Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Plans Revealed

Harry looked up at the ceiling, so shockingly bright and white. He didn't know where he was, or how long he'd been there, but he had to find out. Where was Ginny? The last thing he remembered was seeing Voldemort standing in front of the trap door leading to the basement, but nothing after that. Ginny was probably in danger at this very moment, if she wasn't already…No. She was alive and she would be fighting; Ginny was feisty when it came to life-threatening situations.

"I have to find her…I can't do this without Ginny!" Harry whispered resentfully to himself, as he searched for his way out of this room. It looked like a bedroom with white walls and a white ceiling.

"This could've been my parents' bedroom…" Harry thought to himself as he looked at photographs of his parents on the walls, and even one of himself, roughly seventeen years ago.

He unsealed all of the windows and the door leading into the hallway. As he crept along the wall towards the door, he stepped over a long, scaly snakeskin, along with a small puddle of blood, so scarlet and yet translucent. Harry could've spent hours staring at this mystifying blood, but thought better of it and hurried into the hall.

He skidded to a halt as he jogged along the carpeted hallway, when he saw two bloody footprints leading into the back room. Strange, though it would have been for any Muggle to witness these footprints, Harry knew that someone who had stepped in blood apparently apparated to this spot and walked into the back room.

Harry cautiously touched the doorknob, as though it would electrocute him if he grabbed it too soon or if his grip was too tight, and turned it. He was now standing in front of another bedroom, his own bedroom. Right on the left side of the room was a wooden crib, complete with green sheets and a quilt with all of the Quidditch balls on it. Harry stood in amazement at the sight of his room where he had lain seventeen or so years ago, and slept and cried. He edged in a little closer, and stood now in the middle of the room, staring around in awe. But just as the warm sensation crept through his body that he got whenever he thought about his parents, he found a red-haired girl, crumpled on the floor, bleeding freely onto the pale blue carpet.

Ginny awoke behind a wooden crib with Harry standing over her. But what is it Harry? Back in that other room it wasn't really Harry…It was Harry possessed by Voldemort. So was this really Harry? She had no way to find out.

Ginny clutched her ankle, which that dreadful snake had bitten and almost made her commit suicide. She had attempted to jump out of the window, but then she remembered that they were magically sealed. So she apparated into the hall in front of this very room, and was going to smother herself with the Quidditch quilt in the crib. But her loss of blood made her collapse and fall in and out of consciousness.

"Ginny! Let me help you!" Harry frantically whispered as he touched her ankle with his wand, making the wound heal, and leaving Ginny feel refreshed.
"Harry, is that really you?" Ginny asked, still quite dazed from her bite.

"Who else would it be?"

'He has no idea,' she thought as she let Harry pull her up from the ground, and rushed out of the room.

"Harry, where are Ebony and Ivy?" Ginny asked as they ran up the stairs leading to the attic. She was still a little dizzy, but was trying hard to concentrate on where she was going.

"I don't know. I went straight to the room you were in, and I didn't see them at all. But something else I've been wondering is why would Voldemort and Snape go through all of this trouble to return the house to the state it was in minutes before he arrived and murdered my parents? Dumbledore reckons they'd been doing it since last year."

"Dunno," Ginny replied quietly.

Harry didn't really listen to her reply, though, because he reached the door to the attic. He stood staring at it for a few moments, before asking Ginny the time.

"It's five after noon. Are you ready?"

Harry nodded and gulped, as he reached for the knob…

"Severus, make sure they don't get loose. Are you sure you tied them down tightly?"

"Yes, of course, Master. I will check again, just in case," Snape's voice filled the attic. The attic, however, looked nothing like an attic. It was more like an outside dungeon courtroom, with dirt floors and various dead shrubs, stone walls and caged windows, and high rows of seats, like those in the Ministry of Magic Courtrooms.

"You know, Severus, I've been waiting for this moment my whole life, to become immortal by killing my enemy of many generations. Thankfully, Dumbledore has no idea of the consequences of my victory. Not only will little Harry be dead, but I will have an eternity to kill all of the Mud-bloods, Muggles, and all those in leagues with them," Voldemort echoed throughout this strange location above Godric's Hollow. Snape snickered gleefully as he disappeared into the darkness somewhere.

Small shrieks emitted from where Snape had left, and as he returned he replied, "Shall we kill them now, or in the presence of Potter? I daresay that those two old witches mean nothing to him."

Voldemort seemed to ponder that for a moment, but then replied, "We shall finish them after the Weasley, but before Potter, just to show him that I have no problem killing my own sister, and my ex-fiancé."