Disclaimer – I don't own anything, so don't sue me.
Ginny rubbed her eyes and checked her watch, having to blink a few times to be sure of the time. Almost three. She opened her eyes wide and tried to focus on the parchment she had been poring over all night. She leaned back and unclipped her hair, itching her scalp. She went into the kitchen and put on the kettle. Bitsy, who followed Ginny between her apartment and headquarters, entered the kitchen silently.
"Is Ginny still up?" She sighed.
"Yes. I'm still trying to understand this spell." She groaned. "Trying and failing. I didn't mean to wake you, Bitsy."
"House elves is light sleepers, Ginny, as Bitsy has told you at least a hundred times." Bitsy commented lightly. The elf's face was free of make-up and she had smeared cold cream on and rolled her hair in curlers before she went to bed some hours ago. In the month since her coronation, Ginny had come to love the vain little elf, who designed all her gowns and accessories and who could only wear her stupid little pink toga. She had come to appreciate her as more of a roommate and friend than a servant, which suited Bitsy fine.
"You're a goddess, Bitsy." Ginny said, pushing herself onto the counter. She jumped when she heard a knock on the door. "Am I hallucinating?" She asked cautiously.
"Bitsy will finish in here while you get the door. Tell Bitsy if it is someone who will not see her."
"I will, that." Ginny padded across the kitchen and then across the wide front room to the front door of her apartment. She pulled open the door. "Do you have any idea what time it is?" Draco grinned sheepishly and lurched forward, blasting Ginny with powerful breath. "Ah, at another charity benefit at the church."
"I believe the vicar may have spiced the punch." Draco joked, stumbling in.
"Bitsy was just making some tea, would you care to join us or have you had quite enough to drink?"
"Funny how the thirstier you get the drunker you are." He collapsed at her table, his forehead thunking onto her papers. She cleaned them up quickly, sliding them back into the folder.
"I'll say." She took the mugs from Bitsy's tray and motioned for the elf to sit also. She went back for her own mug and reappeared, climbing onto the chair loaded with Ginny's old textbooks for her express use. Ginny grinned at the little elf, her face serious as her toes brushed against Ginny's second year DADA someone near the middle of the stack. "Drink up, Draco. And I daresay you'll need some of Bitsy's hangover remedy in the morning, if she's willing to make it yet again for you."
"I was just going over siege plans with Linsey nearby and I figured you were up to the same sort of thing and might want company."
"And it would be difficult to get home in one piece using any sort of magical transportation." Ginny grinned, yawning halfway through.
"Can you ever forgive me?" He said sleepily.
"I might, if you agree to go to bed the second we finish our
tea."
"Bitsy is finished. She is going to her room." Bitsy declared, sliding off of the books onto the floor.
"Good night." Ginny called, draining her own cup. Draco did the same, clearing the cups and managing to drop them both on the way to kitchen. Ginny finished clearing up and entered her bedroom to find Draco spread eagle across it, managing to take the whole thing up. She climbed onto the loveseat across the room, pulling a throw over herself, with the words of the spell going over and over in her mind as it had night after night as she fell into uneasy sleep as false dawn lit the windows.
Draco and Ginny often went out for coffee, in preparation for the siege in just under a month, sorting through stacks of parchment in, ironically, a small Muggle café a few blocks away from Ginny's apartment. It began to rain as they packed their things and kissed goodbye, Draco off to headquarters and Ginny off to the Burrow for dinner with her parents, the first evening she would spend away from her work in a month.
Molly welcomed her at the door. Ginny hadn't seen much of her parents since she moved away. She had brushed the apartment off as being something she could afford since she had lied about starting to sell the many pieces of art that remained locked in her Gringotts vault. Bitsy, after an awkward surprise visit, was on loan from a friend from Hogwarts so that she could continue to paint and afford the apartment that she didn't have time to clean.
Harry was in the kitchen and Ginny greeted him warmly with a kiss. Although they hadn't seen much of each other in the two months since graduation, it was mostly because Harry had entered Auror training mere days after he had left Hogwarts. He was able to make it to the apartment once a week at best, giving plenty of notice in advance because of his strict schedule.
It was only Ron, Hermione, Harry and her parents that night. Ron was still trying to earn acceptance into the Auror Academy that Harry and Hermione had been mere shoe-ins to. In the meantime, he was working in Flourish and Blotts to pay the rent on the apartment that he shared with Hermione and Harry. The strain on the threesome now that they couldn't be together in school was minimal, especially now that Hermione and Ron were dating, and may have made it to first base. Dinner was quiet and candle-lit. Ginny and Hermione went out into the back garden to stretch out across lawn chairs while Harry and Ron cleaned up. Molly and Arthur had gone for the post dinner walks that were now a part of their empty nest routine.
