Disclaimer: I do not own any of Harry Potter.
A/N Thanks for the reviews, once again. Didn't get as many for the last chapter, but I sort of expected that. This one should be a lot more eventful. I hope. Only three to go, this one included (supposedly - it's quite likely I'll change my mind about something). Anyway, where was I?
The Uninvited Guest
Draco and Ginny finally got back to the tent, to join the rest of the school. They'd just spent an hour showing Dumbledore and a few Aurors around the castle and explaining every last detail of what they knew about the bombs. So, naturally, by now, tempers were wearing thin. The Aurors seemed quite confident that they could remove the bombs, seeing as the Death Eaters hadn't actually expected anybody to know about them when they were put in place.
It was now simply a matter of waiting until they could all return to the school and contact their family to explain all the exciting gossip. Dumbledore had informed them of what had happened, but nobody was allowed to owl their family until everything was safe again.
From the outside, the tent looked like any other marquee, large and white, filling up about half of the Quidditch pitch. However, when Draco and Ginny were escorted in, by an Auror called Jake Snidley, they saw what looked almost like a ballroom, with wooden floors and ornamental bits around the ceiling, with chandeliers the size of football tables hanging down. It was quite impressive. Clearly some of the teachers had got bored. There were groups of students clustered in numerous arrangements of sofas and armchairs around small coffee tables. Food filled each table, just as plentiful as they would have been at the beginning of term feast. The house elves had clearly taken the move as an opportunity to go all out on the food. In the centre of the room was a larger table, piled high with board games and books.
Ginny looked over to see Ron, Harry and Hermione waiting over near the entrance on some beanbags. Hermione was poring over some books, while Harry and Ron leaned against the wall, munching on some rolls and drinking pumpkin juice. As soon as they saw her they beckoned her over, talking excitedly. Ginny wondered how much they'd been told about what had been going on. She suspected the whole school would have heard of her and Draco's experience, as Dumbledore usually did his best to keep the everyone informed.
Draco began to make his way over to a group of Slytherins in the far corner of the room, groaning quietly so that Ginny only just heard it, to see Pansy Parkinson jump up and run towards him.
Ginny was glad, on one level, to be out of the way of Draco. Things were still very tense and they hadn't spoken a word to each other since being in Dumbledore's office. She suspected that Dumbledore had not missed the obvious knife-edged atmosphere between them. However, she also realized that as he walked away across the crowds, it would truly be the end of any sort of friendly relationship between them.
She was about to go over to join her friends when the Auror spoke.
"Dumbledore wants you both to remain near the door in case he wishes to speak to you again." He said, indicating to an empty few chairs next to the entrance, and left the way he had come.
Draco turned, rolled his eyes and sat down on one of the armchairs. He felt like he'd seen the man before, but couldn't quite place where from. Ginny had no choice but to sit down next to Draco. She reached forward to pick at some pieces of fruit from the table, thinking she ought to be hungry, but had lost all her appetite.
A few seconds later they were joined by Harry, Ron and Hermione.
"We heard all about it," Hermione began as soon as they were in hearing distance, "It must have been so frightening for you!"
"Especially being stuck with that git," Ron added, looking grumpy.
"Ron! Be a bit nicer." Hermione chastised. "After all, without his help, Ginny may well have been found by the Death Eaters."
"It's quite alright, Mudblood. I could win a wit contest with that bludger brain any day." Draco said maliciously.
"Don't speak to her like that Malfoy." Harry cut in, looking murderous, "If there weren't Aurors teaming around this place your head would be stuck upside down from one of those chandeliers by now."
"You always were one for your empty threats, Potter. You know as well as I do that I would have you dead on the floor long before you even had time to get you're wand out of your pocket."
"Why don't you just bugger off to your Death Eater pals and spare us the sight of your ugly face." Harry responded.
