Once again, a young woman found herself in contact with dust, and it was a lot of dust. Except on this occasion no sunlight at all shone through this musty old attic.
"Hermione, are you really sure you saw them up here?"
"I'm positive! And quit complaining, it won't make this task any easier."
"It was only a simple question, 'Mione!"
"Well, I have to say I've had enough of your simple-"
"WILL YOU TWO QUIT IT?"
Silence took over the room. "That's better," Ginny said exasperatedly. She began shifting the scrolls once more, and to her surprise and relief found what they all had been searching for, for the past half hour.
"Here it is," she said roughly, and the other two silently made their way to either side of her, so as to take a look at her discovery.
"That's it," Hermione said, pointing at the map. "It's got all of Europe on there, and you tap your wand on the places you want to see in more detail. Here," she continued, and she withdrew her wand, tapped the tiny label of United Kingdom, and they watched the piece of parchment.
Almost as though a hand was moving across the map, Europe disappeared as England, Ireland, Wales, and Scotland promptly appeared in its place.
"Brilliant," Ron whispered. "Let's take it down into the kitchen."
The trio coughed their way down the ladder, dusting themselves off as they went. Ginny, the last to reach the floor, folded it up and it closed off the dark opening of the stained ceiling. "Glad we're out of there," she said as she coughed.
Ron nodded, though a few choking coughs cut off his words. Dizzily they all made it downstairs. Hermione spread out the map on the kitchen table, and after being rolled up for who knows how long, it lay miraculously flat. "This is some map," Hermione said, her eyes glittering with excitement.
Ron shook his head, "It's only a map, Hermione. Well, a magical one, but I don't see the big deal." Hermione gave him a look of I-know-something-you-don't-know and tapped the map again. Lengthy paragraphs appeared to ripple across the old parchment. Ginny read the first one to herself:
Your journey is a long one. Lost will be found, yet hardships you will not escape. What you seek is not the hardship you shall encounter; it is one on its own. Hardship is a diverse term. Be wary of the helpful, they too have lost and been lost. Have faith in the unlikely; they have unlikely answers. Have faith in yourselves; you shall conquer.
And the rest of the paragraphs had information about the makers of the map, but Ginny didn't go on to read that far. What could all of that mean?
Apparently Ron was thinking the same thing. "Hermione, none of that made sense." Hermione scoffed. "Of course you wouldn't understand it." Ginny blushed and looked at her feet. "Well, Hermione . . . you could still answer his question. After all, er, it was only a question." Ginny hoped against hope that Hermione wouldn't notice that Ginny was really intent on hearing the answer too.
"Well," Hermione started, looking at Ginny with a funny look on her face, "It means when we go looking for him, we have to be careful."
"Well why couldn't it just say that?" Ron asked. "It would have saved space." Hermione looked ready to throw something back at him (words, of course), but she saw Ginny ready to roll her eyes and decided against it.
"I – I don't know. Ron." She seemed like she was struggling to say these words. She smiled tightly and promptly changed the subject. "So . . . where do we start?"
"Let's look at our list," Ginny suggested, eager to keep things out of deep water. "Here, we have Malfoy Manor. We won't need to go out that way, will we?" Ron and Hermione shook their heads. "Okay, I'll cross that one off then." She did, and then looked at the next one. "Riddle House." They all looked at each other.
"Even though I really don't fancy going there," Ron said, visible chills running down his spine, "We have to look anyway. Do we even know where it is, though?" Hermione shook her head, "But we can try the map." She sat down in front of it. She closed her eyes, waited a few seconds, and tapped the map with her wand. A wave of new color came over the parchment and it showed a small town, rolling hills almost jumping out at them.
"How do you do that?" Ron asked, extremely irritated.
You'd think he would be used to it by now, Ginny thought.
"Wouldn't you like to know," Hermione replied, studying the map. Ron groaned, "Urgh, yes! That's precisely why I asked!"
"I found Riddle's house," Hermione said, ignoring Ron. "It says so in its caption." Sure enough, they all looked at a large manor, derelict with missing tiles from the roof, boarded windows, and wild tangled ivy covering the brick. Riddle House, the caption said. When Ron and Hermione began to talk about something, Ginny paid no attention. Her eyes were following a tiny snake slithering up the lawn of Riddle House. Nothing else in the map was moving.