"I'm thinking of dropping out of Auror Academy." Hermione said, lighting up a cigarette.
"Those are bad for you." Ginny remarked.
"School stress. It got to me, especially since everyone back home is now quite addicted to it, unlike when I was actually hanging out with them when I was eleven years old." Hermione shrugged.
"I bet Ron hates it." Ginny giggled. Hermione cackled.
"To such a degree it almost makes it worth it to smoke until I've got lung cancer and small fetuses. Aren't you going to comment on the other thing?"
"Why?" Ginny shrugged. "It's your choice, and you've always made responsible decisions in the past. You must have a good reason."
"I want to work in the Muggle Integration field for awhile." Hermione admitted.
"Raising Muggle awareness of wizards? That's so below an Auror it hurts, you won't get paid jack."
"Not if you go to college and graduate school. Than, it's not just a single department job. Which is a joke because it's just a bunch of Mudbloods in denial about their stations." Hermione winced. "I just said that, I know. But if you go through school and get the degrees, it's possible to function within every department with inservice training on how their department might affect Muggle lives and how to make the impact minimal. We also educate the wizarding world about Muggle affairs to better understand the world outside ours." She shrugged. "It's less about bringing Muggles into the wizarding world as to make sure that their lives aren't touched by our affairs. The Muggle Integration department is a bunch of idealistic morons who are like beauty queens constantly bleating about world peace."
"Tell me how you really feel." Ginny joked.
"I just feel like an Auror is the hero of the wizarding world. The job that I hope to fill, raises our people's Muggle awareness, so that maybe Aurors won't have to be the heroes around Lord Voldemort, you know? An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, right?"
"Sure." Ginny shrugged.
"And right now, we're trying to cure something that can be treated with prevention. I guess I just feel like I always do the practical thing, and one more Auror, though I would make a helluva an Auror, seems like something unpractical, which isn't me at all."
"It sounds like you've thought this out a lot, Hermione. I say full speed ahead. Have you talked to Ron or Harry?"
"Not yet. I knew that you would listen objectively though, Gin, so I thought that I'd run the idea by you first." Hermione finished her cigarette and stubbed it out, looking over the sunset, the rain hadn't extended as far as the Burrow, something Ginny was grateful for. The screen door slammed out front and the girls climbed to their feet to greet Molly and Arthur. The boys were finishing up and Harry wiped his hands.
"We should all probably run, Hermione and I have class early in the morning. And Ron has work." They all disappeared through the fireplace.
"Yeah, I have work that I need to do back at the apartment. I gave Bitsy the night off, so I simply have to clean." Ginny said eagerly, making a mad leap for the fireplace. She barely saw her parents waving, looking as suspicious as they always did in her presence.
"How's Hogwarts?" Ginny bobbed an 11 – month – old Haley on her lap, making faces at her.
"Ball." Haley said insistently, as she had been for the past hour. Although she had an extensive vocabulary, and could walk quite well, she still preferred to wander around on her knees and use her three favorite words, "mum", "ball" and "shit".
"Good. I'm just working on my lesson plans and being the world's greatest mother." Blaise said, handing Haley a sippy cup. "She only gets bottles at night now and it's really pissing her off."
"No." Haley waved the cup at her mother, frowning. She banged the cup on the counter. "No." She said to Ginny. They were having lunch at headquarters, the first time Ginny had been able to see her friend in person since the beginning of the summer.
"Ginny, I know that you're queen and everything, but can I tell you something, as a friend?" Blaise asked quietly, glancing around.
"Sure." Ginny picked up the baby and bounced her gently in the air. "Let's go for a walk outside."
"Shit." Was the gleeful reaction. Blaise rolled her eyes.
"This is what I get for bringing her up with teenagers. Although, I think Madam Pomfrey, who watches her during the day, may have taught her most of her foul language." She sighed. Ginny laughed.
"It's endearing, really." They spread a blanket under a tree, Haley shuffled on her knees, wavering between the leafy shade and the warm summer sun. "So, what's up?"
"You're going to think, I'm crazy, and you'll probably want to kill me, which I suppose is okay if Haley is looked after-"
"Blaise." Ginny looked at her friend with wild eyes. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm kind of enjoying just being a teacher and a mother. I don't know if I want to be involved in all this crap right now. I don't have the mark yet. Why couldn't I just-?"
"You can never just… you've already given your servitude to the Dark Lord. You're in it for life unless you plan on overthrowing the Dark Lord, and if you are, I don't want to hear anything about it, understand? You're my friend, Blaise, but you can't bring this up with me, because it's treason, and anything that hurts the Dark Lord hurts me. I'll do my best to keep your involvement minimal in the siege, but I don't know what to tell you otherwise."
