The House on the Beach

Ginny Weasley woke up on a large king-sized bed. Her muddy robes, matted hair, and bloody knuckles were a stark contrast against the clean, white satin bedding. Sunlight shone across her face through a small crack in the curtains, illuminating some of the room. Everything in this place was exceptionally clean, with light colours, and a smell of sea air. Like Shell Cottage, but on an incredibly grand budget. Gingerly, Ginny tried to get up. Every bone, every muscle in her body was incredibly stiff and sore, owing to the weeks of abuse running from the Aurors. Rising to her feet, Ginny took in her surroundings. The Nimbus Two-Thousand Five-Hundred she had captured from the Aurors lay at the foot of the bed, and on a small dressing table at the end of the room she spotted Harry's wand. Immediately she snatched the wand from the dresser and held it at the ready. She may not have been captured, but she was still in a strange house, and she didn't know who had brought her here. Silently she padded over to the window and opened the curtains.

Sunlight poured into the room, making it seem even more impossibly bright and airy. From the window, Ginny could see a massive sandy beach, with rolling dunes, and clear blue seas. Down below the window was a large garden, and Ginny could see a man hard at work repairing a fence. Deciding now was the time for answers, Ginny searched for her things, finding her bag and cloak on a chaise lounge, the cloak undamaged, the contents of the bag untouched. Ginny wrapped the cloak around her, once again struggling to keep the tail of her broom hidden. She made her way out of the room and into a large hallway, with a balcony over-looking an open plan kitchen. She stepped as quietly as she could down a sweeping marble staircase into the kitchen. She had never been here before, but Ginny couldn't shake a strange sense of familiarity with the house, as if she ought to know the person who owned it. Ginny found a sliding glass door that led to the garden, it was already open, so Ginny cautiously stepped through it and into the garden, Harry's wand raised. She walked slowly, stealthily towards the man at the bottom of the garden.

It was only when she was two or three metres from his back did Ginny realise who was standing before her. "Put your hands where I can see them!" Ginny called out. Immediately, and without protest, the man raised palms skyward. Everything about him had changed. The once sleek blonde hair that used to be plastered to his head was ragged, and wavy, and reached halfway down his back. He appeared to have gotten slimmer, scrawny even, far from his well-nourished appearance at school. His once perfect, pale skin, was covered in bruises and small scars, his hands rough and calloused. As he turned to face her, Ginny let out a gasp. His eyes showed a broken soul, and he had dropped his clean-shaven appearance for a raggedy blonde beard. The aftermath of the war had taken its toll on Draco Malfoy.

Ginny was unsure whether she felt loathing, or pity, or both as she sat opposite Draco in the grand living room of the Malfoy's summer house. Draco Malfoy had tormented her, had tormented Harry, and had tormented her entire family throughout her entire time at Hogwarts. He had fought on the side of the Death Eaters, and had stood side-by-side with You-Know-Who. But this wasn't the same man that sat before her, his eyes gazing into a dwindling fire, his hands wrapped around a mug of tea that was slowly going cold. "How did you manage to find me?"

"I followed the Dementors. They don't like to be followed, but I knew that if the Ministry didn't catch up with you then they definitely would. I had to try and keep my distance, but when I saw about a hundred of them swarming around that village I knew that you must've been caught. Your Patronus gave me an opening, and once I managed to get hold of you I apparated us both here."

"Why?" Ginny asked the burning question, "why bother saving me at all? You have a comfortable, easy life. Why screw that up by hiding the country's most wanted criminal?"

"When he was living in my home, and making his plans, and taking over the Ministry, I didn't have a choice. He would have killed my entire family without a second thought. I had to do whatever was expected of me. But this time I have a choice."

"Very touching!" Ginny spat, "poor little rich boy! You always have a choice Malfoy. You chose what was easy. Why risk yourself or your family when others will do it for you? My brother is dead! Harry is missing! Why don't you think about that sometime when you're sat in your big fancy house pretending that you're one of the good guys?" Ginny set her cup down and made to leave the room, but Draco grabbed hold of her arm.

"I didn't save you from the Dementors out of guilt, or to get any kind of forgiveness for the things I've done. I did what I had to do and I don't regret it. But what's going on right now is much bigger than You-Know-Who. This WULF lot are not some random group of radicals, they're efficient, organised, and incredibly well funded. They plan to finish the path that hestarted on, and if they get even a tiny bit close, we're all done for." Ginny retorted with a remark about how no member of the WULF was even close to being as powerful as Voldemort, but this only seemed to enrage Draco. "You-Know-Who was an exceptionally powerful wizard, but even he couldn't execute all of his plans alone. A select few knew of his true intentions, one of those people was my father, and I have good reason to believe that he has had a hand in bankrolling the WULF."

"Bankrolling the WULF?" Ginny sat back down in her chair, and Draco began to tell his tale. He hadn't seen his father in months, and decided one night to pay him a visit at Malfoy Manor. When he arrived, all of the lights in the house were out, and Draco assumed his father was away, but as he crossed into the main hallway, he could hear noise coming from the ballroom below. He cast a disillusionment charm over himself and crept downstairs to see what had been the cause. In the centre of the room, a tall, thin man in a golden mask and black robes was torturing the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement for everyone's entertainment. The WULF seemed to be having some sort of dinner party or meeting, and Lucius Malfoy was up on stage, not at the head of the table of course, but off to one side, laughing and posturing as he had when Lord Voldemort had counted him among his inner circle. Draco was disgusted, he'd almost revealed himself right there, ready to have it out with his father. But instead, he stayed quiet, and listened, gathering information as the leader of the WULF spoke in his high, robotic voice.