"If only I could. If you think I want to be stuck here with a Scarhead and Weasley scum, you are sorely mistaken." The others just glared at him. "You'd do better scurrying away to hide in the corner where you belong."
Ginny could only hold her patience for so long.
"Just stop it Malfoy." She said, glaring at him.
He turned to face her, losing his cool exterior calm.
"No, I will not." He replied childishly, "These are your bloody irritating friends and I am enjoying myself telling them just how worthless…"
"Stop being such a bastard and shut up! I'm sick of you and you're supposedly witty comments. I wish you would get over your pathetic childhood feuds and grow up."
"Yeah, and I wish I'd let those Death Eaters find you. We don't always get what we wish for do we." His mouth twisted into a smirk.
"You don't mean that. Without me, you would probably be splattered all over your own… poncy robes." The tension between them altered imperceptibly.
"Poncy robes! You can come up with something better than that can't you?"
"No. I'm crap at the pointless comebacks. They're quite low down on my list of things to spend hours perfecting." Her eyes flashed.
"I entirely disagree. Being witty is my pride and joy. It saves so much trouble when you can simply crush someone into the ground with a mere comment."
"Just like you Malfoy, any excuse to avoid physical combat."
"You prefer physical combat? Crikey, I wish I'd known that." He said, raising an eyebrow at her. "Would have been a great way to pass the hours…"
Ginny blushed furiously, "Eugh, and I'm glad you didn't. Stop twisting what I say. Not everything has a second meaning. At least not to me. And I don't like physical combat, I like to avoid arguments in the first place."
"You don't like physical combat? I wouldn't be so sure. You certainly seem to like …"
A small cough interrupted his sentence and both Ginny and Draco turned to see Harry, Ron and Hermione staring incredulously at them. Ginny had almost forgotten they were there, and noticed Draco had an equally shocked expression on his face. Ron looked thunderstruck, Harry astonished and Hermione had a small smile on her face. Ginny managed to turn even redder than she was.
"Come on," Hermione said to Harry and Ron, "We're clearly interrupting something here." Ron turned to her, face the same colour as his hair about to speak.
"No, it's fine. Stay." Ginny said quickly, and desperately tried to change the subject. "I'm going to get a chessboard, anyone want to play?" She looked at them hopefully. Ron just glared at Draco even more angrily.
"Sure Gin," Hermione replied when there was silence from everyone else.
She hurried away to find a suitable board, getting two in case Harry and Ron decided they might want to play.
She was just sitting back down when a book flew past her head into Draco's outstretched hand.
"Show off." She muttered at him. He just gave her a sugary smile and settled back down in his chair to read. She rolled her eyes and began setting out the pieces on the board, which was balancing precariously on the small table.
Later
The rest of the afternoon was spent sitting around, doing not much. Harry and Ron purposefully ignored Draco, and played a few games of chess before finally submitting to do some work on Hermione's orders. Draco simply sat in his chair, occasionally shifting positing to stretch his legs or 'Accio' some schoolwork. He spoke to Ginny a few times, usually to give some know-it-all advice on why she should not have sent her chess piece there to be slaughtered by Hermione. Eventually Ginny lost her temper and suggested that he might as well take over seeing as he seemed to think he could do much better.
He duly did, and won, before going back to his book.
Supper came and went, much in the same manner as lunch had. Teachers milled around the room, Dumbledore came and went and the Slytherins came over to talk to Draco, who never stayed long to avoid being too close to Harry and the others.
At around ten o'clock in the evening Dumbledore returned and got everybody to stand up and clear out of the way, claiming it was bedtime. With a flick of his wand all the tables and chairs vanished, to be replaced by hundreds of thick bottomed sleeping bags, covering up all the available floor space.
"Boys over on my left, girls on the right." He instructed, to be responded to with a few disappointed groans.
The students began shuffling across to opposite ends of the room. Ron and Harry waved goodbye to Ginny and Hermione, while Draco picked up his books from the floor (he hadn't been bothered to remove them from the chair when Dumbledore had asked them to).