"Thank you." Blaise said softly. They watched Haley for a moment and she looked at them, grinning. "But can you understand, can you tell me that much, Gin?"
"Yes." Ginny said, looking down. "Yes, I can."
"Shit!" Haley cried.
"Ok, one more time before bed." Ginny told Voldemort who was looking worn. It was ten 'o clock in the morning on September 1st. They had three days to get perfect the spell that was mediocre at best after three months. August was spent mostly with three hours of sleep per night. They kneeled with their wands pointed to the ground, it was an unusual spell, making it so difficult. The theory had taken a month before she was ready, another month of theory to work in their variations, the final month spent practicing the spell with often interesting, though incorrect, results. It was a spell used mostly by raiders in ancient times. The problem was, all the Death Eaters couldn't be there at the origination of the spell and so they couldn't physically encompass them into the spell.
Queen Virginia and Lord Voldemort requested the bounds of their spell and then the group they wished to include, she could feel the magic touching the brand they talked about, it made her arm itch horribly. They combined their magic and then spread it out around headquarters, they cut the resource from themselves and Ginny stood, soaked in sweat and teetering a little. "Okay, Blaise!" She called, taking a gulp of water from her water bottle. Blaise walked through the open door of headquarters.
"Normal." She did a little dance on the threshold.
"Walk through for a little while just to see if it affects you anywhere." Ginny called. Blaise appeared a few minutes later and shrugged. Ginny and Tom exchanged looks and then Ginny shrugged. "I don't even care at this point. I haven't slept in 26 hours. I deserve at least two before we try again." Voldemort nodded and they walked into the house. Ginny groaned as a cool sensation washed over and simply sat on the floor to sleep. It took her ten minutes. But she wasn't worried, it would take anyone with a dark mark hours to investigate why they were moving so slowly.
"That's it!" Ginny picked up a porcelain lawn ornament and shattered it against the wall. "I've had a half hour of sleep and this isn't getting any better. Fuck the siege, I'd go for a decent night's sleep over world domination at this point."
Blaise watched them, rolling around in the ground next to the tree and shut her book with a sigh, checking on Haley briefly before standing and walking over to them.
"Virginia, my love, I know what the problem is." She said softly, looking slightly nervous as the crazy looking, red- eyed queen wheeled to look at her. "Seeing as you're inches from insanity it might seem crazy to define it, but you're trying the same thing over and over expecting different results."
"We've had different results," Ginny said testily, "Just none of them have been the right ones."
"Well, instead of identifying the Death Eaters in the spell, identify everybody whom you haven't given the Dark Mark to. And be careful that no body tries to get a Dark Mark tattoo and walk through and have it work, okay?" She smiled sweetly. "Just humor me, you have nothing to lose."
"Okay." The Dark Lord said hoarsely. "Why not?"
Blaise and Ginny did a victory dance before Ginny collapsed on September 3rd. It took Ginny 15 seconds. Blaise was dancing for 20 minutes.
Ginny slept for twenty hours, next to the snoring Dark Lord. She awoke at 1 in the afternoon, sliding out from under the covers and walking to the kitchen. Blaise had gone back to Hogwarts with Haley after she had fallen asleep. Draco was making himself a ham sandwich, quietly in discussion with Bellatrix Lestrange. They both stood at her arrival, bowing deeply.
"If you truly loved your queen, you would make me a sandwich. I'm ravenous." She said softly, stretching. The others winced as everything in her body seemed to snap and pop. Bellatrix stood to make her a sandwich. "What were you talking about?" Ginny asked, collapsing at the table, her face buried in her arms. She looked up just in time to see them exchanging looks.
"Just plans for the siege, queen. We're both on the initial force." Bella said.
"I'm aware. I'm proud to say I know this siege in and out." Ginny said.
"Do you think it's a wise idea?" Bellatrix asked casually. Too casually.
"I do what my lord tells me." Ginny shrugged. "To tell you the truth, I've been laboring so at making it function correctly, I haven't actually thought about what we're doing as much as I should have perhaps. Do you have concerns?" She raised her eyebrows as they exchanged a second glance. She didn't like being left out of their secret, and a little bud of jealousy uncurled in her chest. "I order you to tell me what your concerns are." She said harshly. "I will hear them without any repercussions to you." She added as an afterthought, somewhat sheepishly. There was still a bit of reluctance in the air as Bella plunked a sandwich in front of her. She bit into it.
"To tell you the truth, the more I think about it, I don't see the intentions behind the siege. On one hand, it will give us more followers, but not necessarily loyal ones. Starving out future Death Eaters, hardly seems wise. And why occupy so many Death Eaters in one place for a long period of time when they could be on the front lines against the ministry in actual political legislation?" Ginny said through a full mouth, she swallowed. Draco smiled and used his thumb to wipe mayonnaise from her upper lip. She blushed and bowed her head.
