A/N: Shalala… sorry that I didn't post this sooner. Erm. I don't really know what to say. It's just habit to write an author's note… wow. Chapter forty-eight. Even HP&OoTP only has thirty-eight. But I suppose dear Rowling's chapters are longer. These chapters are getting shorter, to spread out suspense and cliffies. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I am not lucky enough to be as smart enough as to invent these characters myself. They are not mine. Too bad. –pout-

The Stone Speaks

Chapter Forty-Eight: Lies, Puns and Mind-Readers

GINNY AND DRACO

"Draco, help me!" she screamed. She needed to see his face, needed to see his beautiful eyes – hard, cold, iron by first impression, but blue once love had softened metal.

And then blue light flashed and the last thing she saw before she blacked out was her friends, far in the distance, falling limply to the mud.

The seventeen-year-old Slytherin sprinted determinedly through the battlefield, holding his wand high, its dim orb of light guiding him through the night-time gloom. "GINNY!" he yelled. "Ginny – where are you?!" There! In the distance! Was that her?

…

"Ennervate."

It was the first word that rang through Ginny's blissfully empty mind. Then her eyes fluttered open. For a moment she was confused – where was she? What was happening? Who was carrying her?

And then she remembered.

"Draco!" she screamed. "Draco – help me, please, Draco!"

Where was he? Oh, please don't kill him! Please, don't let him be dead! Rescue me, please, Draco, I'm so scared – but I don't want him to get you. I'm so confused!

"Shut it, you stupid brat," snarled Lord Voldemort. "He can't rescue you, and he never will. He doesn't care."

Tears welled up in Ginny's eyes. "He does care!" she screamed back at him, still swinging over his shoulder. "Draco is my best friend – how dare you say that he doesn't care! And – and-" Despite all her best efforts, she broke down into sobs, "-and… and I love him," she wept. "And I can never tell him… I – I love you…"

"You fool," snapped the Dark Lord. "Thinking that he could ever love you in return. Did he ever tell you why he returned? Oh no, of course not. He was sent to KILL you!" he cackled, raising his free hand to the sky in a clenched fist.

"Wh-what?" Ginny gasped. "No, that's impossible."

Lord Voldemort rolled his eyes. "Always with the dubiousness. He was a Death Eater! His assignment was to kill you and take the Stone of Montol. However, as you are still alive, I daresay you realise that he FAILED. And that, Weasley, is why he was being tortured to death."

Ginny felt her own breath choke her. "N-no… that's not – no," she cried. "But… how could he? I know him, I love him! He'd never try to hurt me!" she said stubbornly, fighting back her despairing tears.

"You saw him back there," sneered Lord Voldemort. "I was hurting you… kidnapping you… did he make any move to escape? No, he did not."

"Because… because…" Ginny struggled to find an excuse; anything to get rid of the truth – no! the lies! - that Lord Voldemort was telling her. "He rescued me from a chimaera! And he saved me from you, in the Shrieking Shack."

Another humourless laugh. "Weasley, are you as stupid as you look? If the chimaera had killed you, then yes, it would have finished his job, but it would probably steal, or worse, eat the Stone! We couldn't have that."

"What about the Shrieking Shack?" cried Ginny, mulish in her beliefs.

"END THESE QUESTIONS!" roared Lord Voldemort. "We've arrived."

"Arrived where?" screamed Ginny, recalling what was happening. I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, oh God, I'm going to die. "Let me go!"

"As you wish." The Dark Lord abruptly dropped the redhead, and she fell, hard, onto the ground. "Welcome, my dear," he said sardonically, "to the dead centre of Hogsmeade." Then, he added dryly, "it's a pun, by the way."

Trembling, Ginny sat up and looked around. It was indeed a pun – the dead centre of Hogsmeade… they were at the Hogsmeade graveyard. The falling rain that plastered Ginny's hair to her skin had turned the cemetery's hard ground and parched grass into a thick, slightly yellow sludge. She shook as she saw the numerous tombstones. One of those… one of those will soon be mine.

Draco

He could, vaguely, behind him, hear the Golden Trio, plus Luna – perhaps, it could be called the Golden Four now - running after him. Draco alone knew which direction Lord Voldemort was heading in, and it was him they followed in desperation for Ginny's safety.

But none where as desperate as Draco himself.

Not Ginny. Please, please, not Ginny. Me – take me instead. Just please, please, don't hurt her. I can't – no – just don't hurt her.

For the thousandth time, Draco replayed Ginny's fake, but all the same horrific death, over again in his head. The imaae of her terrible death pushed him onwards, pushed him forwards, towards the only person in his entire seventeen-year-old life that he had ever given a damn about. And now… he gave more than a damn about Ginny. He would die before he let her be harmed.

Six ghoulish Inferi were blocking his path. Not slowing his stride for even a second, Draco whirled Ginny's wand around her head and bellowed hoarsely, "Destruschia!" His wand still above his head, he punched out his free hand, three fingers splayed out. Each solitary finger pointed to a different Inferi. With a screech of what sounded like nails on a chalkboard, amplified a million times, the harsh roar of rusted metal on rusted metal, a swirl of blood-crimson light flew from each of Draco's fingertips.

The light surged fatally through the air, before blowing gaping, see-through holes in the three closest Inferi. They gave tortured howls, before disappearing into the Netherworld with a whisper of death and a hiss of anger.

Draco was still running. He was now very close to the three remaining Inferi. Still not pausing, he brought down his punched-out hand, whipped his wand forwards, and shouted, "Confringo!"

What looked like a thin column of fire spouted from the tip of Draco's wand, spouting forwards at the Inferi. Draco was now upon them. Bracing himself for a nasty experience, gritting his teeth together, he sprinted straight through them. A chill like walking into a frozen Hell rang through his body, and despair filled every muscle, every ligament, every blood cell, freezing him. However, he tore through the other side, and then, as he shook off icicles clinging to his platinum-blonde hair, he heard the Inferi explode, screaming behind him.

