A/N: Thanks to all readers and reviewers, especially marinka and victoria21.
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Everything is noise and confusion and a swirl of light and color, Order members whipping wands and shooting spells and curses, and Ginny realizes that magic has suddenly and inexplicably started again, but only from their side. Hermione runs across the room, chasing Mulciber, hitting him with a spell that makes him go rigid and scream with pain; Anthony Goldstein takes out a couple of huge Death Eaters with a savage slash of his wand, blood pouring from their wounds; Cho Chang swirls her wand around a circle of black-cloaked figures and they all shrivel up, screaming horribly. Green light arcs from the fireplace to the mirror, reflecting across the room, dazzling Ginny's eyes.
"Avada Kedavra!" cries a harsh voice at the same moment, and at the end of the green arc, a dark, twisted thing convulses in agony and crumples to the floor. Then, suddenly, everything is silent.
Harry Potter steps forward, past the thing that was once Voldemort. He is pale and drawn, as if he's spent a very long time in solitary confinement, very far away from sun and light and air. He has, thought Ginny numbly, and even without yet knowing the full story, she knows that she must be more or less right. He takes her hand. His is very, very cold. He pulls her off the bed, away from Draco's warmth. She struggles weakly, but his grip is like iron.
"I understand, Ginny," he says in his harsh voice. He sounds as if he hasn't spoken in years. "I see what you had to do. You had to… to sleep with Malfoy… or you couldn't get the power to get in here and to let me out. Hermione told me a few things after I escaped. I'm sorry, Ginny, so sorry that you had to sacrifice yourself for me. But you'll move past it- we'll get past it. We'll move on. Maybe with a Memory charm, you can forget all about what you had to do with him—"
Ginny is never sure exactly when she began screaming. It might have been then. Or it might have been a few seconds later, when she saw Rita Skeeter and the photographers from the Daily Prophet crowding into Draco's bedroom. Either way, there were words somewhere in her screams, something along the lines of no, no, it's not true, none of it, that's not the way it happened at all, and then Rita's avid lacquered face was thrust into hers.
"Really?" Rita asks eagerly. "You mean the spunky, plucky Resistance leader Ginny Weasley willingly betrayed all her ideals in exchange for sweet, sinister, savage sex with the dark, delicious, hottie head honcho Death Eater, Draco Malfoy? What a story!"
Ginny sees Luna Lovegood pushing herself forward, taking her arm, steadying it. She is dimly grateful, until she hears Luna begin to speak. "What a lot of unnecessary alliteration," says Luna, with a notable lack of dreaminess in her voice. "That's not the way it was at all. It's just as Harry said. Ginny plotted to get into Malfoy Manor and rescue him from the deepest, gloomiest dungeons by shagging the Malfoy heir, because that was the only way to tap the primal power she needed in order to do it, and of course the heir is Draco Malfoy, so she needed to have sex with him and that's what she just did and that's why we just found her in bed with him. It's a very nice bed, by the way. The carpet's nice too, but I don't think they'll ever get the dead-Voldemort stain out of it now. Anyway, Ginny and I worked out the entire plan together and we didn't dare to tell anyone else—you know how the Sneaky Subgubulars are; they'll reveal your deepest secrets in a moment by crawling into your worst enemy's ears and whispering them all in iambic pentameter."
"Goodness." Rita Skeeter blinks. "But if I'm not much mistaken—and I never am—those primal-power spells only work if the two people involved have had some sort of, ahem, personal connection before. Doesn't that seem to imply a steamy sex scandal in the offing?"
"You're altogether too curious," says Luna. "Curious people are often attacked by Zigzag-Horned Snorkacks. They're very vicious, and quite fond of seeing if they can reshape their victims to match their horns. Their habitat includes the terrain surrounding Stonehenge, and I know the exact call that will summon them. This is for informational purposes only, of course."
Rita gulps. "Ah… of course. Colin, why don't you get some nice photographs of the Joyful Reunion of the Boy-Who-Lived-Through-A-Horrid-Year-And-A-Half-In-A-Dungeon-with-Voldemort and his faithful girlfriend Ginny Weasley? Perhaps the caption could involve some mention of 'setting the date for an autumn wedding'?"
"Oh, God," says Harry. "Can't somebody get her the fuck out of here? Creevey as well? And we've got to get Ginny out. Luna, can you get her other side, and for fuck's sake throw that robe on her, and tie it tight."