"Exactly. Those are our concerns, but as always we support the Dark Lord." He said softly, still looking at her with his warm eyes.
"But it seems as though we're wasting our time on his personal vendetta against Dumbledore, who can gain great strength on the outside when we pull such a bold move against the heart of the wizarding world." Bella looked at her nails. "I loved Hogwarts. It was my haven and one of my reasons for becoming a Death Eater. For the companionship provided within the Slytherin common room and the love granted to me by the Dark Lord where previously I had known none. It is in my blood to hate Muggles and what they do to our world, but this comes second to the society I know and understand and fit into." The others listened with quiet awe, her rough voice soothing.
"Ditto." Ginny laughed. "But the thing is, we follow the Dark Lord and he loves us, and that is why we endure the torture, the struggles and personal grievances. Because there is the underlying importance of love, that is why we remain loyal." She was in her own thoughtful world, and didn't see the final glance that Bellatrix and Draco exchanged.
The sunlight was warm on Ginny's skin as she stretched out on a blanket, dozing after a thoroughly enjoyable picnic lunch and an equally enjoyable post-picnic shag. Draco was climbing rocks and being manly. She watched him through heavy eyelids. He collapsed on the blanket next to her, she rolled onto her arm to look at him.
"Hi." She said softly.
"Hey, you." He whispered. "Anyone ever tell you you're beautiful?"
"Not often enough." She giggled. It felt good, laying out naked in the September sun with Draco. They were tucked into a back corner of Malfoy Estate, where no one would happen upon them. She felt carefree and content for the first time in months.
"Well, you are. Can you imagine how good-looking our children are going to be?" He said softly, shaking his hair back from his face.
"Only if they follow me in looks, but it's not a far reach." She grinned at him and then chewed on her lip. "God, we would have beautiful children." She said, her eyes filling. "And imagine our wedding. Our parents glaring at each other. Ron trying to attack you in the middle of the ceremony." She snorted.
"I'd rather imagine our wedding night." He waggled his eyebrows at her and she laughed shakily, still crying. "Hey, hey." He wiped away her tears. "Why the waterworks, my love? Don't you want that?"
"I want nothing more." She cried. "But it will never happen for us, Draco."
"The Dark Lord is old… you can retire and we'll shack up." He said desperately.
"Everyone knows he wants to become immortal, Draco, and if I know Tom, he'll succeed. And I've bound myself to this and -" Ginny shook her head.
"I hate him." Draco said bitterly.
"Don't say that, Draco, I don't want to think I've turned you away from this." Ginny said quietly.
"It has nothing to do with what it did in the beginning. It's all about the Dark Lord getting his jollies off and Death Eaters providing the man power for it. Where is the Anti-Muggle legislation that was promised for years before he went out of power? Every attack, every single thing we have done has been for the Dark Lord's personal benefit. Azkaban… more people. Hogwarts, Hogsmeade… he hates Dumbledore. What do Harry Potter and Dumbledore have to with phasing Muggles out of the wizarding world?" Draco asked angrily. "Very little."
Ginny didn't answer, she just stared at Draco, his expression stormy. She reached out and rubbed the frown lines with her fingers until his face softened.
"Our first little girl has blonde ringlets and a serious attitude. She bosses around everyone, but she has your good nature and so everyone loves her. Our second is a little boy, and you get stretch marks on your breasts that you rub cream on to make them disappear even though I make sure I kiss them every time we make love. We know he'll be as good a seeker as his father, even though his hair is a flaming Weasley red, because when he's a baby he reaches out and grabs onto your fingers and squeezes them, so gently, but enough to keep you there. I'm starting to get fat by the time our third one arrives-" Draco broke down then and they laid facing each other, foreheads meeting in a silent prayer, though Ginny wasn't sure exactly what to pray for, knowing only that that the area of gray had expanded to encompass her whole world.
Bitsy was dying Ginny's hair the Muggle way, and Ginny wasn't sure exactly why, because it smelled to all hell. The bathroom still smelled as Ginny dried her hair with her wand and stared at the foreign looking face in the mirror, surrounded by midnight black hair. "And this will wash out?" Ginny asked again, glancing back at the elf who was getting the last of the dye out of the pink marble.
"Ginny worries too much." The elf said simply, pushing her to the closet to put her into yet another ornate gown.
"I don't understand why I have to dress up for this. No one is going to see me, and if they do they're supposed to recognize me, black hair, you know. But they will recognize me." She fussed, looking at herself in the mirror as Bitsy looked exasperated and tried to pin the dress into place.
Finally, Bitsy tied her hair up in an elaborate knot and went back into the closet. "No makeup?" Ginny groaned. Bitsy came back.
