Disclaimer: I DO own the Harry Potter books, but only (unfortunately enough) for my reading pleasure. I did not create, describe, add-on or in any other way help with the making of the characters, plots and settings of the Harry Potter series. I DO own THIS plot, and any plot that stems from it (besides the obvious J.K. plots), but owe MUCH MUCH MUCH of it to my wonderful beta Anya (Thank you, love!).
Disclaimer the Second: The thoughts/ideas/happenings of this chapter (concerning the talk about WWII) ARE based on real events, but are otherwise changed/altered/distorted to fit the plot of my story. Adolph Hitler (as far as I know, at least) was NOT a wizard.
On with the story then:
Ginny was promptly lifted to her feet as a pair of long arms wrapped themselves around her torso. "You alright there, Ginny? Say, where have you been?"
Ginny leaned against her supporter and breathed in his masculine scent slowly. "I'm fine Dean. Well…as fine as I could be…I've been in the Hospital Wing…there was an accident…"
She heard several chairs being pushed around as their occupants rose and, Ginny presumed, surrounded her.
It's going to be a long day…
---Just wait, there's more---
If one thought that taking to blindness quickly was as easy as closing one's eyes and moving about, one was VERY wrong.
Ginny discovered that even the simplest of tasks, such as pulling a fresh robe from her wardrobe, challenged her as much as rummaging through a pile of hay while searching for a needle—blindfolded.
"No, no, sweetie, that's your nightgown," her dorm mate corrected her quickly, pulling the garment from Ginny's hands and replacing it. "Here you are," she handed something else to Ginny and proceeded to try to help Ginny get it on.
"I can do that myself, thanks," Ginny tugged away from her friend's grasp, spitting the words at her bitterly.
She stumbled, literally and otherwise, through the next few days despite the help of Dean and Hermione. Hermione, being by far the most helpful, put a spell on all of Ginny's quills so that they took notes by themselves (with amazing accuracy), and taught her a spell to make a book speak its words to her. Dean, it seemed, simply took to carting her around to her classes and making sure she stepped through the portrait hole without falling flat on her face. Ginny's despair grew more and more each passing day, despite the fact that everyone seemed to band together to make things easier for her, except, of course, for those such as Malfoy, who seemed just as eager to do the opposite.
"If it isn't the littlest Weasley…lost, I see. What has you so far down in the dungeons?"
"I'm where?" Ginny felt compelled to throw her head around in every direction, trying to decipher where exactly she had made a wrong turn. Her Leader shouldn't have led her to the dungeons if her destination was the library.
"Must I repeat myself? You're in the dungeons, little one. What's that?"
Ginny fiddled with the sphere in her hands, hoping to feel a physical defect since she couldn't very well examine what was wrong with it. "It's a Leader. My mum sent it to me," she answered him reluctantly. Maybe he could help her, if she were nice. It was Malfoy, but maybe… "It's supposed to lead me to my destination by speaking the directions and help me to avoid obstacles. Obviously it's broken, if it thinks that the dungeons is the library and couldn't manage to avoid you."
"Let me see it," he sighed.
Ginny pulled it towards her protectively, remembering Harry's story about Malfoy and Neville's Remembrall.
"For goodness' sake, Weasley I'm not going to smash it to bits, let me see it!" she felt the sphere leave her hands, and with it all of her assurance and independence.
"Hmm…don't know about any of this stuff…" he handed it back to her. "You're headed to the library?"
Ginny nodded.
"Come on, then," he took her wrist as he had almost a week ago, with the same firm, commanding grip that not only made Ginny feel as if she would arrive to her destination, but also in one piece.
"You're taking me?"
"Don't sound so amazed. I wouldn't, and you know I wouldn't, were I not going there myself."
Ginny wanted to kick herself as she found that she was, once again, dependent on Malfoy to lead her to safety, quite literally this time.
He didn't make conversation with her at all this time, nor did Ginny feel the need to fill the empty space, at least not with Malfoy's companionship, so the walk to the library was very brisk and to the point, as Malfoy usually was.
He deposited her at a table near the back, as she requested, and left her alone. She had scarcely pulled out her Muggle Studies book when he returned.
"The tables are full. I'm sitting here," she heard the chair across from her scrape along the floor as he pulled it back. Ginny shook her head.
"I'm not moving."
"I didn't ask you to, did I?"
She sat there for a moment before opening her book and flipping through the pages at random, feeling for the page that she had dog-eared. When she found it, she muttered the spell to make it talk.
It was just as Professor Binns would have lectured. In fact, part of Ginny suspected that Binns had not always had a cushy job like Hogwarts available to him, and must have spoken for books to earn a few extra galleons.
She listened to it drone on about World War Two for nearly five minutes, only somewhat paying attention, before Malfoy gave an overly exaggerated sigh, slamming his book shut.
"I can't concentrate."
"What do you expect me to do?"
"That book. It's ridiculous. It's not even going over the interesting stuff," Ginny heard the book shut and the voice cut off in mid-word.
"What do you mean?"
"I took Muggle Studies last year. We studied World War Two. It is way more interesting than this old thing suggests."
"How's that, then?" Ginny was skeptical as to what Malfoy had to say.
"First off, this book and everything about it was taken from the muggles, so you know that you're only getting half of the story. For instance: This guy? Adolph Hitler? Some big muggle dictator right? Bent on world domination? Wrong, as muggles usually are. Wizard."
"No!" Ginny actually gasped. It was the most scandalous thing she'd heard in awhile. "But all of those muggles! Right under their noses?"
