My Beloved Ferret
by StopBlowingHolesInMyShips/Krystallia

AN: IMPORTANT BULLETIN TO ALL READERS:
I have a few issues to pick with you!
-NONE of you has won either muffin yet! I'm very shocked ;) I expected more from you lot. The answer to Muffin 1 is PARADIGM OF UNCERTAINTY by Lori, which is posted on Schnoogle...If no one wins Muffin 2 by the time 12 is posted this weekend (Yes, this fic is over THIS WEEKEND) then I will eat that one too. No, you don't get a muffin for guessing what movie Ginny's kidnapper quotes from in this one...Too easy! lol.

-I also feel I must explain to you about Super-Prep. See, I promised my friend I would put her in one of my fics. When I rammed myself head-first into a plothole in this chapter, I decided to slip in Super-Prep, Super-Punk, and Billy-Goat in not only for my friends' sake, but also for the sake of the story and to provide comic relief after a string of chapters devoid of any humor whatsoever.
So if you think it's a little outrageous and over-the-top, it was meant to be. And it was so fun to write, you just may see her again. Especially because takes deep breath and seals mouth before she spoils anything else
Yes, all three of my superheroes are based off actual people. Super-Prep and Billy-Goat go to my school. Super-Punk does not. You don't get a muffin if you figure out who Super-Punk is even though I will give you a congrats. Yes, he is someone you know. Not personally, but you've heard of him.
And no, Super-Prep is not THAT preppy and annoying and I assure you that Billy-Goat's mum isn't a goat.

-I have also been told that Karissa's outfit is 'ridiculous'. Lol, it was meant to be. Karissa, oh, hrm, she's an interesting character. You'll find out more about her when takes another deep breath and reseals mouth again

-Blaise saying 'luv' a lot...Yeah, that's for a reason too: my own personal entertainment. I like that word, and it sort of fits with how his character's acting at this moment in time, so...There you go.

Aside from that...
-I am very sad. This is my second-to-last chapter in this story and I haven't decided whether or not to do an epilogue. (Leaning towards a no on that one...but there's good news.)
I am thinking about maybe a SEQUEL?
Not about the whole ferret plotline but more of a continuation of the story. Kind of like, more in this little 'universe'. If you know what I mean. You'll understand why this needs a sequel by the end of this fic.
Here's just a general bulletin for all of my fics:
I won't be continuing Hey Mickey! just yet. I need to clean it up more. (I've got plenty of it written already, though.)
Through the Cover...like the above, many of it is written but it needs cleaning. So no posts for awhile on that one either.
Untitled MBF sequel...I won't be starting it just yet. I have to plow through my other ideas first.
What you CAN expect from me in the very near future is a few fluffy and/or angsty one shots. I like both genres. So look out for those.
When I start developing the plot for the sequel to this fic...I will let you all know. I've already got a chapter for it.
For now, here's chapter eleven. Enjoy it...it's your second-to-last.
runs off to sob

Chapter Eleven
The Boy, The Girl, and the Ferret

"Of course you're not Ron. That would be...odd. Are you...umm...Oh, I've got it. You're Draco Malfoy!" she guessed enthusiastically.

The man shook his head, but Ginny could see a smile lurking under the shadows.

Her mind tumbled over the words he'd said, his mannerisms...right down to his shy, sweet smile.

Ginny's face turned white as ice. She opened her mouth, but only a shocked whisper came out. "Blaise?"

The man turned and exposed his face to the light. Ginny could only gasp and try to keep from blacking out.

"See, that's sort of the reason I didn't admit it when you asked," Blaise explained.

Ginny didn't know whether to scream and hit him or scream and hug him. So instead, she just screamed.

"AREN'T YOU SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD?"

"I am dead...And then again, I am not. I am no longer Gandalf the Grey...I am Gandalf the White!"

Ginny rolled her eyes again. Blaise had always had a strange fetish for Muggle movies. "Why are you still here? Blaise...I saw your body."