"No makeup." She said grumpily. "Could not cover crying anyway." Ginny blushed and shifted uncomfortably. Bitsy held up what she held in hands and waved it side to side. "No one recognizes Ginny." It was a netting that hooked around Ginny's chin and ears and then stretched over her face to attach to a clip at the base the knot that rose at the top of her head. Ginny looked in the mirror, she could see fine, the netting hid who she was, but she didn't have the squashed features of someone who was about to rob a convenience store. She stepped into her heels and walked out of the room, after a moment she stuck her head back in.
"Thank you, Bitsy." She said softly, hoping that Bitsy could see the apologetic smile she was offering.
"Bitsy is going back to the flat. She will not wait up." Bitsy said pertly, where she was already starting to clean. Ginny closed the door and met the Dark Lord in the corridor.
"Dumbledore just left the grounds." Voldemort said as Ginny reached up and grabbed his arm and they stood regally on a balcony over the initial force. She waved at the hooded figures, and they looked up at her. "Are you ready?" She looked over and met his cold eyes. "My queen?"
As the spell spread from where Ginny and Voldemort knelt on the ground near the lake, there was a murmur beginning to grow in the castle, they were probably seeing the crowd of Death Eaters at the gates to the grounds, waiting for Voldemort to signal their entrance. When they stood stiffly, after nearly an hour of calculations on the ground, Voldemort laid two fingers on the Dark Mark standing out against her arm in the moonlight. She bit her lip as pain shot through her arm and the Death Eaters began to flood into the grounds. Ginny walked quickly and quietly towards Hogsmeade, trying to get away before the camps were made, she turned back once to see Blaise running out, supposedly to check on what was going on, but really to see if the spell had worked. Draco, as planned, picked her up with his magic and threw her back inside. It had worked. It had actually worked so far, but after this afternoon, she wasn't so sure this was a cause for jubilation.
She took all her clothes off at headquarters and put on comfy Muggle clothes, painting at the apartment, dark angry strokes not really taking any sort of shape. Bitsy watched her quietly, drinking tea and working on her own drawings, new designs. Bitsy stirred the tea with her pinky. "It is his eye." She said suddenly, with genuine fear in her voice. Ginny shivered and dropped the paintbrush onto her towel. It was true. She had just painted the Dark Lord's eye, red and staring. She was absolutely hypnotized. A knock on the door jarred her, and she pushed her hair under a hat before she answered, cursing herself for not washing it out right away.
She opened the door to her mother's urgent face. Molly Weasley heaved a great sigh before embracing her daughter. Ginny grunted as the air was quickly forced out of her lungs. "Mother, what are you doing?" She choked out.
"Hogwarts is under attack." Molly said.
"What can I do?" Ginny asked immediately, trying to look concerned and frantic. Molly reeled back for a moment and there was a sudden pause. Ginny had an epiphany. "You were checking on me." She swallowed and tears filled her eyes.
"Ginny, I-" Molly looked confused. She reached for her daughter.
"You were making sure that I wasn't attacking Hogwarts!" Ginny pulled away from her mother. "You don't trust me at all, do you?"
"As circumstances were, but you're here."
"You shouldn't have to check, Mother. I thought you were here wanting my help. I am the fastest besides Dumbledore, maybe, I could be an asset to the Order, but instead you are all so high and mighty that you wouldn't accept my help because of something outside my control when I was eleven years old." Ginny said tersely fighting back tears.
"Ginny, I never- we need your help now." Molly tried to sound consoling.
"At this point, I'd rather not be involved in something that inevitably involves my humiliation and deception." Ginny closed the door in her mother's face. Was she upset that her mother came to make sure she wasn't out setting camp up in the lawn of Hogwarts? Not really. Was this the perfect excuse not to have to see her family anymore? Yes. She had been aware for a little while that she needed to separate her emotions from her family and friends outside her kingdom. The time would come after the siege for blood traitors and Mudbloods to be cleansed from their world. At least that was what Tom had been saying, perhaps sensing some of the unease around his Death Eaters of late. It had given her some food for thought though.
What was Tom truly thinking about nowadays? Revenge and personal vendettas? Or a long plot that inevitably fulfilled all his promises to his Death Eaters? She wondered to herself also what her reasoning was. She didn't hate Mudbloods nearly as much as she thought that she should as queen of the Death Eaters. It was about power to her, and her easiest way of achieving it was this alliance with the Dark Lord. She sat down to sketch Bitsy, who was snoring on the little four poster Ginny had conjured up. The light sleep that Bitsy was always going on about was pure bullshit, Bitsy never woke up unless Ginny made a whole lot of noise.
