ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT

Chapter One- Façades

Ginny peered over the top of her book and scowled darkly at the trio sitting and chatting in front of the fire. They failed to take any notice of her glare. She sunk deeper into the squashy red armchair and tried to concentrate on Flying With the Holyhead Harpies, which was replaying the famous 1953 match with the Heidelburg Harriers. A particularly loud burst of laughter from Ron caused her to look up in distracted annoyance just as the Harpies’ Seeker made a stunning capture of the Snitch. Ginny slammed the book shut and stared menacingly at her brother, who was now positively rolling on the rug with mirth.

“...... and the look on your face when you came out, Hermione! Pure horror! Even through all that fur....”

His words were overcome with more laughter as the hilarity of the memory came back to him in full. Hermione was trying very hard to look angry with him, but not quite succeeding; the corners of her mouth twitched with a suppressed grin.

“If I remember correctly, Ron, you were quite as horrified as I was. In fact, you almost tripped over a sink and broke your neck trying to get farther away from me!”

"Well, at least we used the right kind of hair in our potion, didn’t we!”

“Load of good it did you! You almost got yourself caught by Malfoy, which I would never have been thick enough to do!”

“Oh really, Hermione? Well, YOU’RE the one who flew off the handle third year and slapped him, aren’t you! Not that I’m saying it was a bad thing, mind you....”

Harry was grinning slightly as he watched his two best friends bickering good-naturedly. A few months ago he would have been joking along with them, or perhaps trying to shut them up. Now the sadness of Sirius’s death hung over him like a dark cloud. He was slow to emerge from the fog of anger and depression the loss of his godfather had plunged him into. However, being around his friends seemed to be helping him.

Ginny stared at him for a moment out of old habit, looking at the firelight gleaming on his glasses and dark hair. Then she shook herself, jerking her mind back to the irritation the trio was causing her tonight.

Not just tonight, she reminded herself. Every night. It’s not even something they’re doing. Quite the opposite, in fact.

During the previous year Ginny had finally taken part in one of their famous adventures and battled horrors that few girls her age could even imagine. When they returned to the school, Harry, Hermione, and Ron had gone right back to treating her as their baby sister. It wasn’t even that they were trying to exclude her: they just didn’t seem to notice she was there.

I guess I’m just not worth noticing to them, she fumed to herself. I’m not worth anything to those three. Not even to my own brother! When his other friends weren’t around, Ron was quick enough to seek her out. However, once Harry or Hermione showed up Ginny was relegated back to her former solitude.

And Ron thought it was bad having to live up to Bill and Charlie and the twins! she thought bitterly. At least they weren’t best friends with a celebrity and a know-it-all!

Usually Ginny was quite fond of her brother and his friends, but tonight her feelings of abandonment and resentment had come to a head. She slammed her book down on the table next to her chair and stormed through the common room and up the stairs to her dormitory. Just before she turned the final corner, she threw a last sidelong look at the laughing trio in front of the fire. None of them had even looked up as she left.

============

Ginny’s mind was racing as she stared at the red curtains that surrounded her bed. The anger which had flooded so violently through her veins was quickly being replaced with something stronger and deeper: determination.

What I need, she thought desperately, is a way to prove myself to them. I mean, I did well enough at Ministry, but so did Neville and Luna. It was nothing different. It was nothing special.

For a moment, she was horrified by the selfish, cruel thoughts that were running through her mind. What they had done at the Ministry wasn’t some foolish quest for glory. They had been trying to save an innocent man from the Dark Lord! As for the trio, they had never asked for their fame. In fact, they suffered for their bravery, especially Harry. They were just trying to help. How could she forget that they had once saved her? She was acting as bad as a Slytherin.

Ginny shoved these thoughts away roughly. She didn’t want fame. She just wanted them to notice her for once, instead of thinking she was part of the decor. Them? asked a cold voice in her head, Or Harry?

All three of them, she thought firmly. I don’t feel that way about Harry anymore.

Her thoughts went back to the discussion the three had been having in the common room. She didn’t doubt that it was about one of their famous escapades. But which one? “Fur,” Ron had laughed. “You almost got caught by Malfoy,” Hermione had said. Ginny sneered. Oh yes, the Polyjuice Potion fiasco. Harry and Ron had managed to sneak into the Slytherin common room disguised as Crabbe and Goyle. Hermione had sat the adventure out because her faulty potion had practically turned her into a cat. As far as Ginny knew, her brother and The Boy Who Lived were the only two Gryffindors who had ever managed to infiltrate the heart of Slytherin House. Not even Fred and George....

A thrill of excitement shot through her veins and Ginny sat up so fast her head spun. That was it! True, Harry and Ron had done it, but they had been forced to keep it a secret. If one of the Slytherins caught her, she’d probably lose points. But breaking the rules had never stopped Fred and George, or even Bill and Charlie! In fact, rule breaking was in the Weasley blood, with the notable except of Percy. Ginny shuddered. She didn’t want to be a Percy.

Quickly she thought through her options for sneaking into the Slytherins’ common room. The Polyjuice Potion was definitely out. She seriously doubted she would be able to obtain the necessary ingredients or get the book out of the Restricted Section. Besides, it took a month to brew and she didn’t want to wait that long. Transfiguring herself into something inconspicuous wasn’t completely off limits, but there were a lot of ways it could go wrong. It wasn’t worth the risk of remaining half Transfigured into a mouse or something for the rest of her life. If only they’d learned Disillusionment Charms! Unfortunately, Disillusioning was N.E.W.T. level magic, and Charms had never been her strongest subject. Ginny sighed. This was leading somewhere she didn’t really like. Luckily, no one would ever need to know about it.

============

Ginny stuck her head carefully out of her dormitory. There was no one on the stairs and the common room was quiet. The stone was freezing against her bare feet, but her footsteps made no sound as she ascended the stairs to the 6th year boys’ dormitory. Her heart was pounding so hard in her chest that her whole body shook with it. She let out a quiet breath of relief when she saw that the door to their room was slightly open. She nudged it lightly, just hard enough that she could slip in sideways. Her nightgown barely brushed the edges of the door.

Moonlight illuminated a small room in which the quiet and steady breathing of five sleeping boys could dimly be heard. It glinted off Dean Thomas’s old West Ham soccer poster, illuminated Harry’s glasses on his bedside table and gleamed on the brass fittings of the trunks at the foot of each boy’s bed.

Ginny slid quietly over to Harry’s trunk. Her face was pale with nervousness and excitement. She looked more like a ghost than a fifteen year old girl, except for her flaming red hair. Unaware of her unearthly appearance she knelt and opened the trunk. The hinges creaked slightly and she held her breath for a long moment. None of the boys even stirred.

Right on top was Harry’s greatest treasure, his Firebolt. Ginny lifted it reverently out and put it on the floor next to the trunk. She carefully shifted spell books, spare robes and a stack of Which Broomstick magazines. Then her hand brushed against something silky. She gently tugged it out and was forced to smother a gasp as her hand momentarily disappeared under it. She knew what an Invisibility cloak did, of course. The sight of her wrist with nothing at the end was still unnerving.

=======

The next day, Ginny was a complete wreck. She had told herself over and over again as she tried to fall asleep that she had to act absolutely normal the next day. As a result, she nearly had a heart attack when the mail came, looked nervously over her shoulder whenever she felt someone standing near her, and jumped every time a teacher called on her.

By lunch, things were going downhill rapidly. When Ron tapped her on the shoulder to pass her a bowl of mashed potatoes, she jerked so violently that her knee flew up and hit the bottom of the table. Her goblet of iced pumpkin juice fell over with a resounding clang.

“Um, Gin?” said Ron quietly, attempting to mop up the spill with Hermione’s napkin.

“Yes?” she replied. She was painfully aware that her voice sounded unnaturally high pitched and nervous.

“Are you all right? I mean I haven’t seen you this jumpy since Harry came to stay at our house that first summer, you know, when you had a crush on him and you were always....”

“Yes, Ron, I know what I was always doing,” she replied acidly, pleased that her voice was at least back in its normal octave, even if she did sound cranky. “Thank you so very much for mentioning it.” Ron looked rather taken aback at her attitude.

“Well, honestly, Ginny, I was just wondering if you were....”

“I’m fine, thank you!” She slammed her goblet upright on the table and fairly stormed away from the table.

“There’s no need to bite my head off!” he yelled after her. She sprinted out of the Great Hall, ignoring the snickers behind her and wishing desperately that the day would just end. Then she could get this stupid adventure over with.

Despite her distraction, Ginny worked feverishly during class. She wanted to finish her homework early so she could take as much time as necessary on her mission. The work for O.W.L.S. was hard, but not nearly the nightmare that her brother had warned her of. Maybe it’s the fact that I didn’t waste my first four years here trying to save the world instead of doing homework, she thought wryly. She then tried to push the memory of her nightmarish first year firmly out of her mind. It was something that hovered almost constantly on the edge of her awareness, and the horror had been dulled only slightly by the intervening years.

Thinking about that is the very last thing in I need to be doing right now, she told herself and turned back to her Potions essay. She tried to ignore the images flickering madly through her mind and the way her body shuddering uncontrollably...

The black book, looking innocent with its plain black cover... black like night, black like empty pits. The words oozing out of the paper... kind, comforting, understanding words. Her new friend, Tom... Tom smiling, Tom speaking quietly to her, Tom standing by her, standing as she fell, fell through blackness, fell and fell and fell forever, never landing, always falling, screaming with terror, terror that was never going to end, her helpless screams mingling with his laughter, cold, high laughter, mocking her, snatching away her hope, her happiness, her life...

“NO!” Her shout echoed through the silent dungeon. The entire class turned and stared at her. Snape looked up from his desk and his cold eyes echoed the black of the diary that haunted her dreams.

“Is there a problem, Miss Weasley?” The words were knives, cruel and uncaring.

“Um, I, uh... blotted my parchment, Professor.” A long and dubious silence followed this pathetic excuse. Ginny gulped and awaited her sentence. Snape arched an eyebrow at her.

“Very well, Weasley. Twenty points will be taking from Gryffindor for disrupting my class. Back to work, all of you.”

She let out a relieved breath. Twenty was a ridiculous amount of points for “disrupting class”, but at least he hadn’t pressed her for the truth.

Potions was her last class of the day. She sat in silence through dinner. She couldn’t eat, but could merely wait. She knew she was going to have to follow a Slytherin to find their common room. First, however, she had to retrieve the Invisibility cloak from where it was hidden in her own trunk. After fifteen agonizing minutes, she slipped quietly out of the hall and up to her dormitory.

============

If seeing your hand disappear was unnerving then standing next to the Slytherin table, invisible and vulnerable, was downright surreal. Ginny half expected one of them to stand up and demand why she was there, despite the cloak.

Why am I doing this again? Ginny asked herself silently. Oh yeah, to prove that I’m as good as the Golden Trio. Good lord, where did I get such a stupid idea? At the same time however, the adrenaline pouring through her veins made it feel like the most exciting thing in the world.

Without warning, a whole group of the Slytherins stood up. Graham Prichard, Blaise Zabini, and Millicent Bulstrode all headed down the hall toward the dungeons. Trying to slow her pounding heart and keep her breathing quiet, Ginny hurried after them.

They walked for about five minutes, going past the Potions classroom and then stopping suddenly at an empty stretch of wall.

“Oye, Graham, did you get the new password from Draco?” asked Blaise.

“Nah, Pansy told me. Serpensortia!”

A hidden door slowly emerged from the rock wall and swung open. The three Slytherins passed through, followed closely by Ginny. The door swung shut again and disappeared. As it melted back into the wall, a terrible thought occurred to her. She didn’t know how to reactivate the door spell! It might even require another password. What if no one else went out tonight? She might not be able to escape until morning. Ginny shuddered as she turned to face the grim and starkly furnished common room. This was enemy territory. This was not somewhere she wanted to spend the night.

The only light in the room, besides the fire, came from eerie greenish lamps that hung from the low ceiling. The walls were mostly bare, making the room seem colder than it actually was. Instead of the squashy red armchairs of Gryffindor Tower, there were high backed chairs of black leather, which looked quite uncomfortable. The result was a stiff and formal, though rather elegant sort of old-fashioned sitting room. Ginny was horrified.

All right, she thought, trying to pull herself together, Now I need something to prove I was actually here. A sudden wicked thought made her grin. It meant waiting longer, of course, probably until most of the Slytherins were asleep. That would greatly reduced her chance of getting back out again that night. But if she managed to pull it off.... She grinned again and carefully settled herself into a corner to wait, remembering what she had told Harry just last year.

“The thing about growing up with Fred and George,” she had said thoughtfully, “is that you sort of start thinking anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve.”

==============

The ornate grandfather clock in the corner read the hour as 11:30. It had been nearly two and a half hours since a Slytherin had come into the common room and the last one had gone to bed an hour before. Ginny’s legs were prickling all over from remaining in the same uncomfortable crouch for so long. She slowly stood up, leaning against the wall to keep her knees from collapsing, then tiptoed to the nearest dormitory door.

Ginny eased the door open, mentally thanking the house-elves for keeping the castle doors so well oiled. Pansy Parkinson’s ugly face was on the nearest bed, filling the room with snuffling snores. This was definitely the wrong room. She pulled the door shut again and slid into the next dormitory. Sneaking quietly through the stone chamber, she saw several sleeping boys. There was Blaise Zabini, muttering to himself in his sleep, two snoring lumps (Crabbe and Goyle), a small rat faced boy named Theodore Nott, and one other. Ginny froze. Draco Malfoy was not asleep.

Damn, she thought, turning away with bitter disappointment. It was something of his she was after, his Nimbus 2001 to be exact. If she brought that back to the Gryffindor common room, no one would doubt her story. Only the Slytherin Quidditch team played on Nimbus 2001’s. But there was no way she was going to be able to open Malfoy’s trunk and waltz off with his broomstick while he was awake, invisible or not. No, she would just have to sit in here and wait till he fell asleep and then hope that....

Ginny stopped dead in her tracks with disbelief. What she was hearing was completely impossible. Not just impossible, but also totally incomprehensible. She stepped quietly back over to his bed and peered at his face. Her mouth dropped open.

Draco Malfoy was crying.

==========

ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT
Chapter Two- Fight and Flight

ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT

Chapter Three- A Dangerous Game

ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT

Chapter Four- Swift as Shadow, Black as Night

Above Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a storm was brewing. Ominous black rain clouds blotted out the moon, plunging the grounds into murky darkness. An icy gust of wind brought with it a midwinter chill and a smell of rain. Inside the castle, some students looked uneasily out the frost covered windows at wind-tossed trees and the stormy lake, then moved closer to the fire or curled up warmly in their beds.

Others did not.

==========

Draco Malfoy was having a very strange evening. After he had collected himself from the unnerving encounter in the forest, he had gone in to have dinner. That part had been all right, or at least normal. No one in their right mind would define having to watch Crabbe and Goyle mindlessly stuff their faces as “all right”. Even “normal” might be a bit of a stretch at times. Trying to distract himself from the piggish tendencies of his fellow Slytherins, Draco had fallen into a rather morbid series of thoughts, mostly centering around what it might feel like to get the Dark Mark, though he spared a few moments to ponder what they would make him do to “prove his worthiness” to the Dark Lord. Killing his own mother was, in any case, definitely out of the question, he thought bitterly. Still lost in dark musings, he’d begun the long walk back to the common room.

Only to be attacked by Weasley. Again.

Draco had been trying his hardest to not think about the things she had said to him, both on the Quidditch field and in the forest. The way she was acting made no sense whatsoever, and that disturbed him greatly. He was used to being able to identify people’s motives and thus use their actions for his own good. Unfortunately, the Weasley girl was defying all the usual rules, and he didn’t know what to make of it.

So there he stood, bemused, as she proceeded to accuse him of mental manipulation and general evilness. Then he knew he was back on solid ground. For of course, despite all her fine words of sympathy and trust, Weasley was just as ready to blame him as usual. Bloody liar. Bloody bitch. Draco, without knowing why, felt strangely betrayed.