The WULF had Gawain Robards, and many other Ministry higher-ups under the Imperious Curse, and between them, they had started a slander campaign against Ginny, trying to deflect attention away from themselves. This much, Ginny had come to work out on her own, but Draco seemed to know much more. For starters, the WULF had no idea where Harry was. This caused Ginny's heart to leap in her chest. If the WULF didn't have him, then he was still out there somewhere. At first, the WULF assumed he had simply disapparated, but when he didn't show up, they began to concoct their rumour of his disappearance. Of course, only the members gathered at Malfoy Manor were privy to this information. But Draco had uncovered so much more about their plan.

"They plan to resurrect an evil sorceress, one so ancient and powerful that she had to be sealed away inside a Russian doll. It's said that if she were to return to full power, she could rid the magical world of all muggle-borns with a single spell known as the Rising. The only way to resurrect her is to find the doll, the key to unlock it, the book that contains the spell, and a wand powerful enough for her to cast it. Once these items are united, and the sorceress is freed from her cage, the WULF will be unstoppable."

"Oh, come on Draco, I know that there is such a thing as the Great Prophecy, but how can you seriously believe that half of that is real?" Ginny laughed, but somewhere in the back of her head, a tiny voice reminded her that most people think that the Deathly Hallows are nothing but a children's story, but she knew better, having come into contact with two of the three. Ginny had seen Dumbledore wield the Elder Wand for years without realising it, although now that she knew, it did make sense for the most powerful wizard in the world to hold the most powerful wand. But was it really powerful enough to wipe out hundreds of thousands of people at once? Ginny doubted it.

"Do you believe that the Deathly Hallows are a myth?" Draco countered, as if he could read her mind. "Our only small bit of fortune is that the WULF haven't found any of the items. In fact, there's very little history on them at all. The wizards who originally sealed her away spread them far across the world, so that they wouldn't come into contact with one another. They are buried deep in the strongest magical fortresses that there are, but nobody knows exactly where."

"Hogwarts!" Ginny shouted suddenly, jumping from her chair. "The Elder Wand is at Hogwarts! We need to get it out of there right now!"

"Relax Weasley," Draco said with an air of old self, "the WULF know it's there, but so far it remains untouched. My mother has been watching what goes on inside the castle. There's a charm on Dumbledore's tomb that will let us know if anyone tries to get inside. Nobody has been near it. Either the WULF are happy to leave it until last, or it isn't the wand they are after. But it doesn't matter, you can't just go barging in there and taking it, and I somehow doubt that people would take me very seriously if I suddenly emerged after a year and half of solitude and demanded to break into Dumbledore's tomb to secure the most powerful wand in the world."

"But we can't leave it there!"

"We have to, unless you want the WULF to know that you've discovered their plans. Besides, one other artefact is already secure." Ginny stared at him in puzzlement, but rather than explain, Draco rose from his seat and beckoned her to follow. He began descending a set of stairs hidden behind a large kitchen cabinet. They were narrow and dark, light only by a few small torches. The stairs twisted and turned, and at some point, they stopped being brick, and seemed to be carved out of the bedrock beneath the house. Deeper and deeper the pair went until eventually they reached a door. The door was heavy and black, with no handle to speak of. Draco placed a hand against the wood, and suddenly it dissolved before him. Inside was a small, very dusty room, presumably an old family vault. There were a few piles of golden galleons, which probably meant little to the Malfoys, but was more money than Ginny had ever seen in her life. Here and there were a few trinkets, goblets, tiaras, and in the centre of the room stood a dark wooden table, a fairly recent addition by the looks of it, and on the table, was a verylarge, very heavy-looking, black leather book. Its pages were so old and yellowed that it seemed as though any minute they would crumble away into dust. On the front cover of the book was a single word; CODEX.

"You-Know-Who found it buried in cave miles underneath Beauxbatons. He entrusted my father to hide it in the Department of Mysteries, which he did. Once I knew he was involved in the WULF and I learned what they planned to do with it, I went into the Ministry and took it. That was the last time anyone saw me in public. I'm not sure if my father knows it is gone, but I don't think he suspects me. He doesn't even know that I know it was found."

"Why did Voldemort have it?" Ginny asked in a whisper.

"He used to say to his inner circle that he planned to raise the sorceress himself, and once he had returned her, she would reward him with the world. I don't know if he ever meant it, or if he just wanted to keep them all afraid and impressed. Maybe he just craved the knowledge that is in here. After all, this is possibly the most ancient spell book in the world."

"Who is this sorceress? I've heard so many people talk about her, but nobody mentions her name."

"They say that when she was alive, she could hear the voice of anyone who mentioned her name, and by listening to what they said about her, she could decide whether they were an ally, or a foe. If they were a foe, she could kill them from miles away, and very often did. That,I think, is where You-Know-Who got the idea from. Even inside her prison, people say she can still hear us."

"But who is she?" Ginny demand again. Draco produced his wand and began to draw in the air. A series of orange letters burned into the space between them, and finally, Ginny knew the name people were afraid to say.

Morgana Le Fay.

Authors Notes

Dear Readers,

I'm sorry I haven't posted in so long. I've been taking a break from basically everything to look after my mental health. I hope you can understand. Hopefully this chapter is a good one, and thanks if you have stuck with the story.

Your friend,

IronManRidingaNimbus.