They are all moving her out of the room, and she desperately cranes her head to look back, to catch a glimpse of Draco, to cry out to him, no, no, it's all a lie, there wasn't any plan, I didn't come here for that, you've got to believe me! There is a terrible commotion at the door, and for several minutes, they are all stuck. Grim-faced Aurors move past them in the other direction, and one figure is at the center of their group.
"Fuck," mutters Harry.
Ginny looks up. The figure surrounded by all the Aurors, his wrists in chains, is Draco. His eyes meet hers. They are filled with stony hatred. She opens her mouth to cry something out. Luna steps on her foot. Draco gives a short, sharp laugh, and he jerks his head away from her. The Aurors pull him past the crowds, towards the door on the opposite side of the room.
"No, no, I didn't –" she starts to say, too late, but before she can add I didn't betray you, Draco, I would've died before doing that, Luna reaches up and claps a hand over her mouth.
"She's been under so much strain," says Luna. "We've got to get her someplace where she can rest."
"Of course," says Hermione.
And they do. They give her Sleeping potions and Dreamless potions and Soothing potions and Tranquilizing potions, but she has dreams anyway. In one of them, the very first dream that she can remember, Luna stands by her bedside, putting her cool hands on her forehead.
"Don't touch me," says Ginny. "I hate you."
"I'm awfully sorry about that, but you'll understand soon," says Luna. "Ginny, don't tell anyone that you didn't really make that plan with me. The one to betray Draco Malfoy, I mean."
"Oh, all right," says Ginny, because she'd say just about anything to get Luna to go away. She closes her eyes and slips back into darkness. All too soon, she wakes up.
Hermione comes into Ginny's cozy room at the sumptuous new Order headquarters where she's staying until the new Weasley home is finished and explains everything to her, once they think she's strong enough to hear about it. Harry didn't really destroy Voldemort after all. Ginny was right all along, Hermione tells her, and yes, yes, they ought to have listened to her. It seemed as if he had done, but a bit of Voldemort's soul still remained intact, and it recaptured Harry a few months after the war was supposedly over and dragged him back into magical imprisonment in the dungeons of Malfoy Manor, because that is where the greatest concentration of magical power in Britain is located. That's why all of the wizarding magic had diminished so much; Voldemort was draining it by holding Harry captive there. And Ginny saved them all with her plan to get Harry out by sacrificing herself through tapping the oldest magic. This is the part where Hermione begins looking up at the ceiling. In order to do this, of course, it had indeed been necessary to, er, unite physically with the Malfoy heir. And this would indeed only work if, ahem, Ginny had once given her virginity willingly to this same Malfoy heir. Hermione didn't think that anyone else had really figured out this particular point. It especially wasn't necessary for Harry to be aware of it. Speaking of which, Ginny really ought to see Harry soon. He was so very grateful, and doing so very well, and Hermione herself was spending so much time with him lately, she says. Ron? How was Ron? Oh, she'd seen him a few times, Hermione says. Luna certainly seemed to be spending a lot of time with Ron, Hermione says.
Ron visits Ginny, and he doesn't talk about what she had done with Draco Malfoy, or what she had sacrificed in order to get him or Harry out of the dungeons, or much of anything at all, really. He hugs her and sobs, and lies curled up next to her the way they sometimes used to do on rainy afternoons at the Burrow, and then tells her to get the hell out of bed and start living again. Ginny says that she'll think about it. She takes a chance and asks where Draco is now. Ron says that he's heard the Aurors thought about sending him to Azkaban, but they couldn't round up any Dementors, so they had to come up with something else. But he doesn't know any more than that.
After about a week, Luna appears in the doorway. Ginny glares at her.
"Don't come into this room," she says.
Luna does anyway, as Ginny knew she would. She sits in a chair by the bedside.
"I really do hate you," says Ginny.
"Yes, that's what you said last time,' says Luna.
"So that wasn't a dream," says Ginny.
"No, it wasn't. Did you ever tell anybody?"
"No. I mean, I never said there was a plan to… to betray Draco…" Ginny's throat closes up for a moment. "But I never said there wasn't, either. Luna, why? Why did you say that, why did you go along with Harry?"
"Because it was the only thing I could do. I realized that right away.'
"But why?"
"I can't tell you just now."
"You're going to have to do better than that!"
"Do you want to see Draco again?" asks Luna.
"Yes," whispers Ginny.
