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