"Ginny, touch me."

"What?"

"Not like that, you freak. Just touch me."

Ginny reached out a skeptical arm. It plunged into his chest, but floated back out. She was speechless. "...Whoa."

"Whoa is right."

Ginny squinted. "What are you?"

"I'm not a ghost...I'm me. But trust me, Ginny, I've literally been sent through hell and back to fulfill my mission and I intend to do so."

"What is your mis--"

"Shh! I can't tell you, of course...Then I would have to abort the mission and not only would it keep me in limbo between afterlives but it would change your future entirely, luv."

"So...the rest of my life is in the hands of a dead freak who happens to be my long-deceased best friend?"

Blaise nodded. "Precisely."
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"Harry, I swear to God...Sometimes I honestly want to know what goes on in that brain. Did you bring your wand?"

Harry blinked innocently. "Of course!"

"Then what's the problem?"

"I...er...didn't bring the note."

Hermione sighed and took the wand. "Accio Note!"

A small, tattered piece of parchment flew into her hand. Harry smiled.

"Anyway, why are we still standing here?"

"My God, 'Mione, did you hit your head on the way down?"

Hermione giggled.

"What's so funny?" asked Harry suspiciously.

"You called me 'Mione."

"Er...what?"

"You called me 'Mione'. As in, Hermione without the 'her'."

"And why is that humorous at all?" asked Harry curiously.

"Shush and comb your hair. You look like hell. Didn't you get any sleep at all?"

"Sorry, Mum. Will do, Mum."

Hermione hit him. "Shut up!"

He smirked and turned his back to her, laughing into the blindness of the tunnel.
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(AN: I'm killing you with this note business, aren't I? Hahaha...evil laughter)

Ginny stared at the ripped note in her hands, fingering the roughness. The words were in a slinky kelly green ink, the handwriting tall and girlishly sprawling. Her mouths formed the words, the whisper dying on her lips. "That poor boy..."

Ginny turned to face him. "Blaise...You mentioned a...limbo of afterlives. What did that mean?"

Blaise exhaled and stared at her with his shocking violet eyes. "Ginny, you know...Heaven and hell."

Ginny walked up to him. "What is there? Is there really a heaven and a--"

"No. Well, yes. In a manner of means."

"What do you mean?"

Blaise sighed. "It's hard to explain, I guess. There's the veil...And we fall into it. It's a sort of...meadow-like place. The dead lie there, waiting...If they have trouble with not being near their loved ones. So they sit there in that meadow, because they know that just beyond the grass's edge, there is the veil, fluttering in the soft wind silently. And just beyond that veil, there is life...Life as they knew it. Life as they remember it. Beyond there are the people they love. And they lie in that meadow because they feel better knowing that they are closed to their loved ones."

"What is the veil?"

"The passageway, luv. The threshold between life and death...for wizards, anyway. I'm sure there are a few. Ours belongs to the magical folk of England, maybe Scotland too. The only reason no one knows what it is is because no one who ever goes in ever comes out. Except me, of course. And one other boy."

"Who?"

Blaise fell silent. "I've said too much."

Ginny pouted. "Oh, right. Leave me hanging."

"I'm tired."

"Then sleep."

"I will."

"Okay."

There was silence for a moment before Ginny asked another question.

"Blaise...Did you see...Did you see...Was Sirius Black in that meadow?"

Blaise looked at her. "Sirius Black? Yeah, he was there. They said he'd been stuck for almost two years now. He's in limbo like I'll be if you don't shush and let me sleep."

Ginny nodded. "Okay. Thanks."

So she shush and let him sleep.
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"Hermione...Can I see the note?"

She nodded and handed it to Harry who read its haunting words over and over again.

"He runs because he knows what you are. He runs because he knows you're killing him. But even when he runs, he dies."