"Then you're going to have to be very clever, and very careful. Start getting out of bed. Start talking to Harry. Convince him that everything is all right, that you've had an awful shock, but that you're getting over it now. Then in about three weeks, I'll tell you what to do next."
Ginny grits her teeth. "Why should I trust you, Luna?"
Luna looks back at her with enormous silvery-blue eyes, and against her will, Ginny realizes that those eyes have always seemed to see more than they should. "Don't you know?" she asks.
Ginny thinks hard. "Draco said something about a mole in the Order," she says slowly. "Somebody who helped Ron get off the grounds of Malfoy Manor. That was you. Wasn't it?"
Luna nods.
"You love my brother. Don't you?"
"I always have," says Luna.
"And Hermione doesn't," says Ginny. "Not really." She swings her legs over the edge of the bed, wincing when her feet touch the floor. "I guess I'll just have to trust you, Luna." Strangely, tremulously, she does.
"I'm feeling so much better, Hermione," says Ginny the next day. "I think I'd like to see Harry soon."
The other girl's smile is a bit pinched.
Oh, thinks Ginny. So that's how it is. Well, Hermione can have him. But has Harry been informed of this little development yet?
Not really, as it turns out. However, Ginny thinks that his eyes light up with self-importance and self-satisfaction when he sees her up and about, but nothing else. No. She thinks that she can see no more emotions than those, in Harry's eyes. She wonders if he has any real affection for her at all. Hermione will eventually console him quite nicely, she decides.
"What an ordeal it must have been for you, Harry," she coos, and that is all it takes to get him going. She scarcely has to say a single word for the next three weeks. Although she does feel sorry for him, and she does know that it must have been an ordeal to be trapped in a dungeon in Malfoy Manor with Voldemort for well over a year, she rather thinks that being trapped with Harry for the rest of her life would be even worse. Still, she smiles and nods and flatters his ego, and makes sympathetic noises, and encourages him to go off with Hermione whenever the other girl shows up for him, and watches them leave with a sigh of relief.
Harry wants to kiss her, and she allows it, knowing that avoiding it will seem too suspicious. She endures it. Harry wants to do much more with her. He wants to do everything that they did in those few months after the war ended and before he disappeared, in fact. Draco's bitter estimates had been off; she'd waited four months after him to go to bed with Harry in his rooms at Twelve Grimmauld Place, telling herself desperately the entire time that it was the right thing to do. She'd cried in the bathroom, afterwards, and the mirror had tried to soothe her. If she did it again now, she knows that she could not endure it. She tells Harry that she's simply been through too much lately, and that she needs time to allow the memories of Draco Malfoy to fade. They will never fade, but she doesn't tell him that. Harry brings up the idea of a Memory charm again, and she almost has to sit on her hands to resist the urge to punch him.
After three weeks, Luna comes to the Order headquarters at non with a picnic basket. Just a private lunch between us girls, she says, giggling, and Harry doesn't seem to notice that Luna has never giggled in her life before. He goes off to lunch with Hermione. In a tiny, private meadow, away from all prying eyes and curious ears, Luna tells Ginny what she needs to do next. And finally, Ginny understands it all.
"I need to go back to Malfoy Manor," says Ginny in her bravest, most resolute voice the next day.
"Ginny!" Hermione says in alarm. "Are you sure you're feeling quite all right?"
"Yes," she says, glancing surreptitiously into the mirror in her room. Do I look determined and tragic-yet-ready-to-go-on-with-my-life enough, I wonder? "Hermione, it's something I have to do. I can't move on otherwise."
"I think it's a dreadful idea," Hermione says rather sternly.
Ginny decides that the time has come to bring out the big guns. She takes Hermione's hands and looks into the other woman's eyes. "It's something that I need for myself. Hermione, I've been trapped in a shame spiral with the memory of what I had to do with Malfoy. For closure, to heal my inner child, I've got to go back." Inwardly, she was grimacing. This is really over the top. Is she actually going to swallow all of this Muggle American twelve-step-program rubbish-
But Hermione's eyes are glistening with tears. "You're so brave, Ginny. I do think I understand now. Do you want me to go with you for support?"
"No!" The word comes out harsher than she'd intended it. "No," Ginny says more gently. "Hermione, it's just—it's difficult to explain, but I need to go there with someone who doesn't remind me of what happened, and both you and Harry do. It's not your fault, of course—" oh yes it is, her mind adds involuntarily, "but I just can't help it. I'd like to go with Luna tomorrow."