Then she told him what had happened in Gryffindor Tower, and his world proceeded to flip around again. She had stood up for him? She had stood up... for him? Of her own accord, no less, for in spite of what she might think of him, he wasn’t desperate enough to put illegal curses on Gryffindors. Not yet, anyway.

Then, instead of cursing her into oblivion the way she deserved, he had started teasing her! It was ridiculous! It was absolutely insane! The fact that he could actually make her laugh only made it worse. That he had felt a small stab of pleasure at her smile made it a nightmare. What was this idiotic girl doing to him?

When she stepped toward him, challenge and fear in her eyes, he hadn’t known what to do, which was a shock to begin with. Usually he was the one in control in situations like this. Now, with a single step and a simple look, she’d rendered him completely helpless. It confused him. It made him feel.... weak. Above all, it made him angry. And his anger pushed him past his confusion and his weakness and the way his body was aching for her. Girls didn’t play with Draco Malfoy’s feelings; he played with theirs. With a brush of his fingers over her lips and a whisper in her ear, he was in power again.

Or so he told himself.

He told himself that he was just doing it so he could use it against her later. He tried to convince himself that this was all part of his continuing battle against the trio, just something to be thrown in their faces when they least expected it.

God, what a lie.

At his whisper, her body went tense, and he couldn’t help himself. Quicker than a breath, before she could move away or even blink, he pushed swiftly her against the wall and pressed his mouth to hers, hard enough to bruise. He hadn’t meant to be so rough, but then again, he hadn’t meant to kiss her at all. Then, before she could recover or react, he pulled away. Or tried to, rather, because Weasley pulled him back against her.

“If that’s evil,” Ginny whispered, gasping for breath, “Then I never want to be good again.”

And crushed against him in a kiss so fierce, Draco Malfoy was left in awe.

Then, footsteps in the corridor outside, voices.... the doorknob turning.

They broke apart so fast that Ginny almost fell to the floor. She caught herself just in time and whipped out her wand in unison with Draco, almost as if they’d planned it.

Their eyes met in complete astonishment for the second time that day. Then Ginny grinned wolfishly. Draco smirked back.

“I’M GOING TO KILL YOU, MALFOY, YOU DISGUSTING FERRET!” she shrieked, as Seamus Finnigan and Lavender Brown walked in.

“Do I look like I’m scared, filthy little weasel?” he spat at her, then took a hasty step backwards as she attempted to punch him. Seamus and Lavender leapt forward and pulled her away from him.

“No, Ginny!” yelled Seamus over her angry shouts. “He’s not worth it!”

“Calm down, Ginny!” squealed Lavender, looking quite frightened by the younger girl’s ferocity. “Please! You’re going to get yourself in trouble!”

Oh, thought Ginny, smilingly inwardly. You have no idea how much trouble I’m in.

Draco stepped scornfully around the three Gryffindors towards the open door.

“I’ll see you later, Ginny,” he said mockingly as he passed her. Lavender and Seamus were so intent on glaring at him that they totally failed to catch the look that Ginny gave him, her mouth widening in a smirk to rival his own. Her cheeks were flushed, though not with anger, despite what her fellow Gryffindors might think.

“See you, Draco,” she mouthed silently as they yanked her bodily out of the room past him.

Draco stared after her. “Very strange” didn’t even begin to describe it, he decided. Then he smiled slightly, recalling Ginny’s reaction to their impending discovery by her classmates. She’d done the same thing as him: manipulated the situation and lied. Like any good Slytherin. Oh yes, there was no doubt that him and Miss Weasley were going to have a very good time together. No doubt at all.

============

“Oh, Ginny!” moaned Lavender as her and Seamus propelled her swiftly along the corridors toward Gryffindor Tower. “Why did you have to go and get in a fight with Malfoy? You know he’s going to tell Snape, and you’ll lose us so many points!”
“Ron is going to kill you,” added Seamus, “He’s been so bloody protective of you lately, I’m surprised he let you out of his sight at all! Then you go and almost get in a duel with that stupid wanker! Maybe Ron’s got a point!”

“It’s not like I’m in any danger from Dra.. Malfoy,” Ginny retorted irritably, trying in vain to free herself from their grasp. “After all,” she added, with sudden sweetness. “Ron doesn’t really have to get angry , does he? If you two don’t tell him....”

“Nice try, Ginny.” said Seamus wryly, “But I’ve been getting enough lectures from Ron and Hermione as it is. I don’t fancy what it’d be like if I lied to them about this.” Lavender nodded in vehement agreement.

“What were you two doing down there, anyway?” asked Ginny, trying another tack. Lavender giggled.

“Not what you and Malfoy were doing, let’s put it that way, shall we?” she said, and giggled again. Seamus smirked.

Weren’t you just, Ginny thought ironically as the portrait of the Fat Lady loomed ahead.

“Whirling billywigs,” Seamus muttered. Ginny tensed her shoulders and stepped through the hole calmly, Lavender and Seamus still gripping her arms. She drew a breath, preparing to defend herself to her brother....

Who wasn’t there. A quick look around the common room revealed that it was deserted, save for two shrimpy second years studying feverishly at one of the small round tables.

“You see?” snapped Ginny, yanking her arms away from the two Gryffindors. “He didn’t even notice I was gone. So run along, you two, and next time let me fight my own battles, all right?” Lavender glared at her, affronted, then slammed out of the common room in a huff.

“What if he finds out?” said Seamus uneasily, glancing after the irate girl.

Ginny gave him a cold look.

“Never fear, Seamus!” she said mockingly. “I’ll protect you from my big, bad brother if he comes after you.” He looked stunned by her scorn, then his eyes filled with indignation.

“What the hell’s your problem, Ginny?” he demanded angrily. “We stop you from getting decapitated by Malfoy or expelled for fighting, and you bloody bite our heads off!” He stalked off after Lavender, no doubt eager to finish their delayed snogging session. Ginny repressed the urge to sneer after them. Good lord, she thought. I’m acting like a Slytherin. Like.... Draco. She knew the thought should have made her feel guilty. It didn’t.

She slept better that night than she had for months, except for dreams in which Tom Riddle played no part at all.

===============

The next day was Halloween. Despite the storm the night before, morning came bright and clear, much to the relief of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Ron had a two hour practice session planned for them after lunch, focusing on some new moves and especially on more precise interaction between the three Chasers: Ginny, Dennis Creevey (whose exuberant energy was finally finding an outlet on the Quidditch field), and a tomboyish, cheerful third year by the name of Natalie McDonald.

Ginny had woken up with a pounding headache and a churning stomach. Some small, sensible part of her mind what asking what the hell she had gotten herself into now. However, most of her was recalling the sudden, stabbing joy when Draco kissed her, the sense of utter rightness as she pulled him to her and kissed him back. In comparison to that, her headache faded to a trivial detail. Well, almost. Then she remembered the unfinished Potions essay.... Ginny sighed and rolled out of her bed, feeling a bit lightheaded. She unsteadily pulled on her jeans from yesterday and a rather ratty t-shirt, and headed down to breakfast, resigning herself to a day of homework and being yelled at by Ron for not working seamlessly enough with Dennis and Natalie.

A quick glance at the Slytherin table as she walked towards her own revealed that Draco had either all ready had his breakfast or was still asleep. Natalie waved from the Gryffindor table. Ginny slumped down glumly beside her fellow Chaser, ignored the vicious glances Lavender and Seamus were shooting her and halfheartedly snagged a piece of toast off the nearest platter.

“Hey, Gin!” said Natalie with disgusting cheerfulness. “Ready for our weekly torture session? Been working hard on the Hawkshead?”

“Not really,” Ginny muttered indistinctly through a mouthful of toast.

“Oh, good, neither have I!” declared the sandy haired Gryffindor brightly. “Still, no worries, eh, not with the feast tonight! I heard that this is gonna be the best one in years, ever since that one with the dancing skeletons and all. Actually, my friend Orla, she’s in Ravenclaw, she said that....” Ginny put her hands to her aching head and tuned Tally’s prattle out. She had no memory of a Halloween feast with dancing skeletons, but she did have a shrewd guess why. This day was falling all to pieces. And of course, she still had that Potions essay to finish, and she had to review Switching Spells for Transfiguration, now that she thought about it. And that research for Ancient Runes was due tomorrow, not to mention the History of Magic exam on Tuesday and the two hours of Quidditch practice.... With a despairing groan, Ginny buried her head in her arms.

“What’s the matter, mate?” asked Natalie, having finally noticed her audience was less than completely captivated by the gossip about the feast. “You feeling all right?” she asked, her normally carefree face was marred by a concerned frown. She blinked as Ginny raised her disheveled head and peered around blearily. “Blimey, you look bloody awful! You should go to the hospital wing, have Pomfrey give you a potion or something to perk you up!” “Not a bad idea, Tally,” she said, then stumbled to her feet. “Save me a sausage or two, eh?”

“Sure thing!” Natalie called anxiously after her. “Just don’t leave me all alone in practice with Dennis and your... uh... um.....” she trailed off as Ron walked into the Great Hall, talking with Harry.

“Ready for practice this afternoon, Gin?” he called gleefully as she passed him. She waved vaguely in his direction and tried to concentrate on remembering where exactly the hospital wing was.

When she finally arrived at the bright, sunny room, it was totally deserted.

“Um, hello?” she called out hesitantly.

“What do you need, dear?” said Madam Pomfrey, bustling kindly up to her from her office.

Ginny focused in on her face.

“Um, I think I might have a cold or the flu or something,” she muttered. “I’m really dizzy.”

“Yes, you’ve got a bit of a fever,” the nurse said absently, placing a hand on Ginny’s forehead. “Come lie down for a moment and we’ll see what we can do.” Ginny stumbled gratefully to a bed and curled up, closing her eyes.

She hurried back a minute later, holding small bottle of sky blue pills and a glass of some murky potion.

“All right, Miss Weasley, just chew one of these and wash it down with this and you’re as good as new!” Ginny looked curiously at the pills.

“Erm, is it just me or is that... Fever Fudge?” she asked, slightly disconcerted. Madam Pomfrey chuckled.

“Yes, dear! Turns out your brothers’ candies are good for more than trying to get out of class.”

“Just be sure and never tell them,” Ginny mumbled, sitting up and gulping the pill and potion, gagging a bit as it went down. “They’d be horrified that the Snackboxes can put people back in class instead of taking them out.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it! Now, run along back to your dormitory and get some more sleep, all right?” Ginny, slid off the bed, still feeling unsteady. “That Fever Fudge and the Purifying Potion won’t fight that nasty bug off on their own.”

“Yes, Madam Pomfrey,” she muttered, swallowing nervously and hoping the disgusting potion would stay in her stomach where it belonged. This day had gone from bad to rotten with alarming speed, and Ginny suspected that it was going to get worse before it got better.

================

If Draco had to name the top five worst ways to start a day, finding out that his father had escaped prison, only to be killed by Aurors, would without a doubt have to be number one. He stared down at the Daily Prophet morning edition rather numbly.

An attempted breakout from Azkaban Prison last night ended in the demise of a Death Eater, Lucius Malfoy, by the hands of Ministry Aurors. Since the desertion of the dementors, former guards of Azkaban, security had been very tight at the prison and the wardens can offer no explanation for this violation. Several guards have been taken in for questioning.

And that was all there was to it. His last hope for deliverance, gone. He knew he should being feeling at least some sadness for his father’s death, but all he felt was dread and anger. Besides, what had his father ever done for him? Mocked him. Ignored him. Treated him like something substantially less than a Mudblood. Made it clear that nothing Draco was capable of doing would ever be good enough to make him worthy. Humiliated him in front of just about everyone, including the damn Trio. In short, his father had made his life a living hell.

And look, Father! he thought bitterly. You win again! Even in death you’ve got the last laugh at me, you vicious bastard. I’m sure you’d be so pleased.

His mother must have known, he realized. Somehow she had found out that his father’s escape would be unsuccessful. She might even have sabotaged it herself, unlikely though it might seem. With Death Eaters, anything was possible. She also must’ve realized that, as one of the few people aware of the planned escape, she would be under suspicion from Voldemort and the inner circle. Narcissa Malfoy knew too much, and so she chose the easiest way out.

He glanced again at the paper. Under the article were two pictures. One was of Azkaban, the only movement being the crash of the waves on the stone cliffs that surrounded the fortress. The smaller one was his father, staring out haughtily. Lucius Malfoy, accused Death Eater, stated the caption beneath it. Draco pulled out his wand.

“Incendio,” he whispered, and watched as small flames licked the paper and his father’s face burned, blackened, and was consumed. Then he reached out and crushed the sparks with his hand, unflinching, feeling a detached satisfaction at the searing pain. A grating voice jerked him out of his reverie.

“Oye, Draco!” called Blaise. “Better do something about that owl!” He blinked and focused back on the table, where a barn owl was beginning to partake in his bacon. A sealed parchment dangled from its leg. He reached out and pulled off the letter, then swatted the owl away from his food. It took off again, throwing him a reproachful look as it winged its way out of the Hall.

With some trepidation, he flipped the letter over and broke the unmarked seal. There was no salutation.

Come to the Forest tonight.

The emblem at the bottom, two serpents entwined and three silver stars, was that of his Aunt Bellatrix.

If there’s a worse way to start the day, Draco thought bitterly, Then I hope I never live to see it.

Then again, considering who he was going to be seeing tonight, perhaps he should be careful what he wished for.

================

“Ha!” said Ginny, putting a triumphant flourish on the last word of her essay. “My headache is almost entirely gone, and I’ve got no more Potions homework for an entire 24 hours!”

“Gin,” said Natalie, looking over her shoulder at the four foot length of parchment, “That’s actually quite depressing. I mean, considering that you’re probably going to be sleeping for most of those 24 hours....”

“Shut up, Tally,” Ginny said, leaning back in her chair and closing her eyes. “You’re ruining my first 30 seconds of freedom.” Natalie giggled, then glanced at the clock and jumped up, horror evident on her face.

“Oh my god, if we aren’t out on the Quidditch pitch in the next minute and a half, Ron’s going to kill us!” Ginny leapt up in a state of equal alarm: her brother took his new duties as Quidditch Captain to an almost obsessive level, and if they had to start practice late, then heads would roll.

“All right, all right, calm down, Tally!” she said, valiantly trying not to panic. “You run up to the dormitories and grab our robes and I’ll run down to the broomshed and get our brooms, I’ll meet you in the entrance hall in three minutes, we change into our robes and Ron’ll never know!” Natalie gulped, nodded, and sprinted out of the library. Ginny set off for the broomshed at a dead run.

I knew it, she thought as she panted down the corridors and out onto the grounds. Nothing is going to go right today! Nothing! She darted hurriedly into the broomshed, grabbed her own broom and the Nimbus 2000 that Tally rode, and dashed back out again, slamming the door behind her.

The two girls arrived at the Quidditch pitch only four minutes late, which didn’t quite earn them a lecture, just an exceedingly irritated look from Ron as they panted up to join the rest of the team.

“Now that Ginny and Natalie have decided to join us,” he snapped. Ginny held back a derisive sneer. Natalie looked remorsefully at the ground and sighed as he began his speech on the importance of the new moves they would be working on today.

“Also,” Ron said briskly, “We’re going to focus a lot on inter-team awareness, especially between you three.” He indicated the Chasers. “It’s really important that you always know what the other players are doing, so that you can react and respond....” Ginny felt her mind start to drift. Not surprisingly, the first topic that came to mind was Draco. It had been so strange last night. She almost felt as though she’d been with someone else entirely, not Malfoy but Draco. The difference was astonishing. She flushed a little, remembering, but she wouldn’t regret it, couldn’t regret it, not when it had felt so....

She was brought back to the present with a jolt as the rest of her teammates took off, leaving her standing on the ground like a fool.

This, she thought, her face rivaling her hair for sheer brilliance of color as she mounted her broom, Is going to be the worst day. Ever.

