Sorry I haven't updated for ages... My life has been so busy recently. I can't complain as I've been having a brilliant time but I do feel really bad that I haven't updated before now. I seem to have so many things that I'm interested in and I'm trying to devote equal time to them all! (Well more time to my husband obviously because otherwise he would sulk!!!)
I wanted to mention Lost Enchanter and say thanks. She's been a great help recently in getting me back into the HP mood and chatting to me about the last book. I was a bit depressed about certain things (if you haven't finished it I won't spoil anything for you... But hurry up! lol) but she really cheered me up and gave me a great outlook on things. Plus she has a fab story and great digital art!!!!
Some parts of my plot are quite similar to the last book but I won't tell you which bit as if you've read it you will know and if you haven't I don't want to ruin anything! I did have the plot pretty much sorted before the book so any similarities are co-incidental and based on either my imagination or plots that I've discussed with people in chat rooms/forums before the last book. If I do include anything that has been influenced by the Deathly Harrows I will mention the chapter but not the specific part (reasons the same as above!)
It's my birthday on Tuesday so I probably won't update this week... I really want to be more frequent but I don't want to promise something and then let you all down lol!
Anyway - I hope you're all enjoying the summer hols. More sun for the UK please?!? Send some of your sun this way!
She shuffled her feet a little before looking up at him with a very mischievous glint in her eye. "How do you feel about a little breaking and entering?"
Draco studied Ginny for a minute, watching her animated face carefully, while keeping his perfectly emotionless. "Elaborate a little for me." He told her eventually.
"Ok, everyone knows that Ollivander has disappeared, a lot of people think he willingly went to the Dark Lord but who knows… Anyway, I happen to know that he took very few of his wands with him."
Ginny grabbed her bag from under the table at pulled out a pink rubbery item which she passed to Draco before continuing.
"Fred and George gave me a load of their joke products including some of their extendable ears. A few months ago I was listening in to one of the Order's meetings and Dad updated them on loads of stuff. The ministry have boarded up the shop but the security there is pathetic, Scrimgeour doesn't want to admit how big the problem with Voldemort is so he doesn't feel the need to make a big show of protecting people or their property. It should be easy for us to get in there, get you a wand and then get back here."
"I never realised you were so mischievous Ginny."
She grinned and remarked. "If you had Fred and George as older brothers, egging you on to throw dungbombs down the corridors you would be a bit roguish too. Well, unless you're boring like Percy but he's barely even one of us anymore. The only real difference between me and the twins is that I'm better at getting out of trouble than they are."
Draco let his emotional mask slip just enough to let out a noise of disbelief. "You could have fooled me. The amount of times I've had to save your arse and that's only in the last month or so."
Ginny gave him a look that most of the men she knew would quail from and was about to remind him of the many times he'd needed her help but he interrupted her before she had a chance to.
"I don't think it's a good idea. I'll wait for Lupin." He slithered gracefully back down into the chair, picked a book up from the side and started to leaf through it, completely ignoring Ginny's open mouthed look of absolute astonishment.
"And please stop spluttering like that would you. It's not the most attractive thing you've ever done."
Ginny shut her mouth instantly and turned an interesting shade of beetroot. She took a couple of deep breaths and continued in a much calmer manner.
"Are you scared then Draco?"
"I might be if there was even the smallest possibility that I was going, but we're not so you can stop trying to play mind games with me." He put his feet up on the table and slid even further down in his chair, looking so much like the master of the house that Ginny almost smiled.
Instead of shouting and getting mad, Ginny decided to take a leaf out of Draco's book and play it cool. "Ok, well if you aren't coming with me then do you have any preference of wand? I think Veela hair would suit you perfectly, maybe in oak – very regal."
"Don't be childish Ginny. You're not going. It's too dangerous. After the last few times I would have thought that you had learned that."
"It might be dangerous - but you need a wand and this is the only way of getting one. I doubt Remus will be able to get anything from the ministry; they will just put him off and load him with paperwork. I'm going and you can't stop me."
Draco put the book down extremely carefully and Ginny knew he was keeping his temper in. "I can stop you Ginny, even if I have to tie you down. Your parents asked me to keep an eye on you and I'll do whatever is necessary to keep you from harm. Do you understand?"
Ginny huffed at him, trying not to lose her temper. She shook her head vehemently sending cascades of fire flying round her face.
"I understand what you're trying to say but you're wrong. You can't stop me without using physical strength and hurting me, I have a wand and you don't. And what if something did happen? What if I went nuts or Death Eaters broke in. How much of a protector would you be then without a wand? Just because you saved me once without a wand doesn't mean you can do it automatically every time. Can't you see this is the only way? If you come with me then we will be safer, we can look out for each other. Please?"
Draco felt frustrated; he needed a wand and had no way of contacting Remus to get one. All of what Ginny said was right but he was worried about the dangers involved.
"Let me think about it. Give me half an hour, ok?"
Ginny nodded her acquiescence and said that she would get them some food to take. "Just in case you agree of course… We can always eat it here if you don't."
Draco shook his head as she left, he knew he had already lost the discussion and losing was something he hated to do. Although it seemed to happen to him a lot more than he liked when he was battling Gryffindors. He sighed and thought he might as well look through the boxes of belongings some more while he waited for Ginny to come back with the food.
The amount of objects he couldn't recognise in the boxes was immense. He desperately hoped that somewhere Dumbledore had written down what these things did. Draco was sure that at least half of them were of the old man's own devising and was worried about the possible side effects of using any of them. He started sorting the boxes into things that he knew and things he didn't. Even the pile of recognisable objects was impressive; there were many rare and valuable charms and trinkets there.