Hermione puts her hand over Ginny's. "All right."
Ginny almost feels guilty. Almost.
On her way to the door, Hermione pauses. "You don't want to actually see him, do you?"
Does Hermione look just the tiniest bit suspicious? Ginny wonders. "Gods, no. I just have to go back to that place. I have to know that I can be there, and that nothing bad will happen to me."
The other girl hesitates, and then nods. "Okay. It's just that seeing Malfoy, or getting anywhere near him, really might be dangerous, Ginny."
"What do you mean?" Dangerous for you, Ginny thinks scornfully. Not for me.
"He's been put into the same cell where Harry was trapped with Voldemort for nearly a year and a half," says Hermione.
"What? Why?"
She shrugs. "It just seems… fair. And the effects it's probably had on Malfoy by now, after three weeks, after all that cruelty and evil that's seeped into the walls over the past year, well… I think it might very well be a bit dangerous to be anywhere near him by this point. Harry was protected by his scar through all that time; Voldemort absorbed everything. Malfoy doesn't have any protection like that."
"Oh," says Ginny. Her lips feel very numb.
"He deserves it," says Hermione. "Ginny, he more than deserves it. Draco Malfoy was in deep with the Death Eaters for two years, and he was unquestionably their leader for six months after Lucius died. Don't waste your pity on him."
"I'm not," Ginny says quickly.
"I really don't think you should go," says Hermione. "Or if you do, I think you should take me, or Harry, or preferably both of us."
"I'll be all right, with Luna," says Ginny. "And Hermione, I really do need to go."
She doesn't feel any guilt at all, now. Actually, she wishes that the entire ceiling would fall in on Hermione's head now, except that if it did, Harry wouldn't be standing next to her, and she really likes that idea as well.
The wheels of the car go round and round, and they seem to repeat the same rhythm all the way to Wiltshire.
Did I come in time, did I come in time?
Ginny didn't want to Apparate. Even though she could have done, it didn't seem right, somehow, and Luna said that she should probably trust her instincts. So they parked at Stonehenge, and now they are walking the outer grounds of Malfoy Manor together. The guards let Ginny in once they saw who she was; Harry or Hermione had apparently spoken to them, although she isn't sure if that makes her feel more or less uneasy. Another guard lets them in by a side entrance. Ginny doesn't dare to try to get in by the hidden door, of course; that isn't part of the plan.
The entire manor has been converted into makeshift Ministry headquarters; she sees that right away. The tight-lipped guard at the front desk checks her credentials. "Wands," he snaps, holding out his hand. Ginny stares at him blankly.
"All wands must be surrendered upon entry," he repeats.
Luna nudges her. Ginny gives him both their wands.
"It'll be all right," Luna whispers.
Oh, gods, I hope so, thinks Ginny. They hadn't counted on this. They'd been so sure that they could use their wands to help fight their way out if they needed to; now what? Well, no time to worry about that now. "Where are the dungeons?" she asks.
"You'd like to see the dungeons?" The guard's beetly little eyes are suspicious.
"Harry Potter must have sent you the message," says Luna. "Ginny Weasley needs to see the prisoner." Her voice is very assured, and Ginny arranges her face into a sad, brave look. A copy of the latest Daily Prophet is open on the desk. Ginny could see only a few words of the headline. Something about a Heroic Weasley something-or-other Holding Up Under the Tragedy. The guard nods.
Another guard, shorter and rather squat and bestial-looking, leads them down a dank flight of stairs, and then another, and another, and the light grows dimmer and dimmer. Torches stuck into the walls provide the only illumination, and they flicker fitfully. Still, they keep going down and down. They stop at a crumbling stone recess.
"Here," grunts the guard. "I've got to stay the whole time, of course."
"Of course," says Luna with a radiant smile. "Tell me, Slubgullion, do you know anything about the dangers of the Slurping Slashbuckler?"
"No. Can't say as I do."
"What a pity," says Luna, opening her hand. "For you, anyway." Something small and red flies out and sticks itself into the guard's neck. He goes down without a sound. "He'll wake up in about an hour with an awful headache," says Luna to Ginny. "You can go on in now."
But can I? wonders Ginny. Well, there's only one way to find out. She bites her lip, and approaches the massive stone door. There is a tiny window at the very top, much too high for her to reach, and no obvious lock. She runs her hand along the crack of the door, praying that this will work, half-afraid of what will happen if it does.
"Abend," she whispers.