================

Outside the castle, night had fallen. Inside, however, the feast was just beginning and the Hall was brilliantly lit. Floating jack-o'-lanterns illuminated the excited faces of the students, chattering and laughing with their friends. A festive mood filled the air, one of pleasant expectation and pure glee.

Ginny was miserable.

Maybe it was the last lingering effects of her illness. Maybe it was the memories, the dark memories which made her feel so out of place and vulnerable here in the middle of all the brightness and noise. Either way, she was desperate to escape. To be somewhere else, anywhere else. Somewhere dark and quiet and cool. Somewhere away from the painfully radiant light and the revolting chatter of the students.

Almost desperately, she searched with her eyes through the crowd to the Slytherin table. Where was Draco? She hadn’t seen him all day. A sudden stab of fear and doubt pierced her. Was he all right? Why are you worrying about him? asked the obnoxious, self-righteous inner voice that sounded a lot like Hermione at her worst. You should be celebrating the fact that he’s not here. Of course I’m worried, she retorted. Draco had shown her a side of himself that she would never have guessed he had. A side that felt and feared and wanted. What’s more, he had trusted her, trusted her as no one ever had before. A smile quirked across her mouth as she remember their act for Lavender and Seamus. Yes, they were in this together now, and nothing would change that.

=========

Draco was nervous. Standing uneasily beneath the outer trees of the forest, he waited in the shadows, peering into the darkness and twitching at small noises. Who knew what Bellatrix would do if she sneaked up on him unawares. Probably Crucio him, just to teach him a lesson.

A distinctly unnatural noise made him freeze, listening as hard as he could. There it was again: the rustle of a cloak from among the trees. He composed himself and turned to her smoothly, his face a mask of ice.

“Draco,” she said, tilting her head slightly, her long dark hair brushing across her face. She regarded him inscrutably through her half-lidded eyes.

“My dear auntie,” he replied wryly, giving her a mocking half-bow.


Quicker than a striking cobra, so fast his eyes didn’t even track the motion, she reached out and slapped him hard across the face. He raised a hand to his cheek in shock. It came away bloody. One of her rings, a silver serpent, had left a long cut. It burned like fire. He wondered if she had poisoned it.

“You may consider yourself high and mighty when you are with your little friends at school, boy, but among us you are the lowest of the low,” she informed him coldly. “Keep it in mind, if you have one.”

He didn’t respond.

“My, how quickly you learn,” she said, the derisive smile on her face at odds with her glacial black eyes. “The time had come to fulfill your destiny, boy, but first you must be proven worthy.” He still didn’t meet her eyes.

“Find us a spy,” she said shortly. “Someone who can spy on Potter. We would have you do it yourself, but, like the fool that you are, you made him your enemy.” Draco, recalling the punishment from his father when Lucius learned of his failure to befriend Potter, almost sneered at her in anger, but fought it down, keeping his face perfectly blank. She watched his struggle with cold detachment.

“If you manage that,” she continued after a long moment, “Then you will be accepted into the ranks. I will oversee your training myself.” Draco knew better than to ask what would happen if he failed. “I will contact you again soon.”

Draco bowed his head in acquiescence. She smiled with distant satisfaction, then turned to go. Suddenly, between one blink and the next, she was standing close by him, so near he could feel her breath on his mouth. She tilted his chin upward and looked into his eyes for a moment, searchingly, midnight black meeting steel gray. He was transfixed by her look, quite unable to move. Fear, as well as something darker, filled him.

“Make me proud,” she whispered. And then she was gone. He leaned against the nearest tree, closed his eyes, and slid to the ground.

============

After another fifteen minutes, Ginny couldn’t stand it any more. She glanced farther down the table to the Trio. Harry and Ron seemed to be deep in discussion about something Quidditch related, while Hermione was ranting at some innocent Gryffindor second year about the mistreatment of house elves. The boy looked confused and frightened in equal measure. None of the three were looking her way. Checking to see that Natalie was occupied in conversation with Jack Sloper, Ginny slid stealthily out of her place, out through the Hall and onto the grounds.

Without knowing exactly why, some instinct drew her farther into the night. She drifted past the Quidditch pitch, past the Whomping Willow and past Hagrid’s hut until she came to the edge of the forest. There he was, leaning against the same tree they had met under before, his hair almost silver in the moonlight. As she drew closer, his eyes opened and he looked straight at her, his expression unreadable.

Ginny stood above him, her face pale, and stuck out her hand. He took it and she helped him to his feet. The motion brought them close together, their faces only inches apart. She reached out and softly touched the cut on his cheek, where the blood had already dried.

“What happened?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. He didn’t answer, just brushed her hand with his own fingertips. Pleasure shot through him as she shivered slightly at the contact.

Then, just like in the classroom, he couldn’t restrain himself. He pulled her close, savoring her quiet gasp of surprise, the warmth of her body, the torment he could see growing in her eyes as he held back for one more moment, refusing to give her what he knew she hungered for so badly.

Then he touched his mouth to hers, forgetting that this was exactly what the Death Eaters wanted. After all, he wanted it, too.

Not such a bad day, after all.

=============

ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT

Chapter Five- Chrysalis

Ronald Weasley was, to put it mildly, worried. The Quidditch season was starting in less than a week, and Gryffindor was ready to be slaughtered. From his completely undisturbed vantage point by the goal hoops, it was painfully obvious. Painfully, disgustingly obvious.

“THAT’S IT!” he shrieked, his always short temper pushed right past the breaking point as Denis fumbled with the Quaffle, lobbing it clumsily at Natalie, who dropped it. “TEAM! LAND! NOW!” One by one, they obeyed, each staring at the ground in varying states of shame as their enraged Captain glared at them like an angry bull. “WHAT THE BLOODY HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING OUT THERE?” He pivoted on Natalie. “NOTHING! THAT’S WHAT YOU’RE DOING! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!” She flushed and dropped her eyes. Next to her, Denis shook slightly. “YOU THREE HAVEN’T MANAGED TO COME WITHIN TEN FEET OF THE GOAL POSTS IN THE PAST HALF HOUR! YOU HAVEN’T MADE A SINGLE SUCCESSFUL PASS! YOU HAVEN’T EVEN LOOKED EACH OTHER IN THE EYE, FOR GOD’S SAKE!”

“Ron,” said Harry, trying to placate him. “Ron, just calm down for a....”

“Calm down?! CALM DOWN?!” Ron looked as though he was restraining himself from committing murder. The color of his face was downright alarming. “Do we have a match with Slytherin in three days or not? Do you six care about winning that goddamn match or NOT?!” Harry subsided, staring intently at the brown and dying grass of the pitch with all the rest of his teammates. All, that is, except for one.

Ron turned slowly around and regarded his sister with a death glare. She stared coolly back at him, one corner of her mouth twitching slightly.

“Ginny,” said Ron, with such iron control in his voice that Natalie and Denis were too frightened to even tremble. “Is this somehow funny to you? You, who weren’t even paying attention to what your teammates were doing? You, who didn’t notice when....”

“Yes.”

Ron became very still.

“What?” he asked, all his rage boiled down into that one quiet word.

“Yes,” she repeated. “I find it hilarious. You,” she said, mocking him with icy precision, “Who didn’t block a single pass for ten straight games last year. You, who wouldn’t know Quidditch strategy if it hit you in the face. You, who wouldn’t even be Captain if Harry hadn’t turned it down first. You’re lecturing us on how to practice?” At the look of shock on his face, she laughed, a cutting sound. It fell flat in the dead silence that surrounded them. “God, you’re so pathetic, it’s a wonder the rest of the team isn’t laughing with me.” She peered appraisingly at him again. “You look like a cow when you do that, Ron. Just so you know.” She spun sharply on her heel and walked away.

===============

The moment she was out of sight of the team, Ginny began to run, her feet pounding furiously on the cobblestones, her breath coming in sharp jerks as she dashed up towards the school.

He doesn’t understand, she thought wildly. God. No one understands any more. The stupid bastard.

Completely winded, Ginny leaned against a tree and slid slowly to the ground, staring out at the lake. Just look at me, she thought bitterly. Right back where I started. Pathetic. Even I think I’m pathetic. No wonder Draco.... But she stopped that line of thought firmly in its tracks.

She didn’t want to hurt her brother. Not really. But when he was so stupid, so clueless, he was just asking for it, really. He didn’t care about her anyway. Why should she care about him? He never noticed her until she did something wrong. He never bothered to notice when something was wrong. Ginny’s mask of ice and burning rage melted, and her face crumpled. Angry tears overflowed in her eyes, spilling on to her cheeks and scalding there like fire.

In the intervening days since Halloween, nothing had gotten any better. Despite the perfectly logical theory that her depression had been due merely to the four year anniversary, it hadn’t just melted away after the day was passed. On the contrary, it seemed to be getting worse. And as for the flashbacks... Ginny shuddered. Now she was barely getting through the hour without one, let alone the day. In fact, the only time she hadn’t had one in the past week was when she was with... Draco.

The memory filled her, mind and body, stilling her tears. The brush of his lips against hers, sending heat all through her, throbbing and desperate as she pressed herself into him and snaked her arms around his neck. Slut, whispered a quiet voice in her head. But she didn’t care. All that mattered was that they didn’t stop, they didn’t ever stop. His hands burned her even through her robes. But then he had.... No. Don’t think about it.

It didn’t make any sense, really. Being around Harry never felt like this, not even when she was crazy about him. It felt... safe, simple, even innocent. But there was something inherently wrong with touching Draco. It wasn’t supposed to happen. It wasn’t the way things were supposed to be. It felt sick, and wrong, and guilty and that’s just what made it so sweet. Fire burns when you get too close, but what’s the real difference between pain and pleasure to begin with? There’s a knife edge and one side is agony, but the other is ecstasy. One side is hate and the other is love. One side is night and the other is day.

But now she was always in twilight.

Ginny buried her head in her arms and wanted to start crying again. But somehow, she couldn’t.

=================

He hadn’t meant to run away from her. In fact, if he’d had his way, they might have stayed out there all night. But then she pulled away, just slightly, just for a moment, and looked at him.

It was completely dark, except for the scant light of the moon, and her half-lidded eyes were dilated to an inky black that overwhelmed the normal warm brown. In that moment, under the suddenly icy regard of those eyes, Draco felt... disturbed. As a Death Eater’s son and someone who had seen more Dark spells worked than he could count, Draco had considered himself just about beyond disturbing.

The shadows he saw in Ginny Weasley’s eyes proved him very, very wrong.

He stifled the shiver that rose involuntarily within him and pulled slowly away from her. But it was gone without a trace, a cloud passing over the moon. Her eyes were filled only with hurt as he pushed her away.

“Why?” she whispered.

But he didn’t answer. Ignoring the ache that her presence always seemed to spark in him somehow, he backed up farther and farther, sliding away into the forest, his eyes locked on hers as the murky darkness swallowed him up.

“Goddamn you, Draco,” she hissed after him, though he didn’t know if she thought he was gone or not. “What are you trying to do to me?”

In his mind, he echoed the question back at her. But he didn’t say anything aloud, oh no. A good spy knows how to keep his mouth shut. A good Death Eater knows not to talk back.

A good Malfoy knows not to care.

================

Ginny took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and marched into the open portrait hole, only a few seconds behind the chattering crew of after-dinner Gryffindors. Rather, that was what she fully intended to do. In reality, she loitered uncertainly for a moment, staring uneasily over the heads of her housemates.

Lord, this is ridiculous! What am I scared of? They’re my family, for Pete’s sake! My friends! They’ll forgive me. There’s nothing to be scared of from them. If two weeks ago someone had told her that she would be afraid to face the Trio, but would be perfectly comfortable making out with Draco Malfoy on the edge of the Forbidden Forest... well, honestly, it was completely insane! Stop stalling, Ginevra Weasley. Get in there and beg for forgiveness!

She composed herself mentally, which had the unfortunate side effect of making her face look very cold. Slytherin cold.

The first person she met as she entered the common room was Harry and when she saw his face, she had an uneasy feeling that her fears might not be so baseless, after all.

“I see you’ve come back, ” he spat at her. “Feel the need to ruin someone else’s life, do you?” Ginny stared at him, frozen with shock.

“Ruined... ruined his... what are you......?”

“Oh sure, Ginny. Play innocent. You knew exactly what you were doing when you said those things to him. He is your brother, after all.” He threw the word like a dagger. “You knew exactly what would hurt him the worst, and you said it. You said it and you didn’t even care.” He was on the verge of shouting now. He took a deep breath in, restraining his rage with an iron self-control that was almost more frightening than the anger itself. “God, Ginny. We’ve tried to make allowances. We know you’ve suffered, but you’re not the only one who matters. You’ve gone too damn far this time,” he hissed.

Ginny felt all her guilt and repentance washing away, drowned by harsh realization. They didn’t care, after all. How could she have been so stupid as to think they ever had.

“You hypocrite!” she whispered, bitterly incredulous. “You bloody hypocrite! I’ve never thought it was all about me, oh so high and mighty Harry Potter! No, nothing is EVER about me. Ever. Even after the Chamber, after the hell I went through, did anyone care? NO! It was all about you, and your bloody heroics, and your bravery. You didn’t even do it for me! You did it for your own conceited EGO! And as for Ron,” she added bitingly, the pain in her heart making her lash out at him like wounded animal. “You’ve hurt him more than I ever could, more times than I can count.”

Harry glared coldly back at her, completely untouched by her rant.

“Not like this,” he told her, with that same frightening control. Then he turned and walked slowly up the stairs to the boys’ dormitory, not even looking back at her.

She was turning to storm back out of the common room when a soft voice behind her made her stop.

“Ginny.” Her heart rose for one infinitesimal second when she heard the older girl’s voice behind her. Surely, surely Hermione would understand, wouldn’t she? Ginny turned slowly and her heart sank again. Hermione’s eyes were red with sobbing, and tears were running down her face, but her voice was quite steady. “If he ever even looks at you again, it’s more than you deserve.”

Ginny ran from the room and slammed the door behind her.

=============

What have I done? she thought wildly as she ran. What the hell have I done now? She didn’t know where she was going. The corridors were all blurred together in her mind. When she came to another corridor, she picked one way blindly and dashed on, the thoughts in her head racing as franticly as her breath.

The worst part was, she knew she was right. As cruel, as heartless, as savage as the things she had said to her brother were, she hadn’t lied. Not once. All she’d done was tell the truth, and they hated her for it. What kind of friendship is that, anyway? You don’t mention what hurts? Ron thought the same things about himself, but he never told Harry, never told anyone. Just let it fester and writhe and spread, till one day, there’d be nothing in his mind but that, tormenting him.

And suddenly, it was clear. They keep it quiet, they never talk about it, too scared it’ll hurt and, instead of going away, it grows. You know it’s there, and so do they, but they think if they just ignore the darkness, and do nothing about it, it’s like it never happened.

She thought back over the years she’d spent at Hogwarts. Whenever had they mentioned it? Whenever had they asked what it had done to her? Never. Not once. Last year, in a fit of anger at Harry’s self-absorbed sulking, Ginny had reminded him that she was the only one of them who knew what it was like to be possessed by You-Know-Who. He told her he’d forgotten. Forgotten. For them it was nothing, an old adventure, a neglected memory. For her, it was an everlasting nightmare.

Then she felt it. The dizzy spiral into the shadows, the unending blind fall, triggered by her anger and pain. Tom’s voice speaking, caressing her, warming her like a fire. A fire that melts and scorches and molds.....

You’re blacking out, she told herself with deceptive calmness. You’re going to hit your head on the stones and no one’s going to find you for hours. You’re going to die here. She saw herself, like she was floating outside of her own body, saw a pale ghost of a girl, staggering, her eyes closed. She almost fell as she leaned against a tapestry and stumbled... into an abandoned classroom. The world spun hard and she grasped desperately at a desk, clinging to it like a drowning man to driftwood.

“Now what have we here?” asked an amused voice above her. A voice that haunted her dreams almost as much as his. Ginny’s last conscious thought was that fainting in front of a murdering Death Eater was probably not her best course of action. But there was nothing she could do about it now. She was plunged headlong into the blackness where he was waiting for her, all ink and blood and tears and, in her mind, she sobbed as she fell.