As she rounded out the sketch she turned the page and Draco floated to the top of her mind. Probably sitting around with other members of the first to invade Hogwarts, drinking a beer behind the Dark Lord's back. They would see anyone coming a mile away anyway, she didn't care if they got a little drunk on the first night of a long nine months if everything went to plan. Draco. Was being Queen Virginia of the Dark Lord worth everything that she could have with him? She wasn't sure.
Ginny spat into the toilet and waited for the next wave of nausea to bring up the breakfast she wondered she had bothered to eat. She bumped against the ceramic rim and winced at her sore chest. Draco came in to rub her back. "Touch of the flu?"
"It must be." Ginny took the coffee he offered and leaned back against the toilet. "I haven't actually thrown up in… awhile. Not from being ill anyway."
"Are you running a temperature?" He pressed his hand against her forehead and then shrugged. "No fever. I don't know, Gin. You've been puking every day this week."
"At least it hasn't made my afternoons bad. Just sickness in the morning." She paused and looked at Draco. "Morning sickness." She said softly. "It couldn't be." She turned and vomited violently into the toilet. Draco scooped her hair back and scratched her head gently until she was able to wash her mouth out with water and walk with rubbery legs back to bed.
"You don't think… do you?" Draco asked, staring openly at her abdomen, which contained a still churning stomach.
"I'll have to get rid of it, Draco, you know that. If it is… but I don't know."
"When was the last time you were on the rag?" He asked scratching his face, and still gazing openly at her stomach. He dropped down so that her belly was at eye-level.
"About a week or so before the siege. I'll get a test, but you know what has to happen." She said mournfully. Draco finally looked up to meet her eyes.
"Would it be his?" He asked softly.
"No. I figure all the stuff he's been through and magical alteration would have rendered him sterile by now, so that even the Weasley fertility couldn't make an heir to the Dark Lord. Besides, the last time we… you know, was before the siege."
"If it is, if you are pregnant…" She winced, it was the first time either of them had said the word. "he doesn't come back from headquarters more than once a month. We could hide it."
"And then?" She asked angrily. "We don't know that yet, either, Draco. Just because he's only returned once since the beginning of the siege doesn't mean that it's going to become a pattern. Besides, no amount of disillusionment charms are going to disguise a big ol' preggers belly if he gets me naked." She frowned at him, but then her face softened considerably.
"Maybe if they continue to be attacked every day, and no one else learns the spell…" Draco said hopefully. "If you are…"
"If I am," Ginny agreed. The first month of the siege had been difficult at best. The Slytherins had left the castle and joined the Death Eaters within the first week. All other students were holding out so far. Dumbledore attacked the barrier every day, and the spell that Nott had been sure would take only a minute after the original groundwork, still took an hour everyday, and the Dark Lord was still the only one who could perform it. The initial force had retreated after three weeks and relief Death Eaters took a week. Draco would be there one week a month, but otherwise was free to sleep at Ginny's apartment. She couldn't participate in the siege, because of Harry, but she was kept posted daily from Voldemort and Blaise, incognito, described the already miserable conditions of Hogwarts.
The food stores were still going strong, but most students felt robbed of the outdoors, hovering near the windows constantly, faces pale from a month indoors. Blaise had taken to taking her class to the astrology tower and throwing open all the windows so that they could drink up the sunlight while she lectured. The common room was lonely without her students and although she had about ten first years from the other houses who had somehow managed to sneak in and slept around her room and in her bed, crying for their parents, she still remained lonely. She was spending her off hours with a Hufflepuff seventh year, which Professor McGonagall was watching from the sidelines, but had said nothing about.
Eric was quiet and good with Haley. They mostly talked in the empty common room. Professor Sprout occasionally stopping by to join them and raised her eyebrows at their relationship, but confessed to Blaise that she was a little jealous. "She actually told me, Gin, 'Elizabeth, you're young enough, the castle is in hiatus and I actually wish I had companionship on these lonely, fearful nights. Anyway, as far as the staff goes this is a pussy party, including Hagrid, especially Hagrid.'" Ginny had giggled and looked at her friend's big eyes, her blonde hair growing longer. She had plaited it and told Ginny she was going to bed soon. "My first years are going to be coming soon." She said softly. "These little girls. It can't be right. Our food will be gone by winter and all the plants in the greenhouse will have exhausted their crop value by then. They're just little girls, they don't understand politics. They don't understand why someone would starve them until they gave their lives away to him. Some of them are Muggle-born and they'll be killed if they try to join the ranks. I have to go…" Blaise's head disappeared from the fireplace with a pop, the only person granted access to a tiny fireplace located in a back storage room that no one knew was hooked up to the Floo network. Anyone else that attempted such a thing would end up with their head in a freezing snowy terrain in the middle of Antarctica. Linsey had held true to his word.