The snake lengthened and spelled two words in a loopy, connected cursive. Not here.
It winked right at her, and slinked up into the house through a crack in a window.
"Ginny? Were you listening to a thing I was saying to you?" Ginny snapped her attention to her brother, who looked annoyed. Ginny blushed. "Sorry, no. But I don't think it is Riddle House."
The other two looked at her, puzzled. "Why not?" asked Hermione. "If you'd been listening, Ron and I have been discussing how it seems the ideal place." Ginny snorted. "You mean you agreed?" Hermione blushed this time.
"I'm sorry, Hermione. I didn't mean that. It's just . . . well . . . there was a snake, on the map. It said 'Not here'. I dunno why, but I think it's telling the truth." Ginny bit her lip, and waited for them to tell her she was crazy.
"You're crazy, Gin," Ron said. "What snake are you talking about? There's no snake in here." He looked around the floor to prove his point. Ginny shook her head, and pointed to the map even though the snake was already gone. "It was on the map. It slithered back into the house."
"Well of course it did, it's trying to mislead you!" Ron said loudly, then slapped his forehead. "Now I'm arguing with you about something that wasn't even there." Ron shook his head sadly and looked at his sister. He sank in his chair.
"Ronald Weasley! I am not lying to you! Do you think I would lie about something at a time like this? I came to you! I know Harry is alive, and I intend to find him! We leave in the morning!" With that Ginny ran up the many staircases to her bedroom to cry in shame of yelling at the only two friends she had, who were trying to help her.
Around six o'clock Ginny smelled the scent of a roast wafting up through the ventilation. She felt quite hungry, not having eaten since her small breakfast this morning, and so she washed her face of dry tears and looked in the mirror. I have to stop crying like this. We're going to find him! Cheer up!
She straightened her cardigan and opened the door slowly. She tiptoed down the stairs without reason to, as though she didn't want to make her dinner appearance too obvious. The smell tempted her with every step, though, and her pace quickened.
When she pushed open the kitchen door silently, she saw Ron and Hermione standing by the oven talking.
"Should I go up and get her? She was pretty upset, and I'd like to apologize." Ron looked sincerely sorry for having doubted his sister. Hermione shook her head, "No, she probably wants to talk about it, like us women usually do with things, and have a good cry, that sort of thing. You wouldn't like it."
"It's alright," Ginny said loudly, causing the other two to jump slightly, "You don't have to worry about fetching me, the roast has done that for you." She smiled gently.
Ron and Hermione both seemed to sigh with relief, silently thanking the roast in the oven. "Oh Ginny, I'm really sorry about earlier – "
"Ron, you're scaring me," Ginny giggled. "You haven't been so eager to give an apology since – well, you've never been so eager." To Ginny's surprise, Hermione started cracking up like she'd never laughed so hard in her life. Ron just stared at her, chuckled nervously, and went to check on the roast. Meanwhile, Ginny walked over to Hermione, who looked up, and when she saw the look on Ginny's face ("What the hell is wrong with you?") she started laughing even harder.
When Hermione seemed calm enough to hold a fork without killing anyone, the three sat down to eat, and for the first time, Ginny was shoveling down her food faster than her brother. When the other two stopped eating, she noticed and said out of the corner of her full mouth, "Whad?" As she finished chewing, she managed, "I haven't barely eaten anything all day! And don't you dare look at me like that, Ron, or you won't be able to eat much without getting a stomach ache, and you sure as hell know why." Ron quickly got back to his food and seemed to see if he could match her pace.
Full, content, and glassy eyed, they sat at the table in silence for several minutes. Hermione, having gotten tired of Ron tapping his plate with his fork, summoned it and said, "Well, best get a good night's sleep, then." They all nodded in agreement, somber-like, and one by one, they left the table to retreat to a, no doubt, difficult night. Ginny was last, almost hesitant, and then resigned to following the couple.
Strange hushed voices surrounded his pounding head. Pounding, throbbing, palpitating - whichever way you could describe the feeling of having your heart beating in you head. He peeled the curtains being his eyelids open, and the light penetrated his being with such force that he knew the only sensible thing was to shut them again.
The voices – it suffocated him. The pain – it blinded him. And the light – naturally, it confused him. Harry Potter had been locked away into an isolated building that he knew not the exact location of, and hadn't seen the light of day in six long years. Or the light of his day, for that matter.