=================

He hated Herbology. Downright despised it with a rage that he usually reserved for Potter, Mudbloods, and his father. It didn’t really have anything to do with magic. They never used their wands or uttered a single spell. They just potted and pruned and repotted. As long as you had a list of potion ingredients and a good apothecary, who needed to grub around in the dirt learning about bloody plants, anyway?

Draco glared down at the essay question he was supposed to be answering. It seemed extremely unfair that, despite everything going on in the real world, teachers still expected them to care about schoolwork. A grim smile crossed his face. At least academic success wasn’t a requirement for joining the Dark Lord. Merlin knew what Flint and Montague would have done, otherwise. He sighed and pushed his parchment away, tipping back the legs of his chair and leaning against the table, absently making sure that crazy vulture of a librarian wasn’t watching him.

He caught a glimpse of crimson as someone ran by the open library door. Weasley. His thoughts had been hovering around the redheaded girl all day. He’d been doubtful of her at first. It wouldn’t be the first time a goody-goody little Ravenclaw or Gryffindor had messed around with him, trying to rebel, then run off, frightened by what they’d gotten themselves into. A little revenge on her brother, a few days of freedom from her stifling morals, and she’d be scampering back to her little lionhearted friends, wouldn’t she?

But she hadn’t. Not yet, anyway. And the more he thought about it, the more convinced he was: this wasn’t just some fun little game on her part. The fierce look of joy on her face after their first encounter, so rudely interrupted by Finnigan. Her words after he kissed her: “If that’s evil....” Add to that her rather vicious outburst at her brother (news of which had spread from House to House like wildfire) and the strange, frightening look in her eyes that night in the forest, and you had a Weasley unlike any other. The only problem was, she couldn’t accept it. That was understandable, of course. How would he feel if he’d suddenly started acting like a Gryffindor? Draco shuddered a little at the mere thought. Still, her true tendencies were coming a little more into the light with each passing day. You could see it from her pale, tormented face, and from the looks her classmates gave her as they walked by. Stupid little buggers could feel something different about her, even as she tried to reject it. You can’t escape your own heart, no matter how hard you try not to see it.

The memory of his meeting with Bellatrix flooded into his mind. Make me proud. He lifted a hand to his cheek and ran his thumb along the thin cut, hardly healed in the intervening days.

He’d just have to convince her.

============

That’s odd, thought Ginny muzzily, staring at the dark stone walls that surrounded her. I always thought Heaven would look a bit more... heavenly. She thought again for a moment. Unless I’m in hell. The thought was so alarming that she sat up hastily. This proved to be a mistake, as she realized when she almost threw up. She lay back down again, trying to figure out what was going on. Blinking a little, Ginny slowly registered that she was in an abandoned classroom. Then, it all flooded back.

She glanced around wildly, expecting Bellatrix to leap out from a dark corner and attack her. But the classroom remained just as empty as before. The only sound to disturb the dust-laden air was her own harsh breathing. Ginny slumped back against the legs of the nearest desk, her heart pounding wildly with relief.

Why am I alive? she thought wonderingly. The fall to the stone floor, if nothing else, should have injured her badly. Yet here she was, practically unhurt. And once she’d blacked out, why hadn’t the Death Eater tried to kill her? Or at least waited until she woke up, so that she could cast a memory charm on her? Unless... Ginny froze with shock. Unless the woman had stopped her fall? Saved her life?

That didn’t make any sense at all. The Death Eater knew perfectly well who Ginny was; at the Department of Mysteries, Bellatrix had threatened to torture her to death if Harry didn’t give them the prophecy. But now... she’d spared her? She’d saved her? No. Impossible. But what other explanation was there? And what was the Death Eater doing in Hogwarts anyway? How had she managed to get in? Ginny’s head spun more than ever.

Still, she wasn’t getting anywhere by just sitting in this classroom. Stumbling to her feet, Ginny clutched at the desk again for support, then carefully drew out her wand. Threading her way unsteadily through the rows of desks, she finally reached the door and stuck her head cautiously out. An unfamiliar, empty corridor met her gaze. Easing the door shut behind her, Ginny set off down the hall, confused and lightheaded, yet oddly... exhilarated.

It took her nearly twenty minutes to find her way back to Gryffindor Tower, but she didn’t see a single person along the way. She wondered nervously if it was after curfew; the last thing she wanted today was to get a detention from Filch. When she finally reached the Fat Lady and gave the password (pretending not to notice the stern look of disapproval on the portrait’s face), the common room was all but deserted. She heaved a sigh of relief. They were all at dinner, then.

“Ginny?” She froze. Not all of them. Turning slowly toward the chairs in front of the crackling fire, she found herself face to face with her brother.

“I’m sorry.” She stared at him, shocked.

“What?”

“I’m... I’m sorry.” Ron took a deep breath. “I mean, I thought about it, and I reckon that you wouldn’t have said...” here his voice cracked slightly, “...wouldn’t have said all those things if I hadn’t done something that really, you know, pissed you off, and well, I guess....” He trailed off, staring very fixedly into the fire, pointedly not looking at her. “Because, you know, it’s always sort of been you and me. Fred and George, right, they always had each other, and Bill and Charlie, well, they were like best friends. Never really bothered with us younger ones. And Percy, ‘course, he was just on his own. And then it was you and me, sort of, you know, stuck at the bottom like, and....” Ginny could see him struggling for the words, fighting himself in a way she’d never seen before. She knelt next to his chair and slid an arm around his neck, resting her head on his shoulder. He leaned his head against hers, red hair mingling, indistinguishable in the dim firelight.

“You’re my brother,” she whispered. “I love you.” But he was wrong. It hadn’t been the two of them together, not for years. Not since he went to school and left her fighting tears of her own on Platform 9 3/4. Not since he’d met Harry and Hermione and become someone else entirely. Ever since that year, he’d gone places and done things she could never dream of. But now... now she was the one who had gone, gone somewhere where he could never follow, never dream of, never know.

He’s my brother, she repeated to herself. I love him. But I’m not going to apologize. Not for telling him the truth. Not for doing what’s right.

===============

Having finally finished his ridiculous Herbology essay, Draco went down to the Great Hall to see if there was any food left, or if Crabbe and Goyle had eaten it all. It had happened before. When he arrived at the Slytherin Table, it was almost empty except for a few scrawny first years and his dorm mate Blaise, who greeted him with a scowl.

“See if I get your mail for you next time, if you’re not going to bother to come and eat.” The slim, dark boy threw him a letter and swung himself up from the table. “Why’re you getting mail this late anyway?” He ignored him and Blaise left, but he threw a calculating over his shoulder at Draco as he went. Absorbed in reading his letter, Draco didn’t notice. In comparison to the first correspondence from his aunt, this one was downright verbose.

You’re ahead of schedule. Meet me again tonight. Bring your little girlfriend with you, she seems delightful.

Carefully hiding his surprise at Bellatrix’s unexpected knowledge, Draco glanced quickly over at the Gryffindor table. She wasn’t there. Neither was the Weasel. He sucked in his breath. Had he read her wrong? Was she running away after all? He tried to block the fear that she might cause him to fail his duty to the Death Eaters, because of her idiotic Gryffindor morals. The inexplicable anger he felt at the thought that she might leave him was harder to ignore.

===========

Safe in her hiding place, Bellatrix’s eyes snapped open.

“Well,” she whispered, her cold eyes dancing with wild mirth. “Isn’t that interesting?”

==========

ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT

Chapter Six- We All Fall Down

It wasn’t really all that hard of a spell, especially considering the fact that it was illegal. Draco had been practicing it in secret for several months now and knew that all you really needed was a decent amount of power and the strength of will. It wasn’t as powerful as the Imperius Curse, of course, but it was a good deal more subtle. Furthermore, you got less time in Azkaban for it. This last thought gave him a slight pause, but who was he to disobey his aunt? Tonight she had said, and tonight it would be. A slight smile crossed his face. This was going to be... interesting.

Draco drew his wand out from his robes and casually slid it under the table, glancing nonchalantly around to make sure no one was watching him. He then turned himself so that the teachers at the front of the Hall couldn’t see him: there was no sense in doing Dark magic without taking proper precautions. His father had always taught him the value of secrecy and subterfuge in a world where friends and foes were equally dangerous and one could simply never be too careful. Look at his parents, for Merlin’s sake. Where had trusting and carelessness gotten the two of them?

He pointed his wand to the corridor where the Gryffindors always came down in the morning and fixed Ginny’s image firmly in his mind. He pictured her crimson hair, her sharp eyes, the way her face would freeze when her classmates walked by her whispering, and the tight line her lips made when her brother and his friends walked away, leaving her alone in a crowd of chattering people. Sweetest of all, Draco could see clearly in his mind the way those bright eyes would flash when she saw him, half in anger and half in fear. It filled him with a heady rush of power and excitement. His mind reeled with it.

“Acivenio,” he hissed, drawing his wand in a smooth semicircle under the table, and then jerking it sharply toward himself.

Up in the Gryffindor common room, Ginny Weasley’s head snapped upward in shock. The sudden movement dislodged her brother’s arm from around her shoulders, and resulted in them banging heads quite painfully.

“Ow! What’s up, Gin?” Ron asked, rubbing his skull in an injured fashion.

“Nothing,” she replied, almost completely distracted.

Something was pulling at her, tugging at her urgently, calling her almost. Confused but angry, Ginny resisted the tempting demand and clenched her hands so tightly that her knuckles whitened and her fingernails were bit into the flesh of her palm. Something or someone was trying to control her; she could feel the desire to obey like it was her own. But it wasn’t. No! She wouldn’t. Never again.

As she shook slightly with the struggle within her, Ginny became aware of her brother looking at her oddly Taking a deep breath, she pointedly relaxed her hands and tried not to wince as blood and pain together rushed through her veins.

“Sorry, Ron,” she said standing up but painfully aware of her every jerky movement. “It’s just been a really awful day. I think I’m going to go down to the Hall and see if there’s any dinner left. D’you mind?” He looked at her uncertainly for a moment.

“Um, sure, whatever you like,” Ron answered in a voice that sounded a little too cheerful. “And, uh, Ginny....”

“Yes?” she asked, turning at the door to face him again.

“I... I’ll see you down there,” he finished in a rush. But Ginny was quite sure that was not what he had meant to say at all. She swung the door open and slid out into the hall, feeling his eyes on her back as she shut it again with a snap.

Leaning against the cold stone of the wall, she let out a sigh of relief for having escaped without raising too much suspicion. Then she began to walk slowly down the corridor to the Great Hall. Inwardly, she raged at her own helplessness, but the tide pulled at her ever more seductively, and she found that she couldn’t fight it for a second longer.

ooooooooo

Draco saw her the moment she entered the Hall, and wasn’t surprised when her eyes immediately locked with his. What he saw there, however, shocked him. The anger made sense, considering the way he’d abandoned her on Halloween. On the other hand, the haunted fear that he saw in her face was a completely unexpected reaction from the unfalteringly reckless Gryffindor. Masking his confusion with icy indifference, Draco flicked his gaze swiftly to the door leading out into the entrance hall, and then back to her.

She nodded almost imperceptibly to show she understood, then turned her back on him. Repressing the urge to fume at her rudeness, (secrecy was important, after all, wasn’t it?) Draco slid his wand and the parchment from Bellatrix into the pocket of his robes and then strode quite confidently out of the Great Hall. He tried to ignore the nervous tension that was filling him. There was no doubt that Ginny would know where he had gone; whether she would meet him there was another question entirely.

He scowled slightly as he walked down the steps into the freezing courtyard and beyond. What was he thinking? Since when did Draco Malfoy wait for girls to meet him? Bloody Weasley.

Yet less than an hour later he was standing face to face with her at the edge of the forest under the same tree as before. She met his eyes with a look which was so unreadable, it belonged in the Department of Mysteries.

“Just ask next time,” she said softly, without preamble.

“I needed you. I didn’t want to wait,” he retorted, equally short.

Her eyes glittered like ice at him. All traces of her earlier trepidation were fled or hidden, but her voice was even colder when she spoke again.

“That’s funny. You didn’t seem to need me at all on Halloween, did you? Or before that, for that matter. In fact, I don’t know what sort of game you’ve been playing with me, Draco, but I’m done with it. With you.”

All of the hunger for him and all of the strange pity in her heart had melted when she came into the Hall and met his uncaring eyes. He was controlling her. Why had she ever deluded herself into thinking that Draco was any different from him? Evil was evil, no matter how... tempting.

But Malfoy was quite untouched by her dramatic proclamation. In fact, if anything, he looked almost amused.

“And what,” he inquired, “Makes you think that I am done with you?”

“He has a point you know, little girl,” said a calm voice from behind her.

Ginny whirled around, shock showing openly on her face. Bellatrix calmly met her wide eyes with a cool stare. Then a flash of malice lit up her features and the Death Eater sneered.

“Oh, did you think he was interested in you for your looks, little girl? Did you think he loved you? Why, how sweetly deluded you can be, little girl. Very romantic, I’m sure.”

“Have you ever met our Potions master? I think you two would get on smashingly. We ought to arrange a date,” Ginny retorted, masking her fear and smirking back at the Death Eater.

Without warning, Bellatrix lashed out, grabbing her by the throat and pushing her smoothly against a tree. She leaned in closely, her lips almost touching Ginny’s face.

“Never provoke those who have more power than yourself, Miss Weasley,” Bellatrix whispered, the serene tone of her voice greatly at odds with the maniacal glint in her dark eyes. She released the pressure on the younger girl’s throat abruptly, causing Ginny to slide down the tree and land in a heap at her feet.

“Now,” said the Death Eater pleasantly. “Where was I, Draco, before I was so rudely interrupted?”

“Delusions, Bellatrix,” he answered quietly, his eyes fixed firmly on ground.

“Ah, yes,” she whispered slowly. “You, Miss Weasley, have a great many delusions. One is that the dear little dragon boy here felt something for you. I certainly hope I have managed to disabuse you of that notion. But no matter. You would have figured that much out for yourself in the end, I suppose. However, there are more important things to deal with at the present.”

Ginny felt her hands shaking, so she locked them firmly behind her back.

“Why am I here? What do you want with me? Because, whatever it is, it’s not going to work.”

They were brave words, she knew, but nothing more than false bravado, all the same. Bellatrix knew it, too. The mocking little smile on her face gave it away. And Draco? Ginny couldn’t guess what he knew. He hadn’t met her eyes since the interview began.

Bellatrix laughed. “What a ridiculous statement! If I want you to do something, you’ll do it. You haven’t got a choice in that respect, and if you think that I’ll hesitate to use you in whatever fashion I please just because you told me not to, then you’re more foolish than I thought.”

Ginny blinked. Never in a thousand years would she have expected a Death Eater to state matters so plainly. Sinisterly veiled threats were what she was prepared for, not this blatant statement of facts.

“Luckily for you,” continued the Death Eater, “I have very little interest in you at all, little girl. On the contrary, I am merely going to inform you of a few more of your silly, childish delusions, just for my own amusement. Little liars like yourself are so incapable of accepting the truth, you see. It’s no more than my humble duty to send a spark of truth into your darkened life.”

“Send a little spark of your evil into innocent lives, you mean,” Ginny spat, her contempt getting the better of her common sense.

Bellatrix raised her eyebrows. “If you think your own life is innocent, girl, than your delusions run far deeper than I suspected. And evil, little girl, is such a misused word. You think my work is evil, yes?”

Ginny remained still, her gaze fixed on the tree roots at her feet. This was all far too strange. Death Eaters didn’t justify their beliefs to 5th year Gryffindors in the middle of the night. Something was altogether wrong about this, but she was tired, so tired. She couldn’t deal with this right now. She couldn’t deal with this at all. But Bellatrix just kept talking, her voice twisting its way into Ginny’s mind, so softly.