Had this been a normal situation, Draco might have given his trademark smirk, or crowed a smart comeback to the whole event. But this was not a normal situation, and the seventeen-year-old had a mission.

"This way!" sounded Harry's raw yell. "Hurry!"

A slosh of footsteps, and Draco saw from the corner of his eye; Luna, a few metres behind him, tears welling up in her large grey eyes and sloshing down her muddy face. Her face was set into a determined look – it was such an unusual appearance on her usually sunny, daydreaming face that it was disconcerting, but reassuring at the same time that Luna cared about Ginny enough to snap out of Dream World for a heroic rescue.

Then he skidded to a halt, spraying mud up everywhere across his tattered clothes and his already-dirty face. Where are they? Luna stumbled to a halt beside him, shortly followed by Harry, then Ron, then Hermione.

"Where are they?" asked Hermione concernedly, sweeping a straggly curl out of her worrying brown eyes.

"I can't see them anywhere," replied Harry. Draco might have made a quip about his glasses, and how could he see, but the comeback didn't even come into his brain, let alone into his mouth and off his tongue. This was deadly important, and Ginny took up every nook and cranny and crevice of his brain.

"THERE!" yelled Ron.

Draco spun around so fast that he nearly bowled Luna over with his flaring cloak, and he scanned where Ron was pointing… His shoulders slumped. "That's not her," he informed them. "That's Mulciber and Hannah Abbot."

"Where could they go?" said Luna, stamping her foot and staring out through the battlefield.

He did not reply; Draco continued running. Harry grabbed Luna's elbow and they hurried off after him. Ron made a move to go, but Hermione was glancing desperately between Draco's retreating back and Hannah Abbot, writhing on the floor. "I'm helping Hannah," she blurted out finally. "I'll catch up – I have to help her. Neville would kill himself if she was hurt, and we can't lose anyone else."

Ron looked reluctant to let her go, but went Hermione begged, "Please – go! Help Ginny," he nodded, swooped in for a swift, hard kiss, before taking off after Harry, Luna and Draco. Then the Muggleborn Head Girl sprinted towards Mulicber, wand ready.

Draco, meanwhile, was sprinting across to the side of the wide, muddy street. The once-pristine houses were falling down, and he ducked under a fallen wooden beam, ducking down an alleyway. There was the Italian restaurant where he and Ginny had danced; it was in flickering flames, falling to the ground.

Sliding on the cobblestones, Draco rounded a corner and found himself nearing the town square. Fiendfyre was attacking the statue of Sir Henry Hog, the founder of Hogsmeade; his polished marble head had rolled across the street and was dissolving in a gutter, lifeless stone eyes seeming to plead for help.

Run faster, run faster… skirting around the crystal-blue flames, jumping over fences, and ducking through an alleyway. Then he skidded to a halt, seeing a junction of roads. "She's here!" he shouted back to the others. "I know she is… I know she is. I just…"

"D'you actually any idea where she is?" Harry panted dubiously, leaning over and resting his hands on his knees as he regained his breath.

Draco shot him a glare. Then he stared back ahead. Come on… tell me something… show me where she is… Then, hardly daring to think that it could work, he rolled up his cloak sleeve.

Ron, Harry, and Luna all flinched; gasped; shuddered; when they saw the worn, and disfigured Dark Mark, standing out on his forearm. Draco ignored their reaction… closed his blue eyes… and laid his hand over the snake-and-skull.

"Leglimens."

FLASH. Someone was trying to force him out desperately. FLASH. A zap of green light, and Professor Flitwick falling. Draco had already seen that, though. He felt the Golden Four's eyes upon him, but he forced that to the back of his mind, and pushed deeper into Lord Voldemort's. FLASH. "Well, well. Try to keep up." Running. Through the alleys. Past the Fiendfyre…

"Where is Ginny?" Draco bellowed. His eyes were still squeezed shut, and he was shaking, trying to block the Dark Lord's attempts to get free. He could hear a patter of footsteps that was Hermione approaching.

Lord Voldemort heard the shout in his head. He could block himself from answering – but he couldn't think of not thinking about where Ginny was without thinking about it.

Graveyard… mud… between the tombstones… red hair falling over her face, freckles standing out on her blanched face, trembling… "NO!" Lord Voldemort roared, throwing his hands to his head. "OUT! You will pay, boy…"

Draco was hurled back into his own head so hard that he stumbled backwards and fell to the ground. Luna tried to catch him, but he dragged her down too. He lay there, and then he realized that he was covered in a mixture of rain, sweat and tears.

"Did you just…" Ron gaped.

"…invade Lord Voldemort's mind?" Hermione finished fearfully.
"But – but that's impossible, the effort would have destroyed you!"

"It doesn't matter how I did it," Draco ground out, snapping his eyes open, "and it doesn't matter if he destroys me. If I don't find her, there will be nothing to destroy."

And then, terrible, and high-pitched, came a sound that all five teenagers knew too well. A scream of absolute terror.

A/N: I'm getting worse at these cliffies. Oh well. I shall have to practice. I hope you liked it. If you didn't, sod off. Just joking! Please review, and I shall give you a Harry Potter cookie.

COOKIES: Angry Ron has bright red raspberries that match the colour of his face. Dreamy Luna has radishes and coins in her cookie. Soothing Hermione has bits of caramel. Awkward Harry has bits of awkwardly-placed chocolate. Lovestruck Ginny has heart-shaped chocolate drops. Determined Draco is plain, because he's too intent on rescuing his favourite redhead to care about what kind of cookie he has.