"You bet! See he was really—you might want to take notes on this," Ginny fished out one of her charmed quills and set it to a piece of parchment. "He was really after world domination, uniting not only all of the Wizarding World under his power, but the muggles as well. How do you think he got so much power? He used the Imperious on them."
"And no one suspected?"
"Well, things started getting fishy. This guy was really messed up. Instead of wanting to get rid of the muggles, he decided to get rid of only one race. The Jews, as it was. For some reason he didn't find them quite worthy enough. So when he started getting too much power and whatnot, the Ministry knew that something had to be done, so they sent this fellow, Churchill to take over as Prime Minister."
"Churchill…wasn't he—"
"The Minister of Magic himself, yes. Back in 1940. He took over Britain, trying to get this guy to stop and collecting as many allies as possible. Eventually the States got into it. Years before they had a President who was competent enough, I'll give them that, but when things started to get sticky the American Ministry sent their Minister into power, as president. President Roosevelt, he was. The second Roosevelt they had, if I recall correctly. So all of a sudden, in 1940 when Churchill took over, this big battle between all these countries took on something much more meaningful. All of a sudden it wasn't just a world war—it was a magical war as well."
"So what did he do? Hitler, I mean. He obviously knew that all of these other wizards were coming into power…"
"That he did. And about that time was when things started to unravel for him as well. More countries were rising up against him, and he was starting to lose his grip on those he already controlled, so you know what he started to do?"
"What?" Ginny leaned forward. Malfoy's voice had become hushed, and full of excitement, and Ginny felt enraptured by his every word. She never would have guessed that Malfoy had a passion for something such as this.
"He'd had all these Jews rounded up, didn't he? Working for him in labor camps and whatnot? He ordered them dead. All of them."
Ginny gasped. "But why?"
"Who knows? I suspect he knew it was all about to end. He was falling down a hole and bringing down as many as he could with him. Got about five or six million, I believe."
"How?" Ginny was perplexed. "How so fast?"
"Oh, they had a number of ways. Things as clever as tricking a bunch of them into the showers and poisoning them with gas, or as simple as lining them up along the edge of a hole and taking a gun to their head."
Ginny cringed, scrunching up her nose. "How could those people do that to them? To the families and children and babies?"
"You're forgetting that most of them were under the Imperious. Hell, when put on trial many of the Nazis, that's what they called Hitler's followers," he explained to Ginny's cocked head. "When put on trial a lot of them had a bit of a breakdown…they saw pictures of what they'd done, and the survivors of the death camps and just completely lost it. They really weren't aware of what they were doing. And see, with muggles they can't lie about things like that to get out of getting into trouble, because no one knew that that was an option. You know, if muggles would only look a little closer they would see proof of our kind all over the place. For another thing: after 1945, when everything fell apart, Hitler disappeared off the face of the map. Muggles have been searching for years for his burial place, convinced that he had killed himself with some poison called cyanide. It was really just a look-alike. I suppose Churchill took care of that so the muggles wouldn't wonder what happened to Hitler when he disappeared for his trial. I think the muggles did catch on a bit though…they knew that some things just didn't add up…and they're right, aren't they? Searching around all over Europe for his remains, when all they have to do is look at the graves outside of Azkaban."
"That's…absolutely fascinating," Ginny informed him, quite unnecessarily she realized, since he had just given her about seven years of muggle/magical history from memory.
"Isn't it?" she wasn't aware how glad Malfoy was that she couldn't see him grinning. "That's not even the best, though. I don't think so, at least."
"There's more?" Ginny leaned forward still, trying to soak in everything Malfoy had to tell her.
"By far. See, we talked about the muggles in the war, and us in the war…we didn't even touch what effect this had on civilians!"
"I…I don't understand where you're going with this."
"Civilians, right? Just going about their everyday lives…following the war, but fairly certain that the Ministry could handle it. But some people...one at least, followed it closer than anyone else. He scrutinized every action taken that led to power, every command given to followers, every inspirational word of every inspirational speech. He tracked it all, studied it, basically followed it as a religion—and became one of the most feared wizards of all time."
"No!" Ginny gasped, actually clasping her hand over her mouth in shock.
"That's right. The Dark Lord himself. What else could you expect? Put two and two together—obviously someone like Adolph Hitler would be the perfect role model for someone looking for power, and lots of it. All he had to do was follow what Hitler did and learn from his mistakes."
"Trying to corrupt Ginny, Malfoy? Or just explaining to her how exactly you plan to take over the world?" Ginny knew it to be Hermione, and found herself (surprisingly) wishing that she had just stayed away so she and Malfoy could have continued with their enthralling discussion.
"I have better things to do than to attempt something as mundane as world domination, Granger. No, I was just giving the little Weasel here a history lesson. Think I left anything out? Or weren't you eavesdropping long enough to tell?"
"A rather funny statement from you of all people, Malfoy."
"I would certainly agree with you, Granger, if I actually eavesdropped, that is."
"You don't think you do?" Ginny could sense a long-winded argument coming about and it seemed Malfoy did as well, for he didn't answer her question, but turned his attention to Ginny.
"How long does your essay need to be then?"
"Two and a half feet."
"You'll have plenty then…maybe just don't add the last part."
Ginny nodded as she listened to Malfoy scoop up his books and walk away, not bothering to say anymore to Hermione.
Her friend sat down in the now vacant seat and began talking to her about something or other, but Ginny was far too busy silently dictating to her quill to focus on anything Hermione had to say—her mind still spinning from the riveting things Malfoy had just revealed to her.
That is to say…Draco.