As he took a step back to survey the piles, Draco's leg brushed up against a previously unseen box. He almost discarded the container; it was so old that it had a thin layer of mould in three of the corners. However something made him take a second look, with the toe of his boot he nudged open the top of the box and saw that it was filled with a silvery material, more expensive looking than most fabrics he had seen before.
Draco couldn't understand why something so obviously valuable had been left in such a small grimy box. It must have had a protective charm on it though as it hadn't been tarnished by age at all. Leaning down, Draco wrinkled his nose at the musty smell from the damp cardboard and carefully pulled the cloth from the box.
The material flowed out when he pulled, and as it came fully out of the box it turned out to be a large and intricately made cloak. Draco felt his heart leap into his throat. If he was right about what this was then any worries he had about going to Ollivander's were vanquished. Tentatively he draped the cloak over his shoulders and lifted up a covered arm. It was invisible – not just slightly see-through like some of the cheap potions could make you, but completely transparent. He looked down, there wasn't even a shadow being cast by him.
This has to be the most expensive and powerful invisibility cloak ever made. Draco thought to himself. I have to show Ginny! He threw open the door and ran along the corridor and down the creaky stairs until he reached the kitchen.
"Ginny! You have to see this." He said as he pushed the big, heavy door. "Ginny?" Entering the room he couldn't see Ginny anywhere, he poked his head into the little larder but she wasn't there.
Starting to panic slightly, Draco called out loudly. "Ginny, I need you here right now!" After a moment he added, "Ginny. This isn't amusing. If you don't come out here right now then we definitely aren't going to the shop."
Closing his eyes, Draco concentrated hard on Ginny's image, her smell, the way she felt when he held her. He thought about the sound of her voice and the way her flaming hair fell softly around her face. He couldn't sense her at all in the house.
For the first time since he had been in the house Draco felt a real sense of panic. Years of conditioning stopped him from running frantically round the house; he wanted to run manically, tearing down curtains and throwing over furniture in a desperate hunt for this person who had found a place in his heart. But instead he removed the cloak, stowed it in a handy drawer and then methodically searched for Ginny room to room, looking in every nook and cranny - even if there was no possible way to fit a person in the gap he looked.
Halfway through the house Draco was forced to stop by the pure pressure he felt pressing on his chest. Every step made him feel as though he was going to be sick and he had long been cold and goosebumped with fear.
He called out in desperation, "Ginny, please come out. We can go wherever you want. I promise…"
When no answer came he continued in his meticulously planned route of the house, finally stopping in the one room his last hopes lay in; the medical room. Stiffly Draco opened all the cupboards, hoping against all hope that in one he would fine a red headed vixen, laughing harmlessly at her innocent trickery. He promised himself he wouldn't even be angry; he would just hold her and make her promise never to scare him so badly again.
When his search proved fruitless Draco finally lost his nerve, he had scoured every room in the house, leaving Ginny no escape route should she have been playing a game with him. Now he knew for certain that his intuition was right and Ginny was gone. Frantically Draco rushed to the shelf containing the summoning ornaments; he grabbed Ginny's dragon and held it so tightly to his chest that unknown to him he was left with a smattering of bruises across the area of his heart.
Nothing. Draco couldn't feel any warmth from it. He placed it carefully in his pocket and grabbed another, Hermione's cat. Still nothing. In a blind panic Draco swept the shelf's worth of models into his arms and fell to the floor desperately grasping different shapes and dropping or throwing them when no heat formed.
Finally Draco sensed a warming feeling in his fist; through filmy eyes he realised the figurine he was holding was a phoenix. Harry's symbol.
Pacing the room, Draco felt a tingling feeling growing in the small of his back. Without knowing why he strode to the front door. Just in time he wrenched it open and was faced by an angry but very ragged looking Harry; behind him was an extremely bedraggled Ron. Both quailed slightly at the look on Draco's face but regained their irate looks almost immediately.
"She's gone, where is she?" asked Harry, barging his way through the door, most unwisely in Draco's opinion.
"That's why I called you!" Draco spat angrily, ready for a fight; he would almost welcome the distraction.
"I figured as much." Harry yelled, "What have you done with her?"
Draco looked at Harry as if he were an amoeba; wondering if he was truly that blind to think he would harm Ginny.
Looking at the aloof, platinum framed face, Harry thought Draco needed some clarification. "One minute she was there, I went to get a drink and then she had just disappeared from the flat."
Draco was taken aback. "Ginny was with you?"
Harry's jaw dropped and a look of pure confusion passed over both his and Ron's face. After the smallest of gaps Harry managed to utter a sentence "Ginny?? What are you talking about… Ginny and I split up, she's fine - Pansy is missing."
"I know you split up you absolute imbecile… You never got back together - Ginny and I have been an item for weeks." Draco could almost have taken pleasure in the look of shock that appeared on the midnight-black haired boy's features, but he was still far too worried about Ginny, and the added absence of Pansy concerned him even further. He took a deep breath...
"I think Ginny's missing too – I… I know she is. For about an hour now"
Ron's face crumpled. "Hermione too… She said that she was going to the library but she's been gone too long. I went to the library and they said no one of her description had been there. At first I assumed she had disguised herself so no Death eaters would recognise her but after hearing this..." Ron paused and swept his hand through his hair roughly.
"I think Hermione's in danger; Pansy and Ginny too…"