Harry was quiet when he and Ginny ate dinner at her apartment the next day. Although they had been introduced, lie in tow, Bitsy preferred to be away when Ginny had guests that she didn't know. Finally Ginny laid her silverware down impatiently.
"What's the matter? I didn't think my cooking was that bad." She said, smiling kindly at the brooding boy in front of her.
"Your mother has been after me again." He said softly, looking at his hands. "I just don't feel right about you and your parents on the outs." He confessed shrugging. Ginny sighed. The original little spat had turned into two full out yelling wars. After Molly and Ginny had thrown everything within in reach at each other the last time, Arthur had stepped in and they had been headed for a reconciliation before it had been painfully clear that Arthur was trying his hardest not to burst out with the accusations that Molly had been screaming minutes earlier. Ginny had left with the clear desire to never see them again, and had expressed it.
"I'm sorry that you're in the middle of this right now, honey, but I just can't. I'm sorry. I thought that maybe we would get along better when I wasn't living under the same roof, but that simply hasn't been the case."
"Yeah." Harry said. "I guess I just really wanted peace. I'm not really sure how to approach it really. I'm never really the peacemaker."
"You did good, and you can tell my mother that you tried but I'm a stubborn, spoiled little brat." Her mouth twitched in a smile. "And you're a good peacemaker. The best. You're going to save the world someday, Harry Potter." She told him.
"Don't remind me." He put his head in his hands.
"Ok, just because all your new teachers think that the sun shines out of your ass, and you're suddenly missing Snape because of it, doesn't mean that you don't deserve a little pampering." She wiggled her nose at him. "You need the confidence to defeat the Dark Lord." She crossed her fingers behind her back, as he wrinkled his nose and shook his head miserably. "Maybe you're not missing Snape."
"No. No, not really." He snorted and shook his head. "Merlin's beard, I know I'm supposed to mourn the death of an upstanding man or whatever, but seriously, I don't even a little bit. I was surprised, but never sad."
"Me either." She shrugged. "You could have knocked me over with a feather, but it would take a more forgiving woman than me to shed a tear. In fact, I think the tears shed over Severus Snape weren't enough to float a hat. I never want to be that way."
"Oh yeah, I want at least the amount it takes to float a hat." Harry said.
"I want the whole world to know. Like when the Pope or a queen dies. Flags at half-mast, you know, the works." Ginny sighed and looked Harry, who watched her with a puzzled expression. "What?"
"Nothing." He shook his head. "So, this is barely awful." He grinned at her, pointing with his fork to the pasta she had slaved over.
"Barely awful… is that supposed to be a compliment, Mr. Potter?" She was smiling all the same. "Those who do not appreciate the noodles of this house, will not be escorted past the welcome mat, which shall grow fangs against such treason…"
"Yeah, yeah…" Harry waved his hand and they broke down into giggles, staring across at each other. Ginny's smile disappeared and she was thoughtful for a moment. Whenever Voldemort chose this boy's fate, she would lead him to it. And as he grinned at her, eyes equally glowing with warmth and love, she felt her resolve flicker. She shook her head and smiled shakily. She was being foolish, Harry's life meant her reign, and that was what was most important. Wasn't it? She laid a hand against her stomach. Wasn't it?
Ginny opened her closet, looking for one of the many gowns that Bitsy had managed to stuff into it. It was purple, a color she couldn't normally wear, but the elf had somehow made it work. Bitsy watched her from Ginny's bed, where she was alternating between dozing and sketching on another lazy, rainy day. Ginny had to wear something for tonight's report before her subjects and that gown was the only one that billowed in front . She saw a flash of it and fought her arm past layers of cloth to the back, when her hand hit something silky and cold, she raised her eyebrows and pulled it out. It was Harry's invisibility cloak, she held it up and looked at Bitsy curiously.
"Harry comes last week for dinner and leaves it here." Bitsy yawned and picked up her pencil. "Will Draco be back for Valentine's day?" She asked. Ginny checked the calendar on the wall.
"Day of. Another student tried to kill themselves."
"And?" Bitsy asked.
"I'm beginning to think they're all just calls for help, that or I've totally overestimated Hogwarts. They've all tried to jump off the Astronomy Tower." Ginny chuckled in spite of herself. "I know it's horrible, but they just drift slowly to the ground and Death Eaters either swarm them or put them back where they came from."
"Any new joiners since the first one?" Bitsy asked. Ravenclaw had been the first to break, with two prefects leaving to join the Death Eaters. They had eaten gratefully and been sent back to headquarters to await instructions from the Dark Lord, who was still stuck at Hogwarts. He had not been witness to Ginny's growing stomach, except for the few days that he was able to get away for a few hours, and then only for meetings. Harry had been busy 24/7 with a crash course in the Auror Academy before being sent out into the field just a few weeks after it began. Ron had gotten his acceptance and began intensive training, too.