Just as he was on his way off, the Auror who had escorted Ginny and Draco from the castle, entered the tent and beckoned to Dumbledore.
He stood just behind Draco, who just caught the hurried whisper escaping his lips to Dumbledore,
"Lord Voldemort is in the castle, sir."
Draco froze, wondering what Dumbledore would do.
"Good night children, and do not leave the tent tonight." He simply said and flicked his wand, which dimmed the lights, and swept out of the room.
He watched through the crack in the door as Dumbledore began the journey back up to the castle, bringing with him at least half of the Aurors who had been guarding the tent, and a feeling of great uneasiness crept over him. He still could not identify how he knew that Auror. At one of his dad's meetings? Unlikely, he thought.
Ginny and Hermione, oblivious to what had been going on settled down next to the wall, and blocked out Professor McGonagal's occasional mutterings of "do be quiet, people are trying to sleep in here".
About ten minutes passed, and Ginny suspected many people had fallen asleep. She could hear Hermione's gentle breathing and looked to her left where moonlight cast long shadows across the sleeping people.
She was just drifting off to sleep when she heard a soft 'mew' coming from just outside. The walls were clearly not very thick. Just when she was about to dismiss it as her imagination it came again,
"Mieeoww."
Crookshanks, she realized suddenly. He was outside and obviously wanted to come in.
She looked around, to see that Professor Flitwick, who was sitting in the chair next to the door, had fallen asleep. None of the other teachers were paying any attention, so she silently got up and crept the few feet to the door.
Luckily, it was a crack open, so she slipped out, expecting to see Crookshanks waiting patiently to come in.
Draco
Draco was wide awake. He never normally went to bed before midnight, so contended himself with simply looking out over the room, watching as the teachers dozed off in their chairs.
His feeling of unease grew as time passed. Surely they'd have heard something by now if Voldemort really was in the castle? He was just considering waking Harry, the only person he could think of who'd be any help in this situation, when a flicker of movement caught his eye.
He groaned inwardly. It was Ginny, heading out of the door.
With no other choice, he got up, and with well-practiced stealth picked his way over all the sleeping people and followed her out.
That was when he remembered how he had known that Auror. He was a friend of his fathers. A Death Eater.
Ginny
The first thing Ginny noticed as she crept out into the cool night air was the lack of Aurors waiting outside the door as they had been all day. This confused her. There had been at least twenty of them earlier, standing guard of all the pupils.
A shiver ran down her spine, and just as she was about to turn back inside to tell one of the teachers when she was interrupted.
There was Crookshanks, green eyes glowing wide, standing with his hair on end hissing at something just behind her.
She turned slowly, now utterly terrified, to see the white face and red eyes of Lord Voldemort.
That was when she saw all the bodies. Hidden in the shadows of the tent, were at least ten ugly, sprawled, dark shapes.
She screamed, as loud as she could.
Her scream was cut off after a millisecond as something cold clamped around her throat, and squeezed.
Lord Voldemort smiled, at least what looked like as much of a smile as his crooked face could master, with his arm outstretched only a foot from her, his hand curled around thin air.
Panic flooded through her as she tried to breathe, struggling at the invisible clamp around her neck and was lifted off the ground as Voldemort raised his arm.
He turned, holding a helpless Ginny just off the ground behind him, and with an almost imperceptible move of his arm, flung open the door to the tent, which banged loudly against the wall. Ginny began to cough, seeing black spots dancing in front of her eyes.
"Where is Harry Potter?" He hissed at the sea of white faces, terror filling each one as their eyes comprehended the scene before them.
A/N Phew, that was long (for me anyway). I hope you liked that one. I enjoyed writing it anyway. Sorry to leave you on a cliffhanger. But please, please review! I want to know if you liked it, and even if you didn't. Lets me know that it's worth carrying on.
