather.

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Draco fixed the final ward on the box, sealing away the locks and the latch of the lid, but paused before putting it into his trunk. There was something building inside of him, a hunger, pressing in on him from all sides. No. Not now, why now?

Shuddering, he hastily shoved the box into the trunk, piling old notes and odds and ends on top of it before slamming shut the trunk's lid and locking it. He hoped it would be safe in there, prayed that some magic it possessed wouldn't set it in Ron's path once more. The bracelet looked so simple, so harmless, but he didn't have to even think to know that it must never find its way to Ron's wrist again. If only he knew how to destroy it? Well, locking it away would have to do.

Standing, he strode over to where his robes were laid out for dinner, but paused again, one hand on the bed, as another wave of hunger washed over him. He ached with the pain of it, and with the taste of the violence and the blood it hinted at. Clenching his hands into fists, he tried to get ahold of himself. It didn't make any sense. He'd tasted Ron's blood already that day, and the new moon had been only last week. Why, then, why.....

It didn't matter, he needed to find Weasley. The voice in the back of his mind that sounded like his father sneered coldly at his weakness as he strode swiftly from the room..The day was growing darker as the sun sank towards the horizon and clouds piled up overhead. Ginny had almost circled the entire castle by the time the first snow flakes began to fall. They swirled around her as she continued her circuit, muffling the sound of the wind so that the world seemed to be suspended in a heavy silence. By the time she once again reached the castle doors the snow was falling so thickly it had piled up on her shoulders and hair and it was getting harder to see. Pausing again at the doors into the castle, Ginny smiled at the descending harsh weather before turning away from the wall and drifting off into the spinning cold. Coming to the shelter of an old tree she settled herself to wait.

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A tinkling of spoon on glass and Ron looked up to see Dumbledore rising from his seat. Strange that he would be making an announcement now, rather than at the start of dinner. Dumbledore cleared his throat and the hall fell silent. "There is an announcement for the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff sixth years in Astronomy that I thought best made now rather than create confusion later. As an aside, please note that late night snow-ball fights are to be discouraged, however, indulgences will be understood and allowed, strange weather still persisting, tomorrow, in light that it will be the weekend. Professor."

Surprised, Ron looked up at the ceiling to find that snow had indeed begun to fall. He couldn't believe his eyes, or the eye that was working rather, and had to blink several times before he had convinced himself that it was real. He noticed that Harry and Hermione had also abandoned the gloomy contemplation of their plates to look, startled, towards the ceiling.

Turning back to the head table, Ron saw that their Astronomy professor had risen and was preparing so speak. "To those who were supposed to observe tonight: a bizarre bout of snow seems to have foiled plans for observing. Instead, I would like those students to please write up a comparison between star charts of the sixteenth century and the modern charts we use today to be handed in on Monday. You need only consider stars brighter than three magnitudes. That is all." With that the professor sat down, to the cheers and the groans of the students in the class and the rising conversation of the rest of the hall. Observing on a Friday night was one thing, being given a paper to do over the weekend was entirely another. However, Ron couldn't really say that he cared. It was so far beyond the realm of what he was worrying about at that point that he really didn't feel anything. Judging by the lack of comment from Harry and Hermione, they felt the same.

Ron was just about to make a comment about how weird it was to get snow so early in the year when the feeling of something else made him turn again, this time toward to doors leading into the Great Hall. As soon as he saw him, he knew he needed to go. Draco Malfoy stood just inside the doors, surveying the room apparently casually and with that permanent Malfoy smirk fixed on his face, but Ron could sense an undercurrent of urgency running from the pale boy and knew that he wasn't nearly as relaxed as he appeared. Almost, a small voice in the back of his mind chastised him for not noticing that he was needed earlier.

"Ron, where are you going?" Hermione's voice sounded tense and anxious, but he didn't spare a glance back as he hurried from the table. Seeing that he was coming, Draco slipped back out through the doors.

A few minutes later Ron caught up with him walking briskly down a hallway that seemed naggingly familiar. The walls whispered to him of something half-remembered in a dream, and the air pressed about him and stilled his breath. Dark magic crackled between the two boys, binding them and pressing them apart.
Back at the table in the Great Hall Hermione was sitting hunched over, twisting her hands in her lap, while Harry stared murderously at his mashed potatoes. Finally he turned and glared at Hermione. "Well?"

Hermione squeaked at this sudden attack. "Well, what?" Harry lifted his eyebrows significantly. "Oh. No. I don't know. The spell's gone blank. I don't feel a thing, not even the sort of staticciness I felt before."

"So that's it?" Harry asked incredulously. "The spell just doesn't work anymore? Did you cast it right?"

"Yes, I cast it right," Hermione hissed, then lowered her voice to be out of hearing of the rest of the table. "It just went blank. I don't know if that means someone disrupted the spell, or if Ron is just suddenly fully in possession of his own mind..." Harry snorted pessimistically at this second suggestion but Hermione continued mercilessly. "I told you this spell was limited anyway, but even so, I don't think it's as straight-forward as you think. After...what happened in the hall, I didn't feel much strong magic, not even when I asked Ron how he was doing. Not even," she continued over the top of Harry trying to interject something, "not even when you asked him about his fight with Malfoy. At least, not until you asked him to look at you. After that I could feel a very strong build-up of magic and it didn't start to go away until after he looked down again."

"Well, what's that supposed to mean." Harry sounded, if anything, insulted by the seeming randomness of what Hermione reported and Hermione scowled at him.

"How should I know?" she asked, still whispering fiercely. "If there is some sort of spell on Ron..."

"There is, and you know it."

Hermione sighed, "The spell that seems to be on Ron, it's not at all simple, and right now we can't say for sure what it is in place to do, or why."

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From beneath the shelter of the tree Ginny watched as the world swirled by in a white madness that was steadily growing darker. The castle was only a vague shape off to the right. The moaning of the wind through the branches was the only sound, masking even the sound of her breathing, and the beating of her heart. Out of the swirling void another shape manifested, hurrying quickly to where Ginny waited under the tree.

"You came." Dean's voice rang happily out of the stillness as he stepped under the shelter of the branches and shook off the snow that had collected on his shoulders and hat. "I was afraid this crazy weather would keep you inside." He smiled down at her, his face glowing with innocent joy.

Ginny stepped forward and took one of his hands hesitantly, shyly. "Of course I came, Dean." She looked up at him, her eyes twinkling mischievously. "Does this mean you don't have an astronomy class tonight?"

"What do you think?" Dean grinned wider. "Isn't it wonderful? I can't believe it's snowing." He gazed excitedly out at the falling snow.

Ginny stepped closer to him and tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. "It's crazy, is what it is. How about we go somewhere that's a bit warmer? I know a good place."

Dean looked back down at her and his smile softened. "Alright, if you want." Setting a leisurely pace they started back toward the castle arm-in-arm. "Did you get the flower?"