"Dennis and Colin Creevey left the school building, but they're Muggle-born, so they were killed." Ginny shrugged. "So we've gotten four people who weren't expected to try to join us after almost five and a half months. And we had to kill two of them. I can see how very productive this has been." She shook her head. "You know, sometimes I don't wonder if Draco is right, even though it drives me nuts to say so." She looked at the cloak and then pulled it over herself.
"Where is Ginny going?" Bitsy didn't look up from where she had resumed sketching.
"I'll be back in time for you to do that thing to my hair and that magic you do to make me look, not knocked up." Ginny said, reaching for the Floo on her mantelpiece. "Lilacs and Primroses!" She yelled as she was swept away into the fireplace.
She dusted herself off and made sure that her hair was kept under the cloak, it wouldn't do for a chunk of red hair to wander around the halls of Hogwarts. The halls were deserted, Ginny checked. It wasn't time for any meals, but it was a Friday afternoon, no one needed to be in classes. She wandered around a little bit, and then saw a first year running down the corridor, she was panting, and her little face was gaunt, her eyes big and dark, seeming to stand out impossibly on her face. When Ginny entered the Great hall with the little girl, she saw every student there had the appearance. She realized it was the face of starvation. She looked up to the top table for teachers, but they were all blended in with students, who were having roast pork. One pig to share among all of them. Professor Oscar, Blaise, stood and tucked the little girl under her arm, giving her plate to the little girl and looking around for people missing. She was too skinny, Ginny imagined she hadn't been eating almost at all, despite what she had told Ginny.
Professor McGonagall was feeding Haley off of her plate. The toddler was the only one who looked as though she had been properly nourished. She bounced her sippy cup on the table and McGonagall filled it with fruit juice from her wand, jiggling the 17-month-old distractedly. The wizened Professor looked up at Blaise. "I think she's about ready for her nap, Elizabeth." Blaise smiled down at the little girl and cooed.
"I think you may be right, Minerva, thank the gods." She laughed. Professor McGonagall put her on the floor and she toddled into Madam Pomfrey's arms.
"Ooh, Elizabeth, can I put her down?" She asked, looking smiling at Blaise.
"I might allow you to…" Blaise joked. Then she leaned into the two of them, Ginny had to walk almost into their midst to hear her. "I need a rest. This is my second day in a row of not eating anything at all. Minerva, I want you to eat all you can get a hold of, and then look for any furniture we might have missed, and make sure you take someone along. I'll take the house elves entrance to the lake to try my hand at fishing again tonight."
"Elizabeth." McGonagall said sharply. "We need you here, if you were to get hurt or killed…"
"You would have one less mouth to feed." Blaise squeezed the older women's arm and held her arms out to Haley, who gratefully climbed into them. "I'll put her down, Poppy, we can have a nap together."
When they were headed towards the dungeons a figure broke off from the shadows and touched Blaise gently on the shoulder. "Eric." She breathed. "Why weren't you at the meal?"
"I wasn't hungry." He lied. His face was gaunt and his eyes tired and wide. Ginny shuddered as the tall youth coughed, one that seemed to radiate in his chest.
"You're making yourself sick," Blaise complained, saying the password and letting them into the Slytherin common room, it was quiet and a little dusty, and oddly, completely devoid of furniture. Sleeping bags and mattresses littered the floor, and Blaise straightened them out as she picked her way across the room to her quarters.
"You're making yourself sick. Watching out for the younger ones. Why can't I be brave too?" Eric asked, pointing his wand at candles, which seemed to unravel into blankets. He tossed these over the mattresses that only had sheets across them.
"Because I don't want you to be brave." Blaise was putting Haley down in her own bed. "I want you to be safe." She kissed her daughter, who grabbed her by the ears and looked deeply at her mother.
"When you're old, you die." She said seriously. "And the feetprints go away." Ginny was baffled by the sudden upswing in vocabulary and philosophy.
"Don't worry about it love." Blaise whispered, kissing her daughter again and straightening. Haley held her arms out to Eric as well, who laid his lips against the toddler's head lovingly.
"The only girl her age aware of mortality." He said jokingly to Blaise, who sighed and shuddered a little.
"It creeps me out." She admitted with a shiver.
"Let's go take a shower." He butted his forehead against hers gently.
"Okay. Hold on though, I have to get my loofah." She joked and he disappeared inside and she looked at the girl on the bed. "Ginny, we're meeting Draco in the astronomy tower at nine o' clock tonight." Her eyes found the exact spot where Ginny was standing and she smiled sweetly. "Don't be late."