“Do you know anything of Mudblood history, little girl? No? Well, let me tell you. They have many great achievements, these Muggles. Maybe you think they’re just sweet, harmless, lovable fools, with no real power. But, little girl, that’s is just what they seem. Probe a little deeper under the surface and you find terrible things. Deeds more horrific than any ever accomplished by magic. The least of their wars in the past two hundred years killed more of them than our last three wars combined. They slaughter each other over land, over grudges from thousands of years ago, over people who probably never existed, and never will exist! Their basic nature is not toward peace, no matter how they try to disguise it. They’re flawed, somewhere deep within. They pretend to be kind and decent and noble, but inside they’re never truly happy until there is conflict, until there is death. And their appetite is insatiable. No matter the amount of horror come before, they cannot quench their thirst for it. Ah, you try to deny it, you shake your head at me. But how do you know? Have you ever met a Muggle, little girl? Have you ever looked into their eyes and seen the fear and hatred there? That’s the difference, you see. To them, to not understand is to fear, and to fear is to hate, and to hate is to kill. Do you think they have changed since they tried to slaughter us in the Hunts? Do you think they have learned? No. They’re just as stupid, just as malicious as ever. Why? Because no one has taught them. No one has shown them the error in their ways. They cannot be taught with patience and love. The only the language they understand is fear and hate. You must fight fire with fire! And as for those who have our powers, the filthy Mudbloods, why, they are more dangerous than all the others. The fatal flaws of Muggles, mixed with our powers, can only end in disaster. What if they betray our world and turn their loyalties to Muggles in the end? With our powers and their bestial tendencies, they would be unstoppable, don’t you see? And yet there are those who can’t see it. Those, like yourself, little girl, who are too blind to see the danger we’re in! Those who fight against us for their own glory and honor, and yet are blind to the real cause which so many of us have died for. It’s their lives we are fighting to protect, but not even they can be allowed to come between us and our goal. We must protect our world, and we must save our own way of life. In the end, that is all that can matter to us. That is all we can care about. Not honor. Not glory. Not playing the hero. Just... life. Life and the future.”

Bellatrix stopped, her eyes fixed on the upright figure of the red headed girl before her. Silence grew around the three still figures, broken by the whisper of cold wind through the trees. A cloud passed over the moon, leaving the forest in brief darkness. Ginny shivered and wrapped her arms tightly around her body.

“Poor little girl,” whispered Bellatrix softly, her voice no louder than the wind. “Have I scared you? Well, the truth is a frightening thing when you’ve been hearing happy little lies your whole life. But it’s the truth nevertheless. I know what I’m fighting for, little girl. Can you say the same?”

Ginny shivered again.

“I thought you were strong, Ginny, but I see I was wrong,” said Draco abruptly. Ginny refused to meet his gaze. After a moment, Bellatrix turned and strode further into the darkness of the forest. He followed her, leaving Ginny standing alone in the shadows.

ooooooooo

As soon as they were out of earshot from the younger girl, Draco urgently whispered to Bellatrix, “Do you really think that worked? I mean, she’s been raised as one of them her whole life. Do you think one speech can really change all of that?”

“Are you second guessing me, boy?” asked Bellatrix icily, not even glancing at him as he labored to keep up with her brisk pace through the trees.

He didn’t answer.

“Better,” she said. “You must understand, one does not have to be as great as the Dark Lord to learn from him. He is the greatest Master of the Mind to grace our world since Salazar himself, and I have been learning the Art from him for many more years than you have lived. The girl’s mind is torn now, weak, uncertain. It’s a crucial juncture, this period. It is when she will be shaped again, for good. But it is up to us to ensure that she is put back on the right path, while there is still time.”

‘I don’t understand,” he retorted. “She’s just a little girl, you said so yourself. Why all the fuss about her? Why bother to ‘put her on the right path’ in the first place? She’s just one person.”

Bellatrix stopped her swift walk and looked him squarely in the eye, impatience adding an acid bite to her voice.

“You never fail to prove your foolishness, Draco. Did you truly believe it was merely a coincidence that your father chose to make her the one through which the Dark Lord was to return? Of course not. Lucius also was far too foolish. It was I who found her, not a month before I was put in Azkaban. She was barely a month old. Even then, it was all there, hidden in her mind. The desire for power, the drive, the ambition. But it all became warped, growing up in that hovel with her rabble of a family, warped by their sick blindness, and their stupid hero worship of Dumbledore and Potter. It turned into a drive to please others, to do what they thought was right, instead of what was truly in her heart. She never had a chance to think for herself. But now... now is finally the chance to set it all right. Which, I suppose, I do have you to thank for, at least a little.”

Draco was, if anything, more confused than before. “But what do you mean, you found her? Why were you looking? How is she different from any of her stupid little classmates?”

Bellatrix sneered at him. “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”

“Noticed what?”

“Her gifts, for Merlin’s sake! She’s practically a stereotypical Slytherin, of course. Her determination, her cleverness, her willingness to disregard the rules to get what she wants. But it goes beyond that. She has a power, a power of insight, of seeing and understanding, that is like nothing either the Dark Lord or myself have ever seen before. She has such empathy, that she could, if she wished, take utter control of a person, mind and body, without even raising her wand. They would bow willingly before her. In the past it’s been suppressed and wasted. Until she was touched by the Dark Lord, it could hardly be seen at all. Luckily, even that brief contact opened the way. As she was being controlled, she was also learning, though she wasn’t even aware of it. Now her potential is at its peak, torn as she is. She might even exert it by mistake, in a blind attempt to control something in her life. I would beware, if I were you. From what I’ve seen of the two of you together, you’re already half under her power as it is.”

“I’m nothing of the sort! It’s just...” Draco retorted furiously. Ginny just understood him, that was all. Understood him like no one ever had before.

Bellatrix smiled.

“As for ‘finding’ her,” she continued, “To a Legilimens trained by one as great as the Dark Lord, her mind stood out like a star in the midst of candle flames. I passed by her house one night, on my last mission, and I felt her presence without ever seeing her. I knew that she was meant to fight for us. I’ve waited too many years to let her slip through my hands now.” Having obviously wasted all the time she cared to on him and his stupid questions, Bellatrix turned and walked off the path farther into the icy darkness, leaving Draco alone with his thoughts. She did not call to him and he did not follow.

ooooooooo

It shouldn’t have even been something she was considering. When she came out here, she was prepared to face down any ploy, no matter how cunning. She was strong and resolute. She had finally found the right choice, and she had made it. Nothing was going to stand in her way.

Except, perhaps, the truth.

What had stopped the witch hunts? Ginny tried to remember. Had the Muggles seen the error of their ways and stopped the killings? A chill passed over her that had nothing to do with the cold that made her breath fog up in front of her. No. No. The hunts stopped only when the witches and wizards had gone into hiding, scared for their lives. Oh, everyone went on about how the Muggles had failed to ever murder a real witch, but it wasn’t through a lack of hate or effort. So, for all their brave words, an entire world went into hiding... and never emerged.

And how would Muggles react these days if we did come out of hiding? she wondered. Would they welcome us with open arms, or would they declare us dangerous and try to kill us all? Would their fascination with our powers overcome their fear of the unknown?

Deep in her heart, Ginny knew the answer, and it scared her. Scared her worse than anything, because if Bellatrix was right about that... what else was she right about? Just where was the line between defending yourself from a perceived attack, and murdering someone in cold blood? If you were capable of one... were you capable of the other?

She remembered, almost against her will, the feeling of Draco’s arms around her, the feeling of rightness and safety when he touched her. Could that be faked? After all, he had put a Summoning spell on her. That was Dark magic, plain and simple. But what if he thought he was doing it for her own good? If he wanted her to know the truth so badly that he no longer cared if she hated him or not? Or had he never cared in the first place?

She just didn’t know. All the clarity she had gained had been stolen, and she was filled with doubt and fear.

Is this how it was meant to be? Are they telling the truth? Has my entire life been a lie? How did this even happen to me? Why... why me? Why now? I just want...

But she didn’t know what she wanted, anymore. All she knew was that she had to do something. She couldn’t stand this torturous doubt a moment longer. Better to do something, and have it done, than to waver forever on the edge and never live, never touch, never fly, never know.

Later that night as she stood hidden in the alcove behind the boar statue in the entrance Hall, she wondered to herself: Have I lost my mind? Or have I found my heart?

He came in a good two hours after her, around 3 in the morning. He walked so silently, she saw him only by the flash of movement as he started up the stairs. She slid, ghostlike, up the stairs after him. As they reached the first landing, he sensed her behind him and froze, his back still to her. Amazed at her own reckless daring after so many days of restrained and tormented decorum, she ran a hand slowly down his neck, savoring the sensation of his icy skin under her fingers. She felt his breath quicken.

“I’m with you,” she whispered, so quietly he barely caught the treacherous words, so close that her lips almost touched his ear.

Without turning, he took her other hand in his and brushed his mouth across her palm, lighter than a kiss. Then he let her go and, not looking back, walked easily up the stairs. The illusionary moonlight from the Great Hall turned his hair to gold.

As Ginny stood watching him go, she marveled at her own peace of mind. After all, she had just fallen into the darkness she had fled from her whole life.

But somehow, it felt like she was flying.

ooooooooo

“Ring around the rosie,
A pocket full of posies
Ashes, ashes
We all fall down.”
- Popular children’s rhyme, describing the effects of the Black Plague

ooooooooo

ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT

Chapter Seven- The Powers of Toads

“Oh, you’re joking!” Draco blinked, brushed his hair out of his eyes, and blinked again. He had not been expecting anyone up this late in the common room, much less a shirtless Blaise Zabini, who was now laughing at him like a hyena.

“What the bloody hell is your problem, Blaise? And would you please put on a shirt?”

“You have got to be joking! Merlin! Oh, I think I’m going to hurl! You and Weasley! Honestly, Draco, there’s got to be something better than that piece of filth around here somewhere. It’s a big school, you know. Have you tried Ravenclaw yet? I’m mean, sure, they tend to blather on, but at least....”

The dark complexioned boy stopped suddenly as Draco slapped a hand across his mouth, effectively ending the mocking tirade.

“Tell me, Blaise. What are you doing up so late in the first place?” asked Draco with a calmness he didn’t feel inside.

Gingerly peeling off the hand which restrained him, Blaise looked innocently up at Draco.

“Why, spying on you, of course. Everyone knows the sneaky little Dragon’s been up to something lately. I just didn’t think I would be the one privileged enough to discover all the gory details. So, tell me Draco. What’s it been? A little job in the Astronomy Tower? A few....”

“Nice try, but not good enough,” he cut Blaise off wearily. “No one here cares who does what in the night anymore. The shock wore off around third year, what with the incident with Pansy and that Hufflepuff. What are you really up to?”

Blaise smiled. “I thought we didn’t care what anyone did in the night.”

“This is different.”

“How do you know I haven’t just come back from banging some little Gryffindor in the Charms corridor, too?”

“I have not been banging Ginny, thanks so much for your confidence in my tastes, Blaise.” Draco could feel an irrational rage coiling within his chest, but he struggled to repress it.

“Ah, so it’s Ginny now, is it? And what does she call you? Her little Drakey-poo?”

Draco’s hand whipped out. He grabbed Blaise by the throat and pushed him bodily against the wall of the common room.

“You are lying to me and you are making me sick. Your behavior is inexcusable on both counts. Spit out whatever you have to say and let me go to sleep. It’s been a rough night.” His glare dared Blaise to make anything out of the comment.

Blaise regarded him calmly from under half-closed lids, all traces of lighthearted mockery fled from his face.

“You aren’t the only one with sources outside, Malfoy,” he answered coolly. “You aren’t the highest in authority around school, either, for all your cocky ways.” Draco sneered at him.

“Oh, I supposed you know someone higher in the ranks, do you, Zabini?” he asked derisively, but a cold thread of fear was worming its icy way through his stomach. Blaise met his gaze serenely, then turned his bare left arm slightly to the side. Draco glanced down, half against his will, and saw the livid red tattoo on the boy’s dark skin. He let go as if scalded.

“What the hell, Blaise,” he whispered. Lightning was running through his veins, a heady mix of fear and anger and excitement.

“Come on, Draco, haven’t you ever seen one before?’ asked Blaise coldly. His eyes bored through Draco’s skull. “Aren’t you going to ask me again what I was doing?” His tone left no doubt as to the correct answer.

He paused expectantly, but Draco remained silent and still. Blaise studied him closely for a moment more, the turned and went into their dorm.

Blaise. Blaise Zabini. He was Slytherin’s resident prankster, a strange, crazy, wild foreigner with no important lineage at all. Zabini was an amusing jokester, but he had no real influence, no real talent or power. He was no one of consequence. And yet Blaise Zabini had been made a Death Eater before him, Draco Malfoy? It was a ridiculous idea! It was ludicrous! It was unthinkable! It was, he had to admit, impressive.

Draco had been the virtual leader of Slytherin since he got his prefect’s badge the year before, and he had been the power in his class from the beginning. The more he thought about it, the more his outrage grew. Of course he should have been the first in their year to enter the ranks! It was his right, his honor! If this spread around the house as fast as he feared it would, what was left of his position after the deaths of both his parents would be completely eradicated. Then again, this was Zabini he was dealing with. For all Draco knew, Blaise had been a Death Eater all year and just not told anybody, for some unfathomable- and no doubt highly sinister- reason of his own. Or maybe they had forbidden him to tell anyone. Or maybe, just maybe, (and this was a completely new thought to Draco) entrance into the Death Eaters meant that you had plans and interests which superseded the power struggles of Slytherin 6th years.

Draco hated being outclassed. Damn Zabini.

And how had he known about Ginny?

ooooooooooo

Becoming a traitor, Ginny had swiftly discovered, was detrimental to a good night’s sleep. Yes, for all her giddy joy and newfound confidence, she had no doubt that this was a betrayal. And what could she do to change it? Not a single bloody thing. Her family and friends weren’t evil, that much was obvious. They were simply gullible and blind to the facts. She could try to explain to them what she now understood (the dangers of mixing with Muggles, the threats to their very existence), but she knew they would never listen. A bitter smile crossed her face. When had any of them ever listened? That was what had brought her here in the first place, she realized. The fact that no one cared, no one listened, and no one even noticed.

Until now.

Ginny recalled the bright passion in Bellatrix’s eyes as she spoke of the future, a future which Ginny could be a part of, and the feeling of Draco’s lips on her skin. They cared. She wasn’t going to give that up, not for anything. No, all of this would just have to stay a secret until the time was ripe for her family to understand. And the time would come, of that she was sure. When it did, she would no longer be the baby, the little girl, to one who needed to be coddled and protected and lied to. She would be the only one who had seen the truth and done something. She was the one who had acted. Finally, she was the one who was right.

The moonlight cut through a crack in her bed curtains and bleached her already pale face to the shade of snow. A small smile of satisfaction stole across her lips as she drifted to sleep, secure in the knowledge that she was finally safe from the dark.

ooooooooooo

“Ginny! Ginny!” The quiet but frantic voice wormed its way into her drowsy
brain and began to stir her thoughts back to life. She groaned and turned over, loathe to disturb the warm nest of blankets she was incased in.

“Ginny! Will you wake up already! Please!?”

She moaned. “Nngghhh. Do I have to?”

“Honestly, wake UP!” The last was all but shrieked in her ear. Ginny felt disgruntled; she was not a morning person and Tally knew it. What was the silly bint playing at?

“Natalie, please don’t take this the wrong way, but will you kindly go stick your head up your....”

“You don’t understand!” Tally interrupted tearfully. “This is really important, Gin!”

A sudden fear shot through her. She sat up quickly, and fixed the distraught third year with an intense stare.

“Is everyone all right?” she asked urgently, “Is something wrong?” Oh, Merlin. Ron, the twins, Harry and Hermione. Draco. Her mind was racing, begging for their lives. If only they’re OK.... She could feel her heart pounding, out of control. Panic was flooding through her, but she fought it down.

Confronted with the wild face of her friend, Natalie froze. Her mouth was poised to speak, but no words came. Ginny repressed the urge to shake her viciously.