The door melts into mist and re-forms around her, and when she opens her eyes, she is standing inside the cell.
It is tiny and bare, hewn out of the rock itself, with only one small torch stuck in the wall and casting long orange shadows over the uneven rock floor. Water drips steadily down another one of the walls. One small cot is tucked into a corner; a plate with an untouched bowl of soup and a slice of bread on it lies on a table. On a chair, facing the corner, sits Draco Malfoy. His back is to her, and his head is bowed.
Ginny grips onto the back of the cot to keep from falling; every kind of horrible emotion overwhelms her when she sees him in this unspeakable place, where she can feel the misery and evil and cruelty seeping from every square inch of the walls. He sits as still as a statue, and he's thinner than ever, how has he lost so much weight in only a month? She walks forward. Hasn't he heard her come in? Why isn't he turning round? Is he… oh, please, gods, please don't let him be… he has to be all right, he just has to be… But she gets closer and closer, and he still doesn't make a move or a sound. She taps his shoulder, her heart sinking at how sharp his bones feel beneath his cloak.
"Draco?" she asks in a very small voice.
He whirls round and leaps up from the chair in one smooth motion, almost before she's even realized he's done it, and he slams her against the stone wall. She starts to scream. He clamps a hand over her mouth. Then he removes it.
"Go on," he pants. "Go on, Weasley, scream all you like! The guards won't come for you; they probably won't even hear you. Do you know how much screaming I've done since I've been in this hellhole? Do you think it's ever brought anyone here?"
She flinches back, but there is nowhere to go; she is already pressed all the way up against the wall. "Draco," she says. "Listen to me—"
His silvery eyes are bigger than ever in his pale, gaunt face, and they glow with hatred. "I don't want to hear anything, anything you could have to say to me, you bitch. No—maybe I do—tell me why you came here, why don't you? To gloat? To spit on me? To laugh? Or have you already done your share of laughing with Potter? Why didn't you bring him with you, Weasley?"
"Draco, it's not like that—" she tries to say, but his lips curl into a snarl.
"Don't ever do that again. Don't ever call me by my first name again. Fucking lying bitch. You betrayed me—"
"I didn't, I swear I didn't, if you'd just let me explain—"
"I don't want to hear your fucking explanations!" He grabs her shoulders and shakes her so that her head bobbles back and forth and she loses her breath, but her head isn't hitting the wall, she thinks dizzily, why not, he could really hurt her so easily but he isn't, so why isn't he?
"Please," she gasps. It is the only word she can get out. "Please. Please."
"Too late to plead with me," said Draco. "Just as it's too late for me to plead with you, Weasley. I know why you came here, though. You came to complete the process of driving me mad, didn't you?
"No. I swear I didn't, I just—'
"Oh, yes," he says. "I think I always knew you'd come here for that someday, from the moment they threw me in here and told me I'd never get out again. You did know that's what happened, right? How long ago was it? Feels like about a thousand years. But you look the same as you did when I went in, so that can't be right. Still so beautiful, G—no, I'll never call you that again, either. So beautiful." His hand goes up to caress her cheek, and she stares into his eyes like a mouse hypnotized by a snake. His silvery hair is wildly disheveled around his gaunt face and his eyes glow with something like madness, or if he isn't quite there all the way yet, she thinks in horror, he will be soon. And he's still the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in all my life.
"Dr—Malfoy, listen to me," she says, trying to keep her voice even. "Something terrible is happening, this cell is starting to drive you mad, if anything, but that's all it is—"
"Oh, no, I'm not mad yet," Draco says in conversational tones. "Don't think I am." He takes a curl of her hair and twines it round one of his fingers. "I've spent every minute of every day since I got here in hating you, you see, and that's kept me sane. I've never hated anyone or anything as much as I hate you now. It's rather a project." He cups her chin, and she shivers. "I gave you everything that a Malfoy should never give to anyone, and you used it to destroy me, Weasley. And the worst part of all is that I deserved it for being such a thick bastard, because I should have realized what was really going on years earlier."
He leans forward, as if to tenderly whisper secrets in her ear. "You've known all along, haven't you? The Order's been using you since you were fifteen years old to get at the secrets of the Death Eaters and Voldemort through me, and you let them use you."
Ginny closes her eyes, agony ripping through her. The truth, she thinks. The truth comes out at last, in this place of misery and suffering and death and evil, this place where there is no more room or time for lies or deception.
"I had no choice,' she whispers.