He felt himself shuddering. Did Ron really know what Harry was? His great secret that had lurked inside him ever since he killed Voldemort. The secret he learned...the secret he would never tell. And why did Ron die? 'Even when he runs'? And what did that mean, anyway?

"Hermione, what did the other note say?" asked Harry.

Hermione gave a little laugh. "Barely anything. Here you go."

The other note was much shorter. "This one's evil. Woven." the kelly green writing wrote.

Harry had pondered it long and hard, but he made no connection. "What does it mean, Hermione? What do you think it means?"

Hermione sighed. "Look, Harry, I don't know. But I do know that you are acting...strangely like me...and it's scary, so please stop and act like your own self and...Just...Stop worrying!"

"Stop worrying? Hermione, Ron's life is on the line here! Ginny's as well! And we still don't know who's behind it."

"Harry, please. Just...Stop a moment and we'll think of the best way to get to Ron."

"Oh, but you don't need that," came a deep woman's voice. Out of the shadows stepped a short, petite woman with sleek black hair polished back into a ponytail and a dark purple and black...bathing suit. She was also wearing ridiculous lime green boots and, well, nothing more than that besides a wicked smile.

"I'll bring you right to him."

She threw her hand out and the three of them reappeared in a dungeon.

"Who are you?" screamed Hermione.

"My name is Karissa. Give me a nickname and I'll get someone to chop your head off."

"Nice," commented Harry. "But no thanks."

He grabbed his wand from his back pocket, but her eyes turned an eerie ice blue and froze his hand.

"That was an extremely lame attempt to impress, Karissa," Harry told her coolly, concentrating his own eyes on his icy hand. It unfroze immediately.

"Agreed," Hermione nodded. Harry and Hermione moved forward, wands at the ready.

Karissa pouted. "Now why are you trying to hurt me? I haven't even done anything yet."

"You have Ron," Harry pointed out.

"You have no proof of that," came Karissa's voice from her full lips. She moved them slowly when she talked.

"She's right, Harry," Hermione agreed, pausing.

"Oh, she's got him, all right," Harry grinned, his eyes gleaming almost...wickedly.

"And how do you know that?" asked Hermione and Karissa in the exact same tone.

"Because her eyes are flickering kelly green and that's what happens when she lies." Harry continued to grin. "I know you too well, Karissa."

"Hold on here! Time out!" Hermione turned to Harry and whispered, "How the hell do you know her?"

"I--" Harry started, but Hermione was blown back into the wall before he could finish.

"There are no time outs in the real world, sweetheart," Karissa giggled.

Harry scowled at her and threw a few spells at her. She was knocked back into the wall by a force coming at her stomach. She groaned.

"That didn't hurt," she lied.

"I'm sure it didn't."

Harry turned around and summoned Hermione up. Instantly she began to wave her wand at Karissa, who deflected many of the spells and only was lightly bruised by some.

"Sorry, sweetie," she said to Hermione. "It won't work for you. You can't do a thing."

"Shut up, Karissa," Harry muttered, trying to affect her. Instead, she froze him again and shocked him. Literally.

Karissa clutched him with her long, sharp black nails, laughing. "Pathetic," she breathed down his ear, her lips moving down his neck. "You're really cute, but you're quite pathetic." She turned her lips toward his and tried to slink her way into his mouth while he was still frozen from the shock.

Hermione felt her blood bubbling under her skin. She didn't need a wand for this one. Hey, if she could do it to Malfoy she could definetly do it to Little Miss Karissa.

She threw her arm forward from the shoulder with a force never seen by humans before and her fist collided with Karissa's smooth, pale cheek. She was blown into the wall, tears leaking out from the pain and making her mascara run.

Hermione and Harry both whipped out their wands and pointed them at her in complete--and I mean creepily flawless--unison.

"If your lips ever brush against his skin, I swear on the sake of the entire universe and to every God that ever existed that I will blow your slutty little arse right off the face of the earth and out of the Milky Way, too," Hermione spat, her wand quivering with force.