“Tally!” she yelled. “What’s happened?”

The younger girl dropped her gaze and stared, almost shamefacedly, at the floor. An sullen expression crossed her face.

“You’re going to think I’m stupid,” she muttered sulkily.

“McDonald,” Ginny said in a low and deadly voice. “Spit. It. Out.”

“It’s the Slytherins,” muttered Tally after a tense pause. Ginny waited for a brief moment.

“Pray tell, what about the Slytherins, Natalie, darling?” she inquired, her voice dripping with exaggerated patience and politeness.

Tally looked up and met Ginny’s glare with rebellious defiance, her own eyes flashing with anger.

“They’re gone. Every one of them. No one knows where.” She turned haughtily on her heel and began to stalk out of the dorm, regardless of Ginny’s still-sleeping roommates. Without warning, she pivoted back for a moment. “I just thought you’d want to know,” she added with a slight curl of her mouth, and was gone.

Ginny stared after her, shock and anger undisguised on her face.

Where had they gone? Why had they left her behind? And what did Natalie mean by that last comment? Had she really been that careless, that Natalie might know about Draco?

Ginny buried her head in her blankets and groaned. Just when everything was finally going to be all right.

ooooooooooo

The school was in chaotic disarray, especially for a Sunday. It was only seven in the morning, yet it seemed to Ginny when she entered the Great Hall that the entire student body was all ready there. The three crammed tables made the absent Slytherins more blatantly obvious than ever. Nervous and muted conversations could be heard throughout the Hall and many furtive glances were cast at the empty spot left by the absent house. As Ginny sat down at the edge of the Gryffindor table, she snuck at look to the front of the hall where the staff sat: Snape was glaring accusingly around at the milling students, as though he expected to find his missing students among them. Dumbledore was not there.

She met the Potions Master’s roving gaze for a moment, quite by accident. She froze. He knew. He obvious knew. In that agonizing second as his black eyes drilled into hers, it seemed that he surely knew everything that had happened in the past two weeks. The incrimination in his gaze was crystal clear. He was going to turn her into Dumbledore, and she would surely be expelled, maybe even arrested. What was the sentence for consorting with Death Eaters? She shuddered to think. Would they send her to Azkaban? Was there any evidence to prove her guilty? Would it matter? She squeezed her eyes shut in terror and awaited her doom.

A long minute passed. The nervous whispers of the students continued around her like a tide. She opened her eyes slowly and looked again at Snape. He was now eyeing Harry, who had just come into the Hall with Ron and Hermione trailing behind him, bickering in unusually quiet voices. Snape’s expression was one of exquisite loathing. If looks could disembowel, then The Boy Who Lived would have been in for some serious digestive difficulties in the very near future. Her breath escaped her in one fast relieved sigh. No Azkaban for her then, at least not this time.

After a split-second of contemplation, Ginny decided that facing Harry wouldn’t be much better than facing a dementor at the moment. The memory of her altercation with the Trio the day before was still too fresh for comfort, despite her reconciliation with her brother. How’re they going to be when I finally tell them about all of this? she wondered uneasily. No. She couldn’t think about it that way. If they refused to see the truth in the end, in spite of everything, that was going to be their own problem, not hers. In the meantime, avoidance would be her policy.

Thanks to the vast crowds, this was no problem. She grabbed a muffin from the table and moved swiftly across the Hall, being sure to keep a particularly large group of second-year Ravenclaws in between her and the Trio at all times.

A few short minutes later found her standing nervously in front of a blank stretch of stone and praying the Slytherins hadn’t changed their password before they left.

ooooooooooo

“What do you mean, you didn’t think she should come, you half-witted maggot? When did your foolish judgment gain precedence in your mind over my own? Did it ever enter into your tiny brain that there are things more important than your ridiculous schoolboy crush?”

Draco felt a faint blush rising on his cheeks and refused to meet his aunt’s furious gaze. There were few things in the world more frightening than an Azkaban convict in a rage. Draco fervently wished to come through this encounter unscathed, as a good many of those things were in his near future and he was going to need his wits about him if he wanted to survive them as well. He was beginning to suspect that following orders unquestioningly and knowing when to keep his mouth shut was going to take him a lot farther in this new world than arrogance and disrespect always had. Luckily, with family like his, he had plenty of practice with blind and silent obedience.

“Are you listening to me, boy?” Bellatrix hissed at him, grabbing him by the chin and forcing him to look into her eyes. For someone who was nearly a head shorter than him, she managed to convey a tremendous sense of dominance. He suppressed a smirk. It was going to be a sweet day when he could finally rise above her and bring her weeping to her knees.

The sudden fury in her gaze made his eyes widen. Oh, shit, he thought with a stab of realization. Legilimency. She must have felt his rebellion against her in his mind, and now....

“That is good,” she said softly, amusement and satisfaction filling her tone. “You are not as weak as I thought. Something of value may have even have survived the mess your father made of your mind during your early training with him. Ambitions against your teacher are a decent start down the road to something much greater.”

Her look hardened again.

“But that does not excuse your blatant disregard of my direct orders concerning the girl.” Her hand was out so fast he hardly noticed she had moved. He looked up and saw a glint of suppressed excitement and voracious anticipation “Crucio!”

I can’t believe I ever doubted she was mad, was his last vague thought as he screamed and fell writhing to the floor where he had lain so many times in the past under much the same circumstances, though a different set of hungry eyes had witnessed his agony then. But never before had the white-hot pain come with such mind-blowing intensity. Bellatrix had a depth of hatred and a lust for suffering that his father could never have matched. Without warning, it overcame everything and he fell into darkness.

ooooooooooo

Twenty minutes later, when Ginny emerged from a green maelstrom of fire into a dark and dusty room in Malfoy Manor, a strange sight met her eyes.

Bellatrix Lestrange was sitting on a filthy Persian rug, ignoring the tremendous amounts of dirt which were accumulating on her robes, and muttering over a toad. Behind her, Draco was sitting on an elaborately carved mahogany chair and staring at nothing. He was even paler than usual, and his eyes looked strangely dead. Ginny felt an urge to go to him and touch him, to bring him out of his odd trance; he looked so far away.

This is not the time to be fantasizing about Draco, she thought firmly. I need to be strong, I need to be calm, I need to keep my wits about me....

“You’re going to have to move, Gryffindor, if I’m to be leaving this fireplace sometime in the next decade,” came Blaise’s amused voice from behind her. Ginny flushed a shade of tomato red that she thought only Fred and George were capable of bringing to her face. She nearly tripped over her own feet, such was her rush to get out of his way. She cursed inwardly.

I thought you were done acting like a silly little girl, she berated herself. Get a grip!

At this Bellatrix looked up, her long black hair momentarily obscuring her face.

“You brought back the girl, Zabini,” she said, her voice full of cool approval. “Well done.”

“I wouldn’t dare to go against your command,” Blaise replied, smirking at Draco. The blond boy didn’t even look up. Undaunted, he continued. “She was outside the common room when I returned, ready to throw a fit. Probably would have killed me if I hadn’t told her where you were. It didn’t take a lot of convincing to bring her along.” He paused for a long moment, but Bellatrix remained silent, intent on the toad. “So, why are we here?” he asked suddenly.

Ginny, who had been pondering this precise question, almost let out a sigh of relief. At least she wouldn’t have to expose herself to more humiliation through her pitiful ignorance.

‘Since you ask, Zabini,” replied Bellatrix, “For the next 24 hours, you three are going to help me hatch a basilisk.”

A loud crash filled the room as Draco fell off his chair; apparently this comment had shaken him out of his reverie.

“We’re going to WHAT?!” he yelled.

“Be silent. You’re a disgrace to your blood, boy,” said Bellatrix frigidly, looking at him with what could only be described as distaste.

Ginny moved hesitantly closer to the rug where the Death Eater sat gracefully beside the lethargic toad. Yes, she could see it, almost hidden beneath the folds of green fat and flesh: an egg. She shuddered. The Dark Lord had once had a basilisk, in the Chamber of Secrets....

“It’s been incubating for two weeks,” Bellatrix informed them quietly. “It must be watched constantly from now on. If the beast hatches too soon, the toad will still be alive. In order for a basilisk to prosper, its first nourishment must be the dead flesh and warm blood of its parent. The timing of the hatching is essential.” The three stared at the unborn basilisk with wonder and awe. But after a moment, Blaise looked up again.

“Well, I must admit that’s all very wicked, but it can’t be the only reason we’re here. Why did you and the others come and take us all away last night? Has something happened? I mean, you weren’t exactly communicative at the time, but I did get the distinct impression that something slightly more important than a snake hatching was going on.”

Bella’s sharp gaze went from Blaise’s shrewdly questioning face, to Draco’s cold, imperious expression, and came to rest on Ginny. The redhead met her silent appraisal with an inscrutable look; her pale face showed not the slightest hint of her thoughts.

“It is the beginning,” Bellatrix answered simply, her eyes still on the youngest Weasley. The girl carried all their hopes now, though she didn’t know it. “There is no going back now.

ooooooooooo

ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT

Chapter Eight- A Lovely Light

“Don’t look in its eyes.”

“What are you on about, Weasley?”

“Just don’t look in its eyes, Zabini. Trust me.”

“Why in Grindelwald’s name should I trust you?”

Draco rolled his eyes. “You two are on the same side now, if you’d stop bickering for long enough to remember it.”

Blaise rocked back on his heels and looked challengingly at the two of them. “That brings up another interesting point. Since when have you been with us, little Gryffindor girl? Why, just last month you were in Potter’s inner circle, sister of his best friend and all. Your family’s the biggest disgrace the pureblood world’s ever seen. Why the sudden change of heart?” His eyes locked with hers, and though a clear mixture of suspicion and contempt was plain on his narrow features, simple curiosity was not lacking.

Ginny flushed at the slur on her family and the implication of her betrayal, but tilted her chin up defiantly. “Who are you to judge me, Zabini? What I do is my business, not yours, no matter whose side I’m on.” Draco winced slightly, recalling the livid red brand on the other boy’s arm, an unmistakable mark of power. If Ginny only knew about it... well, considering it was Ginny, she might not act any different at all.

Blaise smiled blandly. “But it is, apparently, Malfoy’s business, isn’t it?” All the furious blush in the girl’s face drained away so fast that she suddenly resembled a ghost. First Tally, now Blaise. How obvious had they been?

“I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about,” she said haughtily, turning her back on him. She crouched low again over the lugubrious toad. Blaise cocked an incredulous eyebrow at Draco, who looked back at him blankly, unwilling to either admit or deny anything. The dark-skinned boy sighed.

“Whatever you say, Freckles. Sell us out and I’ll kill you myself.”

“I don’t doubt it. Now shut up.” Ginny was inwardly furious to a degree that even she found frightening. How dare Zabini try to humiliate her out of this? She had agreed to do it, no, she had decided to do it. This was what I wanted, she berated herself mentally. No pathetic smirking Slytherin is going to scare me away. “And I’m warning you, look at its eyes, and they’re the last thing you’ll ever see.”

“Your information is slightly incorrect,” said Bellatrix. All three jumped at the sound of her voice coming from the overstuffed love seat; not even Blaise had noticed her stealthy return. “The gaze of a new hatched basilisk will merely numb or freeze the recipient, and only for a short time. Still, her advice is sound, Zabini, unless you’d like to miss out on our first mission together.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for all the gold in Gringotts,” and for once there was no wryness in his voice at all. A small smile, a mere flicker of the lips, stole across her face.

“I think it’s hatching,” whispered Ginny, so quietly that the words were almost lost. Her eyes were utterly riveted on the egg as it rocked slightly under the dead weight of the still-warm toad carcass. Absorbed in their quarreling, all three of them had missed the telltale demise of the sluggish animal. Now they gathered close around the gently quivering egg. Bent together in a circle, each was equally intent on the unborn monster, hypnotized by the small movements they could see it making against the soft and nearly translucent sheath which was all that remained of the shell.

Bella smiled to see their heads bowed together, coal black, flame red, and ash blond almost mingling. It was a Trio more than powerful enough to rival the precious three working for that foolish and senile old meddler, Dumbledore. No one would ever know the trouble she had gone through to bring these brats together and make something great of them. Nevertheless, she was certain that they would do her and her Master proud yet. Even the little Malfoy bastard. There was time yet to rectify the damage done to his loyalty by the arrogance and stupidity of his parents. She had known her sister was weak, but to ignore a potential recruit and take the boy’s devotion to the cause for granted was nothing sort of negligent. It had been very satisfying to kill the silly bint for letting the Dark Lord’s plan to free Lucius fail. Not that Bella had regretted the loss of her brother-in-law in the slightest. After all, had Narcissa or Lucius done anything to assist the Dark Lord in the days after his fall? No. They had hid and lied, betraying everything they held dear. Strategic duplicity was all very well, but only when it served a purpose in the Dark Lord’s plans; the actions of the Malfoys were pure and simple cowardice. No wonder their spawn was so flawed and weak. Still, there was potential beneath the boy’s conceited surface and she would be the one to bring it out.

Besides, her sister’s death had clearly put into motion the events that brought the little Weasley fully back into her Master’s power, and nothing was as sweet as that triumph, not even the masterpiece that was Blaise Zabini. A fine servant of the Dark Lord that boy would be, a master spy and a brilliant fighter. Bella knew she would see him rise swiftly through the ranks, bloated as they were by incompetents and fools. But he simply didn’t have the power and influence that Miss Weasley was going to hold. She shivered in pleasant anticipation. Yes, these three would go far together. An unbreakable trio, that’s what she would forge them into.

Bellatrix could hardly wait to begin.

“Merlin, it’s beautiful,” Ginny breathed. Mesmerized by the half-seen undulations of the slim and poison-green reptile, she forgot her own warning and stared openly. It slipped fluidly out from under the dead toad, shedding the wet and clinging remains of its shell and writhing in a damp circle around the warm fleshy carcass. Without hesitation, it slid its tiny fangs into the body with liquid grace. Before she could see more, Ginny felt a hand slip over her eyes and she caught her breath in surprise.

“Don’t watch, Miss Weasley,” whispered Draco from behind her. “It might be the last thing you do.”

Its eyes were still shut, she wanted to protest, but his hand was still pressed against her face and the warmth of it distracted her. A muted gasp escaped her as he pulled her closer to him.

“Well, pardon me for crashing the party, you two mad lovebirds, but could we possibly get down to business?” Blaise’s mocking voice penetrated Ginny’s dazed mind and she broke away from Draco with stunning alacrity, conscious of the blush rising on her cheeks as she saw Blaise and Bellatrix both eyeing them with distaste.

“I’ll thank you to keep your minds on the task at hand, Draco, Ginny,” said the Death Eater calmly. “First of all, as none of us is a Parselmouth, the basilisk must be transported to the Dark Lord as quickly as possible. Blaise, I believe I can entrust you with that task?”

“With pleasure, my lady,” said Blaise, sweeping a sardonic half-bow in Bellatrix’s direction. Draco and Ginny looked at her for a moment, expecting her to reprimand the Slytherin’s teasing actions. But the anticipated rebuke never came. The Slytherin boy gingerly scooped up the fledgling monster, careful to keep his bare skin well away from the keen and venomous fangs. Pointedly looking away from the writhing reptile cradled in his hand, Blaise walked into the corridor and shut the door firmly behind him. Draco and Ginny shared a brief look of bemusement before Bella recalled them sharply to the present.

“Tonight there is no time for your ridiculous antics and conceited foolishness. Rash actions are not going to be tolerated. If you truly want to be one of us, you must prove to me that you are capable of handling the pressure of a mission with grace and poise. You must be able to follow directions. Most of all, children, and I can’t believe I’m actually forced to say this, you must be capable of keeping your hands to yourself. There are spells which could easily eradicate this immature romantic nonsense between the two of you. Do not force me to use them.”