Why, all of the sudden, he was feeling extreme longing toward his love, he did not know. Some four years ago (all a prisoner had was time, and the ability to count and contemplate its span) he told himself that he had lost her, and vice versa. He faced the truth that his captor must have been tipped off, to know that killing him would not hurt him or others the most. He must be held in confinement; in place that no one would think to look for a hero, never to return, leaving the ones he loved in wonder of his condition – or lack of it. The only way to truly get to him was to take him away from his loved ones, and leave him with the feeling of dread that he's not there for him, even though he's alive.
But love was the largest part of Harry. Without it, he was nothing. If his mother hadn't died for him, he would be nothing. Without having had Ginny there for him during his hardest and longest hour, he would be nothing. Now that he didn't, he felt like nothing.
Yet why did he feel it now?
Harry thought immediately with dawning concentration that they would come looking for him. He felt so happy he might laugh, something he didn't remember how to do. But then he became angry. What if they were caught? He couldn't let something happen to Ginny, or Ron or Hermione. If they came here, something bad would definitely happen.
"Nothing bad will happen."
Harry's head lifted up off of his shoulder and opened his eyes. He was quite alone in the room, and even while he tried not to breathe so as to hear, all to be heard was the slow drip-drop of water flowing from the ceiling. I've finally gone mad, he thought. First it was ghosts that don't . . . well, ghosts that don't 'exist' per say . . . now I'm hearing voices again . . .
Harry let himself hang on his chains and he felt like his hands would disconnect from his forearms. Straightening up, he saw the glint of light again. It flickered like someone was trying to burn him with glass, as though he was some sort of insect. He squinted and tried to figure out what it was, but to no avail. There was no source of light, except for the thin line under the door; outside in the corridor were torches lining the hall. He was surprised he remembered this.
No one had pity on him at all. They didn't give him any way to escape, nor any way to end the madness, and his life. He yelled out in agony, cursing a dead man – dead creature – for tearing the world apart for the sake of evil and power. He was gone, and still he left people powerless.
A burning shaft of October light penetrated sleeping Ginny's eyes. When she tried to open them, the light was so blinding she had to shut them.
Finally making her way downstairs into the kitchen, she found Ron drinking a mug of coffee, which normally he didn't do, and reading the Daily Prophet, also something that was out of the ordinary. Ginny couldn't remember him taking a second glance at a newspaper himself since her third year, the year they're school had hosted the Triwizard Tournament.
"Ron?" Ginny said in almost a whisper. Ron looked up as though she had shouted. "Yeah?" he replied, looking at her nervously. He gulped. Ginny smiled weakly. "Don't be nervous, Ron. I'm sure we're going to find him. We have to." Ginny's voice cracked and she folded her arms across her chest. Ron set his coffee down without thoughts that it might spill over, and leapt down to the ground beside his sister, who now had curled into the fetal position. Together they sat, rocking slowly as Ginny sobbed worries into the air that Ron could not decipher; he had no idea what she was talking about. Still, he said things like "It'll be alright" and "Nothing bad's going to happen", because that's what Harry would encourage them all whenever something bad was sure to happen. For lack of control of himself, a tear escaped his eye and he pulled Ginny closer.
Neither of them noticed, but Hermione opened the door to the kitchen slowly, smiled sadly and happily at the same time, and shut it silently, giving brother and sister time together before they set off on their journey.
A/N: Phew, sorry this chapter took so long. I had started it sometime in early January I think, but almost forgot about it until I started reading fan fictions again. Even so, it's still taken me a few weeks to get past my horrible writer's block and finish this chapter for all you guys.
I admit, I considered abandoning it once again, but 1) I knew I couldn't do that to people who honestly complimented and enjoyed my writing, 2) I almost always finish anything I start, and 3) I love this story line! Actually, it started out that I wanted to write a songfic to "Little Wing" by the Corrs, centered on Ginny and her young daughter, and Harry was 'gone'. But by the end of 'Chapter One', I was writing up more of a longer plot that I had to continue.
So, I dunno if this sudden burst of inspiration will continue much longer . . . maybe if I get tons of reviews it will spark my imagination . . .
And of course, many thanks to you guys who have already reviewed and who continue to do so! You do not go unnoticed!
g.e.o.