"You little bitch!" Karissa leapt up from her spot and tried to throw herself at Hermione, but Harry and Hermione suddenly found themselves throwing spells they'd never even heard of before just as Blaise burst through the window with Ginny and Cocoa on his broom. Ginny instantly threw the Bat Bogey hex at the mysterious girl while Blaise grabbed Cocoa and flung himself out of the way.

By the time Harry, Hermione, and Ginny were through with Karissa, strange orange fungi was growing out of her jelly legs and bats were flying around her head, spitting boogers at her face. "Oh, hahaha. Harry, darling, care to help?"

"I told you to shut up," he glared.

"No problem. You haven't got me, you know. The redhead kid's got a strong Bogey Hex, but there's only one person in this room who can affect me at all and his name's Harry Potter."

Hermione shrieked a spell. It bounced off Karissa, who started to laugh hysterically.

"I told you, you little witch," Karissa spat. "It doesn't work out for you. It's not made to be that way."

"Why don't you shut up, Karissa," started Harry, but Karissa's cackling cut him off.

"Love hurts, hon," she said to Hermione, then, maybe just for fun, kissed Harry on the lips. He tried to get away, but she locked him in place.

Hermione stepped forward, stuck out her wand promptly, and sent Karissa flying into the air. The raven-haired girl smacked down into the wall, blowing another few planks apart, her face now adorned with two long scratches: one along her jaw, the other over her left eye.

"I told you I would blow you off the face of the earth," Hermione said, her voice low and cool. She grabbed Harry's hand.

There was a sudden burst of sparkles and everyone in the room felt a tingling sensation as tons of tiny little moose confetti shot onto their heads.

"Dun dun dun dun...I'm SUPER PREP!"

A ridiculously clothed girl came into view. She was wearing a bright pink polo with the collar 'popped' and wore a lime-green moose on her shirt. She had on this little miniskirt with a ribbon tied around the waist, and chunky heeled boots with the words 'SUPER PREP! D" written across them in bright colors. There was also an orange cape slung around her shoulders, also reading SUPER PREP!

Following her were two less-preppily clad boys. One was sort of punk...not completely punk, but punkish, and the other was half-human half-goat and wearing a shirt with a moose on it, too.

Super Prep marched right up to Harry and screamed, "Need help? Never fear...For I am Super-Prep, and I am here!"

"Thank you, Dr. Seuss," muttered Super Punk sarcastically, looking as enthusiastic as a mouse being told that there was no more cheese in the world.

"And this is my sidekick, Super Punk!" cried Super Prep. "And our friend Billy Goat...the half-goat!"

"How did that happen?" asked Ginny curiously.

"My mom's a goat, what else?" asked Billy Goat. "No...Actually, it's a--"

"--long story," finished Super Punk. "Can we just get this over with so I can go back to whatever I was doing before?"

"RIGHT!" yelled Super Prep. She popped the collar on her polo and little boomerang-esque daggers flew at Karissa, pinning her to the wall. Super Prep then pressed the moose on her shirt. It flung lasers at Karissa, scorching the ends of her hair and causing her to scream.

"You stupid prep!" Karissa yelled. She pulled out her hand and screeched, "AVADA KEDAVRA!"

Because her wrist was pinned to the wall with the weird daggers, her aim went haywire and headed straight for Ginny...

...causing Cocoa the ferret to leap up in front of her and take the shot himself.

There was an electric reaction. The ferret didn't die immediately, instead, was wrapped in green ropes of energy that pulsed until they finally set him free on the ground.

Ginny stared in shock. There was Draco Malfoy, lying on the floor not only completely naked (as it took Ginny a few moments after Blaise threw a blanket over him to register) but also dead.

"Well," came a voice from behind the door. "I was sort of right, wasn't I?"

Ginny turned her head as tears started to fill her eyes.

It was Ron.

AN: Don't give up on me yet! Please read the last chapter, I think we have some loose ends to tie up here don't we?