She took her wand from a concealed pocket within her tattered robes and waved it lazily at the bare stone wall to their right. A large image of Wales painted itself there within a few seconds, the waves of the Irish Sea slapping disconcertingly on the distant shoreline. Ginny thought she could smell fish. Leaning in closely, Bellatrix tapped her wand twice on the upper left corner of the image and the view dove in sickeningly close, as though they were soaring over the island. Out of the corner of her eye, Ginny saw Draco clap a hand to his mouth. He looked a sickly shade of green. Feeling like she was peering out of a window in the sky, the red-haired girl squinted at what looked like a cluster of houses, perhaps even a small village.

“Llanfairpwllgwyngyll,” said Bellatrix as the view continued to swoop downward like a drunken Leprechaun.

“Bless you,” said Draco, swallowing in a distinctly queasy manner.

“It is the name of the village, you insolent brat.”

“Well, obviously,” he retorted snarkily.

“Oh, pull yourself together, Draco,” snapped Ginny.

“Trouble in paradise?” inquired Blaise sweetly as he slipped back into the room.

“If any of you were to be remotely intrigued by the matter,” drawled Bellatrix in a distinctly bored tone of voice, “this village is the location of our mission tonight.”

A palpable and markedly uncomfortable silence filled the dusty room.

“Ah, so you really do care. How sweet of you. Now that I have your undivided attention, be so kind as to listen.”

The traveling window came to a sudden halt above one of the more secluded houses. It was large, but highly dilapidated. One could guess that the neat, well-ordered village and the people who dwelt therein were only too happy that the ramshackle house was so isolated. It breathed chaos and good-natured anarchy, and it reminded Ginny strongly of the Burrow.

“The Vances,” said Bellatrix, gazing at the crystal-clear image hungrily. “A family of the most notorious rebels in the country. We have it from our sources that they have hidden in this house a... an object,” she finished smoothly. If she hadn’t been listening for it, Ginny would never have noticed the slight pause as Bellatrix changed what had been about to say. A quick glance at Draco proved that he hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. Ginny was surprised. Merlin, was he actually as dim as Bella and Blaise seemed to think he was?

She had underestimated him. Despite his unchanging face, Draco was listening intently to his aunt’s words, and his mind was racing. A what, damn it! What were they after? He tried to think and let Bella’s voice wash over him like a boring professor’s, but her words seemed to slice their way into his brain like a Melt Charm through butter.

“After we have incapacitated the rebels, Blaise and I will locate the object while you two secure an escape route. Is that all perfectly clear? Any questions at all?” she inquired sharply, waving her wand and Banishing the image of the house from the stone wall.

“When are we leaving?” asked Ginny swiftly, not wanting to seem scared of the upcoming mission.

“My, aren’t we eager all the sudden. Two hours before sundown. The rebels have watchers on the Floo network, and as none of you except Blaise can Apparate....”

“We’re not going to walk, are we?” blurted Draco in horror. “It’s more than a hundred miles to Wales....!”

“Yes, Draco, she’s going to make us walk a hundred miles to get to a mission we have to carry out tonight. What a brilliant conclusion, Professor Malfoy,” said Blaise with a look of contrived awe and wonder on his face.

“We can’t risk anyone being able to track us through Prior Incantato or through any of our spells. We’ll be flying, and I sincerely hope all of you are up for it. Draco, kindly supply Miss Weasley with a broom before we depart.” Bellatrix’s tone didn’t allow for argument.

“Certainly,” muttered Draco. “Your wish is my command.”

ooooooooooo

“Um, which one are you using?” Ginny could feeling Draco’s eyes boring into her back and it was making her nervous. The musty broom shed was dark, save for a slice of cold winter sunlight slipping in through the slightly open door. She froze as she felt his fingers lightly brush her neck and gather up the strands of her hair that had escaped the pony tail she had thoughtlessly pulled it into.

“Can’t you think of anything better to talk about?” he asked softly, amused.

Trying desperately to ignore the sudden pounding of blood in her body and her quickened breath, she stepped away from him, farther into the shed. Even with their contact broken, she could feel him stiffen with anger... hurt?

“What’s your problem?” he demanded. “What the blazes has gotten into you?”

“Maybe you didn’t hear me properly last night,” she said, attempting to control the tremble she could feel trying to worm its way into her throat. “I’m through with you. You’ve been playing with me from the beginning, and I don’t know why I ever thought there was anything else.” There. She’d said it.

“Maybe,” he drawled slowly, anger withdrawn to somewhere just below the surface, “you didn’t heard what I said. What’s to make you think I’m done with you?”

“Bastard!” she breathed, and spun away from him again. But he was standing in front of the door and there was nowhere to go but farther into the darkness of the broomshed.

“You seemed warm enough... afterwards,” said Draco in a reasonable tone of voice. “What’s changed since then?”

“I forgot,” The venom and anger in her voice were mixed inextricably with self-loathing.

“Forgot what, you crazy harpy?” A long pause followed his irate words. And then Ginny turned slowly around, the dying light catching in her eyes and making them glint with mad fury... or was it tears?

“ ‘Oh, did you think he was interested in you for your looks, little girl? Did you think he loved you?’ ” she spat, quoting Bellatrix with icy precision. “I know how you really feel, Malfoy.” She was almost shouting now, the anguish no longer hidden. “I’m just a stupid, gullible little girl to you, aren’t I, someone you could trick for fun. Well, it worked, all right? So just drop the act. I’m not here because of you. I’m here because it’s the right thing to do,” she finished, her voice ending on a crack as the tears rose up and choked her. Silence filled the shed again.

“You really don’t understand, do you?” he said quietly.

“Understand what?” she whispered desperately, trying to muffle her sobs in her sleeve.

“What you’re doing to me.” The bitterness in his voice cut her to the bone, shocked her tears away. She stared at him, uncomprehending.

Draco writhed inside, fuming and angry. Her sobs were killing him. He wanted to take her face in his hands and brush away the tears, kiss her till she moaned, not in anguish, but in lust. He cared, damn it, and it was killing him. Hate and a sick desire to protect her from the pain he himself was causing battled within him. Though he clung desperately to the hate, knowing it for his own, the desire wouldn’t leave. It filled him and he suddenly despised her all the more for it. And he couldn’t tell her, couldn’t put it into words. It was just too much.

“Come on, Weasley, pick a broom,” he said roughly. “We don’t have all day.”

ooooooooooo

As Emmeline Vance gently carried her son into his own room and put him back to bed, she could hear his peaceful breath. All was well and the night was quiet. Still, before she went back to the warmth of her husband and their bed, she peered out of the window into the icy darkness for a long moment. She had no doubt that Jack had taken a child’s fright at the wind in the bare branches or the passing of an owl, but it never hurt to be careful. More than 15 years in the Order had taught her that at least.

Nothing stirred in the shadows.

Nothing that she saw, at any rate.

But the danger is never in what you see.

Trusting the other three to follow her in the darkness, Bella slid slowly along the outside wall, careful to remain out off sight from the windows. Looking back, she momentarily and silently cursed the bright heads of the “lovebirds”, as Blaise had so blatantly christened them. The moonlight reflected sharply off their hair and illuminated them like warning beacons for any spy to see. Why the little fools hadn’t pulled up their hoods like herself and Blaise.... Bella gestured sharply at them; for a moment they merely blinked at her in confusion. Then Blaise reached out and swiftly yanked Ginny’s hood up over her head, hard. Draco quickly followed suite and the Death Eater paused only one more moment, assessing their conspicuousness and finding it to her satisfaction, before resuming their stealthy trek around the house. It was guarded heavily but with gaps obvious to any magical housebreaker, as though the defenses had been thrown up in a hurry and were depending on their caliber to deter any who wished to gain unlawful entry. Bellatrix was confident in Blaise’s ability to circumvent the flawed wards and let them in without too much fuss or warning.

She smiled. All was indeed well, and tonight would most surely be a night to remember, if it continued according to plan.

But then again, things rarely do.

ooooooooooo

Ginny could feel her heart pounding wildly as they stood, hastily concealed in the shadow of the quiet house, watching as Blaise contemplated the wards in a serene manner. From looking at him, one would think they had all night. She fidgeted nervously for a moment before Bellatrix’s warning look quelled her movements. Obviously, the artistry of her pet was not to be hurried. Rolling her eyes slightly, Ginny slumped back against the wall. This mixture of anticipation and boredom was killing her. Get a move on, Zabini! she begged silently, her eyes boring a hole in the back of his head.

Blaise froze. Bellatrix was instantly at his side. He hissed something venomous into her ear, then collapsed completely onto her shoulder, as though he couldn’t hold himself up. Supporting his weight with ease, Bella turned and eyed Ginny with an unfathomable expression in her eyes.

“If you can’t suppress your impatience, girl, I suggest you take it elsewhere!” she hissed, soft but furious. Ginny gasped at the unfairness. What had she done to be reprimanded? Surely Blaise’s reaction couldn’t be her fault! Could it? “Draco. Get her out of here. Now. I’ll signal you when all is ready. And for Grindelwald’s sake, stay out of trouble.” As Bella turned back to the seemingly unconscious Blaise, her eyes flicked back to Ginny and through her shock, Ginny saw something glinting in their depths. Not anger, not scorn, but... triumph? Ginny had no time no consider it, for Draco was pulling her away, around the corner of house, into the moonlight and shadow-strewn garden.

“What the blazes what that?” he demanded quietly once they were out of sight, releasing his death grip on her arm so fast that she tumbled into a half-pruned rosebush.

“What was what?” she replied calmly, too dazed by the suddenness of everything to mind the stinging of the thorns on her skin or the anger in his voice. She leaned back and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath of the cool night air, scented with the dead and rotting leaves of the garden. She could only remember feeling this free and happy once, when she had agreed to become a Death Eater. The world was luminous and spinning, just as it had been on that occasion. She wondered distantly if she was in shock. But no, her mind was clear and the moonlight was so bright, almost like sunlight....

“Don’t play coy, Ginny!” he snarled, shaking her shoulder and jerking her out of her trance as the thorns scored her skin again. “What did you just do to Blaise?” She opened her eyes and tranquilly met his panicked gaze. Funny, she mused, how their positions seemed to have shifted.

Draco recoiled violently from her. The memory of another moonlit night reared violently in his mind. Shadows and light battled in her eyes, but now something even more frightening underlay it all: power. Unadulterated, unexplainable, uncontrolled and uncontrollable power.

They lay staring at each other for a long moment. Draco’s harsh breathing was the only sound to break the still night. Then, like a bird’s wing brushing against her mind, Ginny heard Bella’s voice.

We’re ready. Come.

Rising swiftly, she grinned gleefully down at Draco. “No time for a nap just now, Malfoy. There’s work to be done.” And she turned and began to slink swiftly back toward the house. He stared after her hooded figure as it disappeared into the darkness, then hurriedly followed her, thoughts running frantically through his brain.

Bellatrix was right. She really does have the power. She can control people with a thought, with a touch, with a word.

And she’s just as mad as the rest of them.

ooooooooooo

“My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But, ah, my foes, and, oh, my friends-
It gives a lovely light.”
-Edna St. Vincent Millay, A Few Figs from Thistles

ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT

Chapter Nine- Moonlight Sonata

Emmanuel Vance had never been scared of the dark. But as soon as his mother closed the door softly behind her, he sat straight up in his bed. The shadows seemed to crowd around in a way that was both sinister and unreal. He could hear his own breathing, harsh and loud, ringing throughout the silent room.

A shape flickered past his window.

With the unerring instinct of a hunted animal, he threw himself hard against the wall and out of sight as the shape paused for a long moment. Was that a hooded face peering at him from the darkness? Swift as a bat, it was gone. Emmanuel collapsed on his bed, heart hammering and sweat chilling quickly on his face. After an indeterminably long moment, he forced his shaky muscles to support him again as he crawled toward the door.

He had to wake his parents. Surely, surely they could stop the darkness.

ooooooooooo

In the short time they had been gone, Blaise appeared to have recovered almost entirely. As the rest of the company filed past him into the house with Bellatrix in the lead, he gave Ginny a strange look, his eyes glittering slightly in the light of the compromised ward spells. Much to his surprise, she met his gaze with a wicked smile as she passed by him. He stared after her for a moment, then threw a furtive look behind him as he resealed the wards and slipped into the darkened house after them

Inside, the house was alarmingly creaky and cluttered. Ginny found herself jumping slightly as small squeaks and inhuman whisperings issued from dark corners. After they had passed three closed rooms, Bella paused a the foot of a flight of stairs.

“Now please, listen carefully,” she said quietly, her voice low but intense. “Once we reach the top of the stairs, Blaise and I will go left, into the master bedroom. Draco, you and Ginny will turn right and go into the second room you come to. Inside is a tall glass cabinet. Reach inside and on the second shelf there is a small jet vial. It is quite light, and has a red etching of the front. I want you take that vial and meet us back at the top of the staircase. You must be altogether careful with that vial, do you hear me? Do not break it, do not open it, do not even shake it. Is that all perfectly clear? Do not go back downstairs without either Blaise or I with you. Do you understand?”

Two pairs of hard eyes met her own piercing gaze and two heads bowed in sullen acquiescence. Inwardly, she smiled. It was a start.

“Come, Blaise,” she hissed and disappeared silently up the stairs, the rapid flick of a cloak the only sound to mark her passing; he followed her, a swift and faithful shadow. Draco and Ginny regarded each other for a long moment.

“Ladies first.”

“Coward.”

And they ascended the winding stairs, climbing higher and higher, fading into the impermeable darkness.

He could hear their voices, drawing nearer and nearer to where he crouched behind a crack in the door. Desperation made his heart pound wildly; if only he’d run, just a little sooner, just a littler faster... A small sob caught in his throat. It was just like the stories, the ones his mum told, about the old days. Black cloaked figures in the night and a shining green skull, hanging in the sky. Suddenly, the faint light bleeding in from the hallway was blocked out; one of the tall figures stood frozen, just outside his door.

Filled with dread, but drawn like a moth to a flame, he leaned closer and closer to the crack, his breath all but frozen with terror. Just a little closer and he would see hood, and then.... There was a sudden noise, the swish of a cloak, and the light spilled across the floor again. The figure was gone. All of his breath spilled out in a soft sigh that was more than half a sob.

The door in front of him slammed shut and he could hear the lock turn as he fell backwards to the floor in shock.

“And stay there till we’re ready for you, you sneaky little rat,” hissed a boy’s voice, light but poisonous.

Emmanuel retreated to the farthest corner of the room, panting with fear. They were coming. They were coming and nothing would stop them and he had no way to escape. His eyes flickered madly around the room, but found no hope. Curling himself up tighter in the corner, he closed his eyes and rocked his body back and forth. Not happening, not happening, not happening, not happening, just a bad dream, soon his parents would come and lull him back to sleep, he was safe, it was a dream, nothing was wrong... He felt the darkness pressing in and turned his face away.

Reaching into the dark wooden case, Draco brought out a small bottle and examined it for a moment. Ginny stood, her back to him, facing the open door with her wand out and her hand steady.

“Got it?” she hissed impatiently out of the corner of her mouth, turning her head as much as possible without taking her eyes away from the empty hallway.

“Take a look,” he said and held the bottle out to her. It was a work of art, the opaque jet glass throwing the faint light back at their eyes. Three slashes of red, like the ragged wounds of animal claws, scored jaggedly across the front. A tiny diamond winked like a star from the ebony lip of the bottle. No cork sealed the gaping mouth.

“All right. Let’s wait in here until....” A sudden crash from the hall brought them both swiftly to attention. As if by unspoken agreement and without even a look exchanged, Ginny moved slightly to the side of the entryway, concealing herself but keeping a clear shot into the hall open as Draco did the same on the other side. After a long tense moment in which not the slightest sound could be heard from the hall, Draco eased himself cautiously out, back-to-back with Ginny and wand at the ready. All the spells he had learned or picked up as a child that might be useful in combat were running madly through his mind. Entrail-Expelling Curse, no, too messy, Severing Curse, probably not enough power, Reducto Curse, wouldn’t cause enough damage, Petrificus Totalus was only a temporary solution at best, and the Cruciatus Curse was....

“Not necessary,” said Bellatrix calmly, stepping out from the room across from them on the other side of the staircase. She replaced her wand to her pocket after wiping it gingerly on her ragged robes. In the shadows behind her, Ginny could see Blaise crouched on the floor, leaning over what looked like.... She looked away, her stomach heaving slightly. She didn’t know a human body could lose that much flesh and still be in one piece.

“Do you have the vial?” she continued briskly, stepping in front of the door and blocking Blaise from sight. Draco held up the delicate bottle, clutched firmly in his other hand. “Good. Now, there’s just one more thing.”

Walking halfway around the passageway, Bellatrix stopped just at the head of the stairway, next to the first room with its tightly closed door.

“Come here, Ginny,” she commanded softly, beckoning imperiously with her finger. Mesmerized by Bella’s dark cobra stare, Ginny walked slowly down the hall toward the robed Death Eater, back straight and head held high, but her eyes dreamy.

“Open the door.” Her gaze still locked with Bellatrix’s, Ginny did so. In the corner of the darkened room was a little boy, a boy with bright blue eyes, eyes as bright as the ocean and golden hair like the sun. He was frozen with terror, pressed against the wall and shivering as he stared at her.

“Kill him.” Ginny didn’t seem to hear her, and neither did the boy. They stared at each other, each lost in their own world; one was pure terror, but no one save for Ginny knew what was in the other. After a long quiet moment, the slim teenager raised her hand to chest level, as if she was reaching out to the boy. Behind him, Draco heard Blaise come up quietly and freeze, caught in the burning tension of the strange tableau. Bellatrix stared with burning eyes at the two children, excitement and anticipation parting her lips with an expression somewhat akin to lust.

A part of Ginny’s mind cried out in protest for the little boy, so innocent, so scared, so helpless. But over that small protesting voice lay a greater power, a consciousness that saw the boy and the animalistic fear in his eyes and felt nothing but contempt. He was little more than an insect, his tiny fluttering heart and his mind (an empty white roaring abyss of terror) the mirror image of a hunted beast. Such a coward, such a traitor was hardly worthy of life.

Venomous brown eyes met ocean blue and Ginny’s hand stretched out infinitesimally farther and her breath seemed to stop for moment. Then she whispered, so softly it would have been impossible to hear, except for the deadly silence in the room:

“Sleep.”

He blinked. The feeling of pressure, of an impending storm, grew stronger in the room, but Ginny seemed untouchable by any earthly emotion or action. She didn’t move, but just kept looking steadily at the boy. Entranced, Draco, Bellatrix and Blaise stared as well, but while the latter two were utterly absorbed in the child, Draco gazed unwaveringly at the red-hair girl before him. What was she becoming, the girl he had taken and made their own? What had she been before?

The little boy’s eyes fluttered, then shot open with panic. He was struggling silently, fighting as hard as he could against the relentless pull she exerted. It was the tug of the moon, moving oceans in its wake, and he was the helpless swimmer, drowning in the rip tide.

Eyes narrowed with anger at his resistance, she spoke again, harder, more demanding:

“Sleep.”

At this infuriated command, the boy suddenly sat up straight and the fear seemed to melt from his eyes. Rebellion and defiance almost sparkled from them, and illuminated what had been little more than a terrified animal the moment before. He would fight. Just as his mother, and his father, and his sisters before him, he would be brave.

Ginny paused, puzzled. This wasn’t right. No, it shouldn’t be this way. Unconsciously, her mind strayed back to her own subjugation. No, not a command: a suggestion, an insinuation, a gentle nudging. She smiled, a cat’s smile, cunning, smug, and lovely.

She swiftly crossed the room and knelt beside him, her grin widening as a slight tremor crossed his face. He flinched hard as she stretched out her hand again, but it merely came to rest gently on his head. Slowly, slowly, it ran lovingly through his hair, a mother’s caress. He stared up at her, confusion and fear plain on his face. But despite the stunning tension in his muscles, he didn’t move as Ginny soothing away his fears and abating his wild panic. Then, after a long moment, in a hiss that was softer and gentler than a lullaby:

“Sleep.” His eyelids fluttered like trapped moths against a windowpane, but the spark of rebellion was extinguished. Small shadows danced across his face as his eyes finally closed and his hushed breathing slowed, weakened...

Stopped.

The harsh breathing of four people filled the room. Then, silently and without warning, Ginny wavered in her crouch on the floor and fell over the body of her victim in a dead faint. Her red hair escaped the black hood and spilled across the floor like a pool of blood.

“Well,” said Bellatrix slowly, a wicked smile beginning to steal across her face, “It appears our search is ended.” Blaise stared down at Ginny, a wondering look on his narrow face. “When we return...”

The sudden crack of Apparition cut off her words. As swift as a shadow, Bellatrix flew across the room and slapped Ginny hard across the face. Her eyes fluttered open and stared at the furious woman, uncomprehending.

“Up,” she hissed wildly, and hauled the girl to her feet. “What are you doing sitting there staring? They’re here!” she snarled at the two boys. “Downstairs, now, and don’t damage that vial!” Blaise dashed off, down the stairs two at a time with Draco hot on his heels. Bellatrix grabbed Ginny’s arm in a painful grip and dragged her away from the small body on the floor, pulling out her wand as she went. Pale and unseeing, Ginny followed obediently.

The Aurors had surrounded the house. Draco could hear their grim voices, calling commands and uttering binding spells around the perimeter. He felt panic welling up and flooding through his veins. Blaise spun around to face him; they moved together and stood back to back in the center of the entrance hall, wands drawn and faces tense. Any second now, the splintering of the front door and then....

“What in Merlin’s name are you two doing? Preparing for some imbecilic last stand?” shrieked Bellatrix furiously from the top of the stairs. Still supporting Ginny with one hand, she whipped her wand violently threw the air next to the door and screamed “Accio broomsticks!”. The power of her spell shot the brooms straight through the wall without even a scratch on them. Stunned, Blaise and Draco caught their own brooms as they soared through the air. Above them, Bellatrix expertly fielded both her and Ginny’s brooms, then pointed her wand to the arched ceiling above them.

“Reducto!”

As the debris rained down, nearly impaling them on shattered glass and splintered wooden beams, all four of the Death Eaters swooped and spun wildly, finally shooting through the gaping hole Bella had blasted. Ginny clung weakly to Bellatrix’s broom, the older woman’s weight behind her the only thing that kept her from tumbling to the earth during their vertical plunge. She could feel hot breath like a dragon’s against her cheek and it made her moan, half-deliriously. Suddenly, she felt something rough being shoved into her hand. It scraped roughly against her fingers, slightly splintered and pricking uncomfortably.

“Do it,” hissed a voice behind her, demanding, but oddly anxious, almost nervous. “You know the incantation.”

Lost in her own mental fog, Ginny felt a memory come drifting upward. Not her own; at least, she didn’t think so. It was so beautiful, glittering and majestic against the sparkling night sky, a sign of her victory to all the world below it. A smile flitted dreamily across her face.

“Morsmordre!” she shrieked to the cold night, louder than a banshee, wilder than a harpy. Gasps came from the obscured shapes above her as the Dark Mark blossomed brightly below like a poisonous lotus, its green sparks vying with the stars for luminousness amidst the night shadows.

As Ginny fell back into the warm mist in her mind, she breathed in the freezing air and tasted the sharp promise of snow on it. A voice behind her seemed to whisper, quieter than the icy breeze, “Well done, little one.” But maybe it was just the wind, after all. Suddenly, they plunged together after the swift dark shapes hovering above her, into the darkness that shone and sparkled with promise.

ooooooooooo

“So, let me get this straight. Doe she even know? Does she even understand? I mean, for Merlin’s sake, does she remember?”

“Of course she remembers. Don’t be ridiculous. Whether she accepts it or not, just yet... well, that remains to be seen. But she can’t escape it, try through she might.”

“And yet you’re satisfied, I see.”

“Ah, yes.”

“But it was hardly a success. Honestly, she’s just as likely to turn as before, if not more!”

“Does it seem that way to you?”

“Well, frankly, yes.”

“Ah, how little you see of it, love. It’s a long and twisted path that brought her back to us, but even one such as she knows when she is home.”

She leaned down and ran her fingers through his hair, across his lips.

“Whereas you, my pet, you were never lost.”

ooooooooooo

Ginny leaned back against the mossy tree trunk and stretched languorously. The warm murky light filtering through the branches made her sleepy, sinking into her bones and lulling her into a warm trance...

“Mustn’t lie around in forests unaware, Miss Weasley,” came a soft, breathless voice from behind in her ear, as warm fingers brushed against her face, then strayed lower. “Who knows what might be lurking around these days?”

“I shudder to think,” she retorted softly, sliding against the fallen leaves, teasingly avoiding his touch. He muttered mutinously for a second (she thought she might have caught the word “witch”, but then, maybe not), then slid around the tree and pounced, pinning her effectively to the ground as he grabbed her hair and pulled her head back, exposing and trapping her in one swift movement.

“How did you manage to get away so early, clever little girl?” he asked calmly, feeling her writhe slightly beneath him, then running his tongue slowly along her neck, just where her pulse fluttered wildly.

“Well, you know,” she replied casually, trying to keep her voice steady as his while his touch tantalized her, but failing miserably. “Still playing the ‘poor disturbed little hostage’ angle. Works wonders. Must be a better actress than I” -here she gasped slightly as Draco found an especially sensitive spot on her throat- “than I thought.”

“Hmmm,” he replied, noncommittally. “What about Natalie?”

When Ginny had returned to the Slytherin common room, bloody and disheveled the next morning, it was Natalie who found her first. But the third year had been remarkably closed-mouthed about the whole matter, taking Ginny’s cover story smoothly along with rest of them. After all, it made perfect sense. Who better for the Death Eaters to take prisoner for one of their sick, convoluted blood-rituals than sweet, innocent little Ginny Weasley? And if she seemed a little less than perturbed by the matter, well, these things took time to recover from. Poor little girl, with such a dark past, too. Sometimes the world just wasn’t fair.

It was Blaise who first warned them about Tally, although he remained uncharacteristically reticent regarding the root of his suspicions. Still, Ginny faithfully kept an eye on the potential recruit for any sign of change or rebellion. It was harder without Draco there to help her, but with the whole former House of Slytherin now busily engaged in training, his continued absence from Hogwarts remained necessary.

“She’s... quiet,” answered Ginny, absently pushing Draco away for a moment. He smirked slightly, but a troubled look crossed her face. “Does Blaise ever say anything about her?" she asked. "Why he thinks she’ll turn? Mind you, she was acting awfully suspicious before I left.”

“Not a word. It’s odd. Wonder what he did to her.” Ginny swatted at him playfully.

“Nothing you didn’t do to me, I’m sure.”

Draco grew serious in his turn. “I don’t know. I think I used to underestimate Blaise, before all of this happened.” A dark image flashed before his eyes for a second, of Blaise leaning over a twisted body, but it faded swiftly in the afternoon sunlight. He shook his head for a moment. “Won’t be making that mistake again.”

Ginny leaned back against the ground again, and Draco propped himself on an elbow above her. She smiled to see the sun slide off his hair as it fell slightly across his troubled eyes.

“So, what’s the news, anyway? Or did you just call me out here to have your wicked way with me?” she asked mockingly, as much to distract him from the memories of that night as anything else. At her words, his eyes cleared and he seemed to see her again, hair scattered messily among the rotting leaves.

“As agreeable as I would be to such a venture,” he replied lightly, “There is news. Good news, for once. Bella wants us for the next meeting. She says," He paused for a moment, swallowed, took a breath. “She’s says it’s time.”

At the last words, Ginny sat bolt upright, regardless of the woodland debris she scattered.

“Oh, Draco,” she whispered breathlessly. “Finally. It’s going to be for real.”

He ran his hand softly up her arm, pushing back her sleeve and tracing the unsullied white skin which would soon bear the Mark. His Mark. Her Mark. Their Mark. He smiled.

“Yes,” he agreed softly. “Just what you always wanted.”

A small frown creased her forehead. “Aren’t you getting it as well?”

“Of course. Right beside you.” He slid up his sleeve to reveal his own unmarked skin. They stared for a moment at their arms, side by side.

“Together,” she whispered, and took his hand in hers.

He didn’t answer, just tightened his grip until the blood drained away. The pain was almost like a promise.

“And after?” she asked, still staring at their interlocked hands.

“We’re still going to need you as a spy, of course, and to recruit. Bella said she’ll give you a blood charm, one of the new ones, to hide it up so you can stay undercover.” Draco carefully did not mention his own suspicions regarding Ginny’s future after she received the Mark. Bellatrix’s lecture in the forest that night was enough to keep him quiet. Besides, he doubted that even Ginny understood the implications of that night, their first mission together. He knew that no one had explained it to her. But the time was coming, that much was sure. Whether she would be ready was another matter entirely. He shuddered inwardly. Not his problem.

“Not what I meant, you innocent little serpent. I was talking about Bellatrix and Blaise, always being so superior. I mean, we aren’t going to let that go, now are we?” Her eyes sparkled wickedly up at him, the perfect mirror of the day they first kissed. “I know you’re better than Blaise, and as for your aunt and I... well, give me time. After all, we can’t let them have all the glory in the ranks.”

“Mm, wouldn’t dream of it,” he retorted, leaning down again to capture her mouth with his. But he must have been too gentle, because she bit his lip, hard. A trickle on his blood dripped onto her lips as he gasped in surprise and ground her roughly into the ground in hungry retaliation. She laughed breathlessly and licked it off, first of her mouth, then of his, savoring the taste. It was dark, and sweet, and sick, and right.

Just like life.

ooooooooooo

Into the vial, where a small pool of basilisk's blood lay wetly congealed, the woman dropped carefully three hairs: ash blond, midnight black, fire red. The blood hissed and frothed for a moment as the strands sunk into it and disappeared, sending up a plume of smoke that twisted like snakes in the afternoon light. Then, as the thin mist above the vial cleared, the dark-haired witch leaned close over it and dropped inside a few precious grains of the substance she had spent so many long months searching for.

Moondust.

As the white powder settled on the shimmering surface of the blood, it seemed to glaze over in a moment, darkening and hardening until it shone with an icy edge. It glistened like a sliver of obsidian, bent in the curve of an angel’s wing or a serpent’s tongue.

They were bound now, an unbreakable trio. Bound by blood and death and moonlit madness.

She slid the stone out of the vial and onto a slender silver chain around her neck, smiling.

"Peace, my lord," she whispered, more to herself than to the presence she knew was watching. "The charm's wound up."

ooooooooooo

Never trust. Never love. Never tell.
Ill Met By Moonlight.

ooooooooooo

A/N

Well, it’s been a long, random, crazy journey. First off, I know I left a lot of questions hanging. One of them (what is up with Tally and Blaise?) I intend to answer in a one-shot on fanfiction.net in a couple of months. I left most of the other questions in order to keep the way open for a sequel. I may or may not write it, depending on my whim and how bored I get this summer. Any other questions/complaints/comments? Review and leave an address so I can write you your own personal reply, or just e-mail with whatever you want to know. Seriously, do it! It would make me so happy, you have no idea. Constructive criticism is appreciated, as I can use it in future writing endeavors.

I’m sorry if some of you didn’t like how this fic turned out. Despite the fact that there was not great redemption or happy fairy tale ending, I am quite content with it myself. Never fear, there are many, many, MANY redeemed!Draco fics out there. I just didn’t feel that I could write one myself. I hope you don’t consider your time wasted in reading this story. I had the time of my life writing it, and I really hope it gave you at least some enjoyment.

Oh, and by the by, I do NOT condone the killing of small children! I really didn’t want to kill Emmanuel. I liked him a lot and felt quite terrible for him myself, but horrible things happen when you’re a Death Eater. So, don’t tell me I’m a terrible person. It was just what the plot demanded. My apologies to any I may have offended.

Thank you so very much for reading, and I hope to see you all again someday. Thanks for everything.

Love Forever,
Scarlett